Believing in God - Challenge

by jgnat 153 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  King Solomon

  jgnat said:

  Is anything that cannot be dealt with in the rational realm untrue?

  I suppose you're referring to the "irrational" then, since that is, by definition, whatever lies outside the realm of rationality? Or are you referring to those concepts that in fact are not truly expressable? I having a hard time coming up with the an example, if that's what you had in mind.

  But using the first interpretation, is the irrational assumed to be untrue? I don't think so: sometimes what WAS once considered irrational actually always WAS (and later is adopted as) the truth, only the rationale was beyond human comprehension before it was clarified.

  First example that comes to mind is Galileo's heliocentric view: the prevailing "rational" thought before was that it made sense for God to place the Earth in the center of the Universe, "center-stage"; hence the Earth was accepted as in the center as a truth.
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  NewChapter

  I feel the power of what it means to live large. Those who have limited evolutionary moralism to satisfying the simplest demands (survival of the fittest) may be missing the big point, and risk falling lower than themselves.

  Well I have to strongly disagree with this statement. I don't miss any big points, nor do I fall lower than myself. Why is natural selection and the amazing and intricate process of evolution not a worthy place to get our morals? Why speak of it as 'lower' than believing it comes from a different source---a god? I don't agree that recognizing that our morals may be evolutionary robs them of any value or beauty or specialness to the human race. Some may like to say that morals come from a god, I like to say that we evolved morals---just why does my take on it cheapen it in any way? Why does that risk me falling lower than myself? What point do I risk missing? Do you think that we are unable to live large?

  Who says that our morality is satisfying the 'simplest demands'? The pressures put on our species were in no way simple demands. If I believe that natural selection has given us the potential to seek out and give love, justice, charity, kindness, honesty, empathy, compassion etc, then how can natural selection ever be lower than any other source for such morals? It produced them!

  It is also not as simple as saying that we have 'limited' our morals to evolution. We also recognize our much advanced cognitive abilities, and our abilities to make decisions and modify our behavior because we want to. We were given these abilities by a process called natural selection, and it should not be maligned as though it is not wonderful and beautiful because it is not a god.
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  frankiespeakin

  Jnat,

  The Jill Taylor talk reminded me of what it is like when I used to trip on ketamine years ago,,you completely shut off the outside world of the senses and seem to be just the soul with no attachments a strange and blissful place,, of a much more different reality.

  Anyway I take to heart what Albert E said about time: 'the difference between past, present and future is all an illusion, a persistant illusion for sure, but an illusion just the same'?',, or something very similar. So if that is the case then i suppose since eveything we experience in this world is just information stored in our brains and/or who knows where else at the quantum level of things in a super position of some sort. And according to those who do the math, no information is lost"?"(what ever that means) so in effect we are still here just not going through the imaginary slide rule of time we call the present or now. I'm sure this can be stepped out of through a variaty of ways, meditation, prayer, drugs, repititous rythyms, bumps on the head, strokes, sponateously and on and on.

  Which brings up the psyche which keeps "me" thinking I'm seperate from the rest of the Universe or should I say Multiverses now? I guess when you come right down to it we are just information gatherers passing through the stream of time in four dimentional space/time which may be a small part og 11 or 12 dimentions I don't know it is all so complicated.
• 

  jgnat

  KS:
  I see you bring up several points which I will deal with as we go.
  

  1. You continue with the theme of a dichotomy; rational vs irrational. If the rational cannot conceive of it, it is not real.
  2. You have picked up the theme of other posters that people hang on to religion, the concept of an afterlife and an overseeing God as a source of comfort in an uncertain world. I had suggested that there is a hint of condescension in this view, and you confirm this by comparing it to the justification that addicts resort to.
  3. I think you are suggesting that pondering the metaphysical is premature (tea pots in orbit), since we still have so much left to discover on the verge of reality (rationalism).
  4. How much of art is original, and how much is simply a re-telling of ancient patterns?

  I’ll cover each one separately below.
• 

  jgnat

  Point 1, rational vs irrational
  As you well know, much information is processed before it reaches the rational part of our brain. This can influence us in unexpected ways, sometimes compelling us to choose the irrational path but rationalizing it just the same. A rational conversation requires language to structure the argument. It is linear and sequential.
  
  But much of our perception is not linear. We have a whole half of the brain dedicated to manage the non-linear; great gobs of three dimensional perceptual data, moving at us through space and time. There are times when this information must be dealt with (falling teapot) before the rational mind can process the information. I suggest there are at least three non-rational influencers in all of us.
  
  

  1. The first I would call instinct, from the most primitive parts of our brain. Here resides lust, love, territoriality. We lust first, then come up with a reason for it.
  2. The second is the pre-processing and bundling of information. Here, majority rules and the brain chooses the “reality” based on best evidence. Most of the time it is right and once in a while it is spectacularly wrong. There are interesting experiments that take advantage of this pre-processing function. I am thinking of the invisible gorilla experiment , and the asch experiment as examples.
  3. The “gut instinct” which I am distinguishing from the primitive reactions listed above. This may be when for example, we feel that there is “something wrong” with a person’s behavior. Their expression may be “wrong” or their body is in an unusual position. What is wrong is inexpressible, but the knowledge is there. We may rationally choose to ignore the gut feeling, perhaps to our detriment. Given enough time, we might be able to analyse what happened and pick out the subtle cues that our rational mind could not process fast enough.

