Concept of God arising in multiple, different cultures

[wynn]

If your country becomes a theocracy, you're gonna have a bad time. Women are treated as inferior, gays are discriminated against, science is subverted, kids are beaten or terrorized, secular government is threatened... that kind of thing.

All these things are already happening, even as we don't live in a theocracy.

You still haven't answered my question.

If you've indeed have training in Buddhist meditation, it shouldn't be a problem for you to go into the details of one's intentions.

 

[Write4U]

You still didn't answer my question.

Ref #399, 400
Because I have no time to engage in a meaningless semantic go-around. It has nothing to do with OP.

 

[wynn]

Because I have no time to engage in a meaningless semantic go-around. It has nothing to do with OP.

You're coming from a position you won't defend, and as you refuse to defend it, you shift the blame on others.

 

[Write4U]

You're coming from a position you won't defend, and as you refuse to defend it, you shift the blame on others.

What position is that? Reminding you that Heaven is generally considered to be inherently happy?

 

[wynn]

Again:

Can you explain how the desire to find security and happiness could arise in a world that is inherently insecure and unhappy?

If the world would indeed be inherently insecure and unhappy, people would be miserable - and leave it at that. They wouldn't come up with ideas and desires to transcend that misery.

 

[Write4U]

Again:

Can you explain how the desire to find security and happiness could arise in a world that is inherently insecure and unhappy?

If the world would indeed be inherently insecure and unhappy, people would be miserable - and leave it at that. They wouldn't come up with ideas and desires to transcend that misery.

Why does a squirrel gather nuts in storage for winter? What gave him the idea and desire to have a little stash for winter comfort? Does a squirrel need god and heaven (regardless of the semantics of Inherent qualities and Relativity), or is this just another evolutionary process?
(This has nothing to do with comparative values of inherent this, inherent that. Forget it, I'm not going to debate that here).

If God is inherently omnipotent, It cannot be benevolent. If God is inherently benevolent, It cannot be omnipotent. The idealized semantic representation of God is theoretically impossible.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus illuminated this dilemma in 300 BC:

If God is willing to prevent evil but is not able to prevent evil, then he is not omnipotent.

If God is able to prevent evil but is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not benevolent.

Evil is either in accordance with God’s intention or contrary to it.

Thus, either God cannot prevent evil or he does not want to prevent evil.

Therefore, it follows that God is either not omnipotent or he is not benevolent. He cannot be both omnipotent and benevolent.
http://www.rationality.net/god.htm#3._The_Existence_of_God

 

[lightgigantic]

lightgigantic:



Sorry. I think I understand what you're saying better now.



It was a mental slip, as is obvious from what follows later in the same post.

Obviously, I should have written that God is explicit there, not that he isn't.



I think I get it. See my post immediately above this one.



I have many demands on my time. Sometimes I can't get back to a complex post for some time. Sometimes things slip through the cracks and I end up not responding at all. Please don't take it personally.

lol
same here

Yes. Ok. What I'm saying is that there's no good reason to believe that God exists. Even the assumption that there are "explicit" things in your sense is just that - an assumption. As far as I can see...

If you are saying that there is no good reason to say god exists based on the mechanisms of tacit investigation, it is my point that there is no good reason to think that tacit investigation is capable in the first place.

I'm not sure. For my own part, I'm not convinced that any explicit terms exist.

You don't require that conviction to comprehend what tacit investigation is and isn't capable of

Yes. I understand the point.

hence small/large scale understandings of the universe don't offer any leverage

You're probably right.

Our disagreement here is not scientific, but philosophical.

Probably this is one reason why religious people such as yourself often find yourself talking at cross-purposes with science types. You're actually both talking about different things. There's no point in talking about evidence for God unless the participants can agree that evidence is obtainable, at least in principle.

whether it is philosophical or scientific depends on what grounds one is saying "there is no evidence of god/god is false/etc etc".

That would be true if explicit terms actually exist. But as far as I can tell, there's no reason to think they do.

once again, if you base such reasoning on the endeavors of tacit investigation, its simply circular

That's your argument. Obviously, somebody who doesn't believe in explicit terms has no reason to think empiricism is not a valid tool.

so, once again, one has to look at what are the reasons someone doesn't think explicit terms exist

 

[lightgigantic]

I think that sentence would have made more sense if you had used the word "possible" or "hypothetical", rather than "explicit". ("Possible" would take account of the fact that we likely don't know everything that there is to know about any object of consideration. There's probably always going to be more left to discover.) But, if these additional "explicit" properties of yours "evade empirical investigation", then how do human beings ever come to learn about them? In what sense are you labeling them "explicit"?

