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?

Thanks, Phil. I suppose that�s why philosophy is more than just some abstract �mind game.� What better tool is there with which to study consciousness (and therefore reality) than the mind and our senses? One can study an apple in minute detail, separating it down to its constituent atoms and molecules and noting the sugars, carbohydrates and other contents. But none of this will ever give you the investigative results that taking a bite out of the apple will.

I don�t believe the mind is an inherent distortion of reality or that mathematics and science give us the true picture because it is more objective. I mean, what is reality but whatever comes through our senses? Reality itself seems useless (even moot) without our subjective senses. And none of us experiences whatever reality is out there, say, an apple, in just the same way. How curious that there seems to be both an inherent objectivity and a subjectivity to reality. We can repeat our scientific experiments but the rest of reality (probably most of it) is just an uncertain blur (and how curious that quantum physics turns everything into an uncertain blur). I might stop short of saying that there is nothing BUT consciousness, but it is consciousness (or sensory apparatus, no matter how crude, as in an amoeba) that gives any relevance to reality (or science) to begin with.

I don�t believe that even in the most extreme instances that our senses are a distortion of reality. It is a PLAYING out of reality through the sensory inputs of the moment. After all, consciousness plays such a huge role in shaping reality (whether the mechanism is related to Schroedinger's cat or not). What we believe, whether strictly �true� or not, shapes our reality to a great extent. If we believe we can�t do something we can�t. Under hypnosis we can do things we couldn�t ordinarily do. The power of prayer shows evidence of having healing effects. Etc. A schizophrenic is likely to experience quite a different reality than you or me but is it the �wrong� reality? We call things illusions because they are not shared by more than one person. But do we share ANY perceptions exactly the same way with anyone else? I don�t think we can even begin to talk about objective reality or scientific reality without acknowledging the subjective nature of it. And it�s not that the subjectivity is a limit to FINDING reality, but rather that it is an integral part of it. It sort of suggests a question: how could there be anything if there was not me (or someone)?

Brad - can philosophy eventually be done away with? Well, no, for all of the reasons I so laboriously set forth already, however avaricious my bandwidth consumption (just because I am culpable where an evil act is concerned does not mean such action won't inure to your ultimate benefit)

Seriously, I heartily commend:
God & Science by Maritain , [Transcribed from a carbon copy of a typewritten manuscript.]

pax,
jb

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.

Bingo! and an important insight vis a vis there being no a priori claims that can be made ontologically, metaphysically.

Including the concept of a God, as a metaphysical exercise, some would argue, can proceed without the benefit of revelation. Such an exploration of a natural theology, using human reason alone, usually takes one metaphysically, minimally to a ground of being or at least a deistic Unmoved Mover/First Cause, which by definition is going to have to be ontologically discontinuous so as not to get caught up in the infinite regression trap, unless one takes the route of pantheism, which may be a more defensible position, philosophically, than a purely materialistic monism.

A humbling experience is to engage the argument from authority and of consensus gentium --- far greater minds than mine have pondered the imponderable and at least came out deists (most of our beloved founding fathers and latter day folks like E.O. Wilson). Then, there is Einstein. These folks weren't engaged in infantile illusion, wishful thinking, anthropomorphic projections, etc (the litany of ad hominems against believers). They were applying their genius to the perennial ontological riddle and trying to avoid epsitemological futility vis a vis the argument of reductio ad absurdum.

pax,
jb

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.

w.c. The way some of the materialists have stated this is that we can model the rules of a system but cannot explain them , that my ontological riddle is not insoluble but rather a pseudo-riddle, that we can never attain a meta-framework or achieve a meta-system vantage point because we can't, so to speak, get out of our heads . To a certain extent, I think all they are saying is that our ontological arguments are an exercise in misplaced concreteness, that our semiotic capabilities have misled us when we attempt to fashion a model of reality from our mental constructions, the only legitimate constructions being those whcih arise from observable phenomena and which are expressible mathematically and quasi-mathematically.

End of story. Next question - as far as they are concerned. Once the ontological riddle is thus labeled a pseudo-riddle, then the Sagan-Hawking-Stenger theories of cosmogenesis and the Dawkins articulation of biogenesis and the Deacon-Goodenough accounts of emergentist phenomena (something more from nothing but) really do gain metaphysical import and, following Occam's Razor and the Law of Parsimony, these simpler explanations seem to be the most likely explanations.

If however, we disallow this sleight of handish metaphysical legerdemain of the materialists based on our reductio ad absurdum analysis of their resulting epistemology (nowhere anchored, paradoxical and tainted heavily by nihilism) and declare their charge of a pseudo-riddle bogus, inconsistent and incoherent (using common sense, for instance), then ... ... ... I forgot my point ... ... what was I going to say? ... ... I have been typing this furiously with the Jeopardy Gameshow tune playing in the background, like a clock is going to run out on my framing of the questions for everybody else's answers ... ... Oh yeah ...

Then, we can calmy point out to them that they can't just up and shanghai old Occam like that, after all, he was a Catholic and a Franciscan monk --- Rather, they must understand that the true law of parsimony requires not only that we use the simplest explanation but the simplest explanantion capabale of getting the whole job done.

