Confirmation through the spirit or feelings?

[Gray]

7 hours ago, CV75 said:

It depends on what you use for a standard of historicity. You chose to believe that “God is existence,” based on the historical event of your hearing it. That is a very Biblical approach (Romans 10:17). The idea was put into your mind and you chose to believe it.

It's not based on a historical event. Again, category error.  You can't investigate theology with history. You can investigate historical claims with history. 

 

7 hours ago, CV75 said:

Sometimes we invite ideas into our minds (Alma 32).

You need to articulate how faith-dependent claims such as Nephites and Jesus are any different from claims that “God is existence.” So far it seems like you arbitrarily picked a different historical standard than you did for God, and such hunches are entirely subjective, internal processes, based on what you choose to invite into your mind and consider.

If you don't think that the Nephites or Jesus were real historical people, then it's not different. If you think that they WERE real historical people, then it's very different. 

Again, theology is not history. That's like saying I need to prove art is good using math. 

 

7 hours ago, CV75 said:

 

Well, that escalated quickly… But now that you mention it, even your hallucinations have an origin, or an input to your brain.

Not an external input. That's the point

 

7 hours ago, CV75 said:

How did you learn to pray? That would be the discernible external input to the associated mental processes, which are entirely internal.

Learning to pray is very different from praying. When you learn to pray, a teacher or a parent is talking to you. You hear their voice, it's outside of your head. 

Prayer is entirely inside of your head, as far as anyone knows. 

[Gray]

4 hours ago, pogi said:

When I think of "doubt", I equate it with a belief that something is unlikely.  To me, that is a very cynical way to live and is not without its own bias.  If you are using the word to to suggest uncertainty, then I have no problem with it used in that way. 

When I think "doubt", I think, "This may or may not be true. Let's investigate."

Edited April 6, 2017 by Gray

[Gray]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I would throw this right back atcha.

YOU haven't doubted enough!  You haven't really examined the idea that all your perceptions are mental states about an unknowable world around you, which humans have constructed out of their inability to perceive it as it is.

THAT is the only idea that really holds up to scrutiny- that even reality AS WE KNOW IT is more about how WE are than how IT is.

Believe it or not I've spent a lot of time outside of these discussions mulling over your ideas. I think they work as an excellent criticism of positivism, but they aren't enough (for me) to fully describe "reality" as I see it. I think we can approximate reality with language more closely or less closely, even if we never quite get there. Our subjective perceptions distort what we see, but they don't leave us totally blind. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Gray

[Ahab]

24 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm butchering this and I know MFB is going to correct probably everything I say, but I'm going to try anyway.  You're not understanding Rorty.  He's saying that objective truth about the nature of something that exists out there, "cannot exist independently of the human mind".

That is part of what Rorty says that I do not agree with, IF by objective truth Rorty (or any person) is referring to what is or was or will be regardless of whether or not any person describes truth/reality.

Other than that I can't think of any other way to think of what really is "objective truth/reality".

Quote

 Rorty is saying that truth itself is dependent on language.  

That is another part of what Rorty says that I do not agree with. And I have already explained why.

Quote

He's not saying that nothing exists in the universe if humans don't exist.  He is saying that truth (as defined by human intelligence and language) does not exist outside of the human mind.  

See above.

Quote

So what does that mean then?  Does this mean that the Sun isn't hot, or that water isn't a liquid?  No, the Sun is hot and water is a liquid, as defined by human language, but what does hot or liquid mean?  It means nothing outside of human language and perception.  In other words, and this is hard to explain, but there is an object (even the word object is a human word) that exists that we humans call the Sun.  This object has attributes about it that exist independent of the existence of humans.  But as soon as you or I or anyone starts to describe these attributes we take what exists independently and we put it into our human box.  That human box is where the words true and false also exist.  Inside our human box is where we decide what the attributes of the sun are and whether they are true or false.  Does that make sense?  

Yes. That does make sense and I understand what you are saying. But I still do not agree with everything Rorty says.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Ahab

[hope_for_things]

1 minute ago, Ahab said:

That is part of what Rorty says that I do not agree with, IF by objective truth Rorty (or any person) is referring to what is or was or will be regardless of whether or not any person describes truth/reality.