In the sense that they start establishing values, as opposed to being the sum quality of values

I guess that I might agree that some objects of discussion, even fictional ones like 'Sherlock Holmes' and (so I'd argue) 'God', have what we might call 'narrative properties'. Properties that people say the objects have, not through any direct inspection of the object itself (which might be impossible in principle if the object doesn't exist), but rather through hearing other people tell stories that feature the object. Sherlock Holmes was certifiably brilliant, albeit arrogant and quite peculiar. Despite his never actually existing.

My point is that direct inspection of an object is tacit and necessarily incomplete and dependent on the explicit.

Compare reading a book on how to play the piano compared to learning how to play the piano.
Compare looking at a map of an island to the island itself

Those sound like Greek philosophical ideas ('summum bonum' seems to derive from the Platonism's highest 'form of the Good') that were gradually identified with the older and highly personalized Hebrew idea of Yahweh, as Judeo-Christian philosophical theology emerged in the early Christian centuries. (Philo, Clement, Origen and their many successors.)

That's probably a good example of what I just called 'narrative properties'. We supposedly know that whatever supernatural being the word 'God' is supposed to refer to possesses all these 'omni-' properties... because people have long said that he does, and those descriptions have entered into and became a fundamental part of Christian (and subsequently Islamic) tradition.

its a quality of education to have such narrative qualities.

Just compare what you know about science and what you have actually carried out in a lab setting.

All that aside, the standard definition of god is necessarily explicit



One question is how human beings could possibly have learned about the the kind of supernatural properties that this "standard definition of God" bestows on its 'God' character. [/QUOTE]
Much in the same way that you found out who your parents are, or who the president is or any other person/institution that dramatically contextualizes your existence

Another question is why people who aren't already believing adherents of a narrative tradition that says such things should accept what the tradition says as being true or accurate about anything that exists beyond the words of the story.

I guess it depends whether they want to actually launch a criticism of the philosophy or simply redefine key words of it for the sake of an easier argument (technically I think they call it a straw man)

 

[lightgigantic]

Isn't it obvious? Different religions worship different gods. Some have one god, some have many. Some don't have gods, as such, but ancestor spirits or animistic spirits. In other words, the various specific truth claims they make are different, and in many cases contradictory. Either there is one god or many. Either god lives on that mountain or god lives in the sky. etc.

So you are saying that there is no way to contextualize these developments from the simple to the more complex ?
That there is no way to think about the question of god that contextualizes all these different approaches?

To claim compatibility, you would have to resort to much more general statements, such as "religions believe there are supernatural entities (one or more)". But concentrating on one or two general common features ignores the vast features that various religions do not have in common.

In short, animism involves understanding that there is something greater than one's self, polytheism involves attributing narratives to such greater entities and monotheism involves detailing the philosophical positions of such a position.

Fit all this into differing cultures and their attendant needs interests and concerns and you have a variety of responses to the question of god

Scientific ideas of authority are somewhat different from religious ones. To explore that particular issue properly would require much more time and effort than I have available. The question is an important one in the philosophy of science, so at this point I can only urge you to read an introductory text on that topic.

Its not really that different.
Theory always precedes practice ... what to speak of conclusions.

And for the sake of succinct knowledge distribution, one can talk of certain conclusions despite not having done the groundwork for them (even if one happens to be a professional in the field ... since its the nature of specializing that other paths are not open to one).

But there is demonstrably more to the daughter than just the foot. Whereas with God, you seem to be simply assuming that there's more to the universe than what we can see via empiricism.

tacit investigation, by its very nature, demonstrates its limits.
What to speak of god, even the president of america (in a certain sense) defies "standard empiric investigation" (IOW you only get to see him on his terms ... and not, say, on your personal skill an d aptitude in opening a dozen doors and catching 3 elevators (or whatever the schematics of the building he is residing in demands).

IOW the power of tacit investigation starts to diminish when you start talking about things that contextualize the seer on account of its superior qualities.

