A new perspective on science and religion

[Jonesboy]

From the ideas of Kant and Wittgenstein there is a question we can ask ourselves that can, if its answer is pursued, dissolve the conflict between religion and the sciences. Unfortunately, the question, and the idea behind it is misunderstood, even by philosophers.

The question is what is the basis of an object? Traditionally, religion says that it’s existence is its basis and this is given from without, by God. Science says it is given by the object itself. Both views are mistaken, and this mistake is the source of the creationist/evolutionist conflict. The minutiae of this traditional conflict is not my interest here.

The mistake is to think that an object is first given by its “existence”. It is not. It is first given by its identifiability. It is upon the question of identifiability, and not existence, that science and religion diverge.

So, to continue, science claims that an object identifies itself. For example, a TV is a TV independently of any perceiving agency. Unfortunately, traditionally, religion also makes the same claim about objects and TV’s, or appears to when it is in conflict with science. This view of objects is called Transcendental Realism. The creationist debate is held within the clutches of this transcendentally real perspective.

But religion can move away from the transcendentally real perspective that it shares with science, and by adopting a transcendentally ideal perspective dissolve its apparant conflicts with Science, and come off better for it. Trancendental idealism is the idea that objects are identified by a framework. For example, it is only by the framework of human entertainment that the physical limits of the object we call a TV can be identified.

Let’s examine more closely the transcendentally real perspective that is sciences’, and though it need not be, religions’. In fact, a materialist perspective can have no objects, unless it is animist. Why? There is no material property that can identify the physical limits of an object. It follows that if there is an object, a pattern, or a design in the physical world then it cannot exist because it cannot be identified. To claim, with science, that an object, such as a TV, identifies itself, is animism, not science. If it was science then we would be given a material property that identifies the physical limits of objects. But no such property has been given.

Science, then, is animistic or transcendentally real, while religion is transcendentally ideal: science and religion have a different way of constructing their objects. This is in opposition to the commonly perceived idea that they share the same philosophy of objects - that objects are transcendentally real, or identify themselves. On the other hand, the trancendentally ideal view of religion is quite solid and immune from the arguments of science. Objects, designs, and patterns, are, for our religious philosopher, real enough or given, but cannot be material for the same reason that there can be no material objects - that reason being given above - the absence of a framework of identification. For the scientist, objects are also real enough or given but, unfortunately for our scientist friends, can have no ground for being given because their limits, and limits in general, cannot be purely materially identified.

 

[levinas12]

… it is only by the framework of human entertainment that the physical limits of the object we call a TV can be identified.

Along with Kant and Wittgenstein, your posting reminds me of Heidegger and his concept of world.

The “framework” = world.

World is a network of meanings that we are already and always enmeshed in.

But “meanings” come to us from the language we use in everyday life.

So language becomes central.

But where does language come from? According to Heidegger, not from us but from “outside”.

This position seems so counter to our ordinary assumptions. But you have to admit that it is thought-provoking.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[yppop]

Hi All,

Here are some other thoughts on the meaning of “reality”.

1. Consider an apple sitting on a table: We see a smooth, round, red object, a texture, a form, and a color. However, the apple consists of molecules and atoms; molecules and atoms are made up of elements such as carbon and oxygen; carbon and oxygen are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons; and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. But we don’t see that hierarchy of matter; we see a smooth three dimensional red form that we recognize as an apple. What we really see is the light that is reflected from the skin molecules of the apple in the form of photons of a particular energy (wavelength). When light from the apple enters our eyes the photons are focused by the lens on the retina at the back of the eye where neurons are excited and send electric impulses along peripheral nerves to the various parts of the brain. In the brain, specific groups of neuronal circuits are excited and we “see” an image of the smooth, three dimensional, red, form that we recognize as an apple. The question is: which is real, the conglomeration of molecules sitting on the table or the image of a smooth 3-D red object formed in the brain? Of course, both aspects exist and are therefore real. It is evident that these two aspects of reality, although existing in radically different ways, are intimately connected. The ordered arrangement of photons is manifested as the form of the apple, but not the redness. Objective reality is essentially nothing but forms; and forms are nothing more than orderly configurations of atoms and molecules.
2. Science has shown us that the redness doesn’t inhere in the apple; but rather is associated with the nature of the photons reflected from the skin of the apple. However, we know that the photons are not red, nor does the redness arise in the eye, which brings us to the neurons in the brain. Obviously the redness of the apple is created somewhere in the brain. The unresolved question is: how is the redness of the apple actualized, by which I mean brought into reality. No one knows; all we can say for certain is that redness is real, but real in a different sort of way than the configuration of molecules that occupies a specific segment of space and that we identify as the form of the apple. The redness, on the other hand, is formless and resides in the mind. The image created by the brain is referred to as subjective reality. We conclude that both the molecular configuration and the image it creates within one’s mind are real. In other words the apple exists at two levels of reality: the objective and the subjective. Since object reality is nothing but form; it is subjective reality that contains the kaleidoscope of sensations that creates the world as we experience it.
3. An important part of the recognition of the red object sitting on the table is the symbol, in this case, the word ‘apple’ that we associate with the image stored in the mind. The mind can be defined as a combination of the language instinct residing in the neuronal circuits of the brain and the perceptual memory. Symbols are essential to the working of the mind. They consist primarily of words and numbers, both written and spoken; but also include signals, pictures, and music. What symbols define is another aspect of reality called rational reality. Rational reality is similar to subjective reality because it exists internally within an individual mind, but unlike subjective reality that stores continuous percepts in memory as qualia that evoke emotions and feelings, rational reality stores discrete symbols in the brain that evoke the meanings stored in the mind.

