Are cureloms imaginary?

[Honorentheos]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You seem confused by what I said about the difference between faith and reason -- very traditional differences, which I would have assumed are familiar to you.  Apparently here, for the sake of being pugnacious, you deliberately miss the point.

Any detective would be very foolish to immediately adopt an apriori belief (faith) that John Doe was guilty of the crime, instead of basing his conclusions on the hard, forensic evidence.  That doesn't mean that a hunch might not be valuable at the outset, but it is only a hunch which has to be proved or denied according to the evidence.  QED.  You seem to jettison such standards, preferring to tar and feather perceived opponents with false versions of their own claims, and allowing your mere unproven hunches to become truth.  Anyone calling you on it is perforce a confabulator because you have allowed your own strawmen to become normative and real.

You keep asserting that people have assumed a bias against the BoM that informs their perspective. I assure you, you are barking up the wrong tree with that argument. Johnnie Cake had already explained his own transition from sincere belief to skeptic. And while I'm sure you will refuse to believe it for reasons, I didn't serve a mission, in Bishoprics, flirted with the CES path in college etc., etc. with a skeptical perspective of the BoM's veracity. The evidence became too compelling and here I am.

So back up a moment and tell me: Assuming the BoM was never written why would we have any reason whatsoever to be discussing the term, "curelom"? Where would the word come from if not the BoM? Where would we have acquired information telling us the word referred to some type of animal? That it was an animal that lived on the American continent some 4 thousand years ago? That it had utility for human use? Is there anything - anything at all - that would have led to this conversation happening in an alternative universe where there is no BoM?

I often see people trying to avoid this issue with a comparision to Homer's epics and the archeological discovery of Troy. But for that to be a reasonable comparision, we'd need Homer to be...well, let's say Chinese. And he wrote his stories claiming the Mediterranean region was settled by proto-Confusian Chinese rather than who the archeological record tells us were settled there at the time. And they would quote from the Analects and assert belief in the wise man Confucius to come while hold views best said to be contemporary to our hypothetical Chinese Homer's worldview. The BoM isn't just hidden history. It's an appropriation of the history of peoples that we can understand from the archeological record which has absolutely zero correspendence to the original telling of the author of the BoM. It reflects the views of peoples in the 19th c. American frontier about the native americans that we know now were very wrong.

It's not a priori. It's silly to say it is. If you can contextualize the curelom argument in someway that rises to the form of evidence rather than confabulation to support your belief in the BoM's veracity I think we're long past due for you to share that. Otherwise, cureloms are imaginary animals from a work that has all the appearance of being fiction to be anything but.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Honorentheos

[USU78]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

What a confused mish-mash!

I agree with Darwin that both men who do not have a belief in a personal God follow their instincts and so do men who DO- we call those instincts "the spirit".  Darwin hits the nail on the head.  You cannot even see how that supports my case.  None of us can live without instincts and emotions which require absolutely no "evidence" for their foundation

That goes back to the Schiller discussion before about spieltrieb.

In either case the result is religion with God or without God but it is still religion.  Religion is not about facts it is about your personal assessment of what gives you purpose in life- in other words what gives you EMOTIONAL satisfaction.

You cannot get it through your head that it is not about facts about an invisible being but what we construct about that invisible being giving us comfort and satisfaction and making sense to us individually and confirmed by a deep sense of satisfaction in our hearts.  It is like finding your home and knowing that this is where you belong.  None of that is remotely based on evidence- it is all emotion.  It is like finding the right spouse and looking back after 40 years with deep understanding that you made the right decision.  THAT is what religion is like.

Yet again I post this brilliant piece by a dying atheist which you will neither read, critique or understand apparently

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/04/04/religion-without-god/

Of course religion adds nothing to the claim- religion is about simply one part of the greater definition of "what gives us emotional satisfaction" including love, happiness and peace and lack of fear about the unknown in our lives, it is simply a one-liner in a list of what humans need to feel emotionally to be fully functioning and fulfilled.

You just can't get that.  And you show glee proving you don't understand the central assertion by stating it partially yourself.  Quit while you are behind, but rock on amigo!

Yes!  Yes!  and Yes!

