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tonyrey
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Thank you, Ronnie! That sums it up in a nutshell. I shall waste no more time or energy attempting to reason with the unreasonable!
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ronnie_bonigli
Guest
It’s an ancient argument with a long pedigree, going all the way back to Epicurus. The atheist J. B. S. Haldane got in trouble in the 1940’s for making the above referenced observation. Philosopher Mortimer Adler had an essay Is the Intellect Immaterial on this problem a few years back. It most most recently expounded on by the philosopher Karl Popper in numerous essays and books including The Self and Its Brain, which he co-authored with the Nobel laureate neuroscientist John Eccles, both who advanced a type of dualistic interactionism.Thank you, Ronnie! That sums it up in a nutshell. I shall waste no more time or energy attempting to reason with the unreasonable!
While my favorite British physicist Roger Penrose discusses a similar related problem in his books The Emperor’s New Mind and Shadows of the Mind.
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Tonitz
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It is more like non dualism, or at least that’s what I would think more matches my interpretation of Jonfawkes statement regarding Omnipresence. I’m not sure where the disconnect lies, but there is much that would make me suspect that originally our Faith was way more non-dualist in nature, as even the Identity claims made by Our Lord seem to stack up in line with this if read from the non dualiist perspective as well as some statements from the OT.
While Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate made the argument that pantheism denies man’s superiority over Nature and that pantheism is “seeing the source of man’s salvation in nature,” a non dualist would not, I believe, agree with that framing. A strict pantheist might, or a pagan, or a “new ager,” (yikes!) but not a non dualist. I base this on the vital difference from the rest of Creation in the nature of human self reflexive awareness and all that that can imply despite it being about the least valued and least often advanced of human spiritual attributes. It seems to me that for the most part there is some procedural error in interpreting some of these to varying degrees.
One has to wonder why it is that the Greats of the Catholic Church are often taken by non dualists as exemplary of their understanding. They (some of our Saints) are even included in anthologies and collections by them while we hasten to not only decline the same favor, but condemn them for noting what appears to be an undeniably striking similarity. I mean in this age of ecumenism, it would be only polite to at lest take a look from the standpoint of some impartiality. And what if we are closer in fundamentals than we ever thought, but are having wars over labels?
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larkin31
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You make a lot of sense to me here.
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Tonitz
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I know, Larkin31. I’ve been studying this kind of comparative religion for over 45 years. It is why fundamentalist and old line Catholics don’t like me and call me a horse. But I just enjoy riding the horse of the mind, and like I’ve said about this, I’m not a passenger in a dead construct intended to deceive anyone. Au contraire.
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Okatana
Guest
Hmmmm… Fascinating. I’ve had some chats with Catholics on this sort of idea, and there seems to be a general dismissal of there being any validity to pantheism despite the idea of not only omnipresence, but the whole omni-ness thing as a dynamic, if I may. To an outsider (Hi there!) it would seem as a fundamental idea that these omni’s would lead to a non dual perception. But what seems to me to be the big difference is in prepositions.
To creationists and "ID"ers, God and His Creation are separate. Creation is an object to God, and “He” to us. In this model we are subject-object creatures in mind. But also in this model God is every-where,-when, and has selective power over “things” as discreet objects or events and knows as a whole, NOW, all actions and consequences of “His” and our actions, being the Author of it all. the Universe is created for Man and is from the point of Man’s fall afflicted with a derivative set of rules due to disobedience under circumstances which make one question actual liability. Indeed, in this scheme the Son, He Himself being God, is sacrificed to Himself by Himself as different persons so that what He made has a chance to be with Him as originally intended. Or not. But we know that story if we are on here, I would guess. But essentially this is a dynamic of return, that being the sole/soul purpose of it all. Here we have Deity separate from, but suffusing Nature as Sole Proprietor. So: Deity AT Nature.
We won’t go into polytheism, as that is essentially dealings with the forces of Nature and chance as embodied in “gods,” even though some of those stories remarkably parallel events in the Christian narrative. Here the gods are in nature as it and they were created. We have Deity IN Nature
But as for pantheism, this is where we get into the prepositions. We also get into the idea that Diety can and does manifest in increasing complexity and diversity because it can, and because it’s fun. Including sex. So, not too happy here with the patristic Abrahamists, who look down on and fear their women from the get-go. Poor Eve. And she only wanted what was, she thought, best for Adam. In any case, pantheists tend to worship the feminine principle and Nature as Nurture and as God-dess. The Goddess is fruitful and gives of her bounty as herself to mankind. We in turn give thanks and enjoy. In this scheme, Nature and God-dess are one. So we have Deity WITH/by means of, Nature.
