See http://www.innerexplorations.c...eomortext/origin.htm

Jim Arraj has apparently stayed off the spiked eggnog during the holiday season and written another stellar piece. His knowledge of the scientific, philosophical and theological material puts him in a very unique position to say something about all this that is actually worth reading.

I've just skimmed it so far, but will print it out and read. I've referred him to this thread, so please share your comments and questions. Who knows but that he may join us? Even if not, we can enjoy this one together.

Do others find that essays on cosmology and quantam physics are somewhat frustrating explorations unless one enjoys wonder for its own sake? I understand most of the concepts. It strikes me how much more room for open speculation there is in this field of physics than perhaps other areas of science where certain reductionisms are assumed and even tightly guarded. And yet the motivation that keeps these physicists pushing the envelope often sounds like the same one driving biologists to uncover final genetic causality.

For instance, if biologists working on the genome began to look at epigenetics more seriously (i.e. the way environments influence gene expression), there would be no end to the changes in that field. In modern physics and astronomy, the discovery that quantum dynamics play a role in macrophysical systems is a potential theoretical threat to the other sciences, but hasn't yet been demonstrated for how far reaching it is. And then we bump into the fiercest reductionism of all . . . that the mind is a brain epiphenomenon, which quantum theory poses many new questions for, opening mainstream science to the unhallowed door of parapsychology.

Hawking: "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"

I�m still reading the article, but this seems the crux of it all. For me, whether the universe has a beginning or not, whether because of some better understanding of time, quantum physics, or whatever, it makes little difference. It still IS! And we are still left wondering (thinking back fondly to the words of an ex-president) what the meaning of �is� is. And we are never, ever going to be able to look �outside the box.� We can never get outside our own minds, outside of our own sensory inputs, no matter how finely tuned, to see everything. They are limited. There will always be something hidden from our gaze. It seems an inherent part of the universe. If fact, the closer we look at electrons the less we can actually see and know. We�re left with probabilities. I think we�ll find the same thing when looking at things on larger scales. In the end, and due to the nature of consciousness, we�re left inevitably to wonder philosophically. I suppose since our philosophies change as science fills in the details it might seem that philosophy itself can eventually be done away with. But for me the whole scientific effort deals as much with revealing truths as with revealing the seemingly stubborn nature of the mysteries that will not go away!

When Einstein was writing his theory of general relativity in 1916 the prevailing feeling that the universe was static was so strong that when his equations indicated that the universe should be expanding, or contracting, he introduced a cosmological constant to produce a universe at rest. Not only was there a consensus that the universe was static, but it was also equated with our own galaxy.

I�m always amazed at how blind even the best scientists can be to their own prejudices. If one wants to find a static universe then one will do so � even an Einstein. If one wants to find no god then one will do so � even a Hawking. Advances in science are probably hampered as much by what we want to believe as by the limitations of our theories or instruments. I think we would all do well to keep in mind, particularly in the areas of science and academics, some of the hidden ideologies at play. This may not help to answer the ultimate questions but it can shed some light on why certain questions are asked in the first place and how they are asked.

Granted, God is postulated as an explanation for things and thus competes with science and therefore, at least in my mind, is a fair target for criticism and competing theories. But it does amaze me that science can be so comfortable with acknowledging that over 90% of the universe is hidden to us (dark matter and especially dark energy) but, even using the human mind which itself seems so utterly indefinable to science, is quick to be aligned against an idea such as God.

And Guth certainly didn�t discourage this type of approach. "It�s not a coincidence that the Bible starts with Genesis� Most people really want to know where we came from and where everything around us came from. I like to strongly push the scientific answer. We have evidence. We no longer have to rely on stories we were told when we were young."

I love this statement. Whether religious or not, I think we must take a look at our own prejudices about wanting to find a Creator and the assumption that things are created, although the Bible need not be the source for this line of thinking. It seems to have been an idea we�ve had since the beginning of self-awareness. I suppose being people we think in terms of a personal or impersonal universe. But when I see what is seemingly consciousness at the level of the electron I am averse to the idea of a completely impersonal universe, although I�m also wary of my own idea of a God as some white haired guy on a throne sitting on a cloud.

For my opening remarks, I'll just share those comments I made to Jim & Tyra earlier this week:

What a wonderful way to begin the New Year! With a delightful reflection on the Beginning of the Universe, Multiverse or Whatever It Is!

I think I can articulate the Arraj Precis: "No one's going to disenchant MY cosmos or unweave MY rainbow!"

I have enjoyed my exchanges, in recent years, with some of the world's leading naturalists [as in materialist monists] and it is my impression that, as nonbelievers, many of them consider atheism much too strong a position to defend philosophically. (That their fundamental trust in uncertain reality is nonetheless paradoxical per Kung's critique, which uses nihilism as a foil, is a different matter for another essay.) The reason these folks don't move past agnosticism to an outright atheism, from what I have gathered, is that they properly view it as a huge category error to equate a quantum vacuum fluctuation with what metaphysics describes as "nothing".

In other words, they view the ontological riddle as insoluble, in principle, this despite Stenger�s "quantum vacuum fluctuation", Dawkins� "unweaved rainbow" and a cosmos, which "is all that is or was or ever will be" per Sagan.

What you have touched upon resonates with:

1) Rudolf Otto�s "mysterium tremendum et fascinans"
2) Chesterton�s "mystical minimum of being"
3) Thomas Aquinas� "esse and essentia"
4) Maritain�s "intuition of being"
5) Heidigger�s "why is there something rather than nothing?"
6) Wittgenstein�s "not HOW things are but THAT things are"
7) Zen Buddhism's "ontological identification"
8) Spinoza�s "natura naturans (unmanifest Nature) and natura
naturata (manifest nature)" [and don't those who miss this
distinction misapply Spinoza?]

My good friend, Ursula Goodenough, uses the term "sacred depths" and Willem Drees� uses the term "open space" and, to some extent, I believe they are paying homage to what I like to call the "ontological riddle", whatever their worldviews may otherwise espouse. [And I often sense a kinship with some forms of Buddhism and some of the modern agnostics.] Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, despite his great intellect, has squandered an enormous amount of his energy
attacking metaphysical strawmen, or should I say straw-gods.

You have elegantly and lucidly set forth how such confusion comes about.
+++ +++ +++

Doug Shaw wrote:

�There is a gulf which cannot now be bridged between science and theology, or more correctly between science and the existence of God.
That gulf only exists when trying to move from science to theology. The converse is not necessarily the case. �

That was well-stated.

