Problems with this section (Agnosticism)
by Frank Paris 
, Saturday, October 24, 2009, 19:23 (5291 days ago)
First of all, let me tell you with whom I am most sympathatic: 1. David Ray Griffin (his theology only; his politics went over the edge of credibility, even though I think our ex-pres is an evil man). 2. John B. Cobb 3. Charles Hartshorne However, I'm not married to any of those views and have my own inspiration. But they "strike a chord" and have provided me with a useful vocabulary.-I've found problems in the essay on Agnosticism. On page 7 he says, "Science examines the physical world. Religious people believe in a non-physical world." Here he seems to be making a distinction that depends on a particular concept of the divine. In my religious process view, there is no distinction between a physical world and a non-physical world. The physical world "goes all the way down" to the divine, or the physical world arises out of the divine, is "made out of" the divine. Science examines what "oozes" out of the divine. It's all one continuous process.-Then there's this statement: "But atheists such as Dawkins are convinced that the world is exclusively physical." But so is this process theologian. There is no discontinuity between the divine and the fundamental particles that make up everything we call physical. Physicality goes all the way down to the divine. There is no discontinuity. At the same time we can say that all there is is the physical and all there is is the divine. This is akin to what the mystics have realized since time immemorial: All is One.-The above quotation goes on: "...scientists examine the physical world, and therefore scientists will one day discover the truth, and the truth is that there is nothing but the physical world. The perfect circle." True enough, but the physical world is "made out of" the divine. It is a perfect circle.-He quotes Dawkins: "An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is someone who believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body, and no miracles." Amazing how close Dawkins' atheism is to process theology, yet process theology is anything but atheism. The process theologian can accept everything in that quotation, yet still find the divine in all of it.-Dawkins goes on to say that the atheist "acknowledges that there are things we do not understand, and expresses the hope that one day we will be able to prove that their source is physical." Doing so will not affect the process theologian's faith in the least. Once again, the protagonists on both sides assume a traditional Christian idea of the divine and get wrapped up in specious disagreements. Christians and atheists both argue from the same presuppositions, which have nothing to do with reality. For this reason, their arguments don't interest me.-Then the section on Evolution starts. But that's the subject for another post. I'll just say this: like Dawkins and every other person who truly understands how evolution works, I am opposed to "Intelligent Design" as the term in used in the literature and in politics. This is because that understanding of "Intelligent Design" implies self-conscious, divine intervention that contravenes the laws of nature: periodically working miracles to move things forward. In both my view and Dawkins, that's never necessary, and there is no compelling reason why things have to move forward. It just so happens that sometimes they do move forward, simply because there's room in eco-space for that to happen strictly by chance. So the natural laws are "smart enough" on their own. But on my view, the natural laws are grounded in the divine nature. Everything is "made out of" God-stuff, and so it is not theologically surprising that there is "room" in nature for wonderful creatures to arise, strictly by chance.
Problems with this section
by David Turell , Sunday, October 25, 2009, 01:13 (5291 days ago) @ Frank Paris
First of all, let me tell you with whom I am most sympathatic: > 1. David Ray Griffin (his theology only; his politics went over the edge of credibility, even though I think our ex-pres is an evil man). > 2. John B. Cobb > 3. Charles Hartshorne > However, I'm not married to any of those views and have my own inspiration. But they "strike a chord" and have provided me with a useful vocabulary. > > I've found problems in the essay on Agnosticism. On page 7 he says, "Science examines the physical world. Religious people believe in a non-physical world." Here he seems to be making a distinction that depends on a particular concept of the divine. In my religious process view, there is no distinction between a physical world and a non-physical world. The physical world "goes all the way down" to the divine, or the physical world arises out of the divine, is "made out of" the divine. Science examines what "oozes" out of the divine. It's all one continuous process. > > Then there's this statement: "But atheists such as Dawkins are convinced that the world is exclusively physical." But so is this process theologian. There is no discontinuity between the divine and the fundamental particles that make up everything we call physical. Physicality goes all the way down to the divine. There is no discontinuity. At the same time we can say that all there is is the physical and all there is is the divine. This is akin to what the mystics have realized since time immemorial: All is One. > > The above quotation goes on: "...scientists examine the physical world, and therefore scientists will one day discover the truth, and the truth is that there is nothing but the physical world. The perfect circle." True enough, but the physical world is "made out of" the divine. It is a perfect circle. > > He quotes Dawkins: "An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is someone who believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body, and no miracles." Amazing how close Dawkins' atheism is to process theology, yet process theology is anything but atheism. The process theologian can accept everything in that quotation, yet still find the divine in all of it. > > Dawkins goes on to say that the atheist "acknowledges that there are things we do not understand, and expresses the hope that one day we will be able to prove that their source is physical." Doing so will not affect the process theologian's faith in the least. Once again, the protagonists on both sides assume a traditional Christian idea of the divine and get wrapped up in specious disagreements. Christians and atheists both argue from the same presuppositions, which have nothing to do with reality. For this reason, their arguments don't interest me. > > Then the section on Evolution starts. But that's the subject for another post. I'll just say this: like Dawkins and every other person who truly understands how evolution works, I am opposed to "Intelligent Design" as the term in used in the literature and in politics. This is because that understanding of "Intelligent Design" implies self-conscious, divine intervention that contravenes the laws of nature: periodically working miracles to move things forward. In both my view and Dawkins, that's never necessary, and there is no compelling reason why things have to move forward. It just so happens that sometimes they do move forward, simply because there's room in eco-space for that to happen strictly by chance. So the natural laws are "smart enough" on their own. But on my view, the natural laws are grounded in the divine nature. Everything is "made out of" God-stuff, and so it is not theologically surprising that there is "room" in nature for wonderful creatures to arise, strictly by chance.
Problems with this section
by David Turell , Sunday, October 25, 2009, 01:24 (5291 days ago) @ David Turell
The physical world "goes all the way down" to the divine, or the physical world arises out of the divine, is "made out of" the divine. Science examines what "oozes" out of the divine. It's all one continuous process.-I need to understand what you mean by 'divine' > This is akin to what the mystics have realized since time immemorial: All is One.-Certainly true, for me as I look at the universe and its inhabitants. > > > > The above quotation goes on: "...scientists examine the physical world, and therefore scientists will one day discover the truth, and the truth is that there is nothing but the physical world. The perfect circle." True enough, but the physical world is "made out of" the divine. It is a perfect circle.-I'm still confused by the word 'divine' as you use it. > > > > He quotes Dawkins: "An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is someone who believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body, and no miracles." Amazing how close Dawkins' atheism is to process theology, yet process theology is anything but atheism. The process theologian can accept everything in that quotation, yet still find the divine in all of it.-I'm still confused > > > > Dawkins goes on to say that the atheist "acknowledges that there are things we do not understand, and expresses the hope that one day we will be able to prove that their source is physical." Doing so will not affect the process theologian's faith in the least. Once again, the protagonists on both sides assume a traditional Christian idea of the divine and get wrapped up in specious disagreements. Christians and atheists both argue from the same presuppositions, which have nothing to do with reality. For this reason, their arguments don't interest me.-Nor me. I am a panentheist. Many of your statements sound like my thinking, but I think there is a divine universal intelligence which created this universe and exists both within and without this universe.-> > > > Then the section on Evolution starts. But that's the subject for another post. I'll just say this: like Dawkins and every other person who truly understands how evolution works, I am opposed to "Intelligent Design" as the term in used in the literature and in politics. This is because that understanding of "Intelligent Design" implies self-conscious, divine intervention that contravenes the laws of nature: periodically working miracles to move things forward. In both my view and Dawkins, that's never necessary, and there is no compelling reason why things have to move forward. It just so happens that sometimes they do move forward, simply because there's room in eco-space for that to happen strictly by chance. So the natural laws are "smart enough" on their own. But on my view, the natural laws are grounded in the divine nature. Everything is "made out of" God-stuff, and so it is not theologically surprising that there is "room" in nature for wonderful creatures to arise, strictly by chance.-What then is 'God-stuff'? Do you mean it is natural and material? I need more description from you. I'm delighted Matt invited you on board, and welcome, Frank Paris. I'm sure I have someone else to disagree with in the friendliest of fashions.
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Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 00:52 (5289 days ago) @ David Turell
This is the first reply to a reply I've received on this forum. Sorry about the delay, but I've been "head over heals," as they say.-> > The physical world "goes all the way down" to the divine, or the physical world arises out of the divine, is "made out of" the divine. Science examines what "oozes" out of the divine. It's all one continuous process. > > I need to understand what you mean by 'divine'-I don't think it's possible to talk about God in objective terms. Theology ain't science and we should never make the mistake of ever dreaming it is or can be. We can only speak mythologically, in terms that point beyond themselves. "Beyond to what?" I hear you asking, just as you asked what I meant by "the divine." Well, beyond to the divine. To the ineffable. To what is behind the sense of the sacred in our experience. -Religious beliefs and theology to my mind are nothing more than "theories" about what is behind the sense of the sacred. These theories are good and useful to the extent that they "rationalize" religious experience in terms that are are not inconsistent with the findings of modern science and which are coherent, that is, terms and statements that all hang together without self-contradiction and give due regard for one's personal religious experience, i.e. one's sense of the sacred.-If you have to ask what I mean by "the sense of the sacred," and in your own experience you've never had anything you can call that, then not much of anything I am likely to post up on this forum is going to be of interest to you. That's about all I can say.- <snip> > > > He quotes Dawkins: "An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is someone who believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body, and no miracles." Amazing how close Dawkins' atheism is to process theology, yet process theology is anything but atheism. The process theologian can accept everything in that quotation, yet still find the divine in all of it. > > I'm still confused-What I mean is process theology has essential formulations that are in effect mythological statements that point to the origins of the sense of the sacred. If that doesn't "ring any bells," there's not much else I can say.->>> I think there is a divine universal intelligence which created this universe and exists both within and without this universe.-I also think "there is a divine universal intelligence...[that] exists both within and without this universe" but I have to be careful in going along with the "created this universe" part. In a sense I can agree with it, but not in any conventional sense. In that regard, I have to ask you a question: what do you mean by "created"? I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being "out there" or even "within" that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow "force" them into existence according to his will, even if that takes billions of years. None of that is needed! The laws of nature by themselves are sufficient to effect the myriad of forms that we see in the natural world. In my theology however, the laws of nature proceed from the very essence of God. For that very reason, "miracles" are impossible for God, because they would contradict God's own nature.-<snip>-> What then is 'God-stuff'? Do you mean it is natural and material?-Fundamentally, yes. Everything is "made out of" God. When God "pulverizes" himself, the most fundamental "pieces" of himself are the fundamental particles of nature, whatever they are (strings? who knows!). Since the fundamental particles are little pieces of God, supremely unconscious pieces of God because they are so simple, it stands to reason that when they collect together into higher and higher forms, following their own nature and coming to a focus in a "higher" being, they become more and more conscious, eventually reaching the point where they can turn right around and look inside themselves and "see" God in his fullness down deep inside, in what we call mystical experience.-More later.
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 00:56 (5289 days ago) @ Frank Paris
This is the second part of my previous post, part II because the forum wouldn't let me post it all in one piece, something like a stinkin' 5,000 character limit.-So, continuing with my previous post, I hesitate to go beyond this without further feedback, but I have to explain one critical thing. The term Griffin uses over and over again to describe God's influence in the world, is the word, "lure." God can only consciously affect what happens in the world by acting as a "lure," by exposing his essence to consciousness. The question often asked is, how can any of us tell the difference between the "lure" of God and any of the other -- and profane -- temptations of the world? One answer is: practice! It takes tons of experience with meditation practices to get beyond the layers of confusion, distortion, fantasies, wishful thinking, and sins that becloud almost everybody except the great mystic saints.-Anyhow, to get back to my main point, God can only start having a conscious effect in the world when organisms reach a state of complexity where they themselves become conscious and can "hook up" with God. Before that point, evolution truly is undirected and completely out of the conscious control of God. But once (for example) organisms reach the point where they have a sense of beauty, God can step in and start "taking over," little by little. Human beings are merely on the threshold of coming under the conscious control of God. That's why we struggle so much with questions like, "If God really existed, why doesn't he just reveal himself in unambiguous terms?" The fact that he apparently can't, is used is "evidence" that he can't exist. But in my theology, at that is is evidence that human being have barely climbed out of the slime into consciousness.-There's no point in my elaborating this theology without further feedback. Let it emerge organically, from the need of explication.
Problems with this section
First of all, welcome to Frank, and thank you, Matt, for the introduction.-Matt has discussed process theology with us, but it will be extremely helpful if you can make certain ideas a little clearer than they are at the moment. For me, two of the great (interconnected) mysteries are the origin of life and the source of consciousness, and I'd be grateful if you could give us your slant on these.-Like Dawkins you are "convinced that the world is exclusively physical", and you believe that "All is One". As far as we know, our universe began with a Big Bang, Earth was born, and eventually life appeared here. So far, so physical. But this is where it gets complicated, and where my scepticism begins. To say that "the natural laws are "smart enough" on their own" and "the natural laws are grounded in the divine nature", and "everything is "made out of" God-stuff" explains nothing about the process that led to life and evolution. I'll try to summarize the argument here, as it's been by far the most common area of disagreement on this forum. The simplest, earliest forms of life were so complex that they could not only reproduce themselves, but they also contained within themselves the potential to change and adapt, reproduce those changes and adaptations, and eventually even "invent" new organs. We all agree that it happened. Some say that the early forms were simple enough to assemble themselves. Others, myself included, find this incredible and wonder why, if it's all so simple, our conscious, intelligent scientists are still unable to figure out how it happened.-This is where I need something more precise than "the natural laws". David Turell has asked what you mean by "divine". I would like to link this to consciousness. If your mystic "All is One" has no consciousness of itself, I see no alternative to belief that life and potential evolution were initially the product of random combinations. In that case, what is the role of the "divine"?-I accept your criticism of the term "Intelligent Design", as it has become tainted, but "design" is too useful to jettison. However, you say it implies: "divine intervention that contravenes the laws of nature: periodically working miracles to move things forward." Although many religious people believe that, I don't think any of our current contributors do. My own concept entails a possible designer using the laws of nature which it has established. It could have set up the whole code which governs evolution. And it could even have intervened by experimenting with that code (e.g. exeunt dinosaurs, or enter hominids). By science, not by magic. There need be no difference between the theist and the atheist view of the process: life began, evolution happened. But a theist will believe that God set it all up. My view ... just to avoid any misunderstanding ... is that I haven't a clue. I don't believe that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident, and I don't believe in a designer.-I'd now like to come back to your "All is One" (which, incidentally, is in line with BBella's thinking), and bring in a point made by Matt under "Lost Marbles" (24 October at 03.45): "The supernatural assertion means that it is separated from nature. Otherwise the word "supernatural" wouldn't exist." We've discussed this before, but I think it's worth repeating in this context. Science is constantly discovering more and more about nature, and for this reason I dislike the term "supernatural". There may be dimensions of existence in nature that are inaccessible to us, at least for now. I've previously mentioned the examples of "dark matter" and "dark energy", which are just expressions for something we know nothing about. If they exist, they too are part of nature. This links up with the belief you share with Dawkins that the world is "exclusively physical", as one could argue that since most of the physical world is unknown to us, it could take any form. In fact, everything outside the realm of human volition might be called nature, and whatever its substance, it might be called physical. Similarly, if there is a god of whatever kind, it too is part of nature and could be an unknown physicality. We just don't know what constitutes "nature", and so with our present, extremely limited state of knowledge, we can only speculate on what it and the physical world might be. Up to this point, I'd say theism and atheism can travel along the same road. The divergence begins with consciousness. I will again summarize my subjective view:-1) atheism: Nature has no consciousness; life came about by accident; all species evolved through random mutations and combinations, environmental influences, natural laws. 2) theism: God (perhaps another name for Nature) has consciousness; life came about by design; evolution followed. (Forget the established religions. Consciousness is the only attribute I'm concerned with for the moment.)-And so, after this very long build-up, we come back to the two questions I'd like to put to your process theology: 1) At what point does consciousness begin? 2) What is its source?
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 01:21 (5289 days ago) @ dhw
All right. To tell you the truth, so far I have only read the first short paragraph of your long reply. But that is enough to keep me busy for a half hour or so! I'll get to the rest of your post as I feel I have the time and energy.-You write, "Matt has discussed process theology with us, but it will be extremely helpful if you can make certain ideas a little clearer than they are at the moment. For me, two of the great (interconnected) mysteries are the origin of life and the source of consciousness, and I'd be grateful if you could give us your slant on these."-Funny how I seem to have answers for all this stuff! Comes from thinking about it intensely for forty years! Of course not everyone will agree they're good answers, but here goes on this one.-First, the "process theology" I "subscribe" to is my own vision of it. It has certainly been colored by my exposure to Griffin et all, but for what it's worth, I basically have my own inspiration with which Griffin and his precursors have struck a chord and provided vocabulary. This may sound pretentious, but I can't help that. Take what I say for what you think it's worth.-As for the origin of consciousness, Griffin has an answer, stemming from Whitehead, that I think is unassailable. Experience "goes all the way down" to the fundamental particles. In the fundamental particles, it is just "minimally there." It is manifest for example when one particle encounters another and there is a mutual reaction or transformation. They are "experiencing" each other. Problems only arise when you assume that experience suddenly emerges at some level of complexity from no precursors. Whitehead I believe has proved this. (Corollary: dark matter has less experience than, say, electrons, because it hardly reacts with anything.)-Organisms can build up only because of experience. Eventually, the experience becomes more and more sophisticated until consciousness begins to emerge. Hence the "origin" of consciousness. In Whitehead's and Griffin's thought, the origin of consciousness is not at all "mysterious." It is perfectly natural and not at all "miraculous."-The origin of life is basically the same thing. Life is just "metabolism" and "reproduction" with slight errors, in the face of competition. Metabolism, as Kauffman has made a career out of expounding, is just something perfectly natural that happens in a "soup" of chemical reactions. The possibility is there and so occasionally it happens.-I don't know whether you find any of that satisfactory, but I find it perfectly satisfying. Now I have to go take a rest.
Problems with this section
Frank has responded to questions posed by David and myself, but has not got beyond my own first paragraph.-First of all, thank you for taking so much trouble over your response, and apologies if our welcome to the forum has put you straight into the hot seat. Matt's references to process theology have whetted our appetite, and your arrival on the scene promises to open up new dimensions, but please don't be put off if we grill you!-Your response has covered some of the points I raised in my post, but do please read the rest of it as it will provide you with some of the background from earlier discussions.-You write: I don't think it's possible to talk about God in objective terms.-No problem. We only want to know what is your subjective view of God.-You write: If you have to ask what I mean by "the sense of the sacred" [...] then not much of anything I am likely to post up on this forum is going to be of interest to you.-Even the most fundamental of atheists, such as Dawkins, can have a sense of wonderment at life, which may be akin to your sense of the sacred. As an agnostic, I have no difficulty equating the one with the other. Part of me bows down in awe to God, part of me bows down in awe to an impersonal Nature. -You write: I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being "out there" or even "within" that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow "force" them into existence according to his will.-First of all, science cannot refute such a notion, any more than science can refute the notion that there is a universe beyond our own in which mice eat lions and my useless football team wins the cup every year. Secondly, you say "None of that is needed! The laws of nature by themselves are sufficient to effect the myriad of forms that we see in the natural world. In my theology, however, the laws of nature proceed from the very essence of God." If God is not some kind of being with a mind, I see no difference between God and Nature. In that case, you are saying that the laws of Nature proceed from the very essence of Nature, which is certainly logical but not very illuminating. If you are not saying that God is Nature, then God must be different from Nature, in which case perhaps you could explain in what way.-You go on to say that the "fundamental particles are little pieces of God, supremely unconscious pieces of God because they are so simple" but these "collect together". These organisms eventually "reach a state of complexity where they themselves become conscious and can "hook up" with God. Before that point, evolution truly is undirected and completely out of the conscious control of God." Apart from the "conscious control" (of which more in a moment), you need only substitute "Nature" for "God" and you have an atheist account of the origin of life and evolution. You have said the same in your response to my first paragraph: "Metabolism [...] is just something perfectly natural that happens in a "soup" of chemical reactions." I have tried to summarize the problem in the second paragraph of my first post to you, which briefly is that this simplistic version of the origin of life and evolution ignores the extraordinary complexities involved, and entails precisely the same atheist faith in chance that I personally find just as impossible to embrace as faith in some sort of designer.-Your next step appears initially to move you away from atheism: "But once (for example) organisms reach the point where they have a sense of beauty, God can step in and start "taking over", little by little. Human beings are merely on the threshold of coming under the conscious control of God." This indicates that your concept of God is of something conscious, and terms like "step in" and "take over" suggest some kind of being that is separate from ourselves. You have said this is not so, however, and "All is One". Are you, then, arguing that undirected "natural laws" have chanced to create consciousness, and our human consciousness makes us aware of the sacredness, the wonders, the one-ness of existence, and these are what you call God? If so, why bother with the word God at all? Why not say life is the product of impersonal, unconscious Nature, and we conscious humans are just beginning to understand and appreciate Nature's wonders? -That, I would say, is atheism. And I see nothing wrong with it if one is prepared to gloss over the complexities involved in the emergence of life and consciousness. I'm only puzzled that you should feel it necessary to complicate the pattern by bringing in "God". But as has frequently happened in my discussions with Matt, I may have totally misunderstood you, in which case I hope you'll be patient and will try again!
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 17:23 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
"First of all, science cannot refute such a notion, any more than science can refute the notion that there is a universe beyond our own in which mice eat lions and my useless football team wins the cup every year."-You're right about one thing. I went too far in saying that "science has utterly refuted the notion..." etc. etc. I should have said that science has made such a notion superfluous, and by Occam's razor we don't need to make that hypothesis.-But, to be somewhat picayune, I don't think your analogy is valid. I believe that science can "refute the notion that there is a universe beyond our own in which mice eat lions." Not if by "mice" and "lions" you mean mice and lions with the biology they have here on Earth. Naturally, we could conceive of predacious creatures as small as mice that might be able to attack large predators like lions by swarming over them, but then they wouldn't be mice, would they?-You go on to say, "If God is not some kind of being with a mind, I see no difference between God and Nature." Well, we won't have to investigate your conclusion because that is not my hypothesis. In my theology, God does have a mind, an infinitely conscious mind that loves and wishes for our self-actualization, but can only help us get there through persuasion, which requires consciousness both on the part of God and us.-"In that case, you are saying that the laws of Nature proceed from the very essence of Nature, which is certainly logical but not very illuminating." Well, since that isn't what I'm saying, we don't have to following that line of thought.-"If you are not saying that God is Nature, then God must be different from Nature, in which case perhaps you could explain in what way."-I hold to a panentheistic view: God is in Nature, but he is also external to it. God is the ground of Nature and the nature of God determines the nature of Nature. But God is not responsible for the particular forms that arise in Nature.-'Apart from the "conscious control" (of which more in a moment), you need only substitute "Nature" for "God" and you have an atheist account of the origin of life and evolution.' You don't even have to substitute "Nature" for "God" to "have an atheist account of the origin of life and evolution." I think the atheist account is perfectly satisfying. Questions of the origin of life and evolution are questions for science, not theology. It's the kiss of death for theology to get involved in those questions.-'This indicates that your concept of God is of something conscious, and terms like "step in" and "take over" suggest some kind of being that is separate from ourselves.'-Fundamentally, our ground is in God. But God is infinite and we are finite. However, we have reach the stage of biological complexity where we can look within ourselves and perceive the identity of our infinite ground with God himself. This happens in experiences of "mystical union with God," as testified by the great mystics throughout the ages.-'You have said this is not so, however, and "All is One".' I don't think you can reach this conclusion through discursive thought. It's something that certain individuals have "realized" from time to time throughout the ages. Meditation practices can shed layer after layer of "illusions" we have about ourselves until ultimately we realize the full identity of the ground of our being with God himself. But for the most part, these are temporary states of being, where our illusions return us to normal consciousness. Any individuals who are permanently in that state of being are regularly identified as "incarnations of God," as Krishna and Jesus were recognized as.-'I'm only puzzled that you should feel it necessary to complicate the pattern by bringing in "God".' It stems from personal religious experiences that I can't and feel no inclination to shake off. Ultimately, I believe that the source of all religions are these religious experiences that compel some kind of belief in God. Religions aren't just a product of wishful thinking, although to be sure this is the basis of most religious belief in most people.
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 17:29 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
"Even the most fundamental of atheists, such as Dawkins, can have a sense of wonderment at life."-Part of my theology concludes that such feelings originate from divine influences, whether occurring in atheists or avowed mystics.-"Part of me bows down in awe to God, part of me bows down in awe to an impersonal Nature."-And under my theology, both parts stem from God's influence on your consciousness, regardless of what your philosophy attributes to the source of those feelings.
