LDS/Non-LDS And Covenants

[Leaf474]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If the spirit taught scientific "truth" we would all be driving flying cars with no possible accidents, and all disease would have been wiped out thousands of years ago.

Are you saying that scientific "truth" is different from other kinds of "truth"?

 

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It depends on what you are calling " reliable information".

I'm thinking of information that can be depended upon to correlate to reality. Are there other possibilities?

 

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It's about subjective problems, like what is right FOR ME in a given situation.

Can something that is right for you in a given situation be wrong for someone else in a similar situation? And vice-versa?

 

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Besides that, it seems you didn't understand the parable.

David was the bad guy all along.

I get that David was the bad guy. But he did have reliable information about right and wrong, which is why he could condemn the guy who took the sheep. He also knew that what he did with Bathsheba was wrong, which is why he tried to cover it. I'll grant, though, that it wasn't always forefront in his mind, and that's why he didn't recognize himself in Nathan's story.

 

"For day and night your hand was heavy on me.

    My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.

 I acknowledged my sin to you.

    I didn’t hide my iniquity.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,

    and you forgave the iniquity of my sin."

Psalm 32

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Leaf474 said:

'm thinking of information that can be depended upon to correlate to reality.

How do you know something is reality?

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

How do you know something is reality?

I knew you would get it, you have from the beginning, and thanks for digging through the old stuff! 😉

[Nofear]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

How do you know something is reality?

I don't/won't go into the philosophical depth that mfbukowski does (though, I can appreciate the approach -- still, philosophers, bah) but one of the things that can help is corroboration. But that only works if one is telling the truth (as one honestly understand it). That is one of the reasons the Adversary is so bad. He is the father of lies. Reality is distorted and brought into confusion.

It's also one of the reasons that we have prophets. Our internal sense of truth can be corroborated by a trusted source. If what I believe and what the prophet teaches are in agreement, that greatly increases my confidence in understanding reality*. Back to Satan. He is the "accuser of the brethren". He wants to destroy that confidence. He accuses them of being liars. There are few accusers of the brethren on this board too**.

 

* And when my perception/belief contradicts the prophets than one or both of us is probably wrong. Whichever way it is my confidence is decreased and I'll hold firm conviction in abeyance until further light and truth is received.
** There is a significant difference between believing in prophetic fallibility and being an accuser of the brethren.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Leaf474 said:

I'm thinking of information that can be depended upon to correlate to reality. Are there other possibilities?

Yes indeed.

As @Calm implied, all we have to work with is OUR PERCEPTIONS.

Yes there is a world out there- you need to be in a "funny farm looney bin" to think otherwise.

How does ANYONE GET OUTSIDE YOUR PERCEPTIONS to see "reality" as it is?

"Now we see thru a glass (mirror) darkly, but THEN face to face".

"Truth is to see things as they are" but how do get outside human perceptions to do that??

Three propositions:

1 God is embodied.

2 God is pure spirit, and not embodied

3 God doesn't exist, so why bother with the idea at all?

So what "correlates with reality" ??

How do we get outside our perceptions to CHECK if something is real? 

How can we look at both "the thing as it is" at the same time we are seeing "the thing as we perceive it" to check if they correlate ??

Virtually all philosophers today accept either Neo Pragmatism or Phenomenology- both of which have given up on perceptions "correlating" with some unknowable world "out there"

Instead they just rely on "what works". You take science's PERCEPTION  of chemical A, and mix it with science's PERCEPTION of chemical B, and it always results in what science PERCEIVES as chemical C.

You give it to cancer patient Z, and PERCEIVE that what is called "cancer cells" die, and the patient does not.

Cancer is cured! 

Practically speaking we have what is CALLED a "breakthrough" in curing cancer, all based NOT on "things as they are really" but our PERCEPTION that state 1- dead cancer cells are "better" than result 2- that the patient dies.

We PERCEIVE that a dead patient is WORSE than dead cancer cells.

It's just not fair!

Who is advocating in favor of those pure abused, and murdered, cancer cells??

It's just not fair that we allow one cell to live, while we are MURDERING other cells!!

It's PREJUDICED!

We CANNOT allow  solid and empirical science to be polluted by irrational EMOTION!

We have NO HARD EVIDENCE that one cell is allegedly "better" than another!!

It doesn't correlate with hard reality!

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

24 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I don't/won't go into the philosophical depth that mfbukowski does (though, I can appreciate the approach -- still, philosophers, bah) but one of the things that can help is corroboration. But that only works if one is telling the truth (as one honestly understand it).

Dude! You know I luv ya, but this here just don't make sense.

Corroboration = correspondence = correlation.  You are not making a distinction.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

Philosophers = bah? 😡

Edited November 2, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Nofear]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Dude! You know I luv ya, but this here just don't make sense.

