mfbukowski Posted June 24, 2021 Author Posted June 24, 2021 2 hours ago, OGHoosier said: Now there's a good translation. That I can understand. In other words, we should consider our past experiences not as discrete events but rather part of a larger experiential whole, and our experience may change how we view those parts relative to the whole? Yes, that's it. So your pool of "expeience" encompasses all that have done and that "happens" and that you do intentionally as well. An "experience report" might be said to be every sentence you say which begins with "I". "I saw the moon tonight, and it was beautiful" "I went to the store and bought potatoes" "I think that guy should be thrown in jail!" "The car is red". "I read the thermometer and it registered 1,876 degrees F". A table of temperatures in a scientific investigation would be an experience report, I would argue, even if the process was totally digitally compiled by a computer because someone has to interpret the results. I want to include scientific data as experience reports because they are human interpretations of experience. They are different from "Joseph says he saw God" only in their method of verification. 2
mfbukowski Posted June 25, 2021 Author Posted June 25, 2021 6 hours ago, OGHoosier said: Now there's a good translation. That I can understand. In other words, we should consider our past experiences not as discrete events but rather part of a larger experiential whole, and our experience may change how we view those parts relative to the whole? There is a reason contractors put on their business cards "Thirty Years Experience" James wrote "The VARIETIES of Religious Experience," and considered just that. The nuances and varieties of any sort of knowledge are of utmost importance in understanding any topic. Knowledge is the psychological state of certainty, and one gains certainty by experiencing many instances of similar experiences, in any field. 1
CV75 Posted June 25, 2021 Posted June 25, 2021 (edited) On 6/22/2021 at 9:38 PM, SeekingUnderstanding said: Let’s say I belong to the religion of chocolate ice cream lovers. As an article of faith we believe that after trying all the flavors, everyone will agree that chocolate is the best (unless they are deceived by the adversary). Is it modern philosophers’ opinion that this statement is as “true” and “valid” as say the science behind atomic fission? It seems to me from this thread that a significant subset of modern philosophers would agree that the descriptions arising from (a) experiencing belief (one mental state) in the ultimate universal agreement that chocolate is best and (b) experiencing heat (another mental state) in consequence of nuclear fission are reportedly described as useful (aka "true" and "valid" and similar terms such as "good," "right", "correct", "beneficial", etc.) by their respective adherents. And that both mental states benefit human beings. Edited June 25, 2021 by CV75 2
mfbukowski Posted June 26, 2021 Author Posted June 26, 2021 2 hours ago, CV75 said: It seems to me from this thread that a significant subset of modern philosophers would agree that the descriptions arising from (a) experiencing belief (one mental state) in the ultimate universal agreement that chocolate is best and (b) experiencing heat (another mental state) in consequence of nuclear fission are reportedly described as useful (aka "true" and "valid" and similar terms such as "good," "right", "correct", "beneficial", etc.) by their respective adherents. And that both mental states benefit human beings. I think that is pretty much it. Do you feel now that these ideas are easier to understand, and more credible than before we did this thread? How about the idea that our perceptions cannot get "down" to "reality", but are stuck in the appearances of reality? Make more sense? If so, what made it "click"?
CV75 Posted June 26, 2021 Posted June 26, 2021 (edited) 10 hours ago, mfbukowski said: I think that is pretty much it. Do you feel now that these ideas are easier to understand, and more credible than before we did this thread? How about the idea that our perceptions cannot get "down" to "reality", but are stuck in the appearances of reality? Make more sense? If so, what made it "click"? I think I've understood it for a couple of years. I attribute that to mental practice, resisting habitual mental shortcuts, and personality. But not all personalities find the idea intuitively obvious (referencing Meyers-Briggs) or appealing (referencing moral foundations theory). Hence my earlier remarks about making it easier for new ears to attend to. The tenets of religion and science (e.g. chocolate salvation and nuclear fission respectively in @SeekingUnderstanding's post) are descriptions based in experience that not everyone can say they have shared/believe, but that at least everyone can say (with varying degrees of charity, another mental state) they can acknowledge that said experiences have been had. Edited June 26, 2021 by CV75
CV75 Posted June 26, 2021 Posted June 26, 2021 On 6/24/2021 at 7:49 PM, mfbukowski said: Yes, that's it. So your pool of "expeience" encompasses all that have done and that "happens" and that you do intentionally as well. An "experience report" might be said to be every sentence you say which begins with "I". "I saw the moon tonight, and it was beautiful" "I went to the store and bought potatoes" "I think that guy should be thrown in jail!" "The car is red". "I read the thermometer and it registered 1,876 degrees F". A table of temperatures in a scientific investigation would be an experience report, I would argue, even if the process was totally digitally compiled by a computer because someone has to interpret the results. I want to include scientific data as experience reports because they are human interpretations of experience. They are different from "Joseph says he saw God" only in their method of verification. To paraphrase: Experience is the confluence of mental states in my relating to things as I interpret them, and as I interpreted them, and as I interpret them to come, each process concurrently affecting the other. The sphere of mental capacity with /within which I operate (my “agency”) determines what I report of my experience, so it would be a lie for me to deny or misrepresent my experience. 1
Teancum Posted June 26, 2021 Posted June 26, 2021 On 6/21/2021 at 11:55 PM, mfbukowski said: How did you get the idea that there is one universal "truth"? Still sifting through all this but to answer your question it is LDS doctrine that there is One True and Living Church, one priesthood authority possessed by said Church to administer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, one recognized baptism, etc. The list can go on. So why ask such a question? I am sure you are aware of this.