continued

 

[yppop]

continued-

1. Finally, we recognize certain words to be associated with experiences that do not fit nicely with the three levels of reality already mentioned, words such as beauty, truth, and justice. Beauty exists! We cannot sense or measure beauty. We cannot feel beauty. We cannot imagine beauty. Oh yes, we can sense, measure, and feel things that are beautiful, but not the intrinsic beauty of the thing. Beauty is one of those uniquely human experiences that transcend the objective, subjective, and rational. It resides with other concepts such as truth and justice at a higher level of existence. Beauty, truth, and justice exist outside the individual body and mind but evoke feelings within the discrete mind without form, only feeling; we say it exists in transcendental reality.
2. To address total reality in order to find how God exists, we must go beyond objective reality (the material) to include that which can be imagined, (the psychical). Therefore, for me, ‘to exist’ refers to that which not only can be sensed, but also that which can be imagined. I contend that imagination extends the definition of reality to include a broader range of observed phenomena. Thus reality is more than just objective reality; reality is experienced on four levels, the: objective, subjective, rational, and transcendental.
3. The four levels expand reality beyond what science is willing to address. This demands the existence of another component, namely, a spiritual component. I believe in the existence of a dual reality. I believe that the basis of reality is not just matter. I believe there is another component to reality. I believe that this second agency is most manifest in the mind of man and it forms a collective envelope around the earth that widens from the subjective in its lowest level to the sublimely transcendent in its highest. The presence of the transcendence of beauty, of justice, and of truth makes it hard to ignore this other kind of reality, the reality of the mind, of imagination, of the human spirit.
4. The hope for a merger of science and religion can only proceed after science recognizes the presence of a spiritual component of reality. Once that is accomplished, science will begin to explore at a deeper level to find the ground of reality and the mechanisms that are operating there that produce the manifestations (time, matter, adn energy) that science describes at the explicate level.

Sorry to dump this and run, but I am going on vacation for a week. Perhaps there are a few philosophical minds that read it and try to grasp its meaning rather than find points of disputation.

Yppop

 

[Jonesboy]

Along with Kant and Wittgenstein, your posting reminds me of Heidegger and his concept of world.

The “framework” = world.

World is a network of meanings that we are already and always enmeshed in.

But “meanings” come to us from the language we use in everyday life.

So language becomes central.

But where does language come from? According to Heidegger, not from us but from “outside”.

This position seems so counter to our ordinary assumptions. But you have to admit that it is thought-provoking.

Welcome to the forum.

This account does not distinguish between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism, but treats them much the same.

That is, it isn’t clear from the statement “World is a network of meanings that we are already and always enmeshed in” whether objects provide their own basis or justification or not.

This distinction is essential if we want to remove the conflict with science.

 

[Jonesboy]

Hi All,

Here are some other thoughts on the meaning of “reality”.