In non dualism, similarly to Taoism, we have perhaps the only distinction in a practical way of Consciousness as Spirit, or Principle, accessible through practices as exemplified among others by some Saints and thus perceived to be Source, Substance, and Form of ALL. Thus Deity is the ground of Being, manifests Universe, and knows it and its Source as SELF. This is the Alpha and Omega as a dynamic. It is the resolution of the ill formed arguments between science and Nature worship which give credence only to the manifest, and most religions which give credence only to the Spiritual. So Nature AS Deity forever rejoicing in SELF. Of course, not having accessed the commensurate perception through practice, as did that Great Saints, the word “self” is grossly misunderstood by those who have been prevented by statutory religion from entering the at least four states of awareness and communion available to humans beyond ordinary prayer and worship.
But the OP’s statement of the thread is an excellent example of how this prevention works. The whole matter is presented in a binary format that is not commensurate with actuality. “Yer either fer or agin!;” “Ya is er ya ain’t!” are the forms of the mantras of this mindset. There is not the “both/and” which leads to critical insight of perceptual dynamics regarding one’s own awareness and the astounding dimensions that can unfold. And did unfold for Aquinas, Francis, Avila, Siena, and many others, and which prompted them to make the remarks they did about the Church and dogma and why they are included in the annals of accomplishment of the non dualists.
I know all this is informally sketchy, but perhaps it might stimulate either some dialog or conversation of benefit.
I hope to see a contradiction of what fascinates me about all this: the inability of most of us to disassociate from a magnetic attachment to our thoughts about our faith, whatever it might be, or non-faith, long enough to even simply comprehend what, in fact, someone of another paradigm is actually trying to convey.
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larkin31
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You’re good with me as I am not threatened by any religious arguments one way or the other.
But what’s a “horse” in this sense?
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Tonitz
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Thanks, Larkin31. It’s mutual.
You are familiar with the occurrence of feral children? I think so. What is feral in a child who has human potential? It is the untrained abilities surrounding the possibilities of patterns relevant to existence and expression within the scope of that individual’s capacity for awareness. The feral child by default assimilates and may not go beyond the circumstances of its wildness. We are feral in a sense as well. The scope of existence that your awareness encompasses and responds to is vastly more than of someone of even a hundred years ago, not to mention an individual from the Bronze or Iron age. But it can go much farther, as can anyone’s with due diligence.
But that is still pertinent to relative information, the knowledge of place and power in the manifest. It can lead to the necessity of inquiry within oneself as to the Great Questions from sheer wonder or block it by sheer overload. But the capacity for insight regardless of relative knowledge has always been with us from the dawn of the kind of awareness we have as Humans. And in an actual sense that relative knowledge can drive one inside, whatever it’s nature. Any person of any accomplishment or lack of it can be prompted to look at themselves in a deeper way. Even a trauma can expedite this.
What can and sometimes does result from such an inquiry is a radical insight as to the actual nature of the mind and awareness itself. This knowledge is no longer catagoriazable as relative knowledge, though that is where its expressions might be, in the relationships of objects and ideas as contents of the mind. But a new category emerges, one which has as its only concern the nature of the reality of self. Some would capitalize that word in this context, and for good reason. It is not the self of personality or the way we ordinarily think of ourselves in relative terms. It is the context in which that personality exists. It is the dawning of the awareness of Consciousness as the Principle which allows the experience of person, which few go beyond, to exist and be used as a vehicle of accomplishment in the non relative realm in which we actually exist. In other words someone who thinks they are a person, as most do, can discover dimensions of Reality not usually or easily accommodated by consensus “reality.”
This is where Aquinas spoke from when he pronounced his work to be straw, despite its magnificence as an intellectual edifice. That’s how real that realm is. Same with Teresa of Avila. She had some comments to make about the Church as well. But the point is that when one lives in that state, the mind and body can be seen as a horse to be trained, domesticated, and ridden on the planes of existence through all its glories and exigencies. And like learning to ride a horse, one can fall and even injure oneself. A good trainer is an immeasurable and inestimable blessing. But one can see farther, go faster, get more done and be more useful if one is mounted than if one is comparatively bumbling around, however sincerely and genuinely one might be doing that, or whatever value that has, even very great, in the relative realm. They are after all, the same, but seen with clearer lenses than the ones Paul mentioned.
