Robert Ritner And Joseph Smith

[Olavarria]

THE EGYPTIAN PAPYRI

So I decided to read Robert Ritner’s “The Breathing of Hor among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” [1] for reasons I’ll discuss below. Wow. Where do I begin? As I’ve mentioned several times, I’m working on late Neoplatonic influence on early Mormonism and the primary innovations that the late Neoplatonists made to Neoplatonism was theurgy. To learn theurgy, Iamblichus spent considerable time studying in Egypt; Egyptians ritual played a significant role in Imablichus’s ritual theology. In fact, Iamblichus wrote his De Mysteriis (the principal exposition on theurgy) as “Master Abamon,” an Egyptian priest.[2]

So I was particularly intrigued when I came across Algis Uzadavinys’s Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity, which argues that the theology behind theurgy was fundamentally based on the Egyptian Book of the Dead.[3] Uzdavinys argues in a nutshell that Egyptian theology was one of pre-mortal souls coming to earth, overcoming sin and then ascending back to the gods after death, to become gods themselves. Uzdavinys argues that Plato took these concepts and “philosophized” them, replacing the Egyptian gods with terms like “the good” and “the forms.”[4] Iamblichus, argues Uzandavinys, after extensive study in Egypt, brought the gods back to Platonism with theurgy. So if Uzandavinys and I are correct, (why not?) then when Smith acquired the Breathings of Hor, he acquired a sort of Ur text behind the whole operation.

Reading the Breathings of Hor thus was quite an experience. It’s description of the departed soul undergoing ritual purification and then progressing back to the gods and becoming deified himself sounded quite familiar both in terms of Mormon and Neoplatonic theology. Here’s paragraph 5: “You shall not be turned away from the doors of the Underworld. Thoth, the Thrice Greatest, Lord of Hermopolis, has come to you. He has written for you a Breathing Document with his own fingers, so that your ba-spirit may breathe forever, and that you might regain the form that you had on earth among the living, since you are divine together with the ba-spirits of the gods. Your heart is the heart of Re; your flesh is the flesh of the great god.” [5].

Most interesting is how Ritner interprets facsimile 3. Instead of Abraham lecturing on astronomy, it’s actually the initiate entering the presence of Osiris sitting on his throne. “Having attained justification,” explains Ritner “the deified Hor is brought by Maat and Anubis before the altar of the enthroned Osiris, behind whom stands Isis.”[6] Cool, totally looks like the temple, go take a look. That is, after undergoing ritual purification and various stages of progression, Hor is led into the presence of Osiris. They’re even wearing ritual-looking aprons. In sum, Ritner declares, “The text is a formal document or ‘permit’ created by Isis and copied by Thoth to assure that the deified Hor regains the ability to breathe and function after death, with full mobility, access to offerings, and all other privileges of the immortal gods. The implications, basic symbolism, and intent of the text are certain.” [7] Ironically, Ritner’s translation looks considerably more “Mormon” than does Joseph Smith’s “translation.”

It’s curious that it took Joseph Smith so long to translate the Book of Abraham (1835-1842) particularly in comparison to how fast he translated the Book of Mormon and the Bible. But what is interesting is the degree to which Smith’s theology aligned with this “Book of the Dead” and late Neoplatonic philosophy in the interim: pre-existence, material God, deification, and ritual enactment of the whole process. The text demands, “Hide it! Hide it! Do not let anyone read it!” The fact that Smith was rather secretive about his own mystery rite… perhaps Smith learned more from the Breathings of Hor than is contained in what he published as the Book of Abraham.[8]

Indeed, this all reminds me of how Sam Brown describes Smith’s translations in his upcoming book. Smith was “translating” all the time, seeing with spiritual eyes what was really supposed to be. Exact, literal translations of ancient texts may not have been the point us such “translation.”[9]

______________

[1] Robert K. Ritner, “The Breathing of Hor among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 52, no. 3 (2003): 161-180. Ritner is quite critical of Joseph Smith, Hugh Nibley, and John Gee in this article. Apparently there’s been quite a nasty debate over these issues. I confess I’ve read none of it. Indeed I’ve only read one small article by Nibley, his response to Lester Bush–I’ve read nothing by Nibley on these topics.

[2] The actual title of the text is “the Reply of Master Abamon to the the Letter of Prophyry to Anebo, and the Solutions to the Questions it Contains.” Ficino, the text’s Latin translator entitled it De Mysteriis, On the Mysteries.

[3] Algis Uzandavinys, Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity (San Rafel, Calif.: Sophia Perennis, 2010). Sophia Perennis isn’t exactly a university press but the book’s foreword is by John Finnamore an important Neoplatonist scholar and the book is endorsed on the back by John Dillon, probably the leading expert on Neoplatonism. Says Dillon, “In this most stimulating and wide-ranging work, Algis Uzandavinys, drawing on the resources of his enormous learning, leads Neoplatonic theurgy back to its roots in Ancient Egypt, thereby setting Platonic philosophy in a new and wider context. Students of Neoplatonism will find themselves much indebted to him for this, and all readers will find their outlook on life significantly changed.” Quite the endorsement. I haven’t finished the book yet but wanted to put this post up anyway. Perhaps more when I’m done.

[4] Christian Platonists long asserted that the “ancient wisdom” came to Plato from the Egyptians and to the Egyptians from Moses, Joseph, or Abraham.

[5] Ritner, 172.

[6] Ritner, 175.

[7] Ritner, 177.

[8] This is not to say that Smith did not interact with these elements from other sources in his environment. It looks to me like Smith put gathered these elements and arranged them in a particular fashion.

[9] This is not to say that the text of the Book of Abraham isn’t worthwhile. It’s full of interesting stuff. I’ll have some more posts on some interesting things about that text later.

[Robert F. Smith]

[4] Christian Platonists long asserted that the “ancient wisdom” came to Plato from the Egyptians and to the Egyptians from Moses, Joseph, or Abraham.

[8] This is not to say that Smith did not interact with these elements from other sources in his environment. It looks to me like Smith put gathered these elements and arranged them in a particular fashion.

Pedro

You are correct about the impact of the translation by the magus Ficino of the Corpus Hermeticum (at the behest of the Medicis, who had just reestablished the Academy of Plato in Florence at the dawn of the Renaissance), but it goes much further than you suggest, including study of Orphic, Qabbalistic, and other works from late antiquity – and their intensive study by the best minds of the 15th century A.D.