He also wrote:
�Faith is at the center of both a God based and mechanistic based genesis for the universe. The scientist who would exclude God (Edmund O. Wilson, for example) does so out of a faith that all of creation will eventually be explained, including religious experience, through
scientific investigation, even though he or she cannot now see how he will get there. All of us who see in God the creator of our universe
do so out of faith.�

Edward O. Wilson, from what I have read, is a Deist (so, at least he agrees with us on one metaphysical assumption vis a vis causation).
Dawkins and Sagan fit the bill as atheists though, Dawkins militantly so. Many others I have met I would describe as nonmilitant, even
amiable agnostics, some very affirming of religion, even if condescendingly so. (But not all are even condescending, saying something akin to: "I'm not saying you're wrong. I wish I could go there ; I just don't know how.).

Doug wrote: �I would add the current "Big Bang" Theory for the creation of the universe invites a Creator. There is a point beyond which physical science cannot see. This point, I might add, as it is currently defined by science , is at least as incredible as an Omnipotent God from a purely rationalist point of view.�

I think we need to distinguish between that knowledge which is occulted, in principle, and that which represents the latest gap being filled by the God of the Gaps. Also, we need to distinguish between that which is occulted due to systematic constraints and that which is inaccessible due to methodological constraints.

A leading materialist author once asked me: �Other than what took place in the earliest moments after the Big Bang and what takes place
in the deepest structures of matter, what is there that we cannot know in principle?�

I replied that we cannot know �why there is
something rather than nothing� because the ontological riddle was insoluble in principle.

So, following Polkinghorne�s otto: �Epistemology models ontology�, is that to say that, if we cannot solve the ontological riddle then one might say that, from a purely rational point of view, we�re epistemologically screwed?

What rescues us, I think, from such epistemic despair, is our meta-rational trust in the ground of our being. As believers, our critical realism is justified by our super-reasonable approach to reality, whether we explicitly or implicitly, rationally or intuitively, affirm the core hypothesis of a God along with its
cosmological, ontological, moral, teleological and epistemological auxiliary hypotheses.

Some scientists, as nonbelievers, whether atheists, nontheists or agnostics, rely on the same critical realism but justified only by a
faith in human reason itself, which, otherwise unjustified or ungrounded, remains ever-threatened by the nonsuppositions of nihilsm
(and some have admitted this to me, not with hubris and not without some sadness).

I describe most nontheism as a �faliure to go meta� and its consequences are cognitive and affective dissonance, even if they maintain some epistemological parity with theists vis a vis logical consistency, internal coherence and external congruence. They simply don't find that overcoming dissonance or the elimination of paradox to be suitable motives for "making the leap" [that is to say to go where I have gone, metaphysically].

Personally, I find that the core hypothesis of God, all of its auxiliary hypotheses (including nonenergetic causation), and the cognitive & affective consonance it engenders help me to draw some pretty compelling inferences, directly verifiable at that, eschatologically (grin).

The competing core hypothesis, that metaphysical nothingness as an inital condition is unstable and has a tendency to decay into something , is neither compelling nor verifiable(verifiability/falsifiability being a criterion of any good scientific hypothesis <wink>.

Besides, since critical realims can pretty much abide with fallibilism, I�m going with Aristotle on the reductio ad absurdum fallacy because it�s all we�ve got and nihilism, therefore, even in
its most benign manifestations (for instance, scientific materialism) has just got to be positively eschewed. I think I've got this right.

Polkinghorne, however, did not coin his motto out of either a fideistic pre-modernist or nontheistic modernist epistemological hubris. Neither is he governed by an excessive and postmodernist epistemological humility. Rather, speaking of �epistemology models ontology�, he says: �For me the phrase is a succinct statement of a realistic view of the scientific enterprise, or indeed, of the wider human inquiry into reality: that what we know is a reliable guide to what is the case. We are not misled by the world. I don't accept the Kantian disjunction between phenomena (things as we know them) and noumena (things as they are in themselves). The whole effect of scientific experience is to engender belief that we attain a
tightening grasp of an actual reality. Of course, we make maps of the world, rather than totally describe it; there is always more to
learn. My slogan is just a way of saying that we are not misled by our encounter with reality.�

And further, he speaks of theological science: �If you think about it, Rahner's Rule, which says that �the economic trinity is the
immanent trinity,� is a statement of theological realism, that what we know about God is not misleading. In other words, the economic trinity is the essential trinity; what we know about God is a reliable guide to the divine nature.�

So, I would say that we cannot know what happened in the earliest moments following the Big Bang or what happens in the deepest
structures of matter due to methodological constraints. To the extent any systematical constraints exist, they are due to physical systems.

The ontological riddle, on the other hand, is occulted in principle due to metaphysical system constraints and not physical methodological or systematical constraints. What happens to all of
these constraints, eschatologically, I don�t know (but I�ll bet you that Peter Kreeft has a fairly good idea).

In closing - William Birmingham wrote:
"In one of his letters, Teilhard de Chardin speaks of loneliness: his religious friends don't understand his science and his scientific friends have small use for his theology. Teilhard was deprived of the conversation that might have improved both."

Clearly, Jim & Tyra, you are improving both. Encore. Encore.

Doug Shaw: �Faith is at the center of both a God based and mechanistic based genesis for the universe. The scientist who would exclude God (Edmund O. Wilson, for example) does so out of a faith that all of creation will eventually be explained, including religious experience, through scientific investigation, even though he or she cannot now see how he will get there. All of us who see in God the creator of our universe
do so out of faith.�

Doug wrote: �I would add the current "Big Bang" Theory for the creation of the universe invites a Creator. There is a point beyond which physical science cannot see. This point, I might add, as it is currently defined by science , is at least as incredible as an Omnipotent God from a purely rationalist point of view.�

Very, very interesting thoughts.

JB said: I think we need to distinguish between that knowledge which is occulted, in principle, and that which represents the latest gap being filled by the God of the Gaps. Also, we need to distinguish between that which is occulted due to systematic constraints and that which is inaccessible due to methodological constraints.

Well said, JB.

JB said: I describe most nontheism as a �faliure to go meta� and its consequences are cognitive and affective dissonance, even if they maintain some epistemological parity with theists vis a vis logical consistency, internal coherence and external congruence.

Yes, I see what you mean. Well said again. But isn�t there still a characteristic in religious belief, as in science, of a jumping to some sort of certainty without evidence? On your side of the street do you worry about this at all?

In closing - William Birmingham wrote:
"In one of his letters, Teilhard de Chardin speaks of loneliness: his religious friends don't understand his science and his scientific friends have small use for his theology. Teilhard was deprived of the conversation that might have improved both."

In essence, the pursuit of science might be assisted by a true broadening of the mind to, if not at least include a concept of god, at least exclude only the concept of no-god.