And this is where religion might, or might not, take you to a threshold. The threshold doesn’t respect only religion. Thousands upon thousands have said this as a result of their own experience. Some of those who have not this experience seem to think that the lively gallopers over the fields of time are wooden versions of their steeds left at the gates of their minds with ill intent. They even do things to them sometimes as is evidenced in history. Sorry, the perception of ill intent is not true. It is quite the opposite. So you might say I’m one of the horses of a different color.
But I don’t claim to be a great rider, either. But I do know what it is to be in the saddle, even if its a pony riding a circle. But I have seen magnificent horsemen who ride freely and kill dragons. I’m learning!
You are familiar with the occurrence of feral children? I think so. What is feral in a child who has human potential? It is the untrained abilities surrounding the possibilities of patterns relevant to existence and expression within the scope of that individual’s capacity for awareness. The feral child by default assimilates and may not go beyond the circumstances of its wildness. We are feral in a sense as well. The scope of existence that your awareness encompasses and responds to is vastly more than of someone of even a hundred years ago, not to mention an individual from the Bronze or Iron age. But it can go much farther, as can anyone’s with due diligence.
But that is still pertinent to relative information, the knowledge of place and power in the manifest. It can lead to the necessity of inquiry within oneself as to the Great Questions from sheer wonder or block it by sheer overload. But the capacity for insight regardless of relative knowledge has always been with us from the dawn of the kind of awareness we have as Humans. And in an actual sense that relative knowledge can drive one inside, whatever it’s nature. Any person of any accomplishment or lack of it can be prompted to look at themselves in a deeper way. Even a trauma can expedite this.
What can and sometimes does result from such an inquiry is a radical insight as to the actual nature of the mind and awareness itself. This knowledge is no longer catagoriazable as relative knowledge, though that is where its expressions might be, in the relationships of objects and ideas as contents of the mind. But a new category emerges, one which has as its only concern the nature of the reality of self. Some would capitalize that word in this context, and for good reason. It is not the self of personality or the way we ordinarily think of ourselves in relative terms. It is the context in which that personality exists. It is the dawning of the awareness of Consciousness as the Principle which allows the experience of person, which few go beyond, to exist and be used as a vehicle of accomplishment in the non relative realm in which we actually exist. In other words someone who thinks they are a person, as most do, can discover dimensions of Reality not usually or easily accommodated by consensus “reality.”
This is where Aquinas spoke from when he pronounced his work to be straw, despite its magnificence as an intellectual edifice. That’s how real that realm is. Same with Teresa of Avila. She had some comments to make about the Church as well. But the point is that when one lives in that state, the mind and body can be seen as a horse to be trained, domesticated, and ridden on the planes of existence through all its glories and exigencies. And like learning to ride a horse, one can fall and even injure oneself. A good trainer is an immeasurable and inestimable blessing. But one can see farther, go faster, get more done and be more useful if one is mounted than if one is comparatively bumbling around, however sincerely and genuinely one might be doing that, or whatever value that has, even very great, in the relative realm. They are after all, the same, but seen with clearer lenses than the ones Paul mentioned.
And this is where religion might, or might not, take you to a threshold. The threshold doesn’t respect only religion. Thousands upon thousands have said this as a result of their own experience. Some of those who have not this experience seem to think that the lively gallopers over the fields of time are wooden versions of their steeds left at the gates of their minds with ill intent. They even do things to them sometimes as is evidenced in history. Sorry, the perception of ill intent is not true. It is quite the opposite. So you might say I’m one of the horses of a different color.
But I don’t claim to be a great rider, either. But I do know what it is to be in the saddle, even if its a pony riding a circle. But I have seen magnificent horsemen who ride freely and kill dragons. I’m learning!
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jonfawkes
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Psalms 82:5-8 
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lemondiesel
Guest
Nothing can be more logical than the laws of the natural sciences except pure logic not related to any application.