1. Consider an apple sitting on a table: We see a smooth, round, red object, a texture, a form, and a color. However, the apple consists of molecules and atoms; molecules and atoms are made up of elements such as carbon and oxygen; carbon and oxygen are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons; and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. But we don’t see that hierarchy of matter; we see a smooth three dimensional red form that we recognize as an apple. What we really see is the light that is reflected from the skin molecules of the apple in the form of photons of a particular energy (wavelength). When light from the apple enters our eyes the photons are focused by the lens on the retina at the back of the eye where neurons are excited and send electric impulses along peripheral nerves to the various parts of the brain. In the brain, specific groups of neuronal circuits are excited and we “see” an image of the smooth, three dimensional, red, form that we recognize as an apple. The question is: which is real, the conglomeration of molecules sitting on the table or the image of a smooth 3-D red object formed in the brain? Of course, both aspects exist and are therefore real. It is evident that these two aspects of reality, although existing in radically different ways, are intimately connected. The ordered arrangement of photons is manifested as the form of the apple, but not the redness. Objective reality is essentially nothing but forms; and forms are nothing more than orderly configurations of atoms and molecules.
2. Science has shown us that the redness doesn’t inhere in the apple; but rather is associated with the nature of the photons reflected from the skin of the apple. However, we know that the photons are not red, nor does the redness arise in the eye, which brings us to the neurons in the brain. Obviously the redness of the apple is created somewhere in the brain. The unresolved question is: how is the redness of the apple actualized, by which I mean brought into reality. No one knows; all we can say for certain is that redness is real, but real in a different sort of way than the configuration of molecules that occupies a specific segment of space and that we identify as the form of the apple. The redness, on the other hand, is formless and resides in the mind. The image created by the brain is referred to as subjective reality. We conclude that both the molecular configuration and the image it creates within one’s mind are real. In other words the apple exists at two levels of reality: the objective and the subjective. Since object reality is nothing but form; it is subjective reality that contains the kaleidoscope of sensations that creates the world as we experience it.
3. An important part of the recognition of the red object sitting on the table is the symbol, in this case, the word ‘apple’ that we associate with the image stored in the mind. The mind can be defined as a combination of the language instinct residing in the neuronal circuits of the brain and the perceptual memory. Symbols are essential to the working of the mind. They consist primarily of words and numbers, both written and spoken; but also include signals, pictures, and music. What symbols define is another aspect of reality called rational reality. Rational reality is similar to subjective reality because it exists internally within an individual mind, but unlike subjective reality that stores continuous percepts in memory as qualia that evoke emotions and feelings, rational reality stores discrete symbols in the brain that evoke the meanings stored in the mind.

continued

I couldn’t agree with most of the things you said. You are falling back on the position I am trying to unravel. Your position is that of an animist, of transcendentally real science. You are saying that objects - mental or physical - carry their own source of identification. This is animism. It doesn’t help to model perceptions on the model of physical objects - where is “in” the brain or mind? It isn’t a position, even though you are treating it as one.

 

[Jonesboy]

continued-

1. Finally, we recognize certain words to be associated with experiences that do not fit nicely with the three levels of reality already mentioned, words such as beauty, truth, and justice. Beauty exists! We cannot sense or measure beauty. We cannot feel beauty. We cannot imagine beauty. Oh yes, we can sense, measure, and feel things that are beautiful, but not the intrinsic beauty of the thing. Beauty is one of those uniquely human experiences that transcend the objective, subjective, and rational. It resides with other concepts such as truth and justice at a higher level of existence. Beauty, truth, and justice exist outside the individual body and mind but evoke feelings within the discrete mind without form, only feeling; we say it exists in transcendental reality.
2. To address total reality in order to find how God exists, we must go beyond objective reality (the material) to include that which can be imagined, (the psychical). Therefore, for me, ‘to exist’ refers to that which not only can be sensed, but also that which can be imagined. I contend that imagination extends the definition of reality to include a broader range of observed phenomena. Thus reality is more than just objective reality; reality is experienced on four levels, the: objective, subjective, rational, and transcendental.
3. The four levels expand reality beyond what science is willing to address. This demands the existence of another component, namely, a spiritual component. I believe in the existence of a dual reality. I believe that the basis of reality is not just matter. I believe there is another component to reality. I believe that this second agency is most manifest in the mind of man and it forms a collective envelope around the earth that widens from the subjective in its lowest level to the sublimely transcendent in its highest. The presence of the transcendence of beauty, of justice, and of truth makes it hard to ignore this other kind of reality, the reality of the mind, of imagination, of the human spirit.
4. The hope for a merger of science and religion can only proceed after science recognizes the presence of a spiritual component of reality. Once that is accomplished, science will begin to explore at a deeper level to find the ground of reality and the mechanisms that are operating there that produce the manifestations (time, matter, adn energy) that science describes at the explicate level.

Sorry to dump this and run, but I am going on vacation for a week. Perhaps there are a few philosophical minds that read it and try to grasp its meaning rather than find points of disputation.

