Are We Obsessed With Mormonism?

[mfbukowski]

“I just had the feeling it was the wrong thing to do.” He looked at me as if he wanted some reassurance that he wasn’t crazy.

“Yeah, so did I,” I said.

“But it’s OK. They’re going to be baptized next week.”

“I know,” I said.

 

 

So that was language interpreting itself then, right?

[mfbukowski]

Sometimes I wish the church were what you describe, but I don't see it.

I know.

[jkwilliams]

So that was language interpreting itself then, right?

Nope, it was us interpreting our experience.

[jkwilliams]

Speaking of the duality between experience and interpretation (and inspiration), please consider this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CqbO_5FKRc

[Libs]

There does seem to be several different aspects of consciousness, doesn't there?  Are they all centered in the brain?  I don't think so.  I become more convinced of that, when I read about near death experiences...one in particular, where a neurophysicist describes an nde, he had, while monitors showed his brain waves as flat (nothing going on in there).

 

Interesting stuff, indeed.

[jkwilliams]

Yes. I find myself all the time thinking, 'It just can't get any better than this', and then it does. Again and again and again. I remember telling my bishop a couple of years ago that I would be grateful to enjoy what I then had for all eternity, but of course the Lord has just kept adding and adding since then, and I suspect Paul was not exaggerating when he wrote, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him'. I've started to realise that I used to have such a small understanding of what the Gospel is and does. I had no idea what kinds of experiences would be coming my way. And I'm guessing I still don't, even from the vantage point of what already has.

 

I'm Facebook friends with a man who was my housemate for three years and who served as my second counsellor in the elders quorum presidency when I was studying in America. Over the past two years or so, it's become obvious from his increasingly cynical and snarky posts that he's walked away from 'Mormonism', and I can't help thinking what I would have missed out on just in the last two years if I'd for some reason joined him.

 

What a joyful, wonderful, unending miracle this all is!

 

I think that's wonderful. I wish I had that experience. It's been 8 years, and I've had my ups and downs, but I'm happy and at peace. I couldn't say that about myself for many, many years.

[Stargazer]

No there is always interpretation but we have a choice there.

I was out riding my bike 30 miles from home and I KNEW I had to call a particular elderly lady in the ward.

 

I could not get through.  I called the relief society president to go to her house NOW.  She went, and the elderly sister had fallen.  That particular feeling has not happened before or since, yet I have had many instances of pure intelligence flowing into my mind.

 

I know it was not coincidence- you may think so, but that interpretation is your choice.  You can also decide to interpret that as hurtful, that you are deficient in some way.  I am not saying that at all.  I think it is a matter of faith and taking action on the choice to believe.

 

I could have chosen to interpret it as random coincidence, but I did not.

 

I had one of those flashing bits of intelligence happen this morning at around 5 am.  Woke me right up.  It was possibly spurred from this particular conversation, but it was also spurred from a matter of some concern and interest I have had (and it revolves around atheism, btw), and probably in answer to prayer, because I've prayed about it, too. 

 

It literally woke me up, fully, and I had to come to the computer to write the thought down lest I forget it.  Afterwards I went back to bed and slept until 7 am.  But I remembered it when I woke up.

 

I'd love to bring it up here, but not yet.

[Stargazer]

I think that's wonderful. I wish I had that experience. It's been 8 years, and I've had my ups and downs, but I'm happy and at peace. I couldn't say that about myself for many, many years.

 

Oh, you know, sometimes we have to step away from something in order to reintegrate it into ourselves.  You strike me as someone who has done just that.  Part two is yet to come.

 

Or it may not.  We will see, won't we? :-)

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

 

How about you?

 

I should have known that I have conversed with you before. Good to see you around.

[mfbukowski]

That's where we differ: I don't believe interpretation is necessarily willful. I've been sick for a good month now, and I can't will myself to interpret the pain as anything other than it is: pain. I can't choose to interpret it as a sign that my body is functioning properly.

Note- MFB's comments in orange, John's in black

 

Happiness is a choice, and I have had enough misery and pain in my life to know that.  Comparing tales of woe won't get us anywhere though.

But I think maybe we're coming closer to understanding each other. Previously you had said that the spiritual is pre-linguistic and thus exists outside of interpretation. Or am I mistaken? If we are talking about choices in interpreting religious/spiritual experiences, I'm all on board with that. Believing that religious and spiritual experiences testify of truth is a choice of interpretation.

There you go with "truth" again, without any definition of what that means.

