S
Solmyr
Guest
That is exactly my point. We also experience reality directly.
Are you referring to abstractions and concepts?
- Status
T
tonyrey
Guest
S
Solmyr
Guest
Exactly? Two people standing a few meters apart do not perceive the objects “EXCATLY” the same way. But we all (humans and animals alike) perceive the reality via our senses, our nerves transmit the information to our brain, which processes the information. Sometimes correctly, other times incorrectly (mirage). But our minds are the secondary source of perceiving the realty. The primary source is the physical world, which “sends” us signals via our nervous system. To deprive someone of all sensory (name removed by moderator)ut will result in total loss of sanity.
Of course not. These are concepts, which have no physical reality. But nevertheless they are mapped unto the neural activity of our brain. Just like the letters H[sub]2[/sub]O on paper is a conceptual referent to a physical object of water, but the symbols themselves do not participate in dissolving spoonful of NaCl (salt).
Some humans, toddlers, small children and also highly educated but autistic people are unable to generalize. They cannot form concepts. The Hopi Indians are unable to perceive “past”. Their language does not have a way to express the non-present. Yet they are human beings.
Of course none of these questions are pertinent, even though you keep asking them. The idea that there is a non-physical, yet physically ACTIVE reality - different from the realm of concepts needs some evidence for it. Otherwise it is the one which is ABSURD.
Oh, and the “verifiability principle” is also a concept, which describes a method to get reliable information about the reality. Just like “walking” is a concept which describes a “method” to get from “A” to “B”. Only an idiot would demand to verify the verifiability “principle”.
You keep on trying to use a yardstick to measure temperature, when you fail, you happily pronounce that using a yardstick is ABSURD. (And by the way that was not an ad-hominem “attack” on you. Just a good natured correction of a mistake you make over and over again).
L
Lucretius
Guest
Wow, I’m impressed. You all ready sound like a Thomist!
Here’s a question: what does it mean that concepts don’t have physical reality? What is “physical?”
I agree with you about all of these except the autistic people: they have difficulty with some concepts, but they certainly can conceptionalize: otherwise they could speak and understand langauge! The other groups, you are correct, can’t generalize yet (toddlers are pushing it), probably because their brains haven’t developed fully (and for autistics, they probably have something incorrect in their brains that give them this difficulty). I would point out that children and toddlers however do have the potential to conceptionalize, while other animals do not (otherwise we should have been able to teach them).
I’m interested in this. Are you saying that the tribe has no mythological histories, or ancestor worship/memorial of those have pasted away? Do they reinterpret these things into the present?
Just because they don’t have grammatical tense, doesn’t mean they don’t have the concept. Language is a human artifact: an language can make it easier to see the concept behind the words, or it can make it harder. Concepts don’t necessarily need words in order to understand them. Plato had an understanding of human rights, for example, even though there wasn’t words for " rights " like in English. Our langauge actually makes it easier to see the truth of human rights!
I don’t trust methods completely, because I don’t believe humans shouldn’t limit truth to what can be found in a method, which often happens with humans who use methods. Truths about a person, for example, can’t be found with a method really at all. I prefer to just work with experiences.
Christi pax,
Lucretius
A
Aloysium
Guest
The concept of a person can be difficult to understand, possibly because it is too simple and obvious.
We are made up of matter and we think, feel and act.
That which is physical, the brain for example, does what it does as part of the physical world.
Thoughts, perceptions and emotions, which we can communicate, are relegated by many to the realm of the subjective.
Accepting this view of a dichotomy between the objective and subjective, we are able to understand the relationship that exists between them. We can ascertain something about what is happening physically to the person when he has such experiences. We scan for brain functioning.
These words, mental phenomena, as they exist within the wholeness of the person, me forming them and you comprehending them, do so also within the realm of the physical.
We are physical and they can be understood as neurophysiological processes.
These processes occur within the totality of the person, a physical and spiritual unity.
When we are learning new concepts, the physical manifestation, within this whole, would likely Involve the growth of new connections between neurons.
The proteins, glucose, enzymatic, electrolyte and other complex molecules involved in these changes are not the same thing as the idea, which exists as such, immaterial, true or untrue as part of the totality that is the person in the world.
There seems to be resistance to the idea of the person that I would attribute to the question that arises concerning how we have come to be. The serious limitations of modern science are exposed. And, oft seen solution seems to entail a denial of reality.
We are made up of matter and we think, feel and act.
That which is physical, the brain for example, does what it does as part of the physical world.