I'm left wondering how views of the cosmos are influenced/delimited by our experience of bodily life. Again, as Brad and JB have pointed out, we'll never get our discursive minds around these mysteries. Quantum physical research seems to posit an irresolvable state of uncertainty from the beginning, even though the enterprise is rife with biases. Observations/discoveries in this science seem to correspond to increasing levels of uncertainty. And so the issue of uncertainty looks more and more like a built-in feature than an artifact of an incomplete science.

From a broad metaphysical standpoint, the next frontier might be a move from external explorations to internal ones. In fact, one could say that quantum physics has bumped into the threshold where these domains converge. But what I'm getting at is the limited way we experience our bodies - mostly as inert, or solid, unconscious constructions, carrying around talking heads. Neuroscience speaks of this as being "zombies." It is intriguing that science finds more to gaze and wonder at in the "external" universe than in the dissected, non-living body (all scientists get there early training on bodily functions through metaphors derived from studying cadavers).

The premise here is that the body embodies a high degree of unknown consciousness that is enfolded in a dormant kundalini, an energy system not unlike the one discovered in quantum physics. To not have conscious access to this interpersonal/impersonal realm of experience would no doubt play a big part in how the questions are raised and answered in science.

This untapped, inner domain seemed to be alluded to in the Jodi Foster movie . . . dedicated to Carl Sagan. It was intriguing how this was portrayed, with everyone expecting light speed travel to entail a movement through time and space, but suggesting a radical shift in awareness instead.

Fortunately, there is some serious scientific research going on that attempts to quantify the bodily-quantum microcosm, using SQUID technology to measure such things. But it is unlikely these more subjective values would ever find their way broadly into the mainstream. However, increasing numbers of physicists do fall off the wagon, and end up writing books attempting to describe how these domains interrelate. Something about high levels of wonder that draw the attention inward . . . hum . . .

Hawkings' idea of a universe without a beginning or end is consistent with Vedic cosmology and Buddhist metaphysics, where the self is either posited as completely non-dual, or non-existent. Interesting how this ends up being more of a metaphysical problem for monotheists who cannot theologically relinquish a completely transcendent Divinity. And the importance of self for observation and its disappearance in the strange land of uncertainty and singularity also raises these distinctions.

Brad wrote: But isn�t there still a characteristic in religious belief, as in science, of a jumping to some sort of certainty without evidence? On your side of the street do you worry about this at all?

I don't set religious belief and science over against each other. They can coexist with what is called NOMA (nonoverlapping magisteria), though, even that is an oversimplification of their interface.

Let me get back to you. I am trying to fashion a response without writing you a book. For me, this is no small task. Nonetheless, though I usually lack brevity, at least I can say I also often lack clarity.

pax,
jb

W.C. said: I'm left wondering how views of the cosmos are influenced/delimited by our experience of bodily life. Again, as Brad and JB have pointed out, we'll never get our discursive minds around these mysteries. Quantum physical research seems to posit an irresolvable state of uncertainty from the beginning, even though the enterprise is rife with biases. Observations/discoveries in this science seem to correspond to increasing levels of uncertainty. And so the issue of uncertainty looks more and more like a built-in feature than an artifact of an incomplete science.

I think the article, in a fundamental way, addresses what you, me and others are grappling with:

This way of proceeding leads to two temptations for the physicist. The first is to imagine that physics is the only way to know things. We have seen the remarks of Hawking and Tippler that end up leaving that impression. If we accepted this in an absolute and literal way, then all we would have would be physics. Art and poetry, philosophy and theology, literature and history, would all be reduced to wishful thinking. Even if we don�t go to this extreme, any philosophical cosmology will be ruled impossible.

I dare Hawking to come up with an equation that explains or expresses my disdain for Hillary.

Let me get back to you. I am trying to fashion a response without writing you a book. For me, this is no small task. Nonetheless, though I usually lack brevity, at least I can say I also often lack clarity.

The chuckle you just gave me � whether intentional or not � might be as good an answer as any. Maybe you can�t explain it in words, no more so than physicists can explain the universe with mathematical symbols. But I await your attempt.

The uncertainty which I see described as central and irresolvable in the quantum physical world appears to have strong resemblances to the openings of wonder which somewhat characterize the inspirations behind the liberal arts.

It would be stunning, from the Western point-of-view, if the uncertainty factor deepens as this field continues to grow and extends its applications to gross physical reality, to the point that it becomes a link to a different sort of reductionism of mind-body dynamics, not unlike the philosophy of say, Nagarjuna and his philosophical work the Mulamadhyamikakarika.

"How bout' them madhyas ?!!!" was probably Sanskrit short-hand for scholarly appreciation of the text in the second century B.C.

But the madhyamika has its own manner of reductionism leading to the theoretical frameworks underlying non-dual forms of meditation in Buddhism and Hinduism. This treatise is as important for Buddhist cosmology as Aquinas' reflections are for monotheistic cosmologies. I find reading it, if I do so with an open relaxed mind accepting of the tensions of uncertainty, a catalyst for states of wonder that lead directly to a heightened poetic sense which is quite nourishing. If read like a puzzle in the discipline of logic (for which it has applications), it can lead to headaches.

I haven't even read the article yet but these marvelous exchanges keep coming into my email (admin. notification option--on).

To me, it seems that Arraj is interested in doing something which JB has also done a great deal of: namely, delineating some of the boundaries between religion, philosophy, and science. As we all know, Christianity has often over-reached into the realm of science, and science into religion. E.g., it's a foregone conclusion among many professors (and I had a few of these) that if evolution happened, then Biblical revelation must be false. It seems to me that some of the quantum physicists are also drawing all sorts of conclusions about the nature of ultimate reality based on their discipline.

A great analogy about science/religion and their respective gifts comes from that interview with Jack Haught recommended by JB recently. Haught uses the example of water boiling on the stove, about which someone asks: "Why is this water boiling?" One answer given is because the water has exceeded 100 degrees centigrade, and this has happened because the burner is on and the heat of the burner was conducted into the pot, causing the water temperature to rise. All very true, of course. But another, equally-true response: "Because Mary is making tea." That kind of says it all.

Phil:

I'll to go over these texts on non-duality again, assuming I can not misrepresent them even then. But what I'll say at this point is that the reductionism of this paradigm maintains "presence" as coarising with the impermanence of phenomena. IOW, one cannot actually finally say that something exists or not, as uncertainty remains beyond all scrutinies.

And so the wonder within the experential sense of these issues tolerates, as you say, Mary making tea and the water boiling as coarising truths.

Of course, just as there are significant differences experentially between the monotheistic experience of personal Divinity, and the non-theistic experience of presence in non-dual perception, there is this persistence of uncertainty in any attempt to compare systems of thought, even logically.