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tonyrey
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inocente
Guest
Circular? If your opinions are determined by the laws of chemistry then, as the sum of your thoughts, you are also. Either “you” is a delusion, a mere narrative (which is one school of thought) or the same laws allow for the emergence of “you” from the nature of complexity, or something else is going on.
I’m in the second camp, I take it you’re in the third, and it would be really cool if you could eventually put some meat on your explanation
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inocente
Guest
From the essay - *Readers are thus led to the conclusion that the power by which we apprehend those intelligible objects, those universal objects of conceptual thought, must be immaterial.
*
I like his discussion, but as always have big problems with this business of what is a triangle and universals.
We’re very good at pattern perception, and suppose we design a triangle circuit that fires whenever it perceives a shape with three corners joined by straight lines. We then enable this circuit to remember shapes that caused it to fire. We add a circuit that fires for circles, another for rectangles and so on, each collecting their own memories. Perhaps in looking at a conventional house the rectangle and triangle circuits both fire, one for the building, one for the roof. The resulting two memories will then be connected. We add another circuit that fires whenever any of these circuits fire, and call it the geometry-recognition circuit.
We also add a circuit that fires whenever the memory “house” is invoked, and this circuit and its memories is connected to other recognition circuits which allow for all the different shapes of houses.
And so on, but designing all these circuits is getting tiresome, so we now add a set of circuits to create them automatically. In the case of the triangle, in math or art class we consciously see and think for the first time about this shape, give it a name, and our learning circuits parse these thoughts and generate the triangle circuit by themselves. The “conscious thoughts” are themselves streams of circuits firing, and the streams are continuously and unpredictably modified as more circuits are built in parallel and add to the feedback.
The mind may work in an entirely different way and in any event there’s a whole lot more to it than this, for example it doesn’t get close to explaining awareness of self, but my point is a lot less ambitious - it’s possible to come up with architectures where concepts are simply relational grids and don’t need any other form of existence.
The key to understanding what’s really going on imho can never come from theorists alone because it’s too darned complicated, but on faith
, little by little, we eventually will have a model that explains the whole shooting match.
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MindOverMatter2
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If thought is determined by blind unknowing physical events and is in fact itself physical, i.e the motion of one particle in relation to another in conjunction with the activity of the universe as a whole, then to say that “you” are the author of your thoughts is meaningless, since you think nothing more than what the universe as a whole has caused you to think. If all is physical, you cannot separate thought from the activity of its parts. To speak of an “emergent you” is to assume dualism, as if “you” are something different from the nature of the events that preceded you; but that difference is objectively meaningless if all we are made up of is blind unknowing and physical. You have no grounds to think that you are anything more than what preceded you if you assume that you are wholly a product of physical events, since the product is not different from physical events. Reality how ever contradicts the point of view that all is a product of unknowing blind physical relationships. And as soon as you admit that you are not just a product of blind physical events, that you are your own self knowing determining nature, you have to admit that you are distinctly more than just blind physical things; something more has been added to the fact of blind unconscious physics. Of course, we must admit this, since to admit otherwise would be to commit once self to the belief that out nothing comes something; which in itself cannot be supported by science as that would be epistemologically invalid as an argument. If you hold to it, it will only be as an irrational faith. If all is blind and physical, then such an entity can only produce what it is. Any addition to what it is cannot be determined by what it is. Thus thinking cannot be a product of non-thinking; simply because they are essentially and absolutely different, regardless of the question of complexity or quantity.Circular? If your opinions are determined by the laws of chemistry then, as the sum of your thoughts, you are also. Either “you” is a delusion, a mere narrative (which is one school of thought) or the same laws allow for the emergence of “you” from the nature of complexity, or something else is going on.
I’m in the second camp, I take it you’re in the third, and it would be really cool if you could eventually put some meat on your explanation
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tonyrey
Guest
MOM, you have excelled yourself in that destruction of materialism.
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lemondiesel
Guest
Things like identity, and non-contradiction are analytic truths not subject to interpretation or changes due to changes in context. Physics, chemistry, biology and all other natural sciences are best described by way of mathematics, which at its base is essentially logical. Physical laws are only properly expressed in those languages, (math, logic). Therefore, if anything were to exist outside matter, (or outside physical laws), it would be inexpressible at that level.