Thoughts, perceptions and emotions, which we can communicate, are relegated by many to the realm of the subjective.
Accepting this view of a dichotomy between the objective and subjective, we are able to understand the relationship that exists between them. We can ascertain something about what is happening physically to the person when he has such experiences. We scan for brain functioning.
These words, mental phenomena, as they exist within the wholeness of the person, me forming them and you comprehending them, do so also within the realm of the physical.
We are physical and they can be understood as neurophysiological processes.
These processes occur within the totality of the person, a physical and spiritual unity.
When we are learning new concepts, the physical manifestation, within this whole, would likely Involve the growth of new connections between neurons.
The proteins, glucose, enzymatic, electrolyte and other complex molecules involved in these changes are not the same thing as the idea, which exists as such, immaterial, true or untrue as part of the totality that is the person in the world.
There seems to be resistance to the idea of the person that I would attribute to the question that arises concerning how we have come to be. The serious limitations of modern science are exposed. And, oft seen solution seems to entail a denial of reality.
I
inocente
Guest
Here’s a fun fact. It’s now known that the only output from the eye, along the optic nerve, is essentially a bit-stream. To some extent even the encoding is known, see this research by Sheila Nirenberg at Cornell:
bbc.com/future/story/20141111-the-code-that-may-treat-blindness
physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/nirenberg/lab/
So all your visual experience of the world is created entirely from that bit stream, where everything is quantified. Qualia, I think, are past their sell-by date.
But the lack of absolute frames of reference isn’t cosmology, try navigating a ship out in the ocean under a cloudy sky. Perhaps the argument should be rewritten to exclude all relative motions/changes, although granted that the “relatively unchanged changer” doesn’t have the same ring to it.Aristotle’s cosmology has no effect on the argument, because Aristotle is working with the basic facts of change: that things change, and they are changed by another. No need to appeal to the heavens here.
I don’t see how that relates to what you put in bold, which was “But according to fans of the argument, that means the unmoved mover has to continually change the direction of every particle of every planet to sustain them in orbit. To us modern people, that sounds mighty strange.” That’s not my argument btw, that’s what I was told by fans of the argument in other threads here. (Although it has to be said that another issue with the argument is the lack of agreement by its fans on how it should be interpreted).
Except that by the argument alone, the unmoved mover could be a force or a machine, there’s nothing about it that allows it any freedom of decision or action. A number of other arguments also have to be made to get to anything approaching God, but God is supposed to be necessary and therefore simple.Abstractions are not bad. They can distract us from the whole, as you correctly point out, but they can also help us better understand the whole. In this case, the Unmoved Mover helps us understand God better, like the fact that God never changes, as the Scriptures tell us. Think of the argument as a stepping stone to better understanding God and His Grace
Grace can never be necessitated by logical argument, since if it could then it would be logically necessary, and so wouldn’t be Grace (and Christ would never have needed to die on the Cross, and Paul would never have written “Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor 1).
But all of the above aside, in my experience the gospel is a lot more persuasive than these dry philosophical arguments, but perhaps I’m with a different crowd
.
I
inocente
Guest
isn’t about whether it’s true or not, but rather about the utility of the explanation. What does saying “God created the Universe” do? What predictions can be derived from it? What possible observations would be incompatible with saying “God created the Universe”?
The problem with inserting a supernatural explanation, particularly one involving an omnipotent being is that the claim explains all possible explanations, and thus explains nothing. You can’t build a theory on it, because you can’t say “If God created the universe, we would expect to find x, y and z, but if God wasn’t involved, we’d see a. b and c instead”, because a, b and c are just as likely as x, y and z.
I also tend to wonder why certain religious people put so much effort into hunting down quotations by scientists that they imagine somehow prove the existence of God. In some cases, some scientists have certainly stated things like that, but in many cases it amounts to quote mining. The constant “Einstein believed in God” claims were so frequent even when he was alive that he was forced to clarify that he rejected the idea of a personal god.
Sounds as if we’re on the same page here, and, so I think is the Catholic priest who originated the big bang theory, Monsignor Georges Lemaître:- “He (the Christian researcher) knows that not one thing in all creation has been done without God, but he knows also that God nowhere takes the place of his creatures. Omnipresent divine activity is everywhere essentially hidden. It never had to be a question of reducing the supreme Being to the rank of a scientific hypothesis.” - catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8847
That ought to be a commandment - Thou shalt not reduce the Lord thy God to the rank of a scientific hypothesis.