Corroboration = correspondence = correlation.  You are not making a distinction.

Indeed, not really getting into the weeds as it were. If I say that "the grass is green outside" and my friend says "the grass is green outside" ... I'm calling that corroboration. If I say "I see a clown running around my front yard waving a broom" and my friend looks and says "what clown?" then I would say that he is not corroborating my account (and I would potentially have reason to doubt my perception).

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, Nofear said:

Indeed, not really getting into the weeds as it were. If I say that "the grass is green outside" and my friend says "the grass is green outside" ... I'm calling that corroboration. If I say "I see a clown running around my front yard waving a broom" and my friend looks and says "what clown?" then I would say that he is not corroborating my account (and I would potentially have reason to doubt my perception).

Fine

That is called "Pragmatism," and what I have advocated from the beginning.

You accept perceptions that agree with other's perceptions an call that "real" for all practical purposes 

I didn't know you were a philosopher.

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Nofear]

Not getting into the weeds and just dealing with things at a "pragmatic" level is a good what of viewing my comment. Am I a pragmatist at a fundamental level, probably not*, but for the purposes of my comment it is good enough.


* But physics is all kinds of fun. To paraphrase The Good Place: "I'm telling you, Molotov cocktails quantum mechanics works. Anytime I had a [philosophical] problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail in quantum mechanics, boom! Right away, I had a different [philosophical] problem." - Jason Mendoza, The Good Place

Edited November 2, 2023 by Nofear

[Leaf474]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

How do you know something is reality?

Great question! But first, I believe the context was the question of whether the little voice provides reliable information. @mfbukowski then ask me what I meant by that.

 

To your question, the only thing I know for certain is real is my consciousness, which includes what I am remembering or feeling at the moment (that is that is to say the memory or feeling is real, the event being remembered may not be).

 

Everything else is what I would call a designated reality. (There's probably a better word for it, but I can't think of one right now 😀) I think it's best explained by example:

I just cooked some fish in the toaster oven. I treat or designate the glowing elements as real, because to do otherwise might cause me pain - a reduction in my psychological well-being.

 

It doesn't follow, however, that there are not things that exist outside of my consciousness. Those things would be real, but I can't experience them directly the way I can my consciousness. So they may be real, or they may be an illusion.

 

I believe @mfbukowski and I agreed on a different thread that there are things such as God which exist whether we are aware of him (her/it) or not.

 

So reliable information would be information that corresponds

(I believe I wrote correlates earlier but I think corresponds works better)

to that which exists outside of our perceptions. Whether we have reliable information - outside of me and my consciousness - I don't have a strong opinion about.

 

Did I answer your question?

[Leaf474]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes indeed.

As @Calm implied, all we have to work with is OUR PERCEPTIONS.

Yes there is a world out there- you need to be in a "funny farm looney bin" to think otherwise.

How does ANYONE GET OUTSIDE YOUR PERCEPTIONS to see "reality" as it is?

"Now we see thru a glass (mirror) darkly, but THEN face to face".

"Truth is to see things as they are" but how do get outside human perceptions to do that??

Three propositions:

1 God is embodied.

2 God is pure spirit, and not embodied

3 God doesn't exist, so why bother with the idea at all?

So what "correlates with reality" ??

How do we get outside our perceptions to CHECK if something is real? 

How can we look at both "the thing as it is" at the same time we are seeing "the thing as we perceive it" to check if they correlate ??

Virtually all philosophers today accept either Neo Pragmatism or Phenomenology- both of which have given up on perceptions "correlating" with some unknowable world "out there"

Instead they just rely on "what works". You take science's PERCEPTION  of chemical A, and mix it with science's PERCEPTION of chemical B, and it always results in what science PERCEIVES as chemical C.

You give it to cancer patient Z, and PERCEIVE that what is called "cancer cells" die, and the patient does not.

Cancer is cured! 

Practically speaking we have what is CALLED a "breakthrough" in curing cancer, all based NOT on "things as they are really" but our PERCEPTION that state 1- dead cancer cells are "better" than result 2- that the patient dies.

We PERCEIVE that a dead patient is WORSE than dead cancer cells.

It's just not fair!

Who is advocating in favor of those pure abused, and murdered, cancer cells??

It's just not fair that we allow one cell to live, while we are MURDERING other cells!!

It's PREJUDICED!

We CANNOT allow  solid and empirical science to be polluted by irrational EMOTION!

We have NO HARD EVIDENCE that one cell is allegedly "better" than another!!

It doesn't correlate with hard reality!

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

 

Thanks for your answer, but I believe what you provided is an explanation of why we can't have reliable information, not other possible (and reasonable) meanings to the phrase.

 

So... Is the little voice a source of reliable information, whether or not we can know things outside of our perceptions?