You may also be aware that the magus Michel Notradame (Nostradamus)¹ studied Iamblichus’ De mysteriis aegyptorum, and that even so serious an Egyptologist as Erik Hornung traces the Hermetic lore back to its 12th Dynasty Egyptian beginnings (contemporary with Abraham), and explains how it was transmuted into something esoteric, which was then transmitted via Greco-Roman authors into Renaissance times (and on into the 20th century). He disagrees with Jan Assmann, who sees the esoteric lore beginning only in ancient Egyptian New Kingdom times.² Gary Lease goes on to note that the New Kingdom Mysteries of Re are identical with those of Mithra a millennium later.³ And, of course, you are no doubt aware of the close connections between Mithraism and the Christianity of Constantine.

As merely one more aspect of this overall tendency to transmit secret lore from late antiquity, on the basis of clear marks of authenticity, the great Matthew Black insisted privately that Joseph must have had sub rosa informants by some unknown means to have gotten his book of Enoch (within the Book of Moses). The Second Enoch sources were simply not yet discovered or translated. Another aspect is hinted at by the claim of the Renaissance magi that the first king of Egypt, Hermes Triplex, came immediately following the great Flood (Book of Abraham 1:24-25), while the Sibylline Oracles named his mother Sambethe / Sambathis (like Zeptah/Egyptus), the daughter or daughter-in-law of Noah, who also came to Egypt just after the Flood.⁴

Who but Joseph and Rene Descartes would have “three consecutive dreams . . . from on high” – in which the Angel of Truth came to Descartes on the night of Nov 10, 1619, as a kind of “Hermetic trance, of that sleep of the senses in which truth is revealed”⁵ – the same year that the magus Giulio Cesare Vanini was burned at the stake in Toulouse, France.⁶

Who but Joseph would argue for the creation of “all things from coexistent and unregenerated matter,” rather than creatio ex nihilo.⁷ Who else but Joseph would press the case for an infinite universe and innumerable worlds, and pay for his claims with his life, as had Giordano Bruno before him. Who but Joseph and the Renaissance magi would claim stars and planets as governors (via effluvia and influences), and argue for the tripartite order of nature & the cosmos, i.e., Intellectus, Spiritus, and Materia = intellect, soul, and body, or for something akin to the Qabbalistic three worlds: supercelestial (angelic), celestial, and terrestrial (sublunar) as the path of the Sephiroth. Who else but Joseph and the Hermetic magi would opt for spirit as a fine substance,⁸ eternity as imperishable,⁹ “no death, but only change,”¹⁰ initiatory cult, apotheosis (“god-making”),¹¹ Orphic nox = Qabbalistic ensoph, etc. Who but Joseph and the Renaissance magi would place such emphasis on Egypt as the source of Hermetic lore and of the most ancient wisdom (prisca theologia) and power, and of writing in Egyptian hieroglyphs as “a deep way of stating hidden truths.”¹²

I can see how you might be quite taken with the Neoplatonic “reflection of the Ideas in the divine intellect in their images or forms in the soul of the world, whence they are again reflected (through the intermediaries in the soul of the world) in material forms.”¹³

And, speaking of the impact of such influences upon the American Renaissance, Peter Carafiol said, “all these forces suddenly came to literary expression in 1830 or so” (page 11, in Harry R. Garvin and Peter C. Carafiol, eds., The American Renaissance: New Dimensions [1983] = Bucknell Review, 28/1), which naturally raises questions about Joseph Smith’s remarkable assimilation of such forces in his own program of “the restoration of all things,” i.e., the raison d’etre of the Renaissance, making Joseph a Renaissance magus par excellence.

Who but Joseph would say “I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world.”¹⁴ Harold Bloom of Yale said of Joseph

“I myself can think of not another American, except for Emerson and Whitman, who so moves and alters my own imagination. So self-educated was he that he transcends Emerson and Whitman in my imaginative response, and takes his place with the great figures of our fiction, since at moments he appears larger than life, in the mode of a Shakespearean character. So rich and so varied a personality, so vital a spark of divinity, is almost beyond the limits of the human, as we normally construe those limits.”

15

-----------------------------

1 He was court physician and astrologer to the Queen of France, Catherine de’Medici.

2 Hornung, The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West (2001); Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (2001), 54, and passim; see P. Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (1996), for the esoteric methods of transmission down to the Islamic period.

3 Lease,“Mithra in Egypt,” in Pearson & Goehring, eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (1986), 127 n. 53.

4 H. C. Youtie, "Sambathis," Harvard Theological Review, 37:213-217; CF. Charlesworth, OTP, I:318, citing Rosenstiehl & Heinz, "De Sibtu, la reine de Mari, à Sambethe," Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuse, 52 (1972), 13-15; Sibylline Oracles, Prologue:33; I:289, III:809,823-827 (J. Charlesworth, OTP, I:317-318, 327, 341, 380; R.H. Charles, APOT, II:392-393), from the oldest and most certainly Jewish section of OrSib

5 Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964), 452, citing Baillet’s biography of Descartes; cf. 280. On these dreams see also Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence (2000), 201; and J. Maritain, The Dream of Descartes (1944).

6 Yates, Giordano Bruno, 444, n. 2.

7 Hyppolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 7:10, 10:24, cited by Lance Owens, Dialogue, 27/3 (1994), n. 45, also citing Jung and Augustine.

8 Yates, Giordano Bruno, 69; Brooke, Refiner’s Fire, 3-5. Cf. Joseph Smith: “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter but is more fine or pure and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We can’t see it but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter” (William Clayton Journal, May 17, 1843; D&C 131:7-.

9 Yates, Giordano Bruno, 243. Cf. Joseph Smith: “the elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fullness of joy” (D&C 93:33).

10 Yates, Giordano Bruno, 380, citing Corpus Hermeticum XII.

11 In his 1505 commentary on Corpus Hermeticum II, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples was very unhappy with the “god-making” passages (Yates, Giordano Bruno, 40; cf. 111,281-282; cf. Shumaker, Occult Sciences, 207).

12 E. Hornung, Secret Lore, 98-105,128-141; A. & J. Assmann., eds., Hieroglyphen: Stationen einen anderen abendländischen Grammatologie, Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation VIII (2002), section II. J. T. Irwin, American Hieroglyphics: The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the American Renaissance (1980/1983); E. Iverson, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (1961). Cf. Yates, Giordano Bruno, 163; cf. 200,263-264,322,417.

13 Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno, 65, and passim.

14 Joseph Smith in B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church, VI:365; cf. Daniel 7:27, Matthew 21:43.

15 Bloom, American Religion (1992), 127, quoted by Robert Rees, “Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the American Renaissance,” Dialogue, 35/3 (2002), 96-97.

