Is the Holy Ghost legitimate?

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, Michael Sudworth said:

Yes we are.

The "experience of reality" is simply a subset of "reality itself." 

 

So then you must understand that truth is not about the world but truth is about social convention. On this View of Correspondence, sentences are propositions correspond to Human Experience only and Social convention and do not correspond to the world as it is. This was dictated. Forgive odd capitalization.

You have gotten on my case before about truth without ever putting forth a coherent view yourself about what you think it is.

In other words you would agree with the Rorty quote below or something like it.

Edited March 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Michael Sudworth]

39 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

So then you must understand that truth is not about the world but truth is about social convention.

Not quite.  The way we talk about truth is social convention. But the presence of a human mind, let alone human language, is irrelevant to "reality as it is." Gravity existed and was true before sentience and it will be so if/when sentience disappears.  There is only noumenon. But our human minds directly experience the noumenon and chop up and categorize our impressions into distinct phenomenon.  We require mind and language to communicate about phenomenon and so in this sense, the statements about the properties and limits of phenomenon can be declared true or false based on social convention.  But social convention and language are completely unrelated to noumenon or "reality as it is."  

50 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You have gotten on my case before about truth without ever putting forth a coherent view yourself about what you think it is.

My last few posts have given a decent summary, I think.

50 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

In other words you would agree with the Rorty quote below or something like it.

I part, yes.  Just as find much to agree with in Wittgenstein and James. I also enjoy and find agreement with Einstein, Susskin, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Hegel, Hume, Bentham, Spinoza etc....

I push back on your assertions because your hyper-dependence on a small subset of philosophers defines your positions as radical to the point of incoherence.  You remind me of those on my mission who practiced Bibliolatry and refused to consider the BoM because it was not the Bible. You have elevated one particular theory of truth to the point where you are unwilling or unable to entertain the insights provided by other perspectives and philosophies.

 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Michael Sudworth said:

We require mind and language to communicate about phenomenon and so in this sense, the statements about the properties and limits of phenomenon can be declared true or false based on social convention.  But social convention and language are completely unrelated to noumenon or "reality as it is."  

Oh gosh we are back to the old question then.  I thought we had gotten past it

How does one get outside of phenomena to get to noumena?

And how does one justify statements about noumena as "true"?

Yes obviously there is much to agree with in all philosophy, but I am an apologist.  Teach me and let me ask the questions.  You are a good critic and make good criticisms but I see no answers in how to relate your comments to seeing religion as "true" AND able to be stated in language.

How do you make propositions about God "true" in your view?   You have said nothing yet of importance that explains anything about religion.  Teach me.  I am open if you have something spill the beans

Since I am incoherent, correct me.

I have studied all the others and discarded them because they did not do what I wanted them to do.  They did not work to justify religion.

You jump from one criticism and espouse physicalism and then get all Wittgensteiny - whatever serves to criticize but all your criticisms do not fall into a coherent world view

Whatcha got dude?

Gimme some systematic theology or even just a systematic way to interpret scripture as "God's word".  

That will do . 

Edited March 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

I think you are Stak.

[Michael Sudworth]

36 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

How does one get outside of phenomena to get to noumena?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Phenomena is simply a simply linguistic or cognitive construct which enables us to describe direct experience of noumenon -- singular. There is no objective separation between phenomena and noumenon. 

36 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

And how does one justify statements about noumena as "true"?

I don't think this is possible, thus the necessity of the cognitive construct of phenomenon.  And all we can really say about phenomenon is: Given conditions represented by X, Y, and Z, B is true.  If conditions are X, Y, and W, C is true.  Etc.

If 2 hydrogen bond with 1 oxygen we have, through social agreement, agreed that water exists and that within a specific context,  the symbol H20 is "true."

Edited March 25, 2018 by Michael Sudworth

[Michael Sudworth]

27 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Since I am incoherent, correct me.

If your arguments were coherent, why is is that so many people cannot grasp or accept your basic argument? Are they stupid? Not well-educated? Or perhaps it is possible that you are failing to present a cogent view. 

Certainly no one can question your knowledge and familiarity with your preferred philosophers. But I think your essential argument could become both stronger and more clear by incorporating viewpoints developed prior to the late 19th and 20th centuries.

32 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

How do you make propositions about God "true" in your view? 

I don't make such propositions.  I believe in God as a result of direct experience.  Others may or may not do the same. 

33 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have studied all the others and discarded them because they did not do what I wanted them to do.  They did not work to justify religion.

Then I don't think you studied them very carefully. And I don't mean this as a jab.  

