Reason, Experience, And The Existence Of God

[mfbukowski]

A complete model of the simplest thing is impossible.  The human brain doesn't have the processing power.

Exactly why you cannot comprehend what is beyond what your brain can process = "reality"

 

All you can know is a model simple enough (even though the most complex model humans can comprehend perhaps) for humans to comprehend.

Edited December 1, 2014 by mfbukowski

[LinuxGal]

Well that's one interesting mental model.  I don't know what it has to do with what we were talking about though. 

 

It has everything to do with it.  It shows that mental models which are not based on looking at reality do not survive a power outage and a reboot.  That's why we no longer say the Earth is stationary and the sun moves around it.  The Jesuits who refused to look in Galileo's telescope would have preferred to try and trip him up with double-talk about how can he be SURE the telescope is giving him the straight skinny.  And Galileo would have tolerated only about five minutes of that.

[mfbukowski]

pogi

 

I can't stand it any more.  You are so patient I don't know how you do it.

 

Outa here at least with this poster.  Militant ignorance drives me crazy when you lead a horse to water and it still keeps complaining of thirst.

[pogi]

And the story that rebooted science will tell us is that the world was formed about 4.5 billion years ago in the solar accretion disk, because that is based on a reality that does not change.

 

4.5 billion years is a reality that hasn't changed?

 

http://www.esta-uk.net/jesei/earthage/students.htm

[pogi]

I can't stand it any more.  You are so patient I don't know how you do it.

 

No, I am just avoiding some work that I have to do before tomorrow.  What better way to avoid my mental model of reality than to waste my time on these forums?

[LinuxGal]

No, I am just avoiding some work that I have to do before tomorrow.  What better way to avoid my mental model of reality than to waste my time on these forums?

 

I don't consider it a waste of time, I've learned things about the Book of Mormon here.  For instance, I had no idea that Jesus pitched some parts of the Sermon on the Mount to just the Twelve, and the rest to the general public.

[mfbukowski]

No, I am just avoiding some work that I have to do before tomorrow.  What better way to avoid my mental model of reality than to waste my time on these forums?

LOL!

Me too actually- just kicking back and playing "video games", except I like to argue with people rather than play ACTUAL video games.

 

This is a first person shooter but it is a "verbal" shooter. 

[pogi]

So what's your story?  I looked at your profile and noticed that you like the Philippines.  Are you from there?  I served a mission there.  Catholic roots gone atheist?  What's your interest in Mormonism?

[mfbukowski]

4.5 billion years is a reality that hasn't changed?

 

http://www.esta-uk.net/jesei/earthage/students.htm

Everything about science changes all the time, yet it hasn't changed, nor is there anything more to learn because then our evidence would not be certain because reality cannot change.

 

What'samatta you? 

[Calm]

I like to put forward a certain thought experiment to illustrate the difference between religion and science....

Great example of a personal religious myth. When do we get to see some science?

[Tacenda]

I'm ticked that all my life in Mormonism I never wavered in belief, but the minute I have a faith crisis I struggle to believe God exists, all the while my sister who has been inactive for as long as I can remember has daily conversations with God and great faith he exists. Can't believe I worried about her not going to church all those years, but what good did it do me?

[MormonFreeThinker]

I don't think you understand what I said.   I said any claim that science is "settled" (as in closed for further discussion) is offensive because it moves the field from open inquiry to dogma.

 

I agree that some alarmists exaggerate and misrepresent the science, but the evidence is strong that humans are causing it, it is highly likely. Any theory in science can be challenged, climatologists will be happy to see new evidence that challenges the consensus, but so far very little has been presented. 

Edited December 1, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[canard78]

So give me a little leeway in seeing my points. I have been thinking this way for about 45 years now, and I really am not in the same world at all.

It's quite odd for me to understand people who cannot see at least 2 or 3 different possible interpretations for every sentence they say. For me, language is a fog of ambiguity where most sentences have no importance, and the ones which might have importance have a list of possible interpretations as long as my arm.

That's why I find dogmatism so irritating. To think you can actually capture all the nuances of experience in a sentence or two is the height of hubris

A few months ago, after a very frustrating priesthood lesson, I consoled myself with the following simple thought: "There are very few bad people in the church, just lots of bad communicators." (and I include myself in that generalisation)

[Ahab]

So give me a little leeway in seeing my points. I have been thinking this way for about 45 years now, and I really am not in the same world at all.