[Olavarria]

Thanks for the well documented response. For the record, I didn't write the post; Steve Fleming did:)

Edited September 3, 2011 by Pedro A. Olavarria

[mfbukowski]

Indeed, this all reminds me of how Sam Brown describes Smith’s translations in his upcoming book. Smith was “translating” all the time, seeing with spiritual eyes what was really supposed to be. Exact, literal translations of ancient texts may not have been the point us such “translation.”

I couldn't agree more. As a linguistic constructivist I see "myth" everywhere- not in the usual sense we might see on this forum as a "fictional false story" but as an explanation of experience directly received and directly expressed.

Seen in this context, science is as much "myth" as anything else- it is a construction and transformation of "reality" into a vocabulary which serves a given purpose and defines the conceptual tools we all need.

The use of the word "translate" in this context should always convey with it a reconstruction into a new context; a re-creation into a totally new vocabulary and with it the necessary cultural transformation of the ideas into a new "reality"

And in fact this is precisely what Bloom is speaking of here:

Harold Bloom of Yale said of Joseph

“I myself can think of not another American, except for Emerson and Whitman, who so moves and alters my own imagination. So self-educated was he that he transcends Emerson and Whitman in my imaginative response, and takes his place with the great figures of our fiction, since at moments he appears larger than life, in the mode of a Shakespearean character. So rich and so varied a personality, so vital a spark of divinity, is almost beyond the limits of the human, as we normally construe those limits.”15

Seen in this light, when we see all of reality as a noble "fiction" which is culturally created, Bloom's notion of a "strong poet", a term I think he would apply to both Joseph and a few of the world's leading scientists, comes into its own and removes the sting of the way we usually view the word "fiction".

Are Joseph's "translations" "fiction"?

No more or less than any other written work which tears the meaning and richness of experience out of its context and attempts to express it in little symbols on a page.

Yet clearly they fit perfectly into a rich and historically ancient understanding of man's place in the universe. How he could do that can only be explained as "pure inspiration".

Thanks to all for these great posts!

Edited September 3, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Chris Smith]

Seen in this light, when we see all of reality as a noble "fiction" which is culturally created, Bloom's notion of a "strong poet", a term I think he would apply to both Joseph and a few of the world's leading scientists, comes into its own and removes the sting of the way we usually view the word "fiction".

Yet from a pragmatic perspective, we still have to maintain a distinction between "true" fictions (those that are commensurate with observed outcomes and therefore have predictive utility) and "false" ones (those that are not commensurate with observed outcomes). Orwell's 1984 includes a neat little "fictional" (or is it? ) exploration of just this problem.

Edited September 3, 2011 by Chris Smith

[Mortal Man]

I see "myth" everywhere- not in the usual sense we might see on this forum as a "fictional false story" but as an explanation of experience directly received and directly expressed.

Seen in this context, science is as much "myth" as anything else- it is a construction and transformation of "reality" into a vocabulary which serves a given purpose and defines the conceptual tools we all need.

The use of the word "translate" in this context should always convey with it a reconstruction into a new context; a re-creation into a totally new vocabulary and with it the necessary cultural transformation of the ideas into a new "reality"

Is it really worth destroying the English language, rejecting science, scorning visible evidence and denying rational thought just to save the BoA?

[mfbukowski]

Yet from a pragmatic perspective, we still have to maintain a distinction between "true" fictions (those that are commensurate with observed outcomes and therefore have predictive utility) and "false" ones (those that are not commensurate with observed outcomes). Orwell's 1984 includes a neat little "fictional" (or is it? ) exploration of just this problem.

Interesting you should bring that up- I am just in the process of writing some stuff on Rorty's "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" and he talks at length precisely about Orwell's 1984.

I think he makes a basic error in his view of the self in defining what an "ironist" is- he sees an ironist as one who sees the self as completely linguistically contingent- that is they are aware that they themselves are nothing more than a collection of vocabularies, but yet they seek to define themselves as the creator of a "new" vocabulary. On the other hand, I don't think the self is completely contingent. There always is a self who experiences himself as the one who is doing the creating. But that is another story.

The real Pragmatic definition of "truth" (greatly simplified into practically a 'slogan' for purposes of discussing it as briefly as we must here) is "what works" and that can include "what works" for you to give meaning and purpose in your life.

You may disagree, but I make a distinction between what "works" on a subjective level in ordering one's experience in such a way as to give one's life meaning and what "works" in a scientific sense, as you are discussing it, as what works in the sense of being "commensurate with observed outcomes" objectively.

On a subjective religious level I would agree with William James that one can be "justified" in some sense in a religious belief or any subjective belief where the "observed outcomes" are along Alma 32 lines- ie: the belief gives your life meaning or helps you to put together a unified world view- almost like one of Rorty's ironists, but of course on a theistic basis.

So objective "fictions" like science- are metaphors which we can all verify by experience- that is what makes them "objective" (this is an idea I stole from Thomas Nagel- actually I didn't, but he's famous and I am not, but he is close enough in my most humble opinion! )

But subjective metaphors I think can be justified wholly on an Alma 32 basis. And indeed that is why I find the Book of Mormon so unique- it puts forth a Pragmatic perspective unlike any other religious work that I am aware of.

And I know your objections will be that some such subjective beliefs have implications in the objective world- I personally think that that comes from a fundamentalistic, incorrect understanding of the scriptures.

In other words, I think religion's implications are completely subjective- not that they cannot be manifested objectively- I believe in miracles and have seen some- but the way we know that they are "real" is completely subjective and cannot be proven objectively. There is always some other explanation- some other vocabulary or context in which to see them, but I think we need to choose to see them another way.

So getting back to the OP, I think that for example the Book of Abraham was completely inspired. What Joseph said it was, what Joseph thought it was, is completely irrelevant to its "truth" in my view.

I think all this talk and argument about the "translation" of the BOA or the BOM is just silly. One must take them as Bloom would - and apparently does- as independent works on their own in the world, irrespective of their origins.

That is how one judges the Koran, the Avesta, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and other religious scriptures- why not our own? We are too close- 150 years is nothing. A prophet is never a prophet when you knew him as a pesky kid. In effect, I think that is the insight which is lacking on these boards and I would love to change that.

[mfbukowski]

Is it really worth destroying the English language, rejecting science, scorning visible evidence and denying rational thought just to save the BoA?

I think you need to read some Pragmatism and/or linguistic constructivism.

It's pretty mainstream stuff nowadays- even somewhat old fashioned.

Of course I reject none of those things. Regarding science, I think Kuhn nailed it, I don't believe in things no one has experienced, and I think that fundamentalists, like at least one on this thread, are the ones who deny rationality.

Some believe in an external world no one has ever experienced. Not me. I only believe in things someone has experienced- and I even include myself as a "someone" in that.

