Moroni 7 And The Argument From Personal Experience

[mfbukowski]

The problem, however, is that we now know enough about the body chemistry to explain these feelings. There is no reason to invoke God since humans can essentially create any spiritual experience they want, short of visions and miracles, which I think we all know are not happening in ways that can be verified by others.

You really should read the rest of the thread.

We have already been through all that. Better yet, get educated in what is called the "mind-body" problem in philosophy- the article referenced in my siggy is a good start

I guess you can't be in love with your wife then, right, because it is all "caused" by brain chemicals?

It's all been explained by science. Time to get a divorce. Your love is not "real" so stop deluding yourself into thinking it is.

Edited July 30, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Xander]

Except by those experiencing them personally..

Not so, or else they'd be able to explain it beyond a vague "you're not me" claim. I have yet to encounter any claims of spiritual experiences that cannot be better explained as coincidence or chemical processes of the body. People who want to believe God is involved in their lives will interpret just about anything as God talking to them, and this isn't something unique to Mormons. Last week our home teacher came by and he brought a new guy who joined the Church a few years ago, and he told us what did it for him was the fact that the missionaries said they were inspired to return to knock on their door after no one was home the first time. For him, that was proof that the Church is true. How he came to that conclusion makes no sense really, but for him, that is what he wanted to believe, so we just smiled and respected his right to believe what he wanted.

The point is, I don't think it is too much to ask or expect, that God provide an unambiguous answer that cannot be better explained in other ways. What the Mormon method suggests, is like me expecting my father to communicate with me with honking sounds as I'm driving home during rush hour traffic. It leaves so much open for interpretation as coming from my Father.

Why doesn't God just appear physically to everyone as he supposedly did to Joseph Smith? Why is it too much to ask or expect?

[mfbukowski]

Why is MP an 18 year old going through the temple? Has the age to go on a mission dropped a year now?

Yeah, I couldn't figure that one out either. Besides having to lie on a recommend interview even if magically he had received his endowment early. Maybe we're talking sealings here.

[Xander]

You really should read the rest of the thread.

We have already been through all that. Better yet, get educated in what is called the "mind-body" problem in philosophy- the article referenced in my siggy is a good start

I guess you can't be in love with your wife then, right, because it is all "caused" by brain chemicals?

It's all been explained by science. Time to get a divorce. Your love is not "real" so stop deluding yourself into thinking it is.

You're in worse shape than I imagined if you really think anything you just said helps justify your belief that God talks to you via chemical processes which we already know to be self induced. And I've read more on the philosophy of mind than you, I'm sure. Enough to know your attempt to use Nagel to justify unreliable methods are telling and sophomoric.

[mfbukowski]

You're in worse shape than I imagined if you really think anything you just said helps justify your belief that God talks to you via chemical processes which we already know to be self induced. And I've read more on the philosophy of mind than you, I'm sure. Enough to know your attempt to use Nagel to justify unreliable methods are telling and sophomoric.

Uh huh, please expound how how that is the case. Explain how he is wrong about what he calls "physicalism"

Please enlighten me by all means. I have wanted to get into this with someone from "your side" for a long time.

We could start another thread about Nagel and how he is wrong if you like

And while we are at it, I think Rorty's view on the contingency of the self really misses the point- how about you?

Edited July 30, 2011 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Xander:

Quotes from Nagel (my underlining)

http://organizations...5/nagel_bat.pdf

Apart from its own interest, a phenomenology that is in this sense objective may permit questions about

the physically basis of experience to assume a more intelligible form. Aspects of subjective experience

that admitted this kind of objective description might be better candidates for objective explanations of a

more familiar sort. But whether or not this guess is correct, it seems unlikely that any physical theory of

mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and

objective. Otherwise we cannot even pose the mind-body problem without sidestepping it.

I have not defined the term 'physical'. Obviously it does not apply just to what can be described by the concepts of

contemporary physics, since we expect further developments. Some may think there is nothing to prevent mental

phenomena from eventually being recognized as physical in their own right. But whatever else may be said of the

physical, it has to be objective. So if our idea of the physical ever expands to include mental phenomena, it will have

to assign them an objective character—whether or not this is done by analyzing them in terms of other phenomena

already regarded as physical It seems to me more likely, however, that mental-physical relations will eventually be

expressed in a theory whose fundamental terms cannot be placed clearly in either category.

I can't see how you are going to show that Nagel believes that objective observation can account for subjective experience when he says the direct opposite.

