History vs "What Really Happened"- New Article Illustrates the Difference

[The Nehor]

14 hours ago, snowflake said:

I love today's attitude among the "intellectuals", that we are so much smarter and scientifically advanced compared to those cave dwellers. Mean while they believe nothing exploded into the universe and rocks evolved into humans. 

Equally impossible to reconcile with reality IMO. 

Actually they don’t. Tip from an experienced mocker: Get your facts right on what you are mocking or you will look like a total idiot.

[mfbukowski]

On 5/10/2018 at 3:41 AM, Stargazer said:

I don't know if that has to be literal.  After all, our human language is full of illustrative figurative expressions that aren't meant to be taken literally.

For example, "Time flies when you're having fun!"  Uh, no it doesn't.  Your perception of time speeds up, perhaps.  I believe I have read that talmudic scholars consider the incident with Joshua and the sun to be figurative.  We really don't need to have a Velikovskian literal take on it.  http://www.s8int.com/page35.html  Or do we?

Just for the record I was not taking it literally that the sun stopped I was saying what the SENTENCE literally said was that the sun stopped.  Whether or not one INTERPRETS it differently is another question.  My point was merely that the WORDS were "Sun" and "stopped".  

Aussie said

Quote

What would have happened to the earth if the earth really stopped because we all know the sun does not move around the earth? 

My comment was intended to say that the sentence was about the sun, not the earth so that the sun appearing to stop has nothing logically to do with the earth and so his comment was irrelevant

I mean I have had long days at work too when the clock stood still, or in school where it took an eternity for the clock to move between 2:55 and 3 PM.

It was really just my weird logic kicking in to say just about what you said.  Language is horribly ambiguous.

And regarding your other comment, when I am having fun I often get out my stop watch and see how long it takes flies to cross the room.  But my wife does not like my pet fly collection so I only get to race my flies occasionally.  But I do find it a lot of fun to time them and find that saying a useful admonition- it is good advice to time flies when you are having fun.  It really IS fun!

I have a few champions though that get major stud fees.  She doesn't mind the extra money I make with my champion flies.  Go figure.

But I never heard of any Talmudic scholars timing flies, so I am not sure what you meant there.

 

Edited May 12, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

This was a good podcast.  I was able to attend a book signing event where Sharalyn Howcraft and a few other editors and contributors to the book were present and signed my copy.  It was very interesting and I really enjoyed the book and recommend it.  

https://www.amazon.com/Foundational-Texts-Mormonism-Mark-Ashurst-McGee/dp/0190274379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525961082&sr=8-1&keywords=foundational+texts+of+mormonism

Just a couple questions for you.  When you say that what really happened is virtually unknowable, it gives me the impression that you think all this critical textual analysis is pointless.  Yet at the same time, you say that this podcast was fascinating to read. 

In the past few years I have very much enjoyed learning more about history and critical scholarship on religion and other subjects.  I find it all fascinating, and I also find it important because I believe it gets me closer to "what really happened", and from my vantage point the closer in proximity I can be to accurate history, the better I can understand human nature and the better I will be able to navigate my life and relationships with others.  

To me, these understandings are very valuable and they actually inform my "following the Spirit" or my "gut."  Because I've learned more, I am more capable of making better intuitive decisions about circumstances I'm presented with.  The knowledge becomes a part of my being.  

On the other hand, if we are dismissive of the historians craft, or physics, math, biology, etc. the less capable we will be in making sound decisions through following our gut or following the spirit, because those things are all interconnected.  What we put into our head becomes a part of our system and influences how we perceive everything.  

I thought it was fascinating to read because it was itself an interpretation and construction of "what really happened" to the texts and how the texts were altered thus removing them even farther from "what really happened"

I mean if you read that and conclude that it is POSSIBLE to know "what really happened"- understanding that the INTERPRETATION the article itself makes is yet another level of abstraction- of the abstractions made by others- then I just do not understand the logic of that

And as I have said before of course I affirm the importance of physics math biology and history and every other human discipline because it helps us do things and understand ourselves better

And the stuff works!  I mean we cure disease, fly in space, I can type in electronic dots here and you ready my dots wherever they are- and these dots I am writing right now can be read all over the world should anyone want to do so.