Other than that I can't think of any other way to think of what really is "objective reality".

I'm interpreting here again, but I think Rorty would say that objective truth or objective reality does not exist outside the human mind.  He's not saying that nothing exists out there, he's just saying that we can't make objective observations about things without observing them using our senses, our mind, and our language skills to describe them.  And in that process we use the words true and false in our language to describe these observations.  

4 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Yes. That does make sense and I understand what you are saying. But I still do not agree with everything Rorty says.

I'm not willing to say I disagree with Rorty, only that don't fully understand or maybe better said, what Rorty describes doesn't seem to completely align with all that I've got going on in my mind, but I'm willing to allow for further growth that may get me closer to how he's describing things.  I'm probably closer to agreeing with him than you are it sounds.  

[Ahab]

20 minutes ago, Gray said:

Prayer is entirely inside of your head, as far as anyone knows. 

Please doubt that, for your own good.

Just consider the possibility that our Father really does communicate with "someone" who is truly and sincerely praying to him such that our Father is truly and sincerely sharing his thoughts and feelings.  Such that it isn't someone who is just talking to himself.  Such that there is actual communication going from our Father, wherever he is, to someone who is truly and sincerely praying to him.

Don't just doubt that other people don't know what prayer really is. Doubt that you do. Believe that you could at least possibly be wrong about what true prayer is.

[Ahab]

5 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm interpreting here again, but I think Rorty would say that objective truth or objective reality does not exist outside the human mind

And that is the part I do not agree with.

5 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

He's not saying that nothing exists out there,

Just that truth is not out there, because he limits his understanding of truth to only what people can observe and describe using language. Which I can almost agree with. Except that I know there are people who are "out there" and doing all of that.

5 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

he's just saying that we can't make objective observations about things without observing them using our senses, our mind, and our language skills to describe them.  And in that process we use the words true and false in our language to describe these observations.  

I agree with him on all of that, but that doesn't rule out anything that is "out there".

5 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm not willing to say I disagree with Rorty, only that don't fully understand or maybe better said, what Rorty describes doesn't seem to completely align with all that I've got going on in my mind, but I'm willing to allow for further growth that may get me closer to how he's describing things.  I'm probably closer to agreeing with him than you are it sounds.  

Yeah I'd say you are a lot closer to agreeing with him than I am. Have all the fun you can with that.

[pogi]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

When I think "doubt", I think, this may or may not be true. Let's investigate. 

I am ok with that.  That is the suggested route to faith in Alma 32 after all. 

At some point however, one has to choose to believe in something.  This does not entail certainty, but does require us to place doubt on the back burner when our experience and intuition tells us that the evidence is sufficient to act on it.  To live in eternal doubt and investigation is an unsettled life with no satisfying conclusion.  It would result in eternal instability, insecurity and anxiety because one would always be required to question the evidence, no mater how overwhelming.  To live like that would look something like this -    

 

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

It's not based on a historical event. Again, category error.  You can't investigate theology with history. You can investigate historical claims with history. 

If you don't think that the Nephites or Jesus were real historical people, then it's not different. If you think that they WERE real historical people, then it's very different. 

Again, theology is not history. That's like saying I need to prove art is good using math. 

Not an external input. That's the point

Learning to pray is very different from praying. When you learn to pray, a teacher or a parent is talking to you. You hear their voice, it's outside of your head. 

Prayer is entirely inside of your head, as far as anyone knows. 

Are you saying that to your way of thinking, your concept of theological existence ("God is existence") rejects existence as an historical event? That God is existence without historicity? Sounds kind of Nicean to me... Or do you simultaneously hold separate and potentially opposing theological and historical concepts of existence, but for some reason cannot do the same with Nephites and Jesus?

Many things ( both internal and external) instigate and keep hallucinations running, but the hallucination and the rhino are perceived, interpreted, organized and applied only inside your head, the font of your external expressions.

When you receive anything through your senses and learn, these and any other mental processes are not happening outside of your head (regardless of the source), but like prayer are experienced entirely inside of your head.

