Confirmation through the spirit or feelings?

[Gray]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

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!

 

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

Two separate ideas: 

1. If I step off the edge of this building, I will keep right on walking through the air.
2. If I step off the edge of this building, I will fall to my death. 

You're saying one doesn't have a closer correspondence to an external reality than the other, and we can't figure out which one it is? I'm not saying 1:1 correspondence, I'm saying one is closer than the other. You make it sounds like our subjective perceptions leave us totally blind. No, our perceptions distort reality, they don't leave us totally blind. 

If we didn't have a rough idea of how to tell which ideas more closely correspond to reality, we would be extinct right now. 

 

[hope_for_things]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

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.

You are very careful with what you say and the words you use, very precise.  However, and I think this is partially my fault, but I also think you could improve on this matter.  You say you can't help it if I don't understand you. Not true, you could do a better job of explaining your ideas in a way that the average person could understand.  This is a skill for sure, but I know many scholars who write books for scholarly audiences, but who also write for mainstream audiences and have learned that skill.  You will be more accessible if you learn to communicate more effectively to your average Joe, like myself.  

[hope_for_things]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yep- you understand these points fine!

Ha!  I'm going to relish in this moment for a bit.   Ahh... it feels good.  See, I have learned something, even though at times you think I still don't get it, I'm further down this path than where I started.  

[Ahab]

Objective truth example:

The elephant analogy. 

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/blind-men-and-the-elephant.htm

The elephant in that analogy is an example of objective truth, and anyone who says there is no elephant (or what the elephant represents in that analogy) is denying that there is such a thing as objective truth.

...and it doesn't matter if the reason those people deny that there is such a thing as objective truth is because they have never seen or experienced an elephant, because the elephant is just 1 example of an objective truth and there is no end to the number of other examples.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Ahab

[Ahab]

39 minutes ago, Gray said:

Two separate ideas: 

1. If I step off the edge of this building, I will keep right on walking through the air.
2. If I step off the edge of this building, I will fall to my death. 

You're saying one doesn't have a closer correspondence to an external reality than the other, and we can't figure out which one it is? I'm not saying 1:1 correspondence, I'm saying one is closer than the other. You make it sounds like our subjective perceptions leave us totally blind. No, our perceptions distort reality, they don't leave us totally blind. 

If we didn't have a rough idea of how to tell which ideas more closely correspond to reality, we would be extinct right now. 

 

Prepare yourself to hear more sophistry, including a statement saying something like "No, I was not saying that".

Semantics, bro. You might want to consider being a little more precise with your language.

[Ahab]

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

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.

It's complicated and I brought up what I see as an error in your statement describin thought processes mostly because I am focusing on semantics so much in this thread. I'll drop it now though because there are better targets to pick on.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

You are very careful with what you say and the words you use, very precise.  However, and I think this is partially my fault, but I also think you could improve on this matter.  You say you can't help it if I don't understand you. Not true, you could do a better job of explaining your ideas in a way that the average person could understand.  This is a skill for sure, but I know many scholars who write books for scholarly audiences, but who also write for mainstream audiences and have learned that skill.  You will be more accessible if you learn to communicate more effectively to your average Joe, like myself.  

Keep in mind that good teachers also inspire others to think of the issues themselves, rather than just laying the truth out plainly for their students.

So overall I'd say mski is doing a pretty good job as a teacher. It's just that, from my perspective, he is wrong on some issues.  Or maybe he just talks too much about what Rorty thinks and Rorty is the one who is wrong on some issues.

[pogi]

40 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Objective truth example:

The elephant analogy. 

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/blind-men-and-the-elephant.htm

The elephant in that analogy is an example of objective truth, and anyone who says there is no elephant (or what the elephant represents in that analogy) is denying that there is such a thing as objective truth.

...and it doesn't matter if the reason those people deny that there is such a thing as objective truth is because they have never seen or experienced an elephant, because the elephant is just 1 example of an objective truth and there is no end to the number of other examples.

In the analogy, humans are the blind men.  The point is, if there is an elephant, you can't know it.  We are blind to objective truth - we can't see the elephant as it is. Only God can see the elephant as it is.  Thus man's truth is relative until we can see as God sees. 

[Ahab]

22 minutes ago, pogi said:

In the analogy, humans are the blind men.  The point is, if there is an elephant, you can't know it.  We are blind to objective truth - we can't see the elephant as it is. Only God can see the elephant as it is.  Thus man's truth is relative until we can see as God sees. 

The blind men experience how the elephant is even though each of them experience a different aspect of the elephant.  None of them are saying there is no elephant.  They simply have their own subjective experiences and do not see how each of their experiences can be harmonized to give them a better overall image of the elephant.

I am not blind so I can see more than a blind man sees.

[hope_for_things]

36 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Keep in mind that good teachers also inspire others to think of the issues themselves, rather than just laying the truth out plainly for their students.