And to prove that quote isn’t out of context, Lemaître also said, speaking of his big bang hypothesis: “As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in nonsingular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God, as were Laplace’s “flick” or Jean’s “finger [of God agitating the ether]” consonant, it is consonant with the wording of Isaiah’s speaking of a “Hidden God,” hidden even in the beginning of creation.”
L
Lucretius
Guest
On the contrary, all attempts to reject the reality of qualia in itself are self refuting (I will quote Chesterton bellow to demonstrate this). Furthermore, you haven’t responded to my question about the difference between a living thing or a dead corpse. If the difference between them is qualitative, then what quantity is changing? The “weighing the soul” experiment demonstrate that mass doesn’t change. What is changing when a living animal dies?
You are mistaking epistemology with ontology. Motion might be relative to the subject, but it is also objective.
It certainly can’t be a machine, because it created natural substance, and machines are just artifacts. Created substances are far greater than our artifacts, because in natural things, nature moves them internally to fruitfulness, which artifacts can never do (they are just an accidental placement of parts, while the parts of natural things are essentially in relationship with each other to form one whole, which is a quality, not a quantity).
The fact that the Unmoved Mover creates life means it must have life to give; the fact that it creates rational creatures means it must be rational, which means it has intelligent and will.
Philosophy isn’t wrong per se, else what Paul said would be self refuting. Grace isn’t at the end of an argument, but God can use whatever means, natural or supernatural, to complete His Will, and that includes cosmological arguments
I am too convinced of the Gospel, but I was first convinced by the cosmological argument. Then, knowing that there is a God, and that He is interested in all of His creation (if He wasn’t He wouldn’t create), it makes much more sense to expect a revelation. Most atheists in this thread reject the existence of God, and so expecting to see a revelation makes not sense to them, which is while they see no reason to trust the New Testament.But all of the above aside, in my experience the gospel is a lot more persuasive than these dry philosophical arguments, but perhaps I’m with a different crowd
Christi pax,
Lucretius
L
Lucretius
Guest
Without pretending to span within such limits the essential Thomist idea, I may be allowed to throw out a sort of rough version of the fundamental question, which I think I have known myself, consciously or unconsciously since my childhood. When a child looks out of the nursery window and sees anything, say the green lawn of the garden, what does he actually know; or does he know anything? There are all sorts of nursery games of negative philosophy played round this question. A brilliant Victorian scientist delighted in declaring that the child does not see any grass at all; but only a sort of green mist reflected in a tiny mirror of the human eye. This piece of rationalism has always struck me as almost insanely irrational. If he is not sure of the existence of the grass, which he sees through the glass of a window, how on earth can he be sure of the existence of the retina, which he sees through the glass of a microscope? If sight deceives, why can it not go on deceiving? Men of another school answer that grass is a mere green impression on the mind; and that he can be sure of nothing except the mind. They declare that he can only be conscious of his own consciousness; which happens to be the one thing that we know the child is not conscious of at all. In that sense, it would be far truer to say that there is grass and no child, than to say that there is a conscious child but no grass. St. Thomas Aquinas, suddenly intervening in this nursery quarrel, says emphatically that the child is aware of Ens. Long before he knows that grass is grass, or self is self, he knows that something is something. Perhaps it would be best to say very emphatically (with a blow on the table), “There is an Is.” That is as much monkish credulity as St. Thomas asks of us at the start. Very few unbelievers start by asking us to believe so little. And yet, upon this sharp pin-point of reality, he rears by long logical processes that have never really been successfully overthrown, the whole cosmic system of Christendom.
cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/aquinas.txt
Since we see quantity through quality, if we propose that quality doesn’t exist, then we have to conclude that quantity doesn’t either. Primary qualities are known only through secondary qualities, to use modern philosophical terms. This is in part why every modern philosopher can’t refute Bishop Berkeley
Christi pax,
Lucretius
cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/aquinas.txt
Since we see quantity through quality, if we propose that quality doesn’t exist, then we have to conclude that quantity doesn’t either. Primary qualities are known only through secondary qualities, to use modern philosophical terms. This is in part why every modern philosopher can’t refute Bishop Berkeley
Christi pax,
Lucretius
I
inocente
Guest
That’s not even remotely true, and I think if you stopped for a moment you already know why.
“A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge.” - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
Scientific knowledge is empirical, and is provisional simply because that is perforce based on past experience, which may be contradicted by future observations. Again this is nothing to do with opinions, and is an important part of why science is self-correcting.
When primitive man shot his arrow at a moving antelope and missed, and thought next time maybe aim in front of the antelope, he had formed a scientific hypothesis. When next time he aimed in front of the antelope to test his hypothesis, he was performing a scientific experiment.