Good luck on that one.

Edited July 30, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Xander]

I'm still waiting for you to explain how Nagel in any way justifies the Mormon method. Your little straw man isn't impressive..

Nagel refers to the experience of self awareness or the conscious self. He doesn't argue against physical explanations for all subjective experiences. Do you really think Tommy's hallucinations after taking a hit of acid are not explained by natural physical means, simply because Sarah and Jimmy don't know what it is like to get high? You're essentially abusing Nagel for your own purposes because he doesn't throw every subjective experience under the same umbrella. He is specifically referring to consciousness, which we know to be true experiences. He is not talking about questionable or unverifiable experiences that are only claimed by people. You know, people who believe they were famous people in a previous life, that they were abducted by aliens, or in your case, believe they are receiving communications from an elusive anthropomorphic God, who in turn performs miracles in the same elusive, unverifiable manner. The law of parsimony has to come in at some point, even if common sense doesn't.

[Montgomery Price]

Montgomery

OK I get it.

I am not in the church to receive a celestial reward which I cannot prove (objectively) exists.

I am not in the church to receive a celestial reward which I cannot prove (objectively) exists.

I am not in the church to receive a celestial reward which I cannot prove (objectively) exists.

I am not in the church to receive a celestial reward which I cannot prove (objectively) exists.

Good luck!

You're not defending the Mormonism I am critiquing. You're defending your own epistemically crippled version of Mormonism. All objective doctrine, prophets and vast majority of members have been much bolder than you. I'd feel quite twisted if I were to place myself in such a minor category as you have, yet promote such a confused majority so convinced they "know" Truth with a capital "T". It's been fun, but you can't stay on topic.

Good luck to you, too.

[Montgomery Price]

I thought you were eighteen. This isn't adding up. Was your family rearranged on you? Were you sealed to a new parent?

I am. I should have said "performed ordinances in the temple." Excuse my naive confusion as to the distinction between temple ordinances and ordinances performed in the temple, yet aren't included in the category of "temple ordinances".

The point was already accepted by mf. It would have worked just as well if I had referred to my unpleasant experiences of baptism and receiving the priesthood.

Well, there you go. Point made and accepted. You are decided upon rejection of God a priori. The very fault you claim to be finding with the Moroni test you are admitting to making yourself, just in the opposite direction. Why am I not surprised.

Why am I not surprised you believe my typo is proof I actually think you're right...

You know exactly what I meant.

MP, I get your argument. It is one step removed from this class of argument: "Can God create a rock so big that He can't lift it?". It boils down to "Even if God appears to you personally, how do you know that He is what He represents Himself as being? How do you know He is not lying? etc."

I don't see the "step" you're making.

You mix the objective method with subjective experiences even though the one is USELESS in determining anything about the other and then wave your arms as though your argument has any more weight than the simple personal rejection of religion that it is.

No, I expose a problem and ask for tools which provide a solution. That you assert one tool is useless is useless to solving the problem. Then you pretend as if that useless tool has succeeded when your argument is nothing more than your simple personal preference for your own experiences, unhinged from any concern for the accuracy of your beliefs.

When sharing a couple of spiritual experiences with you via email that you could not explain away, you reassured yourself with the cliche "there are many things that exist that cannot be explained."

In other words you are guilty of confirmation bias. You only allow to enter your world that which confirms your pre-existing world view. You are not above the very faults you think you perceive in me.

I wouldn't try to explain them away because I'm not convinced you've given me all the relevant information. In fact, I'm not convinced even you have all the relevant information. The point is that your experience, reported to me, is just as much an open question as the next report for a different faith. I don't pretend like one gives a conclusive answer, when all the others could just as well revolutionize what I think about the world. The uncomfortable truth is that we have all of these claims to "miracles" but no way to useful tools to discern between them. All we can say is, "Well, this is the miracle I happened to experience." We simply give-in to our hard-wired, conditioned trust for our own experiences and let confirmation bias wisp each of us away on magical journeys in radically opposed directions.

Yes, we're all guilty of confirmation bias, but only some of us are guilty of neglecting its correction.

I was a casual atheist before becoming LDS (as opposed to the proselyting variety). I did not think about religion. I did not seek out religion. Yet when it came around I knew it was true by a communication from the Spirit before I even understood the name of the religion represented by the two missionaries standing before my door.

