Ahhh, yes, FD, let us all bow to the Great God of Rationality and Intellectualism.
String theory, Relativity, and angels
by onacruse 133 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Terry
A theory which explains everything; explains nothing.
That is the problem with the Bible and any religion. All Christian religions, cults and sects use the same references and "prove" their orthodoxies by it.
About math.....it is an artificial construct. It is a tool. It is remarkably consistent in allowing us to prove the elusive and predict the possible and verify the actual.
My problem with Immanuel Kant and his ilk is Primacy of Consciousness.
Kant and others of mystical leanings tend to make the source of reality interior to our thinking. This is dangerous delusional distortion. Our mind is a receptor of stimulus. Our 5 senses are receivers of external stimuli. The result of any stimulus is a response. What do we do with our nerve ending response to outside stimuli?
First a description of PRIMACY OF EXISTENCE
1.Cognition and Measurement: The base of all of man's knowledge is the perceptual level of awareness. Man grasps the evidence of his (externally stimulated) senses. He apprehends external reality thereby. To say of something: "IT IS" is to recognize that "it" means an entity, "is" has existence. Regarding such an entity as a "unit" (separating it from all fellow stimulants)becomes the basis of mathmatical measurement.
2.Regarding an external stimulus as an entity (an "it") and regarding it as a member of a group is to establish a quantitative relationship. By using measurements (dividing one thing from all others) the range of man's knowledge increases.
3.Concept Formation: Identifying the same/different aspects of an entity (thing) and differentiating by measure and degree it becomes possible to isolate two or more existents (things) by means of those distinguishing characteristics. When the characteristic is kept and the specific measurement is excluded a CONCEPT is formed. TREE, for example, excludes how large, how many leaves, what color? etc) The Concept becomes the master file.
4.Abstraction from Abstraction: The Concept stands for a great many particulars in a general way. Only common characteristics are allowed in a single given Concept file. When a concept is narrowed and subdivided into subfiles the general becomes refined into more and more specifics. TREE contains a subfile:Hardwood, a subfile: deciduous, a subfile: evergreen, etc.)
5.Concepts of Consciousness: Two fundamental attributes are required for a state of consciousness. First, the _content_of one's awareness (subject or entity). Secondly, the _action_or process toward that entity. Consciousness too can have concepts by generalizing from similar states and narrowing them down into subfiles. Concepts can be true or false according to their factual content. Example: Ghosts, Unicorns, Bigfoot. A state of consciousness which regards those examples as true would be different from the state of consciousness that regards them as fictions. The factual content supports or destroys the verification process.
6.DEFINITIONS: The nature of all the units contained in a Concept. A definition can be more or less factual or accurate. A definition, in order to be accurate and factual, must contain specific characteristics, measurements, instances that are verifiable in a given context. As one takes in more and more information and processes that information the definitions of a concept or updated and refined.
7.Axiomatic Concepts: primary facts of reality implicit in all knowledge. An axiom must not be a matter of arbitrary choice. The opposite of an axiom must be unthinkable. Example: a sqare circle.
8.Consciousness and Identity: the gap between consciousness and reality is a matter of the power of focus, identification, conceptualization and constant refinement by testing, experimentation and objective analysis. A man must constantly ask: What do I know? and "How do I know it?
Immanuel Kant and other Mystics invalidate man's ability to perform the act of perceiving reality by his senses. They invalidate the law of identity. An analogy: When man discovers that his physical existence is of a certain nature with specific needs applying to that nature; only then does he proceed to satisfy the needs of that physical nature properly. (Eating the right foods, exercise, clothing, shelter, etc.) The same is true of the awareness of his mind and its nature in cognative processing. Only by perceiving external reality, identifying specifics, generalizing into concepts, refining into subfolders with factual definitions and constant updating by exposure to more and more experience---by those methods man acquires useful knowledge.
Primacy of Consciousness short-circuits rational thought. Internally generated "insight" or "intution" bypasses reality and its source of data. Wishful thinking, dreams, personal preferences, prejudices, superstitions, hearsay, fears become the subsituted source of "data".
The result? Myth, hallucination, religion, old wives' tales, urban legands, UFO kidnappings, etc.
NOTE:
An hypothesis when tested and constantly falsified, leads to a Theory (in the scientific sense) which can act as an Axiom until it fails in some way. Science searches for the failure to predict. Without prediction no theory has value. A prediction that is successful and repeatable over and over connects the guesses with the facts.
RELIGIOUS ideas and mystical assertions are free of any means of testing them. When you are told that you must pray and that God answers your prayers, it does not good to complain that your prayers are not answered. You will be told you don't have enough faith or that the answer was "no". If you are told Jesus will come in 1914 and you complain it didn't happen; you will be told he is invisible. And so on. No proof is possible with the mystic. The source of a mystic's "data" is his own mind!
That is why I take exception to the assault on man's mind by such philosophers as Kant. I prefer Aristotle and Mortimer J. Adler.