mfbukowski Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 OK - THIS is the best statement I know on my position, which I found a few years ago, filed away, and instantly forgot! Came across it the other day rather luckily. Perhaps the best statement ever on this view It even includes a view very like mine regarding the strength of the view of God as an exalted Human. Neither of these particiants are even Christian. I have added underlining https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/ Quote Collision and convergence in Truth and Beauty. BY MARIA POPOVA On July 14, 1930, Albert Einstein welcomed into his home on the outskirts of Berlin the Indian philosopher, musician, and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The two proceeded to have one of the most stimulating, intellectually riveting conversations in history, exploring the age-old friction between science and religion. Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore (public library) recounts the historic encounter, amidst a broader discussion of the intellectual renaissance that swept India in the early twentieth century, germinating a curious osmosis of Indian traditions and secular Western scientific doctrine. The following excerpt from one of Einstein and Tagore’s conversations dances between previously examined definitions of science, beauty, consciousness, and philosophy in a masterful meditation on the most fundamental questions of human existence. EINSTEIN: Do you believe in the Divine as isolated from the world? TAGORE: Not isolated. The infinite personality of Man comprehends the Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality, and this proves that the Truth of the Universe is human Truth. I have taken a scientific fact to explain this — Matter is composed of protons and electrons, with gaps between them; but matter may seem to be solid. Similarly humanity is composed of individuals, yet they have their interconnection of human relationship, which gives living unity to man’s world. The entire universe is linked up with us in a similar manner, it is a human universe. I have pursued this thought through art, literature and the religious consciousness of man. EINSTEIN: There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe: (1) The world as a unity dependent on humanity. (2) The world as a reality independent of the human factor. TAGORE: When our universe is in harmony with Man, the eternal, we know it as Truth, we feel it as beauty. EINSTEIN: This is the purely human conception of the universe. TAGORE: There can be no other conception. This world is a human world — the scientific view of it is also that of the scientific man. There is some standard of reason and enjoyment which gives it Truth, the standard of the Eternal Man whose experiences are through our experiences. EINSTEIN: This is a realization of the human entity. TAGORE: Yes, one eternal entity. We have to realize it through our emotions and activities. We realized the Supreme Man who has no individual limitations through our limitations. Science is concerned with that which is not confined to individuals; it is the impersonal human world of Truths. Religion realizes these Truths and links them up with our deeper needs; our individual consciousness of Truth gains universal significance. Religion applies values to Truth, and we know this Truth as good through our own harmony with it. EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or Beauty is not independent of Man? TAGORE: No. EINSTEIN: If there would be no human beings any more, the Apollo of Belvedere would no longer be beautiful. TAGORE: No. EINSTEIN: I agree with regard to this conception of Beauty, but not with regard to Truth. TAGORE: Why not? Truth is realized through man. EINSTEIN: I cannot prove that my conception is right, but that is my religion. TAGORE: Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the Universal Being; Truth the perfect comprehension of the Universal Mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experiences, through our illumined consciousness — how, otherwise, can we know Truth? EINSTEIN: I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man. Anyway, if there is a reality independent of man, there is also a Truth relative to this reality; and in the same way the negation of the first engenders a negation of the existence of the latter. TAGORE: Truth, which is one with the Universal Being, must essentially be human, otherwise whatever we individuals realize as true can never be called truth – at least the Truth which is described as scientific and which only can be reached through the process of logic, in other words, by an organ of thoughts which is human. According to Indian Philosophy there is Brahman, the absolute Truth, which cannot be conceived by the isolation of the individual mind or described by words but can only be realized by completely merging the individual in its infinity. But such a Truth cannot belong to Science. The nature of Truth which we are discussing is an appearance – that is to say, what appears to be true to the human mind and therefore is human, and may be called maya or illusion. EINSTEIN: So according to your conception, which may be the Indian conception, it is not the illusion of the individual, but of humanity as a whole. TAGORE: The species also belongs to a unity, to humanity. Therefore the entire human mind realizes Truth; the Indian or the European mind meet in a common realization. EINSTEIN: The word species is used in German for all human beings, as a matter of fact, even the apes and the frogs would belong to it. TAGORE: In science we go through the discipline of eliminating the personal limitations of our individual minds and thus reach that comprehension of Truth which is in the mind of the Universal Man. << Bukowski comment: this "universal man" relates I believe to the idea of "peer review"- scientific experiments can be replicated by anyone, where spiritual experiences