Juries define "facts" all the time regardless of "what really happened".  And juries are microcosms of "peer reviewed literature" in all disciplines.  Both are social contexts defining what is real!

And and they all these disciplines get "better" at being useful to humans which is the criteria for their existence.  

I mean we cannot even define clearly what light IS and yet when it hits our retinas and is processed by the optic nerve and created into a picture we decide that it somehow is a picture of "What is out there" even though what is hitting our retina is either a wave or a particle allegedly being "reflected" off of what?  Atoms?  Quarks?  Strings?  What precisely is happening is undefinable.  We don't even know what the constituent elements of matter "really are"  much less how our brains react to it to create what we think "really is"

Whatever it "really is" as seen perhaps by God or an alien becomes irrelevant because "what we see is what you get"!!

We don't need to know the constituent elements of matter to make a car or drive it, or to cure diseases or look at what we call "stars" and make up stories we call "theories" which work perfectly fine for our level of understanding.

Even this description which mixes science with logic strictly speaking does not make sense itself because I am mixing metaphors like crazy in an attempt to explain the point.

All we really have is stories about what we have found makes life easier and works- and it has taken all of human history to get to the point where I can write a sentence in light that you can read perhaps thousands of miles away, virtually instantly.

Yet we speak of electron "shells" and "clouds" having a "charge"- how close are these terms to what they "really are" and in a sense what does it matter (pun intended  ) when what we can say about them helps us make words in light a thousand miles away?

Yes we have math also to describe all this but does an equation really describe what is real?   Can it??

So what was happening in Joseph's brain during the First Vision?  Chemical- electrical reactions in different areas of the cortex is what we might say now- but how relevant is that to speaking of our Heavenly Father- or even to speaking about the perceptions he was having about "trees"?  Is what is really happening in our brains relevant to the message of the article under consideration here?

Where is the "really happening" in all this?  Is what is really happening in our brains and undefinable or out there somewhere in atoms and particles which are undefinable or in photons- OR in all of the above?

Where precisely is "what is happening" defined as "really happening"??  Where is "reality" in this stew of subatomic forces being interpreted by subatomic forces in what is called the "human brain"?

What is the brain but subatomic particles?

So at what point does this stew of shells and charges and photons reflecting and chemicals shooting off in synapses  or outside them turn into "what is really happening"??

Where does the stew stop and reality as we know it begin?

Does it really matter in going to the store to get some bread and milk or deciding if Joseph's vision "corresponded to reality"?

Or getting on a plane to San Francisco to visit grandma or deciding to send some money to "Save the Whales" or the LDS church?

Edited May 11, 2018 by mfbukowski

[snowflake]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Actually they don’t. Tip from an experienced mocker: Get your facts right on what you are mocking or you will look like a total idiot.

Actually they do.....facts are straight. 

[CA Steve]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Actually they don’t. Tip from an experienced mocker: Get your facts right on what you are mocking or you will look like a total idiot.

Maybe it's just me, but I always see a lot of irony when someone criticizes the scientific community and its advancements using a computer on the internet.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, snowflake said:

Actually they do.....facts are straight. 

No, you are wrong. They do not believe the Big Bang was an explosion from nothing or that rocks turned into living beings.

This is akin to me saying you are a Mormon and must have five wives, grow horns on your head (I miss that myth), and that you have replaced the Bible with the Mormon Bible.

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Maybe it's just me, but I always see a lot of irony when someone criticizes the scientific community and its advancements using a computer on the internet.

I sat in a car and listened to a guy criticize quantum theory while using a GPS to get him where he was going. I was tempted to point out that if quantum theory was flawed the GPS should not work at all. I decided not to as he was my boss. Thankfully he is a former boss.

[CA Steve]

32 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I sat in a car and listened to a guy criticize quantum theory while using a GPS to get him where he was going. I was tempted to point out that if quantum theory was flawed the GPS should not work at all. I decided not to as he was my boss. Thankfully he is a former boss.

That would be similar to defining evolution as humans evolving from rocks while getting your flu shot.