So, it is important that they blow by the ontological question and stick to the phenomenological --- that they may avoid the most crucial question of our time, first articulated by Maritain and then succinctly rephrased by the gentleman from Washington State, who has kindly yielded his floor time to me in this debate.

pax,
jb

Brad:

More to what you alluded to earlier: there is a kind of inviable intimacy of persons, or an immediate wholeness in the encounter that deconstructive expressions of "self" do not capture - as in the whole being bigger than the sum of the parts.

Regarding "presence," one could say it is this intimacy of the self, known tacitly as in Heidegger's intuition of being, or in Buber's "I-Thou" paradigm. Western ontological systems seem to preserve this phenomenal notion of experience more in its own right than do Eastern deconstructions, where "self" seems a less substantial way of understanding the ontology of experience (or even a hindrance). And so while no one can completely prove or disprove the existence of self, its escaping definition is perhaps part of its intimacy, where it is also transparent to something bigger, also largely unquantifiable. In other words, the uncertainty of the self in philosophical/scientific terms is either a problem of measurement, or an opening to presence, the latter a realm of subjectivity given implicit credance in defining the observer's role in wave-particle systems. This opening to presence-wonder through uncertainty may be what inspires some physicists like Nick Herbert and Fred Allan Wolf to take up a non-reductionistic ontology.

Another phenomenological way of discerning presence is to sense the difference between its qualities (curiosity, wonder, reverence, intuition, compassion, humor, courage, love, patience, tolerance, acceptance, etc.) and those of more garden variety emotions, the latter not often producing sustained intimacy. Those gaps in discursive thought, which occur more naturally in prayer, are openings to this presence.

But in the end, there is just more to experience than we can ever know, let alone prove, as J.B. and you have reflected.

J.B. said:

"[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?]"

The only distinction I can see between Nargarjuna and Derrida, is that N. seems to pose the notion of "presence-emptiness," which are complimentary aspects of the unborn mind. As such, he isn't the reductionist Derrida is, who seems to turn everything into metaphorical references without finding experientially, after his reductionism, this unannihilated yet impermanent(neither subjective nor objective) presence, or what Buddhists seem to refer to as the "clear light" nature of the unborn mind. This Buddha nature, according to Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (found in "Rainbow Painting," considered one of the soundest written explanations of Dzogchen, the Buddhist non-dual path)is free from the extremes of being and non-being. I'd like to say this is similar to the theistic notion of the Divine presence before any manifestation, or duality, but the Buddhists state that what is experiencing is empty of identity, even though experiencing is happening (similar to the neroscientific notion of selfless "zombies," yet not a reductionism of mind itself). This emptiness of the perciever, while absurd or untenable for western phenomenology, is, something quite different in Buddhist terms. I'll quote Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, since understanding this stuff is said to require direct experience, which makes me a good candidate for blasphemy or misrepresentation:

"While perceiving, Buddha nature is empty of a perceiver; while being empty, there is still experience. Search for the perceiver; there is no 'thing' to find. There is no barrier between the two. If it were one or the other there should be either a concrete perceiver who always remains, or an absolute void. Instead, at the same time vivid perception takes place, that which perceives is totally empty. This is called the unity of experience and emptiness, or the unity of awareness and emptiness. The fact of experience eliminates the extreme of nothingness, while the fact that it is empty eliminates the extreme of concrete existence."

This apparently is cognition of experience without a quantifiable self-entity to do the observing; yet this emptiness, this missing self-entity, is the inherent wakefulness of the mind. And so self, rather than "mind", is the epiphenomenon. Whereas in western neuroscience, the notion of mind and self are both reduced to physiological systems.

What is the deal with the Colts??? Is it simply poor defense, or is Manning over-rated?

Well, no, for all of the reasons I so laboriously set forth already, however avaricious my bandwidth consumption

Ha! Don't worry. I always do a little back-reading and there's much more to be done. Thanks for the link. I'll read through that too.

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.

and 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.

These are excellent points and right-on observations. They represent some of the best attempts of humankind to resolve the ontological riddle and epistemological conundrum and really anticipated the postmodern critique. Your points are well made about the persistence of radical uncertainty in these philosophies. Their acknowledge of this ontological uncertainty, to me, marks an advanced approach to those who would claim an a priori ontological position. There is no epistemological hubris here, of either the pre-modern fideistic variety or of the modernist rationalistic brand. There is, however, an excessive epistemological humility, similar to radically deconstructive postmodernism and the linguistic turn in philosophy. The application of reductio ad absurdum reveals these philosophies to be in want of coherence and consistency for they cannot maintain their philosophical position due to a type of bulverism , best explained by CS Lewis, by which they hoist their entire system on their own epistemological gallows.

Phil, I don't know what the fair use of this material is inasmuch as it was reproduced as if it were in the public domain at FreeRepublic.com "A Conservative News Forum" .

quote:

It is a disastrous discovery, as Emerson says somewhere, that we exist. I mean, it is disastrous when instead of merely attending to a rose we are forced to think of ourselves looking at the rose, with a certain type of mind and a certain type of eyes. It is disastrous because, if you are not very careful, the color of the rose gets attributed to our optic nerves and its scent to our noses, and in the end there is no rose left. The professional philosophers have been bothered about this universal black-out for over two hundred years, and the world has not much listened to them. But the same disaster is now occurring on a level we can all understand.