[Leaf474]

Keeping in mind the thread topic of covenants,

if the little voice tells everybody the same thing, and if its messages are always perceived correctly, then the only covenant a person really needs to make is to listen to the little voice, it looks to me.

 

(Unless of course, the little voice tells a person to make other covenants.)

[mfbukowski]

25 minutes ago, Leaf474 said:

So... Is the little voice a source of reliable information, whether or not we can know things outside of our perceptions?

Is your conscience "reliable"?

It is if you rely on it.   

Can someone look into your brain to decide that your conscience is right or wrong, considering your values?

What you were taught as a child?

Your perceptions of the situation you are asking about?

No one else can decide these issues but you, so in this context, "reliable" either way does not apply.

If you are wearing glasses for astigmatism and someone puts on your glasses, would he exactly experience what you are experiencing?  Would his judgment be "reliable"?  

It's hard to know what that even means! 

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Leaf474 said:

Keeping in mind the thread topic of covenants,

if the little voice tells everybody the same thing, and if its messages are always perceived correctly, then the only covenant a person really needs to make is to listen to the little voice, it looks to me.

 

(Unless of course, the little voice tells a person to make other covenants.)

Pretty much agree.

If your conscience doesn't agree with what someone else is telling you, why believe THEM?

Gaslighting!

Alma 32, James 1 and Moroni 10 all seem to agree with that.

"Ask God...."

What else is there?  Who else?

A covenant MUST be confirmed, or if circumstances have changed, agency rules.  Vote with your feet!

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Nofear]

I think Blake Ostler is spot on for this topic (I disagree with him on other stuff, but this is good).

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2007/spiritual-experiences-as-the-basis-for-belief-and-commitment

[mfbukowski]

11 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I think Blake Ostler is spot on for this topic (I disagree with him on other stuff, but this is good).

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2007/spiritual-experiences-as-the-basis-for-belief-and-commitment

Dang, this guy can write!

Gets it down to the basics that all can understand and hammers it home while I am quoting Kant.  🤢

 

[Leaf474]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Is your conscience "reliable"?

Sometimes it is, but not all the time. That's why I was asking you for your opinion.

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It is if you rely on it.   

Something is reliable if it can be relied on, yes, sure... just like sustainable and sustain.

 

"Reliable information" as I've been using it here, corresponds to the reality which exists outside of my perceptions.

 

If information is reliable if it matches my conscience, then the little voice isn't the source of reliable information, my conscience is. Or maybe you're saying that the little voice and my conscience are the same thing?

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Can someone look into your brain to decide that your conscience is right or wrong, considering your values?

No. But I thought we agreed that there is a reality that exists outside of my perceptions. Or did I misunderstand that previously?

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

What you were taught as a child?

I was taught lots of things. Some of them increased my positive overall psychological state, some didn't 🙂

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Your perceptions of the situation you are asking about?

Sorry, I'm not following this part.

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

No one else can decide these issues but you, so in this context, "reliable" either way does not apply.

No one else can decide if the little voice is a source of reliable information - that which corresponds to reality outside of my perceptions - except for me?

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If you are wearing glasses for astigmatism and someone puts on your glasses, would he exactly experience what you are experiencing?  Would his judgment be "reliable"?

If my eyes are communicating reliable information, then no.

 

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It's hard to know what that even means! 

It seems like straightforward questions to me:

Does the little voice communicate information that corresponds to reality outside of my perceptions?

 

Does the little voice tell everyone the same thing?

 

Here's a couple more:

Is there more than one little voice?

Does the little voice ever communicate things that are paradoxical, such as, "I am lying".

Edited November 2, 2023 by Leaf474

[Leaf474]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Pretty much agree.

If your conscience doesn't agree with what someone else is telling you, why believe THEM?

Gaslighting!

Alma 32, James 1 and Moroni 10 all seem to agree with that.

"Ask God...."

 

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

What else is there?  Who else?

Good question. There may be lots of little voices, coming from lots of Gods. Or, I may be God. Perhaps I have fallen asleep, and this universe that I'm experiencing is my dream. In that case, there is no one else, just me.

 

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

A covenant MUST be confirmed, or if circumstances have changed, agency rules.  Vote with your feet!

 

Sorry, what do you mean by that, especially the "confirmed" part?

[Leaf474]

3 hours ago, Nofear said:

I think Blake Ostler is spot on for this topic (I disagree with him on other stuff, but this is good).

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2007/spiritual-experiences-as-the-basis-for-belief-and-commitment

Thanks for posting that article. I was reading it intending to read all the way through, but I ran into an issue: for me at least, when I hit something which I think doesn't follow logically it's really hard for me to concentrate on subsequent parts of a presentation.

 

Here's the part:

"I suggest that there would be no possibility of new experiences that break out of the framework of existing paradigms and world-views or our prior interpretations if all experience were necessarily limited to our pre-interpretive framework of interpretation."