 

We also choose to accept scientific evidence. Back to my rug analogy: a spiritual experience is almost always a personal experience, which you might compare to a single piece of thread on the rug; scientific evidence has a broader context and is apprehended and interpreted by more than just us personally, so we might compare it to all the weavings in a section of the rug. Either way, however, the spot or the section of rug do not exist in a vacuum but as part of a larger system.

 

If and only if you compare it to science, which we are explicitly not doing.  We are talking about the subjective here, or at least I am.

 

Believe it or not, I think it's perfectly rational to be religious. People do not believe in something without some reason or evidence behind it, and plenty of people who are much smarter than I am are religious believers. You will not find me mocking the religious for being irrational or, heaven forbid, stupid. I've made different choices based on what I see as the evidence, my conscience, and what makes me happy. For me, the scientific evidence points overwhelmingly against the specific claims of Mormonism (Nephites, gold plates, seerstones, Book of Abraham, etc.); my conscience won't allow me to excuse certain parts of Mormon history, culture, and doctrine; and I was very unhappy as an active member of the church, though I could not admit it to myself or anyone else.

 

Again, you are confusing scientific evidence with the will to choose one's attitude.

I don't pretend to understand religious belief, but I don't need to stick with any other person than myself to decide what I believe, what I think is right, and what makes me happy.

I find that you often speak of "I" (John) deciding things etc while denying that in fact we choose interpretations at all.  Big contradiction. If indeed what you say is true- that "you" decide what to believe, you are making my point, not yours.  There is a chooser of beliefs, and you call that person "I".

 

You just admitted that you decide what makes you happy- exactly what you denied in the first line of this very post.

 

I hate that the quote function no longer works properly- mods can that be fixed?

Edited October 16, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Nope, it was us interpreting our experience.

But there IS no "us" just language, or that is how I understood what you are saying. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

I hate that the quote function no longer works properly- mods can that be fixed?

 

Amen!!!

[Glenn101]

I hate that the quote function no longer works properly- mods can that be fixed?

 

 

 

I don't know what is wrong with it. I quoted you in my reply and was able to do it outside your quotes, but when I tried to edit my reply, I can't get outside my own quotes.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Glenn101

[mfbukowski]

 

The problem is that it's hard to get the cursor thingy to come down to the bottom of the post, and if you try to quote line by line and make comments after each quote, it won't let you out of the quote box to do that.  You get trapped in the quote box and can't get out, so you have to stay within the box and used different colored lines to distinguish your answer from the person you are quoting.

 

Because the mods are not likely to use this feature, maybe they have not noticed the problem

[Glenn101]

The problem is that it's hard to get the cursor thingy to come down to the bottom of the post, and if you try to quote line by line and make comments after each quote, it won't let you out of the quote box to do that.  You get trapped in the quote box and can't get out, so you have to stay within the box and used different colored lines to distinguish your answer from the person you are quoting.

 

Because the mods are not likely to use this feature, maybe they have not noticed the problem

 

That!!!

[Calm]

 

Did you hit return which creates an extra line in the quote box and then click with the cursor below the quote box?  I find that works in most cases.

 

I too dislike the glitches with the new quote system, makes it much harder to divide up quotes and one can't remove extra blank quote boxes at times and anytime one hits "return" it creates a new quote box so one has to 'format' the quote the way one wants to before putting it in a quote box and can't just add to it later if one finds a later sentence or paragraph that is relevant.

 

PS:  I just reported this series of post to the mods so if they weren't aware of it before, they are now.

Edited October 16, 2013 by calmoriah

[jkwilliams]

I hate that the quote function no longer works properly- mods can that be fixed?

At the top left of the box that appears when you are replying to a post, there is a button with a square with what looks like a lowercase I inside. If you hover the cursor over it, "BBCode Mode" appears. Click that, and you can quote manually.

Happiness is a choice, and I have had enough misery and pain in my life to know that. Comparing tales of woe won't get us anywhere though.

No argument there. I'm happy, and that has nothing to do with my current health issues.

There you go with "truth" again, without any definition of what that means.

According to what I gather from you, "truth" is the real behind language, and it is only accessible through the spirit talking directly to your spirit. My position hasn't changed: because we experience everything through language, there isn't some extra-linguistic way to access this "truth." So, no, I'm not defining truth for me, just trying to explain myself using your definitions. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. Of course, I really am not entirely sure how you define truth, as at other times you've said it's "whatever works for you." Perhaps you can clarify, and we'll use your definition.

If and only if you compare it to science, which we are explicitly not doing. We are talking about the subjective here, or at least I am.