It's quite odd for me to understand people who cannot see at least 2 or 3 different possible interpretations for every sentence they say. For me, language is a fog of ambiguity where most sentences have no importance, and the ones which might have importance have a list of possible interpretations as long as my arm.

That's why I find dogmatism so irritating. To think you can actually capture all the nuances of experience in a sentence or two is the height of hubris

While many statements can and do have many possible interpretations, some which are true and some not, it's not always the case that a person making a statement intends to convey all of the possible interpretations, and communication doesn't require that it be so.

So while you may think you understand what I intend to convey when I make a statement it isn't necessarily true that you do, and the same goes for me when I interpret a statement from you. Not that neither one of us should not try to understand each other's statements, though. I get a particular sense of pleasure when I interpret a statement from you when that interpretation is what you intended to say to me too.

[The Nehor]

I'm ticked that all my life in Mormonism I never wavered in belief, but the minute I have a faith crisis I struggle to believe God exists, all the while my sister who has been inactive for as long as I can remember has daily conversations with God and great faith he exists. Can't believe I worried about her not going to church all those years, but what good did it do me?

 

Don't know what good it did but belief that God exists on its own absent anything else is fairly useless.

[Ahab]

pogi

I can't stand it any more. You are so patient I don't know how you do it.

Outa here at least with this poster. Militant ignorance drives me crazy when you lead a horse to water and it still keeps complaining of thirst.

Instead of thinking she is ignorant about what she is talking about it would be a better use of your time to try to figure out what she means. She does have a point, to a point.

You cited an example earlier about the truth of snow being white and what that means, and that is a useful example. If the mental model of snow being white is true in reality then we can say snow is white, and if it doesn't then we should not be saying it. Just like how we can say God does exist and know that agrees with reality as long as we know that God really exists in reality. Some people just don't know and so do not say it.

[Tacenda]

Don't know what good it did but belief that God exists on its own absent anything else is fairly useless.

She'll be fine, I'll be the one in trouble now, unless I get my act together.

[go_utes01]

Instead of thinking she is ignorant about what she is talking about it would be a better use of your time to try to figure out what she means. She does have a point, to a point.

You cited an example earlier about the truth of snow being white and what that means, and that is a useful example. If the mental model of snow being white is true in reality then we can say snow is white, and if it doesn't then we should not be saying it. Just like how we can say God does exist and know that agrees with reality as long as we know that God really exists in reality. Some people just don't know and so do not say it.

What do you mean by "agrees with reality"? How would we ever be able to know/verify that? What is "reality" and how can we "know" about it? All we have is our personal, subjective reality with absolutely no way of knowing if it corresponds with any "real reality." That is why I do not understand why people cannot accept my personal reality of spiritual experiences/revelation as "real" to me, as real as any scientific consensus - more real actually, since I personally experienced it.

[mfbukowski]

What do you mean by "agrees with reality"? How would we ever be able to know/verify that? What is "reality" and how can we "know" about it? All we have is our personal, subjective reality with absolutely no way of knowing if it corresponds with any "real reality." That is why I do not understand why people cannot accept my personal reality of spiritual experiences/revelation as "real" to me, as real as any scientific consensus - more real actually, since I personally experienced it.

And all that "objective" evidence is, is that two or more people agree on some interpretations of experiences which seem, allegedly, to be similar.

We can agree that "the car is blue" but there is no way of knowing if your "blue" is not my "green" or "yellow" for that matter. All we know we agree on are the names. We all have different preferences for everything. If our experiences were exactly the same, wouldn't we all like exactly the same things? Baskin Robbins has made a mint based on this fact. (Not to mention making a chocolate as well.... )

So really it is language alone that holds "reality" together. It all comes down to learned definitions and the presumption that experiences are the "same" which of course cannot ever be shown, but is probably false

[Hamba Tuhan]

We can agree that "the car is blue" but there is no way of knowing if your "blue" is not my "green" or "yellow" for that matter.

 

I discovered when I was younger that my two eyes don't even seen the same colours. The wood on the walls of my bedroom looked a deep reddish-gold colour with one eye, a pale greenish-yellow colour with the other. With both eyes open, I got a composite of the two. And then I realised I didn't even know what I meant when I applied a name to the colour of the wood.

 

And then I wondered what other people who might look at my walls would see: what my left eye saw, what my right eye saw, what my brain created from both inputs, or something else altogether ...