Hawkings' idea of a universe without a beginning or end is consistent with Vedic cosmology and Buddhist metaphysics, where the self is either posited as completely non-dual, or non-existent.

What I find interesting is something JB and/or the article gets at and, once again, that you cause me to consider, W.C.: that we are somehow to trust mathematics to describe the ultimate reality (Hello, square root, how are you feeling today?) but not our experience of the world as we experience it. I mean, how silly is it to �know� that we REALLY don�t exist, that we are �ultimately� non-dual or whatever, while at the same time I�m sitting here wondering about myself to myself. This is not an anti-science or anti�intellectual rant. It�s more about re-considering what we consider a �deeper� reality. We discover our reality in ever-greater detail thanks to science. We now harness the atom when through most of history we didn�t even know it existed. But it still existed, whether we knew about it or not. (Clearly I�m not agreeing strictly with the Copenhagen interpretation.) Is this a �deeper� reality or just the acquisition of more facts? If anything, I might better describe the universe as being centered on consciousness and/or information rather than mathematics. After all, if no one was there to notice the universe or measure it would the physics of it all really matter? I suppose, obviously, part of this entire schism is about ego, about whose view of the universe will prevail. But that we are �viewing� the universe at all seems to be the more fundamental aspect of existence. Probably because that�s a question that, at least so far, hasn�t lent itself to scientific discovery we quite easily delude ourselves that the scientific method is the only or real method. End of ramble.

Science, through reason and rational inquiry, in the realm of the physical, seeks answers to the questions:
1) where?
2) when?
3) what? and
4) how?

In mathematical terms pertaining to:
1) space
2) time
3) matter and
4) energy ...

quote:

... the primary characteristic of the approach to reality peculiar to science may therefore be described in the following way: that which can be observed and measured, and the ways through which observation and measurement are to be achieved, and the more or less unified mathematical reconstruction of such data, these things alone have a meaning for the scientist as such. ... ... ... ... ... ... But as a scientist his knowledge is limited to a mathematical (or quasi-mathematical) understanding and reconstruction of the observable and measurable aspects of nature taken in their inexhaustible detail.

above quote by Jacques Maritain

Faith, through super-reason and meta-rational inquiry, in the realm of the metaphysical, seeks answers to the questions:
1) why?
2) that?
3) who?

In terms of:
1) philosophy
2) mysticism
3) theology

The systems and methods of physical inquiry are different from the systems and methods of metaphysical inquiry. Metaphysical inquiry, for instance, does not seek to reconstruct phenomena mathematically or quasi-mathematically, notwithstanding Hawking, Tipler, Sagan, Dawkins, et al's attempts to do away with metaphysics.

quote:

If a [scientist] undertakes to go beyond the horizons of science and tackle the philosophical aspects of reality, he too is liable to yield to the temptation of making the concepts worked out by science into the very components of his meta-scientific enterprise. The trouble is that one can no more philosophize with non-philosophical instruments than paint with a flute or a piano.

above by Jacques Maritain

Brad wrote: But isn�t there still a characteristic in religious belief, as in science, of a jumping to some sort of certainty without evidence? On your side of the street do you worry about this at all?

Let me be both bold and presumptuous and suggest that Maritain can rephrase Brad's question:

quote:

The crucial question for our age of culture is, thus, whether reality can be approached and known, not only "phenomenally" by science, but also "ontologically" by philosophy.

Now, making the first assumption that we are all, in some manner, critical realists , next, let me pose a johnboysian variant to this same question, while also making yet another assumption, which is that we agree that we can approach and know reality, with a good measure of certainty, however fallibilistically, by gathering evidence in the space-time-matter-energy continuum and by reconstructing reality, from that evidence, both mathematically and quasi-mathematically.

My question then can be phrased in many ways and, in a nutshell, the answers to my question will depend, in great measure, on ... ...

Let me set the scene:
Let's have a low drumroll as johnboy
1) pauses
2) looks straight into the camera
3) furrows his brow
4) bites his lip
5) points his finger (maybe wags it a tad) and
6) deliberately and rhythmically, with punctuated pauses and inflected emphasis says:

what you mean by the word IS

Sorry, Brad, I couldn't help myself

The johnboysian variant is this: Is the measurable and observable and quantifiable space-time-matter-energy continuum all there IS ? Or per Heidigger: Why is there something rather than nothing? Or per Wittgenstein: It is not how things are but that things are which is the mystical.

However, can we approach and know reality, with any measure of certainty whatsoever, though still fallibilistically, by gathering evidence, not in the space-time-matter-energy continuum, but rather nonspatially, atemporally, immaterially and nonenergetically, where, in principle, there is no such evidence as could be represented either mathematically or quasi-mathematically in our attempt to reconstruct reality?

Yes, we can.

I hope this answers your question. Glad to assist, anytime.

pax, amor et bonum,
jb

Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I�ll have to run it through my calculator to see if it�s true. And in response to:

what you mean by the word IS

Let me just paraphrase your post by saying:

�I did not have metaphysics with that ontology, science � not once, never.�

Brad:

What your refering to, considered from a Buddhist point-of-view, as I understand it at least, is the coarising and distinctiveness between awareness, random thinking and self concepts. None of these are separate realities. In meditation, as thoughts are observed to come and go on their own, there can be a quality of presence congruent with the present moment that is somehow lost or obscured when stringing thoughts together into a story. But as you say, it was alway there in the first place. When we look in meditation at thoughts coming together into stories, gaps appear that are quite alive or vivid. In fact, the gaps can sometimes appear within the thoughts themselves, and so they too arise out of this presence. The experience of the observer remains, but it also seems imbued with this wondrous presence as well. It is quite intimate, and not at all a withdrawal into trance states, though a little uncanny, and difficult to relax with given habits of perception, etc. But what I guess I'm musing about is this living presence of life that so easily escapes us in habits of discursive attention, but can reappear when uncertainty creates the occasion to wonder openly about something.

The reductionism of Buddhist and Hindu non-dual systems maintain this notion of presence as coarising with phenomena, and doesn't relegate the senses to a category of illusion. In fact, one description in Buddhist texts describes presence as that first quality encountered within the senses before internal dialogue ensues or interpretations are made, like perception right after waking. They may also mean, perhaps, that the self can be assumed, but like all things being subject to uncertainty, never known for sure.

�I did not have metaphysics with that ontology, science � not once, never.�

That's a classic!!

When we look in meditation at thoughts coming together into stories, gaps appear that are quite alive or vivid. In fact, the gaps can sometimes appear within the thoughts themselves, and so they too arise out of this presence.

Man, between you, Phil and JB (let alone our wonderful leftist friends) I just can�t get away with anything. Well said, W.C. Does the pause between my posts count for anything?