Here's the best bit about Einstein's faith, which, were he here, he would admit was muddled and fluid when it comes to G-d:

Quote

But Einstein meant much more than that the universe is organized around fundamental physical laws; indeed his view I quoted is, in one important sense, an endorsement of the supernatural. The beauty and sublimity he said we could reach only as a feeble reflection are not part of nature; they are something beyond nature that cannot be grasped even by finally understanding the most fundamental of physical laws. It was Einstein’s faith that some transcendental and objective value permeates the universe, value that is neither a natural phenomenon nor a subjective reaction to natural phenomena. That is what led him to insist on his own religiosity. No other description, he thought, could better capture the character of his faith.

 

[USU78]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There is nothing at all wrong with such preferences by you, and you share that general desire with a great many others.  Especially in modern times.  The problem comes in your uneven application of that standard to everything.  If you become too persnickity, then everything is subject to severe question.  Not sure that you will find it practical to go that far.  Moreover, the standard of evidence you apply may be far too great and unreasonable.  It is probably best to temper our demands a bit for absolute proof.  We are rarely going to find it.

In my field TRVTH is never the goal, just a preponderance or, at most, clear and convincing.

And what those look like in practice is simply a gut check, when it comes right down to it.

[Johnnie Cake]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There is nothing at all wrong with such preferences by you, and you share that general desire with a great many others.  Especially in modern times.  The problem comes in your uneven application of that standard to everything.  If you become too persnickity, then everything is subject to severe question.  Not sure that you will find it practical to go that far.  Moreover, the standard of evidence you apply may be far too great and unreasonable.  It is probably best to temper our demands a bit for absolute proof.  We are rarely going to find it.

To be clear...it was You and mfbukowski that seemed determined to define me and my worldview and back me into some corner or put me in some box...and I refuse to be allow you to do so.  The longer I participate here (despite my limited status and my personal decision to also limit my participation) the more I come away with the impression that many board members who post are more interested in Winning than Understanding. More interested in Rhetorical Victories than finding Truth.  More interested in Confirming Biases than expanding Knowledge.  It gets tiring.  This vent is not necessarily directed at you Robert...I get the sense that you truly believe in what you post.  But have you ever asked your self, What if everything I currently believe to be true is all wrong, what If I've been wrong in my conclusions?  I ask this question of myself almost every day...I feel it gives me the necessary window with which to accept information that conflicts with my world view.  I don't see a lot of doubting taking place on this board.  for the most part posters project their absolute knowledge of things that they couldn't possibly know.  I know that's part of the culture...but as humans...doubt is healthy and allows us to grow and accept new information.  Any way enough of my rambling.

[clarkgoble]

19 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I get the sense that both you and mfbukowski are trying to back me into the positivisms corner...and as I stated earlier...I'm not that dogmatic in my worldview...however I am very skeptical of metaphysical or mystical super powers that remain untestable.  I tend to want evidence for fanciful claims and am skeptical of claims that are dependent on feelings for support.  I reject priesthood power claims, a god that intercedes in our life or any other claims of the metaphysical....but ethics and symphonies...you have my attention.

I'm not. That's why I asked what you meant by it. You seem to just mean skepticism of anything not reasonably established by public evidence. But that's not really positivism. You did embrace a kind of simplified version of Hempel's criteria (which ironically is the problematic one) but it didn't seem like you're that committed to it honestly.

Edited July 12, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, USU78 said:

Here's the best bit about Einstein's faith, which, were he here, he would admit was muddled and fluid when it comes to G-d:

I'm not sure it's muddled. It's fairly conventional Spinozaism combined with perhaps a more reverential awe to nature than Spinoza proper would be comfortable with. But that is rather typical of many Spinozaists.

Edited July 12, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Johnnie Cake]

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

What we are seeing here are those who are taught fundamentalism as children which gave them the comfort and security of certainty

All they have done is substituted bat Dogma for a new Dogma which gives them Comfort security that all propositions must be backed up with scientific evidence.

All that is is substituting One Security blanket for another.

The purpose of life is to face ambiguity and lack of certainty and create your own vision of the world from matter unorganized 

This was dictated.

Uggg....I hope this simple summation helps you sleep better at night...having turned what is a very complex process into something easy to understand, compact with all of its loose ends tied up nicely.  Hope it helps.