Edited December 3, 2014 by Hamba Tuhan

[Ahab]

I discovered when I was younger that my two eyes don't even seen the same colours. The wood on the walls of my bedroom looked as deep reddish-gold colour with one eye, a pale greenish-yellow colour with the other. With both eyes open, I got a composite of the two. And then I realised I didn't even know what I meant when I applied a name to the colour of the wood.

And then I wondered what other people who might look at my walls would see: what my left eye saw, what my right eye saw, what my brain created from both inputs, or something else altogether ...

Eh, so everybody wouldn't agree on some minor details, but I'd bet that everyone who could see that wall would be seeing the wall, at least, and probably the wood on it too, even if they didn't know to call it a wall, or wood.

[mfbukowski]

I discovered when I was younger that my two eyes don't even seen the same colours. The wood on the walls of my bedroom looked a deep reddish-gold colour with one eye, a pale greenish-yellow colour with the other. With both eyes open, I got a composite of the two. And then I realised I didn't even know what I meant when I applied a name to the colour of the wood.

 

And then I wondered what other people who might look at my walls would see: what my left eye saw, what my right eye saw, what my brain created from both inputs, or something else altogether ...

I think that this point is most clear to those of us who have experienced things like this. I was born with a perfect right eye and a left eye that is highly astigmatic. As a kid, I thought everyone saw things that way, because it was, to me, exactly the same as being right- handed, because I was right handed. It made perfect sense to me- my right hand was very good at writing and throwing and doing everything while my left did not work as well. Of course that is what explained that my left eye could not see as well as my right. That is how everyone saw it, as far as I knew. My right eye became totally dominant, I did not even know what it was like to have a "composite" image of my left and right eye. By the time the anomaly was discovered, my brain had already grown so used to seeing things that way, that it has never changed in spite of eye patches, etc.

But now that I think about it, I think that was a kind of gift to make me aware that what we think is "real" is largely just a function of how well our bodies and minds work and how experiences are NOT shared, except by learned definitions. We are taught to pair the experience of colors with labels, sounds with linguistic labels, the difference between a "bell" and a "buzzer" and on and on. I vividly remember trying to "learn my colors" and having trouble with the names for red and orange and confusing them. I think that is a blessing as well- I remember my third birthday and many of the thoughts and ideas of my childhood. It is a treasure to compare those views and opinions with the ones I have now.

I also had an interesting experience after cataract surgery and implanting a plastic lens in one eye. The plastic lens transferred ultraviolet light differently than the natural one, so that "black light" actually became bright in one eye and remained "black" in the other. I could tell nuances of black light that others could not see.

It is fascinating to contemplate what it would be like to see gamma rays for example, and to speculate on what "colors" we are missing, that perhaps God sees.

[Ahab]

And all that "objective" evidence is, is that two or more people agree on some interpretations of experiences which seem, allegedly, to be similar.

We can agree that "the car is blue" but there is no way of knowing if your "blue" is not my "green" or "yellow" for that matter. All we know we agree on are the names. We all have different preferences for everything. If our experiences were exactly the same, wouldn't we all like exactly the same things? Baskin Robbins has made a mint based on this fact. (Not to mention making a chocolate as well.... )

So really it is language alone that holds "reality" together. It all comes down to learned definitions and the presumption that experiences are the "same" which of course cannot ever be shown, but is probably false

No, the language is just symbolic. What people see is what they have in common, at least on some level, and they don't need to say a word when they see what they see.

[mfbukowski]

Another story- My dad told me a story about telling HIS great grandmother that the chair she was sitting in was "really made up of atoms, which were vibrating particles made of electrons and clouds of particles that were pulsating and had more space between them than matter

 

She looked at him as if he had taken totally leave of his senses and completely lost his mind.

 

She knew full well that the chair was a solid piece of wood that was not doing anything of the kind that he thought it was doing.

 

The best part of this is that they were both right, in their way, both seeing what was "real" from different perspectives, and operating with different mental models.  The wood WAS both solid AND vibrating simultaneously depending on the way one wanted to see it.

 

But one could just as easily argue that neither was right because neither saw it as it "really is".  But the bottom line is that there IS no "really is" at least on this side of the veil,  because all we have are different perspectives and different words to interpret those perspectives

[mfbukowski]

Rorty in "The Future of Religion":
”

 

Some day, intellectual historians may remark that the twentieth century was the one in which the philosophy professors began to stop asking bad questions —questions like “What really exists?” “What are the scope and limits of human knowledge?” and “How does language hook up with reality?