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Arrayed against Classical theism in all its forms . . . atheism has the logical edge because it assumes less nonsense. But against panentheism it is more than a little deficient because it cannot account for the locus of Consciousness, Will and Creative Ideation within their objective materialism..
Mary says "I saw a flying rabbit".
John the atheist: "I didn't see it".
Mary: "How can you not believe in it?"
John: "um..."
Mary: "Something ate the leaves off the top of that tree".
John: "uh, ok"
Mary: "I'm sure it was the flying rabbit"
John: "ok well, I really have nothing to say, I didn't see it".
Mary: "you're going to hell"
John "okay, is hell where the dumb rabbits go when they're bad?"
Mary: "yeah and you'll be sorry"
John: "okay. what was that you smoked?"
Arrayed against Classical theism in all its forms . . . atheism has the logical edge because it assumes less nonsense. But against panentheism it is more than a little deficient because it cannot account for the locus of Consciousness, Will and Creative Ideation within their objective materialism..
I may have something to say about Consciousness in a day or two - I'm discussing it off - forum. However, I concede that Pantheism in the sense that nature = God has always had something going for it, because of this problem of how it all got started.
In that respect, the only reservation is the same as I have about the hard question - those who say they have the answer are claiming far too much and those who say that those who do not claim to have the answer (only some vague suggestions) are somehow 'deficient'. If fact it is those who claim that 'God' is the answer who are deficient - in applying the rules of logic.
One might ask 'where did 'Will' come from? If one says it was always there, then one might say that basic potential of matter - creation was always there, too. The fact is that every argument levelled at materialism can be levelled at the theist explanations, too.
Arrayed against Classical theism in all its forms . . . atheism has the logical edge because it assumes less nonsense. But against panentheism it is more than a little deficient because it cannot account for the locus of Consciousness, Will and Creative Ideation within their objective materialism..
I notice you continue to jump from "we don't know yet" to "any natural theory is totally and completely impossible". Any reason to believe you here?
Also, how specifically does pantheism solve the hard problem of consciousness? Please be specific - include the mechanism are you proposing and the concrete results from testing this idea. Publications to peer-reviewed research would be ideal here.
Arrayed against Classical theism in all its forms . . . atheism has the logical edge because it assumes less nonsense. But against panentheism it is more than a little deficient because it cannot account for the locus of Consciousness, Will and Creative Ideation within their objective materialism..
I was actually wondering if you could clarify your panentheism and how it differs from straight up pantheism? Many times you appear to be making the argument that nature=God, which would appear to be a pantheist stance. What does panentheism bring to the table that pantheism does not?
Also, since panentheism appears to me to be a synthesis of classical theism and panthesim, it should be more similar to classical theism than pantheism. Why is your panentheism so much different than classical theism, and why do you not take the next step to pantheism?
Also, how specifically does pantheism solve the hard problem of consciousness? Please be specific - include the mechanism are you proposing and the concrete results from testing this idea. Publications to peer-reviewed research would be ideal here.
I just gotta jump in here. Any ontology that takes mental properties to be fundamental does not have "the hard problem" of explaining how mental/subjective properties emerge from, or are fully reducible to, physical/objective properties. Such ontologies, however, do have a variation of their own "hard problem" - namely, explaining how/why the physical/objective properties emerge from mind, or exactly how they relate to, the fundamental mental properties. For idealists, the physical world is modeled after objects in a dream. In other words, the physical world is just what the dreaming mind (of God) dreams up. Technically, for the idealist (as well as for variations of pantheism, etc.), there is no strict requirement to explain why the physical world appears to have exactly the sorts of properties that it has. You can always say: "That's just the nature of mind" or "You can't really question the mind of God," etc.
All of this could be true, but personally I just don't think this is a good way to approach questions about the natural world. As you keep pointing out, the scientific method has been working amazingly well. It seems simply "too easy" to bail out when the going gets tough and simply say "It's just the way God's mind works." Intellectual progress stops at that point. One approach is to say that the mind of God is accessible - nature just is the mind of God - so when we study the laws of nature scientifically, we basically just are studying the workings of God’s mind. In this way, scientific progress can continue just as it always has without any interference from the metaphysics.