[Ahab]

8 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Many things ( both internal and external) instigate and keep hallucinations running, but the hallucination and the rhino are perceived, interpreted, organized and applied only inside your head, the font of your external expressions.

 

When you receive anything through your senses and learn, these and any other mental processes are not happening outside of your head (regardless of the source), but like prayer are experienced entirely inside of your head.

Again with the head. No. The mind isn't in the head, or at least not entirely.  The mind is the spirit and it is joined to every part of the body the spirit is in.

And with true prayer there is both a transmitter and a receiver.

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I feel like you're dodging my question about the differences between religion and science.  In fact, now that I think of it, I seem to recall some past discussions where you were the one arguing for how different science is from religion.  Do you remember those, I'll have to see if I can find an old thread, but I swear you were strongly arguing that I was equivocating scientific truth with religious truth, and you were adamantly opposed to that idea.   Some of my thoughts on the subject have evolved since then, but if my memory is correct, it sounds like you've done a complete 180 on this science and religion thing.  Now they are essentially the same???  Please explain.  

Both science and religion are based in human perception.

Both science and religion are about human beliefs. Both science and religion are communicated in language.

Science and religion are completely different though and subject matter and as language games. I am not simple-minded enough to say that science and religion are the same or different without qualifying it. That is childish.

Trust me I have no reason to dodge any of your questions, but I can't help it if you don't understand me. I speak in nuances and you tend to conflate everything I say.

Edited April 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Ahab said:

That's close enough to you saying truth is independent of language that I can give you credit for saying it now.

Thank you.

It only took a couple of pages to get this far.

That's only because I resorted to Mormon language games. It still says that truth cannot be defined linguistically. Technically since I said that in language it contradicts itself but I suppose it works for a certain audience. I suppose by your criteria Rory is also right that there's nothing to be said about truth so truth is independent of language. Hope that makes you happy.

Edited April 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, snowflake said:

I think philosophy is great, but I also know that the law of non-contradiction must dismiss statements like "there is no such thing as truth". That is a contradictory statement and cannot support it's own claim.

Did you really understand what the guy was saying? 

You are begging the question. Your argument is circular if there's no such thing as truth it's irrelevant if the theory itself is true. No one would be stupid enough to claim such an argument is true. The law of contradiction is bunk.

Language is too ambiguous for that to have meaning.

The whole point is that it is disputing what you call the law of contradiction as being a law at all. I don't even know what that would mean

That is like saying that quantum mechanics cannot be correct because it conflicts with Newtonian mechanics. Yes that's the entire point it should conflict with the previous theories.

Edited April 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, snowflake said:

I think philosophy is great, but I also know that the law of non-contradiction must dismiss statements like "there is no such thing as truth". That is a contradictory statement and cannot support it's own claim.

Did you really understand what the guy was saying? 

Displaying that you did not understand "what the guy was saying" hurts your credibility just a tad since you are trying to refute one of the most important philosophers of our time.

I think if you cannot understand him, it is not likely  you will be able to refute his ideas.

Did I really have to point this out to you?  Why on earth would you admit that when you are trying to refute his views on truth?  

There is no point in replying to you any more- rave on.

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm butchering this and I know MFB is going to correct probably everything I say, but I'm going to try anyway.  You're not understanding Rorty.  He's saying that objective truth about the nature of something that exists out there, "cannot exist independently of the human mind".  Rorty is saying that truth itself is dependent on language.  He's not saying that nothing exists in the universe if humans don't exist.  He is saying that truth (as defined by human intelligence and language) does not exist outside of the human mind.  

So what does that mean then?  Does this mean that the Sun isn't hot, or that water isn't a liquid?  No, the Sun is hot and water is a liquid, as defined by human language, but what does hot or liquid mean?  It means nothing outside of human language and perception.  In other words, and this is hard to explain, but there is an object (even the word object is a human word) that exists that we humans call the Sun.  This object has attributes about it that exist independent of the existence of humans.  But as soon as you or I or anyone starts to describe these attributes we take what exists independently and we put it into our human box.  That human box is where the words true and false also exist.  Inside our human box is where we decide what the attributes of the sun are and whether they are true or false.  Does that make sense?  