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First of all, many thanks for your patient and detailed response to my post. I appreciate the lengths you have gone to, and hope you will not take offence if I continue to probe. -We need to clear up a couple of things about my own approach and your attitude to it. I have explained that I don't believe that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident, and I don't believe in a designer (I prefer this to "God", which has too many associated attributes). You find my views incoherent. This can only be because you haven't understood the nature of agnosticism. Not believing is not the same as disbelieving. An agnostic simply can't believe one argument or the other. If I were able to come down on one side, I would have a belief and would no longer be an agnostic.-You have no trouble whatsoever believing "that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." My scepticism (= non-belief) is, you say, "frankly, nonsense", and you have faith that science will explain how it all happened. One day our conscious, intelligent scientists may indeed work out how it happened, but the longer it takes, and the more complex the findings (the complexities grow greater not smaller with the advance of scientific research), and the more intelligence required to explain it, the less likely it seems to me that the process could have been accidental. You have no doubts, but I do, and you have neither the scientific nor the religious authority to call my scepticism nonsense, any more than I would have if I applied such a term to your faith in a loving God (and I would never do so).-However, the latter may possibly be the reason for your dismissive response to this issue. I have to tread carefully here, as I really don't want to cause offence and I'm aware of the constant danger that I may have misunderstood you. One of the greatest problems for conventional monotheists is to reconcile their concept of an omnipotent, all-good and benevolent God with the world's suffering and the existence of evil. By relieving God of omnipotence and the creation of life, at a stroke you can also relieve him of responsibility for evil and suffering, and can keep intact the image of a loving God. It's clear from your post that your faith in such a God is personal and inviolable, and you may be right that personal experience is the only "proof" that could persuade anybody. But this suggests that your theology follows on from your faith, and not the other way round. One might argue that if you don't need God to explain how life came into being, you only need him for your personal comfort, which of course is best served by a loving image. (Another slash by Occam?) I accept without question that your own belief itself is based on experience (I would love to know more about this), and not on wishful thinking. However, in your theological rationalization of this belief, I can't help wondering what underlies your apparent reluctance to accept the possibility that God might have been responsible for creating life.-I am further confused by another point in your post. You say: "The role of the divine is to provide the foundations of existence with the potential to evolve into conscious creatures that can know (and love!) God." Bearing in mind your insistence that the world is "exclusively physical", this seems to me to coincide precisely with the idea that God set up the initial mechanism of life and evolution, with its potential to produce human beings ... the very principle which you seem willing to dismiss. -With regard to mystical experiences, however, I have great sympathy with your arguments, though again I'm surprised that your world is only physical. Apart from my scepticism concerning the theory of abiogenesis, one reason why I'm unable to embrace atheism is the fact that I cannot account for consciousness, ideas, imagination, apparently "paranormal" acquisition of knowledge etc. If I've understood you correctly, these derive from the infinite consciousness you call God. I don't understand how this infinite consciousness (or indeed my finite consciousness) can be produced by an exclusively physical world. Does God have brain cells?-Finally (phew!), during my mystic journey to a universe beyond this universe, not only did mice (muridae cricetidae carnivorae) eat lions, but an alter Tony Blair admitted to having told lies, an alter George Bush jr. passed an intelligence test, and income tax forms were made of chocolate. Extensive research by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, and the ghosts of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, has failed to bring forth a single shred of scientific evidence to refute my claim.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 19:53 (5287 days ago) @ dhw
'I have explained that I don't believe that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident, and I don't believe in a designer (I prefer this to "God", which has too many associated attributes). You find my views incoherent. This can only be because you haven't understood the nature of agnosticism.'-Well, maybe we have a different notion of what agnosticism is. To me agnosticism means not that you "don't believe" this and you "don't believe" that, but that you just don't know. I guess I'm going by the literal meaning of the word's etymological root. If you say you don't believe this and you don't believe that, even when "this" and "that" are mutually exclusive, well, sorry, that's being incoherent.-I think what you really mean is that you just don't know whether there was a designer for the forms we see in nature or whether the basic laws of nature are sufficient to produce them. I'm just objecting to the form of your nominally agnostic stand. I don't believe it's truly agnostic, in the literal sense of that word, because in my mind an agnostic position has to be fully coherent, and connecting your two "I don't believes" with an and relationship is what makes it incoherent.-Strictly speaking, I don't know either, whether there was a designer or whether it all happened naturally. But I have to face up to my own religious experience, which compels me to believe that there is something real down there in the base of my being that transcends finitude. At the same time, I'm pretty much sold on the scientific enterprise. Being of an essentially philosophical turn of mind, all my adult life I've tried to "face the music" and reconcile these two points of view. -A radical agnostic isn't going to be willing to stick his neck out about anything. I, on the other hand, am willing to sign up to a working hypothesis that eventually we will have scientific explanations for the origin of life and that a "designer" isn't necessary. That's the scientific agenda, and I sign up to it for the strictly pragmatic reason that it has worked more successfully than any other method humanity has ever devised for finding out the way things really work. You are trying to be agnostic not only about whether a designer exists, but about whether the scientific enterprise itself is on solid grounds. You are bothered by assuming the latter. It just doesn't bother me.-Griffin points out that there's a difference between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism. Science qua science only signs up to methodological naturalism. It is true that I go slightly beyond methodological naturalism and subscribe to a metaphysical naturalism of sorts. The difference between Dawkins and myself is that I recognize that that's what I'm doing, and Dawkins doesn't seem to recognize that there's a difference.-My process theology is more radical than Griffin's. In reading him, he doesn't seem to be free of the notion that somehow God has a way with natural events that involves efficient cause regardless of whether organisms can respond to him merely as a "lure" in the face of his beauty. My metaphysics does not require this. On the other hand, the closer the arguments in process theology get to Whitehead's core doctrines, the more difficult it is to penetrate into what is really being said. I'm open to the idea that in the very core of Whiteheadian thought I might just not be intelligent enough to understand what's going on, and maybe my ideas are at bottom, incoherent. I've read certain assertions about what Griffin says that seem to deny some of my core beliefs, but in the face of those assertions, for the life of me I haven't been able to find anything in Griffin that actually refutes my own low level ideas about process thought.-But I'm straying off the main point I started with in this post. Maybe it's time to move on and address some of your other points, which I'll do in subsequent posts. I didn't even make it through the first paragraph of your post, but I'm reluctant to finish it off at this point because I may have already lost you and you may not even have read this far.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 20:01 (5287 days ago) @ dhw
"An agnostic simply can't believe one argument or the other. If I were able to come down on one side, I would have a belief and would no longer be an agnostic."-This is the last statement that I referred to in my previous post that I wasn't going to address until now. Turns out there's not much to say about it. I accept that you can't believe one argument or the other, as long as you're saying you don't know whether there is a designer or not. I just have a problem when you say, "I don't believe there's a designer and I don't believe it happened by chance." What you're doing in putting it that way is trying to maintain a contradiction. Just be content to say you don't know what is the case.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 20:49 (5287 days ago) @ dhw
"However, the latter may possibly be the reason for your dismissive response to this issue."-I think you're making too much of this. I hope it's clear by now that my main objection was to the form with which you expressed your agnosticism, saying you don't believe this and you don't believe that, when this and that are mutually exclusive. You can't not believe in both of them. What you can do is say you don't know what the truth of the matter is.-"this suggests that your theology follows on from your faith, and not the other way round." I meant more than to "suggest" this. I meant to make it clear that it is a fact. I didn't have faith until I had a mystical experience, and fragmentary experiences like it ever since. Without that experience, I'd still be an agnostic, just like you. It was only in the face of that experience that I felt compelled to come up with a coherent belief system, one that was fully in consonance with the findings of modern science. That soon led to my discovery of process thought, that I've studied through several decades because it rang so many bells for me.-Now I see that you're about to take me to task for putting faith before theology. So let me read on...-"One might argue that if you don't need God to explain how life came into being, you only need him for your personal comfort, which of course is best served by a loving image."-Actually what I encountered in my religious experience was a God of overwhelming love. That was given in my experience. It was not a conclusion I came to because it made me feel good. Once I had that, I had to account for other things I knew about life in the big city, like all the pain and suffering in the world. That primordial experience of a loving God is what made it so clear to me that God must not have efficient power in the world, that he cannot work miracles. The consequences of that just got more and more sophisticated the longer I thought about it, and it all added up to an entirely coherent theology: all knowing, all good, but not all powerful. That as it turns out is the God of process theology, which is why I found it so appealing when I encountered it.-"However, in your theological rationalization of this belief, I can't help wondering what underlies your apparent reluctance to accept the possibility that God might have been responsible for creating life."-Easy. My "marriage" with the scientific enterprise. I'm sold on it. But let me not be quite so dismissive. In a fundamental sense, God is responsible for everything, in the sense of its very being. But he is not responsible for the form of particular organisms.-Over and over throughout the history of modern science, the "God of the Gaps" has been refuted, so it didn't take me long to dispense with it entirely. It was too easy to dispense with the God of efficient causes not to do it. It left me entirely free to wallow in the findings of modern science, while at the same time continuing to evolve a theology of the loving, supportive God I found in my own experience.-'Bearing in mind your insistence that the world is "exclusively physical", this seems to me to coincide precisely with the idea that God set up the initial mechanism of life and evolution, with its potential to produce human beings ... the very principle which you seem willing to dismiss.'-Not the way I conceive things. God didn't have to "set up" anything. The fundamental laws of nature flow out of the very nature of God and flow out naturally, without God having to think about or devise anything.-"I'm surprised that your world is only physical."-Only??? Sounds like you're short-changing the physical. I don't. I recognize that within the physical the unlimited beauty of God can be expressed. There is infinite profundity, beauty, and depth within the physical, exactly as there is in God. -"I don't understand how this infinite consciousness (or indeed my finite consciousness) can be produced by an exclusively physical world."-Again, you're entirely short-changing the possibilities of the physical. Within the physical are all the potentialities of consciousness, when it evolves up into organisms of a certain focussed complexity. The physical is not just a pile of rocks or dead, rotting meat. It has all the potentialities of God wrapped up in it. When Alan Watts said, "This is It," he didn't mean to shortchange existence. He meant to glorify it.-"Does God have brain cells?" I love your questions. In my own mystical experience, I experienced a God of infinite complexity that grows in the face of the universe that in a fundamental sense is his life. So unlike Dawkins' wishful thinking, I am not hamstrung by the notion of a perfectly simple God, as appears in classical theology. In saying that, you probably think I'm opening up an entirely new can of worms. Have at it.-I just don't know what to make of your final paragraph. Maybe someday we can get into what it could possibly mean to say that there are worlds parallel to our own and identical in all respects except for nonsensical things such as a George Bush with a high IQ.
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Frank: To me agnosticism means, not that you "don't believe" this and you "don't believe" that, but that you just don't know. You then go on to say: Strictly speaking, I don't know either, whether there was a designer or whether it all happened naturally.-In my experience of these discussions, we do need to speak "strictly", but I'll try to keep this as brief as possible because we're being side-tracked. Of course Huxley's agnosticism meant the belief that it is impossible to know whether God exists, but nowadays we tend to accept that such matters are impossible to "know" anyway. The word itself is a problem ... hence epistemology. That's why Matt insists that science is about "very likely maybes" and not "absolute truth". Even Dawkins admits that he doesn't "know", and so explains "why there almost certainly is no God". If, then, I say I don't know whether there is a designer or not, I'm in the same boat as everyone else. We can only talk in terms of belief or non-belief. An atheist believes there is no God. My agnostic position is that I don't believe there is a God and I don't believe there isn't a God. I see no "incoherence" in this or in the fact that I'm unable to believe in either explanation of life (design/accident). It would be incoherent if I said I believed in both. -A similar problem has arisen in the discussion between Matt and David under "Lost Marbles". Matt takes the statement (which I'm sure David never made): "Life is so complex, it must be designed." He asks, "How do you know it's designed?" 'Must' is as absolute as 'know', and so all kinds of philosophical problems arise. But take the statement: "Life is so complex that I believe it was designed", and you can get down to the evidence in support of the belief instead of the epistemological implications of the first statement.-Frank: I didn't have faith until I had a mystical experience. I very much hope that eventually you will trust us enough to tell us more. I myself am extremely interested in such experiences. BBella has told us about some of hers, and we have had discussions about near-death, out-of-body, and other "paranormal" experiences.-Frank: Now I see that you're about to take me to task for putting faith before theology. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I think faith has to come before theology, but I become sceptical when, for instance, scientists twist their discoveries to fit in with their existing theism or atheism, and so I wonder if you aren't doing the same with your theology. That's why I keep asking my questions, because although for you "it all added up to an entirely coherent theology", I'm struggling to latch onto its coherence.-For instance, you think that we "will have scientific explanations for the origin of life and that a "designer" isn't necessary," by which I assume you mean that life came about by accident and not design. (I say that, because I think scientists may eventually explain how it happened, but that won't tell us whether or not it was designed.) This is a matter of faith and, intriguingly, is as crucial to your concept of God as it is to the atheist belief that there is no God. Atheists need the theory to show that God is not necessary, and you need it to relieve God of his responsibility for the creation of suffering. This may explain why you're so anxious to play down what I see as the difficulties.-I wrote that I was surprised your world was "only physical" and you thought I was "short-changing the physical". By 'only' I meant 'exclusively', not 'merely', and was simply trying not to repeat the word. The reason for my surprise was that you attach great importance to mystical experiences, which are not normally associated with the physical world. I went on to ask if God has brain cells, and although you love such questions, you have not answered this one. If the world is exclusively physical, as you believe, then your mystical experiences, our own consciousness, and God's infinite consciousness must arise exclusively from physical sources too. Materialists believe that human consciousness arises from the cerebral cortex. My question is therefore a serious one: if the world is exclusively physical, what is the physical source of God's infinite consciousness? -My final paragraph was meant to be a joke! Sorry to have confused the issue. I had "taken you to task" for claiming that science had refuted the notion of some kind of being "out there". You accepted that you'd used the wrong word, but still thought science could refute the idea of mice eating lions in a different universe. Instead of quoting the common example of Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot, I thought I'd have some fun (which is not unwelcome on this forum). If you want the point put seriously: Science cannot refute what it cannot test, and it cannot test the existence of God any more than it can test my other-universe fantasies or ... if you prefer ... Russell's orbiting teapot.
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by Frank Paris , Thursday, October 29, 2009, 22:34 (5286 days ago) @ dhw
'My agnostic position is that I don't believe there is a God and I don't believe there isn't a God. I see no "incoherence" in this or in the fact that I'm unable to believe in either explanation of life (design/accident).'-Okay. I know what you're saying.-Re, near death experiences. I believe they invoke a similar state of mind experienced in mystical union. This is what happens when the human brain is pushed to extremes. It doesn't mean that there is no foundation to the experience, but our later interpretation of the significance of the experience could be mistaken. For example, if someone says she saw the "afterlife" in a near death experience, this could be an interpretation that would have to be backed up by an entire philosophical exposition of what is meant by the "afterlife." I think it's extremely difficult to come up with a coherent, much less a desirable view of living beyond death. But it's a worthy pursuit.-"I think faith has to come before theology, but I become sceptical when, for instance, scientists twist their discoveries to fit in with their existing theism or atheism," -When they do that, they're not acting as scientists, are they?-"...and so I wonder if you aren't doing the same with your theology."-Historically, that's not what happened in my case. Before I started having these experiences, I had reached a stage of profound agnosticism. For years I'd had severe doubts about my childhood religious beliefs, to the point where their contradiction with the findings of modern science caused me to reject almost everything about them. But I couldn't account for the surpreme experiences I received from listening to certain works of classical music. They seemed to elicit "divine" realms, which I "knew" were illusions, and these conclusions that I came to that there was nothing behind these profound experiences of joy just threw me into fits of profound depression. Eventually I came even to doubt my doubts and reach a point where I didn't believe anything.-That's when the experiences of mystical union started occurring, the first one a complete emersion in whatever it was I was experiencing. This was a return to "faith," although compared to what I had now, what I had in my childhood (through the age of 19), I had mere belief then, not faith. I was now grasped by something infinitely beyond myself. I was "stuck" with it, and had to try to make sense of it. At first this "faith" had no object, no rationalization, and I was tempted to apply it to some of the primitive beliefs of my childhood, but those speculations were soon abandoned, as not holding water. I decided I need to study the history and philosophy of religion and psychology to get anywhere, and I did that for about 20 years before much started firming up.-So faith definitely came first with me, and it took me ages before I knew what to make of it. All I know is that this unobjectified faith gave me a sense of profound peace and satisfaction with life -- and a reconciliation with death, I might add, even though I couldn't buy into any of the conventional views of immortality. I didn't know exactly what it meant, but death no longer seemed dreadful to me. -In any case, "the meaning of it all" took me about 20 years to begin to put together a coherent framework. I guess a Zen Buddhist would just have been content with the raw feelings of security and bliss, without "worrying" about what it all meant. Hence Buddhism's a-theism. But I was too much of a philosopher to be content with just wallowing in it, even though I clearing understood that the faith itself was much more important than the intellectual framework I gradually wrapped around it.-Well, this will do for a start.
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by Frank Paris , Thursday, October 29, 2009, 22:54 (5286 days ago) @ dhw
"This may explain why you're so anxious to play down what I see as the difficulties."-Frankly, I don't feel the slightest anxiety about this. Sorry to have misled you.-"you attach great importance to mystical experiences, which are not normally associated with the physical world."-But of course they are associated with the physical world! Mystical experiences arise out of the physical possibilities of the organization of our brain matter. But as I've tried to point out, that just shows how infinitely magnificent the potentialities of matter are. I don't seem to be getting this point across to you. All the "spiritual" is is the highest flights of the physical. And why be surprised by any of that, since the physical is grounded in divinity at its bottom?-"Materialists believe that human consciousness arises from the cerebral cortex."-As do I. I freely own up to being a materialist. It's just that I recognize the "spiritual" possibilities of materialism. I think Alan Watts had the same insight.-"My question is therefore a serious one: if the world is exclusively physical, what is the physical source of God's infinite consciousness?"-The entire physical world rests on God as the ground of its being. You're putting the cart before the horse in asking that question. The ground of the world is God, and so it is not surprising that highly conscious, physical organisms can peer down into themselves and experience mystical union with God.-"Science cannot refute what it cannot test, and it cannot test the existence of God any more than it can test my other-universe fantasies."-You won't get any argument from me there. Do you think I said anything that implied that? I thought I've been making it clear that my religious beliefs are just theories, rationalizations that try to be consistent with canonical, modern scientific findings and my own internal experiences.
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by Frank Paris , Thursday, October 29, 2009, 23:17 (5286 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"My question is therefore a serious one: if the world is exclusively physical, what is the physical source of God's infinite consciousness?"-Let me answer this again. The world is entirely physical, but God is both within and outside of the world. God is within the world in the sense that he can be experienced by conscious physical creatures in the world that are made out of physical particles. The totality of the world does not capture the totality of God. That's a defining characteristic of panentheism. This is how panentheism differs from pantheism. In fact they are radically different, and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath. -But the world is "made out of" God, or tiny "particles" of God. God spins off little "pieces" of himself, minimally conscious fundamental particles, that when they stick together and rise up in complexity, produce organisms that are more or less conscious, have more or less experience. The source of that experience and consciousness is God, all these tiny fundamental particles coming to a focus and potentiating each other, and making God more and more "apparent."-Why would I have such a peculiar view of things? Maybe it's based on insanity. But associated with these mystical experiences I keep referring to, I've frequently "seen" God "pulverizing" himself in this manner. How can any of this talk be anything but mythological? I'm trying to get at what I've "seen", but rationalizing it is most difficult.
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Frank is explaining his concept of process theology to me: "I'm trying to get at what I've "seen", but rationalizing it is most difficult." -I'm sure you've tried to do so before, but I hope very much that this discussion is as helpful to you as it is to me. Expressing the inexpressible is impossible, but I'm with Matt (and Nietzsche and Emerson!) in my admiration for all human efforts to make the attempt.-At the risk of exhausting your patience, I would like to continue the questioning in the hope of further clarification, but I'll begin with a couple of points which in themselves raise no problems and establish a great deal of common ground between us. The "supreme experiences" you receive from certain works of classical music are of huge importance to me too (another time, we can swap names). We obviously differ in their ultimate effect, and also in the fact that even those works that make me sad have never led to depression, despite my own lack of belief. I'm in awe of the genius that creates such music, and this is in no way diluted by the awareness that there may be nothing beyond the human mind that created it. -You "understood that the faith was much more important than the intellectual framework I gradually wrapped around it." Absolutely. And when I question the intellectual framework, please don't think I'm trying to undermine the faith (which I would not be able to do even if I wanted, and I don't!). -I would like to go back to one of your earlier posts. You wrote: "[...] all there is is the physical and all there is is the divine." You agreed with Dawkins who "believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking beyond the observable universe." In your latest post you emphasized that "the world is entirely physical, but God is both within and outside of the world." Both David and BBella have used similar mystic terms, and it may be that there is no explanation possible, but let's see how far we can go. By "world" do you mean the same as Dawkins' "observable universe"? If not, what do you mean? Let's forget the word "supernatural" (we've had long discussions on this, and I maintain that since we are nowhere near understanding Nature, we can't draw borderlines between natural and supernatural) and, for the time being, let's forget "creative" too. I can grasp the sense of God being 'within', but I need further explanation of what you mean by 'outside', which sounds very like Dawkins' 'beyond'. Are you saying that outside the observable, physical universe there is an infinite consciousness that is NOT physical? You will realize for yourself that this would have enormous ramifications, as would any suggestion that God's infinite, physically induced consciousness stretches indefinitely into multiple physical universes. Each time I've posed this question, you've related it to the link between human consciousness and God's, but that's not the issue here. The issue is the nature of an infinite consciousness outside the physical world.-I would like to come back to the "creative" side of God on another occasion, but I think it might be easier for both of us to take one step at a time. Once again, though, my apologies if I'm asking about things that seem obvious to you. These are ideas you have lived with for a long time, whereas for me the combination of materialism, abiogenesis, and an infinitely conscious and loving, but fundamentally helpless God comes as something of an intellectual shock!
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by Frank Paris , Friday, October 30, 2009, 20:54 (5285 days ago) @ dhw
'The "supreme experiences" you receive from certain works of classical music are of huge importance to me too (another time, we can swap names).'-Is that allowed? Talk about OT! My first great love was Gustav Mahler, whom I experienced as a 16 year old, in Bruno Walter's recording of the 2nd Symphony. That love has been abiding. It's obscene how many recordings I have of his symphonies. I soon also fell in love with Bruckner. For some reason, those two composers have always been closely associated, although they could not be more different. Only the scale of the compositions are similar.-Decades later I discovered Bach. Oh, I'd been listening to him (and Handel) since high school, but by "discovered" I mean, "what he was all about." I would "dutifully" listen to the B Minor Mass because I knew it was supposed to be a masterpiece of the ages, but it wasn't until I heard a period instrument performance of it about 1980 (Harnoncourt) that his world (and Baroque music in general) really opened up to me. It was a revelation! However, long before that, his organ music had led me to formulate the statement, "When Bach picked up his pen, God took over." I found divinity in the organ music even before I discovered period instruments, but not the orchestral and vocal music, until Harnoncourt opened my eyes. Soon it was Pinnock and Hogwood, and so on and so forth.-I fell in love with Handel's Oratorios in high school, even though they weren't performed "authentically." In my early 20's, I made up my mind to buy every one of his oratorios and operas, and I own dozens of them on CD now. Almost all my Handel recordings on on period instruments. I also have extensive collections of Purcell and Rameau, and a bunch of other 17th and 18th century composers.-"We obviously differ in their ultimate effect, and also in the fact that even those works that make me sad have never led to depression."-Music has never made me sad, even the most tragic works: Tchaikovsky's 6th, Mahler's 6th (one of my all time favorite works), etc. I think Tchaikovky's 5th is more tragic than the 6th, because he was trying to be joyful but it all seemed put on. I find the 6th a lot more honest.-Anyhow, what I mean when I say music has never made me sad, I mean while I was listening to it. I could appreciate the tragedy in Mahler's 6th and the anguish in the 9th, but while listening to it, it didn't depress me in the list. I could listen over and over and not get depress by the music itself. It's the beauty of music the moved me profoundly, never to sadness, but to profound joy. It was only in my agnostic period that after the fact I would question the validity of those deep feelings I had, in the sense that what those feeling touched had no essential ground. I rationalized that it was all made up in my head, and it was not getting down to something deeper. That depressed me, never the music itself, while I was listening. Music itself has never made me sad, and if it had, I wouldn't have listened to it.-"this is in no way diluted by the awareness that there may be nothing beyond the human mind that created it." I on the other hand believe that all aesthetic creation stems from the divine, regardless of whether the creator was an adamant atheist.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, October 30, 2009, 21:30 (5285 days ago) @ dhw
'You agreed with Dawkins who "believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking beyond the observable universe."' -No, I don't agree with this. I thought I made that clear when I spoke several times about panentheism. God goes "beyond" the world. All I've tried to say is that the only efficient causes in the world are caused by the nature of matter. God influences other conscious creatures from within, not from without, as an external cause "pushing" matter this way and that. I'm open to the reality of telepathy, although I'm not sure there is any scientific evidence for it. If it exists, I believe that it also somehow takes place from within, but I'm on shaky grounds now. If it exists, it probably works similar to the way God communicates with conscious creatures, not through efficient cause but up from our depths. God works his way into our decisions "from below," and in mystical union, explodes into our consciousness. But if you could put probes in our brain, you'd be able to see neuronic reponses corresponding to that explosion, and you might be able to find every last nerve ending producing the conscious effect, and you might be able to categorize certain patterns associated with reports of mystical experience, and if you could compile a complete analysis, you might also someday be able to say that mystical experience never occurs without those patterns. But that wouldn't prove that God really isn't there in the experience. It just demonstrates the infinite potentiality of materiality, because it is all based on the divine.-'By "world" do you mean the same as Dawkins' "observable universe"?'-Probably.-"I can grasp the sense of God being 'within', but I need further explanation of what you mean by 'outside'"-I mean that what is in the world does not encapsulate God. There is more to God than there is in the world. In a sense the world is a reflection of the life of God. I also don't limit "the world" to our universe. I really like the idea of the "multiverse" as a continuous spawning of universes through eternal inflation. The idea that our universe is the beginning of everything, that "before" the Big Bang there was absolutely nothing, just doesn't make sense to me.-"Are you saying that outside the observable, physical universe there is an infinite consciousness that is NOT physical?"-Actually, I believe it is reasonable to say that outside of the observable, physical universe, there are an infinitely of other universes that are not observable, at least within our existing science. But this is just skirting your real question. I'm saying that God extends beyond even the multiverse if it exists, yet is the ground of it, as well. The multiverse is the life of God. God is infinite, and so is the multiverse. Both have always been and always will be (to use words from my catechism). God's experience grows with the growth of the multiverse. God is not static and unchanging, yet God still has an unchanging essence. Griffin's process theology points this out as well.-"You will realize for yourself that this would have enormous ramifications, as would any suggestion that God's infinite, physically induced consciousness stretches indefinitely into multiple physical universes."-God has consciousness of physical events in the multiverse. In fact God is conscious of every physical event in the multiverse. But I'm not sure it is correct to say that God's consciousness is limited to those events. Who am I to say that?-"The issue is the nature of an infinite consciousness outside the physical world."-Who knows?-"...for me the combination of materialism, abiogenesis, and an infinitely conscious and loving, but fundamentally helpless God comes as something of an intellectual shock!"-God is the opposite of "fundamentally helpless." You could say that the entire purpose of the universe (multiverse) is for God to see a reflection of himself in it. The further along conscious creatures evolve, the more self-conscious power God has in the world. Eventually, consciousness can reach a peak where God can take over entirely and completely control every action of the individual. Ironically, that's precisely when the individual experiences the greatest amount of freedom.-PNow put that in your pipe and smoke it!