It sounds like you're saying that God is only knowable through direct personal experience. Is that right?

that is the best, but if you can talk somewhat confidently about exactly who the president is, what his duties are and a host of other things despite never having met him in person, you can understand other channels through which such knowledge is distributed.

As for your point about empiricism, I would say that science is about model-building. There are many things posited by scientific theories that we cannot directly observe, including electrons, quarks and black holes. The question of whether an electron is "real", let alone part of a "larger reality" is somewhat beside the point. Electrons are a useful device for helping us to understand our world.

Once again, that's fine, for as long as one is dealing with tacit ideas.

IOW when one starts trying to borrow from the authority of electrons, quarks and black holes in order to say something about the "larger reality" (such as "god doesn't exist), its then one has a problem.

Now, it could be that you're arguing that God is similarly a useful device to help explain our world, but I don't think that's what you're arguing at all. You seem to be claiming that God is real, but we can't prove it. So, it comes down to a statement that you personally feel like God is real. And that's the most you can say.

I am simply saying that there is a great deal that not only isn't proved by tacit investigation, but can't be proved by tacit investigation ... IOW tacit investigation simply doesn't work on problems of "greater reality"

I still don't understand what these "explicit terms" of your actually are. For example, you use the example of a cup of flour. Is a cup of flour an explicit term? It sounds like you think it is. But I'll get to that in a moment.

a cup of flour is explicit (or more specifically, "flour" is ... since "a cup" is a tacit qualifier).

I am not convinced that we have any experience of a cup of flour, let along of God, that cannot be confirmed by empirical means, at least in principle.

In principle?
I'm guessing you mean "in general" ... which is what tacit terminology is all about ...

It is true that my individual experience of the smell of a rose cannot yet be fully quantified or reproduced, but that is only because we don't yet know enough about how my brain works and how sensory perceptions interact with the psychological experience. I see no reason to conclude that a rose, or a cup of flour, has any mysterious essence that science cannot capture, at least in principle.

On what authority do you say "cannot yet"?
Especially since a cup of flour cannot be "fully investigated", much less "fully reproduced" (much less the apparatus which grants you cognitive awareness of a cup of flour ... which must be an infinite number of times more complex).

When it comes to God, many people claim to have personal experiences of God. Probably you're one of them. But I am not convinced that your categorisation of such experiences as direct perception of the "explicit" is correct. I think that such experiences are essentially explainable in the same way that the smell of the rose is explainable.

Many people make many sorts of claims about many things.
Generally there are frameworks we use to determine the integrity of such claims but that's kind of a separate and quite involved topic ... but needless to say there is no basis for saying variety in such claims automatically translates into "they are all right" or "they are all wrong".

Even an explanation of smelling a rose is limited.

For instance if a person smells a rose and says "that smells nice" and if a computer has a sensor that detects the aroma of a rose which in turn activates a voice response that says "that smells nice", has the same thing occurred, in principle?

Every description or recording of an experience leaves something out.

Much like every metonymic investigation of a subject leaves something out

And that includes memory, by the way. It's partly a matter of the space required to store the information. Thus a written description of a rose is probably not as complete a description as a photograph of a rose, which is not as complete as a video recording, which is not as complete as a smell-o-vision recording, etc. But this is a technological issue, not a fundamental failure of our potential capacity to capture an experience.

I'm not sure you have understood the point.
The explicit offers everything of an object.
The tacit offers something of an object.

So whatever technological manner you may wish to frame the subject of a rose, the rose itself will have superior qualities (on account of it actually being a rose - ie the explicit article) compared to whatever you manage to scrape together empirically.

IOW it exists as the object of your perceptions and has (practically) unlimited qualities

Your piano example is interesting. Obviously, people are taught all the time (or learn otherwise) to play the piano. Again, I am not convinced that knowledge of the "explicitness" of playing the piano is necessary to learn how to play the piano. I'm not convinced there is any more to playing the piano than what is empirically accessible, at least in principle.

Learning how to play the piano is the basis for a book on how to learn to play the piano.

IOW its technically not possible to get more (at least in terms of learning how to play the piano) from reading a book about it as opposed to actually learning it.
IOW the tacit follows the explicit ... simply because the explicit is the actual reservoir of qualities for the "realness" of an object.