Let's truncate the quote here if you think it is a fair use/copyright issue. Hurry everyone, read it now before you are greatly inconvenienced by having to click on the link to it

We have recently �discovered that we exist� in two new senses. The Freudians have discovered that we exist as bundles of complexes. The Marxians have discovered that we exist as members of some economic class. In the old days it was supposed that if a thing seemed obviously true to a hundred men, then it was probably true in fact. Nowadays the Freudian will tell you to go and analyze the hundred: you will find that they all think Elizabeth a great queen because they all have a mother-complex. Their thoughts are psychologically tainted at the source. And the Marxist will tell you to go and examine the economic interests of the hundred; you will find that they all think freedom a good thing because they are all members of the bourgeoisie whose prosperity is increased by a policy of laissez-faire. Their thoughts are �ideologically tainted� at the source.

Now this is obviously great fun; but it has not always been noticed that there is a bill to pay for it. There are two questions that people who say this kind of thing ought to be asked. The first is, are all thoughts thus tainted at the source, or only some? The second is, does the taint invalidate the tainted thought - in the sense of making it untrue - or not?

If they say that all thoughts are thus tainted, then, of course, we must remind them that Freudianism and Marxism are as much systems of thought as Christian theology or philosophical idealism. The Freudian and Marxian are in the same boat with all the rest of us, and cannot criticize us from outside. They have sawn off the branch they were sitting on. If, on the other hand, they say that the taint need not invalidate their thinking, then neither need it invalidate ours. In which case they have saved their own branch, but also saved ours along with it.

The only line they can really take is to say that some thoughts are tainted and others are not - which has the advantage (if Freudians and Marxians regard it as an advantage) of being what every sane man has always believed. But if that is so, we must then ask how you find out which are tainted and which are not. It is no earthly use saying that those are tainted which agree with the secret wishes of the thinker. Some of the things I should like to believe must in fact be true; it is impossible to arrange a universe which contradicts everyone�s wishes, in every respect, at every moment. Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is �wishful thinking.� You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant - but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.

In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method [Note: This essay was written in 1941.] is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it �Bulverism.� Some day I am going the write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father - who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third - �Oh, you say that because you are a man.� �At that moment,� E. Bulver assures us, �there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.� That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

I find the fruits of his discovery almost everywhere. Thus I see my religion dismissed on the grounds that �the comfortable parson had every reason for assuring the nineteenth century worker that poverty would be rewarded in another world.� Well, no doubt he had. On the assumption that Christianity is an error, I can see clearly enough that some people would still have a motive for inculcating it. I see it so easily that I can, of course, play the game the other way round, by saying that �the modern man has every reason for trying to convince himself that there are no eternal sanctions behind the morality he is rejecting.� For Bulverism is a truly democratic game in the sense that all can play it all day long, and that it give no unfair advantage to the small and offensive minority who reason. But of course it gets us not one inch nearer to deciding whether, as a matter of fact, the Christian religion is true or false. That question remains to be discussed on quite different grounds - a matter of philosophical and historical argument. However it were decided, the improper motives of some people, both for believing it and for disbelieving it, would remain just as they are.

I see Bulverism at work in every political argument. The capitalists must be bad economists because we know why they want capitalism, and equally Communists must be bad economists because we know why they want Communism. Thus, the Bulverists on both sides. In reality, of course, either the doctrines of the capitalists are false, or the doctrines of the Communists, or both; but you can only find out the rights and wrongs by reasoning - never by being rude about your opponent�s psychology.

Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs. Each side snatches it early as a weapon against the other; but between the two reason itself is discredited. And why should reason not be discredited? It would be easy, in answer, to point to the present state of the world, but the real answer is even more immediate. The forces discrediting reason, themselves depend of reasoning. You must reason even to Bulverize. You are trying to prove that all proofs are invalid. If you fail, you fail. If you succeed, then you fail even more - for the proof that all proofs are invalid must be invalid itself.

The alternative then is either sheer self-contradicting idiocy or else some tenacious belief in our power of reasoning, held in the teeth of all the evidence that Bulverists can bring for a �taint� in this or that human reasoner. I am ready to admit, if you like, that this tenacious belief has something transcendental or mystical about it. What then? Would you rather be a lunatic than a mystic?

So we see there is justification for holding on to our belief in Reason. But can this be done without theism? Does �I know� involve that God exists? Everything I know is an inference from sensation (except the present moment). All our knowledge of the universe beyond our immediate experiences depends on inferences from these experiences. If our inferences do not give a genuine insight into reality, then we can know nothing. A theory cannot be accepted if it does not allow our thinking to be a genuine insight, nor if the fact of our knowledge is not explicable in terms of that theory.