35 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You jump from one criticism and espouse physicalism and then get all Wittgensteiny - whatever serves to criticize but all your criticisms do not fall into a coherent world view

Let the reader be the judge.

[mfbukowski]

16 minutes ago, Michael Sudworth said:

But I think your essential argument could become both stronger and more clear by incorporating viewpoints developed prior to the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Perhaps

Thanks I am working on it.  But the problem is I see those views as inadequate.  Later Wittgenstein starting with Investigations and the Blue and Brown books is a watershed figure for me.

Philosophy is dead- all that remains is common sense but everyone is poisoned by western philosophy.

I studied them all and following Wittgenstein gave them all up.

You are asking me to explain Copernicus using Ptolemy.

No thanks, but it may be necessary since no one understands anything but Ptolemy.

I still have not seen anything coherent to correct the way I present the material, so I still would like help if you can do it.

But thanks for the advice.

Edited March 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

23 minutes ago, Michael Sudworth said:

If your arguments were coherent, why is is that so many people cannot grasp or accept your basic argument? Are they stupid? Not well-educated? Or perhaps it is possible that you are failing to present a cogent view. 

Certainly no one can question your knowledge and familiarity with your preferred philosophers. But I think your essential argument could become both stronger and more clear by incorporating viewpoints developed prior to the late 19th and 20th centuries.

I don't make such propositions.  I believe in God as a result of direct experience.  Others may or may not do the same. 

Then I don't think you studied them very carefully. And I don't mean this as a jab.  

Let the reader be the judge.

Quote

Philosophical Investigations begins with a quote from Augustine’s Confessions which “give us a particular picture of the essence of human language,” based on the idea that “the words in language name objects,” and that “sentences are combinations of such names” (PI 1). This picture of language cannot be relied on as a basis for metaphysical, epistemic or linguistic speculation. Despite its plausibility, this reduction of language to representation cannot do justice to the whole of human language; and even if it is to be considered a picture of only the representative function of human language, it is, as such, a poor picture. Furthermore, this picture of language is at the base of the whole of traditional philosophy, but, for Wittgenstein, it is to be shunned in favor of a new way of looking at both language and philosophy. The Philosophical Investigations proceeds to offer the new way of looking at language, which will yield the view of philosophy as therapy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

I see myself more as a therapist.

Mormons don't do systematic theology anyway.

[Gray]

On 3/23/2018 at 7:03 PM, mfbukowski said:

Lost a long  post- will get back to you.Every word in that post implies the correspondence theory of truth.

Gosh 

Tell me how we can know if we are more or less "close" to what cannot be perceived or known at all?

And solipsists do not get as annoyed as I am now- at themselves.  Just absurd.

"Our mind is the Holy Ghost" contradicts the idea that "The holy ghost does not "exist"- unless our minds do not exist.

And I  don't even know what "exists" means since I have no clue what non-existence is --oops- is not.  Does what is unknowable "exist"?  How do we know????

Do undiscovered species "exist"??   What are they that does not exist?   These are all absurdities.

Fergitaboutit - nothing more to say anyway

I dont even know what a reality  which cannot be perceived could be much less how we know if we are close to describing it or not.  Absurd.

How do we know if my view of the creature Xantikuous is closer to correct or not?

Which more closely "corresponds" to reality:

1) Jumping off a skyscraper without a parachute will result in your death

2) Jumping off a skyscraper without a parachute will extend your lifespan

Can we never figure out which is closer because our models don't precisely correspond to an external reality? Criticisms of correspondence theory of truth are well taken, but if we had no way of determining a rough correspondence we would be extinct by now.

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Which more closely "corresponds" to reality:

1) Jumping off a skyscraper without a parachute will result in your death

2) Jumping off a skyscraper without a parachute will extend your lifespan

Can we never figure out which is closer because our models don't precisely correspond to an external reality? Criticisms of correspondence theory of truth are well taken, but if we had no way of determining a rough correspondence we would be extinct by now.

 

You have no comprehension of this whatsoever

Google argumentum ad lapidem- PLEASE

Or I could post a dozen replies I have given to this comment over the years.

Remember "thesometimesaint "?  You are now officially as smart as he was!!  Congrats!

thesometimesaint said:

Quote

 

That is true only in a very limited sense of the word. We all do invent our own reality until it conflicts with what others think is reality. However If you think there isn't an objective reality then try jumping off of a high cliff sans parachute.

 

 

My reply- I no longer have the link- I just copied the text for my own notes and this precise occasion:

Quote

 

Again and again you miss the point

If I jumped off what my brain told me was a high mountain, I would feel what my brain was "falling" for a long time while my brain was in fear and my brain saw the rocks rushing up to me, until I felt what my brain feels as it is dying.