Sorry to harp on the same point, but I don't see any way in which associating a red dress with a loved person is in any way inaccessible to empirical investigation.

I was using it as an example of it not being practical to break down our experience of them into parts ... and how our experience of them shape values ( as opposed to being the sum quality of values)

In fact, studies have been done on the way that people tend to regard objects as being "special" because they have an association with a person. For example, many people, when told that a particular jacket was once worn by Adolf Hitler, will refuse to wear it. It's a bit like a superstition.

So if I spat on a jacket that you associate with your beloved on account of them regularly wearing it , you don't think you would in any way be "superstitiously swayed" by that?

There are obvious reasons why the death of a loved child is more significant to a person than the loss of the services of a particular mechanic. I don't think you need to invoke the "explicit" to explain that.

One of which is that there is only "one child" but "numerous mechanics".

IOW in one scenario there is only one active principle giving rise to all other values ("I love my child") but in the other there are numerous (" I need someone to fix my car")

I think that once you reduce a cup to its individual molecules or atoms, you're looking at it on a different level that largely obviates its "cupness". I don't believe there is an "essence of cup of flour" beyond what we see, touch, taste, smell and so on.

The fact that we are finding newer and newer qualities from a cup of flour (or problems with the existing qualities we previously didn't have problems with) clearly indicates that there is some "essence" beyond what we see, touch, taste, smell and so on

But it seems to me that you're referring to an end to the process of possible simplification of the cup of flour. The flour is made of molecules of this and that. The molecules are made of atoms. The atoms are made of electrons and protons and neutrons. The protons are made of quarks. The quarks are... what?

I think you imagine that we can continue this process forever, breaking the quarks into smaller and smaller pieces, and we'll never get to the bottom. Therefore, you conclude, there's an "explicit" substance that reductionism can't find. I have two problems with that. One is that I don't think that matter is a bottomless heirarchy; in fact I suspect we're about one step from the bottom at our current state of knowledge.

This notion has a long, long history .... but that aside, this sounds more like a philosophical assertion than a scientific one (IOW it doesn't draw from the authority of empiricism)

The other problem is that I don't see any evidence for the kind of tacit/explicit discontinuity that you assert exists in all things. I don't believe that a cup of flour is anything more than the sum of its constituent parts, whatever they are. There's simply no reason to believe that there's anything more to it, as far as I can see.

the tacit discontinuity is simply when one asserts something explicit on its authority.
For instance you just made an explicit claim/statement above :

I don't think that matter is a bottomless heirarchy; in fact I suspect we're about one step from the bottom at our current state of knowledge.

If you are making this statement on the authority of empiricism, you have made a mistake since metonyms never give you the whole picture (granted you are of the opinion that science will bust this someday, somehow ... but as things stand at the moment, it hasn't).

Moreover, and this is important, I don't think there's any way for a person such as yourself to have direct access to the "explicit" cup of flour you say exists.

I never said I could ... Infact I even likened it to a dog swimming the length of the pacific ocean without assistance

When it comes to God, I suppose you would say that it is God who puts the "explicitness" into that cup of flour. And it seems that the only access we have to God, according to you, is through this same kind of unprovable direct perception.

Actually there are several different ways of approaching the notion/problem/nature of explicit terms.

For instance you just made an explicit claim above that is certainly unprovable by direct perception (reaching the limit of the micro-cosm etc etc) ... and I guess you didn't require God (at least in a way that you are conscious of) to do it.

So how did you do it?

Actually my point about tacit investigation, the role of metonomy etc has simply been to show how these things really don't play a major role in determining how we frame the essential problem of "reality".

 

[spidergoat]

All these things are already happening, even as we don't live in a theocracy.

You still haven't answered my question.

If you've indeed have training in Buddhist meditation, it shouldn't be a problem for you to go into the details of one's intentions.

I think we have many elements of a theocracy already. I was being as revealing as possible. I don't know what else you want me to say.

 

[Write4U]

It is ridiculous to say that scietific investigation of the physical properties of god never can lead to god. What nonsense is that?
If there is communication between god and people, then it can be quantified. How is the communication performed, what is the connection that connects the person's mind with the cosmic mind.

