On The Deflationary Theory

[jkwilliams]

Language is.

[Tacenda]

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/b-h-roberts-individual-responsibility-and-the-13th-article-of-faith/

This.

Add-on: A woman in the audience gets up to speak @ about 1:12:58. She puts it all in a nutshell perfectly.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Tacenda

[Meadowchik]

My point is that at some point these distinctions become so blurry that there are no distinctions at all. I have come to see all that I see and know as part of human creation including God, as the creator of language as the creator

 

I get it.

 

Since we share a language with other people, it's useful to me that we can distinguish between the "raw" world and the world we create, either in our own description of the raw world or in design of artificial worlds.  In theory, there is a raw world that goes on with or without us, and it is a concrete thing that we have in common, even if we don't all experience all of the same parts of it, nor do we perceive or interpret it identically.

[Meadowchik]

How we speak about these things is important because that is the way we think about them. I really like the videos understanding of the humanly created world in which we live but by calling these fictions I think that commits a serious error. By speaking in that way we think that way, and that is how God became a fiction to the western world.

 

I agree it is important.

 

Regarding God, though, so much has been done as far as exploitation of religion that imo we can healthfully say that there are useful fictions about God.  Or in other words, sometimes a representation of "God" is a useful fiction employed by people seeking influence.

[mfbukowski]

See the Rorty p5 quote above. No time to look it up for you now

[Meadowchik]

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/b-h-roberts-individual-responsibility-and-the-13th-article-of-faith/

This.

Add-on: A woman in the audience gets up to speak @ about 1:12:58. She puts it all in a nutshell perfectly.

 

"Enlightenment from above and inquiry below: this is the dynamic of theology as a process, not just a concept," paraphrased.

 

YES!

[Meadowchik]

See the Rorty p5 quote above. No time to look it up for you now

 

Here it is:

 

 

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there.  To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

 

I recall you saying that you include God among that human description, which would provide the connection between God and Truth. 

 

I suppose we would say that, in reconciling the 1st paragraph, you'd agree that the world out there "not our creation" refers to the world on this side of the veil.

[mfbukowski]

I get it.

 

Since we share a language with other people, it's useful to me that we can distinguish between the "raw" world and the world we create, either in our own description of the raw world or in design of artificial worlds.  In theory, there is a raw world that goes on with or without us, and it is a concrete thing that we have in common, even if we don't all experience all of the same parts of it, nor do we perceive or interpret it identically.

Rorty, p 5 Contingency Irony Solidarity

 

 

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there.  To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

I agree with Rorty on this.

I will say it one last time- this is the whole point of the thread.  I have said it probably 5 or six times on the thread.  If you can refute this, be my guest

 

The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

You can experience anything about the world you like- but the minute you put it into words you are on Rorty's turf.  Period.  I see no way out of it.

 

So even the term "the raw world" is a human creation and the thought itself comes out of a human mind.  It is inescapable.

 

Unless maybe you are a bat?      -> Thomas Nagel

 

Seriously- other creatures experience something too, I presume, which is unspeakable- we cannot speak about it or even speculate really, because to do so is to run it not through their minds but through a human mind.  There is just no way around it.

 

 

The minute you start talking about what is real or artificial or out there or not out there-

[mfbukowski]

Here it is:

 

 

 

I recall you saying that you include God among that human description, which would provide the connection between God and Truth. 

 

I suppose we would say that, in reconciling the 1st paragraph, you'd agree that the world out there "not our creation" refers to the world on this side of the veil.

That is where I think Rorty goes "wrong"- not really wrong but he did not understand that one can postulate a Human God- and that changes everything!!!

 

If one postulates a human God, then NOTHING escapes human creation- even the world "out there" disappears and becomes part of human creation if we include God as a human.

THAT is my entire point.  If God is human, humanism becomes theology.  No up there - no down there-  really none of this:

 

"Enlightenment from above and inquiry below: this is the dynamic of theology as a process, not just a concept," paraphrased.

 

It's not two things- no "and" in there.