[clarkgoble]

19 hours ago, Oliblish said:

I agree that the Book of Mormon is referring to the Tower of Babel.  Joseph Smith clearly believed this as well.

The question is where the Babel stuff came from. I'd suspect a narrative on the brass plates which Moroni used to interpret the Jaredite records. (Interestingly the term Babel doesn't appear in The Book of Mormon proper) 

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Despite your thread high jack, I refuse to be accused of moral relativism 

What us your evidence for moral realism?

[Robert F. Smith]

8 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

To be clear...it was You and mfbukowski that seemed determined to define me and my worldview and back me into some corner or put me in some box...and I refuse to be allow you to do so.  The longer I participate here (despite my limited status and my personal decision to also limit my participation) the more I come away with the impression that many board members who post are more interested in Winning than Understanding. More interested in Rhetorical Victories than finding Truth.  More interested in Confirming Biases than expanding Knowledge.  It gets tiring.

Reality is always tiring and frustrating.  Jesus lived in the midst of squalor and horror, yet took it all in stride.

8 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

  ...................................................  But have you ever asked your self, What if everything I currently believe to be true is all wrong, what If I've been wrong in my conclusions?  I ask this question of myself almost every day...I feel it gives me the necessary window with which to accept information that conflicts with my world view.  I don't see a lot of doubting taking place on this board.  for the most part posters project their absolute knowledge of things that they couldn't possibly know.  I know that's part of the culture...but as humans...doubt is healthy and allows us to grow and accept new information.  Any way enough of my rambling.

Yes, there is a lot of absolutism herewith:  Those who are certain of their beliefs, and those who are certain of the falsity of those beliefs -- regardless of what those beliefs are.  In other words, it works both ways.  At the same time, you are clearly wrong about not much doubting taking place on this board.  We have a lot of strong doubters and former Mormons.  I am astonished that you haven't noticed, but that may go along with your tendency to jump to conclusions based on insufficient data.

Doubt and questioning is healthy.  In fact, if there are no doubts or questions, one has to ask whether the quiet ones are really thinking at all.  Joseph Smith had hard questions and asked for answers.  Like Jesus, he surrounded himself with strong men and women, gave them real responsibilities, and was able to leave his church in good hands.  Think how different it might have been if he had surrounded himself with sycophants -- the LDS Church would never have survived.

[clarkgoble]

13 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Of course you, MFB, don't. I couldn't agree more with your personal assessment. But you are an anomaly. While I'm not a student of Nietzsche in the way you imply discipleship, if you were paying attention in that thread you would have read the exchange between Clark and I where we seemed to agree that approximating reality requires triangulating off of others which is necessary to get closest to what may be underneath the apparent to the wirklicher Welt.

I think dialog is useful. As Plato used to note others are the mirror by which we can see our own soul in a fashion we can't see by introspection. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say others is necessary to triangulate reality for any part of reality.

Quote

Damnation is very much a synonym for asserting the primacy of the individual subjective. That is also compatible with Mormonism. Practically essential, actually.

Not sure what you mean by that.

Quote

Anyway, faith/action/choice are conflated by Smith in the Lectures on Faith in a way that is really foreign to how most people understand them, and I think most people are closer than Smith by a long ways. Will, free or otherwise, is choice of a sorts but not synonymous with motivation. Motivation is largely nonconscious behavior. State of the science, amigo.

Most use of the word faith is very much caught up in typical Christian view which is assenting to propositions without evidence. There are strong arguments that such a conception isn't the Jewish notion. While I have my problems with elements of the lectures on faith, I actually think the unification of faith/action is dead on. Of course I say that as a pragmatist who have a very similar use so perhaps I'm biased. Certainly while not the main Christian use of faith, this sense of faith is a reasonably common use. So long as we're clear in what sense we mean it I don't see a problem.

[clarkgoble]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

What us your evidence for moral realism?

That one is easy. There seems to be patterns that predict the future independent of the hopes or desires of any limited group of people.

Of course we could accept that many moral claims are relativist in conception without denying moral realism. Further disagreement about morals really isn't a strong argument against realism, merely an argument about evidence and use of evidence. To claim there is moral realism is really just to claim there are goals in common for people independent of the vagaries of where they happen to find themselves. The very possibility of community is thus an argument for moral realism. 