So overall I'd say mski is doing a pretty good job as a teacher. It's just that, from my perspective, he is wrong on some issues.  Or maybe he just talks too much about what Rorty thinks and Rorty is the one who is wrong on some issues.

Good point, and I wouldn't be constantly engaging with him on threads, and investing time thinking through his suggestions if I wasn't inspired on some level.  We all have room to improve though, so since he said "he can't help it if I don't understand him", I just wanted to call that out, a little healthy push back.  :-) 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Ahab said:

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.

That's true. I should use one or the other.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Two separate ideas: 

1. If I step off the edge of this building, I will keep right on walking through the air.
2. If I step off the edge of this building, I will fall to my death. 

You're saying one doesn't have a closer correspondence to an external reality than the other, and we can't figure out which one it is? I'm not saying 1:1 correspondence, I'm saying one is closer than the other. You make it sounds like our subjective perceptions leave us totally blind. No, our perceptions distort reality, they don't leave us totally blind. 

If we didn't have a rough idea of how to tell which ideas more closely correspond to reality, we would be extinct right now. 

 

Oh gosh the cliff again.

Read the Rorty quote in my siggy til you see that's not what is being said.

It's clear as a bell. Clear as a blankety blank bell for Petes sake. Non mental causes.

Quote

The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.

Descriptions of cliffs are not cliffs

I can write descriptions of falling off cliffs all day and it won't hurt a bit.  THE WORDS DO NOT CORRESPOND TO THE REALITY.

You go jump off the cliff and if you survive, come back and tell us how much it was like the description even a teeny bit, ok, and whether that makes a difference in your life.

Edited April 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Ahab said:

Objective truth example:

The elephant analogy. 

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/blind-men-and-the-elephant.htm

The elephant in that analogy is an example of objective truth, and anyone who says there is no elephant (or what the elephant represents in that analogy) is denying that there is such a thing as objective truth.

...and it doesn't matter if the reason those people deny that there is such a thing as objective truth is because they have never seen or experienced an elephant, because the elephant is just 1 example of an objective truth and there is no end to the number of other examples.

One small flaw: no one in the story experiences the whole elephant. The story was invented to show my point not yours.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

In the analogy, humans are the blind men.  The point is, if there is an elephant, you can't know it.  We are blind to objective truth - we can't see the elephant as it is. Only God can see the elephant as it is.  Thus man's truth is relative until we can see as God sees. 

Thanks.

I know you and CV get this perfectly, that keeps me going

[CV75]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

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.

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

Of course we subjectively choose our various tools in the approaches we take in dealing with what we call the world around us. You choose to apply historical discipline to Jesus and a theological discipline to “God is existence.”

In either case, you seem to hold that God is existence and persists independently of your presence, and that history and other sciences are subsets of existence. This is a melding of scientific and theological mental processes.

There is no difference in the locus of the mental processes driving your choice of tools: all such subjectivity takes place in your head. To you, both the hallucination and the hippo are equally real until their respective driving mental processes are redirected. Sometimes you have a second thought, "It's just a hallucination," and sometimes you may question what you're seeing, or whether you're seeing a hippo. According to what you’ve said, because it is theologically based, the notion that “God is existence” is more like a hallucination, and because it is scientifically based, the conclusion that “Jesus is not historical” is more like the hippo that isn’t there, despite its persistence elsewhere independently of your presence.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

One small flaw: no one in the story experiences the whole elephant. The story was invented to show my point not yours.

My point is illustrated in the story, as well.  Read the last part of the article in the link I provided.

They are experiencing the elephant even though they are experiencing different aspects of the elephant.  And the elephant is really "out there", until they each get to it and are then "there" to experience it, with none of them saying there is no elephant "out there" before they get "there".

You're not showing a very good comprehension of reality or even an analogy of reality. And I am still fine with that.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

Of course we subjectively choose our various tools in the approaches we take in dealing with what we call the world around us. You choose to apply historical discipline to Jesus and a theological discipline to “God is existence.”

 

In either case, you seem to hold that God is existence and persists independently of your presence, and that history and other sciences are subsets of existence. This is a melding of scientific and theological mental processes.

 

There is no difference in the locus of the mental processes driving your choice of tools: all such subjectivity takes place in your head. To you, both the hallucination and the hippo are equally real until their respective driving mental processes are redirected. Sometimes you have a second thought, "It's just a hallucination," and sometimes you may question what you're seeing, or whether you're seeing a hippo. According to what you’ve said, because it is theologically based, the notion that “God is existence” is more like a hallucination, and because it is scientifically based, the conclusion that “Jesus is not historical” is more like the hippo that isn’t there, despite its persistence elsewhere independently of your presence.

 

Great stuff!