belong to the individual>> EINSTEIN: The problem begins whether Truth is independent of our consciousness. TAGORE: What we call truth lies in the rational harmony between the subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of which belong to the super-personal man. EINSTEIN: Even in our everyday life we feel compelled to ascribe a reality independent of man to the objects we use. We do this to connect the experiences of our senses in a reasonable way. For instance, if nobody is in this house, yet that table remains where it is. TAGORE: Yes, it remains outside the individual mind, but not the universal mind. The table which I perceive is perceptible by the same kind of consciousness which I possess. EINSTEIN: If nobody would be in the house the table would exist all the same — but this is already illegitimate from your point of view — because we cannot explain what it means that the table is there, independently of us. Our natural point of view in regard to the existence of truth apart from humanity cannot be explained or proved, but it is a belief which nobody can lack — no primitive beings even. We attribute to Truth a super-human objectivity; it is indispensable for us, this reality which is independent of our existence and our experience and our mind — though we cannot say what it means. TAGORE: Science has proved that the table as a solid object is an appearance and therefore that which the human mind perceives as a table would not exist if that mind were naught. At the same time it must be admitted that the fact, that the ultimate physical reality is nothing but a multitude of separate revolving centres of electric force, also belongs to the human mind. In the apprehension of Truth there is an eternal conflict between the universal human mind and the same mind confined in the individual. The perpetual process of reconciliation is being carried on in our science, philosophy, in our ethics. In any case, if there be any Truth absolutely unrelated to humanity then for us it is absolutely non-existing. It is not difficult to imagine a mind to which the sequence of things happens not in space but only in time like the sequence of notes in music. For such a mind such conception of reality is akin to the musical reality in which Pythagorean geometry can have no meaning. There is the reality of paper, infinitely different from the reality of literature. For the kind of mind possessed by the moth which eats that paper literature is absolutely non-existent, yet for Man’s mind literature has a greater value of Truth than the paper itself. In a similar manner if there be some Truth which has no sensuous or rational relation to the human mind, it will ever remain as nothing so long as we remain human beings. << Bukowski comment: I think this a perfect description- I often feel that those who are locked in scientism are locked in books as if we are analyzing paper and do not realize that there is further richness in the "reality of the page" than the solid mass they are seeing. They see the REASON for the paper- the PURPOSE of the book and meaning of the book and how it could change one's life, by only seeing the paper plainly before them>> EINSTEIN: Then I am more religious than you are! TAGORE: My religion is in the reconciliation of the Super-personal Man, the universal human spirit, in my own individual being. Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore 1
mfbukowski Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 3 hours ago, Teancum said: Still sifting through all this but to answer your question it is LDS doctrine that there is One True and Living Church, one priesthood authority possessed by said Church to administer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, one recognized baptism, etc. The list can go on. So why ask such a question? I am sure you are aware of this. Maybe this will help. https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/02/01/niels-bohr-science-religion/ Quote Nobel-Winning Physicist Niels Bohr on Subjective vs. Objective Reality and the Uses of Religion in a Secular World “The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far.” BY MARIA POPOVA In the autumn of 1911, just as the dawn of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s groundbreaking theory of relativity were unsettling our understanding of existence, some of the world’s most influential physicists were summoned to Brussels for the Solvay Conference — an invitation-only gathering that would become a turning point for modern physics and our basic understanding of reality. The conference was such a towering success that it became a regular event, with twenty-five installments over the next century. The most famous was the fifth, convened in 1927 and chaired by the Dutch Nobel laureate Hendrik Lorenz, whose transformation equations had become the centerpiece of Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Of the 29 attendees that year, 17 would become Nobel laureates; Marie Curie, the sole woman since the inaugural gathering, would become the only scientist to win two Nobel Prizes in two different disciplines. (It was at the first Solvay Conference that Curie had met Einstein — the inception of a lifelong friendship in the course of which he would buoy her during a crisis with his splendid advice on how to handle haters.) The 1927 Solvay Conference (colorized photograph) One evening during the 1927 conference, some of the younger attendees — including twenty-seven-year-old Wolfgang Pauli, who was yet to co-invent synchronicity with Carl Jung, and twenty-six-year-old Werner Heisenberg, who had just published his revolutionary uncertainty principle earlier that year — stayed up at the hotel lounge and launched into a swirling conversation at the borderline of physics and metaphysics, ignited by the young physicists’ unease about Einstein’s views on God. (Three years later, Einstein himself would traverse that borderline in his historic conversation with the