Again though, to be a moral realist is not to think we have easy access to moral knowledge.

Edited July 12, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

11 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Uggg....I hope this simple summation helps you sleep better at night...having turned what is a very complex process into something easy to understand, compact with all of its loose ends tied up nicely.  Hope it helps.

Yeh, but Bukowski is quite correct in what he said.  Do you really want to be a hamster on a wheel, and merely exchange that for a different wheel?  Or would you like to be cage-free?

[mfbukowski]

17 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Uggg....I hope this simple summation helps you sleep better at night...having turned what is a very complex process into something easy to understand, compact with all of its loose ends tied up nicely.  Hope it helps.

Then what is your objective evidence for any moral maxim, since your view is consistent and so complex?

[USU78]

24 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm not sure it's muddled. It's fairly conventional Spinozaism.

Don't want to follow this rabbit trail too far, but this:

Quote

That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists

creates more questions, for me, than it answers.

Quick story:  years ago I was watching a pbs special on Einstein, and they included a clip of him on camera, answering questions in German to a German audience about the creative process.  I'm listening and smiling, because his German was so clear and precise and playful, when all of a sudden he starts using Schiller vocabulary, specifically Spieltrieb, in that context.  I fell off the couch laughing, I was so delighted.

[mfbukowski]

8 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

That one is easy. There seems to be patterns that predict the future independent of the hopes or desires of any limited group of people.

Please elaborate.

My circular argument warning light is going crazy. 

[clarkgoble]

14 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Oh? Joseph Smith made a weird claim that faith is the primary motivation force that MFB echos in his post. In Joseph Smith's view faith is why people wake up, get out of bed, and basically do what they do in a day.

The ALMA 32 portrait of faith is one of chosing to believe, so in the case of Mormonism I think the two get conflated into one meaning. But that does damage to how most people use the term faith, and would not associate it so closely with simple motivation for action or even choice.

A few thoughts. First off I'd strongly reject the reading of Alma 32 that makes it choosing to believe. I think that's the exact opposite of what it says. Rather it says hoping something was true enough to test it. It's the results of testing that lead to our belief.

If you're interested I have a writeup on this tied to Hebrew conceptions of truth over at T&S.

https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2016/08/35605/

Fundamentally though I just don't think belief is volitional at all. At best we can select where we put our focus. But belief is something that happens.

Quote

But assuming the Joseph Smith perogative, we would then find faith in conflict with the question of free will if faith is the primary motivating force for every single action people undertake. That creates a dilemma. One is either compelled to act and their faith is pre-determined if one follows the logic behind the illusion of free will. Or one is arguing that faith itself in only possible if the illusion of free will is wrong and free will is a thing.

I don't see that as equivocating at all.

Well you say you don't think there's an equivocation and then demonstrate an equivocation. As I mentioned earlier today, a common Christian take on faith by the 3rd century was that faith fundamentally was assent to certain propositions regarding Christian belief even if one didn't have evidence for them. This is a fundamental shift in what faith meant for a slew of reasons. It also dramatically determined a certain trajectory for Christianity IMO. (And not in a good way) Faith was no longer trust of a person or to act in a reliable fashion, which were the typically Jewish uses. Rather it'd be transformed in a fashion more useful for certain Hellenistic approaches to knowledge.

As you note this makes many things rather confusing. But they're only confusing because we are dealing with equivocations of use. This shouldn't be a surprise since of course even dictionaries list several senses of faith in common use. 

Fundamentally faith is completely orthogonal to the free will issue.

[USU78]

13 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yeh, but Bukowski is quite correct in what he said.  Do you really want to be a hamster on a wheel, and merely exchange that for a different wheel?  Or would you like to be cage-free?

Can you get those at Whole Foods?

badumbum

[Robert F. Smith]

2 minutes ago, USU78 said:

Can you get those at Whole Foods?

badumbum

Yeh, and Amazon (which now owns Whole Foods) will be delivering them to your house via drones.  

[Johnnie Cake]

14 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

“A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.... If he acts for the good of others, he will receive the approbation of his fellow men and gain the love of those with whom he lives.”
Charles Darwin

 

 

ETA: just to clarify, this postulate you give can be balanced out by subtracting religion which is adding nothing to the claim you made. Thanks for making such a great point!