If we follow the reasoning employed here, one can make the argument that god only existed in the past because everyone "believed" in god from ignorance. There is a clear pattern becoming apparent of people losing their "faith" in or connection with the classical god and that new interpretations of god is becoming apparent in the small new religions springing up and terms used to speak on the subject of god. The question cannot be solved philosophically. If there is a "mechanism" it is only science that can calculate its function and specifically the science of Potential.

I submit that rather inventing new qualities of the nature of god which will never be shared by all, the establishment of a doctrine that equates God with the definition of Potential as "A Latent Excellence which may become Reality".

The language of Potential is the language you seek. It allows consideration of man's relationship in all aspects from infinitely subtle implicate to gross explicate and the connection between everything in the Universe.

I propose a UOP (unit of potential) as the measurement of a single bit of metaphysical information which uses the same function of how god spreads information.

Reinforcing Potentials become reality. Mass prayer works? If not, why pray?

 

[lightgigantic]

It is ridiculous to say that scietific investigation of the physical properties of god never can lead to god. What nonsense is that?

On the contrary, its ridiculous to expect tacit investigation to reveal anything beyond the metonymic ... much like its ridiculous to expect dividing a whole number with value by two to ever arrive at the answer of zero.

If there is communication between god and people, then it can be quantified. How is the communication performed, what is the connection that connects the person's mind with the cosmic mind.

I'm not sure how you would propose to quantify this unless you worked on either a definition of god or a principle of science that has no philosophical or practical precedent.

If we follow the reasoning employed here, one can make the argument that god only existed in the past because everyone "believed" in god from ignorance. There is a clear pattern becoming apparent of people losing their "faith" in or connection with the classical god and that new interpretations of god is becoming apparent in the small new religions springing up and terms used to speak on the subject of god. The question cannot be solved philosophically. If there is a "mechanism" it is only science that can calculate its function and specifically the science of Potential.

I've already gone to great pains to explain how this is not feasible and also how your interpretation of god as some scientific principle of "Potential" is flawed

I submit that rather inventing new qualities of the nature of god which will never be shared by all, the establishment of a doctrine that equates God with the definition of Potential as "A Latent Excellence which may become Reality".

The irony is that you are already inventing "new" qualities of the nature of god.

The language of Potential is the language you seek. It allows consideration of man's relationship in all aspects from infinitely subtle implicate to gross explicate and the connection between everything in the Universe.

already explained how using metonymic investigation doesn't actually allow for such an investigation

I propose a UOP (unit of potential) as the measurement of a single bit of metaphysical information which uses the same function of how god spreads information.

Reinforcing Potentials become reality. Mass prayer works? If not, why pray?

Sounds bogus.
:shrug:

 

[Write4U]

Again semantics.

Obviously you still haven't given attention to Bohm's propositions.

Referring to quantum theory, Bohm's basic assumption is that "elementary particles are actually systems of extremely complicated internal structure, acting essentially as amplifiers of *information* contained in a quantum wave." As a conseqence, he has evolved a new and controversial theory of the universe--a new model of reality that Bohm calls the "Implicate Order."

http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html

 

[lightgigantic]

Again semantics.

Obviously you still haven't given attention to Bohm's propositions.



http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html

If you thing metonomy, explicit/tacit, etc are mere functions of semantics, you haven't been paying attention

 

[Write4U]

If you thing metonomy, explicit/tacit, etc are mere functions of semantics, you haven't been paying attention

Using your debating strategy I could call your and everyone else's attention to the incorrect spelling of the word "think". I find that a useless pastime. State you position, don't try to nitpick mine to death. It will advance your position one bit.
BTW. what is your position on the OP again?

 

[wynn]

I was being as revealing as possible. I don't know what else you want me to say.

I've already given you examples earlier:

You're still not being open about this. The question wasn't requesting a PC answer.

Some possible replies:

"I don't want theists to be in ruling positions, because this would challenge me beyond my comfort zone, and I will do everything in my power to prevent that."
"I am terrified of life in this Universe, and I dread everything that in any way reminds me of these terrors. So I want to do away with those things that remind me of these terrors."

*

Again semantics.

Apples or oranges - nevermind, it's all just semantics.

 

[wynn]

All that aside, the standard definition of god is necessarily explicit

Could you explain this?

How is the standard definition of "God" necessarily explicit?