Indian poet and philosopher Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.) They collided with the difficulty of reconciling science and religion, some adamantly insisting that the two were simply incompatible, for religion is a vestige of a pre-scientific world of superstition, while others suggesting that science can never supplant but can only complement the essential moral guidance by which theology strengthens society. The unresolved question stayed with Heisenberg. After the conference, he recounted the conversation to quantum theory founding father and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr (October 7, 1885–November 18, 1962). Bohr surprised him with a nuanced and uncommonly insightful take on the subject, which Heisenberg recounts in Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (public library) — part of the pioneering World Perspectives series envisioned by philosopher Ruth Nanda Anshen as a canon of books by the world’s great “spiritual and intellectual leaders who possess full consciousness of the pressing problems of our time with all their implications,” with a board of editors including Robert Oppenheimer and Bohr himself. Niels Bohr as a young man Bohr tells Heisenberg: We ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far. With an eye to the monumental impact of Einstein’s relativity and to the profound shift in thought which quantum theory’s notion of complementarity introduced, Bohr adds: That is why I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as “objective” and “subjective” are, a great liberation of thought. The whole thing started with the theory of relativity. In the past, the statement that two events are simultaneous was considered an objective assertion, one that could be communicated quite simply and that was open to verification by any observer. Today we know that “simultaneity” contains a subjective element, inasmuch as two events that appear simultaneous to an observer at rest are not necessarily simultaneous to an observer in motion. However, the relativistic description is also objective inasmuch as every observer can deduce by calculation what the other observer will perceive or has perceived. For all that, we have come a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions. In quantum mechanics the departure from this ideal has been even more radical. We can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud droplets have formed. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation. To that extent, every physical process may be said to have objective and subjective features. The objective world of nineteenth-century science was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, but not the whole reality. Admittedly, even in our future encounters with reality we shall have to distinguish between the objective and the subjective side, to make a division between the two. But the location of the separation may depend on the way things are looked at; to a certain extent it can be chosen at will. This, Bohr notes, is why the language of objectivity doesn’t belong in religious rhetoric — religion and its pluralities are best understood, and best applied to human life as an instrument of moral enrichment rather than one of dogmatic constriction, through the lens of complementarity: The fact that different religions try to express this content in quite distinct spiritual forms is no real objection. Perhaps we ought to look upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one another, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from man’s relationship with the central order. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematicsby Lillian Lieber A quarter century before mathematician Lillian Lieber demonstrated how mathematical abstractions like infinity, which have no correlate in physical reality, offer an analogue for moral questions, Bohr considers whether or not the tenets of religion can similarly offer useful abstractions, even though they are not to be taken as objective truth: In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the society in which he’s chosen to live; he must educate his children according to the norms of that society, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly help him attain these ends. Here, too, the relationship between critical thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and action based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that only a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set. Physics and Beyond, though out of print, is a fascinating read in its totality and well worth the search for a surviving copy. Complement this particular portion with pioneering nineteenth-century astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science, on our conquest of truth, Carl Sagan on science and spirituality, Richard Feynman on why uncertainty is essential for morality, Simone de Beauvoir on the moral courage of atheism, Alan Lightman on transcendent experiences in the secular world, and Sam Harris on spirituality without religion.
CV75 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 @mfbukowski, as an aside, there was a period in the late 90s - early 2000s when our stake leaders, and one or two visiting general authorities as I recall, would often remind us, "We call these "meetings", but these are not supposed to be meetings. These are supposed to be revelatory experiences." Then the point would often be made that attendees would receive personal revelation, or revelation for their callings, that had nothing to do with any topic that was discussed in the meeting. 1
Teancum Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 12 hours ago, mfbukowski said: Maybe this will help. https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/02/01/niels-bohr-science-religion/ Good read. I am not sure how that answers my response to you question about why I think there is an absolute truth and the LDS claims of such.