However, can we approach and know reality, with any measure of certainty whatsoever, though still fallibilistically, by gathering evidence, not in the space-time-matter-energy continuum, but rather nonspatially, atemporally, immaterially and nonenergetically, where, in principle, there is no such evidence as could be represented either mathematically or quasi-mathematically in our attempt to reconstruct reality?

Okay. Obviously. I'm still thinking and writing. I still need to offer my defense of Yes, we can .

In the meantime, while you wait with baited breath (or are you, rather, watching the NFL WildCard games? I like that Manning family; too bad for dem Colts.), here are some different ontological arguments :

Suppose an individual x has predicate "I" just in case it can be thought of as a mere object of thought (i.e. does not exist in reality). Suppose x has predicate "R" just in case it can be thought to exist in reality. Suppose for all x and y, Gxy is true just in case x can be thought to be greater than y. Let constant q refer to God, or that of which none greater can be conceived. ("q" will represent God or the proposition that God exists for the rest of this paper). We can now construct the following argument:

1. q =df ("x)(�Gxq) [Definition]
2. Iq [Assumption to be refuted]
3. ("x)("y)((Ix � Ry) � Gyx) [Premiss]
4. (Iq � Rq) � Gqq [Universal instantiation]
5. Rq [Intuitive postulate]
6. Iq � Rq [Conjunction of 2 & 5]
7. Gqq [Modus ponens, from 4 & 6]
8. Gxq [Existential generalization]
9. ($x)Gxq [Existential instantiation]

Or, howzabout this version, which Hartshorne credits to the argument of St. Anselm:

1. q � q [Axiom 2]
2. �q � �q [Contrapositive of Axiom 2]
3. (�q � �q) [Necessitation axiom]
4. �q � �q [Distribution axiom]
5. �q � �q [Modal axiom S5]
6. �q � �q [4, 5, Hypothetical syllogism]
7. q v �q [Excluded middle]
8. q v �q [6, 7, Substitution]
9. ��q [Axiom 1]
10. q [8, 9, Disjunctive syllogism]
11. q [Modal axiom M]

Amplified by:

1. Pos(F) (Given)
2. �Pos(�F) (From 1, Axiom 1)
3. �($x)Fx (Assumption to be refuted)
4. F � �F (From 3, Modal Theorem: Any property which is inconsistent entails its negation)
5. (F � �F) � Pos(�F) (Axiom 2)
6. Pos(�F) (Modus ponens, from 4, 6)

1. Gx & Hx (Given)
2. Pos(H) (From 1, Definition 2)
3. Pos(H) � (y)(Gy � Hy) (From Definition 2)
4. (Pos(H) � (y)(Gy � Hy)) (Necessitation postulate, from 3)
5. Pos(H) � (y)(Gy � Hy) (Modal modus ponens, from 4)
6. Pos(H) (Axiom 5)
7. (y)(Gy � Hy) (Modus ponens, from 4, 5)

1. Gx & (G � H)
2. Pos(H) (From 1, Axiom 2, Axiom 3)
3. Hx (From 1, 2, Definition 2)

1. a = df.Gx [Definition]
2. Pos(NE) [Axiom 4]
3. NEa [Definition 2]
4. ($a)NEa � ($a)NEa [Definition 1]
5. (($a)NEa � ($a)NEa) [Necessitation axiom]
6. ($a)NEa � ($a)NEa [Theorem: (p � q) � (p � q)]
7. ($a)NEa [Corrollary 2]
8. ($a)NEa [6, 7, Modus ponens]
9. ($a)NEa [Theorem: p � p]
10. ($a)NEa [Modal axiom: p � p]
11. G Ess a [Theorem 2]
12. ($a)Ga [Definition 4]

1. Neg(F) [True by hypothesis]
2. �Neg(�F) [Axiom' 1]
3. �($x)Fx [Assumption]
4. F � �F [Theorem X]
5. Pos(�F) [Axiom' 2]

1. ($x)Kx � �($x)Gx [Principle N]
2. (($x)Kx � �($x)Gx) [Necessitation axiom]
3. ($x)Kx � �($x)Gx [Theorem: (a � b) � (a � b)
4. ($x)Kx [Theorem' 1]
5. �($x)Gx [4, 5, Modus ponens]

Let p represent, "something exists."
Let q represent, "God exists."
Let n represent, "nothing exists (absolute non-existence)."

1. p v �p [Excluded middle]
2. �p � n [Premise, from contingency]
3. �n [Premise: "n" is not a possible world]
4. �(�p) [2, 3, Modus tollens]
5. p [1, 4, Disjunctive syllogism]
6. p � q [Premise, from "necessary being"]
7. q [5, 6, Modus ponens]
8. q � q [Modal axiom]
9. q [7, 8, Modus ponens]

Proof:
1. q � q [Axiom 2]
2. �q � �q [Contrapositive of Axiom 2]
3. (�q � �q) [Necessitation axiom]
4. �q � �q [Distribution axiom]
5. �q � �q [Modal axiom S5]
6. �q � �q [4, 5, Hypothetical syllogism]
7. q v �q [Excluded middle]
8. q v �q [6, 7, Substitution]
9. ��q [Axiom 1]
10. q [8, 9, Disjunctive syllogism]
11. q [Modal axiom M]

What is so difficult?

Einstein understood this, although it only proves ontological and cosmological (for both primal and efficient causality) arguments, which even E.O. Wilson buys, and doesn't prove a personal necessary being (for which we'll have to rely on the more traditional Thomistic vein of thinking).

At any rate, this should hold you 'til the second Wildcard game or until I return with a less obfuscatory ontological explication.

pax,
jb

p.s. The above was a cybercartoon. For those who are really interested, I mean REALLY intrigued, visit: Ontological Arguments: an investigation by Philip Osborne

p.p.s. to Brad, this Philip Osborne is reportedly just 17 years old and wrote his cosmological and ontological argument essays while in high school. What I really want to highlight for you, here, is not his metaphysics but his favorite quote:

quote:

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater (1964 Republican Convention Acceptance Speech)

In the meantime, while you wait with baited breath (or are you, rather, watching the NFL WildCard games?

All of the above, including reading �The Origin of the Universe�, organizing some MP3�s, reading Phil�s rav..I mean�thoughtful posts at MacFixIt, and eating dinner. True multitasking! (my underpinnings are Jockeys)

What is so difficult?

Feynman�s damn arrows are beginning to look simple.

Back to the article: Jim says: If before mathematics served the measurements we made of the world around us in order to try to come to some sort of understanding of this world, now the mathematics seems to take the lead and impose a certain view on the universe rather than let it speak to us.