But our thoughts can only be accepted as a genuine insight under certain conditions. All beliefs have causes but a distinction must be drawn between (1) ordinary causes and (2) a special kind of cause called �a reason.� Causes are mindless events which can produce other results than belief. Reasons arise from axioms and inferences and affect only beliefs. Bulverism tries to show that the other man has causes and not reasons and that we have reasons and not causes. A belief which can be accounted for entirely in terms of causes is worthless. This principle must not be abandoned when we consider the beliefs which are the basis of others. Our knowledge depends on our certainty about axioms and inferences. If these are the results of causes, then there is no possibility of knowledge. Either we can know nothing or thought has reasons only, and no causes.

pax,
jb

p.s. Of course, I have set out at length, previosuly, the remedy to this malady, and that is to replace the ontological a priori with the [I]ontological hypothetical , thereby replacing both epistemological hubris and humility with an epistemological holism .

J.B.

This Buddhist notion of mind without self, which allows for observation without reductionism, may somewhat address the ontological flaw of materialists(Not that I personally agree with this self-less system, since the only sincere way of agreeing would be to experience life as such . . . and then you can't quote the person, so what's the use!). If I understand, mind as unborn wakefullness, with its clarity (based on no self) and cognizing (based on experiencing) features, is an irreducible observer (without inherent self content), which implicates observed reality (without self-content) as part of this same field of wakefulness.

re: 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?
+++ +++ +++

Good point, especially once qualified by using the phrase has something to reveal --- also, good point about approaches being absurd , for that has been my Archimedean point for leveraging my epistemological holism over against the fideists and rationalists and their a priori ontological stances. As for revealing something just as surely as quantum physics and math, surely it reveals something but, nuancing, clearly we recognize the difference between the phenomenological evidence of physics versus the ontological evidence of metaphysics. Analogically, the both reveal something, but the matters under consideration are of entirely different species.

re: 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.

Good point. When we are tooling around philosophically, metaphysically and theologically, we don't pretend that matters of faith are something else. The materialists get dogmatic when they a priori deny the possibility for philosophy, metaphysics, theology and faith and limit all inquiries to the rational, excluding the meta-rational.

pax,
jb

Brad:

quote:

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

w.c.: That's a classic!!

What troubled me about w.c.'s response was that, for about 5 minutes, I did not get Brad's parody. Didn't even see it as a parody. I stared at it. I mulled it over. I had faith that there was a latent meaning because w.c.'s response guanranteed that it did (argument from authority - it saved me some time, telling me to go ahead and return to it, seeking the meaning--in the same way that Phil's credibility in labeling participants Chomskyphiles saved me precious time in reading or returning to other posts --- just kidding, you polemical brute, you).

It IS a classic. I think the Muse was still with him from our Fiesta Bowl poetry escapades and that he just had to outdo my Woody Hayes metaphor in both depth and humor. Stop. No more. Uncle. Uncle. No mas. YOU WIN!

pax,
jb

Including the concept of a God

JB: As you know, it�s a normal scientific practice to try and expose one�s prejudices (as it is in journalism � theoretically) so that it doesn�t affect one�s work. I think it�s safe to say that God and religion are viewed as prejudices to be excised at the very start � no questions asked. After all, superstition and religion are synonymous, and science is out to replace superstition with objective facts � or so it�s commonly thought.

Be that as it may, we�re only human. I have yet to read about the history of any specific scientific line of inquiry that didn�t face unnecessary set-backs, delays and dead ends due to what people almost demanded to find instead of what they actually found.

I saw a good quote you posted about the mind/body problem. I think the author had a very good point. And I can imagine, as we�re doing now, that we will one day pinpoint every last neuron of the brain (or the smallest coherent regions of cells) and say �this is the part of the brain that makes us sneeze...this is the part of the brain that sees the color blue�, etc. But will we be any closer to explaining our senses and feelings? If I were in front of a graduating class of hopeful scientists I might well use the apple analogy to point out that however closely we might examine an apple and explain all its parts it will not in any way say anything about the experience of eating it. It might be quite a blow to their egos that a literal moron off the street could experience something that the most well-funded scientific lab couldn�t begin to explain. The natural tendency of the graduates, or anyone else, therefore would be to explain only what they could. But that is rather limiting. I would suggest that the subject of God and all this other stuff should not be shunted to some Philosophy 101 class that is taken as an afterthought or requirement.

The natural bias against religion in colleges does not make this very likely. But we do know that bias is an enemy of science. Who knows what might be discovered with an open mind? Who knows what Nobel Prize awaits the person to take a fresh Newtonian or Einsteinian look at existing phenomenon?

A humbling experience is to engage the argument from authority and of consensus gentium --- far greater minds than mine have pondered the imponderable and at least came out deists

It�s amazing how many scientists are religious. They are not mutually exclusive by any means. The pendulum has swung heavily to the materialistic side of things. Any good scientist worth his objective salt should take notice of this.

re: A schizophrenic is likely to experience quite a different reality than you or me but is it the �wrong� reality?

You're going to have to trust me on this one. I lived with one for four years. He was most definitely in the wRong reality with a capital R.

re: It sort of suggests a question: how could there be anything if there was not me (or someone)?