[Chris Smith]

You may disagree, but I make a distinction between what "works" on a subjective level in ordering one's experience in such a way as to give one's life meaning and what "works" in a scientific sense, as you are discussing it, as what works in the sense of being "commensurate with observed outcomes" objectively.

Orwell would call that "doublethink"-- the simultaneous affirmation of two incommensurable systems of thought, acting on the "objective" one when necessary, but sublimating it beneath the "subjective" one the rest of the time. There's nothing inherently wrong with this sort of doublethink, I suppose, but for most people-- myself included-- it just feels inauthentic. And unless the principle of doublethink is made explicit, it carries the inherent danger that people may misapply the "subjective" system of knowledge to problems that really ought to be approached from the perspective of the "objective" system.

And I know your objections will be that some such subjective beliefs have implications in the objective world- I personally think that that comes from a fundamentalistic, incorrect understanding of the scriptures.

I would say that the only reason you think this approach to the scriptures is fundamentalistic and incorrect is that you have embraced a postmodern philosophy that you feel permits you to pick and choose. If one approaches the scriptures from within the thought-world they evoke, one will read them like a fundamentalist. What you call incorrect and fundamentalistic, I would call taking the scriptures seriously for what they claim to be.

Edited September 4, 2011 by Chris Smith

[mfbukowski]

Orwell would call that "doublethink"-- the simultaneous affirmation of two incommensurable systems of thought, acting on the "objective" one when necessary, but sublimating it beneath the "subjective" one the rest of the time. There's nothing inherently wrong with this sort of doublethink, I suppose, but for most people-- myself included-- it just feels inauthentic. And unless the principle of doublethink is made explicit, it carries the inherent danger that people may misapply the "subjective" system of knowledge to problems that really ought to be approached from the perspective of the "objective" system.

But the distinction is well established in philosophy, and after all Orwell was not a philosopher. It is not "doublethink"

Just logically, first person statements generally can tell us nothing about third person facts; statements about me do not generally say anything about someone else. Your subjective experiences cannot be exhausted in their content by someone else's observations of you- there is a logical divide there which cannot be bridged.

If I tell you I believe in the flying spaghetti monster that statement could be true or false, and there is no way you could possibly know if I was lying or not. You, as a third party, could not determine the truth or falsity of that statement.

My siggy refers to an article by Nagel which discusses this in detail, and more specifically how the description of brainstates cannot capture subjective experience- and this notion has wide application in the discussion of the mind body problem and free will and determinism.

The difference between subjective and objective truth is not "doublethink" by any means and is an important discussion in philosophy today.

Edited September 4, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Chris Smith]

But the problem is that your subjective system of truth makes inaccurate claims on the physical world. So as I said, you're simultaneously affirming two incommensurate systems of knowledge. That is the very definition of doublethink.

Furthermore, I can change your subjective perspective by changing your brain states. The fact that we can't yet fully account for the phenomenology of consciousness doesn't mean it can't ever be physically accounted for. The fact that phenomenology can be manipulated through physical alteration of the brain would seem to imply that it should be possible to give such an account.

Edited September 4, 2011 by Chris Smith

[mfbukowski]

But the problem is that your subjective system of truth makes inaccurate claims on the physical world. So as I said, you're simultaneously affirming two incommensurate systems of knowledge. That is the very definition of doublethink.

Furthermore, I can change your subjective perspective by changing your brain states. The fact that we can't yet fully account for the phenomenology of consciousness doesn't mean it can't ever be physically accounted for. The fact that phenomenology can be manipulated through physical alteration of the brain would seem to imply that it should be possible to give such an account.

Yes, but I can also change your brain states by changing your subjective perspective. If a grizzly bear suddenly crashed through the window in the room in which you are reading this, your brainstates would be instantly altered. No one is arguing that there is not a correlation between brainstates and one's perspective, the argument is whether or not one can fully describe the other.

The idea is that subjective and objective represent two totally different perspectives, similar to other kinds of different perspectives- Is the moon a crescent or is it a circle? Both and neither- but both represent two different perspectives and two different ways of experiencing it.

Both are "true" in a sense- sometimes the moon appears to be a circle and sometimes it appears to be crescent, but the more observations we do the more like a "sphere" it becomes. It will always be true that it "appears" both ways at times from different perspectives. A pyramid can be seen as a triangle, or if in rotation, many other shapes I suppose, but it will always be true that it "appears" as a triangle from one limited perspective. As Nagel points out, the more such perceptions from more sources we can accumulate the more "objective" the experience becomes. If theoretically we could "see" as bats can with their sonar we would have even more understanding of the pyramid. But it will always be true that from a given point of view the statement "That shape is a triangle" will be true when looking at a pyramid.

So looking from two different perspectives is not "simultaneously affirming two incommensurate systems of knowledge" at all- it is simply seeing the same "reality" from two points of view.

Brainstates will never fully describe experiences because the very act of observing them from that point of view destroys the phenomenon, perhaps analogous to the problem of wavefunction collapse in quantum physics.

The very act of making the observation destroys the phenomenon. Is light a wave or a particle? Both and neither.

THAT is NOT "doublethink"!

It will never be known if you see the same color as I do when I see "green" (a trivial example selected for its simplicity) because you are not me. You could open up my brain and never find the way I see "green"- the most you could possibly find would be a chemical or set of synapses known to be associated with a "green experience" (hypothetically of course). You could stimulate a part of my brain and I might report the "hearing Beethoven's Fifth" but YOU would not hear it also. Suppose I was lying, or suppose I was mistaken about that report?

Suppose I was actually hearing Bach or Elvis Presley? The phenomenon I am experiencing will never be the phenomenon you are experiencing, and so you will never be able to turn that subjective experience of mine into a replicable "objective" experience - because you have no way of checking that experience report.

But it seems we have avoided a discussion of William James here as well- his argument about Pragmatism and the value of religious experience on its own terms.

Edited September 4, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Nathair/|\]

Yes, but I can also change your brain states by changing your subjective perspective. If a grizzly bear suddenly crashed through the window in the room in which you are reading this, your brainstates would be instantly altered. No one is arguing that there is not a correlation between brainstates and one's perspective, the argument is whether or not one can fully describe the other.

The idea is that subjective and objective represent two totally different perspectives, similar to other kinds of different perspectives- Is the moon a crescent or is it a circle? Both and neither- but both represent two different perspectives and two different ways of experiencing it.