I think that�s a brilliant insight. I�ve ready many a Scientific American and books that are targeted to the advanced layman (or the glutton-for-punishment non-rocket-scientists like me) and have often come away with a feeling that the search for truth was losing some kind of perspective. Phil�s "Because Mary is making tea� can not be overlooked in the equation � but often is. Of course, it takes great skill, knowledge and commitment to make a profound new observation about physics. And that should not be discounted. And, of course, it would seem that anyone can have the experience of wanting to make tea. How does one �investigate� reality without science? I suppose that living life itself is an experiment or sorts. And I suppose that�s what some Buddhist monks and others are doing �scientifically� when they are DEEP into meditation and altered mind states (that�s probably also what some of the hippies in the 60�s were doing, although I doubt a Nobel prize will be forthcoming). And I wonder (just wonder) if such �deep� mind states make the same error as �deep� studies into the intricacies of mathematical equations?

How does one �investigate� reality without science? I suppose that living life itself is an experiment or sorts.

This is a fun thread, even if the women are shying away from it (let's see if they pick up on that).

Good insight above, Brad. IOW, why *not* consider that our subjectivity and interiority has something to reveal about the nature of the universe just as surely as mathematics and quantum physics does? After all, we're part of the universe--evolved in it using its stuff/energy to take form and to act. Unless our subjectivity, self-presence, interiority, etc. are all considered illusions (which is absurd), then why not consider them a mirroring something of/from/within the universe?

That this possibility is so often discounted by reductionistic materialists only goes to show that these people (who are legion, imo) are not really open-minded, nor even scientists. Rather, they are merely dogmatists proposing and defending a particular worldview in a manner no different, really, than the scientific creationists they love to ridicule.

Okay, back to the RealMcCoy part of this thread, assuming I have an credibility remaining:

However, can we approach and know reality, with any measure of certainty whatsoever, though still fallibilistically, by gathering evidence, not in the space-time-matter-energy continuum, but rather nonspatially, atemporally, immaterially and nonenergetically, where, in principle, there is no such evidence as could be represented either mathematically or quasi-mathematically in our attempt to reconstruct reality?

If we have considered ontology to be a riddle, and if epistemology models ontology, then what can we say about epistemology (our ideas about how it is that we can know and what it is that we can know, as humans)?

Well, when it comes to ontology, neither the materialist monists, say like Dawkins, nor the supernatural panentheists, say like mois, have recourse to any a priori supposition which can ground being and none of us can fashion a self-justifying proposition which can account for the fact of existence. There is no self-evident postulate regarding primal being and there is no warrant, justification, confirmation, proof, ground, certainty, assurance, stipulation, sanction or authority, maxim, postulate or axiom which can demonstrate the primal origin, primal source, primal support, primal ground or primal destiny of being, existence or reality.

So, no, absolute certainty regarding all things ontological is not to be had.

Here we have the crux of the matter. Recall that Brad wrote:

quote:

But isn�t there still a characteristic in religious belief, as in science, of a jumping to some sort of certainty without evidence? On your side of the street do you worry about this at all?

So, even without absolute certainty, we still have an interesting conversation going due to Brad's wise qualification some sort of certainty . Also, let us not take ourselves too lightly here, for, when I equated Brad's question with Maritain's quote:

quote:

The crucial question for our age of culture is, thus, whether reality can be approached and known, not only "phenomenally" by science, but also "ontologically" by philosophy.

, I intended that as a very high compliment. Our past exchanges have revealed that both Brad, in particular, and our SP Fora, in general, have, from time to time, grappled with what Maritain has described as The crucial question for our age of culture !

What both the materialists monists and panentheists do (I'm only picking on two ontologies out of a rather large and meetaphysically cumbersome assortment) is to bring to their scientific endeavors ontological presuppositions . It is only a complete philosophical naievete that asserts one's ontology as an a posteriori conclusion rather than an a priori one.

While emergentist conceptual approaches (order out of chaos, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, something more from nothing but ) can account for both cosmic and biological evolution and can maybe even overcome the naturalistic fallacy, giving anthropic, teleological and moral arguments for God's existence less sway, they don't begin to address the ontological, causal and cosmological arguments, which will perennially present themselves, in turn leading right back to some rather compelling inferences about anthropic principles, intelligent design, cosmic teleology and even deontological ethics and the moral argument.

A key concept here is inferences and I'll return to it, shortly (famous last words).

To the extent we are witnessing nonspatial, atemporal, immaterial and nonenergetic influences on our space-time-matter-energy plenum, we are, in principle, unable to mathematically or quasi-mathematically reconstruct such meta-physical phenomena. Whatever it is we infer about these aspects of reality, following Aquinas as he expands on Aristotle, must necessarily be articulated metaphorically and analogically. What both philosophers and scientists often seem to forget, even the best and brightest of them, as they rather seamlessly segue between their respective magisterial realms, is that while an analogy recognizes correspondence in some respects, especially in function or position, between things otherwise dissimilar, the dissimilarities abound and often eclipse any correspondences.

Even to the extent our analogies between the energetic and nonenergetic, material and immaterial, realms reflect a true correspondence, the supranatural realm remains of a distinctly different order of existence and formal causation would exert its influence with an unobtrusive effectiveness within a tacit dimension, which would remain, in principle, empirically indemonstrable.

Now, one could say even physics is metaphor and that, therefore, scientists and theologians can invoke epistemological parity, one versus the another, but they shouldn't forget their nonoverlapping magisteria and the differences between pianos & paintbrushes, microscopes & telescopes. We're still talking not only different methodologies but different systems, physical versus metaphysical.

Again, as critical realists, both scientists and theologians, have faith in their epistemologies. Both look upon the same reality and ascribe it intelligibility. Both have a faith in human reason, not uncritically. This is a type of first principle . One can not coherently maintain that truth is impossible. Those who affirm an Unmoved Mover, Primal Ground, Primal Support, Primal Being, Primal Origin, Primal Destiny, Ground of Being, as I noted above in my litany of ontological claims (which are not to be had), do not have recourse to apodictical proof. [Since Nargarjuna was brought up, let me suggest that he is, to me, in some ways, very reminiscent of the worst of postmodern deconstructionism. How closely do Derrida and Nagarjuna converge? or Wittgenstein?]