When I decided to go on a mission though only a member for a brief time I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the temple in preparation for that adventure. Not only did I receive my endowment but I had the opportunity to do the work for my father who had passed away three years previous to my joining the church. Shortly before leaving for the mission field he visited me to thank me for doing his work for him. That was the happiest day of my life. I am truly saddened by your attitude.

I assure you God does in fact exist. He knows how to communicate in a manner that leaves no possible doubt as to Who it is that is communicating. Having tasted the food I can declare it tastes good and that it is not poisoned. But starve if you'd rather and assume that is the better course, for assumption is all you'll ever have.

I'm sure it was the happiest day of your life. You must be one of the lucky who have experienced a deceased relative without angel wings.

Edited July 30, 2011 by Montgomery Price

[Montgomery Price]

I understand that Muslims & those of other faiths, have unique criteria for spiritual experience & progression & their perspective is as valid as any. (All are illusional anyway, which is funny & sad.)

No, the "perspective" which lead them to deny Christ will never be valid, according to Mormonism. In fact, it's a perspective produced by Satan.

Yet you find it comfortable to believe their "perspective" is as valid as any, for some reason I don't understand yet.

[mfbukowski]

I'm still waiting for you to explain how Nagel in any way justifies the Mormon method. Your little straw man isn't impressive..

Nagel was an atheist, not a Mormon so of course he does not "justify the Mormon method" whatever that is supposed to be. He probably doesn't even know what a Mormon IS.

Nagel refers to the experience of self awareness or the conscious self. He doesn't argue against physical explanations for all subjective experiences.

CFR. Good luck on that one. That is precisely what he argues against. You can even see that in my quotes above if you bother to read them.

I'm tired of this nonsense from you. You skip from one argument to another without answering objections.

I am holding you to that CFR.

[mfbukowski]

Here are some relevant quotes from Nagel's article referenced in my siggy, and linked above in post 281, in case anyone is interested. These quotes speak directly to the issue of the relationship between physical brain states and the phenomenology of experience.

I shall try to explain why the usual examples do not help us to understand the relation between mind and

body—why, indeed, we have at present no conception of what an explanation of the physical nature of a

mental phenomenon would be. Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less

interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless. The most important and characteristic feature of

conscious mental phenomena is very poorly understood. Most reductionist theories do not even try to

explain it. And careful examination will show that no currently available concept of reduction is

applicable to it. Perhaps a new theoretical form can be devised for the purpose, but such a solution, if it

exists, lies in the distant intellectual future.

We appear to be faced with a general difficulty about psychophysical reduction. In other areas the process

of reduction is a move in the direction of greater objectivity, toward a more, accurate view of the real

nature of things. This is accomplished by reducing our dependence on individual or species-specific points

of view toward the object of investigation. We describe it not in terms of the impressions it makes on our

senses, but in terms of its more general effects and of properties detectable by means other than the human

senses. The less it depends on a specifically human viewpoint, the more objective is our description. It is

possible to follow this path because although the concepts and ideas we employ in thinking about the

external world are initially applied from a point of view that involves our perceptual apparatus, they are

used by us to refer to things beyond themselves—toward which we have the phenomenal point of view.

Therefore we can abandon it in favor of another, and still be thinking about the same things.

Experience itself however, does not seem to fit the pattern. The idea of moving from appearance to reality

seems to make no sense here. What is the analogue in this case to pursuing a more objective

understanding of the same phenomena by abandoning the initial subjective viewpoint toward them in

favour of another that is more objective but concerns the same thing? Certainly it appears unlikely that we

will get closer to the real nature of human experience by leaving behind the particularity of our human

point of view and striving for a description in terms accessible to beings that could not imagine what it

was like to be us. If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of

view, then any shift to greater objectivity—that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint—does not take

us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it.

At the present time the status of physicalism is similar to that which the hypothesis that matter is energy

would have had if uttered by a pre-Socratic philosopher. We do not have the beginnings of a conception of

how it might be true. In order to understand the hypothesis that a mental event is a physical event, we

require more than an understanding of the word 'is'. The idea of how a mental and a physical term might

refer to the same thing is lacking, and the usual analogies with theoretical identification in other fields fail

to supply it. They fail because if we construe the reference of mental terms to physical events on the usual

model, we either get a reappearance of separate subjective events as the effects through which mental

reference to physical events is secured, or else we get a false account of how mental terms refer (for

example, a causal behaviorist one).