 

[wynn]

One question is how human beings could possibly have learned about the the kind of supernatural properties that this "standard definition of God" bestows on its 'God' character.

Much in the same way that you found out who your parents are, or who the president is or any other person/institution that dramatically contextualizes your existence

That may have worked in the past as it still works in monocultures for people born and raised in them, but in a secular society, it doesn't work that way anymore.

When there is a vital and socially widely recognized connection between religion and daily life (notably work and family), such as in a country with a state religion, the process as you describe above can surely apply.

But in secular societies, religion has lost it's official legitimacy, its official credibility, and has become a kind of subculture or counterculture.

For an adult who was born and raised outside of a subculture or counterculture, it tends to be practically and metaphysically difficult to enter it. Ie. it probably requires a leap of faith.


Basically, I think you are proposing that people should do something that cannot be done deliberately.

What to speak of god, even the president of america (in a certain sense) defies "standard empiric investigation" (IOW you only get to see him on his terms ... and not, say, on your personal skill an d aptitude in opening a dozen doors and catching 3 elevators (or whatever the schematics of the building he is residing in demands).

IOW the power of tacit investigation starts to diminish when you start talking about things that contextualize the seer on account of its superior qualities.

Two of the problems with the analogy of how difficult it is to meet the president is that
1. absolute power is given to the lowest guard in the hierarchy,
2. absolute trust is required that the people in the hierarchy leading up the to the President or God are doing their job properly.

The lowest guard in the White House can make it impossible for a person to enter the White House. Even if one has an appointment, even if the President wants to see one: if the lowest guard refuses to let one in, one won't get it, and that's it.


Your president analogy is a negative and a restrictive one: according to it, the guru, the disciplic succession and the sangha appear to be compulsory intermediaries between oneself and God, obstacles and hurdles that one has to climb over; and if one fails to master these hurdles, one will never get to God.

Rather than presenting the guru, the disciplic succession and the sangha as guides, teachers and supporters on the path of realizing proper God consciousness.

 

[James R]

lightgigantic:

If you are saying that there is no good reason to say god exists based on the mechanisms of tacit investigation, it is my point that there is no good reason to think that tacit investigation is capable in the first place.

How does one do an "explicit investigation" of God (or anything else, for that matter)?

It looks to me that, once we drop "tacit investigation", by which you mean empiricism, all that can be left is what is more commonly called faith. Faith is just belief in the absence of evidence.

Is it your argument that we should just have faith that God exists, and not hope for any actual evidence? If so, why should we have faith?

I'm not sure. For my own part, I'm not convinced that any explicit terms exist.

You don't require that conviction to comprehend what tacit investigation is and isn't capable of

Right. i understand that your claim is that tacit investigation can never connect with "explicit terms". But if there are no explicit terms, I can't see a problem with that.

That would be true if explicit terms actually exist. But as far as I can tell, there's no reason to think they do.

once again, if you base such reasoning on the endeavors of tacit investigation, its simply circular

I base it on the fact that you have given me no reason, based on tacit investigation or anything else to believe that explicit terms exist. Maybe you have a reason that I should believe in such things, but I don't think you've expressed any such reason so far in this discussion.

Isn't it obvious? Different religions worship different gods. Some have one god, some have many. Some don't have gods, as such, but ancestor spirits or animistic spirits. In other words, the various specific truth claims they make are different, and in many cases contradictory. Either there is one god or many. Either god lives on that mountain or god lives in the sky. etc.

So you are saying that there is no way to contextualize these developments from the simple to the more complex ?
That there is no way to think about the question of god that contextualizes all these different approaches?

Not at all. For example, the conclusion that man invented the idea of God to explain the unknown, to give comfort that death is not the end, etc. etc. can contextualise all these different approaches.

In short, animism involves understanding that there is something greater than one's self, polytheism involves attributing narratives to such greater entities and monotheism involves detailing the philosophical positions of such a position.

Yes. The progression probably came about from a gradually realisation of the deficiencies in each of the less sophisticated approaches to God.

Fit all this into differing cultures and their attendant needs interests and concerns and you have a variety of responses to the matter of the supernatural. (Damn those philosophers for making life hard!)

Its not really that different.
Theory always precedes practice ... what to speak of conclusions.