You have been outed. So, the Neonazis and Islamic Extremists (and others, of course) were right all along! Brad is a solipsist and he does want to control the world's energy supply, that is, if he can wrestle it away from ... ... ... ... I forget who has it ... ... oh yeah, Condoleeza

pax,
jb

JB said: The way some of the materialists have stated this is that we can model the rules of a system but cannot explain them , that my ontological riddle is not insoluble but rather a pseudo-riddle, that we can never attain a meta-framework or achieve a meta-system vantage point because we can't, so to speak, get out of our heads .

If science can�t explain it then it�s shunted off to the corner as if it�s some bastard relation to be hidden away at family gatherings. Clearly one has to prioritize one�s work or nothing will get done. But the carpet is nearly bulging from all the things that have been swept under it. There�s often a lot of ego, money and prestige wrapped up in the �pure� pursuit of science � more than most people probably think. There are rewards for taking risks but even larger penalties for appearing to be a kook. Right now metaphysics, god and the infusions of too much philosophy into science are almost guaranteed to label someone as a kook. I suppose unless and until some concrete results are obtained from the addition of these ideas it will always be so. But is it impossible for these other areas to show any kind of concrete results? Can religion bring any tangible aid to science other than philosophizing over the results of science? Or will we simply be satisfied if science lays off its arrogant attitude toward religion and stops trying to disprove it?

You're going to have to trust me on this one. I lived with one for four years. He was most definitely in the wRong reality with a capital R.

I don�t mean to be insensitive, but surely it was a painful reality � but still a reality(?). If the experience was not so painful would it be considered wrong? Are there not some whose minds are simple (perhaps retarded � perhaps not) who, for lack of a better term, don�t torture themselves with things that drive the rest of us to worry? What�s the �correct� way to be? Hey, I do speak a bit from experience here. I realize I�m a full, self-aware person but am highly maladaptive to the point of causing myself way too much pain. But it�s still reality.

You have been outed. So, the Neonazis and Islamic Extremists (and others, of course) were right all along! Brad is a solipsist and he does want to control the world's energy supply

Solidus. Soliloquy. Ah...solipsism. Hey!!!

quote:

This Buddhist notion of mind without self, which allows for observation without reductionism, may somewhat address the ontological flaw of materialists(Not that I personally agree with this self-less system, since the only sincere way of agreeing would be to experience life as such . . . and then you can't quote the person, so what's the use!). If I understand, mind as unborn wakefullness, with its clarity (based on no self) and cognizing (based on experiencing) features, is an irreducible observer (without inherent self content), which implicates observed reality (without self-content) as part of this same field of wakefulness.

w.c. - this is difficult, but worthwhile.

The closest I can get, experientially, through my bimodal, Western lenses of consciousness, is the contemplative gaze, that moment of awareness (of different degrees of purity ) that can sometimes be had after sensing but prior to judgment. Is that a fair assessment. Or even related? I think of that space, in behavioral psychology, between S ---> R, stimulus and response, that pause, and how we spend so much time in psychological integration and spiritual formation, in essence, trying to expand it, to enlarge our freedom in the service of ordinacy, of love. There is something very nondual in that space, during that pause. It is an experience to nurture and to treasure and one might properly wonder if it is our heritage, prior to our fallen-redeemed state and in partial anticipation of the unitive life, with the caveat that intentionality must have a primary role, however nondiscursive and with the faculty of the will.

Now, to the extent that there have been those in the East whose ontology/epistemology is habitually nondual, or those in the West, who due to various spiritual disciplines underwent a bias shift from, more or less, permanent dual to nondual consciousness, a question arises. The whole dynamism of S --R, of pausing between sensation and judgment, must predispose one to apophatic versus kataphatic ways of knowing, not that discursive faculties shut down or that critical thinking gets compromised. But there has got to be an entirely novel experience of perception that gifts one with the types of contemplation that Arraj, expanding on Maritain, has called philosophical contemplation, mysticism of the self, mystical contemplation and so forth (and I think of all the little charts and diagrams with folks looking now this way and now that at the interfaces of essence and existence, penetrating through them, at times). I wonder how this affected Anthony deMello in his move toward radical apophaticism and Bernadette Roberts in her no-self reports? Phil seems to have better integrated his own experiences than either of them? Why? How? Is there anything normative or prescriptive, other than having the apophatic being nurtured by the kataphatic and the two dancing, not in opposition, but in what Keating would consider to be as complementary? Have we thus gone far astray of our topic at hand? I am now recalling that Jim & Tyra addressed some of the implications of the disparate worldviews for different approaches to spirituality, near the end of the essay. Maybe we can return there.

questions -
jb

Not that I personally agree with this self-less system, since the only sincere way of agreeing would be to experience life as such . . . and then you can't quote the person, so what's the use!

ROTFLMAO. (Well, I'm not actually rolling on the floor, and my ass is still attached, but I *am* laughing.)

JB said: 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.

I see we share similar passions, although on entirely different subjects. You are the Rush Limbaugh of philosophers. That actually would make for great radio (if you can find a way to bring Hillary into the discussion once in a while).

re:Hey, I do speak a bit from experience here. I realize I�m a full, self-aware person but am highly maladaptive to the point of causing myself way too much pain. But it�s still reality.