Very little work has been done on the basic question (from which mention of the brain can be entirely

omitted) whether any sense can be made of experiences' having an objective character at all. Does it make

sense, in other words, to ask what my experiences are really like, as opposed to how they appear to me?

We cannot genuinely understand the hypothesis that their nature is captured in a physical description

unless we understand the more fundamental idea that they have an objective nature (or that objective

processes can have a subjective nature).

Edited July 30, 2011 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

You're not defending the Mormonism I am critiquing. You're defending your own epistemically crippled version of Mormonism. All objective doctrine, prophets and vast majority of members have been much bolder than you. I'd feel quite twisted if I were to place myself in such a minor category as you have, yet promote such a confused majority so convinced they "know" Truth with a capital "T". It's been fun, but you can't stay on topic.

Good luck to you, too.

"Epistemically crippled"?

"Objective doctrine"?

"confused majority"?

"They", including me as a member, KNOW what they have experienced is true. That is more than you will never understand I guess.

The insults really weren't necessary.

[mfbukowski]

And then of course we have the pinnacle of sources, wikipedia

This problem of explaining introspective first-person aspects of mental states and consciousness in general in terms of third-person quantitative neuroscience is called the explanatory gap. There are several different views of the nature of this gap among contemporary philosophers of mind. David Chalmers and the early Frank Jackson interpret the gap as ontological in nature; that is, they maintain that qualia can never be explained by science because physicalism is false. There are two separate categories involved and one cannot be reduced to the other. An alternative view is taken by philosophers such as Thomas Nagel and Colin McGinn. According to them, the gap is epistemological in nature. For Nagel, science is not yet able to explain subjective experience because it has not yet arrived at the level or kind of knowledge that is required. We are not even able to formulate the problem coherently. For McGinn, on other hand, the problem is one of permanent and inherent biological limitations. We are not able to resolve the explanatory gap because the realm of subjective experiences is cognitively closed to us in the same manner that quantum physics is cognitively closed to elephants

[Montgomery Price]

this is a supposition that you have not previously proposed nor supported.

Ha. Not to you.

The Koran explicitly denies that Christ is the savior, several times. Oh yes, it also claims to be completely inerrant and the perfect word of God.

There is contradiction between two people claiming to "know" that Jesus is or is not the Savior.

Muslims believe they are called to Mosques by Allah to pray. They claim to experience the call of Allah. When they pray and read the Koran they experience "inner-peace" and Allah's "oneness". If you deny Allah and the Koran, they will claim that they have experienced the "inner-peace" only the God of the Koran or the God of the Muslim places of worship would give them. They believe it originates in the strict adherence to Muslim practices. Indistinguishable from someone who claims to "fruits" after following the BOM.

The Koran denies Christ is the savior and accuses anyone who says otherwise, including Jesus, to be a liar. The Koran accuses Jesus Christ of being a liar. According to Moroni 7, it therefore must originate in evil by Satan himself. Clearly, every Muslim would disagree that any such thing is true because they've experienced the "inner-peace" and rewards of following the Koran strictly as the inerrant dictation of Allah, who they experience calling them to Mosques, God's chosen place of worship. They would passionately contradict your belief.

For example, Muslims report experiencing the "Divine Oneness" of Allah, from which they reject the God-head and that Jesus is the Savior, for Allah is sufficient in everything, in and of Himself. Their relationship with Allah establishes the Koran as the perfect, inerrant dictation of God, which includes additional confirmation of this belief with verse such as:

Surah Isra 17:111:

"Say: "Praise be to Allah, who begets no son, and has no partner in (His) dominion: Nor (needs) any to protect Him from weakness: yea, magnify Him for His greatness and glory!"

Surah Yunus 10:68:

"They say: "Allah hath begotten a son!" - Glory be to Him! He is self-sufficient! His are all things in the heavens and on earth! No warrant have ye for this! say ye about Allah what ye know not?"

I did provide some, but I'd like you to address this particular type of experience:

"As odd as this will sound, I believe in Moroni’s promise. I have a testimony of the power of prayer and although my prayers may sound differently than they did a year ago I still pray constantly. I firmly believe that intuition plays a critical role right along side logic and reason. I think plausibility is complimentary to faith. I know that some truths just feel right while other things simply feel wrong and often times for reasons that are simply not explainable.