mfbukowski Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 22 hours ago, Teancum said: Still sifting through all this but to answer your question it is LDS doctrine that there is One True and Living Church, one priesthood authority possessed by said Church to administer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, one recognized baptism, etc. The list can go on. So why ask such a question? I am sure you are aware of this. I am not understanding - just after this comment- I sent you a link to an article: 6 hours ago, Teancum said: Good read. I am not sure how that answers my response to you question about why I think there is an absolute truth and the LDS claims of such. Quote “The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far.” The second quote above is the first line of the article which you said was a "good read" What does that "good read" say? IT EXPLAINS that religions speak in images and parables and paradoxes, and there is NO OTHER way to grasp the "REALITY" of religious discourse and yet religious discourse reveals a "genuine reality"
Stargazer Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 (edited) On 6/20/2021 at 11:27 PM, mfbukowski said: Can we now compete with "Save the Whales"?? Collect the whole set! I admire your writings about philosophy along with the litany of philosophers you have deeply studied. Unfortunately, although I might be marginally above average in intelligence, I am lost in the woods when you embark on these extended dissertations. But perhaps you would be as lost as I if I started talking about computer science or quantum physics -- dilettante though I might be in those two subjects, at least I am not wholly cross-eyed with confusion over the words used in those two areas of endeavor! Quick question: do the following jokes make you laugh, or do they puzzle you... Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender tells them to get out because "We don't serve prokaryotes here!" The bacteria object, saying "But we're staph!" A helium atom walks into a bar. The bartender says it's not welcome there. The atom doesn't react. Schroedinger's cat walks into a bar; and doesn't. Edited June 27, 2021 by Stargazer 2
CV75 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 6 hours ago, Teancum said: Good read. I am not sure how that answers my response to you question about why I think there is an absolute truth and the LDS claims of such. When a faith community agrees on a particular tenet, which is a description or report of someone’s experience as they perceive and interpret it, they call that tenet “true” or “absolute truth” because it resonates with their own experience. Those who lack the same experience, perception, interpretation, description might call it “error” / “untrue” due to their agreement on an alternate tenet. This is why setting up an environment for the creation of shared experience is more effective in discovering and agreeing upon what is “true” than arguing over the reasoning for competing tenets and experiences. The reasoning is often several steps removed from the original, perceived – and often biased -- experience, anyway. 2
Stargazer Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 On 6/21/2021 at 5:00 PM, SeekingUnderstanding said: Hi Mr Bukowski, As someone who struggles to follow any deep philosophical post beyond the basics, is there an accessible introductory book out there that covers the basics? The closest I've gotten is "The Big Picture" by Sean Carroll and that was written by a physicist. I gotta believe there is better out there... I listened to the great courses "The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida" but no great understanding followed. I've tried listening to some of your posts of Rorty, but it still feels pretty inaccessible to me. Like I don't speak the right language. Thanks, John That's where I seem to be, too. It all seems very majestic to me, but so do the birds flying above me in the sky. I don't have any good idea of what to start with reading in order to begin to start "getting it." Maybe it's unnecessary.
mfbukowski Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 3 minutes ago, Stargazer said: Collect the whole set! I admire your writings about philosophy along with the litany of philosophers you have deeply studied. Unfortunately, although I might be marginally above average in intelligence, I am lost in the woods when you embark on these extended dissertations. But perhaps you would be as lost as I if I started talking about computer science or quantum physics -- dilettante though I might be in those two subjects, at least I am not wholly cross-eyed with confusion over the words used in those two areas of endeavor! Quick question: does the following joke make you laugh, or does it puzzle you... Schroedinger's cat walks into a bar; and doesn't. Yes it's funny!! But I understand the problem. On the otherhand I wish I could really get into it and show youse guys howta make absolute truth and non-absolute truth in the same sentence. I'll just shoot this out to the universe for the heck of it. President Kimball did a BYU talk about absolute truth- I think THE best semi-philosophical talk ever https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball/absolute-truth/ I won't get into it- but there can be truths that are both analytic and synthetic at the same time. That means they are absolute truths and truth from experience both at the same time! This is what President K means by absolute truth- but I don't think he knew the terminology. Kant called this the "synthetic a priori" and is actually the reason why God's existence can be seen as both learned from experience AND as infallibly true as "1+1=2" Here is how it works- (below from Robert C Solomon- sorry- but he happened to be one of my professors.) Synthetic apriori statements are both based on experience AND are tautologies- they are "information derived from experience" AND absolute truths at the same time, as strongly absolute as "A=A". But this is even tougher that Rorty to see, so I doubt it will have much impact here. I hereby summon @MosiahFree and see if he/she has any input. My claim is that what president Kimball calls absolute truth are actually synthetic a priori statements- and so he is actually right in the above talk 1
mfbukowski Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 37 minutes ago, CV75 said: When a faith community agrees on a particular tenet, which is a description or report of someone’s experience as they perceive and interpret it, they call that tenet “true” or “absolute truth” because it resonates with their own experience. Those who lack the same experience, perception, interpretation, description might call it “error” / “untrue” due to their agreement on an alternate tenet. This is why setting up an environment for the creation of shared experience is more effective in discovering and agreeing upon what is “true” than arguing over the reasoning for competing tenets and experiences. The reasoning is often several steps removed from the original, perceived – and often biased -- experience, anyway. WOW! Nailed it!!