I am not. My point is that nothing is ever purely subjective or objective; it's all connected in the woven rug we call language. We like to think that there's something definite to "I" and "we," but it's really just an approximation of a particular spot in the system. So, saying something is "me" is like a single strand of thread (or even a molecule in that thread) saying that it is somehow different, singular, and unrelated to the rest of the rug. It really doesn't matter if we're talking about science or religion, which for whatever reason seem to occupy objective and subjective places, respectively, in people's definitions.

Again, you are confusing scientific evidence with the will to choose one's attitude.

Maybe so, but to me I'm just acknowledging that you can't really separate them. When presented with stimuli, whether it's scientific evidence that other people can duplicate or spiritual experiences that other people cannot, whatever conclusions I reach aren't always chosen entirely, and even then they are tentative and constrained by my interpretation. For example, I didn't choose to be unhappy in the church. I told myself every day that I was happy, and part of me believed that, but part of me knew something wasn't right. When I left the church, I no longer felt the need to convince myself I was happy, and through a good therapist, I discovered I'd been dealing with depression for almost 30 years. Last I checked, people don't choose clinical depression.

I find that you often speak of "I" (John) deciding things etc while denying that in fact we choose interpretations at all. Big contradiction. If indeed what you say is true- that "you" decide what to believe, you are making my point, not yours. There is a chooser of beliefs, and you call that person "I".

Of course people choose their beliefs. I don't think I've said otherwise, but maybe you can tell me if I have. Where we disagree is that I understand that the choice to believe is constrained by the linguistic system in which we live. "I" is always contingent and is also constrained by the language. Simple example: An illiterate farmer who lived and died in rural Idaho in the early 1900s would not have had the choice to believe in, say, Zen Buddhism because it wouldn't have been part of his interpretive framework. The words "Zen Buddhism" would likely have no place in that man's vocabulary and would be meaningless. That we are constrained in large part by this framework has the unsurprising result that most people adopt the religion of their parents or consciously reject it--very few people begin with their family's faith at a young age and gradually choose something else.

You just admitted that you decide what makes you happy- exactly what you denied in the first line of this very post.

Hmmm. Here's the first line of my post: "That's where we differ: I don't believe interpretation is necessarily willful." I'm just acknowledging that some interpretations are so ingrained in us that we don't willfully interpret them. I know when I'm in pain. I know after a meal when I'm full. I know when I am sick. What does that have to do with deciding what makes me happy? And, as I mentioned, earlier, often we make wrong choices about what makes us happy.

[Hamba Tuhan]

At the top left of the box that appears when you are replying to a post, there is a button with a square with what looks like a lowercase I inside. If you hover the cursor over it, "BBCode Mode" appears. Click that, and you can quote manually.

Sweet! Thanks!

[mfbukowski]

John: Thanks for that great tip on how to make this thing "go".  Those are technical terms in case you didn't recognize them 

 

As often happens with us, I think we are talking past each other again.  As I have posted many times, I believe in a deflationary theory of truth, and/or a pragmatic theory of truth, since they are closely linked and kind of subsets of each other.

 

No, I don't think there is anything we can talk about "behind" language, that is kind of the point.  What there is, cannot be said.  That's why Wittgenstein teaches about the "unspeakable".

 

You think everything can be said, or at least define everything as "language" even if it cannot be said, and I find that.... inconsistent.

 

I think there is an "I" which is experienceable, you do not I guess.  I find your speaking of a web of everything and nothing confusing and not in accord with my experience of the world.  I really think there is a "me" in here who makes choices to do things like answer your post or not.  Or at least that is the way I experience the world

 

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. Satchel Paige
US baseball player (1906 - 1982)

 

But it's funny- I have had experiences where the "I" has gone away and I have felt a part of everything in the universe. 

 

The problem is that those kind of experiences are strictly "unspeakable"- to say them is to distort them into what they are not, and the moment one tries to "put it into words" the experience is over.

 

So in some sense, the web and the rug I understand but understanding it is far different than being it.  When you are being it, you are not understanding it, and when you are understanding it, you cannot be it.

Edited October 16, 2013 by mfbukowski

[jkwilliams]

As often happens with us, I think we are talking past each other again.  As I have posted many times, I believe in a deflationary theory of truth, and/or a pragmatic theory of truth, since they are closely linked and kind of subsets of each other.

The deflationary theory is certainly in line with my thought. I'm not sure about your pragmatic theory.

 

No, I don't think there is anything we can talk about "behind" language, that is kind of the point.  What there is, cannot be said.  That's why Wittgenstein teaches about the "unspeakable".

I think we're getting closer to understanding each other.