 

Yep that's what he says.

I don't know why this is so difficult for others honestly.  Just listen to his words. What he says is what he says.  I have no clue why it has to be explained repeatedly.

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Gray said:

Not an external input. That's the point

 

Learning to pray is very different from praying. When you learn to pray, a teacher or a parent is talking to you. You hear their voice, it's outside of your head. 

Your ability to read minds is not very impressive.  I guess your input for this nonsense is Freud

And I would recommend dropping LSD IF you think you know about hallucinations.   I have heard first hand reports about them.  Melting walls and spiders etc.  Spiders and walls exist as inputs in those cases.  If you fear spiders, you may hallucinate spiders.

I would not recommend it ordinarily but if you actually think you are right about hallucinations you might learn something.

Do you ever dream about something that happened during the day, all scrambled up?  Those scrambled up events are the "external inputs" which make up the dream.

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Gray said:

Believe it or not I've spent a lot of time outside of these discussions mulling over your ideas. I think they work as an excellent criticism of positivism, but they aren't enough (for me) to fully describe "reality" as I see it. I think we can approximate reality with language more closely or less closely, even if we never quite get there. Our subjective perceptions distort what we see, but they don't leave us totally blind. 

Oh gosh.

How can you know that?  Do you check out your subjective perceptions against "reality" INDEPENDENT of your "subjective perceptions"???

How the HECK do you do that???  How do you get outside your subjective perceptions to compare how much they are distorted??

Oh my gosh.

That is the whole point!!!

NOW YOU are losing any credibility whatsoever.  How can you not understand that - it's the simplest argument against the correspondence theory there is!

 

Quote

 

Vagueness or circularity[edit]

Either the defender of the correspondence theory of truth offers some accompanying theory of the world, or he or she does not.

If no theory of the world is offered, the argument is so vague as to be useless or even unintelligible: truth would then be supposed to be correspondence to some undefined, unknown or ineffable world. It is difficult to see how a candidate truth could be more certain than the world we are to judge its degree of correspondence against.

On the other hand, as soon as the defender of the correspondence theory of truth offers a theory of the world, he or she is operating in some specific ontological or scientific theory, which stands in need of justification. But the only way to support the truth of this theory of the world that is allowed by the correspondence theory of truth is correspondence to the real world. Hence the argument is circular.^[7]

 

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_theory_of_truth}

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Ahab said:

That is part of what Rorty says that I do not agree with, IF by objective truth Rorty (or any person) is referring to what is or was or will be regardless of whether or not any person describes truth/reality.

Other than that I can't think of any other way to think of what really is "objective truth/reality".

That is another part of what Rorty says that I do not agree with. And I have already explained why.

See above.

Yes. That does make sense and I understand what you are saying. But I still do not agree with everything Rorty says.

Show me where Rorty refers to "objective reality" at all except to say there is none.

Clue:  he does not.

What have you read that Rorty has written?  Are you an expert on "everything Rorty says"?

Edited April 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm interpreting here again, but I think Rorty would say that objective truth or objective reality does not exist outside the human mind.  He's not saying that nothing exists out there, he's just saying that we can't make objective observations about things without observing them using our senses, our mind, and our language skills to describe them.  And in that process we use the words true and false in our language to describe these observations.  

I'm not willing to say I disagree with Rorty, only that don't fully understand or maybe better said, what Rorty describes doesn't seem to completely align with all that I've got going on in my mind, but I'm willing to allow for further growth that may get me closer to how he's describing things.  I'm probably closer to agreeing with him than you are it sounds.  

Yep- you understand these points fine!

[CV75]

12 hours ago, Ahab said:

Again with the head. No. The mind isn't in the head, or at least not entirely.  The mind is the spirit and it is joined to every part of the body the spirit is in.

And with true prayer there is both a transmitter and a receiver.