[strappinglad]

Saying that humans evolved from rocks is not precise , but close enough to the Carl Sagan suggestion that we are all made of " Star stuff " . Elements created after the Big Bang which supposedly happened when a super dense mass of extreme smallness exploded somehow and eventually produced the universe as we know it, combined to form the first life....somehow... which magically had self- replicating molecules. and off we went...

Such is a rational scientific theory . Much more rational than that of an intelligently designed creation/organization. All righty then!

Edited May 11, 2018 by strappinglad

[mfbukowski]

39 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

Saying that humans evolved from rocks is not precise , but close enough to the Carl Sagan suggestion that we are all made of " Star stuff " . Elements created after the Big Bang which supposedly happened when a super dense mass of extreme smallness exploded somehow and eventually produced the universe as we know it, combined to form the first life....somehow... which magically had self- replicating molecules. and off we went...

Such is a rational scientific theory . Much more rational than that of an intelligently designed creation/organization. All righty then!

Exactly

At what point did Starstuff suddenly start getting worried about being saved from sin, or saving the planet?

Physicalism just can't explain consciousness. It always leaves out the element of human experience and the human concept of purpose.

In short the sky doesn't know it's blue, and a hammer doesn't know it needs nails to fill the measure of its creation. 

The mere fact that we think that way requires a higher level of meta -description than physicalism can provide.

The analysis of the nuts and bolts of a spacecraft will never give us a reason to go to the Moon.

 

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, strappinglad said:

Saying that humans evolved from rocks is not precise , but close enough to the Carl Sagan suggestion that we are all made of " Star stuff " . Elements created after the Big Bang which supposedly happened when a super dense mass of extreme smallness exploded somehow and eventually produced the universe as we know it, combined to form the first life....somehow... which magically had self- replicating molecules. and off we went...

Such is a rational scientific theory . Much more rational than that of an intelligently designed creation/organization. All righty then!

Well, actually it is not irrational. That is essentially what God did. He made man from "dust" according to the BIble. Scientists have been able to replicate this some - even in the 1950s. They just put a bunch of elements like nitrogen, oxygen, florine, and some other basic molecules like rock dust, methane and ammonia together, heated them up, added a little electricity to simulate lightning, and voila - amino acids. Nucleic acids and amino acids are the building blocks of DNA and proteins, which is what God uses to form us. Add outside energy to "dust" and you get what God uses to form us. There is nothing supernatural about it. I don't know why people have such problems believing God is not in the process. It seems because they want to believe that when God formed us, He had to do it immediately, that minute - insti-man. They seem to think that if God formed us, it has to be supernatural. When you were conceived, and began to grow, was it supernatural? If so, how does it sometimes fail? Does God fail in those cases? 

Edited May 11, 2018 by RevTestament

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, strappinglad said:

Saying that humans evolved from rocks is not precise , but close enough to the Carl Sagan suggestion that we are all made of " Star stuff " . Elements created after the Big Bang which supposedly happened when a super dense mass of extreme smallness exploded somehow and eventually produced the universe as we know it, combined to form the first life....somehow... which magically had self- replicating molecules. and off we went...

Such is a rational scientific theory . Much more rational than that of an intelligently designed creation/organization. All righty then!

That we are made from starstuff is based on the nature of the elements. Anything heavier than iron is believed to have been formed in a supernova as the energy requirements exceed the ability of a star to fuse normally. It is not close to what Carl Sagan said.

I don’t think you know what science even is if you think “God did it” is a scientific theory.

[aussieguy55]

Studying history is always full of surprises and often I have had one of those boy did I get that wrong moments. Years ago as a LDS member we had a little history group going along with some members of the Community of Christ. The Community of Christ started as a break away group from the LDS Branch. One of these members of the COC  was the daughter of the breakaway group a Joseph Barkus. His daughter claimed he was an associate of the Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist and a pioneer in the study of radiation. She also claimed he was a secretary  to William Gladstone, Prime Minister of England and involved with a translation of the Bible. An article was published on him in the COC publication Saints Herald. I have not been able to locate any evidence for her claims.