At any rate, while the realists maintain that truth is possible, theistic and nontheistic scientists, alike, one thing that sets them apart is that theistic scientists either implicitly hold to or explicitly express a justification of their belief in human reason and of the intelligibility of reality by presupposing a primal ground, such presupposition being pre-scientific. They are basically affirming what Kung articulates as a justification of the fundamental trust in uncertain reality. Nontheistic scientists merely forego (or positively eschew) such an articulation, what Kung considers to be a nowhere anchored, paradoxical trust in uncertain reality. Now, I've been in discussion with some of the most amiable, distinctly nonmilitant, extremely intelligent and fairly wellknown agnostic materialists for years and we have been over this Kungian foil of nihilism against atheism approach. It is precisely the brilliance of Kung, even of Einstein, and such as E.O. Wilson's deism, that these agnostics view atheism as much too strong a position to maintain philosophically. At the same time, they have no problem conceding that Kung is right insofar as their fundamental trust in uncertain reality is nowhere anchored and paradoxical. After all, there is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness to deal with when it comes to dropping anchors and eliminating paradox. There is a difference between shouting: Anchors, aweigh and the rattling of actual anchor chains and there is a difference between forsaking paradoxical and enigmatic speech and the elimination of reality's seemingly intrinsic paradox, whether in quantum mechanics or ontology. These folks are quite willing to drag anchor and nurture paradox and their scientific aplomb is none the worse for such nautical maneuvers epistemologically. My next project will be to develop Kung's nihilsm as a foil not just for atheism but for any nontheism. Just kidding. The Thomists have already done this.

While both those who justify their trust and uncertain reality and those who don't go confidently about their scientific chores, equally adroitly, it would be interesting to take a Capraesque journey through history to see what science would be like had Aristotle and Aquinas never been born. My suspicions are the journey would turn rather Kafkaesque. That's another story. (That's what I need to do -- write that novel -- a modern day Dostoevskian ramble through the ontological seascape, preserving my anchor metaphor).

What we have from the agnostics, then, is nonsupposition regarding their fundamental trust in uncertain reality --- or do we?

William James would take issue here and so would Tillich. It is impossible not to commit. Existentially, there is no fence-riding on the fundamental trusting of reality even if one eschews an articulation of their position. Can one coherently and consistently maintain an explicit nonsuppositional epistemology without being tainted by an implicit nihilism? Ralph McInerny writes: Atheists have as much at stake in opposing the regnant relativism and nihilism as do theists. So, to some extent, both atheists and believers, in their critical realist approaches, accept the principle of contradiction, even as neither have recourse to ontological apodiction. Through alternating processes of conjecture and criticism, verification and falsification, looking over one's epistemological shoulder at the intrinsic fallibilism, one's research program in either science or theology progresses.

The chief problem with classical atheism, based on scientific materialism, is the a priori establishment of a materialistic monistic ontology. As we have set forth, such is clearly without warrant or justification. The chief problem with agnosticism is even greater because, whether explicit or implicit, there is a denial of one's ability to know whether or not one's fundamental trust is truly and really and actually justified and such denial comes with an epistemological pricetag known as nihilsm. Now, true enough, neither the atheist nor agnostic, the theist nor nontheist, the rationalist nor fideist, have a priori recourse to a demonstrable justification of their metaphysical hermeneutic and all suffer the same fate vis a vis our collective fallibilistic grasp of uncertain reality, but is there therefore no way to adjudicate their respective claims (or respective silence pertaining thereto) regarding such a first principle as the distinction between truth and error , such as the grounding of our fundamental trust in uncertain reality in such a ground as itself grounded, in such a support which is itself supported, from such an origin as itself had no origin, from such a being as was necessary for our contingent being to exist, moving inexorably toward such a goal as which draws us with no impetus of our own, in such a reality that is intelligible due to intrinsic intelligence?

Reality is uncertain but that fact, alone, is not dispositive of its trustworthiness. Its primal ground, origin, support, destiny and being is occulted, in principle, but those facts are not exhaustive regarding absolute being and absolute truth, notwithstanding the legitimacy of the postmodern critique vis a vis our ability to grasp that which in turn grasps us. We must avoid epistemological error on every side, such a premodern fideism as makes a priori claims of ontological dualism and such a modernistic rationalism as makes a priori claims of a materialist monism, both engaging in an unwarranted epistemological hubris. Then, we must avoid the postmodern threat (or that of Nagarjuna, even) of an excessive epistemological humility, that regnant relativism akin to an insidious nihilism.

Atheism fails because, in the final analysis, philosophically, its fundamental trust in uncertain reality is as ungrounded, emphatically so, as is nihilism's lack of trust. Agnosticism fails because its denial of the ability to ground one's fundamental trust leaves it even more exposed to the nonsuppositions of a nowhere anchored trust.

But wait a minute! Who adjudicated these claims? Didn't we just go to great lengths to acknowledge their epistemological parity with theism?

Why do the a priori, first principles of theism, of a fundamental trust in uncertain reality grounded by primal ground, primal support, primal being, primal destiny and primal origin, articulated in cosmological, causal, moral, teleological, ontological, epsitemological and other auxiliary hypotheses of a supernatural core hypothesis, which admits of the necessity of immateriality, atemporality, nonenergetics and nonspatiality --- all described analogically --- get the nod in this adjudicatory proceeding?

Why do any first principles get the nod?

Because their metaphysical inferences are compelling.

Why are they compelling? Why are other inferences and ontological sneaking suspicions of the atheists, agnostics and nontheists less compelling?

Well, not because of apodictical proof or demonstrable axioms.

Here is why:

quote:

One who denies a first principle will fall into absurdity and become a rightful object of ridicule, wit and humor being other divine gifts to defend the gift of common sense.. There cannot be any apodictical proof, but there are argumentative resources available as well as ridicule.

They are five: (a) The argumentum ad hominem , showing one's opponent to be guilty of inconsistency; (b) the argument absurdum , tracing the consequences of the denial to manifest absurdity; (c) the argument from authority; (d) from their presence at the beginning of our mental lives; (e) from the practical absurdities to which their denial leads.

above from Ralph McInerny's Gifford Lectures

Now, admittedly, one might recognize some of the above arguments from lists of logical fallacies. The thing about the whole litany of fallacies that we must keep in mind is that, although they cannot yield proofs, properly employed and rigorously worked, some of them are extremely useful exercises in critical thinking and, as such, can lead us in the direction of discovering the validity of a claim, especially those that are ultimately verifiable/falsifiable (even if only eschatologically, which theism is but nontheisms are not --- another test of a valid scientific hypothesis ).

So, now, as promised, we return to the inference . Let me scroll back up there and see where I was headed on that one (which ain't here, to be sure).

Okay, what I had written:

quote:

the ontological, causal and cosmological arguments, which will perennially present themselves, in turn leading right back to some rather compelling inferences about anthropic principles, intelligent design, cosmic teleology and even deontological ethics and the moral argument.

A key concept here is inferences ...

It is at this juncture that I would turn to epsitemology proper. Brad's question languishes, still begging an answer, though I think I have provided the background to begin to answer it with this monographic monologue (which truly represents years of actual dialogical work).