Both are "true" in a sense- sometimes the moon appears to be a circle and sometimes it appears to be crescent, but the more observations we do the more like a "sphere" it becomes. It will always be true that it "appears" both ways at times from different perspectives. A pyramid can be seen as a triangle, or if in rotation, many other shapes I suppose, but it will always be true that it "appears" as a triangle from one limited perspective. As Nagel points out, the more such perceptions from more sources we can accumulate the more "objective" the experience becomes. If theoretically we could "see" as bats can with their sonar we would have even more understanding of the pyramid. But it will always be true that from a given point of view the statement "That shape is a triangle" will be true when looking at a pyramid.

So looking from two different perspectives is not "simultaneously affirming two incommensurate systems of knowledge" at all- it is simply seeing the same "reality" from two points of view.

Brainstates will never fully describe experiences because the very act of observing them from that point of view destroys the phenomenon, perhaps analogous to the problem of wavefunction collapse in quantum physics.

The very act of making the observation destroys the phenomenon. Is light a wave or a particle? Both and neither.

THAT is NOT "doublethink"!

It will never be known if you see the same color as I do when I see "green" (a trivial example selected for its simplicity) because you are not me. You could open up my brain and never find the way I see "green"- the most you could possibly find would be a chemical or set of synapses known to be associated with a "green experience" (hypothetically of course). You could stimulate a part of my brain and I might report the "hearing Beethoven's Fifth" but YOU would not hear it also. Suppose I was lying, or suppose I was mistaken about that report?

Suppose I was actually hearing Bach or Elvis Presley? The phenomenon I am experiencing will never be the phenomenon you are experiencing, and so you will never be able to turn that subjective experience of mine into a replicable "objective" experience - because you have no way of checking that experience report.

But it seems we have avoided a discussion of William James here as well- his argument about Pragmatism and the value of religious experience on its own terms.

Luke: [incredulously] A certain point of view?Obi-Wan: Luke, you will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.

[Nathair/|\]

Yes, but I can also change your brain states by changing your subjective perspective. If a grizzly bear suddenly crashed through the window in the room in which you are reading this, your brainstates would be instantly altered. No one is arguing that there is not a correlation between brainstates and one's perspective, the argument is whether or not one can fully describe the other.

The idea is that subjective and objective represent two totally different perspectives, similar to other kinds of different perspectives- Is the moon a crescent or is it a circle? Both and neither- but both represent two different perspectives and two different ways of experiencing it.

Both are "true" in a sense- sometimes the moon appears to be a circle and sometimes it appears to be crescent, but the more observations we do the more like a "sphere" it becomes. It will always be true that it "appears" both ways at times from different perspectives. A pyramid can be seen as a triangle, or if in rotation, many other shapes I suppose, but it will always be true that it "appears" as a triangle from one limited perspective. As Nagel points out, the more such perceptions from more sources we can accumulate the more "objective" the experience becomes. If theoretically we could "see" as bats can with their sonar we would have even more understanding of the pyramid. But it will always be true that from a given point of view the statement "That shape is a triangle" will be true when looking at a pyramid.

So looking from two different perspectives is not "simultaneously affirming two incommensurate systems of knowledge" at all- it is simply seeing the same "reality" from two points of view.

Brainstates will never fully describe experiences because the very act of observing them from that point of view destroys the phenomenon, perhaps analogous to the problem of wavefunction collapse in quantum physics.

The very act of making the observation destroys the phenomenon. Is light a wave or a particle? Both and neither.

THAT is NOT "doublethink"!

It will never be known if you see the same color as I do when I see "green" (a trivial example selected for its simplicity) because you are not me. You could open up my brain and never find the way I see "green"- the most you could possibly find would be a chemical or set of synapses known to be associated with a "green experience" (hypothetically of course). You could stimulate a part of my brain and I might report the "hearing Beethoven's Fifth" but YOU would not hear it also. Suppose I was lying, or suppose I was mistaken about that report?

Suppose I was actually hearing Bach or Elvis Presley? The phenomenon I am experiencing will never be the phenomenon you are experiencing, and so you will never be able to turn that subjective experience of mine into a replicable "objective" experience - because you have no way of checking that experience report.

But it seems we have avoided a discussion of William James here as well- his argument about Pragmatism and the value of religious experience on its own terms.

Luke: [incredulously] A certain point of view?Obi-Wan: Luke, you will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

[Robert F. Smith]

Thanks for the well documented response. For the record, I didn't write the post; Steve Fleming did:)

Thanks for setting me straight, and for providing his thought-provoking article.

[Chris Smith]

Yes, but I can also change your brain states by changing your subjective perspective.

No you can't, because you have no way of acting on my perspective except through the medium of my brainstates.

Mind-body causation is a difficult issue, but personally I think it's a mistake to think of causation going from the level of consciousness to the level of the brainstate. Computers make a useful analogy. It appears that by clicking various things on my screen, I can cause switches to turn on and off on the motherboard. Thus we might be tempted to say that causation goes from the level of software to the level of hardware. But that's actually an illusion. What I see on the screen is just a visual manifestation of processes that occurring entirely at the hardware level. Amazing and confusing, but true. Presumably the brain is the same way.

The idea is that subjective and objective represent two totally different perspectives, similar to other kinds of different perspectives- Is the moon a crescent or is it a circle? Both and neither- but both represent two different perspectives and two different ways of experiencing it.

I think we can both agree that to call the moon a sphere is a fuller and more accurate account than calling it a circle. Calling it a circle may be acceptable for certain purposes, I suppose, but it is less true than calling it a sphere, because it leads to fewer accurate predictions. Why, then, continue to hold it as an article of faith that the moon is a circle?

More importantly, imagine for a moment that the circularity of the moon were an integral part of a total system of scientific thought, complete with its own epistemology. The falsification of the circular moon principle would presumably problematize belief in that system and its epistemology, especially if the belief was central to the system. In that case, it would be sheer folly to continue to maintain belief in that system while sublimating the idea of a spherical moon except for certain purposes. Similarly, I don't know how we can continue to take the Christian system of fall and redemption seriously when central tenets (such as the Adam and Eve story) have been falsified, and the whole epistemology through which the system is derived has turned out to be unreliable.

It will never be known if you see the same color as I do when I see "green" (a trivial example selected for its simplicity) because you are not me.

All this means is that no account of how brainstates manifest phenomenologically can ever be fully verifiable; or, at least, that we haven't yet developed the tools to make it so. It doesn't mean that no such account could ever be valid or accurate.