Other things that are  surprising to me are some events in the lives of Era T Benson and Spencer Kimball. In Worlds Without End there was an entry about when Benson asked at the first Cabinet meeting if he could open with a prayer. The prayer was so long that Eisenhower  decided next meeting  should be a short moment of silence. I also found interesting was that Spencer Kimball was reading  Lester Bush's paper on the history of the negro question. A further interest to me was Quinn's book on LDS finances. The GAs seemed to be paid what i would considered in my country middle level public servant wages. Nothing like the prosperity preachers that we have on TV.  Years ago i had a letter exchange with Lowell  Bennion  who had issues with the negro doctrine. Yet we hear there was an attempt to excommunicate him. His letters were not antagonistic  to the church just his hoping for a change.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

That we are made from starstuff is based on the nature of the elements. Anything heavier than iron is believed to have been formed in a supernova as the energy requirements exceed the ability of a star to fuse normally. It is not close to what Carl Sagan said.

I don’t think you know what science even is if you think “God did it” is a scientific theory.

Well and good, but God did do it. However, this is not falsifiable, so by definition isn't scientific. Which doesn't change the facts.

[strappinglad]

I never used the word supernatural. My current ability to communicate with people almost anywhere on the planet would have been ' supernatural ' to folks in the 1600s , heck even 1950s , and yet it is quite natural now. The creation of earth and creatures is still beyond our current abilities, we can , however, really mess around with the one/ones we have . Who knows what will be done with AI and robots in the next century. This assumes we humans will not push the button to restart civilization at ground zero.

[Meerkat]

Loved the podcast.  Everything I've seen and felt (gut, Spirit,) continues to testify convincingly Joseph Smith was a prophet, and Gospel has indeed been restored.

I find it interesting there were probably multiple scribes in  early Church history.  The importance of keeping a written record may not have been obvious in the beginning.  When it became clear how important such a record would be, I can see early leaders and family members working to reconstruct from memory stories and experiences of the early Church.

I can also see how the other Standard Works may have been compiled in the same way: many scribes repeating oral histories passed down in written form from generation to generation.  I have often wondered "Who is writing this?  Were they there?  How do they know these things?" It never occurred to me that it may have been an oral history passed down.

When Catholic missionaries arrived in the Northwest, they told the local Indians, including Chief Sealth (Seattle) the story of Noah and the Flood.  Chief Sealth was surprised the missionaries knew the story.  It had been sacred, and handed down from one Chief to the next.  An oral history with connections all over the world.  It makes a lot of sense to me.

Thanks for the podcast and your comments Mark.

[The Nehor]

18 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Well and good, but God did do it. However, this is not falsifiable, so by definition isn't scientific. Which doesn't change the facts.

I don’t disagree.

[Gray]

23 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Exactly

At what point did Starstuff suddenly start getting worried about being saved from sin, or saving the planet?

Physicalism just can't explain consciousness. It always leaves out the element of human experience and the human concept of purpose.

In short the sky doesn't know it's blue, and a hammer doesn't know it needs nails to fill the measure of its creation. 

The mere fact that we think that way requires a higher level of meta -description than physicalism can provide.

The analysis of the nuts and bolts of a spacecraft will never give us a reason to go to the Moon.

 

Isn't Mormonism technically physicalist?

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Isn't Mormonism technically physicalist?

Well sometimes "physicalism", I think incorrectly, is used in place of "materialism" but to me they are independent variables.

To me "materialism"- which is the LDS position- says that "everything is made of matter".  Of course the LDS view distinguishes "spirit matter" as being "more refined" but matter nevertheless.  I think this is kind of the idea that matter and energy are interchangeable.  Don't ask me about the physics though!

"Physicalism" on the other hand is the assumption that PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONS - not the operative word there is "descriptions"- this is about sentences, not about states of matter- can be used to explain consciousness itself.

So you get examples like "Joseph's first vision was just some chemicals in his head" or perhaps a hallucination.  THAT is a "physicalist" description.  There is nothing more to consciousness than physical brain states.

