An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative (Buddhism, Buddha, America)

[Arach Angle]

Originally Posted by Matadora

Several of the responses in this thread remind me of what theists do in trying to make their religion fit the science. Creationism comes to mind.

Now with the advancements in our knowledge of the Universe we see all sorts of theists trying to make these discoveries fit into their religious beliefs. We get the Deepak Chopra's and his followers, I've also seen some odd mystical group that Tazz was quoting and trying to claim their views were science and then we get those who just make up whatever they want to help them reconcile/rationalize their theist beliefs.

It would be nice if theists would leave science alone and stop distorting it to reconcile their beliefs.

altered brain state of lucid dreaming, meditation to "feel the force" flow through you, and animals having a super double secrete insight and harmony is way, so much way, better. yeah, those pesky theist are way worse. then we have a denomination of atheist that openly shun, deny, and change science, via 'semantics" to make their statement of belief more real. When the science clearly proves "deny everything" as silliness.

lmao, and they pretend "theists" own deceitful. You openly claim "not fit for public consumption" and then change it.

The simple "brute fact" as grey calls it, is that its the universe doing "you". so, could you cut and paste some counter arguments of that claim for me?

[Tzaphkiel]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

.... interpretation of "the universe is logical," but I think it is also consistent with the second sentence offered by Tza in the quote above: "It is also qualitative." I don't think that qualitative "emerges from" quantitative. If anything, it is the other way around. Consciousness always already contains, within its fundamental essential nature, the capacity to self-reflect, which is a type of self-referential process. Consciousness is the aspects of "Quality" that fundamentally always can, at any moment, become self-referential. And it is this self-reflective capacity that ultimately reveals quantity in the form of "the given-ness" of structure. In other words, Quality experiences itself as Quantity when it turns itself into "Other" ("objectification" - seeing itself as an "object") .....

I agree that the qualitative does NOT emerge from quantitative.

but rather that quantitative emerges from qualitative.
qualitative precedes quantitative
qualitative "gives rise to" quantitative
"back of" the quantitative is the qualitative

if the foundation or root then is qualitative,
then the basic stuff that makes up all the Universe is qualitative

if the basic stuff of all matter phases in and out of various forms (solid, liquid, gas, wave form, physical, non physical) then the foundation of that process is qualitative


also known as
thought precedes matter
thought gives rise to matter

actually the equation is thought + feeling + yearning -----> gives rise to matter
as you state here qualitative gives rise to quantitative

[Tzaphkiel]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

I can't speak for Tza on this, but I would like to offer a few thoughts about the role of logic in the universe. Intuitively, I've never believed in determinism so, for me, when I agree that "the universe is logical" I have in mind an interpretation that does not imply perfect predictability, or even rough predictability over significant lengths of time. A variation on this idea is that I also don't believe that the universe is fully "knowable". This relates, at the very least, to my discussion of "brute facts" as well as my "Existentialist" sympathies (concerning the ultimate absurdity of Being).

So, given all of this, then in what sense do I agree that the universe is "logical"? What I have in mind is simply that, although not perfectly predictable or completely knowable, the universe is, nonetheless, essentially "rule-governed" in such a way that math, science, and philosophy are, overall, not a total waste of time. Some scientific theories are better than others because, fundamentally, the universe is essentially a type of self-organizing chaos, in the mathematical sense (patterned and rule-governed), rather than a "mere chaos" in the everyday sense of "a totally random mess."

Part of this underlying "logic" of the universe is that logical contradictions cannot actually (or even potentially actually) - exist. Furthermore, I believe that the nature of consciousness is somehow "in sync" with the underlying logic of reality such that cognitive processes can, in principle, reveal much (and maybe even all?) of the fundamental structures of reality. Again, just a reminder, comprehending abstract "structures" does not necessarily translate into an ability to make detailed predictions of concrete events, and I believe that some structures themselves have to be taken as "brute facts" - logical givens that cannot be explained in any deeper sense.

When all is said and done, what I'm describing requires a great deal of "faith" in a certain broad sense of the term. Faith in logic. Faith in the nature of consciousness such that consciousness can comprehend logic. Faith in myself and faith in my own rationality. Faith that Reality is not just a totally random mess, but rather, a rule-governed affair (even if some of the rules sometimes say "roll dice at this point in the game").