A friend of mine shared a quote his commanding officer once laid on him: Sometimes, you've got to just quit beating your head against the wall just because it feels good when you stop!

No insensitivity taken.

pax,
jb

J.B.

The contemplative gaze is different for me than moments of non-dual perception, but they don't seem to be incongruent mind states. In the contemplative gaze there is a surrender of the will to God, the larger loving Presence, and a being known beyond the faculties of the mind. This being known and loved is distinct and transcendent, with the will and affect predisposed to a relationship. Somehow I'm being loved without having done anything but opened to that possibility, like a child opening to mother love. It is marked mostly, perhaps, by not only the unconditional nature of the love, but how unable I am to cognize the event. And so "self" is not orchestrating the communion, but is affectively engaged, while the mind is open via the will.

In the non-dual moments, there is more an immanent sense of presence, equally embodied in seeing and whatever is seen. This sort of presence appears as that which is always there, the hidden nature of all phenomena, somehow. But it doesn't feel like being loved; it's alive and wondrous, and one could saying resonate with love, but one isn't receiving, and the faculties haven't been suspended (except for the discursive mind's identification with thoughts - although the thoughts themselves can unfold as this presence as well). The self is less obvious, perhaps because the immanent sort of resonance between internal and external worlds is so heightened.

The idea of uncreated and created presence might apply . . . although the Buddhists refer to non-dual presence as unborn. It may be unborn, but it also seems to have always been there as innate to physical reality; whereas the abiding nature of God's love, while omnipresent, is something given into awareness, rather than arising from it.

After contemplative moments I do find non-dual perception more common. But not as much the other way around.

re: If science can�t explain it then it�s shunted off to the corner as if it�s some bastard relation to be hidden away at family gatherings. Clearly one has to prioritize one�s work or nothing will get done. But the carpet is nearly bulging from all the things that have been swept under it.

quote:

A man was walking home one dark and foggy night. As he groped his way through the murk he nearly tripped over someone crawling around by a lamp post. "What are you doing?" asked the traveller. "I�m looking for my keys." Replied the other. "Are you sure you lost them here?" asked the first man. "I�m not sure at all," came the reply, "but if I haven�t lost them near this lamp I don�t stand a chance of finding them." (Richard Seel)

re: There�s often a lot of ego, money and prestige wrapped up in the �pure� pursuit of science � more than most people probably think. There are rewards for taking risks but even larger penalties for appearing to be a kook. Right now metaphysics, god and the infusions of too much philosophy into science are almost guaranteed to label someone as a kook.

Some of the religious folks trying to inject their fundamentalist views into science are a real problem. So, too, some scientists trying to speak to metaphysical issues without going metarational are wasting everyone's time. Fideists and rationalists sacrifice a lot of modeling power as the price for their epistemological hubris.

re: I suppose unless and until some concrete results are obtained from the addition of these ideas it will always be so. But is it impossible for these other areas to show any kind of concrete results? Can religion bring any tangible aid to science other than philosophizing over the results of science?

Even the materialist monists/naturalists that I engage positively affirm the role of religion for humanity and believe that there is some real efficacy in our mythological systems regarding a whole array of human activities -- ethically, aesthetically and otherwise. Some have even advanced the notion that, for those who don't believe in the supernatural, still, mankind needs a Noble Lie of some sort to satiate our cravings for the transcendent and to allay our cognitive-affective dissonance, angst and existential anxiety that might otherwise be crippling. Some, who are in science, nontheistically, and who are pursuing a teleological ethics, and an new ecomorality, see some merit in partnering with the more foundational, deontological ethics --- believing that in partnership we might articulate a global ethic and a more compelling morality. Not all of the participants at the interface between science and religion are in conflict mode. Rather, many are in a cooperative mode. See this excellent essay, setting forth Typologies (�Ways of Relating Science and Religion�) . Religion will continue to inform science, ethically, and yield tangible results in helping the masses toward psychological integration through formative spiritualities. Secular alternatives may increasingly abound but I think the New Age movement reveals that some reaction to the modernist efforts to disenchant the cosmos is already underway (not in a totally healthy manner).

re: Or will we simply be satisfied if science lays off its arrogant attitude toward religion and stops trying to disprove it?

Truly, those whose religion is threatened by modern science, which cannot disprove religion, are actually being done a favor. The militant atheists and amiable humanists can play a hygienic role. If, for instance, anyone's religion is truly threatened by the Dawkinsesque straw-man attacks, then they deserve to be dispossesed of their god, and rid of their idolatry. See my old essay: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the Logical Fallacies of Dawkins , wherein I wrote:

quote:

Lane writes: "An openness to doubt and examination should supersede the commitment to faith in doctrine. Openness to doubt is one of the prime characteristics of integrity (and openness to doubt and examination are characteristic of the scientific outlook). In the fulfillment of fundamental value, the primary commitment of religion should be to integrity; commitment to doctrine should be secondary."