No presupposition required.
Also, if rational minds are part of the physical universe, then in a poetic sense the universe knows through them, although I take it you would still be underwhelmed by God’s magnificent Creation.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
Actually, we do sing hymns to the unmoved Mover and the intelligent Designer, because Christ is in God and God is in Christ.
When Aquinas talks about the (1) unmoved Mover or the (2) intelligent Designer, his argument is addressed not to the Christian, but to the atheist. You have to begin somewhere with the atheist, and these are two good places to begin, since the atheist needs to get the door open just a crack before he is willing to peek at the One who stands waiting for him behind the door.
Otherwise, you have to assume that without an ounce of credibility thst God even exists, the atheist is going to throw himself willy-nilly at the feet of the crucified Christ.
Not going to happen.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
I don’t see why the Anthropic Principle must constrain God, nor do I see the evidence for a multiverse which is required for the Anthropic Principle to be applied.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
S
Solmyr
Guest
Please, don’t make insulting remarks
(Just kidding, of course)I am sure you know it. Anything that is part of STEM - space, time, energy, matter.
There are several levels of autism. Many, seriously autistic people cannot grasp the concept of an “abstract dog”. When they hear the word “dog”, all the dogs they ever encountered run down in front of their “eyes”, like a motion picture. For them there are only concrete dogs. And yet they are very bright, highly creative people.
As far as I know, yes. But I am not an expert.
That is strange. If you observe someone, and see that this person behaves like a “good” person would, then you use a method. To find out a patient’s temperature, you use a thermometer… which is a method. Anything and everything in the realm of epistemology is a “method”. Even intuition is a method (not a very reliable one).
The point was that epistemological methods cannot be “proven” by applying the methods to themselves. Methods are neither true nor false, they are either useful or not. And a method is useful, if it can help to make predictions.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
This isn’t even true. Many great physicist have not been constrained from wearing the philosophy hat along with the science hat, and many great physicists have given aid and comfort to theological positions. Some are even Christians, and to imply that they are generally unwilling to explore philosophical questions strains credulity.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
The famed atheist Antony Flew renounced his atheism after a serious examination of developments in modern science, including the Big Bang and Intelligent Design; so it would be passing strange if it was the atheists who might now be acknowledging once again the god-of-the-gaps while some theologians are still trying to figure after all which side they are really on.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
Again, most peculiar logic.
Man only recently arrived on the scene, so I don’t think you can say the entire universe knows through man. Rather, it is man who know through the universe; and what he is able to deduce most brilliantly, with the help of science, is that he is the bridge between God and the universe.
Genesis, 1000 B.C. : "Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’”
Atheist Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.
“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
O
o_mlly
Guest
Difficult to follow this argument (if it is one). Grace is logically necessary.
• God is omnibenevolent
• The omnibenevolent will to bind with their beloved
• All goodness (grace) comes from God
• God creates man with original grace
• Man lost original grace. Death enters creation
• Man’s condition is so utterly hopeless that he cannot save himself
• “And if he is not one of us, he cannot save us”
• Incarnation
• Christ, the God-man, conquers sin and death by his cross and resurrection
• God wills all man to come to salvation, to return to original grace
• God provides grace
Catholics reject both scientism and fideism. Because reason and science both tell us about our Creator, one enforces the other. And since God is the source of faith, reason and science; they must be in accord when properly understood.But all of the above aside, in my experience the gospel is a lot more persuasive than these dry philosophical arguments, but perhaps I’m with a different crowd
These quotations are out of context. To be “essentially hidden” is not to be entirely hidden. From the same article:
"Lemaître goes on to say, “It does not mean that cosmology has no meaning for philosophy. Philosophy and theology, when kept in isolation from scientific thought, either change into an outdated self-enclosed system, or become a dangerous ideology.”
“Reaching out this time to his fellow churchmen, Lemaître said, ‘Does the Church need Science? Certainly not. The Cross and the Gospel are enough. However, nothing that is human can be foreign to the Christian. How could the Church not be interested in the most noble of all strictly human occupations, namely the search for truth?’”
Knowing that Christ never appealed to any cosmological scheme to support his teaching, Lemaître also knew that theology and cosmology relate if, and only if, cosmology attains certitude in its findings. Since that cannot happen, modern theologians do not make their theology dependent on the latest cosmological hypothesis. Nor do cosmologists claim their findings have the certitude of faith.
T
tonyrey
Guest
T
tonyrey
Guest
- Status