After that, it would get interesting.

Or not.  But now we are talking about "hope for things unseen".

If you know how to escape a human body with a human brain, please let me be the first to know, ok?  And astral projection doesn't count, because all the reports of it come from- guess what- a human brain.  All reports of spiritual experience come from a human brain. All predictions about future human brain experiences come from a human brain.  My human brain tells me that my human brain will perceive a thermometer reading "212 degrees F" at the same time that water "bubbles" denoting what my brain  calls "boiling".

Science predicts what human brains will experience under given conditions but discounts many aspects of the experience while doing so, like the fact that one is hungry or tired or perhaps distracted while writing down data.  While observing the water boiling, my brain can be telling me many other things totally ignored by science, like how cute the lab assistant is, or why my knee hurts, or the feeling that I better stand up now, or gosh I wonder who will win the primary next week.  But all that is part of the experience, and was not predicted by science. My brain may be worrying about not getting that grant money if the thermometer does not read 212, or just throwing out the data as an "outlier" if the data does not match my expectation, but all  of it comes out of a human brain.

Because I am talking to you I used the word "Brain", but in a spiritual context one could use "mind" or "spirit" just as easily

Instead of saying "My brain organizes reality as I know it"  we could just as easily use a religious vocabulary to say that "my mind" or "my spirit" or "my consciousness" organizes the world around me

Or in a faith mode, I could say "I believe that God, who is a glorified human, organizes the world through his intelligence".   Not much difference.

But until you realize that you cannot get out of your human body, you will always think you can "KNOW" what's "out there".

The experience of jumping off a cliff will just be the same problem- you will know what it feels like to be a human jumping off a cliff- for a few seconds- nothing more or nothing less.

Personally I don't think I want to know that.  No curiosity whatsoever.

But I do not know how anyone can deny any of this.  It is as true as A=A. It is a tautology. A human brain can only know what a human brain can know.

And yet again and again we speak of human brains knowing something beyond what they can experience and worse, call  that strange unknowable world "reality"

It is a total mystery to me how anyone could believe that.

I guess scientists who think that way need to develop critical thinking skills.

 

 

I was also given some comfort this morning while perusing the "Center for Process Studies" website on Facebook.  The link would not embed 

You really ought to check out that website- it is affiliated with Claremont School of Theology and is about studying Whitehead and process philosophy- Blake Ostler is a process theologian and those positions are on the more phenomenological side of Rorty but amount to the same views in important ways.

 

Quote

 

Clifford W. Cobb I notice in your description of what a proposal should contain, you ask about target audience. I am curious if you have ever received a proposal for a book that was aimed at undergraduates? It seems to me that no philosophical text has ever been written that is accessible to undergraduates, except for a handful of upper division undergraduates who are headed for grad school. I can remember reading things as an undergraduate that I did not really understand until 20 years later. Even now, I don't know if that was a matter of my own reasoning capacity being too dim or the failure of teachers to truly understand the meaning of the concepts they were teaching. All of this may be irrelevant to the Whitehead Research Project. Being generally comprehensible may always be in tension with being on the cutting edge.

Manage

 

 

[Gray]

10 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You have no comprehension of this whatsoever

Google argumentum ad lapidem- PLEASE

Or I could post a dozen replies I have given to this comment over the years.

Remember "thesometimesaint "?  You are now officially as smart as he was!!  Congrats!

thesometimesaint said:

My reply- I no longer have the link- I just copied the text for my own notes and this precise occasion:

I was also given some comfort this morning while perusing the "Center for Process Studies" website on Facebook.  The link would not embed 

You really ought to check out that website- it is affiliated with Claremont School of Theology and is about studying Whitehead and process philosophy- Blake Ostler is a process theologian and those positions are on the more phenomenological side of Rorty but amount to the same views in important ways.

 

 

Insults, but no arguments - at least none that address my own. This as follow-up to your previous assertions which were also lacking arguments. If you're not in the mood or don't have the energy to discuss it (or carefully read before responding), that's fine, but I fail to see what value you're getting out of insulting someone who actually likes you and is open to hearing you out. Please don't bother responding now - I'm not in the mood for more insults.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Gray

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Insults, but no arguments - at least none that address my own. This as follow-up to your previous assertions which were also lacking arguments. If you're not in the mood or don't have the energy to discuss it (or carefully read before responding), that's fine, but I fail to see what value you're getting out of insulting someone who actually likes you and is open to hearing you out. Please don't bother responding now - I'm not in the mood for more insults.