Is he suggesting that openness to doubt and examination are not ever characteristic of a religious outlook and that all religions require doctrinal faith which essentially excludes the possibility of doubt? What about Tillich's assertion that faith and doubt form one polar reality, that faith is not the absence of doubt but rather the state of ultimate concern? What about the assertion by the prominent Catholic theologian, Avery Dulles: "The Christian that thinks that his faith is sufficiently protected by his philosophy or theology or by any created institution - such a one is really insecure in his faith. Faith does not possess what it affirms. It is ceaselessly poised over the abyss of doubt."

The straw man fallacy may be the most common and egregious atheistic fallacy of them all, wherein the detractors of God attack a God-concept which is different from the God-concept of Christianity in its very essence. St. Thomas Aquinas would not recognize the Dawkinsian Imago Dei and would truly wonder: "Whose idolatrous godde is this that Dawkins seems to be continuously and iconoclastically driving out of the temple where scientism worships?"
When Dawkins and others advance that class of arguments which suggest that, on one hand, faith is unevidenced belief, or on the other hand, that it does not include an intrinsic element of doubt, they are not engaging the authentic claims of Christian theology .

Lane's mischaracterization of faith above is a straw man, too. There is no such thing as faith without doubt except in perverted forms of dogmatism and fideism. Here, he is also engaging the fallacy of misuse by suggesting that the abuse of faith is an argument against the use of faith, the abuse of a nonimaginative God-concept is an argument for an imaginative God-concept. Dawkins explicitly commits this fallacy when he says: "faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness... powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings."

The gods and dogmatisms under attack by Dawkins et al are directed against a 'straw' version of Christianity, one which the orthodox would not wish to defend.

If these guys shoot down your god, then your god is dead , indeed. As Emerson said: When the half-gods depart, the Gods will appear. (Maybe it was him and maybe that's what he said.)

pax,
jb

w.c. thanks for your distinctions drawn between the contemplative gaze and nondual moments. I intuited this when I referenced to the dynamic of intentionality (thinking mostly of the will to love) and you opened this up to a consideration of the personal, relational versus the more impersonal. This comports, I recall, with Merton's distinctions between the apophatic, impersonal, existential, immanent and the kataphatic, personal, theological, transcendent.

Also, this is something I meant to touch on in our ontological discussions, too. Those who take the natural theology approach to the metaphysical assumption of a Prime Mover, such as the deists, still have not traveled the road toward a God that is personal versus impersonal, and not even whether or not It is friendly and caring versus unfriendly and uncaring and a host of other divine attributes. The leap from a monistic natural to a dualistic supernatural world does not get one to the Abrahamic faiths.

There's much left to be done in both natural and revealed theology after one has engaged prime causes and process theology, especially as regarding theodicy and soteriology. ???

pax,
jb

JB: Some have even advanced the notion that, for those who don't believe in the supernatural, still, mankind needs a Noble Lie of some sort to satiate our cravings for the transcendent and to allay our cognitive-affective dissonance, angst and existential anxiety that might otherwise be crippling.

Gee�that doesn�t sound the least bit condescending. I�ve been just as uncomfortable in my life when I�ve had atheist leanings as when I�ve had religious leanings. Each is just a system of thought (whether one is ultimately true or not could hardly have been known to me). While I do think there is a human urge to know, to fill in the gaps, I don�t think we all run around stark raving mad if we have unanswered questions � even big ones.

The God�s truth (heh heh) is that I believe (but can not prove) that�s there�s a damn good reason we have a search for a higher truth: there IS a higher truth.

Some, who are in science, nontheistically, and who are pursuing a teleological ethics, and an new ecomorality, see some merit in partnering with the more foundational, deontological ethics --- believing that in partnership we might articulate a global ethic and a more compelling morality.

When I hear �global ethic� I�m afraid I still hear condescension. I will admit that religious principles can make their way into politics just fine (The Declaration of Independence) but I don�t think one can just dabble with the concepts and hope to infuse them into some larger structure if the religions themselves are not taken seriously.

In the fulfillment of fundamental value, the primary commitment of religion should be to integrity; commitment to doctrine should be secondary.

That sounds like a healthy thing for religious people. I wonder how many keep this idea in mind?

Here, he is also engaging the fallacy of misuse by suggesting that the abuse of faith is an argument against the use of faith, the abuse of a nonimaginative God-concept is an argument for an imaginative God- concept. Dawkins explicitly commits this fallacy when he says: "faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness... powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings.

I believe that idea in one form or another is fairly prevalent today. I don�t remember your exact words or terminology, but the idea of a faith in materialism is probably the easiest to understand and most effective argument to those who are entrenched in anti-religious bigotry � no matter how mild. It was an eye-opener for me. You added more doubt to my doubt. Thanks for the answer. And thanks (wilted smirk) for yet another link and another bit of reading I must do.

quote:

JB said: 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.

I see we share similar passions, although on entirely different subjects. You are the Rush Limbaugh of philosophers. That actually would make for great radio (if you can find a way to bring Hillary into the discussion once in a while).

Well, actually, that was a quote from Phil and, to that extent, you've got him pegged! The Rush Limbaugh of philosophers and the Michael Novak of socioeconomicpoliticocultural punditry.