And speaking of metaphysics: There are many forms of metaphysics that are equally compatible with the scientific method and with the successful theories of science. From a scientific point of view, it really doesn't matter whether you think that the natural world is completely meaningless, or whether it is "the mind of God." Science can progress exactly the same either way (which is why is does not matter than many of our greatest scientists have been "religious" to some extent). Thus you won't find peer reviewed articles in science journals trying to support one sort of metaphysics over another. The metaphysics of "nature is meaningless" vs. "nature is the mind of God" are scientifically indistinguishable (at least for now), so a rational mind is equally welcome to choose either version of metaphysics. This is why I say it is really just a matter of intuition and/or faith. Or, to put it another way, it is not really any "less scientific" to believe in pantheism than it is to believe that nature is fundamentally objective and/or meaningless.
Personally, I'm an odd combo platter. You might say I'm an "existentialist pantheist." I think the primordial essence of reality is a "qualitative chaos." There is no intrinsic "meaning" (thus the ultimate "Absurdity" assumed by existentialism), but given the principles of chaos, and the fundamentally qualitative nature of the "ground state of being," organized qualitative mental properties (and therefore "meaning") can spontaneously emerge. Nature can be a sort of "cosmic mind" even if the logically primordial state is not "intelligent" per se because the primordial ground state of the "cosmic mind" is something like a state of "dreamless sleep" (i.e., a chaotic system capable of spontaneous organization, but not necessarily organized, in principle).
I was actually wondering if you could clarify your panentheism and how it differs from straight up pantheism? Many times you appear to be making the argument that nature=God, which would appear to be a pantheist stance. What does panentheism bring to the table that pantheism does not?
Also, since panentheism appears to me to be a synthesis of classical theism and panthesim, it should be more similar to classical theism than pantheism. Why is your panentheism so much different than classical theism, and why do you not take the next step to pantheism?
-NoCapo
PanENtheism especially in the more recent incarnations varies widely in concept by adopting some Idealism (as Gaylen notes) but with significant differences, too. The closest of the published works to my view would be:Griffin, David Ray, 2004, “Panentheism: A Postmodern Revelationâ€, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, P. Clayton and A. Peacocke (eds.), Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, pp. 36–47.
Essentially, in my view God IS our reality (His Body and Brain) but God's Consciousness is like our own consciousness in a sense "outside" of His "body/brain" (our reality). God's consciousness is the ultimate repository (Universal Field) for ours and is responsible for our "experiencing" of reality. Our physical reality is governed by the requirements of God's "body/brain" processes (your Natural laws, etc) and have nothing to do with God's Will. (Just as our body/brain processes have little to do with our Will . . . though we can respond in limited ways to pain signals, disease, etc.) Only our experiencing of our reality in our consciousness can be directly influenced by God's Will.
Ok so I will comment quickly on the go re whats being talked about. So I can't edit...I think study is fairly comfortable with degree's of consciousness in animals. Theres a parrot which is particularly good with vocab, and a lady expert who has done an astounding job with her friend parrot. Dolphins, and the list goes on including a border collie I saw on line not only understanding words and commands but adjectives and pronouns. The whole area of communication and animals I find very fascinating including a few hobby projects of my own when time and setting allows, including insects.
Its fairly obvious if a person is playing tennis or very engaged in something like washing the car that space for complex thinking is dramatically limited. This reflective space and variations provides the system of consciousness the variations in notice.
If an animal is at rest, it cannot delve into the depth and reach considering lengthly or complex idea's. IOW...more of a moment to moment availability in contrast to the human who is able to accomplish much more.
An animal or a human will understand its needs through pain for food. Because propagation is what it is, there is also need for acceptance amongst the group which is then unsurprisingly connected to survival to the species itself due to outside threat.
These survival issues in man can be reflected on in a greater complex way, due to larger reach away from thought in immediacy as explained in tennis analogy.