So, once again: Brad wrote: But isn�t there still a characteristic in religious belief, as in science, of a jumping to some sort of certainty without evidence? On your side of the street do you worry about this at all?

I think I have at least answered that there is an all around concern on my side of the street and have set forth some reasons why there should be concern on all sides, even in the subway and manhole systems. This problem is perhaps more succinctly stated as the attempt to avoid fideism, by the theists, and rationalism, by the nontheists.

Where's the beef? Where's the evidence? How much certainty is to be had?

Well, clearly the evidence and certainty of physics versus that of metaphysics are of clearly different species. One way of looking at the difference may be to suggest that the evidence of physics is related to the evidence of metaphysics only analogically, that the certainty of physics and the certainty of metaphysics, therefore, are only related analogically.

That is to say that they have similarities but many more dissimilarities.

The certainties of physics, of empirical science, are phenomenological, able to be reconstructed mathematically or quasi-mathematically, using reason and rational processes.

The certainties of metaphysics, of philosophy, are pre-scientific, are ontological and existential, something one does with one's entire being, ergo existential, an orientation of all of one's faculties (especially the will), an attitude or posture toward reality if you will and not merely a cognitive assent to an empirically demonstrable proposition, using super-reason or meta-rational processes.

The certainty that gifts one with fundamental trust in uncertain reality and which issues forth from a deeply and profoundly experienced intuition of being does not exist without its reinforcing evidence, however much that evidence is of an entirely different order than that sought after by empirical science. If faith is the confident assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen, it is only because the tacit dimension with its unobtrusive effectiveness vis a vis formal causation is, in principle, indemonstrable, unseen. We musn't confuse indemonstrability, however, with inaccessibility, neither in quantum physics nor (and I mean this analogically) in metaphysics. The question we pursue, epistemologically, pre-scientifically, in metaphysics presupposes that science can know something and asks: How is it that science can tell me something? How is it I can be told anything at all? And, is there truth in such tellings? Or error?

Or, do we live in a chronosynclastic infundibulum , that Vonnegutesque place where everything is at once true and false at the same time?

There is a deeply felt sense that we do not.

Why do we feel this way? Why do we sense this?

Does an evolutionary epistemology which sets forth the marvelous emergent semiotic capacities of humankind exhaust all of the answers to why we experience a profound intuition of being ? a deeply felt sense that we can and do know reality and we do, in fact, get a progessively better grasp of reality through our research programs, both scientific and theological?

Truly, an evolutionary epistemology and a sociobiological perspective, might be suspected to best explain humankind's cognitive, affective and intuitive capacities. The reason that it might be held suspect as the most comprehensive explanation is that it is grounded in such an emergentist hermeneutic as derives not just from biological evolution but which necessarily derives from cosmological evolution, a process which assuredly has unfolded, revealing a dynamism known as something more from nothing but , a phrase coined, I believe, by my good friend, Ursula Goodenough, as one of the credal formulations of her wonderful description of the epic of evolution, which is indeed part of Everybody's Story , per the book title of her good friend, Loyal Rue (with foreward by E.O. Wilson). Why suspect? One cannot proceed backwards through an infinite regress of something more from nothing but s and without a contextualization in the ontological as well as the phenomenological, the metaphysical as well as the physical, the metarational as well as the rational, we might still have Everybody's Story but, with apologies to Paul Harvey, we are lacking The Rest of the Story, which, according to one of my favorite modern mystics (introduced to me on a listserv by his publisher), Luther Askeland, is the untellable story in which we are all being told , which leaves us, as McInerny eventually titled his Gifford Lectures, Characters in Search of Their Author.

So, if a purely evolutionary epistemology does not suffice, where does one go metaphysically? Well, like E.O. Wilson, at least to deism. (To advance an argument from authority)

Is there a complementary epistemology to a strictly evolutionary epistemology?

That's really what Brad was asking? Do we have an essentially theological epistemology ?

Well, yes, we do.

For this we look to the work of Martin X. Moleski, S.J. , wherein he has set forth, in his dissertation, Illative Sense and Tacit Knowledge: A Comparision of the Theological Implications of the Epistemologies of John Henry Newman and Michael Polanyi, in a much more reader-friendly and articulate manner, what I was trying to suggest hereinabove regarding certainty and proofs and fallacies.

He writes, regarding Systematic Theology:

quote:

I chose Thomas Aquinas as my patron saint when I was confirmed in the spring of 1966. For the next fifteen years or so, I made regular efforts to see whether I could update his five ways of recognizing the existence of God. I never succeeded entirely. The harder I tried to solidify a proof for God's existence, the more I came to doubt the whole value of proving things. That's where Newman and Polanyi come in handy. They show that proof isn't all that it's cracked up to be. We can know much more than we can prove. I can't prove this perfectly, but I believe it wholeheartedly.

I wholeheartedly commend Martin X. Moleski, S.J. 's website. He recently chaired the 2002 Polanyi Society Annual Meeting in Toronto. Ursula Goodenough presented and her respondents were Nancy Howell, Saint Paul School of Theology; Phil Mullins, Missouri Western State College; and Diane Yeager, Georgetown University. She generously shared with me her draft in progress before that meeting and, with all humility, I must admit that I bombed in my commentary back to her. The other respondents did not. They wrote the responses I would have given, if only I could have Take a look if you are inclined. Therein lie the answers to such questions as to which I am unable to provide even some modest Cliff Notes, like the one Brad posed.

OK. I am going to hit "Add Reply" before my PC crashes and hope that Phil's scripts write this to the server

Forget why the tea kettle boils. The reason I wrote this and posted it is because, as good as the Ohio State-Miami game was, the NFL Wildcard games were ____________ (you fill in the blank - That'll keep this post from being a total nonsequitur)

pax, amor et bonum, certainly yours
jb
always poised over the abyss of doubt, rationally
never more certain, metarationally

w.c. - re: your comments on reductionism, mind and brain, parapsychology

You reminded me of a Demski article:

quote:

Over a hundred years ago William James saw clearly that science would never resolve the mind�body problem. In his Principles of Psychology he argued that neither empirical evidence nor scientific reasoning would settle this question. Instead, he foresaw an interminable debate between competing philosophies, with no side gaining a clear advantage. The following passage captures the state of cognitive science today:

We are thrown back therefore upon the crude evidences of introspection on the one hand, with all its liabilities to deception, and, on the other hand, upon a priori postulates and probabilities. He who loves to balance nice doubts need be in no hurry to decide the point. Like Mephistopheles to Faust, he can say to himself, "dazu hast du noch eine lange Frist" [for that you�ve got a long wait], for from generation to generation the reasons adduced on both sides will grow more voluminous, and the discussion more refined.

The Dembski Article from First Things

I am still reviewing comments made here today.

pax,
jb