 

One process- Human Progress.

 

That is the real insight as I see it.  No distinctions, Human Creation, Human Progress and Human Exaltation.  It's all one thing- the potential of the human mind raised to the highest power.  From amoebas to us to gods- it's all the same process.

[Meadowchik]

That is where I think Rorty goes "wrong"- not really wrong but he did not understand that one can postulate a Human God- and that changes everything!!!

 

If one postulates a human God, then NOTHING escapes human creation- even the world "out there" disappears and becomes part of human creation if we include God as a human.

THAT is my entire point.  If God is human, humanism becomes theology.  No up there - no down there-  really none of this:

It's not two things- no "and" in there.

 

One process- Human Progress.

 

That is the real insight as I see it.  No distinctions, Human Creation, Human Progress and Human Exaltation.  It's all one thing- the potential of the human mind raised to the highest power.  From amoebas to us to gods- it's all the same process.

 

And that is very, very neat...except.

 

If we are co-eternal with God, then it stands to reason that, just like not all spirits chose Earth, not all intelligences accept spirit bodies.  These intelligences, then, are. And thus, if they are, and if they have some order of agency, then perhaps they aren't entirely God's.

 

But, aside from that, I would say yes.

 

However, it still makes sense to me to use the Rorty paradigm when talking about a baseline where God (by our own choosing) is more or less not in the picture.  Free agency allows this sense of separation in the doctrinal sense, imo...it's then up to us to accept the Mediator of that gap.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Meadowchik

[mfbukowski]

I joined the church because of Pragmatism. You are coming the other way, starting with doctrine, the pre-existence etc. You are fitting your doctrine into philosophy and I am fitting philosophy into doctrine.

There will always be some differences.

[mfbukowski]

My explanation story for that is that there were millions of intelligences some barely sparks others godlike like Jesus. The most intelligent of all became humans. They were selected to become children of God. The others became what they were best suited to become. All are here to fill the measure of our creation and have joy. But of course that is religious metaphysics, not philosophy.

[Ahab]

My explanation story for that is that there were millions of intelligences some barely sparks others godlike like Jesus. The most intelligent of all became humans. They were selected to become children of God. The others became what they were best suited to become. All are here to fill the measure of our creation and have joy. But of course that is religious metaphysics, not philosophy.

Not all will fill the full measure of their creation and each kind reproduces after its own kind. We were never anything other than the same kind of being God is. The kind of intelligence we have and the kind of intelligences we are have always been the same kind as our parents.

[mfbukowski]

Nothing I said disagrees with that, but if you find something I won't argue about it

This is metaphyics

[mfbukowski]

And that is very, very neat...except.

If we are co-eternal with God, then it stands to reason that, just like not all spirits chose Earth, not all intelligences accept spirit bodies. These intelligences, then, are. And thus, if they are, and if they have some order of agency, then perhaps they aren't entirely God's.

But, aside from that, I would say yes.

However, it still makes sense to me to use the Rorty paradigm when talking about a baseline where God (by our own choosing) is more or less not in the picture. Free agency allows this sense of separation in the doctrinal sense, imo...it's then up to us to accept the Mediator of that gap.

[mfbukowski]

You know as usual I think I miss read your post. There's nothing here I would disagree with that all.

[Meadowchik]

You know as usual I think I miss read your post. There's nothing here I would disagree with that all.

 

Cool. (I am assuming that's for me because of the post previous, but all the same...)

 

Thanks for your patience in this thread.  It has been really interesting and I have been edified!

[mfbukowski]

Cool. (I am assuming that's for me because of the post previous, but all the same...)

Thanks for your patience in this thread. It has been really interesting and I have been edified!

Thanks and I am glad. Yes it was for you! I was responding on a phone keyboard

[Meadowchik]

The Deflationary Theory in Moses 1:

 

"1 The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain,

 2 And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.

 3 And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?

 4 And, behold, thou art my son; wherefore look, and I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands; but not all, for my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease.