I agree that the universe is not fully knowable.
Learning never ends. It goes on forever. There is always more to learn.

I agree that the universe has pattern and design and is "rule governed"
and that it is NOT random and chaotic.

I agree that the universe is not random. Nothing is random in the universe. It is a rule governed affair. That is why i sometimes use the phrase "laws of the universe"

In response to Matadora's question what do I mean when I say that the universe is logical, what I mean is that it is not random and chaotic, but rather is governed by laws of the universe. Nothing is random. There is order and structure and logic and rules in place.

a "given" in our plane of human existence is free will. Free will is one of the "rules" that govern our corner of the universe. The choices we make strongly influence and determine outcomes. Our choices (how we choose to think, speak, and act) impact, affect, shape, change outcomes. Following the rules that govern the universe.

[Tzaphkiel]

getting back to something Gaylen referenced earlier.....
if there are "thoughts" then there must be a "thinker."
there can not be "thoughts" without a thinker that is thinking them.

do people agree or not, question open to anyone.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

And your claim of "can't ever be known" is blind faith.

Technically, what I said was "I don't believe that the universe is fully knowable." This is different that saying "I believe that the universe can't ever be fully known." This is reminiscent of some atheists who say "I don't believe in God" and then get interpreted as saying "I believe there is no God." In general, "Not believing X" is not the same as "Believing that not-X" - even though a lot of people don't bother to make the distinction between negative and positive assertions.

In any case, I stand by my actual statement ("I don't believe that the universe if fully knowable"), and I lean kinda strongly toward believing the second statement ("I believe that the universe is not fully knowable"), but, I'm not so sure about that second statement. A lot depends on what we mean by "knowable" - and trying to get clarity on that can lead to a very complicated discussion. In fact, it constitutes an entire branch of philosophy, namely, epistemology.

For me, at the moment, the key is this: I believe that there are brute facts - aka, fundamental truths of reality that just are what they are. I sense some really vicious problems with infinite regression if we try to reject the existence of brute facts. But does accepting the brute-ness of brute facts constitute "not knowing" something? Some people would say "no" but I say, yeah, it kinda does. I see brute facts as fundamental mysteries. Not in the sense of some "hidden" knowledge, but in the sense of, simply, nothing deeper there to know. It's just bedrock reality; there nothing "deeper" to dig into. But, to me, that feels like an awesome, fundamental sort of mystery along the lines of "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

But, given that we accept that there are certain brute facts, then, given some particular X, the perennial epistemological question is "How do we know for certain that X is a brute fact?" This is tricky. I think it counts as eternal job security for philosophers, and probably for scientists too. In any case, I think Gödel's theorem has to be taken into account here. Basically we can use logic itself to prove that logic is necessarily incomplete. (Well, technically, it is either incomplete, or it is inconsistent. But if it is inconsistent, then we are royally screwed from the get-go so, as I said earlier, I have faith in logic, which basically means that I have faith in the consistency of logic, which means that I have faith in the incompleteness of logic, which means I believe there are certain brute facts that can be known, even though they cannot, even in principle, be proven by logic - i.e., there are facts that we just have to accept in order to maintain some semblance of rationality. And, at the root of it all, as I said, is the logically paradoxical nature of self-reference.

So my faith in logic logically requires me to not believe that the universe is fully knowable by rational means, and to suspect that it is not fully knowable by any means - although that second idea is just a suspicion. I don't really know.

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

no, you are claiming I am missing information. A flat out false claim.

Until you can prove me wrong your response holds no merit.

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

Yeah, I get you need cutting and pasting, but at least understand what you are cutting pasting please.

No I don’t think you get why people link articles, peer reviewed science papers, credible website. It seems to go right over your head as to why people link information in a public forum even though I have gone over this with you. You still can’t get it!

This is about what would I expect from a poster who proclaims that they’ve never read a published scientific paper.

The link was for you to understand how illogical your claim was in stating that the Universe is logical and predictable.

You clearly dodged and evaded answering my questions and instead came back with your typical intentions to lay down subtle little insults and name calling but offering no real discussion.

• If the Universe is so predictable then how did the Universe begin and how will it end?
• If one can't accurately define both the positions and the velocities of particles at one time, how can one predict what they will be in the future?
• Show me where we have figured out how the Universe works?