I love mirages because you could swear up and down there was water there.  And here in the west we see them almost daily if we live in the right area.  If you just go by your senses they could be totally "real" yet because we see them so often we don't even consider the illusion for a second.  Someone who had never seen a mirage might be totally convinced.  And so we have old stories about prospectors in the desert chasing mirages.

They must have been Easterners.

He doesn't see the mirage,AS a mirage- he does not even see the illusion of a mirage because he is so used to seeing it.

It shows the power of our minds to ignore that which we know is illusory and see as "reality" things just as illusory while thinking they are "real".

And so we construct what we call "reality" picking out what previous experience shows doesn't work without even understanding the illusion of everything else because it DOES work.

The world is out there independent of our experience but all we can possibly know is our experience of it, and our observations tell us more about ourselves than what is out there.

Edited April 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

19 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

They must have been Easterners.

That explains it...

[mfbukowski]

4 minutes ago, CV75 said:

That explains it...

Quote

 

Born	Stephen Alan Weinberg January 27, 1942 (age 75) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wynn

There is something to that actually.

Las Vegas was started by NY mobsters in the old days- only an Easterner would see the value of what a Westerner sees as a bunch of nothing.

We don't even see the reality of mirages- they make money on them.

We could show a picture of downtown SLC and show how Mormons have made a religion out of what some might see as Joseph's hallucination.

In the dark only a blind man can see "reality" or find the "truth" while we stub our toes.

 

[mfbukowski]

I have a challenge for all TBM's out there who are proponents for "objective reality":

God if he exists is clearly invisible.

The testimony experience is completely subjective - so back to the OP.

How do all YOU brilliant advocates of objective reality as represented by perfect correspondence between language and reality JUSTIFY belief in Joseph's alleged hallucinations and your own in following the invisible spirit which talks to you while no one else can hear it?

I will take the positivist side now in this discussion and debunk every single thing you put forth.

That leaves the TBM in the position of justifying a position LIKE Rorty's.

So come on objective reality folks- You are TBM's- how is Joseph's hallucination "REAL" in any sense of objective reality at all?

Do you go back to Neoplatonism and divide the spiritual into an invisible realm of thoughts and ideas that are MORE real than this illusion all around us?

Is reality illusion or is illusion reality?

Let's hear it!!!

I double dog dare you!!

[Ahab]

8 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

How do all YOU brilliant advocates of objective reality as represented by perfect correspondence between language and reality JUSTIFY belief in Joseph's alleged hallucinations and your own in following the invisible spirit which talks to you while no one else can hear it?

Huh? 

Can you rephrase that without all of the gobbledy gook of whatever language you are using to say that?

Are you asking someone like me how I justify Joseph's (Smith's) belief that he saw what he said he saw when saying he saw our Lord and our Father (I don't know why you would refer to that vision as a hallucination) and my belief that Joseph did see what he said he saw as evidenced by the testimony of the Holy Ghost telling me he saw that?

If so the answer is right there in your question.

I don't say that other people can't hear what the Holy Ghost tells me, though, so you will need to provide some evidence for your belief that what you say about that is true. 

[mfbukowski]

11 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Huh? 

Can you rephrase that without all of the gobbledy gook of whatever language you are using to say that?

Are you asking someone like me how I justify Joseph's (Smith's) belief that he saw what he said he saw when saying he saw our Lord and our Father (I don't know why you would refer to that vision as a hallucination) and my belief that Joseph did see what he said he saw as evidenced by the testimony of the Holy Ghost telling me he saw that?

If so the answer is right there in your question.

I don't say that other people can't hear what the Holy Ghost tells me, though, so you will need to provide some evidence for your belief that what you say about that is true. 

Yep that's what I mean.  Prove it was not a hallucination.

I want YOU to justify it

See the new thread I started just now

[CV75]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wynn

There is something to that actually.

Las Vegas was started by NY mobsters in the old days- only an Easterner would see the value of what a Westerner sees as a bunch of nothing.

We don't even see the reality of mirages- they make money on them.

We could show a picture of downtown SLC and show how Mormons have made a religion out of what some might see as Joseph's hallucination.

In the dark only a blind man can see "reality" or find the "truth" while we stub our toes.

 

LOL you actually got it!

[mfbukowski]

51 minutes ago, CV75 said:

LOL you actually got it!

Great minds....  ; )

[Gray]

On 4/7/2017 at 0:11 PM, mfbukowski said:

Oh gosh the cliff again.

Read the Rorty quote in my siggy til you see that's not what is being said.

It's clear as a bell. Clear as a blankety blank bell for Petes sake. Non mental causes.

Descriptions of cliffs are not cliffs

I can write descriptions of falling off cliffs all day and it won't hurt a bit.  THE WORDS DO NOT CORRESPOND TO THE REALITY.

You go jump off the cliff and if you survive, come back and tell us how much it was like the description even a teeny bit, ok, and whether that makes a difference in your life.

Is a description of the cliff closer to the reality of a cliff than a description of the cliff as a tuna salad?