Raised in a Mormon home of prayer and orthodoxy, I know the traditions and prescribed mannerisms and I have followed them my entire life. I have waited for the burning of the bosom; I have listened for the promptings of the spirit. I have practiced the theory of personal revelation. One of the answers I have received along the way is that in a search for truth, asking the right questions is just as important as finding answers.

There is a fine line in the search for truth for the LDS faithful. We are exhorted to learn and gain wisdom, but validation is only granted to those things learned that affirm the church. Moreover, further obstructions occur in the subtle warnings to avoid asking lines of questioning that might result in non-faith promoting answers. Regardless, Hinckley was right – the Church must be able to withstand all criticism if it is really true. If we are afraid of the hard questions then there must be something to fear. And I don’t say that with contempt or ill feelings for the church, I truly believe the church is a path to God for many, but I know now with a degree of certainty that it is not the only path. I was a happy and fulfilled active member of the church. I know that there is beauty and happiness in the Mormon faith and I can’t discard that in my past. A more inclusive view, however, has only increased my ability to love and find happiness. My journey out, still in progress, has been terribly hard but entirely worth the effort and I know I am a better person because of it.

It is with prayer that I found answers. It is with feeling AND logic that miracles were found and it is through Moroni’s promise that the truth is manifest. I have felt confirmation as real and as powerful as ever before in my life, that my journey away from the church is the right path for me. I realize that sometimes, no answer IS the answer. I have found peace and optimism and hope and acceptance of others and a more encompassing worldview. I have found humility in discarding my “chosen people” status and discovered that I have cast aside far too much good as bad.

What I ask and beg for now is that the realization that my prayers and pleas have been answered in a way that takes me away from Mormonism be accepted as real and divine. I know that this is very hard for the orthodox member to do, for how could the one true church result in such unexpected confirmations? Nevertheless, the truth has been manifest to me even as Moroni promised it would be. And I have never been happier."

From the blog "Not Very Useful Truths". Here's one of the comments:

I can really relate to much of what you have said in this post. I prayed like crazy for several months about what to do with my doubts, church history and other issues. I felt that I had received answers to my prayers too that lead me to leave the church.

It was funny though, those last few months as I prayed I would pray to know whether the church really was true or not and I knew that I would not like the answer either way. If God told me that it was true I would have to find a way to reconcile all of my doubts, and new found history with it being still somehow true. The church being false however was just as devastating because there went my entire worldview.

Yet, like you, the path that has led away from the church has been hard but I am happier than I have ever been before.

Thank you for this post. (Sorry I rambled a bit.)

Put simply, those people who have asked God to know whether LDSism is God's chosen, true religion and have received a negative answer to their prayers.

My objection is to point out that even though we may all be trying to find the same elephant or truth, we should be terribly confused by our experiences and the reports of others.

Even though everyone experiences a different part of the elephant, everyone claims that their experience is the more accurate representation of the elephant. Everyone else is experiencing the less complete picture, and I've found the key parts the elephant cares about the most (temple ordinances, BofM, priesthood, etc.).

Even though everyone experiences a different part of the elephant, many claim that their experience of this part (Jesus is the Savior) means that it is impossible for someone else to experience that part (Jesus is not the Savior) and anyone who reports this contrary experience is being deceived.

A Muslim believes the Koran is right when it claims Christ is not the Son of God, and anyone who claims otherwise is a liar, including Jesus.

Except everyone's just felling a different part of the elephant, right?

[Montgomery Price]

Understand, to some extent, maybe, but you don't seem to accept it as my reponse to your question, while I do. I wonder why that is.

I've explained why. It's not a useful response to my question. It's a useful response to my question after that question has been settled in your favor. A task you refuse to even attempt accomplishing.

The perspective you seem to want me to view it from is from somebody else's perspective, particularly from someone's perspective who doesn't see what I see.

Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to give up what I can see for what someone else can't see?

I can't think of a good reason. Can you?

If someone disagrees, there's no reason to consider their perspective.

Well... You can just continue exposing yourself as unconcerned with being a bigot as you so effectually explained.

"You're showing how blind you are, bro."

I hope you understood me that time.

Yes, I understand that I've been asking you how you determine any elements of a perceived relationship are actually of God, and you simply appealed to those elements in question... again.

Probably not, and yet I am perfectly satisfied with all of my responses to you even though you don't see the value in what I am telling you.

... and someone is telling me that you're not going to be satisfied with my responses until I see things the way you do.