I agree and genuinely apologize. There's no excuse for that.

I think there are clear arguments there but I will let the reader decide.

It's really all in the rorty quote.

Clearly there are causes which are not mental States but we can only experience them as mental States. That's the only argument there is.

Edited March 26, 2018 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

Which more closely "corresponds" to reality:

1) Jumping off a skyscraper without a parachute will result in your death

2) Jumping off a skyscraper without a parachute will extend your lifespan

Can we never figure out which is closer because our models don't precisely correspond to an external reality? Criticisms of correspondence theory of truth are well taken, but if we had no way of determining a rough correspondence we would be extinct by now.

 

Whenever someone feels and know things without any external validation, they prove mfbokowski’s point. To themselves. Some Inuit wisdom: “If you must see to know you will miss many things that are real.”

You can jump off a skyscraper without a parachute and extend your lifespan if remaining on the skyscraper another moment would prove fatal. Being unaware of an oncoming lightning bolt (why would you jump?) or reacting to an assassin about to pull the trigger (why wouldn’t you jump?) doesn’t change that, but believing that a lightning bolt is about to strike will change your outcome / reality!

[Gray]

24 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Whenever someone feels and know things without any external validation, they prove mfbokowski’s point. To themselves. Some Inuit wisdom: “If you must see to know you will miss many things that are real.”

 

You can jump off a skyscraper without a parachute and extend your lifespan if remaining on the skyscraper another moment would prove fatal. Being unaware of an oncoming lightning bolt (why would you jump?) or reacting to an assassin about to pull the trigger (why wouldn’t you jump?) doesn’t change that, but believing that a lightning bolt is about to strike will change your outcome / reality!

 

You haven't really countered my argument, you've just provided some exceptions to a particular example. If you jump off and land on a passing space craft that swoops you off to an advanced alien medical facility, that might extend your life. But the fact that you feel it's possible under some circumstances to accurately tell the difference between something that will immediately kill you and something that will extend your life is, de facto, an admission that it's possible to have a rough correspondence between observation, interpretation and external reality. If it weren't possible we'd be extinct. Correspondence theory of truth is about 1:1 correspondence between what is believed in the mind and what is the external reality - which is impossible, of course.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Gray

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

You haven't really countered my argument, you've just provided some exceptions to a particular example. If you jump off and land on a passing space craft that swoops you off to an advanced alien medical facility, that might extend your life. But the fact that you feel it's possible under some circumstances to accurately tell the difference between something that will immediately kill you and something that will extend your life is, de facto, an admission that it's possible to have a rough correspondence between observation, interpretation and external reality. If it weren't possible we'd be extinct. Correspondence theory of truth is about 1:1 correspondence between what is believed in the mind and what is the external reality - which is impossible, of course.

Then you must agree with what mfb is saying. A “rough correspondence” theory would also require that both the belief and the reality are “sufficiently” objectively validated, and there is no way of doing that, so how can that be any more possible than correspondence theory? What level of “rough” is objectively valid?

It gets back to the idea that you feel and know many things without external validation. Conversely, thoughts and feelings that validate prior experience and information can be framed or manufactured to meet those expectations (bias, whether exact or rough).

What have you not perceived with any or all of your five senses or any of your emotions, that you accept as “roughly” real – that is, real enough to act on? Better yet, what have you not perceived but still accepted as roughly real that turned out to be real? and what was the outcome of having acted, or not having acted, on these beliefs?

Edited March 26, 2018 by CV75

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

Whenever someone feels and know things without any external validation, they prove mfbokowski’s point. To themselves. Some Inuit wisdom: “If you must see to know you will miss many things that are real.”

 

You can jump off a skyscraper without a parachute and extend your lifespan if remaining on the skyscraper another moment would prove fatal. Being unaware of an oncoming lightning bolt (why would you jump?) or reacting to an assassin about to pull the trigger (why wouldn’t you jump?) doesn’t change that, but believing that a lightning bolt is about to strike will change your outcome / reality!

 

Yes- I gave him arguments but he did not read them I guess.

There is a logical fallacy called "argumentum ad lapidem".  If you google that you will get clear explanation of the fallacy a hundred times over in a hundred different ways.

The problem is that we can only see things as humans see them

If you fall off a cliff you will still EXPERIENCE the fall as a human being falling off a cliff, all the way down.

I quoted that in the post as well in my reply to sometimesaint.

OF COURSE THERE ARE OUTSIDE REALITIES OUTSIDE OUR CONTROL.