 

Isn't a very reasonable explanation that our minds take existing pieces and put them together in a new way? Similar to how a composer makes a new song out of existing "pieces"?

 

Isn't it also very reasonable that a person can be looking for a new paradigm, but be unaware of that desire?

_________________

Please keep in mind that I say these things as someone who believes that God does communicate with us. But if we're going to tie this into something specific to the LDS Church, it seems like a good idea to me to examine the steps of the train of thought 🙂

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, Nofear said:

Indeed, not really getting into the weeds as it were. If I say that "the grass is green outside" and my friend says "the grass is green outside" ... I'm calling that corroboration. If I say "I see a clown running around my front yard waving a broom" and my friend looks and says "what clown?" then I would say that he is not corroborating my account (and I would potentially have reason to doubt my perception).

Your clown doesn’t tell you to kill the non-believers?

[Nofear]

8 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Your clown doesn’t tell you to kill the non-believers?

Wait, does yours too? Maybe I'm not imagining it!!!

[Calm]

11 hours ago, Nofear said:

I don't/won't go into the philosophical depth that mfbukowski does (though, I can appreciate the approach -- still, philosophers, bah) but one of the things that can help is corroboration. But that only works if one is telling the truth (as one honestly understand it). That is one of the reasons the Adversary is so bad. He is the father of lies. Reality is distorted and brought into confusion.

It's also one of the reasons that we have prophets. Our internal sense of truth can be corroborated by a trusted source. If what I believe and what the prophet teaches are in agreement, that greatly increases my confidence in understanding reality*. Back to Satan. He is the "accuser of the brethren". He wants to destroy that confidence. He accuses them of being liars. There are few accusers of the brethren on this board too**.

 

* And when my perception/belief contradicts the prophets than one or both of us is probably wrong. Whichever way it is my confidence is decreased and I'll hold firm conviction in abeyance until further light and truth is received.
** There is a significant difference between believing in prophetic fallibility and being an accuser of the brethren.

It still comes down to trust (who we choose to trust, why we trust, how we trust, etc) and therefore is ultimately an internal experience and subjective.

This is not a good reason not to trust though, imo.  Pragmatically speaking life is crappy when one chooses to trust very few things.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Calm

[Nofear]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

It still comes down to trust (who we choose to trust, why we trust, how we trust, etc) and therefore is ultimately an internal experience and subjective.

This is not a good reason not to trust though, imo.  Pragmatically speaking life is crappy when one chooses to trust very few things.

Agreed. Trust is key. Trust is definitely one of the majors purposes of mortality. One of the over-arching messages of the scriptures is about people trusting (and not-trusting) God. Alma's sermon on faith is about trust and that trust being validated. We ought to be able to say as Nephi did.

[Navidad]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

It still comes down to trust (who we choose to trust, why we trust, how we trust, etc) and therefore is ultimately an internal experience and subjective.

This is not a good reason not to trust though, imo.  Pragmatically speaking life is crappy when one chooses to trust very few things.

I trust my wife completely . . . well, almost completely. . . . You see, I am typing this in my office on a sub-freezing morning in Chihuahua. I have my minisplit heater going, my special homemade tire rim wood burning stove going and have a longsleeve undershirt, a thick hoodie, and a lined vest on. I am still freezing.

My wife just came in with bare feet and cotton pajamas on. She proclaimed, "It is really warm in here." Now, where is the truth? Hers or mine? For fifty-three years we have lived together with this lack of collaboration about what is warm and what is cold. She kicks the covers off; I add another down comforter. This lack of sensate cohesion has been with us our entire marriage. Who is "right?" Who is telling the "truth" about the temperature?

I look at my handy desktop thermometer and it says the room is 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It also tells me the low in this room overnight was 47 degrees Fahrenheit. What does the data say about who is "correct?" I don't know. What I know is that I have been in this room for more than two hours now and I am still cold! I wonder if this lack of collaboration is her problem or mine? No I don't. It is mine!

I am inevitably cold in my bones! I even own a pair of gloves with the fingers cut off so I can keyboard and keep my hands warm! Somehow I don't think this is a philosophically-enough-based observation for my friend and brother Mark! Oh well! Now . . . where are those gloves?

[Navidad]

1 minute ago, Nofear said:

Agreed. Trust is key. Trust is definitely one of the majors purposes of mortality. One of the over-arching messages of the scriptures is about people trusting (and not-trusting) God. Alma's sermon on faith is about trust and that trust being validated. We ought to be able to say as Nephi did.

I like this image, but I can't figure it out? Who is writing in it - from what time period? I see old looking paper with perfectly punched holes in it and old style documents (plates?) with a modern shiny steel molded binder thingy. And what is that pen? The wall looks like adobe, but the guy has a perfectly formed beard shaven with a Wilkinson-Sword blade perfection. No really, I am not OCD at all!