For my part, philosophically, sticking with the radio talk show metaphor, I am more of a Howard Stern, parading an endless succession of ontologies and epistemologies, not discriminating aesthetically, and undressing each of them, while describing, for my listeners, all of their raving metaphysical beauty and any of their nauseatingly ugly superficial realities.


jb

Condescending? re: those nonbelievers who understand the believers' needs vis a vis believers' anthropomorphic projections, infantile illusions and wishful thinking?

True enough. My latest exchange with that cabal precisely stressed the point that the fear of death and the desire for an afterlife were not the sole determinants for the tenancity of belief in the supernatural, nor the origin of belief in the supernatural, for that matter. The anthropology of religion, I believe, backs me on that. I won't post my conversation here unless folks are really interested. Phil can testify to the nature of the exchange inasmuch as I shared it with him, just a few days ago. My point was that our intuition of being and ontological suspicions vis a vis natural theology are enough to fuel our supernatural speculation. (The Jews, you recall, had no meaningful afterlife conception.)

re: the Global Ethic - well, again, yeah maybe some condescension in the manner that deontological ethics are allowed to sneak in the back door of certain moral deliberations of the teleological ethics folks, but that is something a few of us in the Catholic church have been trying to accomplish, yet in the opposite direction --- getting more of an existentialistic, teleological perspective to bolster our almost exclusively essentialistic, deontological approach to moral theology. As for the Global Ethic, that has been mostly the work of interreligious dialogue and not so much interideological dialogue, although I would advocate getting the humanists more involved, myself.

But, yeah, one definitely feels like a second class citizen, intellectually, in some of those materialist fora, but the folks I interact with the most are not at all patronizing and condescending. We rib each other a lot. We kinda all believe that our sneaking suspicions are right, ontologically and epistemologically, but admit that we may one day be proven wrong. My counter is that, they may be proven wrong but, if they are correct, I will never be proven wrong

pax,
jb

JB said: Truly, those whose religion is threatened by modern science, which cannot disprove religion, are actually being done a favor. The militant atheists and amiable humanists can play a hygienic role. If, for instance, anyone's religion is truly threatened by the Dawkinsesque straw-man attacks, then they deserve to be dispossesed of their god, and rid of their idolatry.

(There�s a high, shrill �beep, beep, beep� as a large truck backs into the noisy construction site. A load of cement swooshes down the extended chute into the waiting forms. Foundation Principle Installed)

It�s not often one gets to witness a true idea being integrated � and so melodramatically! I understand what you mean and now I�ll tell you what it means to me (freeing you of all responsibility for tangential wanderings):

Science has, at least in many people�s eyes, chipped away at the foundation of religion by explaining many things in a more rational way that used to be explained in a more superstitious way. Religion, of course, is known to have had many excesses in the past. This is mainly due to people misusing it for other purposes (mainly power). But still, because religion over-reached in what it tried to explain and what it seemed to explain it gave it an air of authority it might not have had otherwise and thus gave it a power in certain areas (particularly politically) that it might not have had otherwise. Well, along comes science and puts religion into a type of cycle of Darwinian natural selection. It burns away the areas of religion that were excesses and causes it to be more sharply focused and thus helps to "cleanse" it.

Back to the article: A philosophical cosmology would not be an alternative science. It would not be able to tell us about quasars or black holes, or the acceleration of the universe, but it would have to address the magnificent and startling fact that the universe exists, and it would have to ask about its origins.

�But a genuine philosophical or metaphysical cosmology could exist in harmony with today�s scientific cosmology. It would not compete with science, but complement it, and have its own distinctive way to look at the universe.

�Indeed, our universe, itself, is a distinctive kind of universe, and is only one of many possible universes, so our universe cannot be equated with the fullness of existence. The things around us, and the universe as a whole, therefore, are partial reflections, or refractions, of existence, itself.

I think thinks builds a good case for a philosophical cosmology guiding science in its lines of inquiry. Whether these lines are testable or not or lead to new discovers will be interesting to see. In my view there are clearly philosophical truths that can be deduced from pure reason alone and that might not lend themselves to experiment...but there indeed could be. Science is often said to change our world view as dicoveries are made. But if you look at who actually makes these discoveries it is often individuals who fundamentally question the existing world view to begin with.

From the article: The kind of philosophical cosmology that I am outlining categorically denies that something can come from absolutely nothing. From this point of view in scientific cosmology we have things coming from nothing that are really somethings, that is, fields, vacuums, etc. Or we have something coming from nothing based on certain kinds of interpretations of quantum theory that are not intrinsically connected with its mathematical formalism. And finally we have rather bald assertions on the part of some scientific cosmologists and their popularizers about something from nothing, but all in all, I can see no real scientific evidence that something emerges from absolutely nothing.

While I agree that quantum vacuums don�t quite qualify as nothings I�m wondering whether the limitations of the human mind and human senses don�t severely prejudice us, particularly when it comes to the very ideas of time and nothingness. I have to admit that I�ve read some of Hawking�s work and can just about wrap my mind around the idea that the universe needn�t have had a �beginning� because time itself at some point (oh, the language and concepts are so contradictory!) did not apply. But I do not see this whole scenario precluding a larger context of existence (even a God).