Stargazer Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 (edited) On 6/21/2021 at 7:29 PM, mfbukowski said: Nobody gets Rorty apparently so how will that help?? You understand Rorty better than my explanation of Rorty? All the philosophers I have quoted have already justified religious experience, and yet we still get the yahoos quoting or thinking like Dawkins every day! There's probably a dozen on this board today, and people are still losing faith because of idiotic arguments! "Where is the evidence?" Right there where all evidence is, in human experience! But this experience is like falling in love and knowing your purpose in life. It drives me nuts! 😡 OK, before you go nuts, please give me an idea of what an introductory course on what you are trying to tell us would look like. The best book to start with, for example, and perhaps the next two or three. I've read some of what some of these philosophers have written, and much of it caused ME to think either they or I was nuts. Tell me if the following abstract from a physics paper makes any kind of sense. If it doesn't, you'll know pretty much what I feel like when I read Heidegger, Foucault, and all the rest. Quote "A new quantization condition for parity-violating three-dimensional gravity" by Tim Blais Abstract (2+1)-dimensional gravity with a negative cosmological constant is a topological theory with no local degrees of freedom. When confined to compact universes which are topologically genus g Riemann surfaces times time, its classical phase space is the cotangent bundle of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. We consider the quantization of moduli space itself, emerging as the zero-momentum slice of this phase space. When a parity-violating Chern-Simons term is added to the gravitational action, a nontrivial symplectic form is induced on this slice which is a multiple of the Weil-Petersson Kähler form. By demanding that this symplectic form integrate to 2πℏ times an integer on every nontrivial two-cycle in moduli space — which is a necessary condition for the system to be quantizable — we find a new quantization condition on the Chern-Simons coupling k'. Our result strongly suggests that k' must be an integer multiple of 24 in order to define a self-consistent theory of quantum gravity. It apparently makes sense to somebody. The author was awarded his Masters in Physics based on this. It's in English, I can read it out loud quite adequately, and I can even recognize some of the terms. But it might as well be written in Sanskrit for all I can understand of it. Edited June 27, 2021 by Stargazer
mfbukowski Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 38 minutes ago, CV75 said: When a faith community agrees on a particular tenet, which is a description or report of someone’s experience as they perceive and interpret it, they call that tenet “true” or “absolute truth” because it resonates with their own experience. Those who lack the same experience, perception, interpretation, description might call it “error” / “untrue” due to their agreement on an alternate tenet. This is why setting up an environment for the creation of shared experience is more effective in discovering and agreeing upon what is “true” than arguing over the reasoning for competing tenets and experiences. The reasoning is often several steps removed from the original, perceived – and often biased -- experience, anyway. AND there are statements that are- or can be- SEEN AS "absolute truth" and yet derived from human experience- and so understanding their "absoluteness" has some experience of the world as a pre-requisite Think of math. The concept of "one" has no meaning unless you separate - in experience- one object from others and create a sub-set. So imagine teaching a child addition. You grab a bunch of dandelions off the lawn. (yes my lawn is ALL dandelions anyway!) You take out ONE dandelion and say "one dandelion" and then take another and say "two dandelions"- you know- straight Sesame Street stuff. So although the fact that 1+1=2 is true by true logic alone- it is an eternal truth that cannot change- it cannot be understood without the experience and example of real world experience and observations! So IS the truth that 1+!=2 an absolute truth? If we never had any experiences with "things" like dandelions in this example- the entire concept of math could never be learned.! So are these truths eternal logic or are they just an outgrowth of being in the world? Is all truth finally based on one's experiences?