 

You think everything can be said, or at least define everything as "language" even if it cannot be said, and I find that.... inconsistent.

Not quite. Everything can be experienced, and what we experience is interpreted by certain rules or structures or patterns. If I have a spiritual experience, it means something to me because I interpret it to mean something, and like it or not, how I interpret it is constrained by how my evolved brain interprets.

 

I think there is an "I" which is experienceable, you do not I guess.

I don't deny the existence of the self, but rather I find it impossible to draw a line that says "this is me, myself, and everything outside of it is not-me, not the self."

I find your speaking of a web of everything and nothing confusing and not in accord with my experience of the world.

I kind of stole that from Foucault's "Archaeology of Knowledge." He basically says that you can't understand history without context, and as you dig deeper, you find the context is like a woven web or rug. Even though you are looking at one particular piece or thread, you have to look at the other parts of the rug that are connected and affect that thread. Ultimately, he says, all of human history is part of that great web, and it would be impossible for us to define the complete context for any human event, as that would require examining the whole of the rug or web.

Maybe some explanation of how I personally worked this out would help. When I had my crisis of faith, I had this terrifying moment of not knowing who I was. I wasn't doubting that I existed, but I wondered how much of me was a product of what I had been taught and how much was really me. It led me to question everything I had believed, from basic questions such as "Is there a God?" to more practical questions such as "Is same-sex marriage wrong?" That's when I remembered Foucault. Like it or not, who I am is inextricably bound to my experience, the teachings I've had, and my environment. I can't define the boundaries of "John" because every time I do, I realize that I'm still connected in some way to what is around me. Coming to that realization helped me accept the good (and bad) effects of the church in my life and realize that they are part of me. But, I also realized that despite carrying that baggage, I still am free to rethink old beliefs, create new ones, and find my own way.

So, that's what I mean by there not being a boundary of "me" or "I."

I really think there is a "me" in here who makes choices to do things like answer your post or not.  Or at least that is the way I experience the world

But it's funny- I have had experiences where the "I" has gone away and I have felt a part of everything in the universe.

AFAIK, nothing I've said contradicts this. I've never said there is no self, only that it's impossible to say where the self begins and ends.

 

The problem is that those kind of experiences are strictly "unspeakable"- to say them is to distort them into what they are not, and the moment one tries to "put it into words" the experience is over.

This is a good place for me to maybe explain what I'm getting at a little better. Let's take one of those unspeakable moments. Let's say, just for the sake of the discussion, that what you experienced was pure, un-interpreted experience. After that happened, you have a memory of that experience, and you may or may not be able to express what you experienced in words. But nevertheless, that you remember it tells me that you were able to interpret it as something. Every act of remembering it is ultimately an interpretation because you are not now having that experience. So, it's unspeakable but not un-interpreted. For me, the act of interpretation must follow certain rules or patterns, or the unspeakable would be meaningless. Ultimately, language for me is the process of creating human meaning. Even the unspeakable has its own language, so to speak.

 

So in some sense, the web and the rug I understand but understanding it is far different than being it.  When you are being it, you are not understanding it, and when you are understanding it, you cannot be it.

I hope what I have written helps. Either that, or it will just illustration I've gone off the deep end.

[mfbukowski]

The deflationary theory is certainly in line with my thought. I'm not sure about your pragmatic theory. 

More later.  But for now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzynRPP9XkY

[mfbukowski]

testing quote function. It works!

Edited October 17, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Everything can be experienced, and what we experience is interpreted by certain rules or structures or patterns.

Well of course- if we could not experience it, it would not BE "something". All there IS- for us humans- is humans experience. But not all experience is linguistic.

If I have a spiritual experience, it means something to me because I interpret it to mean something, and like it or not, how I interpret it is constrained by how my evolved brain interprets.

Oops. You got science into a description of experience- you mixed language games, assuming that it is "the brain" which experiences- but I do not experience my brain. Category mistake.

 

I don't deny the existence of the self, but rather I find it impossible to draw a line that says "this is me, myself, and everything outside of it is not-me, not the self."

I am quite certain that I am not the chair I am sitting in.

I kind of stole that from Foucault's "Archaeology of Knowledge." He basically says that you can't understand history without context, and as you dig deeper, you find the context is like a woven web or rug. Even though you are looking at one particular piece or thread, you have to look at the other parts of the rug that are connected and affect that thread. Ultimately, he says, all of human history is part of that great web, and it would be impossible for us to define the complete context for any human event, as that would require examining the whole of the rug or web.