But that is not what a guy like Nagel or Rorty would say about "mental states"- they would acknowledge undeniably that physical stimulation of the brain for example may cause a "mental state" of hearing music, say while none is present, yet that does not mean that mental states are the same thing as their physicalist description.

On the other hand, if you are being chased by a bear, one could say that it is "outside reality" which is "causing" both the mental state of fear, and the physical reaction of adrenaline flooding your system - so in that case is it "reality" causing the mental state or is the mental state "causing" the reality?

You could ask the same question about the first vision.  Of course there were chemical reactions in Joseph's brain, but like the bear, was God "really there" or was it an hallucination?

https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality

Thomas Nagel- himself an atheist- and former Department Chair in Philosophy at NYU attacked physicalism all the time and did so most famously in an essay called "What is it like to be a bat"-  which you can read all of in a pdf here: 

 https://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf

OR you can read the wikipedia article here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

 

Quote

 

The thesis attempts to refute reductionism (the philosophical position that a complex system is nothing more than the sum of its parts). For example, a physicalistreductionist's approach to the mind–body problem holds that the mental process humans experience as consciousness can be fully described via physical processes in the brain and body.^[4]

Nagel begins by arguing that the conscious experience is widespread, present in many animals (particularly mammals), and that for an organism to have a conscious experience it must be special, in the sense that its qualia or "subjective character of experience" are unique. Nagel stated, “An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism to be itself.”^[1]

The paper argues that the subjective nature of consciousness undermines any attempt to explain consciousness via objective, reductionist means. A subjective character of experience cannot be explained by a system of functional or intentional states. Consciousness cannot be explained without the subjective character of experience, and the subjective character of experience cannot be explained by a reductionist being; it is a mental phenomenon that cannot be reduced to materialism.^[5] Thus for consciousness to be explained from a reductionist stance, the idea of the subjective character of experience would have to be discarded, which is absurd. Neither can a physicalist view, because in such a world each phenomenal experience had by a conscious being would have to have a physical property attributed to it, which is impossible to prove due to the subjectivity of conscious experience. Nagel argues that each and every subjective experience is connected with a “single point of view,” making it unfeasible to consider any conscious experience as “objective”.

Nagel uses the metaphor of bats to clarify the distinction between subjective and objective concepts. Bats are mammals, so they are assumed to have conscious experience. Nagel used bats for his argument because of their highly evolved and active use of a biological sensory apparatus that is significantly different from that of many other organisms. Bats use echolocation to navigate and perceive objects. This method of perception is similar to the human sense of vision. Both sonar and vision are regarded as perceptional experiences. While it is possible to imagine what it would be like to fly, navigate by sonar, hang upside down and eat insects like a bat, that is not the same as a bat's perspective. Nagel claims that even if humans were able to metamorphose gradually into bats, their brains would not have been wired as a bat's from birth; therefore, they would only be able to experience the life and behaviors of a bat, rather than the mindset.^[6]

Such is the difference between subjective and objective points of view. According to Nagel, “our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience”, meaning that each individual only knows what it is like to be them (Subjectivism). Objectivity, requires an unbiased, non-subjective state of perception. For Nagel, the objective perspective is not feasible, because humans are limited to subjective experience.

Nagel concludes with the contention that it would be wrong to assume that physicalism is incorrect, since that position is also imperfectly understood. Physicalism claims that states and events are physical, but those physical states and events are only imperfectly characterized. Nevertheless, he holds that physicalism cannot be understood without characterizing objective and subjective experience. That is a necessary precondition for understanding the mind-body problem.

 

 

 

 

I have stolen his position 40 years ago   and found it irrefutable, along with Rorty, and have been trying to explain it  to Mormons now for years. 

If they only understood this distinction, all these arguments that we see regularly about history challenging religion or science challenging religion would go away, the first vision would be truly rationally justifiable and all religious experience - per William James, from whom Nagel and Rorty stole their ideas- would be rationally justifiable and Alma 32 would become perfect philosophy and Moroni 10 would be genius.

BUT NOOOOOOOOOO- do they listen to my wonderful wisdom stolen from others?

Of course not.  That might prove the church was true, and we don't want that, do we?  So Neener neener!  