CV75 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 @Stargazer I am having trouble with using the Quote function to reply. RE: your post, --------- That's where I seem to be, too. It all seems very majestic to me, but so do the birds flying above me in the sky. I don't have any good idea of what to start with reading in order to begin to start "getting it." Maybe it's unnecessary. --------- You have an experience that you describe as majestic: processing the image of the birds flying above you in the sky make you feel awed, humble, willing to take care of the earth and her habitants, and then you go about making that happen. But it wasn’t that image alone; other experiences in your life came together with it and formed your response (does that resonate with you?). You don’t necessarily have to read about avian flight have those feelings or accomplish the good that follows (does that resonate with you?). You’ve had the experience of reading D&C 93. Consider that “Experience is the confluence of mental states in relating to things as you interpret them, and as you interpreted them, and as you interpret them to come, each process concurrently affecting the other. The sphere of mental capacity with /within which you operate (your “agency”) determines what you report of your experience, so it would be counterproductive for you to deny or misrepresent your experience.” This is why you say, “The birds flying above me in the sky are majestic.” You don’t even add, “to me” because you take it to be “true.” Given this, saying “The birds flying above me in the sky are pathetic / inconsequential to me,” would make you feel like you’ve betrayed yourself. The more significant the experience is to you, the more absolute you feel about it. You say, “I know God lives,” and represent it as absolute truth. A friend might say with equal conviction, “I know there is no God.” You draw your respective conclusions from your experiences, and both experiences have merit. This is why Elder Uchtdorf says, “It may break our hearts when their journey [experience] takes them away from the Church we love and the truth we have found, but we honor their right…” – what else can either do but to treat the other in a way that effectively draws them into the desired experience? Sometimes discussion, reasoning and explanations may help with this, but there is a more fundamental human connection that needs to be made than winning an argument, which is anything but a shared experience.
CV75 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 36 minutes ago, mfbukowski said: AND there are statements that are- or can be- SEEN AS "absolute truth" and yet derived from human experience- and so understanding their "absoluteness" has some experience of the world as a pre-requisite Think of math. The concept of "one" has no meaning unless you separate - in experience- one object from others and create a sub-set. So imagine teaching a child addition. You grab a bunch of dandelions off the lawn. (yes my lawn is ALL dandelions anyway!) You take out ONE dandelion and say "one dandelion" and then take another and say "two dandelions"- you know- straight Sesame Street stuff. So although the fact that 1+1=2 is true by true logic alone- it is an eternal truth that cannot change- it cannot be understood without the experience and example of real world experience and observations! So IS the truth that 1+!=2 an absolute truth? If we never had any experiences with "things" like dandelions in this example- the entire concept of math could never be learned.! So are these truths eternal logic or are they just an outgrowth of being in the world? Is all truth finally based on one's experiences? I would say that both logic and seeing dandelions are both experiences (products of mental states), as is the language used to guide the child. On the most fundamental, human development level, experience with logic follows experience with sight. At some point, language is used to label and qualify what is deduced and what is seen as “truth.” 1
CV75 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 2 hours ago, Stargazer said: That's where I seem to be, too. It all seems very majestic to me, but so do the birds flying above me in the sky. I don't have any good idea of what to start with reading in order to begin to start "getting it." Maybe it's unnecessary. You have an experience that you describe as majestic: processing the image of the birds flying above you in the sky make you feel awed, humble, willing to take care of the earth and her habitants, and then you go about making that happen. But it wasn’t that image alone; other experiences in your life came together with it and formed your response (does that resonate with you?). You don’t necessarily have to read about avian flight have those feelings or accomplish the good that follows (does that resonate with you?). You’ve had the experience of reading D&C 93. Consider that “Experience is the confluence of mental states in relating to things as you interpret them, and as you interpreted them, and as you interpret them to come, each process concurrently affecting the other. The sphere of mental capacity with /within which you operate (your “agency”) determines what you report of your experience, so it would be counterproductive for you to deny or misrepresent your experience.” This is why you say, “The birds flying above me in the sky are majestic.” You don’t even add, “to me” because you take it to be “true.” Given this, saying “The birds flying above me in the sky are pathetic / inconsequential to me,” would make you feel like you’ve betrayed yourself. The more significant the experience is to you, the more absolute you feel about it. You say, “I know God lives,” and represent it as absolute truth. A friend might say with equal conviction, “I know there is no God.” You draw your respective conclusions from your experiences, and both experiences have merit. This is why Elder Uchtdorf says, “It may break our hearts when their journey [experience] takes them away from the Church we love and the truth we have found, but we honor their right…” – what else can either do but to treat the other in a way that effectively draws them into the desired experience? Sometimes discussion, reasoning and explanations may help with this, but there is a more fundamental human connection that needs to be made than winning an argument, which is anything but a shared experience.