So what happens in man is all kinds of extensions to the cheif surviving realities , in acceptance and individual need. Because there is greater deliberation through the evolving value, man naturally loose's some of his automatic instinctive behaviors. Its interesting that man still has many instinctive features.
So the will...is found in the outcome reflected in conscious awareness and gathered in the unconscious mind for categorization and very importantly organization. A good mind will organize on its own, all data roughly to a point in order of importance in these surviving realities.
One of the great achievements in chemistry, was accomplished in this manner. I forget which one it was, it was some kind of mapping or something and a major breakthrough.
He was heard to say in tackling with the team, agreeing to the monster issue, he woke in the middle of the night with the whole thing layed out perfectly to him. A head of Dept Chemist told me this and marvels at the story.
So the will, is perfectly explainable and would hope that we can still put criminals in jail for finding a need in their will and power, for what continues to be unthinkable crime.
A mental case believes there is a real need, meaning which is required for whatever crime. A meaning which is not, without explanation most of the time apart from the severe chemistry issues and psychotic disorders.
Of course the prisons are full with notions out of direct influences and voice's telling them g.od told them to. No leaf falls to the ground without a reason and crowbar hotel continues along never in need for business...oh well.
It seems simply "too easy" to bail out when the going gets tough and simply say "It's just the way God's mind works." Intellectual progress stops at that point.
Yep, agree. The post I was responding to implied that pan[en]theism provided explanations that were lacking in other approaches. I disagree - claiming something is fundamental in this manner is a good way to stop questions but it doesn't provide any more answers than "I don't know" or "goddidit".
I tend to ask questions like these in repose to those posts not because I'll get an answer, but because the silence tells us a lot.
PanENtheism especially in the more recent incarnations varies widely in concept by adopting some Idealism (as Gaylen notes) but with significant differences, too. The closest of the published works to my view would be:Griffin, David Ray, 2004, “Panentheism: A Postmodern Revelation”, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, P. Clayton and A. Peacocke (eds.), Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, pp. 36–47.
Essentially, in my view God IS our reality (His Body and Brain) but God's Consciousness is like our own consciousness in a sense "outside" of His "body/brain" (our reality). God's consciousness is the ultimate repository (Universal Field) for ours and is responsible for our "experiencing" of reality. Our physical reality is governed by the requirements of God's "body/brain" processes (your Natural laws, etc) and have nothing to do with God's Will. (Just as our body/brain processes have little to do with our Will . . . though we can respond in limited ways to pain signals, disease, etc.) Only our experiencing of our reality in our consciousness can be directly influenced by God's Will.
This is coherent and well explained in view of the amount of information jammed into a very short space. This is a new idea and I'm only learning its essence in above.
Heres what Ive got and there seems to be a problem, ( as understood, thats a given
What this belief understands is exactly a suggestion that:
a) god(creation itself) is sitting in a chair in the cosmos , in body and mind as the universe and meditating
b) his meditation opens a doorway in the field, which is shared by us, in our consciousness as participating cells in the body of god.
c) so through consciousness the cells (man) can interact with the mind of the body(god) they are connected to.
d)if the cells ignore the richness in the qualitative feild open to them, they loose the growing advantage in the head of the body or god.
e) the belief has god meditating and man as cells in the body, open for replenishment very similar to an individual meditating and encouraging the body for repair, in solace. If the cells don't recognize the head....they die off although still important in the composition of the meditating god, but none the less useless and of no value just like the human body in replacing cells continuously.
In summary what we may have is a possible problem.
the problem is that the god system which is being suggested is exactly that, a system which affords the subjectivity of this god character...
...the exact same mystery's and questions we have, so it pass's the buck without any real anything to allow a discernible contrast between god and man, even if imagined, (either in mystery or found construction) because it firms up science in all known and there are no difference's between god and man....and man and the cells in his body roughly speaking. Man inside man.
( from what I understand, and don't really care in a polite way, other then getting the idea.
Last edited by stargazzer; 05-31-2013 at 03:46 PM..
Reason: changed a few adjectives coming back later
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