Edited May 12, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Stargazer]

On 5/12/2018 at 6:03 PM, The Nehor said:

I don’t disagree.

Didn't say you did!  

[mfbukowski]

On 5/10/2018 at 8:11 AM, snowflake said:

Mean while they believe nothing exploded into the universe ...

No, actually that is ex nihilo creation with God as literally the Deus ex machina.

That doesn't explain anything any better.

[hope_for_things]

On 5/11/2018 at 1:59 AM, mfbukowski said:

All we really have is stories about what we have found makes life easier and works- and it has taken all of human history to get to the point where I can write a sentence in light that you can read perhaps thousands of miles away, virtually instantly.

Yet we speak of electron "shells" and "clouds" having a "charge"- how close are these terms to what they "really are" and in a sense what does it matter (pun intended  ) when what we can say about them helps us make words in light a thousand miles away?

Yes we have math also to describe all this but does an equation really describe what is real?   Can it??

So what was happening in Joseph's brain during the First Vision?  Chemical- electrical reactions in different areas of the cortex is what we might say now- but how relevant is that to speaking of our Heavenly Father- or even to speaking about the perceptions he was having about "trees"?  Is what is really happening in our brains relevant to the message of the article under consideration here?

Where is the "really happening" in all this?  Is what is really happening in our brains and undefinable or out there somewhere in atoms and particles which are undefinable or in photons- OR in all of the above?

Where precisely is "what is happening" defined as "really happening"??  Where is "reality" in this stew of subatomic forces being interpreted by subatomic forces in what is called the "human brain"?

What is the brain but subatomic particles?

So at what point does this stew of shells and charges and photons reflecting and chemicals shooting off in synapses  or outside them turn into "what is really happening"??

Where does the stew stop and reality as we know it begin?

Does it really matter in going to the store to get some bread and milk or deciding if Joseph's vision "corresponded to reality"?

Or getting on a plane to San Francisco to visit grandma or deciding to send some money to "Save the Whales" or the LDS church?

For the sciences, things matter more the closer they describe what is happening, because they become more useful.  As we better understand how disease attacks the human body and can prevent disease, then that understanding saves lives and has real practical application. 

For theological imagination, things like the visions of Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy, or any other religious figure in the vast history of religious thinkers, what matters is a different question all together.  We shouldn't try to apply scientific tests to tell us whether the theological imaginings of these people have any proximity to what is really happening.  So how should we evaluate religious imagination?  

Its too reductionist to say that everything that comes out of Mormonism, all ideas, all teachings have been good.  This is true with every religion.  There have been many mistakes and flaws in religions, and religions don't represent unified thoughts and ideas anyway.  So how should we evaluate?  I would suggest that we need to evaluate every concept, every teaching, individually and examine every unique situation. 

So when you use an example about what's happening in Joseph Smith's brain, I think we should evaluate that specific concept and its history individually.  I think a rigorous evaluation of the evidence that historians have uncovered and the many different things that have been written about the first vision history can help us approach it thoughtfully. 

This process of evaluation will never tell us exactly what Joseph was experiencing with 100% precision.  That is lost to us.  What any human is experiencing in their brain is largely a subjective experience and other people don't have access to that first person experience.  This doesn't mean we can't make judgments about the actions of others that help us to live our lives.  We make those kinds of judgments every day.  

If we could talk to Joseph and if he was required to be completely honest, and he had to choose which of us is closer to understanding his actual experience, then we could know who's understanding is closer to the way Joseph understood his experience.  But would this bring us closer to "what is happening in reality?"  At this point we're only closer to Joseph's own subjective description of what he experienced.  But we know subjective explanations are flawed, we only have limited ability to perceive our own reality in the first place.  

My conclusion is that religious experience is complicated and very different than how we use science to try and understand the processes in the universe.  While I find examinations of what people are thinking and how they describe their realities, it gets very difficult to try and have any level of complete certainty on these topics.  However, I think we can make approximations, and I think there is value in our proximity to what really happened.  

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

For the sciences, things matter more the closer they describe what is happening, because they become more useful.  As we better understand how disease attacks the human body and can prevent disease, then that understanding saves lives and has real practical application. 