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Frank continues the daunting task of explaining process theology to me, but first a brief word about music. We share a passion for Mahler. I first got hooked by the Kindertotenlieder, and then by the 2nd Symphony. Bruckner has never reached into my depths as Mahler does, and I can't go back beyond Mozart and Schubert. For consistently spine-tingling beauty, I turn to Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius...I guess you'd have to sum me up as a Romantic.-A note on "protocol". The forum is indeed a free for all, and I think George had his tongue in his cheek (as he often does). -And so to process theology. There's been a big misunderstanding, the source of which is as follows: In the "brief guide" I quoted Dawkins, who "believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, etc." Your comment on 24 October at 19.23 was: "The process theologian can accept everything in that statement, yet still find the divine in all of it." I therefore assumed that you accepted it, but you now say: "No, I don't agree with this." (Your references to panentheism didn't help, because different people appear to have different concepts of panentheism.) Since you appeared to think there was nothing beyond the "exclusively physical" world, I'm sure you'll see why I found the intellectual framework of your faith somewhat confusing! Now that you've rejected Dawkins after all, it's clear that you think there is an intelligence lurking behind the observable, physical universe (though you still haven't said if its infinite consciousness arises solely from the physical).-"Supernatural" is a problematical term, so let's turn instead to "creative". In your response to George, you've written "[...] if strings are the fundamental particles, then all that God creates are strings, each with its own nature which it receives from God." And then: "It's only when strings come together, or "stick" together in higher and higher organizations of them (organisms), that the individual experience of each string "adds up" or comes to a focus and eventually is bright enough to produce consciousness." But God doesn't know what the particles "will do from one instant to the next". -I see no difference between these statements and the theory that God set up the original mechanism for life and evolution and then sat back (figuratively) to see what would happen. The strings ... to each of which he even gave its nature ... would not have stuck together if he hadn't made them in such a way that they could stick together. In your post of 27 October at 00.52, however, you wrote: "I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being "out there" or even "within" that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow "force" them into existence according to his will." In your response to George you write: "All God knows is that, given enough time, organisms will evolve [...] but in what form, he has no way of knowing at the beginning." Well, if God (who you say is in fact out there and within) created the strings that were complex enough to reproduce and combine, and if he knew they were going to evolve, he must have created the codes that enabled them to evolve! So he does have a mind which can conceive complex forms, and he did somehow "force" them (the strings) into existence according to his will. Even if he created them in such a way that he couldn't control their evolution, thus allowing himself to be "surprised", he's still responsible for designing them in the first place. I find this a very coherent scenario, but it could hardly be further away from the belief (27 October at 15.45) that "life and the codes for evolution" came about "by accident" ... my objections to which you dismissed as nonsense! -There are vast areas for us to explore here, including the nature of consciousness and your reference to "purpose", but we should proceed gradually, or this will become a full-time occupation! I must finish, though, as I usually do, by apologizing if there have been yet more misunderstandings. Perhaps these are inevitable when one is trying to grasp the ungraspable. (In case you haven't realized it, George would say that the ungraspable is ungraspable because there's nothing to grasp.)
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by Frank Paris , Saturday, October 31, 2009, 21:19 (5284 days ago) @ dhw
I'll say little right now because I'm tied up with something else for several more hours.-"Frank continues the daunting task of explaining process theology to me."-I guess I need to point out that there are as many ideas of what process theology is as there are people who give their opinion about it. For lots of different perspectives, see In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World, by Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, editors. This book's primary emphasis is on panentheism, but most modern panentheists adopt some species of process theology as their philosophical basis. Panentheism is ancient. Process theology largely stems from the philosophy of Whitehead, but there are many different expositions of what it means and implies. Most process theologians couch their theology in Christian mythology and claim to be Christians. I may adopt some Christian concepts and terms, but don't profess to be a Christian. For better or for worse (I suppose many would say for worse), I've developed my own -- I'm sure many would think -- "bizarre" theology, and am merely sympathetic to the currents in process theology. There's lots about the details of Whitehead's philosophy that is completely beyond my feeble intellect.
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by Frank Paris , Saturday, October 31, 2009, 21:34 (5284 days ago) @ dhw
"I can't go back beyond Mozart and Schubert. For consistently spine-tingling beauty, I turn to Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius...I guess you'd have to sum me up as a Romantic."-Hmmmm. Bach defined the essence of music, and you can't get into it? Weird.-I used to love Wagner and still love Die Meistersinger but I've let politics interfere with the rest of his music.-I love all the other Romantics you list, and I'd include Schumann in that group and some of the eastern Europeans (Dvorak and Borodin), but the Romantics are not my focus. -What about Carl Neilsen? He's sort of Romantic, and one of my favorite composers. What about Rossini? I have a couple dozen of his operas and have been enraptured by him since I was 20 years old and first heard the Barber of Seville on short wave radio in the Air Force. Much of western European Romantic music I find boring, however.-There's lots of 20th century music that I also love: all periods from Stravinsky. Prokoffiev and Shostakovich are two of my favorite composers. I used to like serial music (Schoenberg), but lost interest in it when I started having those "experiences" I've been talking about. Now the only thing of Schoenberg I like is Gurre Lieder, quintessential Romantic music! I also like Benjamin Britten and Vaughn Williams, and Walton.-The list actually goes on and on.
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by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 16:31 (5281 days ago) @ dhw
"Now that you've rejected Dawkins after all..."-Now, now, let's not overstate your case. As long as Dawkins talks about what can be scientifically observed, I agree with him. He just goes too far in making claims that nothing can exist outside of what is scientifically observable.-"though you still haven't said if its infinite consciousness arises solely from the physical"-That's because I'm not convinced that making that decision is necessary for my theology, especially when you take into consideration that "there always was and always will be" God and his life, which is manifested in material creation. Why should we be surprised if there are aspects to God's essence that will forever lie beyond the intellect of any creature to conceive, let alone understand?-"I see no difference between these statements and the theory that God set up the original mechanism for life and evolution and then sat back (figuratively) to see what would happen."-I don't make the statement that God simply "sits back" and watches the proceedings dispassionately. That's Deism, a position that seems vacuous to me. From the beginning, God is passionately interested in every event, from atoms sticking together to human beings experiencing mystical union with him. It's just that God's influence beyond the point of initial creation doesn't really come into its own until consciousness arises in evolution.-"The strings ... to each of which he even gave its nature ... would not have stuck together if he hadn't made them in such a way that they could stick together."-Agreed. That's all that's necessary to get everything going.-"Well, if God (who you say is in fact out there and within) created the strings that were complex enough to reproduce and combine, and if he knew they were going to evolve, he must have created the codes that enabled them to evolve!"-Define "codes." If you mean genetic codes, your statement is a non sequitur.-"So he does have a mind which can conceive complex forms, and he did somehow "force" them (the strings) into existence according to his will."-Absolutely. My theology depends on that. But the "forcing" is simply "spawning" tiny reflections of himself, breaking off "pieces" from himself. So there is never any "creation from nothing," which is an illogical and incoherent notion, and according to Griffin, isn't even Biblical.-"Even if he created them in such a way that he couldn't control their evolution, thus allowing himself to be "surprised", he's still responsible for designing them in the first place."-Whether he does self-consciously choose the portion of his nature that goes into each fundamental particle or whether the fundamental particles just have their nature because they are essentially a part of God is irrelevant to my theology.-'I find this a very coherent scenario, but it could hardly be further away from the belief (27 October at 15.45) that "life and the codes for evolution" came about "by accident"'-I don't see that, if you're talking about genetic codes. Those are far beyond the conscious ability of God to create, given the complete lack of control that God has over his fundamental particles once he "cuts them loose."-"In case you haven't realized it, George would say that the ungraspable is ungraspable because there's nothing to grasp."-That's his religious belief and he's welcome to it, but it doesn't cut any ice with me.
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Frank is explaining his process theology to me, and I'm in a quandary. Under no circumstances do I wish to challenge your faith, and I very much appreciate your willingness to share and discuss it with us. You're bringing us new ideas and some extremely interesting concepts and insights. On the other hand, the debater in me dislikes apparent contradictions, and the perfectionist in me wants to get things as clear as possible. So should I pursue the contradictions and risk offending you, or move on and offend my own desire for accuracy?-I'll take the risk, because I don't think you'd have entered into these discussions if it wasn't important for you to formulate your ideas coherently. I'll try to draw the threads together at the end, but will start with two of your responses that have bugged me. -1) To Dawkins' statement that an atheist is someone who "believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe..." you responded on 24 October at 19.23: "The process theologian can accept everything in that statement, yet still find the divine in all of it." On 30 October at 21.30, you wrote: "No, I don't agree with this." 2) On 27 October at 00.52 you wrote: "I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being 'out there' or even 'within' that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow 'force' them into existence according to his will." On 31 October at 19.12, I pointed out that according to your theology, God is both out there and within, does have a mind that can conceive complex forms etc. You have replied: "Absolutely. My theology depends on that." You have qualified this by attacking the "creation from nothing" notion, but that was never part of the discussion. Can we therefore now agree that both Dawkins' quotes are inapplicable to your theology?-Two unrelated points before we return to contradictions: You've finally explained why you've avoided saying whether the infinite consciousness arises solely from the physical. "That's because I'm not convinced that making that decision is necessary for my theology." That's up to you, of course, but if the question is left open, it also leaves open the possibility (nothing stronger) that there may be other non-physical forms of consciousness, e.g. human, the "paranormal".-You wrote: "I don't make the statement that God simply "sits back" and watches the proceedings dispassionately. That's Deism." You had stated that God loves us, and so I did not suggest that his watching was deistically "dispassionate". However, I'd like to know whether you think God ever interferes in human affairs, or is simply there for us to find. I'm really asking for a closer definition of God's "influence".-And now, ugh, back to another confusing set of arguments. On 27 October at 15.45, you wrote: "Personally [...] I have no trouble whatsoever believing that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." You've stated that God created the "strings" so they could stick together, which is "all that's necessary to get things going", but "by accident" suggests that he didn't know what he was doing. You wrote on 30 October at 21.30: "You could say that the entire purpose of the universe (multiverse) is for God to see a reflection of himself in it." If the universe is God, and God's purpose is to see a reflection of himself, but he didn't know what he was doing when he created the strings, why did he create the strings? I don't see how this fits in with life coming about by accident.-And so to evolution. In your post to George you wrote that God created the adhesive "strings", and knew they would evolve. I wrote that if God knew they would evolve, he must have created the codes that enabled them to do so. You ask me to define codes, and write: "If you mean genetic codes, your statement is a non sequitur." And later you say genetic codes "are far beyond the conscious ability of God to create." You can't have evolution without heredity, and you can't have heredity without genes. If we put all this together, we get the following: In order consciously to fulfil his purpose, which he knew required evolution, God accidentally created adhesive strings which were incapable of evolution (because he didn't have the conscious ability, even over billions of years, to create the mechanisms of heredity and change), but somehow he knew the strings would eventually form the mechanisms by accident. -All these apparent anomalies disappear if one argues that God is the conscious universe, deliberately created the mechanisms for life and evolution out of his own materials, has no control over how evolution develops, but watches every event with passionate interest. Perhaps it might be better to use this as a basic starting point for clarification, and you can tell me which parts you disagree with. But let me finish with apologies for what must seem like a very aggressive critique. Some of the anomalies may be through my own obtuseness, and I'm really interested in your approach, but I do like arguments to be clear. I hope you'll understand.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 04, 2009, 21:02 (5280 days ago) @ dhw
You point out as a contradiction with what I've said elsewhere the following: ""I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being 'out there' or even 'within' that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow 'force' them into existence according to his will."-There's a logical "and" in that statement. All parts of a statement with parts connected by "and" must be true or the statement as a whole is false. "and somehow 'force' them into existence" is the part I deny, and that makes the whole statement false. There is no contradiction here with what I've said elsewhere.-"Can we therefore now agree that both Dawkins' quotes are inapplicable to your theology?"-No. The "being that's out there" does not have the power to coerce complex forms into existence. At least apparently in our universe, and I'd guess in all universes.-"I'd like to know whether you think God ever interferes in human affairs, or is simply there for us to find."-He "interferes" the same way a Time magazine editorial does in "influencing" its readers. He doesn't interfere the way a football player interferes with the intention of the quarterback when he intercepts his pass. Also, I don't believe that God is "simply there for us to find." I believe that God actively tries to get through to us all the time, but we're so full of illusions and incrustations that we just can't "hear" him. It takes a great effort to free ourselves from the layer after layer that separates our consciousness from God's consciousness.-'You've stated that God created the "strings" so they could stick together, which is "all that's necessary to get things going", but "by accident" suggests that he didn't know what he was doing.'-I don't recall ever saying that God doesn't know what he's doing. That sure would be dumb.-"If the universe is God..."-I don't know how many times I have to deny this pantheistic belief: God is not the universe.-"If...he didn't know what he was doing when he created the strings..."-I don't recall ever saying that. I have no idea how God created strings, or even if it was strings that he created, but certainly nothing "higher" if strings indeed exist. But science doesn't even know if strings do exist yet. That's why I prefer to talk about "fundamental" particles, or better, processes. Whatever the fundamentals are, that's what God created. I don't think science yet knows what the fundamentals are, and may never know.-"...why did he create the strings?"-Or rather the fundamentals? As I explained previously, to watch expressions of his essence unfold over the aeons in evolution, so that he can be amazed by himself.-"I don't see how this fits in with life coming about by accident."-If by "life" you mean that which metabolizes and reproduces with slight errors, the fundamentals have the potential to hook up in various combinations that eventually exhibit the properties of life. The form that that takes is anybody's guess. We don't have to guess about what forms it takes on our planet. The forms are there to observe. But I have no idea whether the specific genetic code that Earthly life employs is inevitable. I suspect other solutions might be possible, but maybe not. For my theology, the answer to this question doesn't matter.-"If we put all this together, we get the following: In order consciously to fulfil his purpose, which he knew required evolution, God accidentally created adhesive strings which were incapable of evolution (because he didn't have the conscious ability, even over billions of years, to create the mechanisms of heredity and change), but somehow he knew the strings would eventually form the mechanisms by accident."-I don't think you're "putting together" what I've been saying, as I hope I've pointed out in this post. Based on what I think I've said, it sounds like you're making a lot of stuff up. Maybe I'm just a pathetically poor writer.-"All these apparent anomalies disappear if one argues that God is the conscious universe." -Those "apparent anomalies" have nothing to do with what I meant to say, at any rate. And I would never argue the pantheistic assertion that God is "the conscious universe." I'm not even sure what you mean by "the conscious universe." Conscious creatures exist in the universe, we know that for sure. But what does it mean to say that the universe itself is conscious? Personally I have no idea what that would mean.-I'm going to break this off now and finish up later, because apparently I've exceeded the 5,500 character limit.
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Frank: "I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being 'out there' or even 'within' that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow 'force' them into existence according to his will." There's a logical 'and' in that statement. All parts of a statement with parts connected by 'and' must be true or the statement as a whole is false. "and somehow 'force' them into existence" is the part I deny, and that makes the whole statement false. There is no contradiction here with what I've said elsewhere.-I don't know where you get such rules from, but I'm sure Dawkins will be surprised to learn that, thanks to his use of a logical 'and', he now shares your belief that there is a conscious being out there, though not a conscious being who forces things into existence. If you're with Dawkins at the beginning, syntactically I'm afraid you're stuck with him all the way.-I wonder what syntactical rule you would call on to explain your acceptance (24 October at 19.10) of Dawkins' belief that "there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural intelligence lurking behind the observable universe...", followed by your subsequent rejection of it (30 October at 21.30). But this is a barren discussion, and if you truly believe you have not contradicted yourself, we should drop it. All that matters is that we clear up the misunderstandings.-You have stated categorically that you have "no trouble whatsoever believing that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." But God created the "fundamental particles". You go on: "If by "life" you mean that which metabolizes and reproduces with slight errors, the fundamentals have the potential to hook up in various combinations that eventually exhibit the properties of life." Let me ask you three direct questions. According to your theology: 1) Did God create these particles in the knowledge that they would hook up and produce life? 2) Did God create these particles in the knowledge that when they hooked up and produced life, they would metabolize and reproduce with slight errors (which in my view leads to evolution)? 3) What do YOU mean when you say life and the codes for evolution could have come about "by accident"? (The only way I can link your two statements is by saying that if life came about by accident, but God created the life-giving particles, he didn't know what he was doing.)-You objected to my saying "If the universe is God...". On 24 October at 19.23 you wrote: "All is One." And: "All there is is the physical [though you now leave the physical nature of God's consciousness open to question] and all there is is the divine." If All is One, then God is all and all is God. So God is the (multi)universe, and the (multi)universe is God. I understand your distinction between pantheism and panentheism, since the latter = both within and without the universe, but if all there is is the divine, and the universe is NOT God (plus whatever is meant by "without" the universe), what do you mean by "the divine"? Along similar lines, you don't understand the concept of a "conscious universe", although apparently your theology depends on God having a mind. All is One, God is the universe (plus), the universe (plus) is God, God is (infinitely) conscious, so the universe is conscious. Or are you now saying that All is not One? (I need to stress that I don't have any theology of my own to push here ... I'm just trying to understand yours.)-I tried unsuccessfully to give a clear summary of what I thought you believed. Let me try again, sticking as closely as I can to your statements. All there is is the physical. God has an infinite consciousness which may or may not be physical. He is within and without the universe, and his purpose is to see himself reflected in it. He accidentally/deliberately (please delete appropriately) created the mechanisms for life and evolution out of his own materials, does not have the conscious ability to design genetic codes, but knows chance will come up with these eventually and organisms will evolve that reflect him. He has no control over how evolution develops, and watches every event with passionate interest. If that's no good, perhaps you could give us your own summary.-I'm glad you have not taken my criticisms in the wrong way. Which of us is failing to communicate properly is immaterial so long as we get there in the end. I'm going to be away for three or four days, but will look forward to resuming the quest for coherence when I return!
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 06, 2009, 17:08 (5278 days ago) @ dhw
"I don't know where you get such rules from"-This goes all the way back to Aristotle, and the Greek philosophers before him used those rules even though Aristotle was the first to codify them. A statement can consist of clauses separated by "and" and "or" conjunctions. There are well-known logical rules for determining the truth of the statement as a whole by looking at the truth of each individual clause and the conjunctions that connect them. If all of the clauses in a statement are separated by the "and" conjunction and all of the clauses except one are true, then the statement as a whole is false. I learned this several years before taking Philosophy 101 44 years ago, and so when my logic professor presented that material in that class, it was already second nature to me.-Google for "truth tables" to find out what all the rules are and how you can build a truth table to determine the truth of a statement as a whole. A simple example is the following, and my original statement followed this pattern: "It is raining and the humidity is 5%." If it is true that it is raining but false that the humidity is 5%, then the quoted statement as a whole is false.-I guess from now on I'll have to break up your statements and treat each individual clause as a separate statement and let you know whether I think each is true or false, since Aristotelian logic doesn't seem to be second nature with you. -'I wonder what syntactical rule you would call on to explain your acceptance (24 October at 19.10) of Dawkins' belief that "there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural intelligence lurking behind the observable universe...", followed by your subsequent rejection of it (30 October at 21.30).'-If I ever accepted Dawkins' statement you quote I must have been smoking some illegal weed that was addling my brain. I especially find his use of the word, lurking, offensive, as I would not characterize how God observes as "lurking." I would rather characterize it this way: as intensely interested and as involving as possible, but no more than what is possible.-Hopefully it's clear to you now what I'm really proposing and we can indeed drop this sterile discussion as you suggest we should.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 06, 2009, 17:39 (5278 days ago) @ dhw
"1) Did God create these particles in the knowledge that they would hook up and produce life?"-I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that in at least some past universes (an infinite number in fact) he had created fundamentals that did this. I don't know whether God creates the same fundamentals in all universes. It could be that the fundamentals in some universes don't produce evolving universes and they quickly fizzle out, or dissipate so quickly that evolution is impossible.-"2) Did God create these particles in the knowledge that when they hooked up and produced life, they would metabolize and reproduce with slight errors (which in my view leads to evolution)?"-I don't know. One possibility is that in each universe, God creates fundamentals with different "initial contants" just to see what happens. Sometimes (maybe once in 10**500 times) they do have the intrinsic power to evolve.-"3) What do YOU mean when you say life and the codes for evolution could have come about "by accident"?-I mean that the fundamentals were sufficient to produce the codes for evolution strictly by working through their own nature. But I don't know whether the fundamentals in our universe could only evolve life based on DNA with our codes. Maybe other genetic codes for life are possible, even within our universe. Nobody knows. That's something for science to eventually figure out, and is not a theological question.-"The only way I can link your two statements is by saying that if life came about by accident, but God created the life-giving particles, he didn't know what he was doing."-Could be, I don't know. In any case, that has nothing to do with theology. The only thing that is important is that it is possible for the fundamentals in some universe or other, once in a while, to evolve into higher life forms.-You then change the subject to my statement (common among mystics) that "All is One" and are confused by apparent contradictions with that statement. That's the subject for another post.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 06, 2009, 21:54 (5278 days ago) @ dhw
You wrote: You objected to my saying "If the universe is God...". On 24 October at 19.23 you wrote: "All is One." And: "All there is is the physical [though you now leave the physical nature of God's consciousness open to question] and all there is is the divine." If All is One, then God is all and all is God.-I don't think we should get too distracted by this. Mystics throughout the ages report the experience that "All is One", and I've had that experience myself. I would not be honest if I didn't mention having that experience since it was so powerful. The feeling that all is one emerges when you experience layer after layer of incrustations and illusions of separation being pealed away until it all seems as if separation is just an illusion. But interpreting this experience with the words, "All is One" is just a spontaneous description of the way it seems during this experience. It has bearing on my theology the way everything at base arises from the nature God and our "profane" existence is the result of wishful thinking and limited perspectives that are washed away in experiences of mystical union.-My theology is just a rationalization of the primordial experience of this underlying "unity" and I wouldn't try to push literal conclusions from the raw statement, "All is One," because that is just a mythological statement that tries vainly to point beyond itself, as all mythological statements do. In a way, my "proclamation" that "All is One" is a report that my entire theology is based on that primordial experience that cries out with that universal proclamation. My theology is an attempt to rationalize that experience. -If you're more confused than ever, that's one more reason to stay away from that proclamation. There is another expression that "popped out of me" during mytical experience that perhaps (or perhaps not) is revealing in this respect: "God normally hides his true nature from us [revealed in mystical experience] to protect himself from desecration." In a way, taking the statement, "All is One," too literally is a form of desecration.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 06, 2009, 22:27 (5278 days ago) @ dhw
This post will look at the various things you say in your penultimate paragraph.-"All there is is the physical."-What is meant by this is that all the efficient causes in the universe are physically based. Don't conclude anything if your understanding of the quote differs from this more expanded meaning.-"God has an infinite consciousness which may or may not be physical."-Well, here is the paradox. All physical things are finite and so God's consciousness could not be physical. Yet the experience we have in mystical union is of something infinite, and at the same time our consciousness "arises" out of our three pound brain (or however much it weighs: I forget). How is that possible? That's one of the problems with trying to "pin down" descriptions of religious experience, which of course is precisely what you're trying to do. You're trying to reduce religious experience to something finite just because it is grounded in something finite (the three pound lump of physical mush we call a brain).-The paradox is that our finite consciousness suddenly "breaks through" its finite origin into the infinite expanses of the divine when it gets "down" to the base of its being and "discovers" that there's an open channel down there to the infinite. As long as you try to analyze this logically, you're going to get into trouble, necessarily concluding that it's all nonsense and baseless. All I can say is that sometimes human beings discover that the apparently limited and finite basis of consciousnes, the human brain, can "break through" to infinite realms. I've tried to "explain" this by attributing it to a "discovery" that there is infinitely more to the potentialities of physical matter when it is sufficiently organized and complex than "reason" allows. Sorry, but that's the best I can do here. It's something that human being just sometimes discover for themselves, regardless of any accompanying scientific and logical reasoning.-"He is within and without the universe, and his purpose is to see himself reflected in it."-"Within" means he can look up into the world through organisms, when they are sufficiently complex. Then through their consciousness of the world, God can hope to see how matter is revealing his beauty, depth, and expansiveness.-The rest of the paragraph you're quoting from is close enough for government work. I'll have to see what you have up your sleeve if I accept that, before I make further clarifications.