Peace,

-Chris

[Chris Smith]

By the way mfb, I have to give you credit for your most recent post, above. It is very articulate and well-formulated. I think it makes your thought process very clear and persuasive. Probably we disagree mainly on the question of how much of the Christian system is untenable. I used to be much like you, in that I gradually reinterpreted the Christian narratives as "true myths". Eventually, though, I had mythologized so much that that there was basically nothing left that could be said to be true in the conventional sense. Since the transformative power of the faith largely depends on its literal truth, and since my religious community absolutely was not okay with a strictly mythological reading of its theology, there wasn't much point in continuing. Your approach seems impraticable to me mainly because I perceive it as such a stretch.

Edited September 5, 2011 by Chris Smith

[mfbukowski]

Let me answer your second post first; it is a busy day and I would like to give you a quick response so that you know that I am not letting this discussion go by the wayside.

By the way mfb, I have to give you credit for your most recent post, above. It is very articulate and well-formulated. I think it makes your thought process very clear and persuasive.

Thank you- before you posted this earlier, I was thinking how much I enjoyed this discussion, and how in the few years I have been hanging out here- this feels like the first time someone "on the other side" has actually understood what I am saying, and has provided substantive points which go to the heart of the discussion. I hope this will help both of us more clearly define our positions.

Probably we disagree mainly on the question of how much of the Christian system is untenable. I used to be much like you, in that I gradually reinterpreted the Christian narratives as "true myths". Eventually, though, I had mythologized so much that that there was basically nothing left that could be said to be true in the conventional sense.

I think perhaps that is precisely the point here- I don't think that they ARE "true in the conventional sense" if that means the correspondence theory of truth. But before I found the church, while I was an atheist, I had already abandoned the correspondence theory of truth, due to my philosophical training in a very secular university. I went into a small attack on "correspondence" in a recent thread on the nature of truth and how I think "correspondence" is 1- an untenable position due to the incredible epistemological problems inherent in it, and 2- clearly tied to a Neoplatonic view of the universe which has no place, in my most humble opinion, in a "restoration" movement which seeks to define God in terms of what it means to be human. We discussed briefly the nature of humanism and you know where I stand on that- that the view that God is in some sense human and that we are potential gods, turns the traditional view of the relationship between God and man on its head, but we LDS have not yet adopted a philosophical position which fleshes out and completes that view. For better or worse, now 150 years past the restoration, we are nearly in the same "place" Christianity was in it's first and second century- while it was adopting the current thought of the time- Neoplatonism. I think that it is inevitable that, and I think there is evidence for, the idea that LDS intellectuals are now turning more and more in the direction of Pragmatism and related, perhaps nearly post-modern ways of seeing things, because it is the predominant way of seeing things today- the predominant "vocabulary" of our time. Obviously adjustments need to be made to pure postmodernism, but I see a link there with humanism perhaps supplying some of the need for an "absolute" morality. Humanists are not about to see the world other than humanistically- and it becomes a de facto absolutism in seeing man as the creator of the universe- which precisely mirrors LDS theology.

Even Orwell can be seen as one who believes we are totally programmed by our "vocabularies"- the entire notion that one's total personality could be stripped by culture, implies that we are nothing more than ingrained "vocabularies", or else we could not be "stripped clean" by a totalitarian dictator who seeks to redefine those vocabularies.

So in a sense, even the accusation of "doublethink" kind of assumes the correctness of my thesis- but we can get into that when I have a bit more time. If there is something like a "core self" (and I think there is- mirrored by that "absolute" in humanism) then doublethink would not work- you could get a person down to that level, but suddenly, like the protagonist in 1984, he would realize that still 1+1=2.

So perhaps ultimately 1984 mirrors that same conflict I see in Rorty's "ironist"- you can strip away all the vocabularies- all the contexts and cultural programming but at the bottom there is still something left- and I think that absolute is ultimately the will to survive itself. But that is what I see as the core of humanism. The absolute of humanism ultimately is survival of the race itself; but we MUST acknowledge a Pragmatic reality for all else- at least in my view, because no other "epistemology" works in the long run.

Ultimately for each human, it is "looking out for number one"- it is my survival in a hostile environment and the way that I re-create that environment into a friendly one that counts. We ultimately create our own worlds, but within that absolute boundary of survival. As the Didache says, we live the "Way of Life" or the "Way of Death". That applies to creating tools out of rocks as directly as finding meaning in one's life. We must alter the physical environment AND our intellectual environments to create a life which works for us. And ultimately, it is my belief that the "Way of Life" can be shown to be "absolute" in the sense that if one deviated any step in that path, just as if evolution had deviated in any step, "We" would not be "we"- we would be something quite different.

So that is the sense in which I think there are absolutes- for us to be who we are, we need to believe certain beliefs, and see the world in certain ways. So yes, everything is contingent, just as it is in evolution. Any organism can be born with an extra foot, or we can follow socially the path of 1984, or we can create vocabularies which work or which do not work.

On the other hand, everything is also contributing to what we are, and we would not be what we are without every step leading to exactly this point. This to me is the dialectic which creates us- Heraclitus' river which is at once constantly changing and yet eternally the same in its change. Two sides of the same coin- you cannot have one without the other. We create our own worlds- but if they don't work- poof- they disappear.

And for me, correspondence doesn't work.

Since the transformative power of the faith largely depends on its literal truth, and since my religious community absolutely was not okay with a strictly mythological reading of its theology, there wasn't much point in continuing. Your approach seems impraticable to me mainly because I perceive it as such a stretch.

The key here is your personal notion of "literal truth" which I think is deeply flawed, and I think more and more people are seeing it my way.

Only time will tell.

Edited September 5, 2011 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

No you can't, because you have no way of acting on my perspective except through the medium of my brainstates.

Mind-body causation is a difficult issue, but personally I think it's a mistake to think of causation going from the level of consciousness to the level of the brainstate.

I never said that- in fact my example was a bear coming through your window. It is the environment which "causes" both - and I agree that you cannot separate the brainstate from the phenomenon. The question point is that it is logically impossible that one could ever "reduce" experience to brainstates because brainstates ARE NOT experiences. Experience is not even the same as language imo- the fact that we can sit thinking about the "right word" to "describe" an experience makes that self- evident.

A statement in language may be "reducible" to another statement in math, or a statement in language may be "reducible" or "translatable" into another language- but you cannot reduce a "chair" to my experience of a chair. A chair is not my experience of it- the chair is "out there" and my experience is "in here"- two different points of view! They cannot be "Equal" in any sense that makes sense.

What is that experience of finding the "right word"? Waiting for a synapse? Yes, but how do we know that is the "right" word when we "hear" it? An electro-chemical analysis will, I believe, never be able to explain that fully.

Computers make a useful analogy

.

Maybe. Maybe not.