What you fail to understand is that there is no more value in what you're telling me than there is in what a Muslim may tell me. Everyone thinks they have some deep relationship with God. All I have are the interchangeable reports of how "indescribable and personal my relationship with God is" and the radically opposed and non-interchangeable conclusions they were led to by their perceived relationship. Except I can't accept each has the value they claim, and I need some tool to discern between them.

But there are many tools to choose from, and when I ask, "why should I accept this tool?" The answer is always another interchangeable report of "how indescribable and personal my relationship with God is" to throw into the pile.

[mfbukowski]

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

This is only tangential to your quote above, but I thought you would find this website interesting.

http://www.acampbell...ic/nagel-2.html

As Nagel acknowledges, it is questionable how much difference this idea really makes to our situation. It does not provide our lives with a cosmic purpose or solve the problem of evil, for example. "But in the Platonic conception even the biological and cultural evolution that has led to the starting point at which each of us arrives on Earth and reaches consciousness is embedded in something larger, something that makes that entire history less arbitrary than it is on the reductive view."

This of course has similarities to Teilhard de Chardin and A.N. Whitehead- I am fans of both.

This guy's (Campbell, not Nagel) understanding of humanism and its relation to Nagel is very interesting and parallels our earlier conversation about Mormonism and humanism, but I think he does not understand Platonism the way Nagel is seeing it.

Edited July 30, 2011 by mfbukowski

[subgenius]

.... right to believe what he wanted.

this conclusion defies reason. Right, Want, and Believe are 3 distinct and exclusive concepts. Please, clarify...particularly how one can "choose" to believe.

The point is, I don't think it is too much to ask or expect, that God provide an unambiguous answer that cannot be better explained in other ways. What the Mormon method suggests, is like me expecting my father to communicate with me with honking sounds as I'm driving home during rush hour traffic. It leaves so much open for interpretation as coming from my Father.

not a good analogy in my opinion. I fail to see any ambiguity in God's "answers". The notion of "better explained" seems to rely on a set of principles with which you may find difficulty in trying define or reasonably support.

Why doesn't God just appear physically to everyone as he supposedly did to Joseph Smith? Why is it too much to ask or expect?

God manifests Himself in many ways to many people. But what would be the use with those who are predisposed in their opinion? Would they not simply claim that "seeing" God was nothing more than an illusion or a "trick"...would you not simply search and ultimately convince yourself that you found a "better explanation" for what you saw? Is that not the simplest example of natural man suppressing the spiritual man?

[subgenius]

Ha. Not to you.

Put simply, those people who have asked God to know whether LDSism is God's chosen, true religion and have received a negative answer to their prayers.

You are difficult to weed through. Seemingly many hypothesis but little theory and sparse on law. Let me see if i follow your argument so far..... You seem to propose that Person X has told someone A (Christian doctrine) and told someone else B (Islamic doctrine), and since A seems to exist in contradiction to B there is a contradiction that must reasonably negate A and/or B and even perhaps negate Person X....correct?

The issue i have with such a reductionist approach is that it fails to construct a reasonable scenario for the issue you seem to be approaching. First, you have not proven that Person X is the source for A and B...the real question supported by your examples is that someone believes in Person X and someone believes in a Person Y because of A and B respectively. So, the question, i believe you are asking, is how does one know if they indeed have a relationship with a Person X or Y, as in is this Person X/Y distinct and separate from myself?.....correct?

If that is indeed your direction then the answer is quite simple.

[LeSellers]

not a good analogy in my opinion. I fail to see any ambiguity in God's "answers". The notion of "better explained" seems to rely on a set of principles with which you may find difficulty in trying define or reasonably support.

Everyone wants a "road to Damascus" or "Sacred Grove" experience, but almost no one wants the sacrifice such an experience demands. Few prepare ourselves for it before hand, and I'd bet that at the first sign of true persecution, they'd deny it any way.

Lehi

[Montgomery Price]

"Epistemically crippled"?

"Objective doctrine"?

"confused majority"?

"They", including me as a member, KNOW what they have experienced is true. That is more than you will never understand I guess.

The insults really weren't necessary.

They weren't insults. I was referring to the "confused majority" as those who believe they are embracing Truth with a capital "T" when they say "know". You mean something distinctly less with the word.

[Montgomery Price]

You are difficult to weed through. Seemingly many hypothesis but little theory and sparse on law. Let me see if i follow your argument so far..... You seem to propose that Person X has told someone A (Christian doctrine) and told someone else B (Islamic doctrine), and since A seems to exist in contradiction to B there is a contradiction that must reasonably negate A and/or B and even perhaps negate Person X....correct?