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by BBella , Sunday, November 08, 2009, 19:17 (5276 days ago) @ Frank Paris
Thank you Frank for going the extra mile in trying to express the inexpressible. I relate to much of what you say below and what you have posted in past posts. There are a few differences but they are minor and I'm sure comes down, understandably, to perception and differences in expression. -But what is curious to me, is how people have similar or different personal experiences but come out with such a similar conclusion. It doesn't matter what brought the experience about, the conclusions are all very similar. I personally came upon this portal within thru an extreme condition...and I pretty much know, knowing me and the way I thought before this experience, that I would have never found this portal within myself had I not went thru this very experience. -Whether science/medicine/philosophers/Tibetan monks explains their experience as physiological, psychological, mystical or religious, it is an experience humankind has the ability to experience that cannot be denied. Regardless of how or why it happens, it happens! Humans have the ability to experience union with the divine. Who is truly qualified to say whether this is a real experience or not? The brain is going to believe what it sees/experiences. That is just part of it's evolved function! -Just wanted to add a few of my thoughts to the discussion while there is a lull.--> "God has an infinite consciousness which may or may not be physical." > > Well, here is the paradox. All physical things are finite and so God's consciousness could not be physical. Yet the experience we have in mystical union is of something infinite, and at the same time our consciousness "arises" out of our three pound brain (or however much it weighs: I forget). How is that possible? That's one of the problems with trying to "pin down" descriptions of religious experience, which of course is precisely what you're trying to do. You're trying to reduce religious experience to something finite just because it is grounded in something finite (the three pound lump of physical mush we call a brain). > > The paradox is that our finite consciousness suddenly "breaks through" its finite origin into the infinite expanses of the divine when it gets "down" to the base of its being and "discovers" that there's an open channel down there to the infinite. As long as you try to analyze this logically, you're going to get into trouble, necessarily concluding that it's all nonsense and baseless. All I can say is that sometimes human beings discover that the apparently limited and finite basis of consciousnes, the human brain, can "break through" to infinite realms. I've tried to "explain" this by attributing it to a "discovery" that there is infinitely more to the potentialities of physical matter when it is sufficiently organized and complex than "reason" allows. Sorry, but that's the best I can do here. It's something that human being just sometimes discover for themselves, regardless of any accompanying scientific and logical reasoning. > > "He is within and without the universe, and his purpose is to see himself reflected in it." > > "Within" means he can look up into the world through organisms, when they are sufficiently complex. Then through their consciousness of the world, God can hope to see how matter is revealing his beauty, depth, and expansiveness. > > The rest of the paragraph you're quoting from is close enough for government work. I'll have to see what you have up your sleeve if I accept that, before I make further clarifications.
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 08, 2009, 20:35 (5276 days ago) @ BBella
I think your attitude is very wise. You're "stuck" with the experience, and you just want to give the due that it demands.
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Frank: "It is raining and the humidity pattern is 5%." If it is true that it is raining but false that the humidity is 5%, then the quoted statement as a whole is false.-I suspect that most of us would say that half the statement is true and half is false.-The insurance man rang the front doorbell. Frank opened the door. "Hi," said the insurance man. "Quick, ring for the fire brigade. The back of your house is on fire, and the house is worth $100,000." "No it isn't," said Frank. "It's worth $150,000, and therefore the whole of your statement is false." They chatted for half an hour, moving further and further down the street as the heat and noise grew more intense, and Frank lectured the insurance salesman on Aristotelian logic and Boolean algebra. He finally went home feeling pretty damned pleased with himself. He now lives in a very large urn.-Frank: If I ever accepted Dawkins' statement you quote I must have been smoking some illegal weed that was addling my brain. -I think nearly all our misunderstandings have arisen out of various statements you made on your remarkable (smoke-filled?) debut, on Saturday 24 October at 19.23, when you repeatedly agreed with Dawkins and with atheist statements such as: "The truth is that there is nothing but the physical world". If you read through the first two-thirds of that post, I think you'll see just why we've had to spend so much time sorting out what you meant. You have now done so to a large degree, for which many thanks. I still have a few comments, though.-1) Life by accident or design? Your basic response seems to be that you don't know. A good agnostic position! However, your statement that it has nothing to do with theology is another Parisian surprise. I think anything that concerns God's relationship with the world and humanity is of vital theological concern. You propose a loving God who wants to see his own reflection in the universe. Others might argue that if he deliberately designed life as it is, he's responsible for the suffering of all living creatures. That's what I took to be the originality of your theology: God didn't make us, so he's not responsible. Naturally, you will stand by that. I'm only questioning your dismissal of the issue as irrelevant to theology.-2) Your various statements agreeing with Dawkins (I have to get that dig in) that there is nothing but the physical world apparently mean: "all the efficient causes in the universe are physically based", whereas "God's consciousness could not be physical." Now you're drawing a much clearer picture, and it's rather more conventional than the one you drew initially. In your theology, there is a distinction between God's infinite, non-physical consciousness and the physical world, even if they're inextricably connected. You have, however, neatly attempted to turn the tables on me: "You're trying to reduce religious experience to something finite just because it is grounded in something finite (the three pound lump of physical mush we call a brain)." It's the exact opposite. I've been trying to counter your apparent insistence that there is nothing outside the physical world by pinning you down on whether you think God's consciousness is physical or not. On October 28 at 14.26 I explained that one reason why I could not embrace atheism was such unexplained phenomena as "consciousness, ideas, imagination, apparently paranormal acquisition of knowledge" etc. I could have added mystic experiences. There's been a discussion between Matt, George and myself concerning science's ignorance of the nature and origin of consciousness, in which I've been arguing the possibility (no more) that it may not be ENTIRELY biological. This might tie in with the possibility (no more) of a non-physical consciousness called God. (I've just read Matt's latest on this, and will reply in due course.)-The fact that in some people the finite conscious sometimes "breaks through" into other dimensions, and experiences an "All is One" etc., is familiar to me. I too have experienced this sense of absolute unity and of overwhelming love, but crucially ... and this may seem as weird to you as my failure to respond to (most of) Bach ... it does not need God. It may come from a god or it may not. It's akin to Dawkins' sense of wonderment, and to aspects of Buddhism. BBella's comment on the universality of such experiences is certainly spot on. Unfortunately, this is also balanced by less joyous sensations when confronted by the vast scale of human (and animal) suffering.-The trick "up my sleeve" concerns your claim that God does not have the "conscious ability" to design genetic codes. This, of course, ties in with the vital (for me) question of life as the product of accident or design. Given that God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles", has a purpose (to see himself reflected), and has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials, I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind unthinking chance is! This in fact, in a different form, is one of the great battlegrounds between atheism and theism.-Once again, my thanks for all this clarification. We may not share beliefs, but at least we're coming to an understanding.
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 18:52 (5273 days ago) @ dhw
"Life by accident or design? Your basic response seems to be that you don't know. A good agnostic position!"-What I don't know is whether the fundamentals in any particular universe have the potential to evolve into life. In any particular universe, I don't know whether it is possible for fundamentals to arise out of God that produce a universe that fizzles out so fast that evolution doesn't have time to produce life, or that expands so rapidly that the development of stars and stony planets never get a chance to form.-"However, your statement that it has nothing to do with theology is another Parisian surprise."-Theologians can claim that any statement whatsoever is theological. All I'm pointing out is that if the fundamentals ever lack the potential to produce life is irrelevnt to my theology. All that matters is that fundamentals can have the potential to produce life in any universe, and we know that the answer to that question is yes.-"I think anything that concerns God's relationship with the world and humanity is of vital theological concern."-There you go, making two assertions at once again and connecting them with "and". Sorry, but I just think this is sloppy argumentation, and it is very frustrating when we're trying to be as precise as possible. So I'm forced to break this down into two statements.-First consider this: "I think anything that concerns God's relationship with the world...is of vital theological concern." I've explained that God sets worlds into motion to watch them unfold. I have no idea whether he "bothers" to do this for worlds that don't "go anywhere." I just don't see that answering that question has all that relevance to any theology that's the least bit interesting. How can a "world" without any "vitality" be of "vital" interest to theology? Only worlds that produce conscious organisms have theological relevance, at least to us as human beings.-Which brings me to your second statement: "I think anything that concerns God's relationship with...humanity is of vital theological concern." All I can say to this is, "Duh!" Tell me something that isn't as plain as the nose on your face.-"Others might argue that if he deliberately designed life as it is, he's responsible for the suffering of all living creatures. That's what I took to be the originality of your theology."-It's not that all that original. It's a main theme in the process theology from Whitehead to Griffin. I only happened to stumble into it from my own religious experience and my scientific understanding of the world we live in, and later discovered that it was nothing new.-"God didn't make us, so he's not responsible. Naturally, you will stand by that. I'm only questioning your dismissal of the issue as irrelevant to theology."-Hopefully the "issue" of true relevance is all cleared up now, and you realize that it never should have been in question.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 19:47 (5273 days ago) @ dhw
"Now you're drawing a much clearer picture, and it's rather more conventional than the one you drew initially."-This is precisely what Griffin says about his concept of God, which others encountering the God of process theology have denied. Griffin devotes a section in his book, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism, to demonstrating that his concept of God is thoroughly Biblical, even though it denies that God is all-powerful and hence is responsible for evil in the world. It is precisely that denial that theologians critical of process theology claim makes the God of process theology "not worthy of worship" (because then God would not be fearsome enough?). In any case, I'm gratified that you now think that my concept of God is "rather more conventional than the one you [think I] drew initially."-'Given that God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles", has a purpose (to see himself reflected), and has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials, I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind unthinking chance is!'-Boy, that is quite a mouthful! Lots of assertions and presumptions stuck together, some of which I can go for and some of which I can't. So if the above statement is supposed to be a summary of my views, I still have not made myself clear to you. So let's break it down, one statement at a time that does not apply to what I've at least meant if not said!-'God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles"'-I've expressed this creation of fundamentals as their simply being "minimal reflections of himself." There's nothing "clever" about it. It's more like just part of God's "instinct."-"God..has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials." -Where have I ever said this??? Once created, God doesn't "fiddle" with them at all. They just "do their thing" until organisms made up of them rise up through natural evolution that are conscious enough for God to "lure" towards himself, and thus influence them internally (not externally, which would be "fiddling"). -"I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind unthinking chance is!"-When have I ever said that God is "not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself"? I believe that all I've ever said is that there is no scientific evidence that God has done this in our universe. More about that later, but first this. Blind, unthinking chance is "capable of creating conscious reflections of [God]" because the fundamentals are each minimal reflections of the divine essence, and when they "stick together" into higher and higher organisms, all of these minimal reflections of the divine come to a focus and eventually become bright enough to become conscious enough to burst through a "porthole" to the full consciousness of God in mystical experience. I believe I've explained this in so many words a half dozen times before.-And have I ever said that God is incapable of creating conscious reflections of himself? I believe that all I've said is that in our particular universe God has only created the fundamentals. I believe I've left it a completely open question about whether God can spin off larger "chunks" of himself that are fully conscious. That's even Biblical! What are the seven hierarchies of "angels" other than just that?-I have absolutely no idea whether God has created "angels", or whether God can create "human souls" that reflect all the memories and emotions arising out of the physical human brain. But in fact I have developed portions of my theology that explore these possibilities. It's that I don't think I've even mentioned these aspects of my theology on this forum yet, because they're pretty hard to swallow for agnostics and atheists, let alone what I've expounded so far.-So for whatever reason, you are once again making assumptions about my theology that as far as I know, I have not given you reason for making. Maybe you're just asking me whether in additional to all I've said, I also "meant" to say these other things.
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by David Turell , Thursday, November 12, 2009, 00:50 (5273 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> Boy, that is quite a mouthful! Lots of assertions and presumptions stuck together, some of which I can go for and some of which I can't. So if the above statement is supposed to be a summary of my views, I still have not made myself clear to you. So let's break it down, one statement at a time that does not apply to what I've at least meant if not said!-> > So for whatever reason, you are once again making assumptions about my theology that as far as I know, I have not given you reason for making. Maybe you're just asking me whether in additional to all I've said, I also "meant" to say these other things.-Pardon me but I'd like to break into the discussion, if I may. I have not mixed into this discussion so far, because frankly I have been as confused as dhw. You appear to have meditated to the point of becoming 'at one with the universe', as it has been called in the material I have read about meditation, Kaballah, mysticism, etc. Then you seem to have taken that experience and tried to mix it into the science you know and the process theology you have read. What results is an interesting group of concepts, that I am very interested in learning. I've not had a meditative experience. I've not tried. But I have developed a somewhat similar concept without that mystic experience. Before I really enter the discussion I'd like to know if the following paragraph, short as it is, catches the essence of your theology. It seems that Bbella has had a similar mystical experience, and appreciates what you are trying to describe. Perhaps both can join in and help me comprehend their feelings and thoughts:-God is eternal and the ground of everything that exists. From part of himself he created multi-universes including our universe, or just our universe. God is not omnipotent, omniscient, and does not know the future. He has not controlled evolution of either the universe or of life. He is watching and learning as all this develops. As consciousness appears he encourages some type of intellectual interchange between conscious beings and himself.
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by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 12, 2009, 18:52 (5272 days ago) @ David Turell
I'll break your summary up into individual statements and address each in itself.-"God is eternal and the ground of everything that exists."-True.-"From part of himself he created multi-universes including our universe, or just our universe."-True, but if there is a multiverse, he created the fundamentals of each universe. I can't make any sense of the idea that ours is the only universe that ever was or ever will be. Sounds too "Christian" to me.-In my last post, I finally got around to introducing the concept that theoretically God can break off "pieces" of himself that are more than just fundamental. Theoretically he could break off pieces that are fully conscious, like the angels and souls of Christianity. However, there is no scientific evidence that our particular universe is being moved around by such creatures. This isn't to say that God hasn't done this in other universes. They could be weirder and more "supernatural" that we could possibly imagine. It's just that our universe apparently is not. Hollywood seems to love the idea and imagines in its limited and silly ways universes like that all the time, feeding off the superstitions of people who believe that we do inhabit such a universe, which science has no need of to explain everything that it has observed.-"God is not omnipotent"-In the sense of being able to work miracles that contravene natural laws, true. In the sense that he is not the ground of the fundamentals, false.-"God is not...omniscient"-As Griffin has pointed out, God knows everything that is possible to know and in that sense is omniscient.-"God...does not know the future."-Literally, true, which means that it simply is not possible to know the future. But like an extraterrestrial intelligent species that has observed life in the galaxy for billions of years, he can assess particular situations and based on vast experience can make good estimates of the probability of certain outcomes.-"He has not controlled evolution of either the universe or of life."-True, up to the point where consciousness develops in species. Then he can act as a "lure," "tempting" individuals to move this way and that by exposing his beauty to them. The more conscious a species is, the greater can be the divine influence, and ironically, the greater freedom is experienced by the species. Ultimate freedom is experienced when God takes over the reigns completely. God has then succeeded in injecting his will into the world completely, which I believe is his ultimate goal, and individuals under his sway then experience the greatest possible freedom.-"He is watching and learning as all this develops."-True.-"As consciousness appears he encourages some type of intellectual interchange between conscious beings and himself."-It depends on what you mean by "intellectual." "Mental" would be a better word. "Intellectual" has the connotation of "discursive." I'm not sure to what extent we can receive "dictation" from God, although perhaps we can. Perhaps that's what great artists experience, and what I was trying to say when in listening to certain works of Bach, I thought, "When Bach took up his pen, God took over." And look at the freedom that is expressed in his work!-It might also be possible for God to encourage some type of mental interchange between independent conscious beings, with himself as an intermediary. Maybe God is involved in telepathic communication, if such a thing exists.
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by BBella , Thursday, November 12, 2009, 19:50 (5272 days ago) @ Frank Paris
I, again, agree to most of what you have written in this post and appreciate your willingness to explain your position and your patience with the questioning.-I do wonder about this one tho:-> "God is not omnipotent" > > In the sense of being able to work miracles that contravene natural laws, true. In the sense that he is not the ground of the fundamentals, false. > -Is it possible there are natural laws that are not yet evident or are not yet fully realized by humanity that God can and/may use at times to perform what appears to mankind as miracles? -bb
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by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 12, 2009, 20:32 (5272 days ago) @ BBella
"Is it possible there are natural laws that are not yet evident or are not yet fully realized by humanity that God can and/may use at times to perform what appears to mankind as miracles?"-I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but this sounds like another "God of the gaps" thing: God is free to work miracles as long as science doesn't understand the underlying laws, but from then on he can't counteract those laws that are now known. Sounds like an effete and shifty image of God.-Of course there are laws of nature that modern science does not have an inkling of yet. There are so many things we don't understand yet associated with "dark matter," for example, and probably laws behind phenomena that we haven't even observed yet. It's just too risky to assume that God can bend those unknown laws to his will. Every time that's been invoked in the past, it isn't long before we come to understand the laws and then the "believer" finds himself in the embarrassing position of having to back down from his claims that God has been working miracles.-It's just safer to believe that we live in an entirely natural world devoid of supernatural events, and not depend on miracles to support our theology. Every time theology has done this in the past it ends of getting slapped down by the cold, hard facts once they're understood better. It's for this reason that long ago I decided that my theology could have nothing to do with miracles against natural laws, and I was very gratified when I discovered that process theology has been teaching that very thing for almost a hundred years now (since Whitehead developed his philosophy in the 1920's).-In spite of that long-winded reply, I'm still trying to fathom what you're really asking. Are you asking whether there could be observable phenomena in the world that normally "run by themselves" but that God can occasionally "push around"? Would these be "laws" that God can "break"? They would have to be laws that govern phenomena that we haven't yet observed, or that really aren't "laws." I guess I need you to be more precise what you're asking. Give me some examples.
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by BBella , Friday, November 13, 2009, 05:53 (5272 days ago) @ Frank Paris
[bb]"Is it possible there are natural laws that are not yet evident or are not yet fully realized by humanity that God can and/may use at times to perform what appears to mankind as miracles?" > > Of course there are laws of nature that modern science does not have an inkling of yet. There are so many things we don't understand yet associated with "dark matter," for example, and probably laws behind phenomena that we haven't even observed yet. -The above is what I was really asking about. You answered my question well enough to add to my understanding of your perspective/theology and I can well see just what you are saying by your answers. I can also see, by your answers, why my question was confusing for you. Many attribute miracles to God when the miracle experienced is laws/phenomena of the universe we/science have yet noted or understood. -bb
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by David Turell , Saturday, November 14, 2009, 00:19 (5271 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> "From part of himself he created multi-universes including our universe, or just our universe." > > True, but if there is a multiverse, he created the fundamentals of each universe. I can't make any sense of the idea that ours is the only universe that ever was or ever will be. Sounds too "Christian" to me. > -I'm questioning slowly. Please bear with me. If God created the universe as part of himself, what is God? Since the Big Bang arrived and created a red hot plasma of pure energy, before material items appeared, is God an energy force with a componemt of intellect? Is He all intelligent energy? Or are we just guessing what God is, and cannot have any reasonable concept?
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by Frank Paris , Saturday, November 14, 2009, 02:02 (5271 days ago) @ David Turell
"If God created the universe as part of himself, what is God?"-I'd rather put it this way. God create the universe from minimal spinoffs from his essence. What is God? I've always liked the way Tillich put it: God is the ground of all being. From Whitehead's thought we could say that God is the sources of all process. Process receives its "life" from God.-I don't know if from all I've said on previous posts on this forum the following has come across: God is the source of all consciousness. This is related to the common mystical acclamation that "All is One." With respect to consciousness and "All is One," there really is only one consciousness and that is God's consciousness. Each spec of consciousness experienced by an organism is simply God's consciousness as filtered through the limited physical confines of that organism. In mystical union, the individual overcomes, or bursts through, those limited confines and experiences the unlimited and unconditioned consciousness of God. -I've often thought that this is the true meaning of immortality: what we want to be immortal is our consciousness, and it is, because stripped of all its limitations and conditioning, it is uncovered to be God's very own consciousness. We're just participating in it, and it is immortal. However, our memories are not part of that consciousness. We are conscious of our memories, but our memories are just "tracks" running through our physical nervous system, and our consciousness can run along those tracks. This is really just God being consciousness of "episodes" in the world, or processes.-"is God an energy force with a componemt of intellect?"-God is the source of all energy (as process) and has intellect. He also has love and infinite concern for the welfare of individuals in the universe. When we love and are compassionate, or experience beauty, we're just responding to divine promptings within our being.-"Is He all intelligent energy?"-Could you rephrase that?-"are we just guessing what God is, and cannot have any reasonable concept?"-All statements about God are mythical. Myths are statements that attempt to point beyond themselves, since the essence of God is inexpressible. A concept is only reasonable within the context of entire systems of thought. A system of thought is reasonable to the extent that it is consistent, coherent, and provides intellectually satisfying accounts of our experience.