It appears that by clicking various things on my screen, I can cause switches to turn on and off on the motherboard. Thus we might be tempted to say that causation goes from the level of software to the level of hardware. But that's actually an illusion. What I see on the screen is just a visual manifestation of processes that occurring entirely at the hardware level. Amazing and confusing, but true. Presumably the brain is the same way.

But software IS NOT hardware. They are not the same thing. That is why there are software engineers and hardware engineers. One is not reducible to the other. A glitch in either one will cause the computer to "not work"

I think we can both agree that to call the moon a sphere is a fuller and more accurate account than calling it a circle. Calling it a circle may be acceptable for certain purposes, I suppose, but it is less true than calling it a sphere, because it leads to fewer accurate predictions. Why, then, continue to hold it as an article of faith that the moon is a circle?

You are precisely right- it depends on our function and what works for that function. Suppose we are aiming a rifle at a sphere- for that purpose the sphere might as well be a bullseye - a circle- on a target. Suppose we are looking for a star at sunset, but nothing we see "twinkles". From that, knowing that "planets twinkle but stars do not", we might conclude that there are no stars "out" yet- because it is not dark enough. That kind of cursory explanation is sufficient for our needs at the time.

The point is that giving meaning to our lives is not the same thing as what is scientifically "true" and each purpose has its own methodology. You don't use a hammer when you need a pipe wrench, or a computer to repair siding on your house.

More importantly, imagine for a moment that the circularity of the moon were an integral part of a total system of scientific thought, complete with its own epistemology. The falsification of the circular moon principle would presumably problematize belief in that system and its epistemology, especially if the belief was central to the system. In that case, it would be sheer folly to continue to maintain belief in that system while sublimating the idea of a spherical moon except for certain purposes.

Yep, precisely the same as the Copernican revolution. I take a Kuhnian view of that, unsurprisingly.

Similarly, I don't know how we can continue to take the Christian system of fall and redemption seriously when central tenets (such as the Adam and Eve story) have been falsified, and the whole epistemology through which the system is derived has turned out to be unreliable.

Of course that is true only if one takes the "story" (your word) literally. And it has not been "falsified"- of course, as you well know. Current prevailing scientific theory is incompatible with that view- I have no problem with that- that it "could be false". But it has not been falsified because it is not falsifiable.

But it might not be literally true, and could be a story about our personal falls from innocence, the fact that we feel guilt and need "redemption" from those feelings of guilt from what we have done. That is only possible by surrendering that guilt and just giving it up. Call that "allowing the atonement to become effective in our lives" or giving it some kind of psychoanalytical vocabulary instead- doesn't really much matter to explain it.

But what that point of view does NOT do is explain, why I subjectively feel a PERSON who is guiding and directing my life to in fact surrender that guilt to Him. THAT is what I experience, and I am not going to deny it because some other vocabulary- some other explanation is possible when that explanation does NOT explain why I feel that experience differently than some psychoanalytical phenomenon, especially when I see that belief as perfectly philosophically "justified" according to various philosophical theories of truth- like for example William James' Pragmatism for example, among other possible theories.

All this means is that no account of how brainstates manifest phenomenologically can ever be fully verifiable; or, at least, that we haven't yet developed the tools to make it so. It doesn't mean that no such account could ever be valid or accurate.

Well I am not sure what you mean by "valid" or "accurate" in this context- but it seems to me you are agreeing with me here, if we were to delete that last sentence. I would agree with the first one completely. I would add that I think that we will never develop such tools.

But suppose I am wrong- and tomorrow such a discovery is made. Is my position toast? Not at all. Remember that the LDS pov is fundamentally materialist- "there is no such thing as immaterial matter" so even in the LDS position, one might be forced into agreeing fully with you.

I do not at the moment, but you might be right. In such a case, what that would prove is that spiritual experience IS in fact a product of "spirit matter"-

You may scoff at "spirit matter" but I think I am as justified as you are in then saying with you that:

All this means is that no account of how brainstates manifest phenomenologically can ever be fully verifiable; or, at least, that we haven't yet developed the tools to make it so

[mfbukowski]

Incidentally, I meant to mention that Nagel, perhaps the prime proponent of the distinction between "Subjective" and "objective" experience upon which I base what I have said, is himself an atheist. He is not trying to "justify" religious experience, but that becomes an inevitable conclusion to his philosophy, and he is well aware of this.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehood. I am talking about something much deeper — namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that... My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind.

I think we see much of this attitude, which can be seen as itself "religious", in today's world.

In a discussion on "ironism" the fact that one who gives great hope for theism, is himself an atheist, is the ultimate irony. On the other hand, for one who is so totally immersed in the philosophy of our time to ultimately see that irony- that it takes an act of will to remain an atheist- gives me personally great hope that we are on the right track here.

[Chris Smith]

The key here is your personal notion of "literal truth" which I think is deeply flawed.

Flawed in what respect? A "literally true" statement, for me, just means one which is predictively valid. It is a statement whose entailments are consistent with all observed constraints. I was under the impression that we shared basically the same notion of truth in this respect. I don't adhere to a correspondence theory of truth, either.

[Chris Smith]

What is that experience of finding the "right word"? Waiting for a synapse? Yes, but how do we know that is the "right" word when we "hear" it? An electro-chemical analysis will, I believe, never be able to explain that fully.

Well, I'm inclined to agree with you, but only because the processes involved are too complex to be described, rather than because it's impossible in principle.

But software IS NOT hardware. They are not the same thing.

Software is a property of hardware, and mind is a property of the brain.

That is why there are software engineers and hardware engineers.

Software engineers merely work at a higher level of organization. It's a bit like driving a car. The driver of a car technically only manipulates only a few parts. But because the parts are integrated into a system, manipulation of those parts has predictable effects on all the other parts in the system. The driver can therefore be said to be driving the entire car-- manipulating the entire system. It's not necessary for him to know how the system is organized in order to manipulate it. But that doesn't negate the fact that the system is, in principle, reducible. What the driver is really doing is causing a cascade of interactions between various hardware components within the system. It's exactly the same with a computer. A software engineer does his "thinking" at a systems-level, but his activities are still reducible to a cascade of hardware interactions started by his manipulation of his input devices. One could theoretically program a computer solely by manipulating its hardware (though this would too complex to really be practical).

And, I would argue, it's the same with the brain. You can change the software by changing the hadware. There's no reason to believe consciousness is anything but a property of the physical brain.

Of course that is true only if one takes the "story" (your word) literally. And it has not been "falsified"- of course, as you well know. Current prevailing scientific theory is incompatible with that view- I have no problem with that- that it "could be false". But it has not been falsified because it is not falsifiable.