Yppop

Sorry, but I would dispute almost everything you said. Your position is animist, scientific, transcendentally real. My point was that objects - whether mental or physical - are seen by animists, transcendental realists, and scientists, as having their own source of being or identification, and that this is a mistake that religious people don’t need to make.
On your view, the creationist/evolutionist account of design finds no resolution. On my view it does find a resolution.

This is what I was arguing against.

 

[levinas12]

This account does not distinguish between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism, but treats them much the same.

That is, it isn’t clear from the statement “World is a network of meanings that we are already and always enmeshed in” whether objects provide their own basis or justification or not.

This distinction is essential if we want to remove the conflict with science.

Heidegger goes beyond the distinction between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism with his concept of “world”. Heidegger’s “world” is not produced by a transcendental ego - and is therefore not a version of transcendental idealism. We are not the source of meanings. The meanings come to us from “outside”.

But Heidegger’s “world” cannot exist apart from “us” - we are the “place” where “world” happens - with “us”, the world is “there”. “Being” needs us if “Being” is to be “there”. And even stronger, time is the horizon of “Being”. Each epoch has its own set of meanings. Thus, Heidegger is not a transcendental realist.

With this concept of “world”, objects don’t provide their own justification if this is understood as “able to be there”, “able to be manifested”, “able to be in space and time”, without us. And even stronger, the meaning of objects will vary with “time”, with “history”. But, contrary to Hegel, there is no final moment of absolute knowledge at the end of “history”.

Some people have interpreted Heidegger as a relativist. But this relativism is strange because Heidegger denies that humans, or human culture, or any human activity produces the meanings. No, the meanings come from a non-human source. We just passively “receive” the meanings.

 

[Luke1983]

From the ideas of Kant and Wittgenstein there is a question we can ask ourselves that can, if its answer is pursued, dissolve the conflict between religion and the sciences. Unfortunately, the question, and the idea behind it is misunderstood, even by philosophers.

The question is what is the basis of an object? Traditionally, religion says that it’s existence is its basis and this is given from without, by God. Science says it is given by the object itself. Both views are mistaken, and this mistake is the source of the creationist/evolutionist conflict. The minutiae of this traditional conflict is not my interest here.

The mistake is to think that an object is first given by its “existence”. It is not. It is first given by its identifiability. It is upon the question of identifiability, and not existence, that science and religion diverge.

So, to continue, science claims that an object identifies itself. For example, a TV is a TV independently of any perceiving agency. Unfortunately, traditionally, religion also makes the same claim about objects and TV’s, or appears to when it is in conflict with science. This view of objects is called Transcendental Realism. The creationist debate is held within the clutches of this transcendentally real perspective.

But religion can move away from the transcendentally real perspective that it shares with science, and by adopting a transcendentally ideal perspective dissolve its apparant conflicts with Science, and come off better for it. Trancendental idealism is the idea that objects are identified by a framework. For example, it is only by the framework of human entertainment that the physical limits of the object we call a TV can be identified.

Let’s examine more closely the transcendentally real perspective that is sciences’, and though it need not be, religions’. In fact, a materialist perspective can have no objects, unless it is animist. Why? There is no material property that can identify the physical limits of an object. It follows that if there is an object, a pattern, or a design in the physical world then it cannot exist because it cannot be identified. To claim, with science, that an object, such as a TV, identifies itself, is animism, not science. If it was science then we would be given a material property that identifies the physical limits of objects. But no such property has been given.

Science, then, is animistic or transcendentally real, while religion is transcendentally ideal: science and religion have a different way of constructing their objects. This is in opposition to the commonly perceived idea that they share the same philosophy of objects - that objects are transcendentally real, or identify themselves. On the other hand, the trancendentally ideal view of religion is quite solid and immune from the arguments of science. Objects, designs, and patterns, are, for our religious philosopher, real enough or given, but cannot be material for the same reason that there can be no material objects - that reason being given above - the absence of a framework of identification. For the scientist, objects are also real enough or given but, unfortunately for our scientist friends, can have no ground for being given because their limits, and limits in general, cannot be purely materially identified.

Nietzsche said something like this. Mainly that science and religion do not contrast each other but are two different things he must have read kant and wittgenstein. Or its just plain simple and the duality there is today is because science wants to become a religion with absolute truths and replace religion which will if replaced become a science…

anyway there is a battle to the death. apocalyptic in nature for the conquest of supreme power hence knowledge as knowledge is power. Science looks like it’s winning 6-0 6-0 5-0! Last game and then that’s it. Game set & match!