It takes knowing the mechanisms of how the Universe came into existence and what it’s ultimate fate is before we can make any claims to how the Universe works. You need to work on filling in those gaping holes of knowledge that you’re missing.

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

The universe is doing you.

You’re going to have to up your communication style because tossing out nonsensical statement about the Universe “doing me” is not going to cut it in intellectual discussions.

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

It is quantum computing right now. That's a fact

People who make these types of claims as facts need to back it up with evidence or this is nothing more than you opinion in using science to try and reconcile your beliefs. It’s no different then someone claiming immaculate conception as fact.

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

The universe is logical, it certainly is past our understanding "of logic".

Explain how the Universe is logical as you have yet to do this.

How would one go about deciding which logic to use in a given situation? Is there one true Universal Logic that can decide?

We can't step outside the Universe and check it, we can only keep testing hypotheses. Must a particular choice about which logic system being utilized be sensitive to empirical and pragmatic considerations?

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

so you just are making naked, and false, assertions in name of your "anti-all-religion but your own".

I notice once again you are making naked, and false, assertions based on your layman imagination.

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

altered brain state of lucid dreaming, meditation to "feel the force" flow through you, and animals having a super double secrete insight and harmony is way, so much way, better.

Explain to us what Lucid Dreaming is? Then discuss the science behind it's discovery.

Explain to us how meditation affects our minds and our brains grey matter? Then discuss the science behind these discoveries.

Explain what you mean by “animals having a super double secrete insight and harmony”. This appears to be your new ascription but it makes zero sense as you have clearly twisted it to satisfy some odd belief you have conjured up in your mind.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

Technically, what I said was "I don't believe that the universe is fully knowable." This is different that saying "I believe that the universe can't ever be fully known." This is reminiscent of some atheists who say "I don't believe in God" and then get interpreted as saying "I believe there is no God." In general, "Not believing X" is not the same as "Believing that not-X" - even though a lot of people don't bother to make the distinction between negative and positive assertions.

In any case, I stand by my actual statement ("I don't believe that the universe if fully knowable"), and I lean kinda strongly toward believing the second statement ("I believe that the universe is not fully knowable"), but, I'm not so sure about that second statement. A lot depends on what we mean by "knowable" - and trying to get clarity on that can lead to a very complicated discussion. In fact, it constitutes an entire branch of philosophy, namely, epistemology.

For me, at the moment, the key is this: I believe that there are brute facts - aka, fundamental truths of reality that just are what they are. I sense some really vicious problems with infinite regression if we try to reject the existence of brute facts. But does accepting the brute-ness of brute facts constitute "not knowing" something? Some people would say "no" but I say, yeah, it kinda does. I see brute facts as fundamental mysteries. Not in the sense of some "hidden" knowledge, but in the sense of, simply, nothing deeper there to know. It's just bedrock reality; there nothing "deeper" to dig into. But, to me, that feels like an awesome, fundamental sort of mystery along the lines of "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

But, given that we accept that there are certain brute facts, then, given some particular X, the perennial epistemological question is "How do we know for certain that X is a brute fact?" This is tricky. I think it counts as eternal job security for philosophers, and probably for scientists too. In any case, I think Gödel's theorem has to be taken into account here. Basically we can use logic itself to prove that logic is necessarily incomplete. (Well, technically, it is either incomplete, or it is inconsistent. But if it is inconsistent, then we are royally screwed from the get-go so, as I said earlier, I have faith in logic, which basically means that I have faith in the consistency of logic, which means that I have faith in the incompleteness of logic, which means I believe there are certain brute facts that can be known, even though they cannot, even in principle, be proven by logic - i.e., there are facts that we just have to accept in order to maintain some semblance of rationality. And, at the root of it all, as I said, is the logically paradoxical nature of self-reference.

So my faith in logic logically requires me to not believe that the universe is fully knowable by rational means, and to suspect that it is not fully knowable by any means - although that second idea is just a suspicion. I don't really know.

I can see three things unde the same idea here.

(1) Unknowns,
(2)Unkowables
(3) subjectivity.