I can't give you rep points do to my restricted status...but if I could you've earn several from me

[RevTestament]

28 minutes ago, USU78 said:

Can you get those at Whole Foods?

badumbum

I've had cage-free hamster, and cage-free gerbils as well, but the gerbils were by far my best producers. One paid for his cage-free status - my grandpa thought it was a rat and stomped it.... 

Edited July 12, 2017 by RevTestament

[Johnnie Cake]

56 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

What us your evidence for moral realism?

Robust or Minimalist?

 

 

PS: While this thread has been completely high jacked (not by me)  The fact that this discussion is making my head hurt is a wonderful sign that I am thoroughly enjoying where it has been high jack to.

 

Edited July 12, 2017 by Johnnie Cake

[mfbukowski]

53 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

That one is easy. There seems to be patterns that predict the future independent of the hopes or desires of any limited group of people.

Of course we could accept that many moral claims are relativist in conception without denying moral realism. Further disagreement about morals really isn't a strong argument against realism, merely an argument about evidence and use of evidence. To claim there is moral realism is really just to claim there are goals in common for people independent of the vagaries of where they happen to find themselves. The very possibility of community is thus an argument for moral realism. 

Again though, to be a moral realist is not to think we have easy access to moral knowledge.

All I care about is the intuitive nature of the "light of Christ" which I see in the category of "direct revelation".  You are right- you can couple that with even a Platonic Realm of Moral Forms if you want to as long as you account for direct revelation of what those Forms are.  But now you need some way of getting "evidence" as you say and how we interpret the evidence and whether or not we interpret the evidence correctly or cases in which we have the evidence but misinterpret it..... HOOOO!  It is a never ending circular argument with layers and layers of metaphysics attached- it becomes Scholasticism and deciding if angels can occupy the same space or not.

I of course am not a fan of metaphysics simply because it causes there to be too much invisible machinery in the universe.  For me it is an overly complicated system invented to simply overcome the charge of "relativism"

I cut everything down to the lowest common denominator of how we know what we think we know, and for me that means that morality is emotion based or what we LDS call the "Light of Christ".  Expressing that philosophically I think there is no way around the idea that it is "intuition" and therefore "relative" at least in our knowledge of it- unless we want floating invisible machinery to explain it all.

That's why I find Johnny's assumption of some kind of moral realism shocking.

He can't believe in invisible humans but he can believe in invisible real moral maxims.

Seems like a major inconsistency to me if he has thought it through

[mfbukowski]

15 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Robust or Minimalist?

 

 

PS: While this thread has been completely high jacked (not by me)  The fact that this discussion is making my head hurt is a wonderful sign that I am thoroughly enjoying where it has been high jack to.

 

Don't ask me- what you believe this is YOUR deal.   I am a relativist.

Wikipedia ain't gonna help you out of this one!!  (You know I love you)  I just want to see you work through this

We can just change the topic to "Are moral maxims imaginary" and we are right on topic with cureloms- no different.

Now YOU get to defend YOUR cureloms!!

Edited July 12, 2017 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

19 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

All I care about is the intuitive nature of the "light of Christ" which I see in the category of "direct revelation".  You are right- you can couple that with even a Platonic Realm of Moral Forms if you want to as long as you account for direct revelation of what those Forms are.  But now you need some way of getting "evidence" as you say and how we interpret the evidence and whether or not we interpret the evidence correctly or cases in which we have the evidence but misinterpret it..... HOOOO!  It is a never ending circular argument with layers and layers of metaphysics attached- it becomes Scholasticism and deciding if angels can occupy the same space or not.

I of course am not a fan of metaphysics simply because it causes there to be too much invisible machinery in the universe.  For me it is an overly complicated system invented to simply overcome the charge of "relativism"

I cut everything down to the lowest common denominator of how we know what we think we know, and for me that means that morality is emotion based or what we LDS call the "Light of Christ".  Expressing that philosophically I think there is no way around the idea that it is "intuition" and therefore "relative" at least in our knowledge of it- unless we want floating invisible machinery to explain it all.

That's why I find Johnny's assumption of some kind of moral realism shocking.

He can't believe in invisible humans but he can believe in invisible real moral maxims.

Seems like a major inconsistency to me if he has thought it through

Can there be morality without people?