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by David Turell , Saturday, November 14, 2009, 04:34 (5271 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> I don't know if from all I've said on previous posts on this forum the following has come across: God is the source of all consciousness. This is related to the common mystical acclamation that "All is One." With respect to consciousness and "All is One," there really is only one consciousness and that is God's consciousness.> [/i]. > > > > "Is He all intelligent energy?" > > Could you rephrase that?- What I am really asking, is it your concept that God is a universal intelligence, composed entirely of energy, an energy that may create material items, but remains pure energy and immaterial.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 02:09 (5268 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by unknown, Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 02:21
> > I don't know if from all I've said on previous posts on this forum the following has come across: God is the source of all consciousness. This is related to the common mystical acclamation that "All is One." With respect to consciousness and "All is One," there really is only one consciousness and that is God's consciousness.> > [/i]. > > > > > > > "Is He all intelligent energy?" > > > > Could you rephrase that? > > > What I am really asking, is it your concept that God is a universal intelligence, composed entirely of energy, an energy that may create material items, but remains pure energy and immaterial.-Frank: The above is the post I referred to. I think your response previous to this post an hour ago answers my issues. You are saying that you do not know in any way what God 'is', that he has no substance. If he has no substance, how can He release fragments of himself with fundamentals to start a universe? Unless, of course, he changes portions of himself into energy. Fascinating concept, if that is your thought, way beyond anything I had imagined or thought of. David
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 05:35 (5268 days ago) @ David Turell
"You are saying that you do not know in any way what God 'is', that he has no substance."-No I am not. I'm saying that within process philosophy (and even since Kant!) the concept of "substance" is meaningless. I'm also saying that it is meaningless to ask what God is "made out of." The only things we can talk about being made out of something are "things" in our universe. I can say my ring is made out of Gold. But all I can say about fundamentals is that they are made out of God, not that God has "changed" portions of himself into energy. God hasn't changed anything at that level. In any case, fundamentally, all "things" aren't "things" anyhow, but everything is nothing more than process.-"Unless, of course, he changes portions of himself into energy."-God doesn't change anything at that level. God spins off minimal reflections of himself that manifest themselves in our universe as fundamentals, whatever they are, and whatever they are, they are processes. In our universe, fundamentals are indeed mass/energy, in terms of today's science. But "fundamentally," underneath, fundamentals are just processes. They aren't something that "persists" outside of process.-When God "spins" fundamentals of himself off into the universe, he isn't "changing" anything. He's not "changing portions of himself into energy." The fundamentals are minimal reflections of God that manifest themselves to science as mass and energy, but there is no "transformation" going on when God "does" this. Fundamental reflections of God "show up" in the universe as the particles and fields that science studies. Each fundamental process has its own nature, which determines its experience and how it reacts with other fundamentals, and ultimately all of them acting together over the ages produces the universe we live in.-When fields and particles "hook up," not as piles of "stuff" like lumps of dirt and disorganized sticks and stones, but as organisms, the individual fundamentals that make up the parts of the organism "coalesce" and come to a focus, exhibiting themselves as a unified, something "new". An atom for example isn't just a bunch of isolated electrons, protons, neutrons, gluons, and photons all "stuck together," but entirely new processes with newly emergent properties that could not have been foreseen beforehand. More of the same goes on, as atoms build up into molecules and macromolecules, and macromolecules unite together into cellular apparatus and cells themselves. -A living cell is just like an atom or molecule, in being an individual, not just lump of molecules all crammed together, but an organism that acts as a single being with experience richer than what is experienced by individual molecules, and so on up the scale of complexity until experience gradually exhibits itself as consciousness.-Now before reading all this, you might have felt that you were understanding everything I was saying. Now you're probably more bewildered than ever. That's good. I sense a flurry of new questions coming my way.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 19:18 (5266 days ago) @ Frank Paris
I'm saying that within process philosophy (and even since Kant!) the concept of "substance" is meaningless. I'm also saying that it is meaningless to ask what God is "made out of."-It is an obvious concept to recognize that we have no idea of what God 'is'. Each of us can guess if we wish: substance or not.-> > but everything is nothing more than process. > > God spins off minimal reflections of himself that manifest themselves in our universe as fundamentals, whatever they are, and whatever they are, they are processes. In our universe, fundamentals are indeed mass/energy, in terms of today's science. But "fundamentally," underneath, fundamentals are just processes. They aren't something that "persists" outside of process.-Are the processes programed to advance in complexity as we see in the development of the universe and the appearance of life from inorganic matter? Or is it all due to chance within a process? > > Each fundamental process has its own nature, which determines its experience and how it reacts with other fundamentals, and ultimately all of them acting together over the ages produces the universe we live in.-This sounds like pre-existing programming. > > Now before reading all this, you might have felt that you were understanding everything I was saying. Now you're probably more bewildered than ever. That's good. I sense a flurry of new questions coming my way.-I'm not bewildered. I have, obviously, my own thought-out notions. Yours are different, and I need further definition of the concept of 'processes". As I come to understand your concepts, I'm sure the whole development of your ideas will be quite logical coming out of your basic premises.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 22:02 (5266 days ago) @ David Turell
"Are the processes programed to advance in complexity as we see in the development of the universe and the appearance of life from inorganic matter?"-I prefer to think that the fundamentals are not "programmed" in any way. By the very nature of their being tiny reflections of the divine essence, they have an inherent ability to react with each other in any number of ways. If they have just the right "properties", they can unite together forming "individuals" that in our universe we recognize as ions and atoms with emergent properties that can eventually evolve into more and more complex individuals, eventually leading to conscious creatures and (we know), to human beings, and who knows what might be beyond human beings.-"Or is it all due to chance within a process?"-If chance is involved (which nobody knows for sure), it is the specific values of constants that define the nature of the fundamentals. In our universe at least, there are at most a finite number of fundamental "types". Every fundamental of a given type is exactly like every other fundamental of that type. In our universe, we don't know how many types there are. But in the standard model of particle physics, some of the fundamental types are electrons, quarks, gluons, photons, and their anti-particles. The theory of supersymmetry says there are "supersymmetric" versions of each of these. String theory says all these are species of something even more basic. Whatever the basic particles are, that's what I'm calling a fundamental.-In any case, a fundamental is a direct spinoff from the divine essence and "atomic" in the etymological sense of that word.-"I need further definition of the concept of 'processes'."-Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly), that gets into the very heart of what process philosophy is all about. It is far beyond my ability to explicate the concept of process in this philosophy. The best you can hope for from me is an intuitive notion of what process is. For more, I refer you to Whitehead himself (God help you) or one of his highly respected interpreters (also, God help you). But for an intuitive discussion of the concept, read John A. Jungerman's World in Process: Creativity and Interconnection in the New Physics. For a more formal exposition, start with Griffin's Reenchantment without Supernaturalism. If you really want to go whole hog, Read the first chapter of Stephen T. Franklin's Speaking from the Depths. If you can penetrate that, you should be teaching philosophy at the graduate level.-All I'll do here is give you a couple quotes from Jungerman's book, pp. 4-5:-'Process thought views events, not substance, as primary. According to Whitehead, 'the simple notion of an enduring substance sustaining enduring qualities expresses a useful abstract for many purposes in life. But whenever we try to use it as a fundamental statement of the nature of things, it proves itself mistaken." The idea of inert matter as considered throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, which is still a pervasive idea, gives us no possible basis for explaining interrelationships -- especially those relations conceived in physics as "Forces."-'Fundamental to process philosophy are events, understood as actual occasions. In the process view, the fully actual entities are not things that endure throughout time, but momentary events. Actual entities are, thereby, called actual occasions. Such events take place during a short time interval, a fraction of a second, at a particular place. Thus, actual occasions occur in space and time, space-time.'-'Actual occasions occur at different levels, such as at the level of atoms and at the level of human experience. An enduring entity composed of actual occasions could be an atom or an organism, such as a human being. At the most elementary level, electrons and quarks can be understood as a series of actual occasions. For Whitehead, a moving electron has a different identity at every instant because its position has changed. Its trajectory is a series of events. Whitehead calls this a serially ordered society of actual occasions. A human being is a very complex society of events, the dominant member of which can enjoy emergent, unitary consciousness. A human being in process terms is described as a complex spatiotemporal society of events.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 00:16 (5266 days ago) @ Frank Paris
I prefer to think that the fundamentals are not "programmed" in any way. By the very nature of their being tiny reflections of the divine essence, they have an inherent ability to react with each other in any number of ways. - > > If chance is involved (which nobody knows for sure), it is the specific values of constants that define the nature of the fundamentals. In our universe at least, there are at most a finite number of fundamental "types". Every fundamental of a given type is exactly like every other fundamental of that type. In our universe, we don't know how many types there are. But in the standard model of particle physics, some of the fundamental types are electrons, quarks, gluons, photons, and their anti-particles. The theory of supersymmetry says there are "supersymmetric" versions of each of these. String theory says all these are species of something even more basic. Whatever the basic particles are, that's what I'm calling a fundamental.-You have given me a very clear pictue of fundamentals. They are the particles of supersymmetry that we know and the ones we are hunting for , i.e., Higgs Boson and whatever else is missing in matter and anti-matter. > > "I need further definition of the concept of 'processes'." > > Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly), that gets into the very heart of what process philosophy is all about. It is far beyond my ability to explicate the concept of process in this philosophy. The best you can hope for from me is an intuitive notion of what process is. For more, I refer you to Whitehead himself (God help you) or one of his highly respected interpreters (also, God help you). But for an intuitive discussion of the concept, read John A. Jungerman's World in Process: Creativity and Interconnection in the New Physics. For a more formal exposition, start with Griffin's Reenchantment without Supernaturalism. If you really want to go whole hog, Read the first chapter of Stephen T. Franklin's Speaking from the Depths. If you can penetrate that, you should be teaching philosophy at the graduate level. > > All I'll do here is give you a couple quotes from Jungerman's book, pp. 4-5:-And all I can say from that quote is, no thanks. I can follow Adler, Leslie, Del Ratzsch, etc. But Jungerman's quote is a dense fog. With my medical education I've only had Philosohpy 101, and as I have noted here before the one professorial quote I remember and use is "matter is energy on the outside and mind is energy on the inside." From that I think God is a universal intelligence of which we humans have a small piece.In that way the Bible is correct in saying we are made in the image of God. I am content with my view, as you are with yours. I am very pleased that you have shared it with me in the way you have. I can understand from what I have read of other posts by you and dhw how the concepts could be confusing and seemingly contradictory. What process philosophy presents to me is vague. With my science education I like to go from a to b and know why and how I got there. So I don't plan to do any deeper reading. I will innocently ask this of all folks here (Matt and you, Frank) with philosophic knowledge: how mainstream is Whitehead? Or is he a side channel? I'd heard about him and process theology, but is as far as I ever went. It doesn't open up any vistas for me, now that i have had a slight exposure.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 00:45 (5266 days ago) @ David Turell
"You have given me a very clear pictue of fundamentals. They are the particles of supersymmetry that we know and the ones we are hunting for , i.e., Higgs Boson..."-Actually we have never detected a supersymmetry particle. So far they are only theoretical constructs in a theory that goes beyond the Standard Model that is part of canonical particle theory. And the Higgs Boson is not a supersymmetry particle: it is part of the Standard Model that electrons, quarks, photons, and gluons are part of and all of which have been detected. The Higgs Boson is the one particle in the Standard Model that has yet to be detected.-Anyhow, none of that changes anything I've said.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 01:40 (5266 days ago) @ Frank Paris
Well, maybe I shouldn't give up so easily. I said I'd try to give informal examples of processes and all I've done so far is quote Jungerman, who, amazingly, you found to be a "dense fog." To me he has the clarity of 6500K lighting, which is why I'm so amazed by your reaction. And because of that, you may also find the following to be more "fog."-Human consciousness is also just a process. It doesn't not have any "persistence", the way a lump of flesh like the human brain has. Consciousness is something that comes and goes, even while we're awake! It depends on the human brain as its substrate, but it does not have a continuous existence. Without the activity of the human brain to keep it going, it simply fades out of existence, even while we're alive. When we fall asleep, it goes away. It has no existence outside of process.-Yet those who believe in immortality probably believe that consciousness lives on after death. Well, it does, in other conscious creatures, and in God. In fact, I've said that there is really only one consciousness, the consciousness of God, that creatures when they are conscious, participate in. But the consciousness that is associated with brain activity, stops, when the brain dies. From the standpoint of my theology, what is happening is that the consciousness (that is really God's consciousness) that runs through the brain, stops "running" when the brain dies. God no longer as a channel in that lump of flesh to run his consciousness through.-Of course I have no idea whether any of that helps at all, especially since I think Jungerman's explanations are a lot clearer than mine, and you find them a "dense fog."
Problems with this section; for Frank
I've been cursed yet again by the technical gremlins, who knocked out my Internet connection for 48 hours. It might pay me to have Matt fly over.-David and BBella have been far more successful than me at teasing answers to difficult questions out of Frank, and it's disappointing to come upon the following outburst: "Don't ask for explanations [...] You're just wasting everyone's time. On the other hand, that's why I believe a lot of people come up on these forums, just to waste time, because these forums are not much good for anything else" (19. Nov. at 23.43). You wrote to BBella, when perhaps you had got out of bed on the other side: "my hope is that what I've said will prompt questions and thus bring up new opportunities to flesh out the 'holes'." My hope is that you will continue to answer our questions, but I have to say that it's extremely inhibiting if disagreements, expressions of non-comprehension, or requests for explanations are going to meet with what David has generously called "defensive or snide" comments like the above. -In the hope that you will now resume your more patient approach, I'd like to raise a few questions of my own. On 14 November at 02.02, you wrote: "God is the source of all consciousness." "God is the source of all energy (as process) and has intellect. He also has love and infinite concern for the welfare of individuals in the universe. When we love and are compassionate, or experience beauty, we're just responding to divine promptings within our being." In the same post, you say: "All statements about God are mythical. Myths are statements that attempt to point beyond themselves, since the essence of God is inexpressible." Your statements about God could scarcely be clearer, and I don't know in what way they point beyond themselves. For a non-religious person, the mythical element is self-evident, but I'd be interested to know in what sense you yourself regard the above statements as "mythical". -In your post of 19 November at 01.40 you write: " [...] there is really only one consciousness, the consciousness of God, that creatures when they are conscious, PARTICIPATE in. But the consciousness that is associated with brain activity, STOPS, when the brain dies." Putting all these statements together, I'm struggling ... not for the first time ... to get a coherent pattern. I will try as succinctly as possible to list my difficulties.-1) If there is really only one consciousness which is God's, what is the consciousness that stops when the brain dies? 2) You have stated categorically that you are a materialist (e.g. 29 October at 22.54). As I understand materialism, the physical brain is the source of consciousness, but this is clearly not so in your theology. In what way is your concept of consciousness materialistic? 3) Do you believe that my sense of individual identity, which I consider to be inextricably linked to my consciousness, is an illusion? If not, what do you think is the source of my individual identity, since my consciousness is God's? 4) To follow up BBella's questions about "evil": if all consciousness stems from God, why do you limit the divine promptings to love, compassion and experience of beauty? Could not our selfishness, wickedness, aggression etc. also stem from God as the "source of all consciousness"? If not, what is the source of our darker side? 5) If the darker side does have a source that lies outside God's infinite consciousness, why shouldn't it also be the source of our better side?-Finally, I'm interested in your comment: "those who believe in immortality probably believe that consciousness lives on after death." I suspect it is their consciousness, or their identity they believe will survive. This ties in with question 3), and may later take us into deep waters!-(A technical note: I always draft my responses on Word and then copy and paste them onto the forum. I've never had trouble with the submit button, but it's a good way of ensuring that the post doesn't get lost. This, for your information, is a new world record: me offering technical advice!)
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Friday, November 20, 2009, 15:29 (5264 days ago) @ dhw
'Your statements about God could scarcely be clearer, and I don't know in what way they point beyond themselves. For a non-religious person, the mythical element is self-evident, but I'd be interested to know in what sense you yourself regard the above statements as "mythical".'-The reality of God is beyond all verbal expression. Mystical experience reveals that. In that sense, any statements about God necessarily have to be pointing beyond themselves. They can barely hint of the reality. If I say, "God is unlimited," those are just words. We can try to imagine an "unlimited extent," but in the first place, we can't really wrap our mind around what the word, "unlimited" points to (the very expression, "wrap our mind around" is a limiting exercise), and in the second place the word, "extent" is mythical because the "extent" the expression talks about isn't spacio-temporal, but something ineffable.-"1) If there is really only one consciousness which is God's, what is the consciousness that stops when the brain dies?"-God's consciousness no longer runs through those channels: in death, the ability of consciousness to run through them comes to an end because the structure enabling the channels deteriorates: there is literally organic disintegration and no longer an organization that enables it: nothing that brings an association to a focus.-"2) You have stated categorically that you are a materialist (e.g. 29 October at 22.54). As I understand materialism, the physical brain is the *source* of consciousness, but this is clearly not so in your theology. In what way is your concept of consciousness materialistic?-I am a materialist in the sense that phenomena that we can publically observe in our universe always has a material substrate. The divine being does not come at us from outside and start pushing us around. The physical brain is simply organized in such a way that consciousness can run through it up from within because the parts composing the whole are focused properly.-"3) Do you believe that my sense of individual identity, which I consider to be inextricably linked to my consciousness, is an illusion?"-It is based on the limited perspective of your past history. And of course I'm not the only one who believes this. It is a common theme in the mystical literature. There's nothing original in this observation.-"what do you think is the source of my individual identity"-The illusions of separateness.-"To follow up BBella's questions about "evil": if all consciousness stems from God, why do you limit the divine promptings to love, compassion and experience of beauty?"-Mystical experience.-'Could not our selfishness, wickedness, aggression etc. also stem from God as the "source of all consciousness"?'-It stems from limitations of that consciousness. God's consciousness is unlimited and hence transcends the limitations of perspective that are the source of "selfishness, wickedness, aggression etc." Enlarge your perspective enough and those "properties" disappear. You should actually know this from your own experience.-"what is the source of our darker side?"-Illusions about our autonomy.-"If the darker side does have a source that lies outside God's infinite consciousness"-That's not the correct way to look at it. It lies from limited perspectives on God's infinite consciousness.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Friday, November 20, 2009, 16:13 (5264 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"To follow up BBella's questions about "evil": if all consciousness stems from God, why do you limit the divine promptings to love, compassion and experience of beauty?" My reply was, "Mystical experience." But that was too flippant an answer, stemming from "limited perspective" when I gave it. I should first have pointed out that in listing "love, compassion and experience of beauty" I am not "limiting" divine promptings to them, but merely listing some properties that are certainly included in the divine essence.-But I am excluding "selfishness, wickedness, aggression etc." because they only arise because of limited perspective and God's perspective is complete. An example of what limited perspective can do is when I act aggressively on this forum and impatiently dismiss expressions of incomprehension. It is my lack of a divine perspective that causes me to do this.-And I think (I hope, that is) the reason some of my posts don't get through is because I press Preview and not Submit and then close IE.
Problems with this section; for Frank
When I asked why you limited the "divine promptings" to love, compassion etc., you initially replied: "Mystic experience", though later you felt that was too flippant an answer. But I think it's an answer I shall have to accept. Back in October you explained that in your religious experience you encountered a "God of overwhelming love", and: "Once I had that, I had to account for other things I knew about life in the big city, like all the pain and suffering in the world." Your conclusion was that God was "all knowing [though you have slightly qualified that since], all good, but not all powerful." His lack of power is what exonerates him from all blame for the pain and suffering.-Your theology is built to fit in with the basic premise of a loving God. From my perspective, this entails a leap of faith on a par with that of all other religions and even of atheism (which I would argue depends on belief in the creative powers of chance, though you and George disagree), but there is nothing for me to question here. I would just like to stress again that I have total respect for your faith, just as I have for any faith or non-faith that does no damage. I should add that much of what you say, particularly with regard to mysticism and the inexpressible, strikes an answering chord in me, and I can see the appeal. However, there are still points in the theology itself that I would like to discuss or comment on. In the light of your previous complaints about such forums, I will leave it to you to decide if it's worthwhile responding, and I will not take offence if you abstain, provided you do so without giving in to the weaknesses caused by "limited perspective". I hope that's fair!-1) 20.11 at 02.16: Your main objection to David's concept of a Universal Intelligence who thought up the universe is that "if God knows what's in store for him, he'd be bored silly." The same reasoning may be applied to the more conventional concept of a designer who has endowed humans with free will, or ... less conventionally ... who has specifically thought up the universe for his own entertainment, including the world's suffering. Design doesn't necessarily mean predictability. 2) Same subject: you are eager to side with what you call "scientifically literate" people in rejecting the idea of design. Perhaps you mean the majority of scientists, because there are still plenty who believe in a designer God, and I wonder what your criterion for scientific literacy is anyway. In terms of your own theology, since God knew that his fundamental particles were capable of evolving, I'd say there's a very fine line between accident and design, allowing that God leaves the details to chance in order to avoid boredom. The "programming" could be for an infinite variety, not for anything specific. 3) I'm still puzzled by these particles. "The world is "made out" of God, or tiny "particles" of God. He spins off little "pieces" of himself, fundamental particles, which stick together and rise up in complexity, and produce organisms that are more or less conscious, have more or less experience." (29.10 at 23.27) Can you please explain how these particles of a non-physical God become physical, or have I totally misunderstood the whole concept? 4) You believe God created the laws of Nature, so I don't see why you need to stress your disbelief in miracles. God could have created the world using the laws he himself devised. No miracles needed ... only science. 5) Perhaps the biggest problem I have comes when I look at your theology through the eyes of those who are suffering. (I'm afraid I can't identify with other possible forms of life in other possible worlds.) It's all very well for the folk who make some sort of contact with God's consciousness and, like BBella, come out of their ordeals with new and exciting perspectives, but the vast majority don't and won't. They will suffer and die, often through no fault of their own, in a world God created indirectly (according to your theology) in order to see his own reflection. Since you don't believe in an afterlife, even that "reflection" is fleeting. This doesn't mean your vision is not true, but what may superficially look like a rather beautiful idea ... the universally loving God ... offers precious little comfort. What use to us is a loving God if his love serves only to give him and a few of us an instant's pleasure? The lucky ones will glitter for a moment, so that he can feel pleasantly surprised, but we end up as nothing. It may be so, of course, but in the final analysis what advantage does this theology hold over deism or atheism, other than providing an intellectual framework to support your mystic experience? -I need to stress again that I'm not pushing any counter-theory here. I'm trying to understand yours and to weigh it against others, while bearing in mind that all the theories are based on "myth" in one sense or another.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 00:27 (5263 days ago) @ dhw
"Can you please explain how these particles of a non-physical God become physical, or have I totally misunderstood the whole concept?"-First off, I'd rather speak of God as "trans-physical" rather than non-physical. Obviously the "little particles of God" manifest themselves differently in the universe than God himself does. But they're still made of the same "stuff". So they don't so much become physical, as they are what is physical in our universe. -"You believe God created the laws of Nature."-I don't look at it that way. When the fundamentals "do their thing," laws are expressed, what we as scientists call "the laws of Nature."-"I don't see why you need to stress your disbelief in miracles."-We're talking about real laws. Miracles would be breaches of those laws. Breaches don't occur, or at least there's no evidence for them. Seems pretty straightforward to me.-"It's all very well for the folk who make some sort of contact with God's consciousness and, like BBella, come out of their ordeals with new and exciting perspectives, but the vast majority don't and won't."-Not only that, but "enlightenment" is fragile, and depends on more or less stable living conditions, as far as obtaining the basic comforts of life. Remove those and you just don't have time or the necessary tranquility for contemplation and peace of mind. Enlightenment, especially in the West, requires a certain amount of affluence.-'Since you don't believe in an afterlife, even that "reflection" is fleeting.'-Not only that, but often I think of God himself as existing in "layers." There is a section of himself concentrating on our planet, and other sections concentrating on other planets. Then there's a section of God that "comes alive" in the evolution of our universe, and different sections that "come alive" in other universes. Some process theologians seem tied to the idea that God never forgets anything. Sometimes it seems more reasonable to me that "sections of God" arise, evolved, and eventually "die." Sections of God then get reborn to experience himself anew. That's part of Hindu mythology, actually, and probably based on the same mystic insights.-"This doesn't mean your vision is not true, but what may superficially look like a rather beautiful idea ... the universally loving God ... offers precious little comfort."-The "comfort" doesn't come in "feeling good" to think that God is a loving God. It's not an intellectual thing at all. The "comfort" comes in simply experiencing a large enough perspective in any particular situation to see what is going on and understanding what the best course of action is from incident to incident, and then doing the right thing.-"but we end up as nothing."-As does God himself in the "layered" version of God I described above. Also remember, the "we" is just an illusion of separation anyhow. If it's no great tragedy that God lives and dies in an eternal cycle of birth and death, it's no great tragedy that we as individuals die.-"It may be so, of course, but in the final analysis what advantage does this theology hold over deism or atheism, other than providing an intellectual framework to support your mystic experience?"-How about "being closer to the truth"?