mfbukowski Posted June 28, 2021 Author Posted June 28, 2021 (edited) 4 hours ago, Stargazer said: OK, before you go nuts, please give me an idea of what an introductory course on what you are trying to tell us would look like. The best book to start with, for example, and perhaps the next two or three. I've read some of what some of these philosophers have written, and much of it caused ME to think either they or I was nuts. Tell me if the following abstract from a physics paper makes any kind of sense. If it doesn't, you'll know pretty much what I feel like when I read Heidegger, Foucault, and all the rest. It apparently makes sense to somebody. The author was awarded his Masters in Physics based on this. It's in English, I can read it out loud quite adequately, and I can even recognize some of the terms. But it might as well be written in Sanskrit for all I can understand of it. Yes - that is part of the problem we are explaining. It's the language that gets in the way and causes confusion unless you are a participant in the "language game" or community which uses the language. For me this might as well be in Swahili, so I understand the problem. But this is a wonderful example of exactly the problem I am sure whoever wrote that would not know of any "easy books" to help us understand what he is saying, much less agree or disagree with him. But we are not a "peer" in his community of physicists and so do not know his "truth", and do not speak his language. This might help- I would be an "anti-realist" in this context https://iep.utm.edu/sci-real/ But I suspect the language is still too difficult. Edited June 28, 2021 by mfbukowski
MosiahFree Posted June 28, 2021 Posted June 28, 2021 On 6/24/2021 at 3:08 PM, mfbukowski said: How did I do ? Excellent. So I have a two pronged process that I liken to training in boxing: bagwork and sparring. Writing and rewriting is like hitting a heavy bag with its emphasis on form, establishing muscle memory, and building endurance. Answering follow up questions is like sparring because it gives you room to improvise and think on your feet. You’ve done an iteration of bagwork, now it is time to get you in the ring. The following challenges come from me and they were the initial questions and observations I had while reading your definition of experience. You can answer them however you want and have no conditions to try and follow, these are just to get you thinking more about the paragraph you are going to be rewriting. I won’t be following up on these questions or disputing anything you answer with. Jargon is allowed. Objection 1: Your idea of experience seems to encompass every aspect of human existence. Doesn’t your description better fit with human ontology within philosophy proper as opposed to the word experience? Objection 2: Is there anything that happens within the inner life of a person that doesn’t fall under the rubric of experience? What about a student who is solving a math problem by working through the steps her teacher taught her? Most would consider this something approaching the a priori, but your notion of experience would seem to deny that it is. Objection 3: Your inclusion of interpretive acts as being part and parcel of experience indicates that advanced and deliberate cognitive functions are to be classified as experience. Doesn’t it seem counterintuitive to suggest that the activity of your composition of a message board post be considered the same class of thing as hearing your wife calling your name or feeling too hot sitting in the sun? Once you’ve replied, I’ll post my non-philosophical assessment of your paragraph (i.e. matters pertaining to composition) and we can start on the first rewrite. If this process is irksome let me know. 1
CV75 Posted June 28, 2021 Posted June 28, 2021 7 hours ago, MosiahFree said: Excellent. So I have a two pronged process that I liken to training in boxing: bagwork and sparring. Writing and rewriting is like hitting a heavy bag with its emphasis on form, establishing muscle memory, and building endurance. Answering follow up questions is like sparring because it gives you room to improvise and think on your feet. You’ve done an iteration of bagwork, now it is time to get you in the ring. The following challenges come from me and they were the initial questions and observations I had while reading your definition of experience. You can answer them however you want and have no conditions to try and follow, these are just to get you thinking more about the paragraph you are going to be rewriting. I won’t be following up on these questions or disputing anything you answer with. Jargon is allowed. Objection 1: Your idea of experience seems to encompass every aspect of human existence. Doesn’t your description better fit with human ontology within philosophy proper as opposed to the word experience? Objection 2: Is there anything that happens within the inner life of a person that doesn’t fall under the rubric of experience? What about a student who is solving a math problem by working through the steps her teacher taught her? Most would consider this something approaching the a priori, but your notion of experience would seem to deny that it is. Objection 3: Your inclusion of interpretive acts as being part and parcel of experience indicates that advanced and deliberate cognitive functions are to be classified as experience. Doesn’t it seem counterintuitive to suggest that the activity of your composition of a message board post be considered the same class of thing as hearing your wife calling your name or feeling too hot sitting in the sun? Once you’ve replied, I’ll post my non-philosophical assessment of your paragraph (i.e. matters pertaining to composition) and we can start on the first rewrite. If this process is irksome let me know. 1. I can conceptualize that many unperceived things affect the mental states that form my experiences. 2. Solving math problems and memorizing by rote are kinds of experiences; mental states are involved. 3. Mental states also include composing, hearing a voice, and feeling heat. You may not be Ahab, but you may be Atlantic Mike LOL.
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