That suggests that an amputee has lost part of his mind, and yet at the same time the remaining spirit limb generates phantom pain independently of what is going on in his brain. “It has a mind of its own…!” I must admit I’ve tried to use that excuse before,  LOL…

But if you turn off his brain, he won't feel it anymore.

[Gray]

16 hours ago, Ahab said:

Please doubt that, for your own good.

Just consider the possibility that our Father really does communicate with "someone" who is truly and sincerely praying to him such that our Father is truly and sincerely sharing his thoughts and feelings.  Such that it isn't someone who is just talking to himself.  Such that there is actual communication going from our Father, wherever he is, to someone who is truly and sincerely praying to him.

Don't just doubt that other people don't know what prayer really is. Doubt that you do. Believe that you could at least possibly be wrong about what true prayer is.

Of course I could be wrong. But everything I've seen so far is consistent with the notion that God doesn't literally communicate messages to people.

[Gray]

15 hours ago, pogi said:

I am ok with that.  That is the suggested route to faith in Alma 32 after all. 

At some point however, one has to choose to believe in something.  This does not entail certainty, but does require us to place doubt on the back burner when our experience and intuition tells us that the evidence is sufficient to act on it.  To live in eternal doubt and investigation is an unsettled life with no satisfying conclusion.  It would result in eternal instability, insecurity and anxiety because one would always be required to question the evidence, no mater how overwhelming.  To live like that would look something like this -    

 

Sure, you have to settle on what seems to you most likely to be true. But that doesn't mean you can't go back and reevaluate it again if necessary. I may have totally different positions about God ten years from now. I'm okay with that. 

[Ahab]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yep that's what he says.

I don't know why this is so difficult for others honestly.  Just listen to his words. What he says is what he says.  I have no clue why it has to be explained repeatedly.

Look for the words "objective truth" in what you quoted here and then look at your words where you said "Yep that's what he says".  And then after that go back to your response to me where you said Rorty didn't use the words "objective truth" except to say there is none after hope_ quoted the same thing to me. I thought Rorty was referring to objective truth when he talked about truth with a capital T but hey I can admit that we may be in agreement if we're just saying the same things differently.  The Mormonese and philosophese languages you use sometimes seem conflicting to me.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Ahab

[Gray]

14 hours ago, CV75 said:

Are you saying that to your way of thinking, your concept of theological existence ("God is existence") rejects existence as an historical event? That God is existence without historicity? Sounds kind of Nicean to me... Or do you simultaneously hold separate and potentially opposing theological and historical concepts of existence, but for some reason cannot do the same with Nephites and Jesus?

Existence isn't a historical event. Existence is a bare fact. The current "mode" of the existence is the universe as it exists now. You can investigate that all you like with the various branches of science. But you can't use science to investigate a theology that says the universe is God. It's subjective.

To make it a little more clear, let's say that Elohim as described in LDS theology exists, and isn't just a construct. He was a man, born on another planet, became enormously powerful, figured out how to command the elements and create things from chaos.

Let's say we use scientific inquiry to confirm all these things. We still can't confirm that Elohim is God, because what you choose to call God is completely subjective. 

 

14 hours ago, CV75 said:

 

Many things ( both internal and external) instigate and keep hallucinations running, but the hallucination and the rhino are perceived, interpreted, organized and applied only inside your head, the font of your external expressions.

 

When you receive anything through your senses and learn, these and any other mental processes are not happening outside of your head (regardless of the source), but like prayer are experienced entirely inside of your head.

So, no difference then between hallucinating a rhino and seeing a rhino? 

[Gray]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Your ability to read minds is not very impressive.  I guess your input for this nonsense is Freud

And I would recommend dropping LSD IF you think you know about hallucinations.   I have heard first hand reports about them.  Melting walls and spiders etc.  Spiders and walls exist as inputs in those cases.  If you fear spiders, you may hallucinate spiders.

I would not recommend it ordinarily but if you actually think you are right about hallucinations you might learn something.

Do you ever dream about something that happened during the day, all scrambled up?  Those scrambled up events are the "external inputs" which make up the dream.

I'll skip the LSD, thanks. I'm already on LDS.

Is there a difference between dreaming about a spider and seeing a spider in front of you now?