Problems with this section; for Frank
In response to my statement, "You believe God created the laws of Nature", Frank writes: I don't look at it that way. When the fundamentals "do their thing", laws are expressed, what we as scientists call "the laws of Nature".-On 15 November at 18.24, in response to my statement, "Some past contributors may, however, have said that God himself created the laws of Nature", you wrote: Count me in there. The laws of Nature flow out of the fundamentals. God created the fundamentals.-This is one of those irritating contradictions that cause misunderstandings. Using the same argument, on 15 November you explained why you agreed that God created the laws of Nature ("count me in"), and on 22 November you explain why you disagree. The argument itself is not affected, but the conclusion makes a difference to how one views God's responsibility for the universe. It also affects the argument about miracles, in which perhaps my point was not clear. You have repeatedly stressed that God can't perform miracles against Nature, which is part of the case against design, and I am suggesting that if he designed the universe and/or life, God would not have needed to go against Nature's laws. Even if he didn't create them ... which is now a moot point ... he could use them deliberately, just as chance "uses" them accidentally in the atheist scenario. The designs of our own scientists are not miracles either, though they sometimes seem that way ... especially when they work!-Re the little particles of God, you wrote: "They don't so much become physical, as they are what is physical in our universe."-I take this to mean, then, that since the particles of God are what is physical, God has a physical component and a non-physical component (you have stated that his consciousness could not be physical, 6 November at 22.27). First, I would like to link this to your exchange with David on NDEs. You have stressed the commonness of telepathy, but you have not dealt with the claim David makes that patients see dead people who inform them telepathically that someone else has died. This does not fit in with the explanation you suggested of broken contact between the patient and the "someone else". Here we have inaccessible information apparently ... I remain neutral ... being passed on by known, dead third parties. Since God's infinite consciousness is not physical, but he has physical components, why should there not be a similar, autonomous combination in humans? You have said (I'll have to hunt for the reference if you need it) that God has no control over his particles once he has "cut them loose", and yet on 20 November at 15.29, you said the source of my individual identity is "the illusions of separateness" and the source of our darker side is "illusions of autonomy". May I put it to you that these might not be illusions? We might have our own autonomous non-physical particle, "cut loose" by God and ... like God's own consciousness ... able to survive the destruction of the physical particles. Isn't this just as logical an interpretation of the data at our disposal, and wouldn't this explain the extraordinary phenomenon of NDE's? (But let me stress again that I'm acting Devil's ... or who knows, God's ... advocate here.)-The "comfort" of your theology comes in "simply experiencing a large enough perspective in any particular situation to see what is going on and understanding what the best course of action is from incident to incident, and then doing the right thing." That is a perfectly fair comment, and applies in equal measure to every religion I know, and also to humanism.-I asked what advantage your theology holds over deism and atheism, and your answer is: "How about being closer to the truth?" Yep. That's what they all say. -Perhaps I can try another summary of your various "truths" to make sure I've understood you correctly. God is not needed to explain the origin of life, our individual identity is an illusion, God is not responsible for suffering, there is no afterlife, "it's no great tragedy that we as individuals die",*** the comfort lies in doing the right thing, and the purpose of life is to enable God to see momentary reflections of himself. -*** Although you have prefaced this remark with a condition concerning God's own cycle of birth and death, I find it shocking, and wonder if it isn't one of those dramatic statements of yours that you might like to qualify. If not, I can only assume you have never lost someone you love, or witnessed the grief of those who have.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 15:40 (5261 days ago) @ dhw
"This is one of those irritating contradictions that cause misunderstandings."-On the contrary, it's not a contradiction. It's the same thing. Perhaps you're stumbling on the word, "created," in assuming it is the traditional Christian understanding of "creating out of nothing." I've repeatedly said that this is not true. When I say, "God created the fundamentals," that's just shorthand for "spinning them off of himself," which is not creating out of nothing. In being part of God, their "nature" is naturally from God. When they "do their thing," the laws of nature are expressed. There's no contraction in recognizing that "the laws of nature flow out of the fundamentals."-"I take this to mean, then, that since the particles of God are what is physical, God has a physical component and a non-physical component."-I think there's some kind of category mistake going on here. The fundamentals aren't taken from a "component" of God that that happens to be physical and the rest of him is not. When particles of himself are spun off and allowed to interact with each other, what is manifest is the physical universe of which we are a part, and the laws of nature.-'You have stressed the commonness of telepathy, but you have not dealt with the claim David makes that patients see dead people who inform them telepathically that someone else has died. This does not fit in with the explanation you suggested of broken contact between the patient and the "someone else".'-It certainly does, if you view the vision that people see dead people as a hallucination: a "trick" the brain plays on those hallucinating to make sense of the telepathic "message" that a connection has been severed through the death of someone.-"Since God's infinite consciousness is not physical, but he has physical components, why should there not be a similar, autonomous combination in humans?"-As pointed out above, claiming God has "physical components" is a category mistake. Therefore we can't conclude anything valid from your statement. The fundamentals have the same nature as God himself, only limited to the most extreme extent. Look at them as very dim images of God that become brighter when they are united in organisms and come to a focus, eventually as consciousness.-Sometimes statements that you make that follow one after another in the same paragraph seem to wildly switch from one topic to another. When I see a string of statements appearing in the same paragraph, I naturally assume a thread of a single arugument is taking place, but sometimes it seems as if you're wildly swinging from one subject to another. That's the trouble with these forums. The posts are so often little more than a stream of consciousness and it makes it difficult to address the issues coherently. I'm having this very kind of trouble in the paragraph that starts, "I take this to mean..."-So let me treat the issue of God "cutting loose" a fundamental particle. In spinning them off, they achieve autonomy not because he's granting them freedom out of the generosity of his own heart, but because they are so minimally conscious that he can't control them as he would through a highly conscious creature, by exposing the fullness of his essence to it. So the fundamentals just go about doing their natural "thing", sometimes naturally sticking together and eventually building up higher organizations. These organizations themselves find themselves in competition with each other and often come into conflict, because their "centers" are not in contact with each other and have their own being at stake. It's just evolution going on.-'We might have our own autonomous non-physical particle, "cut loose" by God and ... like God's own consciousness ... able to survive the destruction of the physical particles? Isn't this just as logical an interpretation of the data at our disposal, and wouldn't this explain the extraordinary phenomenon of NDE's?'-I have the concept of God having the ability to take a look at the consciousness that arises naturally out of a physical organism constructed out of the fundamentals, and then duplicating that consciousness as an autonomous being that can float off independent of the physical organism after which it is modeled. This in effect would be God creating "souls" that may live on after death. Is this what you're talking about?-I'm not sure this is a coherent position, because "the consciousness that arises naturally out of a physical organism" is a process that is tied to the particular configuration that a nervous system is in at any particular moment in time. Of course God could take a "snapshot" of that consciousness at any moment in time and spin a copy of it off as an autonomimous being, but that seems rather arbitrary.-I don't know if that actually happens anymore than you do, but it is a possibility, and that could explain NDE, as wildly improbable as it might be, considering that consciousness is a process and not an autonomimous substance. It's just that I think the severing of telepathic connections is a far simpler explanation of what's happening in premonitions of someone's death than "contact with the dead."
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Monday, November 23, 2009, 20:12 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
'You have stressed the commonness of telepathy, but you have not dealt with the claim David makes that patients see dead people who inform them telepathically that someone else has died. This does not fit in with the explanation you suggested of broken contact between the patient and the "someone else".' > > It certainly does, if you view the vision that people see dead people as a hallucination: a "trick" the brain plays on those hallucinating to make sense of the telepathic "message" that a connection has been severed through the death of someone.-I have said in my last post to you that NDE's are not hallucinations. Believe me, with 40 years in medicine, I know one when I hear one. These are organizied stories, not the usual helter-skelter stuff. You have asked me not to ignore your major in philosophy. Please do no denigrate my knowledge.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 21:22 (5261 days ago) @ David Turell
"I have said in my last post to you that NDE's are not hallucinations. Believe me, with 40 years in medicine, I know one when I hear one."-Your appeal to personal authority is obviously unwarranted. Otherwise, one has to wonder why there are still so many skeptics. Probably because the skeptics would argue that your medical training has no bearing on the interpretation of the phenomena you are describing. Your religious beliefs are getting in the way and when you make statements like this you are not speaking out of medical knowledge but from the prejudices of your religious beliefs. Otherwise, all atheists would be whistling Dixie, wouldn't they? On the other hand, maybe your word just hasn't gotten around. You seem to believe that your interpretations are an open and shut case. In that case, you owe it to mankind to write a book.-"You have asked me not to ignore your major in philosophy."-Did I? I don't remember that. In fact, I would hope you would utterly ignore any past education I may have had. Also, when I offer references, it's not as a presentation of unquestionable authorities, but as someone who may be able to explain something better than I can.-In general, there are always those who will remain skeptical when a person uses his experience in one field of knowledge as testimony to statements in another. Questions of the afterlife are religious questions, not medical questions. It's the same as Richard Dawkins holding up his scientific knowledge of evolution as proof that God doesn't exist. Speaking as an atheist isn't the same as speaking as a scientist. Likewise, proclaiming the validity of religious beliefs because of one's interpretation of medical observations amounts to an ad hominem argument.-Now, to address another aspect to my quote from you that starts off this post: "NDE's are not hallucinations." -These are real experiences, there's no doubt about that. However, what is reported as "seen" is just an interpretation of that experience. I believe that NDE's are the result of pushing consciousness as produced by the human brain to one of its extreme limits, and the same sort of thing is going on in the highest flights of mystical experience. The experience may so transcend normal consciousness that the brain has to make up a "story" about what actually happened. The brain looks through its catalog of extraordinary beliefs and perhaps finds ready-made, traditional religious beliefs and thrusts those forward, giving them an apparent reality that is very compelling. In that sense, they may just be hallucinations: giving reality to what is really just imagined.-There's utterly no guarantee that one's interpretation of an extraordinary mental experience describes something real. "A bright light was seen at the end of a tunnel, and all fear of death left me." That's fine as far as it goes, but to conclude, "Therefore there's an afterlife," is entirely unwarranted. -One may indeed have witnessed a reality that legitimately gives reason to lose all fear of death, but presenting a legitimate theory about why you should now feel that way may be entirely beyond such facile and incoherent explanations as that there is consciousness belonging to that individual after death. The real explanation has got to be more sophisticated than that, because that simple explanation has just too many problems of incoherency associated with it, stemming primarily from the fact that consciousness is a transitory process, not a persistent substance.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 01:47 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"I have said in my last post to you that NDE's are not hallucinations. Believe me, with 40 years in medicine, I know one when I hear one." > > Your appeal to personal authority is obviously unwarranted. Otherwise, one has to wonder why there are still so many skeptics. Probably because the skeptics would argue that your medical training has no bearing on the interpretation of the phenomena you are describing. Your religious beliefs are getting in the way and when you make statements like this you are not speaking out of medical knowledge but from the prejudices of your religious beliefs. Otherwise, all atheists would be whistling Dixie, wouldn't they? On the other hand, maybe your word just hasn't gotten around. You seem to believe that your interpretations are an open and shut case. In that case, you owe it to mankind to write a book.-I have with a whole chapter on the NDE phenomenon and other aspects of possible psychic activity. I have reviewed the literature written by other medical professionals. And the circumstances are so striking in hospice situations, a world-wide study has began to seriously look at this. Remember a majority of these NDE'rs have the same experienced. It is coherent, whereas hallucinations follow no pattern, are jumbled, flit from one thing to another, and basically make no sense. It is my turn to suggest that you read: find the book "Light and Death", 1998, by Dr. Michael Sabom, a cardiologist. Read just the one case of the lady with the basilar aneurysm. It is not an NDE, but will give you pause. Then find Lancet Vol:358,2039-45 December 15, 2001, and read the prospective study of 344 patients who were resuscitated during heart attack, senior author Pim van Lommel. peer reviewed and accepted in Lancet!-> One may indeed have witnessed a reality that legitimately gives reason to lose all fear of death, but presenting a legitimate theory about why you should now feel that way may be entirely beyond such facile and incoherent explanations as that there is consciousness belonging to that individual after death. The real explanation has got to be more sophisticated than that, because that simple explanation has just too many problems of incoherency associated with it, stemming primarily from the fact that consciousness is a transitory process, not a persistent substance.-It makes me wonder when patients have no EKG and the EEG is flat, how do patients know what is going on?
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 04:49 (5261 days ago) @ David Turell
All right. What exactly are you claiming? I've been under the impression that you've been claiming that NDE's prove there's an afterlife. Maybe I've misunderstood and this isn't what you're claiming.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 06:03 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
All right. What exactly are you claiming? I've been under the impression that you've been claiming that NDE's prove there's an afterlife. Maybe I've misunderstood and this isn't what you're claiming.-There is no proof of what ever, but they are not hallucinations. These people do gleen information through them, information they should not have been able to find out. They always communicate with the dead, when there is communication. The general pattern is quite consistent. Why do so many poeple have the same experience? And this pattern has been reported back thousands of years. Is there a spot in the brain with this info implanted? Do they really communicate with the dead? Why are they able to get information this way? All of this and more may be answered when the study I mentioned is completed. This is not just a sick brain. A careful review of the available reasonable literature makes that clear. Could there be an afterlife? This information does not exclude that. All information that passes is telepathic. Yes, based on this I think an afterlife is a possibility. This NDE information has not been widely disseminated in the public. I don't think it is copycat. Frank, please acquaint yourself with this area, and don't jump to conclusions.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 16:13 (5260 days ago) @ David Turell
"These people do gleen information through them, information they should not have been able to find out."-Please give me precise examples of information they receive in NDE that they should not have been able to find out.-"They always communicate with the dead, when there is communication."-How is it known that they communicate with the dead? How is it known that there is communication?-"The general pattern is quite consistent."-What is this general pattern?-"Why do so many poeple have the same experience?"-Please give me a precise description of the experience that so many people have. -"All information that passes is telepathic."-From what?-"Yes, based on this I think an afterlife is a possibility."-If it's only a possibility, what other alternative explanations are there? Or is no one in this field interested in exploring other possibilities? The way good science works, when you have data in need of explanation, alternative explanations are always put forward in competition with the scientists' favorite theory to see how well they stand up in comparison with the favored explanations, in anticipation that peer reviewers will raise these alternative explanations and claim they are more probable. Give me some assurance that the scientific method is being practiced here. Otherwise I'll have no alternative but to believe it is all wishful thinking.-"This NDE information has not been widely disseminated in the public."-Why is that? In the field of science, this is only true when the data is regarded as tentative and too preliminary to trust it for peer review. Is this data rigorous enough and ready for peer review or not?-"I don't think it is copycat."-What do you mean by that?-"Frank, please acquaint yourself with this area, and don't jump to conclusions."-In asking these questions, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 02:03 (5260 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"These people do gleen information through them, information they should not have been able to find out." > > Please give me precise examples of information they receive in NDE that they should not have been able to find out. During the NDE they walk down a dark tunnel to a very bright light. They meet people there, people who are dead, and some times are told that someone known to them has just recently died, by telepathy "They always communicate with the dead, when there is communication." > >How is it known that they communicate with the dead? How is it known that there is communication? The patients are resuscitated after the NDE and report it to the doctor, what the dead told them. In hospice it is easy enough for the doctor or attendant to confirm that the patient did not learn this information from visitors or family, but only through the experience. "The general pattern is quite consistent." > >What is this general pattern? The walk down the tunnel, the communication. Often they are just told it is not their time and to go back. The response is very often the patient wants to reject. They feel at rest and at peace, and may feel love, and want to stay. > > "Why do so many people have the same experience?" It is about 20% of those who go through this. The majority are pleasant, but around 17% are unpleasant. No one can correlate the factors that produce this in one's personality. > >Please give me a precise description of the experience that so many people have. -Given above. "All information that passes is telepathic." > >From what? From the dead to the patient in the NDE. "Yes, based on this I think an afterlife is a possibility." > >If it's only a possibility, what other alternative explanations are there? Or is no one in this field interested in exploring other possibilities? The way good science works, when you have data in need of explanation, alternative explanations are always put forward in competition with the scientists' favorite theory to see how well they stand up in comparison with the favored explanations, in anticipation that peer reviewers will raise these alternative explanations and claim they are more probable. Give me some assurance that the scientific method is being practiced here. Otherwise I'll have no alternative but to believe it is all wishful thinking.-Frank, I know the scientific method. I've about 34 entries in the world medical literature, from a time I was a research fellow and considered academic medicine as a career. There is a study going on now in hospices to cover about 1,500 patients with this experience, to learn more about it. I saw the announcement on line while ago. I don't remember anymore than that. But let me tell you about the Lancet study: 344 resuscitiated coronary patients. Around 80 had NDE's. These were graded as to 'depth" (How complex and complete they were). Resuscitation brings death rather quickly afterward in many patients. They prospectively followed the patients. 21% of all NDE'rs died in 30 days; only 9% in non-NDE'rs. Among the very deep NDE'rs 43% died in 30 days. Premonition of death?-"This NDE information has not been widely disseminated in the public." > >Why is that? In the field of science, this is only true when the data is regarded as tentative and too preliminary to trust it for peer review. Is this data rigorous enough and ready for peer review or not?-The Per van Lommel article was obviously peer-reviewed, but in the lay literature there has not been much discussion. There are some books the public can read, mostly by M.D.s. The current study, if as carefully done as van Lommel, may allow it to come out. A friend of mine had an out of body (OOB) about 20 years ago during surgery. As a good Catholic she checked with her priest, because it frightened her. He reassured her as did I, but this is still typical. "I don't think it is copycat." > > What do you mean by that? As in crimes where a killing spree or a type of robbery is copied. I would think those close to death are more circumspect than that. "Frank, please acquaint yourself with this area, and don't jump to conclusions." > > In asking these questions, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. I'm please you are interrogating me in this fashion. I find it a very fascinating issue.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 04:00 (5260 days ago) @ David Turell
"During the NDE they walk down a dark tunnel to a very bright light. They meet people there, people who are dead, and some times are told that someone known to them has just recently died, by telepathy"-Do people from Eastern cultures have this same experience? Is this even known? I think you've made statements to the effect that the same experience has been reported for thousands of years. What is the evidence for this? Do devout Zen Buddhists ever have this experience? What I'm trying to determine is whether there is a cultural and religious bias going on in the experience. I would expect NDE's to reflect religious and cultural biases and would only be impressed if they weren't and still gave this essentially Christian picture of the afterlife.-In the report you describe, dead people inform the person that someone else has recently died. I can easily imagine how the brain might fabricate this story if my alternative explanation is true, that the person telepathically senses that this other person has recently died by the severance of the telepathic connection. The brain then builds this story of how people known to be dead inform the NDE subject about the new death. The brain does this to "rationalize" the experience of this severance of the telepathic connection to person who just died. The brain of the NDE subject would be likely to construct this story if the subject already subscribes to the Christian mythology of the afterlife.-The stories would be much more impressive if they were reported by subjects whose culture and religious beliefs were entirely different from Western monotheistic mythology. But typically individuals have religious dreams taken from their own cultural backgrounds. Even classical mystical experiences from cultures that don't believe in a personal God have experiences of an impersonal God, and Christians always have mystical experiences of a personal God. It's almost impossible to get away from cultural biases, even in genuine mystical experiences.-"The majority are pleasant, but around 17% are unpleasant."-Maybe those are the people who found themselves at the gates of hell, or who thought that's where they were going if they died.-"Frank, I know the scientific method. I've about 34 entries in the world medical literature, from a time I was a research fellow and considered academic medicine as a career."-You got so interested in pulling rank on me that you forgot to answer the question. It is very easy to see that ego simply got in the way. Best thing to do is simply to answer the question without getting all ad hominem on me.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 06:16 (5260 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> Do people from Eastern cultures have this same experience? Is this even known? I think you've made statements to the effect that the same experience has been reported for thousands of years. What is the evidence for this? Do devout Zen Buddhists ever have this experience? What I'm trying to determine is whether there is a cultural and religious bias going on in the experience.-Eastern cultures, yes. The experience tends to mirror the person's religious background. Back thousand of years, I've already mentioned the Tibetan book of the dead: Bardo-Thodol. Word of mouth and then put into writing, I think I remember about 900AD-> > In the report you describe, dead people inform the person that someone else has recently died. I can easily imagine how the brain might fabricate this story if my alternative explanation is true, that the person telepathically senses that this other person has recently died by the severance of the telepathic connection. The brain then builds this story of how people known to be dead inform the NDE subject about the new death. The brain does this to "rationalize" the experience of this severance of the telepathic connection to person who just died. The brain of the NDE subject would be likely to construct this story if the subject already subscribes to the Christian mythology of the afterlife.-If lots of folks are telepathic, then your theory might fit. About 20% 0f the resuscitated are NDE'rs. > > The stories would be much more impressive if they were reported by subjects whose culture and religious beliefs were entirely different from Western monotheistic mythology. But typically individuals have religious dreams taken from their own cultural backgrounds. Even classical mystical experiences from cultures that don't believe in a personal God have experiences of an impersonal God, and Christians always have mystical experiences of a personal God. It's almost impossible to get away from cultural biases, even in genuine mystical experiences.-I answered this above > > "The majority are pleasant, but around 17% are unpleasant." > > Maybe those are the people who found themselves at the gates of hell, or who thought that's where they were going if they died. > > "Frank, I know the scientific method. I've about 34 entries in the world medical literature, from a time I was a research fellow and considered academic medicine as a career." > > You got so interested in pulling rank on me that you forgot to answer the question. It is very easy to see that ego simply got in the way. Best thing to do is simply to answer the question without getting all ad hominem on me.-I did not attack you. You have a habit of going on an attack yourself. I'm just reminding you that you do not have to review the obvious. As for alternative theories, yours is as good as any. The folks who write about this generally think it is a connection to afterlife; writings by those who have had NDE experiences and those who have looked into it and are third party corroborators. Lommel has suggested that consciousness can become separated from the body. When a patient (in the article) has a flat EEG and EKG and can still tell you who did what and where, while he was in that state, describing it when he is awake later, it makes one wonder what is going on.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 17:53 (5259 days ago) @ David Turell
"When a patient (in the article) has a flat EEG and EKG and can still tell you who did what and where, while he was in that state, describing it when he is awake later, it makes one wonder what is going on."-You mentioned this once before. A flatline for an EKG means nothing re NDE's, as the brain could still be functioning for a short while. The EEG could very easily be missing marginal activity that is still going on that could be producing the mental states that produce NDE's. Anyhow, that's probably what's going on.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 18:32 (5259 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"When a patient (in the article) has a flat EEG and EKG and can still tell you who did what and where, while he was in that state, describing it when he is awake later, it makes one wonder what is going on." > > You mentioned this once before. A flatline for an EKG means nothing re NDE's, as the brain could still be functioning for a short while. The EEG could very easily be missing marginal activity that is still going on that could be producing the mental states that produce NDE's. Anyhow, that's probably what's going on.-The brain functon before unconsciousness is 10 seconds after the heart stops pumping. The lower centers controlling autonomic activity (breathing for example) takes several minutes to stop. The EEG reads cortical activity where thought occurs. This patient took 45 minutes to resuscitate, coming in from a pasture where he collapsed. His eyes are shut and he is totally unresponsive to stimuli appllied by the resuscitators. This is not the only case inthe world literature. There are many. Skeptical attitudes like yours are very important as this inquiry goes on. I don't know how to explain it physiologically.-Then, there is the lady with the deep basilar artery (Base of Brain) aneuryism, taken down to 60 degrees hypothermia,eyes taped shut, intubated and oxygenated, ears covered with a sounding device to give little EEG spikes so as to reassure everyone they have't killed the brain. These ear devices totally excluded external sound and produced 100 decibel clicks.They drained out most of her blood to take pressure off the aneurysm. Then the craniotomy saw is taken out and used, 90 minutes after annesthia started. She came outof her body and floated over the scene, while of course, completly immobilized and tied down to the table. Any inadvertent move by her body could have led to disaster. She acurately descibed the way the saw looked, the sound of the saw and a female voice discussing the size of her arteries and veins! The surgical team corroborated all of her observations afterward. Michael Sabom, M.D. (Light & Death, 1998.)
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 05:35 (5259 days ago) @ David Turell
> The brain functon before unconsciousness is 10 seconds after the heart stops pumping. The lower centers controlling autonomic activity (breathing for example) takes several minutes to stop. The EEG reads cortical activity where thought occurs. This patient took 45 minutes to resuscitate, coming in from a pasture where he collapsed. His eyes are shut and he is totally unresponsive to stimuli appllied by the resuscitators. This is not the only case inthe world literature. There are many. Skeptical attitudes like yours are very important as this inquiry goes on. I don't know how to explain it physiologically. > > Then, there is the lady with the deep basilar artery (Base of Brain) aneuryism, taken down to 60 degrees hypothermia,eyes taped shut, intubated and oxygenated, ears covered with a sounding device to give little EEG spikes so as to reassure everyone they have't killed the brain. These ear devices totally excluded external sound and produced 100 decibel clicks.They drained out most of her blood to take pressure off the aneurysm. Then the craniotomy saw is taken out and used, 90 minutes after annesthia started. She came outof her body and floated over the scene, while of course, completly immobilized and tied down to the table. Any inadvertent move by her body could have led to disaster. She acurately descibed the way the saw looked, the sound of the saw and a female voice discussing the size of her arteries and veins! The surgical team corroborated all of her observations afterward. Michael Sabom, M.D. (Light & Death, 1998.)