The issue i have with such a reductionist approach is that it fails to construct a reasonable scenario for the issue you seem to be approaching. First, you have not proven that Person X is the source for A and B...the real question supported by your examples is that someone believes in Person X and someone believes in a Person Y because of A and B respectively. So, the question, i believe you are asking, is how does one know if they indeed have a relationship with a Person X or Y, as in is this Person X/Y distinct and separate from myself?.....correct?

If that is indeed your direction then the answer is quite simple.

Let's just ditch the "Person X" analogy. It wasn't directed to you. Here's the point I was making:

By calling attention to [individual] experiences, I am establishing that one can experience elements of a relationship with God which are not in fact from God. I'm raising a question about that category of experience.

That question being:

By what standard do you determine the elements of a perceived relationship are of God?

The answers offered so far have been to simply beg the question by appealing to methods which depend on the elements in question. Hopefully, your answer isn't quite so "simple".

[mfbukowski]

They weren't insults. I was referring to the "confused majority" as those who believe they are embracing Truth with a capital "T" when they say "know". You mean something distinctly less with the word.

LOL

No, I mean as "true" as any proposition can be. THAT is not "distinctly less". It may be a far more useful idea, if I am right, but it certainly is not "less".

[Montgomery Price]

No, I mean as "true" as any proposition can be.

Which is much less than what others mean when they say they "know" this or that is "True". They mean it with a capital "T" and you don't and this is what I mean by "less". Official doctrine, prophets, general authorities, and the majority of members clearly overstep the epistemic boundary you have so thoroughly explained cannot be crossed. You're unquestionably Mormon, mf. You're just quite the twisted one.

[Xander]

CFR. Good luck on that one. That is precisely what he argues against. You can even see that in my quotes above if you bother to read them.

I'm tired of this nonsense from you. You skip from one argument to another without answering objections.

I am holding you to that CFR.

My argument hasn't changed. You simply don't understand my argument any more than you understand Nagel's.

Your problem is that you're the one obligated to provide a reference for your claim that Nagel believes all subjective experiences cannot be explained via physical means. You want me to prove what he didn't say instead of you proving what he did say. No, that isn't how burden of proof works. The fact is Nagel admits in the second paragraph that there does exist successful examples of reductionist analogies.

What he argues in this article is that reductionism at present doesn't successfully explain one specific subjective phenomenon: the human experiences of consciousness. This is entirely true. But this in and of itself doesn't disprove physicalism, and the careful reader would see that Nagel admitted this when he said, "It would be a mistake to conclude that physicalism must be false." You're hoping to disprove physicalism using someone who doesn't agree. Bravo.

Nagel just points to a very specific and rare example by which physicalism runs up against a brick wall. I myself am not a physicalist, so I see no reason why I should disagree with anything Nagel has said. You want me to disagree with him because it suits your straw man. But it is clear I understand Nagel much better than you do, since you're the one trying to take his argument and expand it for some hopeless apologetic agenda where you think you can squeeze the Mormon testimony under the umbrella of what Nagel chose to call the "subjective character of experience"; another concept you didn't fully grasp since it has nothing to do with communicable knowledge between two conscious beings of the same species.

All you're doing is taking one example where a philosopher says physicalism doesn't adequately explain a specific subjective experience, and then assert that this somehow applies to every subjective experience known to man (i.e. the Mormon "experience" that the Church is true). But I was careful to point to clear example where physicalism does in fact explain subjective experiences. If Jimmy takes drugs, we know why he is hallucinating. If Sarah is bleeding out, we know why she experiences the feeling of coldness. I don't need to know what it feels like to hallucinate or bleed to death in order for reductionism/physicalism to work as a valid explanation for these experience. Nagel doesn't contradict this in any way, and you haven't even begun to illustrate that he has.

So ultimately you're abusing Nagel's work for your own gain, and I'm calling you out for it. I've seen you try to invoke Nagel on the other forum in the past and you do so in a way that reveals your misunderstanding of what he is arguing. Seriously, you'd be better off trying to use Jackson's knowledge argument based on his "Mary's Room" scenario. But even that has its own problems.

Hopefully, this refutation will disabuse you of this silly notion that Thomas Nagel the atheist was somehow unwittingly providing philosophical ammunition for Mormon apologists.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Xander