 5 Wherefore, no man can behold all my works, except he behold all my glory; and no man can behold all my glory, and afterwards remain in the flesh on the earth.

 6 And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth; but there is no God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I know them all."

 

Words intended to describe Truth from God's perspective are endless...which dovetails nicely with the idea that words and our own abstractions are inadequate in describing God's reality.

[mfbukowski]

The Deflationary Theory in Moses 1:

 

"1 The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain,

 2 And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.

 3 And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?

 4 And, behold, thou art my son; wherefore look, and I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands; but not all, for my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease.

 5 Wherefore, no man can behold all my works, except he behold all my glory; and no man can behold all my glory, and afterwards remain in the flesh on the earth.

 6 And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth; but there is no God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I know them all."

 

Words intended to describe Truth from God's perspective are endless...which dovetails nicely with the idea that words and our own abstractions are inadequate in describing God's reality.

Great point and great observation.  I am firmly convinced that God organizes through his Word- the messenger Christ- which parallels the way we socially create reality through language.  Science is not "science" until numerous people do an experiment and agree with a definition which has been put forward, and communicated through language to others.

 

So for me reality is a social construction of agreed upon human terms.  We define the Celsius scale for temperature measurement based on observable phenomena- the freezing and boiling of water, or at least that is how it was originally designed as the "centigrade" scale.  It was decided that there should be 100 degrees between the freezing and boiling, and so it was written and so it was.  The correct amount of mercury in the correct size tube was defined, and it was dictated that one one-hundreth of the distance the mercury moved between the temperature of freezing water and boiling water should be defined as a "degree".  So this is an example of how we define reality- the scale is essentially an arbitrary definition upon which now everyone agrees and is used universally to define what we call "temperature".  In the same way, the "laws of nature" have been defined through observation  by human brains as only human brains see reality, and then published between other human brains as the "rules" by which human brains perceive reality.

 

The problem of course happens when we think that somehow we are seeing "reality as it is" when of course all we are seeing is what humans see, and what humans can say about it all using their funny grunts and squiggly symbols we call "language".

 

Technically what you point out so clearly here is not actually part of the Deflationary theory of truth, which only states that truth itself cannot be defined, but what you point out is a consequence of the basis of that view- that indeed language does not refer to "reality" but only other arbitrary definitions of reality as found in words.

 

So indeed I agree with you about that scripture, that the laws of human perception as defined by our Human God never cease, or never will as long as we are human, and for us, that means "forever".  Indeed what was there before there were humans?  No human can know the "reality" of that nor can any human know the "reality" of what will come after because after all, we are only human and can only know what humans can know and have deposited in that great repository of human culture without which we cannot sruvive.  We need our human tools to do just about anything from building a fire, to hunting or sending a rocket to the moon.  No history, no culture, no language and we are the same as the apes, or indeed even quite a bit less because they have their own knowledge passed on.  Even dogs have their packs to teach them the correct way to survive in their doggie worlds, and with them again- no pack, no survival.  One dog cannot bring down a deer, but a pack can as long as each does his part.  Dolphins and whales know that as well, and yet we tend to think we are free and independent of pack behavior.  Go figure. Without cultural knowledge, none of us could survive.  Babies are helpless little things- no family, no survival.

 

Yes we make up grand theories about the Big Bang and singularities and the Big Crunch perhaps, and pull out all our self-referential math which only shows how our minds work, to "prove" that such theories reflect "reality" while really only reflecting back our own faces in the cosmos.

 

But yes, it all works,  We really can visit this orb we call "the moon" and further define more and more, without knowing much about what is "really out there", while knowing that we have been designed to make such progress.  But tho think that we can know something beyond what humans can know is the big illusion which has beset this age, and with it the illusion that there is nothing beyond our paltry understanding of "reality"

 

I think it is only through direct raw experience, before it is even possible to verbalize that we can glimpse God and reality, even if only for a moment

 

I am rambling.  Time for bed! 

 

There are numerous scriptures speaking this way, with God "calling" and defining the world into existence.

Edited September 9, 2015 by mfbukowski