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 05:38 (5259 days ago) @ David Turell
> > The brain functon before unconsciousness is 10 seconds after the heart stops pumping. The lower centers controlling autonomic activity (breathing for example) takes several minutes to stop. The EEG reads cortical activity where thought occurs. This patient took 45 minutes to resuscitate, coming in from a pasture where he collapsed. His eyes are shut and he is totally unresponsive to stimuli appllied by the resuscitators. This is not the only case inthe world literature. There are many. Skeptical attitudes like yours are very important as this inquiry goes on. I don't know how to explain it physiologically. > > > > Then, there is the lady with the deep basilar artery (Base of Brain) aneuryism, taken down to 60 degrees hypothermia,eyes taped shut, intubated and oxygenated, ears covered with a sounding device to give little EEG spikes so as to reassure everyone they have't killed the brain. These ear devices totally excluded external sound and produced 100 decibel clicks.They drained out most of her blood to take pressure off the aneurysm. Then the craniotomy saw is taken out and used, 90 minutes after annesthia started. She came outof her body and floated over the scene, while of course, completly immobilized and tied down to the table. Any inadvertent move by her body could have led to disaster. She acurately descibed the way the saw looked, the sound of the saw and a female voice discussing the size of her arteries and veins! The surgical team corroborated all of her observations afterward. Michael Sabom, M.D. (Light & Death, 1998.)-This is out of body stuff. Frank: How do you think this works. I don't really know, but it again raises the issue of consciousness that is separate from the brain itself, which can't be functioning much under the circumstances.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 15:48 (5258 days ago) @ David Turell
"This is out of body stuff. Frank: How do you think this works. I don't really know, but it again raises the issue of consciousness that is separate from the brain itself, which can't be functioning much under the circumstances."-How the brain experiences time when it is unconscious or under extreme stress can be completely different from the way we normally experience it. What actually takes place in seconds can be experienced as hours when we're dreaming. It could be that nothing at all is being experienced when a person is flatline, and what they remember is only an experience going into it or coming out of it and it is only imagined that the experience took place during flatline. The period of time separating going into and coming out of flatline might be hours, but the experience before and after could be perceived by the brain as one continuous experience. That's probably what is going on. I've had experiences like this under ether anesthesia where you didn't snap in and out as you do in modern anesthesia but gradually in and out and I experienced all kinds of long, complicated events that could not have taken more than a few seconds in actuality. So I wouldn't put too much supernatural stock in NDE or out of body experiences.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 16:51 (5258 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> So I wouldn't put too much supernatural stock in NDE or out of body experiences.-The subject you are carefully avoiding is that valid and truthful information is being passed on during these states, with third party corroboration. That is what needs an explanation. How do the experiencers get this info? The lady with the basilar artery problem had no way to hear or see what she stated she experienced. You can't talk your way around this. It is something different than the theory you tried. And I don't know an answer, even with my background in human anatomy and physiology. Operating room scenes are not passed telepathically.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 18:04 (5258 days ago) @ David Turell
"The subject you are carefully avoiding is that valid and truthful information is being passed on during these states, with third party corroboration."-You're being very insulting. I'm not "carefully avoiding" anything. That would mean that I'm really not interested in the truth, but only in one-upping you. I couldn't care less about those kinds of ego games. I'm genuinely after the truth. This doesn't mean that I won't miss points. So just say, "What about this? You missed this one." Don't slam me with insults.-What I was doing in all innocence was trying to explain why the subjects report a continuous experience of walking down a tunnel, speaking with dead people they knew beforehand were dead who inform them of people who have died that they didn't know about (broken telepathy), and thinking they're walking into the afterlife only to be told that it is not yet their time. This last item would happen as their vital signs start returning. The beginning and up to that point would be occurring as they slip into and out of flatline. They remember the whole episode as one continuous stream of time when it fact it may have been interrupted by a period of flatline. That's what I was trying to explain. If I thereby missed something, tell me. Don't blast me with accusations of duplicity. When people do that I immediately start thinking they're confessing their own sins: a case of Freudian projection.-"Operating room scenes are not passed telepathically."-How do you know that? That statement looks like it came right out of the blue, like sheer speculation on your part. It reads just like what you want to believe (wishful thinking), because it supports your religious beliefs. In the extreme state of being near flatline, the brain may very well be receptive to telepathic "vibrations" or whatever they are. It seems to me that telephathic communications are much more probable than messages from the beyond.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Friday, November 27, 2009, 03:24 (5258 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> You're being very insulting. I'm not "carefully avoiding" anything. That would mean that I'm really not interested in the truth, but only in one-upping you. -You are using the old trick of the best defense is a good offence. I didn't insult you, as you interpret. You are avoiding issues, perhaps because you don't even realize they are issues, having a blind sense of what you think must be right. > > What I was doing in all innocence was trying to explain why the subjects report a continuous experience of walking down a tunnel, speaking with dead people they knew beforehand were dead who inform them of people who have died that they didn't know about (broken telepathy), and thinking they're walking into the afterlife only to be told that it is not yet their time. -Think about this. Why do so many people with an NDE have exactly the same event of walking down the tunnel? Some are told about a dead acquaintance. Others are simple told to go back. Many feel love and peace. Why do they always see the dead? The consistent pattern might suggest a built-in code in brain. Only a small number might experience you proposal of broken telepathy. Do you have any statistics on how many people are telepathic? I don't. Or are you proposing that every person with friends as a telepathic conection with them? I don't consider telepathy as supernatural. My wife has it and her powers at times are amazing (and described here awhile ago). > > When people do that I immediately start thinking they're confessing their own sins: a case of Freudian projection.-Freud is very passe'. All of us sin, but I'm not transferring anything to you. Relax. I'm just very precise and direct. What you and dhw are doing would drive me nuts. > > "Operating room scenes are not passed telepathically." > > How do you know that? That statement looks like it came right out of the blue, like sheer speculation on your part. It reads just like what you want to believe (wishful thinking), because it supports your religious beliefs.-My religious beliefs are my own invention, just like yours are for you. > > In the extreme state of being near flatline, the brain may very well be receptive to telepathic "vibrations" or whatever they are. It seems to me that telephathic communications are much more probable than messages from the beyond.-The out of body experience the basilar artery lady had, has nothing to do with God or His beyond. This is an issue of her ability to discover actual events. I stated it was set up that she could not hear, she was in deep freeze with low blood pressure and low blood volume.-Her consciousness picked this up. How? Again, I don't know. Nothing supernatural. Very unexpected and very unusual. But van Lommel suggesting that the consciousness might still be coherently present despite a very disabled brain, acting separate from the body,is an interesting proposal. Your telepathy theory as just as weird as van Lommel's suggestion. Remember, this is not the only story of this sort. They are multiple. They require a scientific explanation, if possible. I'm not even sure how a proper investigation can be done with the OOB's. Many of them, as you will find if you search, have third party corroboration. -The lady who floated up to the third floor and saw a sneaker on a file cabinet top, shoe lace under the heel (!!!), throught an outside window, while in the ER under myocardial infact resuscitiation. Attested to by a social worker and a psychiatrist. I can give names and particulars. Happened many years ago. In the literature. Telepathy. Not in this one, no way. A totally different experience than those I have told you before. This website is no place for me to tell you everything I have read and discovered. If you really want to learn about this, I can give you a bibliography, which will be about four years old. When and if I revise my book I'll look closely again.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Friday, November 27, 2009, 03:34 (5258 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> You're being very insulting. I'm not "carefully avoiding" anything. That would mean that I'm really not interested in the truth, but only in one-upping you. -You are using the old trick of the best defense is a good offence. I didn't insult you, as you interpret. You are avoiding issues; perhaps because you don't even realize they are issues, having a blind sense of what you think must be right. > > What I was doing in all innocence was trying to explain why the subjects report a continuous experience of walking down a tunnel, speaking with dead people they knew beforehand were dead who inform them of people who have died that they didn't know about (broken telepathy), and thinking they're walking into the afterlife only to be told that it is not yet their time. -Think about this. Why do so many people with an NDE have exactly the same event of walking down the tunnel? Some are told about a dead acquaintance. Others are simple told to go back. Many feel love and peace. Why do they always see the dead? The consistent pattern might suggest a built-in code in brain. Only a small number might experience your proposal of broken telepathy. Do you have any statistics on how many people are telepathic? I don't. Or are you proposing that every person with friends as a telepathic connection with them? I don't consider telepathy as supernatural. My wife has it and her powers at times are amazing (and described here awhile ago). > > When people do that I immediately start thinking they're confessing their own sins: a case of Freudian projection.-Freud is very passé. All of us sin, but I'm not transferring anything to you. Relax. I'm just very precise and direct. What you and dhw are doing would drive me nuts. > > "Operating room scenes are not passed telepathically." > > How do you know that? That statement looks like it came right out of the blue, like sheer speculation on your part. It reads just like what you want to believe (wishful thinking), because it supports your religious beliefs.-My religious beliefs are my own invention, just like yours are for you. > > In the extreme state of being near flat line, the brain may very well be receptive to telepathic "vibrations" or whatever they are. It seems to me that telepathic communications are much more probable than messages from the beyond.-The out of body experience the basilar artery lady had, has nothing to do with God or His beyond. This is an issue of her ability to discover actual events. I stated it was set up that she could not hear, she was in deep freeze with low blood pressure and low blood volume.-Her consciousness picked this up. How? Again, I don't know. Nothing supernatural. Very unexpected and very unusual. But van Lommel suggesting that the consciousness might still be coherently present despite a very disabled brain, acting separate from the body, is an interesting proposal. Your telepathy theory is just as weird as van Lommel's suggestion. Remember, this is not the only story of this sort. They are multiple. They require a scientific explanation, if possible. I'm not even sure how a proper investigation can be done with the OOB's. Many of them, as you will find if you search, have third party corroboration. -The lady who floated up to the third floor and saw a sneaker on a file cabinet top, shoe lace under the heel (!!!), through an outside window, while in the ER under myocardial infact resuscitiation. Attested to by a social worker and a psychiatrist. I can give names and particulars. Happened many years ago. In the literature. Telepathy. Not in this one, no way. A totally different experience than those I have told you before. This website is no place for me to tell you everything I have read and discovered. If you really want to learn about this, I can give you a bibliography, which will be about four years old. When and if I revise my book I'll look closely again.
Problems with this section; for Frank
On 15 November, in response to my comment that some people believe "God himself created the laws of Nature", Frank wrote "count me in", whereas on 22 November he wrote: "I don't look at it that way." I see this as a contradiction, and you don't, so let's move on.-You write: "The fundamentals aren't taken from a "component" of God that happens to be physical and the rest of him is not. When particles of himself are spun off and allowed to interact with each other, what is manifest is the physical universe of which we are a part, and the laws of nature." I can follow the reasoning that the laws of Nature are manifested in the development of the physical universe. As regards the particles, however, you wrote earlier that they "don't so much become physical as they are what is physical in our universe." If they are physical and are spun off God, it seems logical to me that at the point where God spins them off, they must already be physical, which means he has physical components. Otherwise they would have to become physical.-I pointed out that in the NDEs David described, the patients received messages from dead third parties about the death of someone they knew, and this does not fit in with your explanation of broken contact. You reply: "It certainly does, if you view the vision that people see dead people as a hallucination." Yes, of course it does, if you have already made up your mind beforehand that it's an hallucination (see David's responses on the subject). I was putting forward an alternative explanation, which you say you failed to follow, as you thought my statements seemed to "wildly switch from one topic to another" without the link of a single argument, which is "the trouble with these forums" etc. etc. I'm a little surprised that someone so well practised as you at unravelling the complexities of philosophy and process theology should not have been able to follow my little thread, and I fear your "limited perspective" got the better of you again in more senses than one, but let me summarize the single argument for you as simply as I can (I'll flesh it out again in a moment when I discuss your responses): if God has both physical and non-physical components, and if he has no control over the particles of himself that he cuts loose, why should not we ourselves have an individual identity comprising an autonomous combination of the physical and the non-physical, with the non-physical surviving the physical, just as it does in God? This would be a logical pattern, and would explain NDEs.-You have separated this proposal into sections, because you couldn't follow the thread. I have no problem with the argument that the original, simple particles combine to form "higher organizations". As you say, that's evolution. You then manage to latch on to the conclusion of my argument which, in your words, "would be God creating 'souls' that may live on after death". Correct, except that I'm not talking about him creating ... i.e. making something out of nothing ... or about a "consciousness that arises naturally out of a physical organism". I think this preconception may be the reason why you lost the thread. God's own consciousness does not, according to you, arise out of a physical organism, and I'm suggesting that, if he is capable of spinning off physical particles (or particles that become physical) which he can't control, he may also be able to spin off non-physical particles that he can't control either ... i.e. particles of his consciousness. The brain would then be the receptacle but not the producer of consciousness, while his lack of control gives the particles their autonomy and us our individual identity. If you are able to believe (20 November at 15.29) that there is really only one consciousness, which is God's, and it can "run through" our physical channels until death destroys them, I don't see why you can't believe that an autonomous particle of it may keep on running just as God's does when his own physical particles perish. This would be what people call the "soul". Hence NDEs, and countless other related experiences. (As always I must stress that I'm putting forward ideas, not beliefs. I remain open-minded as to whether such a thing exists.)-Finally, (23 November at 21.45) you have grossly distorted the comment that ended my post of 23 November at 13.47, firstly by leaving out the remark I was referring to, and secondly by leaving out the all-important words "if not" in the course of your response. The statement I found shocking because of what seems to me a dramatic callousness was: "it's no great tragedy if we as individuals die." I thought that you might like to qualify it, but if not, I could only assume you had never lost a loved one etc. You have now qualified it. Thank you.-(Finally plus one: a note on Occam/Ockham. His name was William and he came from Ockham, a town in Surrey, England. My dictionaries give both spellings with his famous razor, but you won't find Occam in a British atlas!)
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 22:36 (5260 days ago) @ dhw
"If they are physical and are spun off God, it seems logical to me that at the point where God spins them off, they must already be physical, which means he has physical components. Otherwise they would have to become physical."-I'm obviously not communicating. "Physical" only has a meaning within the universe. When particles of God are "spun off," there is no change in nature taking place. Somehow the universe emerges from this spinning off. There is no universe apart from these particles. Together they constitute the universe. I have no idea whether there are distinct types of particles or whether they are all exactly the same and then twist and turn (or whatever) when they encounter each other and differentiate into different species of particles (something like is supposed to happen in string theory: one basic string type that "hums" to different frequencies and harmonics, manifesting themselves as different species of higher level particles).-Basically, I think you're trying to find more exactitude in what I'm saying than is required for the points I'm making, and we're spinning off into unproductive directions. You could do this forever and get so wrapped up in speculative intricacies that you'll never get back to the higher level formulations that I'm trying to make. Naturally if you spin down into dozens of different possibilities you're going to manufacture contradictions left and right. I'm not trying to create a mathematical science of the divine. I'm just trying to make broad strokes. If you're looking for the kind of mind that could flesh out a highly refined geography of the divine, you won't find that from me. I'm not that smart, in fact at my age, I'm quite sure my IQ doesn't even reach 100 anymore. All I can see at this point in my life are the broad strokes.-"I'm a little surprised that someone so well practised as you at unravelling the complexities of philosophy and process theology should not have been able to follow my little thread"-You're being sarcastic, right? I don't think I've given a shred of evidence that I can unravel the complexities of philosophy and process theology, at least not anymore. So you just must be making fun of me.-"if God has both physical and non-physical components, and if he has no control over the particles of himself that he cuts loose..."-I've already balked at your conclusion that I'm implying that God has both physical and non-physical components, so don't try to conclude anything I might believe from that assumption. And I'm sorry if you got the impression that I believe God has no control over the particles of himself that he cuts loose. I'm sure he has complete control over this. He may run "experiments": seeing what kind of a universe arises if he cuts loose particles with x, y, and z characteristics as opposed to a, b, and c. But I don't know if he does this, and whether he does or does not has absolutely no bearing on my theology. That's a question for the science of physics if it ever gets sophisticated enough to actually get down to the analysis.-"...why should not we ourselves have an individual identity comprising an autonomous combination of the physical and the non-physical, with the non-physical surviving the physical, just as it does in God?"-Even though this quote is disconnected from your antecedent "if" clauses, I'll try to answer it independent of them, since I just rejected them as irrelevant to what I've ever intended to say. I've actually already answered it. "Individual identity" is a fiction that ignores the fact that "we" are just processes that have no immutable substance. Consciousness emerges from certain activities in the brain and it comes and goes. Any "identity" we have is locked up in structures in our brain, which are not immutable, but which can come and go with the exigencies of any fragile biological material. Have a stroke and the "identity" can change radically and forever. So there just isn't anything that can survive the physical, at least nothing that you've identified so far.-"This would be a logical pattern, and would explain NDEs."-Hopefully you can now see that this is not a logical pattern that could explain anything.-"he may also be able to spin off non-physical particles that he can't control either ... i.e. particles of his consciousness."-I've already claimed that God could theoretically do this, and so I don't know why you're bringing it up as a possible objection to my theology. What I've said is that this is as much pure conjecture as the basis of my theology itself, in spinning any parts of God off at all and giving them a life of their own. If God can do that then obviously he could spin off larger chunks of himself with more sophisticated experience, even to the point where they are conscious (at which point God could obtain some control over them, through his "lure" that I keep talking about). This is precisely what disembodied "angels" would be and the conjectured embodied souls of human beings. I actually think that there are fewer problems of coherence involved in the conjecture that there are angels than the conjecture that there are souls somehow attached to human bodies.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 22:48 (5260 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"And I'm sorry if you got the impression that I believe God has no control over the particles of himself that he cuts loose. I'm sure he has complete control over this."-Whoops! I misunderstood what you were trying to say. See how stupid I am? I thought you were talking about whether God has control over the types of particles that he spins off of himself. But you were talking about the types of particles that God has spun off himself in our universe. This is the difference between control before the spinoff and control after the spinoff. I stupidly thought you were talking about control before the spinoff when you were actually talking about control after the spinoff. God has total control over what he spins off before the spinoff. He has no control over the particles after he has spun them off because their level of experience is far below the threshold of consciousness, and so they can't respond to his "lure."-Fortunately, my misunderstanding doesn't have any bearing on the rest of my response.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 02:12 (5260 days ago) @ Frank Paris
Whoops, I just noticed something else in your post that assumes something that isn't true. I actually quoted it before and commented on it. You say, "[God] may also be able to spin off non-physical particles that he can't control either ... i.e. particles of his consciousness."-Since consciousness is a process (not a "thing") that entities of sufficient complexity can experience, it doesn't make sense to talk about "particles of [God's] consciousness." What God can spin off are "particles" that can be conscious, but not that are consciousness.-So when I said, "I've already claimed that God could theoretically do this," I wasn't saying that God can spin off "particles of consciousness," but that God can spin off particles that are sophisticated enough to be conscious and only on occasion, unlike the fundamentals in our universe that I always talk about, which are too primitive ever to be conscious.-(The other thing that occurs to me in once again bringing up the concept of the fundamentals, there's no guarantee that at this state of the evolution of our universe that any fundamentals even exist anymore. They might have been transformed into other particles through "broken symmetries." They may have only existed in the opening moments of the Big Bang. But I don't want to get too sidetracked here.)-The point I was making in my response that overlooked the nonsensical expression, "particles of [God's] consciousness," was that it is indeed possible for God to spin off beings (I'd rather not call them "particles") that are so sophisticated that they can be conscious (on occasion), but that modern science has laid to rest that possibility, i.e. there is no evidence for "angels" operating independent of the fundamental laws of nature. I might also add that there are problems of coherency that make the concept of the human soul suspect at the very least.
Problems with this section; for Frank
Frank: Basically, I think you're trying to find more exactitude in what I'm saying than is required for the points I'm making, and we're spinning off into unproductive directions. You could do this forever and get so wrapped up in speculative intricacies that you'll never get back to the higher level formulations that I'm trying to make.[...] All I can see at this point in my life are the broad strokes.-You're certainly correct when you say I'm trying to find exactitude, but in my view what I'm looking for are not speculative intricacies... they're fundamental issues concerning the nature of a possible God and our relations with him. I would therefore like now to offer you two "theologies", one based directly on the explanations you've given me concerning the origin of life, and the other extrapolated from those relating to consciousness, but with a significant difference This will involve going over ground already covered, but I hope it will help you to understand why I sometimes press for precision. If, though, I'm still getting your ideas wrong, you will tell me so, and I apologize in advance. -You've stated that God is not responsible for Life on Earth and is therefore not responsible for the world's suffering. He "cuts loose" his particles to see what will happen, and has no control over them once he's cut them loose, but they can stick together and build up "higher organizations", which = evolution. You've also stated that he loves every individual, and that his purpose is to see himself reflected. (Trust me, this is all related to a single thread!) We now turn to Life on Earth. The particles that God cut loose stuck together and resulted in evolution. By accident, he therefore brought into being the vast variety of creatures and experiences that make up our world. Thanks to his infinite consciousness he's aware of every single creature (since he loves them all). He's therefore aware of every scream of pain, every maiming, premature death, depression, disaster etc. (The joys too, but these are not my focus here.) By accident he has caused every horror we know of ... his original purpose having been to see his own reflection. You might almost compare this to a drunk driver accidentally causing havoc as he tries to see himself in the driving mirror. Perhaps this vision is the truth ... I have no idea. I'm only pursuing the implications of the fragments I've gleaned from your posts. And the almost-but-not-quite-ultimate horror is that he can't do anything about it. (The ultimate horror would be that he enjoys it.) The only comfort the privileged among us can derive is that we're able to do the right thing in a given situation, while perhaps God himself finds comfort in the thought that "it's no great tragedy" if individuals like us die. These are what I see as "broad strokes" of your theology, and I have to say I find them pretty repugnant.-However, there's another side to your ideas ... my second "theology" ... which you seem determined to dismiss by abandoning your mystic persona and imposing your materialist one. You've said that the only consciousness is God's, which is infinite and non-physical. With humans, it "runs through the brain", and stops running when the brain dies. "God no longer has a channel in that lump of flesh to run his consciousness through." Consciousness, you emphasize, is a process, and individual identity "is a fiction that ignores the fact that "we" are just processes that have no immutable substance." (Please stay with me ... this again is all one thread.) If I've understood you correctly, however, God's consciousness too is a process without immutable substance. He loves us, wants to see himself reflected, is constantly learning, experimenting, being surprised, maybe even changing his views, and yet throughout the never-ending process he's still God. Likewise, the person I call "me" is a process, never staying the same, maybe even undergoing drastic changes ... you mentioned a stroke ... yet I still feel that I'm "me", that there's a fundamental core which is my individuality. Here's the suggestion then: God's non-physical consciousness runs through me, but it's mine, given to me at birth, absorbed by me and moulded to my own individual, though ever-changing form. At death, that non-physical form ... the individual identity ... does not stop running, but returns to and lives on in the all-embracing consciousness and love of God from which it first came. -This seems to have been something like the experience of many NDE patients. They were still themselves but in a different dimension. (Hallucinations? Maybe. And maybe your own religious experiences were hallucinations. I'm certainly not in a position to pass judgement.) My two scenarios are, I think, equally logical yet utterly different extensions of various mystic components of your beliefs. (As always, I must stress that these are simply ideas and not my own beliefs, since I remain firmly on my fence.) I recognize that they each raise unanswerable questions ... as indeed does the very concept of an infinite consciousness. I wonder, though, which of them comes closer to your own deep-down convictions.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 00:18 (5259 days ago) @ dhw
This is a long post that I'll get to when I have time. I'll just respond to this: "I wonder, though, which of them comes closer to your own deep-down convictions."-What deep down convictions? I'm not sure I have any. I have theories only.-Well, let's see...I'm pretty well convinced that if there's a God, he knows as much as it is possible to know, but that he does not have arbitrary power over matter. In knowing everything it is possible to know, he has as much perspective as possible, which would make him as good as possible, because what he tries to do is influence conscious beings to be like himself, which mystical experience reveals as beautiful and wonderful beyond measure.-To backtrack a little: "yet I still feel that I'm "me", that there's a fundamental core which is my individuality." You would feel that you are you even if you experienced total amnesia. Even a schizophrenic jumps from persona to persona, always sensing that he is he. That sort of suggests that the consciousness itself stems from something more primordial than a past history, which is what I've been saying all along.-"God's non-physical consciousness runs through me, but it's mine..."-That's the illusion of separateness.-"...given to me at birth..."-You're talking as if consciousness is "something." This is a category mistake.-"At death, that non-physical form ... the individual identity ... does not stop running, but returns to and lives on in the all-embracing consciousness and love of God from which it first came."-This is incoherent. Near death, you may have no consciousness whatsoever, or it may be severely impaired over what it was six months earlier. The "individual identity" you speak of isn't even a singleton in schizophrenics. In health, you experience continuity only because the physical structure of your brain doesn't change that much from day to day. I'm quite amazed if you don't secretly realize all this and that once again you're playing "devil's advocate."-So I wound up commenting on more than I intended to at first. I'll try to get back to the first part of your post later.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 02:59 (5259 days ago) @ dhw
Okay. Back to your post, from the beginning!-One thing I've noticed is that you're extremely fond of sifting through past posts of mine and quoting what I've said verbatum, dilligently looking for contradictions. This requires a lot of thought and a high degree of intelligence. At my senile old age, I'm no longer good at thinking and am no longer very intelligent. Therefore, frankly, I'm not the least bit interested in what I wrote ten minutes ago let alone yesterday for heaven's sake. But I feel that I'm still pretty good at feeling and then letting those feelings talk. I'm best at speaking from my heart, so I'll let you do the thinking and analysis and I'll just react to it. That way we'll each do our thing and perhaps be able to move forward with less intertia.-"You've stated that God is not responsible for Life on Earth..."-Hmmm. I thought I've said that God is not responsible for the particular forms that life takes on Earth. That's a huge difference from what you say I've said. Well, there you go. I don't care what I said prior to this second. This is what I'm saying now, from my heart. Let me elaborate. First, I don't know whether God knew what would happen after he chose the fundamentals, but I suspect he did. He probably knew that life would evolve from the fundamentals, but he didn't know where, or what biochemistry would evolve, or what forms would evolve from that biochemistry. But he might have had a pretty good idea because of all his past experience creating universes. Probably no planet ever did exactly the same thing as any other planet, even if there were an infinite number of them, which of course there were.-"...and is therefore not responsible for the world's suffering"-Let me elaborate. First of all, until human beings came along, on the average there is not much suffering in the world. Most animals lead painless lives until the throes of death, so percentage-wise, there's very little pain in the world. They may have led exciting lives, like an antelope being chased by a lion, but most of the time they get away. Eventually of course most of them get caught, but they only get caught once. Meanwhile, life is just one adventure after another.-Second, God knows that every animal must die. Can you imagine a universe in which there is life and no death? If you want change and evolution, death is part of the bargain. So in that sense, God is responsible for death and the pain associated with it. But proportionally speaking, it's a tiny fraction of what's going on, so overall, life is pretty successful and most of the time is a bowl of cherries. I know this isn't what is pictured on Animal Planet and all the other sensationalist TV shows, but showing nothing but the day to day wouldn't capture much of a paying audience.-Third, the horrendous amount of human suffering I believe is a mere blip in the history of any intelligent species. We just happen to be in the middle of it. This is one of those "chances" that God takes. It's worth the momentary blip for what will emerge on the other side of the blip. And during this blip, God is there for anyone who will listen, and if enough will listen, the intelligent species will get over the blip and explode into Paradise on Earth. Perhaps most don't, but they'll only last a few thousand years compared to the couple million years the average species lives. So once again, it's a good trade-off.-This was originally part of a longer post but the site won't let me post it because it's too long! So in pieces...