For theological imagination, things like the visions of Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy, or any other religious figure in the vast history of religious thinkers, what matters is a different question all together.  We shouldn't try to apply scientific tests to tell us whether the theological imaginings of these people have any proximity to what is really happening.  So how should we evaluate religious imagination?  

Its too reductionist to say that everything that comes out of Mormonism, all ideas, all teachings have been good.  This is true with every religion.  There have been many mistakes and flaws in religions, and religions don't represent unified thoughts and ideas anyway.  So how should we evaluate?  I would suggest that we need to evaluate every concept, every teaching, individually and examine every unique situation. 

So when you use an example about what's happening in Joseph Smith's brain, I think we should evaluate that specific concept and its history individually.  I think a rigorous evaluation of the evidence that historians have uncovered and the many different things that have been written about the first vision history can help us approach it thoughtfully. 

This process of evaluation will never tell us exactly what Joseph was experiencing with 100% precision.  That is lost to us.  What any human is experiencing in their brain is largely a subjective experience and other people don't have access to that first person experience.  This doesn't mean we can't make judgments about the actions of others that help us to live our lives.  We make those kinds of judgments every day.  

If we could talk to Joseph and if he was required to be completely honest, and he had to choose which of us is closer to understanding his actual experience, then we could know who's understanding is closer to the way Joseph understood his experience.  But would this bring us closer to "what is happening in reality?"  At this point we're only closer to Joseph's own subjective description of what he experienced.  But we know subjective explanations are flawed, we only have limited ability to perceive our own reality in the first place.  

My conclusion is that religious experience is complicated and very different than how we use science to try and understand the processes in the universe.  While I find examinations of what people are thinking and how they describe their realities, it gets very difficult to try and have any level of complete certainty on these topics.  However, I think we can make approximations, and I think there is value in our proximity to what really happened.  

I was totally with you until that last sentence. That is where Clark and I also seems to depart.

The habit of thought that seems most difficult is to finally part with the notion that there is something KNOWABLE that really happened beyond anyone's perception of it THAT IS KNOWABLE.

To know anything is to perceive it and therefore create it mentally. When is expressed it is always expressed in language.

There simply are no other possibilities.

One might say as Rorty implies, that there are unknowable causes for what we know, but we cannot know what they are without perceiving them and therefore interpreting them.

Nietzsche and all his successors were not kidding when they have said that there are no facts only interpretations, but that seems to be the hardest nut for people to crack.

Even the facts which we take for granted are products of social knowledge, which require us to take on another person's perspective which is only possible with language.

 

 

 

 

[hope_for_things]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I was totally with you until that last sentence. That is where Clark and I also seems to depart.

The habit of thought that seems most difficult is to finally part with the notion that there is something KNOWABLE that really happened beyond anyone's perception of it THAT IS KNOWABLE.

To know anything is to perceive it and therefore create it mentally. When is expressed it is always expressed in language.

There simply are no other possibilities.

One might say as Rorty implies, that there are unknowable causes for what we know, but we cannot know what they are without perceiving them and therefore interpreting them.

Nietzsche and all his successors were not kidding when they have said that there are no facts only interpretations, but that seems to be the hardest nut for people to crack.

Even the facts which we take for granted are products of social knowledge, which require us to take on another person's perspective which is only possible with language.

I agree with what you're saying when it comes to absolute certainty, but its also important whenever we get overly confident about what we believe we know to remember just how limited our knowledge is.  

At the same time, I think there is great value in the scholarly disciplines of history, textual studies, anthropology and social studies.  All these things help us better understand humans and I think the better our understanding, the more complicated and sophisticated our understanding and even the more accurate our understanding, the more value we can get from these studies

It seems to me like you want to emphasize that we should never have absolute and ultimate confidence in these scholarly disciplines to be 100% certain about anything, and I would agree.  But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't call these disciplines worthless, would you?  They certainly seem to provide a value to society, or would you say they don't? 