  It is too simplistic to dismiss all information that cannot be processed rationally. I suggest that it is not a matter of rational vs irrational. There is information that most certainly is best processed with our rational side. There is direct information from our multi-dimensional world that is best experienced.

  BBL
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  frankiespeakin

  I do feel that some day future that we will be able to replicate the number crunching/information-processing of the human brain tissue and that in the same time make quantum conection and have a form of consciousness take place in this device. And so I think the Dhali Lama may be right about a scientist who really love his work on computer technology might be comming back to this dimentions as one of these supercomputor machines.
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  jgnat

  I’m going to skip to Point 5, as I think it is related to point one.
  
  How much of art is original, and how much is simply a re-telling of ancient patterns?
  
  With art, both in music and in paintings, there are known patterns or rules. I am going to resort to yet another Ted video:
  Benjamin Zander, the transformative power of classical music
  He explains how a student progresses from learning the notes, to short patterns, to phrases, to the piece as a whole. I had a most transformative experience listening to his performance, as I felt profound sadness exactly where he predicted. You could say we have deconstructed the whys and wherefores of the audience reaction, and a skillful artist can evoke those feelings in others at will. The deconstruction is the rational part. The playing of the phrases is the inexpressible part.
  
  I have a similar experience when I complete a piece of artwork. I spent hours and hours under my teacher’s supervision, learning to see. Along with that came the mechanical dexterity to transfer what I see to canvas. I am the mistress of a single large brush, honing it to a point where needed, and gobbing great swaths elsewhere. My brush dances, and is no longer a barrier to the creative process. There are colors. There are colors within colors. Light and shade do their own magical dance.
  
  I no longer have patience for the newbies.
  
  One comes up and asks how to mix for flesh tones? I stare at her wondering if she has been listening, looking? There are dozens of colors for our flesh. Even the back of our hand is roadmap. Blue-green tracery just under the skin. A light tan. The deep shadows between the fingers.
  
  She wants a formula, to give her a reliable result.
  
  But the rules don’t matter a whit if you have not learned to see the dance.
  
  Another complains at the hours it is taking her to finish the rocks. She covers it over in an imaginary blue sky.
  
  I learned the beauty lies in the complexity of the rocks. I know a little about the soul of the rock, having spent so much time with it.
  
  Yes, in art there are conventions that are followed, a re-telling of ancient patterns that people recognize and reliably respond to. I maintain, though, that codifying the conventions is never enough. The best art comes in the flow.

  New Chapter, I have not forgotten you.
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  braincleaned

  I agree with Bertrand Russell.
  (Interview 1959):
  
  Q: Do you think there’s a practical reason for having a religious belief, for many people?

  Russell: Well, there can’t be a practical reason for believing what isn’t true. That’s quite... at least, I rule it out as impossible. Either the thing is true, or it isn’t. If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn’t, you shouldn’t. And if you can’t find out whether it’s true or whether it isn’t, you should suspend judgment. But you can’t... it seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful, and not because you think it’s true.

  So, no - there is no good reason that part of us should reach beyond our base natures, to reach for that which is unproven to be bigger than ourselves, without any evidence.
• 

  jgnat

  Regarding replicating the brain's circuitry, frankiespeakin. That might be tough to do, as the brain constantly recircuits itself based on demand.

  You might be interested in this Ted talk, where we are seeing progress in human-computer partnership. Computers are great for high-volume processing, which we are notably lousy at.

  http://www.ted.com/talks/shyam_sankar_the_rise_of_human_computer_cooperation.html
• 

  King Solomon

  thanks for the response, jgnat. Much I wish to write on that, since you are an artist and have first-hand experiences to relate to what I have to relate... It's a fave topic of mine, eg how ocular pathology may have effected the output of famous artists in the past. Interesting stuff....

  But to back up to this (which was based on a comment jgnat said):

  NC said:
  
  I don't agree that recognizing that our morals may be evolutionary robs them of any value or beauty or specialness to the human race. Some may like to say that morals come from a god, I like to say that we evolved morals---just why does my take on it cheapen it in any way? Why does that risk me falling lower than myself? What point do I risk missing? Do you think that we are unable to live large?
  Jgnat dismisses natural selection as being "survival of the fittest", when no one I know who understands the complexity and modern understanding of the process of 'natural selection' would ever repeat that ol' hackneyed oversimplification from decades ago. That suggests jgnat really hasn't even scratched the surface of the topic, for natural selection offers great insight and perspective into the fundamental realities of life on Earth as it actually exists, and not just as we'd HOPE it to be (where humans create models of God in THEIR image).

  I don't know of any particular resources that explain evo/NS in one place (and not to discourage you, jgnat, but it almost does take an in-depth study of biology at college, which includes taking courses in evolution, to grasp the complexiities of the subject). PBS has some good shows ("What Darwin Never Knew" was good), but it's like touching a large elephant while blind-folded: everyone touches a different aspect of the animal and gets a different impression of what it is, based on their prior exposure. It takes time to probe the entire animal to get a big picture....

  NC, any recommendations for books for jgnat on evo/NS?