 

[Jonesboy]

Heidegger goes beyond the distinction between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism with his concept of “world”. Heidegger’s “world” is not produced by a transcendental ego - and is therefore not a version of transcendental idealism. We are not the source of meanings. The meanings come to us from “outside”.

But Heidegger’s “world” cannot exist apart from “us” - we are the “place” where “world” happens - with “us”, the world is “there”. “Being” needs us if “Being” is to be “there”. And even stronger, time is the horizon of “Being”. Each epoch has its own set of meanings. Thus, Heidegger is not a transcendental realist.

With this concept of “world”, objects don’t provide their own justification if this is understood as “able to be there”, “able to be manifested”, “able to be in space and time”, without us. And even stronger, the meaning of objects will vary with “time”, with “history”. But, contrary to Hegel, there is no final moment of absolute knowledge at the end of “history”.

Some people have interpreted Heidegger as a relativist. But this relativism is strange because Heidegger denies that humans, or human culture, or any human activity produces the meanings. No, the meanings come from a non-human source. We just passively “receive” the meanings.

Isn’t there a contradiction here?
Phrase such as "meanings come to us from “outside”, and "the world is “there” conflicts with “we are the place where world happens”.

That is, the first two phrases demand that objects provide their own source or meaning, and the last phrase demands that they do not.

But my point was that the idea that objects support their own limits, meaning or identity is a form of animism or transcendental realism. Religion need not support that, and yet by doing so it would still remain within the conjectures of reality.

 

[Jonesboy]

Nietzsche said something like this. Mainly that science and religion do not contrast each other but are two different things he must have read kant and wittgenstein. Or its just plain simple and the duality there is today is because science wants to become a religion with absolute truths and replace religion which will if replaced become a science…

anyway there is a battle to the death. apocalyptic in nature for the conquest of supreme power hence knowledge as knowledge is power. Science looks like it’s winning 6-0 6-0 5-0! Last game and then that’s it. Game set & match!

Science can’t win here. Science cannot offer any material evidence that can show us the limits of objects. The limits or objecthood of an object are not material properties. There is no material property that can define the limits of a TV. The physical limits of a TV are not given by a material property but are given by the manifesting condition of entertainment.

 

[levinas12]

Isn’t there a contradiction here?
Phrase such as "meanings come to us from “outside”, and "the world is “there” conflicts with “we are the place where world happens”.

That is, the first two phrases demand that objects provide their own source or meaning, and the last phrase demands that they do not.

I don’t think there is a contradiction. In Heidegger’s philosophy, we are passive, not constructive. We are the “datives” of manifestation. Beings manifest themselves to us. Being manifests itself to us. Using your words, “objects” provide “to us” their meaning (“provide” implies a “to us”).

We are therefore the “place”, the “stage” where the “action” happens. Or better, to enhance the passivity, we are the “audience”. But we are not the author, director, choreographer, etc.

There is a problem with Heidegger. He talks about the “history” of Being, but without the closure of Hegel. Things manifest themselves to us, but not in the traditional sense of metaphysics, i.e., manifest themselves as they are in themselves in an unchanging eternal sense. According to Heidegger, Being (crossed out because it is not itself a being) sends different “missives”. It’s as if there were different Revelations, but not a final Revelation.

Heidegger insists that we are not the source of the “missives” or “sendings”, just the addressees. The source is non-human.

 

[Jonesboy]

I don’t think there is a contradiction. In Heidegger’s philosophy, we are passive, not constructive. We are the “datives” of manifestation. Beings manifest themselves to us. Being manifests itself to us. Using your words, “objects” provide “to us” their meaning (“provide” implies a “to us”).

We are therefore the “place”, the “stage” where the “action” happens. Or better, to enhance the passivity, we are the “audience”. But we are not the author, director, choreographer, etc.

There is a problem with Heidegger. He talks about the “history” of Being, but without the closure of Hegel. Things manifest themselves to us, but not in the traditional sense of metaphysics, i.e., manifest themselves as they are in themselves in an unchanging eternal sense. According to Heidegger, Being (crossed out because it is not itself a being) sends different “missives”. It’s as if there were different Revelations, but not a final Revelation.

Heidegger insists that we are not the source of the “missives” or “sendings”, just the addressees. The source is non-human.

A possible contradiction is still there:

If “objects” provide “to us” their meaning (“provide” implies a “to us”)."

then, how can we be the place “where the “action” happens.”.

If objects have their own identity, then that is where the action happens. But if you say the action happens with us then that is either a contradiction or transcendental realism.