And I would fully agree. But we cannot experience history, any more than I can experience being the object of any scientific observation. You can observe me all you like, but I can't observe myself- I AM myself. That is precisely the difference between objective observation and subjective observation. I observe the chair- it is not me. It is in some sense "objective". I experience being me, sitting in the chair, and that experience of being me, makes it "subjective". That is what linguistic "person" is- we speak in first person or second person or third person- "I", "you" or "he, she, it". We use the word "I" to describe subjective experiences, and the third person to describe objective experiences. That is what defines the linguistic difference.

Maybe some explanation of how I personally worked this out would help. When I had my crisis of faith, I had this terrifying moment of not knowing who I was. I wasn't doubting that I existed, but I wondered how much of me was a product of what I had been taught and how much was really me. It led me to question everything I had believed, from basic questions such as "Is there a God?" to more practical questions such as "Is same-sex marriage wrong?"

Note this has all been subjective- you are speaking about your subjective states.

That's when I remembered Foucault. Like it or not, who I am is inextricably bound to my experience, the teachings I've had, and my environment.

You are now making a shift in your description- to more of an objective state- drawing a conclusion in an objective manner. You are in effect observing yourself, or at least trying to, and drawing conclusions about yourself. We do not actually experience ourselves as "bound to our environment" any more than I am the chair I am sitting in.

So, that's what I mean by there not being a boundary of "me" or "I."

But I find that to be a category error, like inviting over every member of your family for a gathering and then saying "Well there are a lot of people here, but where is 'the family'"? as if the family was an observable entity in itself. The family is a RELATIONSHIP between you and other people, and you are experiencing the RELATIONSHIP between yourself and all that is around you when you speak of being "bound to the environment". But you are not the FAMILY any more than YOU are the things you are in relationships with ie: "the environment".

AFAIK, nothing I've said contradicts this. I've never said there is no self, only that it's impossible to say where the self begins and ends.

See what I mean??

 

This is a good place for me to maybe explain what I'm getting at a little better. Let's take one of those unspeakable moments. Let's say, just for the sake of the discussion, that what you experienced was pure, un-interpreted experience. After that happened, you have a memory of that experience, and you may or may not be able to express what you experienced in words. But nevertheless, that you remember it tells me that you were able to interpret it as something.

There you go again! You are observing yourself objectively, after the fact, and making something which was subjective and non-linguistic into an experience we are observing after the fact, AND talking about! Of course experience is qualified by what people are able to experience- of course it is qualified by time and space and other categories we humans cannot think without! (math also incidentally) WE can only think the way humans think. But speaking about something is not experiencing it.

The whole problem with the correspondence theory of truth (and this is a well-established point) is that true statements cannot"correspond" to the world, because there is no way to get out of our experience to check it against what "really is". WE ARE PRISONERS OF THE WAY WE EXPERIENCE THE WORLD and cannot get "outside" of experience to check "the world" against the way we describe it!

Experience is not language, nor is it description. It is experience- reality IS experience.

Every act of remembering it is ultimately an interpretation because you are not now having that experience. So, it's unspeakable but not un-interpreted.

Yay! Exactly right! And you acknowledge the unspeakable!

Even the unspeakable has its own language, so to speak.

Oh gosh! Listen to yourself! Edited October 17, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Similarly, thoughts "are" not chemical states because descriptions of chemical states cannot be made logically equivalent to "my toe hurts"

"Bukowski's toe neuron is registering a chemical reaction at site xyz 12987" cannot ever be made equivalent to "My toe hurts"!

Physical observations are not equivalent to experiences. Category error!

[Stargazer]

The problem is that it's hard to get the cursor thingy to come down to the bottom of the post, and if you try to quote line by line and make comments after each quote, it won't let you out of the quote box to do that.  You get trapped in the quote box and can't get out, so you have to stay within the box and used different colored lines to distinguish your answer from the person you are quoting.

 

Because the mods are not likely to use this feature, maybe they have not noticed the problem

 

This has probably been noted or speculated upon before, but how could the mods NOT be among those who post at least occasionally as a normal poster?  There are maybe four active moderators, and none of them are EVER tempted to take part in these conversations?  Oh, please.  There has to be some kind of compensation for being a mod, and since the board owner is doing this out of the goodness of his (or her) heart, none of the mods can be getting paid to moderate.  There must be some reward, and what other reward could there be except the pleasure of posting here as a normal citizen while at the same time being able to see behind the curtain? 

 

The mods must be as obsessed with Mormonism and this board as the rest of us.  How could they not then also post as normal posters?

 

So let us hear something about this really hosed up quote functionality getting back to the way it worked before!!