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inocente
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This goes back a few posts to jon’s point about omnipresence. If we think of the world as separate from God then it is apart and self-sustaining, no longer needing God. If we think of the world as sustained by God then it is apart while not apart, there’s a conundrum. If we think of the world as being part of God there’s the problem of explaining evil. Yikes, I dunno!
Emergence is an attempt to avoid dualism, at least in that sense, and I think tony for one is having trouble there. The notion is that complexity leads to new levels, physics to chemistry, chemistry to biology, biology to mind. Each functions at its own level, each relies on and emerges from the lower level, this is built into how the world works. Just as it once appeared impossible to give a rich explanation for the emergence of the species, the mind currently appears impossible to explain because we’re not there yet. But with the current rate of progress, in 50 years time we will.
From all my experience the mind is explicable but is far too complicated to be explained yet at any level by theorists – they need far more information before they can get a handle, currently they’re working blindfold in the dark. The idea that thinking can’t emerge from non-thinking because they’re different in kind sounds very reasonable on the face of it, but that’s not going to stop the practical guys. As more of the brain is understood, the explanation will start to dribble out bit by bit and eventually some bright sparks will put it all together. But the explanation won’t be at the level of atoms or chemicals or cells, the model will be a new level that relies on and emerges from them. The faith is that God created a physical universe, whichever way we interpret His omnipresence.
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tonyrey
Guest
I shall be delighted to do so.Circular? If your opinions are determined by the laws of chemistry then, as the sum of your thoughts, you are also. Either “you” is a delusion, a mere narrative (which is one school of thought) or the same laws allow for the emergence of “you” from the nature of complexity, or something else is going on.
I’m in the second camp, I take it you’re in the third, and it would be really cool if you could eventually put some meat on your explanation
Your explanation is based on an atomistic view of reality. You believe entities emerge from smaller entities - in this case persons from particles. “You” see yourself as a product of nature rather than an agent, an effect rather than a cause, an accident rather than a masterpiece!
A far more reasonable explanation is based on a holistic view of reality. Modern medicine is concerned with the whole person not just the body.We are not composed of parts but are indivisible entities. We are not biological machines but autonomous beings capable of shaping our own destiny.
Minds are not derived from matter but from the Supreme Mind. The things we see and touch are far less important than intangible realities like truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. We are rational and purposeful because existence is rational and purposeful. The order, complexity and harmony of the universe are the result of Design not Chance. It is irrational to attribute everything that is precious to blind processes which exist** for no reason** whatsoever…
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inocente
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Thanks, dude!I shall be delighted to do so.
Nature is part of the agency, a means of the agency. Look around you, look at a baby or the stars or a tree - does all this seem more like an accident or more like a masterpiece?
It’s a very holistic view of reality and doesn’t say anything about whether minds are or are not derived from the Supreme Mind, it just says they may not be derived in the style to which you’re accustomed.
I might be reading you wrong, but you seem to presuppose that God had no purpose in creating matter, that matter cannot in any way be imbued with any purpose other than to be blind matter, that the universe must conform to a given design or else be here by chance.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Couldn’t it be we’re able to recognize intangibles because we are children of God and of His universe? Why the either/or?
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lemondiesel
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Tonyrey,
It is more reasonable to assume that God created the universe based on the laws of nature, already knowing a conscious rational being would be a product. These beings would then come to understand these laws, to find Him.
Minds are derived from thoughts, which are triggered by our senses participation in reality. “You” are created by a collection of thoughts (memory), which are expressed in the use of speech and language. We are biological machines able to question whether or not we actually are biological machine! We become free when we begin to question.
Have you heard the analogy of God writing a movie? He created the script and characters (laws of nature), and He also created the set (atoms which make ip the universe), while also staring in his own film. He is every perspective.
I don’t fully agree with it, but I thought you might like that analogy
It is more reasonable to assume that God created the universe based on the laws of nature, already knowing a conscious rational being would be a product. These beings would then come to understand these laws, to find Him.
Minds are derived from thoughts, which are triggered by our senses participation in reality. “You” are created by a collection of thoughts (memory), which are expressed in the use of speech and language. We are biological machines able to question whether or not we actually are biological machine! We become free when we begin to question.
Have you heard the analogy of God writing a movie? He created the script and characters (laws of nature), and He also created the set (atoms which make ip the universe), while also staring in his own film. He is every perspective.
I don’t fully agree with it, but I thought you might like that analogy
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