Of course there is much that is unknown. Much of this may become known and undoubtedly much will not. Whether this is because in practical terms we cannot envisage ever getting to know everything or because of a (credible, but not known - of course ) idea that there are some things that are impossible for man to understand even if we were to become of aware of them.
Which is the 2nd idea.
Materialism postulates that the way we know things work is the first -choice (default) hypothetical explanation for all questions, known or unknown. The unknowns being unknown of course fail to validate a claim of Known Unknowns (so to speak - if this seems daft, using Unknowns to validate faith -claims IS daft)
as well as claims that there are things man could bever understand even if we knew of them and could investigate that.

That is not a disprovable claim, but is effectively an invalid faith -claim, based on Unknowns.

Subjectivity seems to me effectively this idea that human thought is always one step removed from the reality. This is a problem for materialism, both in explaining how the thought -process works (1), and also in devising scientific checks and validations to ensure that we don't mislead ourselves (which invalidates theist attempt to play the 'science knows nothing for sure' card in hopes to make faith -claims more credible.

Then there is the fact of always being remote in knowing from the thing we try to understand. This isn't a problem to be overcome (though in principle that is not impossible) but something to be accepted as a 'Brute fact' just as aeronautics is not affected by the fact that human cannot actually fly themselves.

(1) which is a problem within materialism but not a problem about materialism (as some with an agenda would like to pretend) no more than unanswered questions in Archaeology or evolution -theory are problems about the validity of archaeology or evolution.

[Tzaphkiel]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

...

For me, at the moment, the key is this: I believe that there are brute facts - aka, fundamental truths of reality that just are what they are. I sense some really vicious problems with infinite regression if we try to reject the existence of brute facts. But does accepting the brute-ness of brute facts constitute "not knowing" something? Some people would say "no" but I say, yeah, it kinda does. I see brute facts as fundamental mysteries. Not in the sense of some "hidden" knowledge, but in the sense of, simply, nothing deeper there to know. It's just bedrock reality; there nothing "deeper" to dig into. But, to me, that feels like an awesome, fundamental sort of mystery along the lines of "Why is there something rather than nothing?"


which means I believe there are certain brute facts that can be known, even though they cannot, even in principle, be proven by logic - ., i.e. there are facts that we just have to accept in order to maintain some semblance of rationality. And, at the root of it all, as I said, is the logically paradoxical nature of self-reference.
....

Yes I agree there are foundational "basic facts" that can be known, even though they can not be proven by logic. And yes I agree that yes such "fundamental truths" are the bedrock of reality.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel

getting back to something Gaylen referenced earlier.....
if there are "thoughts" then there must be a "thinker."
there can not be "thoughts" without a thinker that is thinking them.

do people agree or not, question open to anyone.

In a certain sense - a trivial sense - the answer has to obviously be "yes", thinking implies a thinker. But the minimal logical requirement of a "thinker" is probably not what most people have in mind when they use the term 'thinker.' Two critical distinctions need to be teased out:

(1) Substance vs. process
(2) Localized particular vs. Non-spatio-temporally localized universal

I think it is safe to say that most people pre-reflectively conceive of "thinker" in substantial terms; a particular essence - a soul, or self - that endures through time. (Note: I'm using the term "substance" here in the Cartesian philosophical sense of "an essence that endures over time" - not in the everyday sense of something being substantial, like a rock or a hunk of meat. There can, in the Cartesian sense, be a non-physical substance. Indeed, that is what Descartes' thought he proved with his famous "I think, therefore I am." He though he proved the existence of a non-physical "thinking substance" - a soul. But later philosophers argued that he did not prove quite as much as he thought he did.)

In contrast to substance, there is the idea of process. At first glance, this might seem like a mere terminological trick. After all, doesn't the existence of a process imply some "thing" that is doing the processing? And if the process is thinking, then wouldn't the thing that's doing the processing just be the thinker? Aren't we right back where we started? Well, no, not quite. But the task of explaining why this is the case requires some heavy conceptual lifting that is hard to do without the tools and techniques commonly found in the academic literature of philosophy (and/or the literature of esoteric Buddhism). I don't know, off hand, if anyone has found a way to make it painlessly simple to explain and I'm not at all sure that I'm up to the task, but I'll try to take a really quick, simplistic stab at it. One thing that is required is a recognition of the difference between conscious experience, as such, and the "contents" of conscious experience. Oh boy. No way. I'm going to have to give ya'll a rain check on this and come back with a different post. For now I'm just going to say that I think the "thinker" is a process, not a substance.