In science, theory and practice often leapfrog one another. At one point, theory leads. At another, new findings of fact lead. Similarly, I think that in religion practice has often preceded a coherent philosophical picture.

What to speak of god, even the president of america (in a certain sense) defies "standard empiric investigation" (IOW you only get to see him on his terms ... and not, say, on your personal skill an d aptitude in opening a dozen doors and catching 3 elevators (or whatever the schematics of the building he is residing in demands).

IOW the power of tacit investigation starts to diminish when you start talking about things that contextualize the seer on account of its superior qualities.

There's enough empirical evidence that the President exists to dispel any reasonable doubt. The same cannot be said of God.

I have no idea what contextualising the seer means. Who or what is the seer?

It sounds like you're saying that God is only knowable through direct personal experience. Is that right?

that is the best, but if you can talk somewhat confidently about exactly who the president is, what his duties are and a host of other things despite never having met him in person, you can understand other channels through which such knowledge is distributed.

Personal experience is problematic, though. The mind can play tricks. As for these "other channels", you're talking about anecdotal evidence, are you? Do you think that anecdotal evidence is good evidence for God?

IOW when one starts trying to borrow from the authority of electrons, quarks and black holes in order to say something about the "larger reality" (such as "god doesn't exist), its then one has a problem.

As I said, I'm not convinced there is a "larger reality".

a cup of flour is explicit (or more specifically, "flour" is ... since "a cup" is a tacit qualifier).

What is there to the flour other than what is empirically accessible?

It is true that my individual experience of the smell of a rose cannot yet be fully quantified or reproduced, but that is only because we don't yet know enough about how my brain works and how sensory perceptions interact with the psychological experience. I see no reason to conclude that a rose, or a cup of flour, has any mysterious essence that science cannot capture, at least in principle.

On what authority do you say "cannot yet"?
Especially since a cup of flour cannot be "fully investigated", much less "fully reproduced" (much less the apparatus which grants you cognitive awareness of a cup of flour ... which must be an infinite number of times more complex).

I say "cannot yet" on the basis that science has a long and successful history of solving problems involving the investigation of the nature of reality.

Be very careful of the word "infinite", too. Few, if any, things in nature are infinitely complex.

Even an explanation of smelling a rose is limited.

For instance if a person smells a rose and says "that smells nice" and if a computer has a sensor that detects the aroma of a rose which in turn activates a voice response that says "that smells nice", has the same thing occurred, in principle?

That's an interesting question. The philosopher John Searle made an interesting comment on the question a long time ago (search for "Seale's Chinese Room"). I should say that I don't think I agree with his position.

I'm not sure you have understood the point.
The explicit offers everything of an object.
The tacit offers something of an object.

As far as I can see, there's no way to access the explicit, if it exists at all.

So whatever technological manner you may wish to frame the subject of a rose, the rose itself will have superior qualities (on account of it actually being a rose - ie the explicit article) compared to whatever you manage to scrape together empirically.

But there's no way to ever know the rose in all its explicitness, is there? The only access we have to the rose is through our senses, which are empirical.

So if I spat on a jacket that you associate with your beloved on account of them regularly wearing it , you don't think you would in any way be "superstitiously swayed" by that?

Not superstitiously, no. I might well feel that you insulted me or my loved one. Not because the jacket has some mystical inner quality, but because your action shows disrespect to me and/or my loved one.

There are obvious reasons why the death of a loved child is more significant to a person than the loss of the services of a particular mechanic. I don't think you need to invoke the "explicit" to explain that.

One of which is that there is only "one child" but "numerous mechanics".

IOW in one scenario there is only one active principle giving rise to all other values ("I love my child") but in the other there are numerous (" I need someone to fix my car")

Well, yes. Obviously a random "someone" is less specific and likely less significant to me than "my child".

IThe fact that we are finding newer and newer qualities from a cup of flour (or problems with the existing qualities we previously didn't have problems with) clearly indicates that there is some "essence" beyond what we see, touch, taste, smell and so on

The atoms of the cup, for example, are beyond our immediate experience of touch, taste and so on. But they are still empirically accessible. There's no reason to think that there's anything in that cup that isn't empirically accessible, or at least won't be so at some time in the future.

