Good point rem! I think the thing is, the real answer is probably so bizarre as to be beyond our understanding or maybe even our imagining. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if life is an accidental by- product of something else. We always have to consider ourselves the center of everything. Not likely!
Strong Anthropic Principal or. . .
by ninjaturtle 16 Replies latest jw friends
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JanH
Very well stated, rem, as always.
The anthropic principle is simply another form of extreme anthro-centricism, which again is a form of self-centricism. We are, after all, ourselves, and everybody and everything else is just them
It reminds me about Calvin (in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, which often touched on quite sophisticated philosophical subjects) who argued that since the chance of himself being born was so small, then the whole purpose of the universe and human history would have to be to produce him. Now, a flattering thought, but how real is it?
- Jan
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- "How do you write women so well?" - "I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability." (Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets") -
Francois
The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe. The materialistic dismay and despair of a mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist whose very supermaterial insight formulates these mistaken and self-contradictory concepts of a materialistic universe.
Values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.
The realities and values of spiritual progress are not a "psychologic projection"--a mere glorified daydream of the material mind. Such things are the spiritual forecasts of the indwelling spirit, the spirit of God living in the mind of man. And do not let our dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of "relativity" disturb our concepts of the eternity and infinity of God. And in all our solicitation concerning the necessity for self-expression do not make the mistake of failing to provide for spirit-expression, the manifestation of our real and better selves.
If this were only a material universe, material man would never be able to arrive at the concept of the mechanistic character of such an exclusively material existence. This very mechanistic concept of the universe is in itself a nonmaterial phenomenon of mind, and all mind is of nonmaterial origin, no matter how thoroughly it may appear to be materially conditioned and mechanistically controlled.
The partially evolved mental mechanism of mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man's conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic.
The very pessimism of the most pessimistic materialist is, in and of itself, sufficient proof that the universe of the pessimist is not wholly material. Both optimism and pessimism are concept reactions in a mind conscious of values as well as of facts. If the universe were truly what the materialist regards it to be, man as a human machine would then be devoid of all conscious recognition of that very fact. Without the consciousness of the concept of values within the spirit-born mind, the fact of universe materialism and the mechanistic phenomena of universe operation would be wholly unrecognized by man. One machine cannot be conscious of the nature or value of another machine.
A mechanistic philosophy of life and the universe cannot be scientific because science recognizes and deals only with materials and facts. Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit.
The sincere effort of man to become a mechanist represents the tragic phenomenon of that man's futile effort to commit intellectual and moral suicide. But he cannot do it.
If the universe were only material and man only a machine, there would be no science to embolden the scientist to postulate this mechanization of the universe. Machines cannot measure, classify, nor evaluate themselves. Such a scientific piece of work could be executed only by some entity of supermachine status.
If universe reality is only one vast machine, then man must be outside of the universe and apart from it in order to recognize such a fact and become conscious of the insight of such an evaluation.
If man is only a machine, by what technique does this man come to believe or claim to know that he is only a machine? The experience of self-conscious evaluation of one's self is never an attribute of a mere machine. A self-conscious and avowed mechanist is the best possible answer to mechanism. If materialism were a fact, there could be no self-conscious mechanist. It is also true that one must first be a moral person before one can perform immoral acts.
The very claim of materialism implies a supermaterial consciousness of the mind which presumes to assert such dogmas. A mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual.
Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal.
In a high civilization, art humanizes science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion--insight into spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the spirit standards of the divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art.
How foolish to presume that an automaton could conceive a philosophy of automatism, and how ridiculous that it should presume to form such a concept of other and fellow automatons!
Any scientific interpretation of the material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it.
Mechanists--humanists--tend to drift with the material currents. Idealists and spiritists dare to use their oars with intelligence and vigor in order to modify the apparently purely material course of the energy streams.
Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity. Religious experience is something in human life which is truly supermathematical.
In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals--of love and hate, of cowardice and courage--represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.
The universe is not like the laws, mechanisms, and the uniformities which the scientist discovers, and which he comes to regard as science, but rather like the curious, thinking, choosing, creative, combining, and discriminating scientist who thus observes universe phenomena and classifies the mathematical facts inherent in the mechanistic phases of the material side of creation. Neither is the universe like the art of the artist, but rather like the striving, dreaming, aspiring, and advancing artist who seeks to transcend the world of material things in an effort to achieve a spiritual goal.
But there must first be that spiritual goal. Impossible for a mechanist.
The final answer is that there are no final answers: at least not now. No matter how proud we might be of the functioning of our materialistic minds.
Francois
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ninjaturtle
A whole lot of plagiarism is going on within this thread. I think I'll leave it now.
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JanH
Plagiarism, ninja? Like what?
What I see is an excuse not to respond to solid rebuttals.
- Jan
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- "How do you write women so well?" - "I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability." (Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets") -
ballistic
Your statement as I see it is that this universe is just right for life and therefore must have been designed.
My argument is that it is just right for OUR type of life and that why OUR type of life evolved.
You would have no argument if we were in the type of universe which did not support our type of life asking why we were not here and not able to have this conversation.
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voltaire
Francois,
Why can't spiritual values be the product of mechanistic forces?