Are all "interpretations" of equal value to society?  Or some interpretations better than others?  I would argue that this is incontrovertibly true, that there are interpretations that have much more value than others, they aren't all created equal, and I'm guessing you'd agree.  I think we probably agree on this topic for the most part, just that you have a desire to emphasize one aspect and I have a desire to emphasize another.  

[mfbukowski]

26 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I agree with what you're saying when it comes to absolute certainty, but its also important whenever we get overly confident about what we believe we know to remember just how limited our knowledge is.  

At the same time, I think there is great value in the scholarly disciplines of history, textual studies, anthropology and social studies.  All these things help us better understand humans and I think the better our understanding, the more complicated and sophisticated our understanding and even the more accurate our understanding, the more value we can get from these studies

It seems to me like you want to emphasize that we should never have absolute and ultimate confidence in these scholarly disciplines to be 100% certain about anything, and I would agree.  But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't call these disciplines worthless, would you?  They certainly seem to provide a value to society, or would you say they don't? 

Are all "interpretations" of equal value to society?  Or some interpretations better than others?  I would argue that this is incontrovertibly true, that there are interpretations that have much more value than others, they aren't all created equal, and I'm guessing you'd agree.  I think we probably agree on this topic for the most part, just that you have a desire to emphasize one aspect and I have a desire to emphasize another.  

Certainty is a psychological state like being in love.

How is it NOT? Is it not a mental state like everything else we know?

I am absolutely certain about this.

 And one would have to be psychotic to throw out all the science and literature.

 I have never advocated anything of the kind and I think we discussed this before.

 Please explain to me how you can believe in a reality that cannot be experienced by anyone, some unseeable unfeelable unknowable reality.

 Because that is what you're saying.

You are still saying that reality as we know it corresponds to something which we cannot possibly experience, since all we can experience is Human Experience.

How can that possibly be correct?

All Science is based on what humans can experience. There's no way around that.

I had a similar discussion with Clark and this is where it gets very frustrating for me. 

You cannot know what cannot be experienced. That is the same as saying that you cannot know what you cannot know.

That is as clear as A=A, and to deny it is to say that A =not A.

Western Cartesian dualism triumphs yet again.

Edited May 14, 2018 by mfbukowski

[hope_for_things]

11 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

And one would have to be psychotic to throw out all the science and literature.

 I have never advocated anything of the kind and I think we discussed this before.

This is where I'm having the disconnect with what you're saying.  You're accepting that we shouldn't throw out scholarship, science, literature.  But then you're saying this.  

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Please explain to me how you can believe in a reality that cannot be experienced by anyone, some unseeable unfeelable unknowable reality.

From my vantage point your second statement is essentially saying that subjective experiences mean that scholarship and science shouldn't be trusted.  Are you saying this?  If not, can you explain how you can appreciate science and scholarship, but at the same time say that reality is unknowable. 

I believe reality is knowable to some degree, but I do believe that 100% absolute certainty about reality is unknowable.  Its the 100% part that I am unwilling to accept.  I recognize that we are limited and our perceptions are limited.  So absolute certainty is something I'm uncomfortable with.  However, that doesn't mean our interpretations and perceptions of reality don't correspond to some degree of accuracy.  Maybe 10% maybe 50% Maybe only 2%.  But some degree of correspondence seems to be valuable, and those observations/descriptions of reality that correspond more closely than others seem to have a higher degree of value than those descriptions that correspond with less accuracy.  

17 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

All Science is based on what humans can experience. There's no way around that.

I had a similar discussion with Clark and this is where it gets very frustrating for me. 

You cannot know what cannot be experienced. That is the same as saying that you cannot know what you cannot know.

That is as clear as A=A, and to deny it is to say that A =not A.

Western Cartesian dualism triumphs yet again.

You've convinced me that all we can experience is a human level experience and that this is limited.  So I understand what you're saying there.  I'm way less well read than Clark and I've read many of your back and forth discussions but I get lost because I don't have the education about philosophical debates, so I can't help there.  I'm trying to use my brain with the very limited understanding that I have to work out these problems, and I admit I'm very naive and uneducated on these complex subjects.  Appreciate your willingness to interact with me anyway, I'm learning a little at a time.