That is what Rorty calls "causes which do not include mental states"!!   Falling off a cliff is a CAUSE of our perceptions - 

BUT WE STILL EXPERIENCE falling off a rock as a HUMAN in HUMAN MENTAL STATES.

We cannot walk through walls but we EXPERIENCE- as a human in human mental states- the wall as a restriction

We can never escape human mental states as long as we are human!

I don't see how it could be more obvious.

This is why that is in my siggy- it captures the entire view in a few words.

We measure life and death by brain activity.  No mental states= no brain activity and that defines "death".

The lack of human mental states means that we are dead.  As long as you are alive you cannot break out of human mental states- all you KNOW about reality is your human mental states.  All you know about falling off a cliff or walking into a wall is your human mental state of falling and pain and death or the restriction of not being able to get through the wall.

I guess you either get it or not.  To me it is A=A.  You are human- you perceive everything as a human mental state.  No arguments necessary.  Prove A=A.  It's properly basic.

[mfbukowski]

4 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Then you must agree with what mfb is saying. A “rough correspondence” theory would also require that both the belief and the reality are “sufficiently” objectively validated, and there is no way of doing that, so how can that be any more possible than correspondence theory? What level of “rough” is objectively valid?

 

It gets back to the idea that you feel and know many things without external validation. Conversely, thoughts and feelings that validate prior experience and information can be framed or manufactured to meet those expectations (bias, whether exact or rough).

 

Yeah, you get it!  Thanks!

[CV75]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

The problem is that we can only see things as humans see them

And we do not occupy another human's mental state. My wife and I once woke up at the same time, telling each other about the same dream, but even that is only an example of sharing in good faith, and not roughly or exactly occupying the same mental state.

[mfbukowski]

21 minutes ago, CV75 said:

And we do not occupy another human's mental state. My wife and I once woke up at the same time, telling each other about the same dream, but even that is only an example of sharing in good faith, and not roughly or exactly occupying the same mental state.

Exactly. But that must have been a remarkable experience.

Chris Smith at one point on this board made basically the same comment to me except his was you can't walk through walls.

Of course you can't walk through walls but you still experience them as a human experiences walking into a wall.

Come to think of it there are no walls in nature. The precise reason we create walls is to keep  people from walking through them....

The wall is a Cause which is not a mental phenomenon but the experience of walking into it is a mental phenomenon.

Edited March 26, 2018 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

So how do you make a wall roughly objective?

😂

It's really hard, they're too melodramatic!

[CV75]

I'm wondering if there is room for supernatural belief in a partial correspondence theory (seems to be!).

Edited March 26, 2018 by CV75

[mfbukowski]

37 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I'm wondering if there is room for supernatural belief in a partial correspondence theory (seems to be!).

drop correspondence and you have direct experience of the holy ghost- no need for correspondence

Edited March 26, 2018 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

drop correspondence and you have direct experience of the holy ghost- no need for correspondence

that was for the benefit of Gray and hope_for_things...

[mfbukowski]

16 minutes ago, CV75 said:

that was for the benefit of Gray and hope_for_things...

I added to that post and then deleted a portion of it because the edit would require more explanation.

I have been trying to explain it in a very simplified manner which is strictly speaking inaccurate.

A cause which is not a mental state is not the same thing as a wall which is not a mental state. The very word wall as perception of of something as a wall is a human mental state. So to explain things as rorty explains them obviously gets complicated. But you have to understand the context and what he's talking about I suppose in order to understand what he is saying.

I keep putting it in the most simple way that I can and yet some don't understand it. You could never get outside of being a human being and a human body. Anything you perceive in your human body is the way human body perceives what is called reality. You can't get outside of being a human being with human perceptions to perceive reality as it is or perhaps as it would be seen by some alien.

That's why a famous philosopher wrote a famous essay about what it would be like to be a bat using Sonar to perceive reality instead of sight.

We cannot perceive reality as a bat senses it any better than the bat can sense how we perceive reality.

Is something out there? Of course there is. There is food there is water there is other individuals there are Cliffs rocks and poison. But we will still always see all of those things through human perceptions

We can never see anything outside of the way humans see things.

So what is reality outside of human perceptions? What are things as they really are?

At some point it becomes irrelevant.Our experience of reality for all practical purpose is is reality for all we could know.

I'm done I've said it every possible way that I can.

Edited March 26, 2018 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

@Gray and @hope_for_things, it seems that a partial/rough correspondence theory would leave room for supernatural beliefs that are considered "valid enough," the supernatural accounting for the missing accuracy that is accepted as a sufficient reflection of reality. "Through a glass darkly" comes to mind, for example, as a concept that would support this notion.