Christianity Today recently had an interesting issue on the debate over Adam and Eve. According to the CT articles-- and I'm working from memory here-- geneticists have found that humans descended from an ancestral population that was never smaller than a few thousand individuals. This problematizes the notion that humanity originated from one man and one woman. And this is just one small objection to the historicity of the story; others could be adduced from history and logic. Of course, this doesn't mean that the story isn't true in some metaphorical sense, as I argued here. But once you start interpreting it that way, IMO you're doing something much more than relegating religion to a subjective sphere of activity. You're also substantially modifying your religious system of thought. And that modification has compromising reverberations throughout the entire system. Make enough such modifications and it starts to fall apart.

And this, I think, highlights an ambiguity in the "pragmatic" program you've described in this thread. On one level, you seem to be calling for the simultaneous affirmation of both the "Mormon" system and the "scientific" system, albeit in different contexts. I've called this "doublethink," because I'm assuming that you're going to maintain both systems intact, and therefore you're going to be affirming contradictory propositions and basically just sublimating different systems in different contexts. But on another level, you seem to be calling for the modification of the Mormon system in order to remove the contradictions. This is no different from what religious liberals have been doing throughout history-- conceding and metaphorizing in order to eliminate problems in their religious views. I have no particular objection to this second approach, but it doesn't seem to have any particular relation to pragmatism or the subjective/objective distinction you outlined earlier in this thread. So now I'm curious how you would position your project in relation to these two approaches, and how, if at all, you think they fit together.

But what that point of view does NOT do is explain, why I subjectively feel a PERSON who is guiding and directing my life to in fact surrender that guilt to Him. THAT is what I experience, and I am not going to deny it because some other vocabulary- some other explanation is possible when that explanation does NOT explain why I feel that experience differently than some psychoanalytical phenomenon, especially when I see that belief as perfectly philosophically "justified" according to various philosophical theories of truth- like for example William James' Pragmatism for example, among other possible theories.

All I'll say about this is that we as a species aren't very good at discerning the mechanisms behind our experiences on the basis of the phenomenological quality of the experiences alone.

You may scoff at "spirit matter"

This concept has no predictive utility that I can see.

Peace,

-Chris

[mfbukowski]

Flawed in what respect? A "literally true" statement, for me, just means one which is predictively valid. It is a statement whose entailments are consistent with all observed constraints. I was under the impression that we shared basically the same notion of truth in this respect. I don't adhere to a correspondence theory of truth, either.

OK- but then I have to ask you about Wittgenstein and "language games".

Surely the context of "I know the church is true" is not about some building being "true" in that the walls are "straight and true" as measured with a plumb line?

The issue to me is what that means to the speaker, which in context probably means something like "I find church doctrine to give my life meaning and find it to be very satisfying to be a Mormon" or something like that, based on an Alma 32 kind of context?

I think this whole passage is really a bit of Pragmatic philosophy, as good as any you will find. Bear with me for a moment- I know you have seen this a million times:

28 Now, we will compare the word unto a ^aseed. Now, if ye give place, that a ^bseed may be planted in your ^cheart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your ^dunbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to ^eenlighten my ^funderstanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

The "word is good". In other words, I find these words- this vocabulary, this model, this metaphor, this way of seeing "reality" good. It "becomes delicious to me"

29 Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.

30 But behold, as the seed swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, then you must needs say that the seed is good; for behold it swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow. And now, behold, will not this strengthen your faith? Yea, it will strengthen your faith: for ye will say I know that this is a good seed; for behold it sprouteth and beginneth to grow.

31 And now, behold, are ye sure that this is a good seed? I say unto you, Yea; for every seed bringeth forth unto its own ^alikeness.

32 Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.

33 And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good.

The sole criteria for accepting the truth here is that the "proof is in the pudding"- no correspondence, no reference to anything outside the experience itself.

34 And now, behold, is your ^aknowledge ^b? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your ^c is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your ^d doth begin to expand.

This is also a description of my personal experience in any type of intellectual knowledge I have "discovered" and perhaps even the same as that of someone who is being converted to "scientisim". It conveys the excitement of learning of coming to knowledge- and I don't think that terminology is displaced here at all because it is about a religious interpretation of subjective experience. It is a universal experience as we discover knowledge, imo.

[mfbukowski]

Oh and let me also say, no, I don't think that this understanding is the same understanding "most Mormons" have of all of this. But I don't find that horribly relevant. I don't think most Christians were Neoplatonists at the beginning either.

But there are some of us, and our numbers are growing.

And after all, Ostler has shown what we believe is "orthopraxis" (which actually also affirms a pragmatist bent ) and I think he is right. This metaphor is no different that the "classical" Mormon metaphor as far as I am concerned- both serve their purposes in bringing believers closer to Christ- depending on the believer's personal understanding of the context. One is not better or worse than the other, one may "work" for someone while another works for someone else.

The temple recommend interview doesn't ask much about the nature of "reality".

Edited September 6, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Chris Smith]

Surely the context of "I know the church is true" is not about some building being "true" in that the walls are "straight and true" as measured with a plumb line?

The issue to me is what that means to the speaker, which in context probably means something like "I find church doctrine to give my life meaning and find it to be very satisfying to be a Mormon" or something like that, based on an Alma 32 kind of context?

I agree that this statement has to be read as an idiom rather than a literal statement. However, while there may well be people who use it as you describe-- as a statement about their subjective feelings-- I don't think that's the statement's conventional meaning. I think in the Mormon context the statement conventionally means much more, such as that the LDS theology and scriptures are literally true, and the LDS Church possesses an exclusive, objective priesthood power to perform ordinances necessary for exaltation. I suspect some people might even feel betrayed or lied to if they found out you were using the phrase to mean anything less. That's one reason I gave up on the mythologizing approach. By making the same affirmations as my coreligionists but placing a different meaning on them, I felt like I was lying to them (and, frankly, to myself).

As for the rest of your post, I think you place far too much emphasis on the emotional utility of beliefs, and not enough on their predictive utility. I recognize at least three different types of utility: predictive utility, emotional utility, and evolutionary utility. The three are not identical. It may be emotionally useful to believe that I am the best looking person in the world, but that belief has no predictive utility. It may be evolutionarily useful to believe that having dozens of babies will make me happy, but that belief has no predictive utility. It may be predictively useful to believe that our country is in decline, but that belief has neither emotional nor, probably, evolutionary utility. If we're going to claim that truth is defined by utility, ultimately I think we have to decide which kind of utility we're talking about. Pragmatism, as I understand it, generally defines it in terms of predictive utility. And that would seem to be consistent with the conventional meaning of the term "truth".

Peace,

-Chris

Edited September 6, 2011 by Chris Smith