As far as the relevence to our general topic? I leave you to make the connection :)
Terry
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Sunnygal41
Immanuel Kant and other Mystics invalidate man's ability to perform the act of perceiving reality by his senses. They invalidate the law of identity. An analogy: When man discovers that his physical existence is of a certain nature with specific needs applying to that nature; only then does he proceed to satisfy the needs of that physical nature properly. (Eating the right foods, exercise, clothing, shelter, etc.) The same is true of the awareness of his mind and its nature in cognative processing. Only by perceiving external reality, identifying specifics, generalizing into concepts, refining into subfolders with factual definitions and constant updating by exposure to more and more experience---by those methods man acquires useful knowledge.
I can't believe you really believe this, Terry. This is sooooo black and white thinking! LOL! What about the "concept" of a finely balanced medium? Why must it be one way or the other, all or nothing? Hmmmm.........
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funkyderek
Ahhh, yes, FD, let us all bow to the Great God of Rationality and Intellectualism.
It's OK, Sunnygal, you can get up. Rationality isn't something that requires your worship, nor is it anything to be afraid of. In fact, you probably use it every day - yes, even you! When you lose your keys and you try to remember the last place you had them, you're being rational. When you're shopping and you compare price and quality of similar items in order to get the best deal, you're being rational. When you want to stop your car and you press the brake pedal, guess what?! You're being rational again. See, it's not that scary and it's not really difficult. The only problem is that some people refuse to use this highly effective process when it comes to the big questions, even considering it a badge of honour that for such questions, they abandon reason and embrace its antithesis.
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Sunnygal41
LMAO@ FD! I know, FD, it is soooo easy to give our power over to black and white thinking. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in it and our own personal investment in it that we forget other views are possible.............
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LittleToe
Terry:
About math.....it is an artificial construct. It is a tool...
As is religion. I leave you to make the connection
I'm pleased that you appear to have stopped begging us to ignore your posts, though. You have a lot of thought-provoking things to say
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Terry
I'm not sure what the IN BETWEEN would be to "balance" primacy of consciousness with primacy of existence. Could you give me an example of how they are not mutually exclusive?
Are you asserting that we are born with actual data inside our head? Could you give me an example of that? I'd love to know.
As far as not warning everybody to ignore me in my last post. That was my mistake! I have one of those dangerous magpie brains. I never went to college and I'm self-taught. I am the very blueprint of what a crackpot is. Just think of me as the Village Idiot. Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about. I just have the semblance of the process of reason.
I invite and enjoy refutations. I simply should not be taken as a source of serious intelligence.
Terry
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Xena
Wouldn't classify you as a crackpot (yet anyway) Terry....just very very wordy
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Pole
Terry,
Are you asserting that we are born with actual data inside our head? Could you give me an example of that? I'd love to know.
It wasn't me who was asserting this and I don't know why this person was asserting it (I got lost half-way through the thread), but I'm giving you an example of inborn knowledge:
Example:
Human language - at least in the generative linguistics paradigm is believed to be PARTLY "innate" in humans.
The "innateness theory of language aquisition" developed by Noam Chomsky was a major breakthrough in 20th century linguistics and cognitive sciences, and it is in opposition to purely behaviourist theories (you learn by repetition and imitation only). It has now lost much of its appeal and Chomsky has become more of a leftist activist than a liguist, but the premises of the theory have remained unchallenged.
If you consider the amount of linguistic input we are exposed to as children, it seems to be very scarce and totally incommensurate with the speed with which children acquire language. Hence it has been claimed that humans have an innate "Universal Grammar" which gets activated when exposed to naturally occuring language. This ability starts fading at the age of 6 and disappears completely by the age of 12-14 in some 95% of humans. There is some solid evidence for it from the fields of developmental psychology and neurology.
Of course nobody claims the Universal Grammar is equivalent to any specific language. Rather, what generative linguists say is that it's like a general software framework that any child comes "bundled with" so the child can master any human language that it happens to be exposed to.
Despite numerous attempts, so far nobody has managed to show a working example of such a universal grammar framework, but again the premises are pretty convincing anyway.
Just a possible example of some "actual data inside our head".
Pole
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frenchbabyface
Well I don't know ...
but there are thing that I've tested and there must be an explanation (and we could probably find a lot of different) So I'll only ask some questions.
- what if what we call an angel (even personnal angel) is a part of us ? (like born with)
or
- what if this part of us was and stay's an indidividual entity ? (like born connected)
and now
- What if this part of us or this entity connected to us unable us to do more than we think with ?
and then
- What if there could be different ways to use this part of us or connection ?
Also
- What if we forget about this part of us (as ours or connected to) and miss this part of us ?
Also It wouldn't absolutely means that there is a God but only state of connection for each individual and why not, an all in one and collective entity by stage : individuals - groups - universal ; all related together ... just like everything in the tiny thing before the BIG BANG (for instance)