And, concerning the second distinction, I think I've already said enough about this in previous posts, so I'm not going to add to the length of this post. Bottom line: I don't think the "feeling of being me" is the feeling of a localizable particular being or "soul" or "self" even though it seems that way.

My overall claim is that the "thinker" in each and every instance of thinking is a complex qualitative process in which the constituent elements of the process (the complexities of the process) are intrinsically dynamic unconscious/pre-conscious potentials that only actually exist in the "specious present" of each and every moment of lived experience (which is always already in the context of a holistic, always-caught-in-mid-stream on-going life narrative). In other words, no "substance" survives from moment to moment (this is what inspires the Buddhist insight about "nothingness" or "no self") - there is only a rule-governed continuity of qualitative process that evolves from moment to moment that always has a "center of narrative gravity" constituting the "feeling of being me, here, now". The "center of gravity" is, in some sense, real but it is not a substance in and of itself - it is not an essence in and of itself - it is more like an abstraction generated by the "feeling of the" process. And then this abstraction get "reified" - psychologically projected or "personified" - as being "substance-like". This is sometimes referred to as the illusory nature of the self, which arises in a "sneaky" way thanks to the paradoxical nature of self-reference. The moment we reference a "thinker" we have objectified that which is fundamentally not an object or "content of" consciousness (maybe take a moment here to reflect on the Buddhist metaphor of trying to catch running water in a bucket - the instant you "succeed" is the exact instant that you fail). It's like the sentence "This sentence is false." To insist that there "is" a self or a thinker is, in effect, to insist that you have, in your grasp, a bucket full of running water. Basically, "self" is verb. There is no "self" - there is only "self-ing" - so to speak. There is no "thinker" (noun), only thinking (verb). The instant you think you've grasped the "thinker", you have failed; what you have in mind is, by logical necessity, an illusion.

[Tzaphkiel]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

......
My overall claim is that the "thinker" in each and every instance of thinking is a complex qualitative process in which the constituent elements of the process (the complexities of the process) are intrinsically dynamic unconscious/pre-conscious potentials that only actually exist in the "specious present" of each and every moment of lived experience (which is always already in the context of a holistic, always-caught-in-mid-streamon-going life narrative). In other words, no "substance" survives from moment to moment (this is what inspires the Buddhist insight about "nothingness" or "no self") - there is only a rule-governed continuity of qualitative process that evolves from moment to moment that always has a "center of narrative gravity" constituting the "feeling of being me, here, now". The "center of gravity" is, in some sense, real but it is not a substance in and of itself - it is not an essence in and of itself - it is more like an abstraction generated by the "feeling of the" process. And then this abstraction get "reified" - psychologically projected or "personified" - as being "substance-like". This is sometimes referred to as the illusory nature of the self, which arises in a "sneaky" way thanks to the paradoxical nature of self-reference. The moment we reference a "thinker" we have objectified that which is fundamentally not an object or "content of" consciousness (maybe take a moment here to reflect on the Buddhist metaphor of trying to catch running water in a bucket - the instant you "succeed" is the exact instant that you fail). It's like the sentence "This sentence is false." To insist that there "is" a self or a thinker is, in effect, to insist that you have, in your grasp, a bucket full of running water. Basically, "self" is verb. There is no "self" - there is only "self-ing" - so to speak. There is no "thinker" , only thinking (verb). The instant you think you've grasped the "thinker", you have failed; what you have in mind is, by logical necessity, an illusion.

if the bucket has holes punched in the bottom, then yes you catch running water in the bucket.

if the bucket has no bottom and you hold it under a waterfall, then yes you have in your grasp a bucket that is full of running water.

if you hold the bucket under a faucet with the water running, and the bucket fills and overflows, and you continue to hold it there and the full bucket continues to overflow, then yes you have a bucket full of running water, it is continuously running into the bucket and running out of the full bucket over the rim.


so (a) that is not accurate, and
(b) it has nothing to do with (in my view) the essence of you who is thinking or feeling or peering through your eyeballs at this moment.