This notion has a long, long history .... but that aside, this sounds more like a philosophical assertion than a scientific one (IOW it doesn't draw from the authority of empiricism)

No. It's an educated guess, or a hypothesis based on my understanding of what science already knows. I'm making a scientific guess, not a philosophical one in saying that we're probably one step away from understanding what the base level of matter is. I could be wrong, of course.

the tacit discontinuity is simply when one asserts something explicit on its authority.
For instance you just made an explicit claim/statement above :

I don't think that matter is a bottomless heirarchy; in fact I suspect we're about one step from the bottom at our current state of knowledge.

If you are making this statement on the authority of empiricism, you have made a mistake since metonyms never give you the whole picture (granted you are of the opinion that science will bust this someday, somehow ... but as things stand at the moment, it hasn't).

I didn't make the statement on the authority of anything. It's an educated guess, or hypothesis. Scientists do that all the time.

Moreover, and this is important, I don't think there's any way for a person such as yourself to have direct access to the "explicit" cup of flour you say exists.

I never said I could ...

Then how do you know it exists?

Actually there are several different ways of approaching the notion/problem/nature of explicit terms.

For instance you just made an explicit claim above that is certainly unprovable by direct perception (reaching the limit of the micro-cosm etc etc) ... and I guess you didn't require God (at least in a way that you are conscious of) to do it.

So how did you do it?

I don't think I made a claim about anything "explicit", in your terms. I made a guess at what further "tacit" investigation might reveal.

Actually my point about tacit investigation, the role of metonomy etc has simply been to show how these things really don't play a major role in determining how we frame the essential problem of "reality".

You've still given me no reason to think I should frame the essential problem of reality as anything other than a matter for detailed empirical investigation.

 

[wynn]

Is it your argument that we should just have faith that God exists, and not hope for any actual evidence?

And by "God exists," you think of things like "a rock exists" or "an electron exists"?

If so, why should we have faith?

This is actually a question that you should ask yourself, and provide an answer for yourself.
Nobody can do that for you. Others may give you their reasons, or give suggestions, but in the end, it is up to you.

Right. i understand that your claim is that tacit investigation can never connect with "explicit terms". But if there are no explicit terms, I can't see a problem with that.

I base it on the fact that you have given me no reason, based on tacit investigation or anything else to believe that explicit terms exist. Maybe you have a reason that I should believe in such things, but I don't think you've expressed any such reason so far in this discussion.

Unless you are a devoted solipsist, you already believe that explicit terms exist.

Not at all. For example, the conclusion that man invented the idea of God to explain the unknown, to give comfort that death is not the end, etc. etc. can contextualise all these different approaches.

Sure. See how long you can live with that outlook, and under what circumstances.

There's enough empirical evidence that the President exists to dispel any reasonable doubt. The same cannot be said of God.

This is only partly true. If you'd grow up in a strict theistic monoculture, you'd probably have no doubts as to whether God exists or not; you'd per default believe He does. As many people have and do.

I have no idea what contextualising the seer means. Who or what is the seer?

You.

You are contextualized by the workings of your mind and body, by the society you live in, and these are further contextualized by the environment, the Universe, which are eventually contextualized by God.

Personal experience is problematic, though. The mind can play tricks. As for these "other channels", you're talking about anecdotal evidence, are you? Do you think that anecdotal evidence is good evidence for God?

At the end of the day, though, personal experience is precisely what one is left with.
That is, one has to decide for oneself what one will reflect on, what one will stand for. Nobody else can do that for one.

People sometimes resort to empiricism and science in an effort to avoid this personal responsibility.

What is there to the flour other than what is empirically accessible?

Do you have any other senses than the ones of standard empiricism?

Moreover, and this is important, I don't think there's any way for a person such as yourself to have direct access to the "explicit" cup of flour you say exists.

I never said I could ...

Then how do you know it exists?

In part, this is logical conjecture, otherwise we're up to our nose in solipsism.

We have to posit that explicit terms exist, otherwise we end up in solipsism. And solipsism is the refuge of madmen.

You've still given me no reason to think I should frame the essential problem of reality as anything other than a matter for detailed empirical investigation.

From another perspective, the essential problem of reality can be framed as a matter of a detailed investigation of one's own intentions.

And while detailed empirical investigation is limited to the relatively few who are capable of it and who can afford it, investigating one's own intentions is far more accessible.