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 03:41 (5259 days ago) @ dhw
Here's the second part:-"By accident, he therefore brought into being..."-Wow, did I ever say that? Talk about dementia! I'm sorry! What I meant to say is that he spun fundamentals off himself which would eventually evolve into life, with all its attendant conflicts and joys (mostly joys). But in any particular case, he didn't bring anything into being. All he did was spin off enough fundamentals to give rise to the Big Bang. Everything after that just happened naturally.-"Thanks to his infinite consciousness he's aware of every single creature (since he loves them all)..."-Jeez! Did I say that??? Whap me aside the head! I didn't mean to say that God is aware of every single creature because (synonym for "since") he loves them all. It is his perfect perspective that causes God to love all individuals in the universe, from atom to humans and beyond. What this means is that he wills the self-actualization of every individual, although he can only help conscious individuals along that road. He wills the self-actualization of every individual because when that happens, God's own self-realization is advanced. So it is in God's own self-interest that he wants to see each individual realize its full potential. Do you see how this all hangs together, and why God's "selfishness" is actually good for every individual?-I might add that sometimes conscious individuals act demonically. Basically, God can't get in there, at all. God is simply helpless in that case, and can only offer aid to the victims, if they are open to it. I imagine God regrets the development of demonic individuals. God's love is only manifest when he can get through to an individual. Therefore it is never manifest to unconscious individuals and probably not to demonic individuals either, regardless of how much he wants to get through to them.-"He's therefore aware of every scream of pain, every maiming, premature death, depression, disaster etc."-In other words, those extremely rare events that hardly ever happen in the entire life of any individual -- except when self-conscious creatures arrive on the scene, and then it's just a few thousand years compared to the two million years of the entire species. So in the big picture, it's just a blip. He's also aware of all the ecstasy in every individual, which is 99.99% of existence. Overall, life is amazingly pain-free and is mostly full of joy.-"(The joys too, but these are not my focus here.)"-As irrelevant as your focus might be to the main thrusts in life.-"And the almost-but-not-quite-ultimate horror is that he can't do anything about it."-It's so minor in the big picture that it simply doesn't matter. Most animals only experience pain in the throes of death and that only lasts a tiny fraction of their entire life, even in infants.-"(The ultimate horror would be that he enjoys it.)"-That's incoherent and inconsistent with God's perfect perspective. It's an anthropomorphic nightmare that is denied by mystical experiences throughout the ages. Enjoying the pain of others is precisely caused by limited perspective: the sadist does not truly put himself in the place of the tortured and does not have empathy with the pain. But God cannot help experiencing all the pain and sadness of every individual. To illustrate just how incoherent your view is, if God was the cause of pain and enjoyed it, why wouldn't he have arranged the laws of nature to be 99.99% painful instead of 99.99% joyful? This nightmare possibility you offer just doesn't make a bit of sense no matter how you look at it, and is entirely the result of limited perspective.-"These are what I see as "broad strokes" of your theology, and I have to say I find them pretty repugnant."-Well, hopefully I've given you a proper perspective and you now see that in fact it's just the opposite of what you've been lamenting. No wonder you've preferred to be agnostic, with such a skewed view on life. -I think the entire reason for your dismal attitude about existence is the bugaboo I've been complaining about recently: limited perspective! You're the classic case of someone who remembers the hits and forgets the misses. You concentrate on the extreme minority of "bad" things and forget all about what happens most of the time. As far as human beings go, we've hardly been around for more than a blink of the eye. If we survive, we'll be around for billions of years, and we'll all be happy billionaires, as Ray Kurzweil explains it.-Stay tuned for more.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 02:10 (5260 days ago) @ dhw
> (Finally plus one: a note on Occam/Ockham. His name was William and he came from Ockham, a town in Surrey, England. My dictionaries give both spellings with his famous razor, but you won't find Occam in a British atlas!)-Thank you for your explanation. We were taught the razor as Occam in medical school diagnostic discussion. A doctor makes a differential diagnosis list about the illness, the simplest and most likly first, using the razor. There may be five or more listed in descending order of probability.
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by David Turell , Monday, November 23, 2009, 20:17 (5261 days ago) @ dhw
> Perhaps I can try another summary of your various "truths" to make sure I've understood you correctly. God is not needed to explain the origin of life, our individual identity is an illusion, God is not responsible for suffering, there is no afterlife, "it's no great tragedy that we as individuals die",*** the comfort lies in doing the right thing, and the purpose of life is to enable God to see momentary reflections of himself. > > *** Although you have prefaced this remark with a condition concerning God's own cycle of birth and death, I find it shocking, and wonder if it isn't one of those dramatic statements of yours that you might like to qualify. If not, I can only assume you have never lost someone you love, or witnessed the grief of those who have.-I think you have misundersteod Frank. "The comfort lies in doing the right thing" is the dying person's comfort. I feel the same way. When I am dying I want to be able to look back, and be pleased with my life, leaving the world a little better place.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 21:45 (5261 days ago) @ David Turell
"I think you have misundersteod Frank."-I think I basically ignored this post you quoted from, because of this part of it: "I find it shocking, and wonder if it isn't one of those dramatic statements of yours that you might like to qualify. If not, I can only assume you have never lost someone you love, or witnessed the grief of those who have."-First of all, let me report that I've witnessed the death of my daughter's best friend and grieved with her about that, and later the death of my beloved mother at the age of 69, and my beloved father a year later at the age of 71. And then about 8 years later, I witnessed the death of my favorite brother at the "young" age of 51. However, in all of these cases, I believe I received closure more rapidly than my siblings because of my "mystical vision" of the meaning of life and death. I'm not bragging and don't want to minimize the acute grief I experienced for months after each death. But I didn't remain haunted by these deaths for years afterwards like some (not all) of my siblings.-So dhw is basically the teapot calling the kettle black, in making a statement like, "I...wonder if it isn't one of those dramatic statements of yours." Isn't that exactly what he was doing in writing that? Especially when he follows it up with the entirely unwarranted conclusion, "I can only assume you have never lost someone you love, or witnessed the grief of those who have." Talk about an uncharitable statement to make, evidently because he was driven to hyperbole by something else I said. Time to calm down.-To address what you said: '"The comfort lies in doing the right thing" is the dying person's comfort. I feel the same way. When I am dying I want to be able to look back, and be pleased with my life, leaving the world a little better place.'-I didn't mean experiencing the "dying person's comfort." I mean the comfort we experience from incident to incident: knowing we have done our best with as open a mind as possible, which means with as large a perspective as is possible for us, and not blinded by our own prejudices that might rear their ugly heads when we act out of anger or frustration.
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by David Turell , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 02:01 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
To address what you said: '"The comfort lies in doing the right thing" is the dying person's comfort. I feel the same way. When I am dying I want to be able to look back, and be pleased with my life, leaving the world a little better place.' > > I didn't mean experiencing the "dying person's comfort." I mean the comfort we experience from incident to incident: knowing we have done our best with as open a mind as possible, which means with as large a perspective as is possible for us, and not blinded by our own prejudices that might rear their ugly heads when we act out of anger or frustration.-As you have stated your intent here, I firmly agree with you.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 22:31 (5261 days ago) @ David Turell
I want to make another reply to your post, where you say, "When I am dying I want to be able to look back, and be pleased with my life, leaving the world a little better place."-What do you mean exactly when you said, "When I am dying"? I've watched my 101 year old mother in law in the process of dying for the past 10 years, in the sense of one thing after another shutting down that used to contribute to the quality of her life and now does not. She just recently had another "event" where she broke her hip, and you know what that usually leads to in people over 70: death within a few short months. In her case, it won't because she's otherwise so healthy, but it is just one more thing that shuts down more of her life.-She's so "strong" that she will undoubtedly drift on for another 10 years (especially with the continued "advancement" of medicine that completely ignores the quality of life in exchange for sheer longevity), with more and more of her life fading out as the years pass. I myself have felt myself "dying" in stages since being diagnosed first with high blood pressure and later (probably as a consequence) diabetes. These put dampers on your life where you have to back off from previous experiences that enriched life. Now they are gone and so I have partially "died."-The point is, because of the way people "die" these days, by the time you're actually on your death bed, you're probably so unconscious that the last thing you'll be able to do is think about how lovely your life in the past has been and how you have made the world a better place. Better to be pleased with that now, with the work you are doing now to make the world a better place to live, because in your death throes the last thing you'll be able to do is reminisce about your glorious past. The thing that will be most upfront in your mind is why your stupid body is still clinging to life and won't let you pass on to end your misery.-I wish medicine spent a little more time working on improving the quality of life instead of just prolonging sheer longevity more and more. It allows us to "shut down" almost interminably, until there's virtually nothing left of us, as is happening with my mother-in-law. When she's asked (all too frequently) what the secret is of her longevity her cynical answer is, "breathing." And that's just about all that's left, or will be in 10 or 20 years when she finally does die.-Remember what the Roman's thought? A nobleman's death was heart attack. That's the best way to go: suddenly, with only brief moments of pain. You don't have time to think about your past glories then, either. In general, thinking about your wonderful past is a complete and utter waste of time. Really the only thing that counts is the here and now. As that wise man and abusive alcoholic, Alan Watts, said, "This is It."
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by David Turell , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 01:51 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
I want to make another reply to your post, where you say, "When I am dying I want to be able to look back, and be pleased with my life, leaving the world a little better place." > > The point is, because of the way people "die" these days, by the time you're actually on your death bed, you're probably so unconscious that the last thing you'll be able to do is think about how lovely your life in the past has been and how you have made the world a better place. Better to be pleased with that now, with the work you are doing now to make the world a better place to live, because in your death throes the last thing you'll be able to do is reminisce about your glorious past. The thing that will be most upfront in your mind is why your stupid body is still clinging to life and won't let you pass on to end your misery. > > I wish medicine spent a little more time working on improving the quality of life instead of just prolonging sheer longevity more and more. It allows us to "shut down" almost interminably, until there's virtually nothing left of us, as is happening with my mother-in-law. -I fully agree with you. All of us want to die swiftly. An ICU can be a torture chamber. The average hospice speeds death, and I have done that in the hospital with family permission.
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 00:31 (5263 days ago) @ dhw
"Your theology is built to fit in with the basic premise of a loving God."-That's not so much a premise as first a discovery, and second a logical conclusion. As far as the latter, it's very much a conclusion from the consequences of having a complete perspective in any given situation. The consequences of having a complete perspective results in a loving God. It's not a premise.
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by David Turell , Friday, November 20, 2009, 16:51 (5264 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> Human consciousness is also just a process. It doesn't not have any "persistence", the way a lump of flesh like the human brain has. Consciousness is something that comes and goes, even while we're awake! It depends on the human brain as its substrate, but it does not have a continuous existence. Without the activity of the human brain to keep it going, it simply fades out of existence, even while we're alive. When we fall asleep, it goes away. It has no existence outside of process.-I have a problem with your statement that consciousness stops with sleep. Are dreams consciousness in some form? How about out-of-body experiences under anesthesia? In sleep apnea EEG studies, there is cortical activity, the source of consciousness in your formulation.-> > Yet those who believe in immortality probably believe that consciousness lives on after death.-There are many near to death (NDE) reports from patients who learn of other persons' deaths by communication with persons on the 'other side'. These are verified third person observations, especially in hospice situations.The patient had no other souce of inforation except from the NDE.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 20, 2009, 19:04 (5264 days ago) @ David Turell
"I have a problem with your statement that consciousness stops with sleep. Are dreams consciousness in some form?"-I don't think dreams are generally recognized as part of consciousness. On the contrary, I think the psychologist's convention is to speak of dreams happening when we are unconscious. Dreams are certainly experiences that we have and we can remember our experiences, but not all of our experiences happen in our consciousness.-Let me give you an example. I do a series of daily 60-second stretching exercises. In some positions, I don't have my watch available for the timing and I count slowly up to 60. Often during this counting, my mind wonders away from my mental counting onto something else. My consciousness is no longer on the counting but on that something else. Nevertheless there are mechanisms in my brain that are keeping track of the counting that "wake me up" when I get close to 60 and then consciousness attends to the last five or so seconds and turns away from what I've been thinking about. Then when I look back, I can remember that I'd been counting to myself all along, even though my consciousness was turned elsewhere.-"There are many near to death (NDE) reports from patients who learn of other persons' deaths by communication with persons on the 'other side'. These are verified third person observations, especially in hospice situations.The patient had no other souce of inforation except from the NDE."-And you think this proves there's an afterlife? It's uncertain what it actually proves, but it may be nothing more then some kind of telepathic event. Personally the existence of telepathy is much more believable than an afterlife, and of course many materialists even doubt the existence of telephatic events. Personally I can't be that skeptical.-Here's what I think happens when we have a premonition of another person's death. In fact, we've had a telepathic but unconscious connection all along with that person while they were alive. Then when they suddenly die, that connection is severed. The brain is startled by that severing and sometimes in an attempt to make sense of it, it makes up a story about what actually happened. If the person believes in the afterlife, the story is couched in a "vision" of a "message from the other side." A more skeptical person like myself might also have a premonition of the person's death, but the brain does not manufacture a story about a "message from the other side," but is content with the strange feeling that the person is no longer with us. By Occam's razor, I think my explanation makes a lot more sense.
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by David Turell , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 02:09 (5263 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> Here's what I think happens when we have a premonition of another person's death. In fact, we've had a telepathic but unconscious connection all along with that person while they were alive. Then when they suddenly die, that connection is severed. The brain is startled by that severing and sometimes in an attempt to make sense of it, it makes up a story about what actually happened. If the person believes in the afterlife, the story is couched in a "vision" of a "message from the other side." A more skeptical person like myself might also have a premonition of the person's death, but the brain does not manufacture a story about a "message from the other side," but is content with the strange feeling that the person is no longer with us. By Occam's razor, I think my explanation makes a lot more sense.-I have talked with patients who have had an NDE. I have reviewed the literature on it, many authors M.D.s, psychologists, etc. I don't think your Occam's solution works at all. First of all you have introduced mental telepathy, and from my wife's experiences, described here before, that does exist in some people, but not many. What happens in an NDE (the most common story), is that the patient dies, and while being resuscitated, goes down a long dark tunnel toward a very bright light. When coming into that light, there are recognizable to the patient, dead folks, who communicate telepathically ,and tell of someone else who has died at some recent time in the past, days, weeks, etc. The patient is very surprised to learn this. Many of the patients are in hospice, very sedated and waiting to succumb to their illness in a comfortable fashion. There is no way the patient could have learned of the death previously, a fact that has been checked by attending M.D.s in a number of these cases. I heard one case described by a hospice MD on the radio here in Houston. He had become aware of these phenomena only after he began working in that situation. These experiences were described in the Bardo-Thodol , the Tibetan book of the dead thousands of years old. The peaceful, loving feeling you describe from your own mystical experience is afterward felt by many of the NDE'rs. If they did fear death, they don't any longer. The experiences are not all good. If my memory is correct, about 17% have very bad experiences. And by the way, I am not discussing out-of-the-body experiences. Those are different and have been described under anesthesia, smoking pot (Susan Blackmore), and while the patient is essentially flat-lined.-One of my patients, dying at home with chest cancer, had an experience where he described to his wife, seeing a series of people floating by in boats, all dead folks known to his wife. The next day he died.Maybe a premonition for him, but the really revealing point to me about NDE's is the folks who come in contact with the NDE patient are always dead . This puts to rest that these are hallucinations, the contention Blackmore makes.("Dying to Live", 1993)I use Occam also, swear by him, but your Occam, has tossed in a factor that does not exist in this situation: only a few folks are telepathic, many have these experiences.-And by the way, your challenge worked. I'm doing a little introductory reading on process theology. I'll be back with some thoughts later.
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 03:00 (5263 days ago) @ David Turell
I disagree completely that only a few people are telepathic. I think it's in the very nature of complex nervous systems. I think you're talking about conscious telepathy. That indeed may be extremely rare, if it exists at all. I'm talking about unconscious telepathy that appears in stories about visions of the afterlife, as I've already explained. I believe we're all telepathic, and for probably from the same fundamental reason that quantum effects support "spooky action at a distance."-Also, NDE is precisely that: near-death, not actual death. If someone comes back, that indicates that something was there, something was going on. Just because the heart stops or even if we "flatline" for a few moments, doesn't mean that the person actually dies, unless you're talking about some legal definition of death which may be ignoring reality. -The mystical experiences in NDE happen because the human brain is pushed to its extreme limits, which is exactly what is going on in mystical experiences. Nothing "supernatural" is going on at all: it's all natural, i.e. physiologically based. Push the brain to its limits and it can break through and tap normally hidden mental realms. It even happens with psychotropic drugs.
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 04:06 (5263 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"I disagree completely that only a few people are telepathic. I think it's in the very nature of complex nervous systems."-I forgot to point out that this implies something that lots of people have observed in their own pets. Animals are telepathic as well as human beings. Obviously they don't have the concept of telepathy. They nevertheless often seem to have a "sixth sense" about what's going on. They are unconsciously tapping into the telepathic level of existence, and I'm not talking about picking up subtle cues from human body language, although telepathic abilities could be instrumental is sensitizing awareness of these cues.-None of this should be surprising, because if there are phenomena in our universe, they are natural, and if they are natural, there's nothing magical about particularly highly developed abilities in human beings. If the abilities exist in humans, they probably also exist in other animals in fragmentary form.-To me this just makes the natural world all the more wonderful. The only thing special about human beings is they just have "more of the same," due to their more complex nervous system.-I want to emphasize that "the telepathic level of existence" is part of the natural world. I think it's an example of what has been brought up before, that there are natural phenomena in the universe that science has not yet gotten its arms around and has not yet learned how to deal with scientifically. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, only that it hasn't been done yet.-Griffin has actually written extensively about telepathy. He presents arguments that telepathic communication may have nothing to do with limitations caused by the speed of light. For this reason he seems to argue that God simultaneously knows everything that is going on in the universe even when events happen across the universe, and that telepathy could become instantly aware of events taking place billions of light years apart. "Spooky action at a distance" is instantaneous and independent of the actual distance separating the two events. This is similar enough to telepathy that it could be that telepathy taps into the same physical realm that rules quantum events.-If all this is true, then science obviously still has lots to learn. Well, heck, we know that, since the greatest scientific minds in physics remain totally baffled by the laws that govern quantum phenomena. We may be able to measure these phenomena more accurately than anything else in science, but we are utterly clueless to understand them. I've seen it written many times that anyone who claims to understand why quantum events work the way they do doesn't understand quantum science.
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by David Turell , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 05:26 (5263 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> Griffin has actually written extensively about telepathy. He presents arguments that telepathic communication may have nothing to do with limitations caused by the speed of light. For this reason he seems to argue that God simultaneously knows everything that is going on in the universe even when events happen across the universe, and that telepathy could become instantly aware of events taking place billions of light years apart. "Spooky action at a distance" is instantaneous and independent of the actual distance separating the two events. This is similar enough to telepathy that it could be that telepathy taps into the same physical realm that rules quantum events. > > If all this is true, then science obviously still has lots to learn. Well, heck, we know that, since the greatest scientific minds in physics remain totally baffled by the laws that govern quantum phenomena. We may be able to measure these phenomena more accurately than anything else in science, but we are utterly clueless to understand them. I've seen it written many times that anyone who claims to understand why quantum events work the way they do doesn't understand quantum science.-This is exactly why I think consciousness and our mind is at a quantum level, adn God is also at that level.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 01:27 (5262 days ago) @ David Turell
"This is exactly why I think consciousness and our mind is at a quantum level, adn God is also at that level."-I'm not sure what you mean by "at the quantum level." All I'm willing to conjecture is that the same "thing" that allows "spooky action at a distance" in quantum phenomena may be at the root of telepathy. But in any sense of the word "level" that makes sense to me they are obviously operating on entirely different levels.
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by David Turell , Monday, November 23, 2009, 00:26 (5262 days ago) @ David Turell
And by the way, your challenge worked. I'm doing a little introductory reading on process theology. I'll be back with some thoughts later.-Some thoughts: DJT:"I need further definition of the concept of 'processes'." FP:Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly), that gets into the very heart of what process philosophy is all about. It is far beyond my ability to explicate the concept of process in this philosophy. The best you can hope for from me is an intuitive notion of what process is. Read the first chapter of Stephen T. Franklin's Speaking from the Depths. If you can penetrate that, you should be teaching philosophy at the graduate level. DJT:Just from your introduction above it should not be surprising that I said I was in a fog. "It is far beyond my ability to explicate the concept of process in this philosophy", but yet you favor it. I went to feel mentally competent and comfortable with any philosophy I wish to follow. If it is that complex and far out, why bother. Our favorite friend Occam (we both spell it the same way) demands simplicity. I do not see what you have described as your personal theology, in this or in other statements, as parsimonious. FP:All I'll do here is give you a couple quotes from Jungerman's book, pp. 4-5: 'Process thought views events, not substance, as primary. According to Whitehead, 'the simple notion of an enduring substance sustaining enduring qualities expresses a useful abstract for many purposes in life. But whenever we try to use it as a fundamental statement of the nature of things, it proves itself mistaken." The idea of inert matter as considered throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, which is still a pervasive idea, gives us no possible basis for explaining interrelationships -- especially those relations conceived in physics as "Forces." DJT:Of course, I know that when I look at a table, its real structure is mostly space, and its firmness is due to the fact that its molecules have almost no motion. Quantum uncertainty, force fields, strong, weak, electromagnetic, gravity, Brownian motion, can fully be understood by me (and many others) without introducing the approach in 'process'. I know clearly that the universe started with a Big Bang, was hot plasma, and is now filled with 100 billion galaxies, and is expanding. That is a process. My life began with sperm and egg, and the matter I'm composed of has turned over many times in my 80 years. That is process. 'Fundamental to process philosophy are events, understood as actual occasions. In the process view, the fully actual entities are not things that endure throughout time, but momentary events. Actual entities are, thereby, called actual occasions. Such events take place during a short time interval, a fraction of a second, at a particular place. Thus, actual occasions occur in space and time, space-time.' 'Actual occasions occur at different levels, such as at the level of atoms and at the level of human experience. An enduring entity composed of actual occasions could be an atom or an organism, such as a human being. At the most elementary level, electrons and quarks can be understood as a series of actual occasions. For Whitehead, a moving electron has a different identity at every instant because its position has changed. Its trajectory is a series of events. Whitehead calls this a serially ordered society of actual occasions. A human being is a very complex society of events, the dominant member of which can enjoy emergent, unitary consciousness. A human being in process terms is described as a complex spatiotemporal society of events. DJT: And my above reasoning is why I said this put me into a 'fog'. I don't have to get involved with these intellectual contortions to understand current physics and cosmology. Perhaps I'm unsophisticated, but I've always felt simpler is better and more comfortable. You are comfortable with 'process', I assume, because of your mystical experiences. We have different needs.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 01:43 (5262 days ago) @ David Turell
"If it is that complex and far out, why bother."-As a philosophy major, I find that a silly thing to say. Why bother reading Kant or Heidegger then, two of the most profound minds the world has ever known? Understanding deep insights light years from common knowledge is always going to be tough going, and most people won't bother, that's why there are so few professional philosophers. Your objection is an objection against philosophy in general, or abstract algebra for that matter, or any difficult field.-"Our favorite friend Occam (we both spell it the same way)..."-Why wouldn't we spell it the way it's listed in the dictionary?-"...demands simplicity."-That's not what Occam's razor is. If you have two different statements that are completely adequate in explaining the same thing and one statement is simpler than another, then Occam's razor prefers the simpler explanation. But that simpler explanation might still be incredibly complicated, depending on what is being explained.-But I'm tired of splitting hairs with you and need to go do my daily exercise.-"You are comfortable with 'process', I assume, because of your mystical experiences."-No. I'm comfortable with it because I recognize that that's the way the world works and science assumes it in its very foundation.
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by David Turell , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 05:32 (5263 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"I have a problem with your statement that consciousness stops with sleep. Are dreams consciousness in some form?" > > I don't think dreams are generally recognized as part of consciousness. On the contrary, I think the psychologist's convention is to speak of dreams happening when we are unconscious. Dreams are certainly experiences that we have and we can remember our experiences, but not all of our experiences happen in our consciousness.- What if I bring up the issue of lucid dreaming? Richard Feynman was famous for this weird item as well as his brilliant mind. By definition we are then aware that we are dreaming and can manage the dream. Most people if they train, can do this. I haven't, out of disinterest, but I certainly am not sure consciousness disappears with dreaming. If one defines consciousness, specifically, as aware that we are aware, then I might agree.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 01:31 (5262 days ago) @ David Turell
On and off I'm aware that I'm dreaming, but this awareness is not dreaming itself and is a form of consciousness. The dreaming as such however remains below the level of consciousness. If it isn't then you're just consciously imagining things.-But what on earth does this have to do with God, anyhow?
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by David Turell , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 14:37 (5265 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"You have given me a very clear pictue of fundamentals. They are the particles of supersymmetry that we know and the ones we are hunting for , i.e., Higgs Boson..." > > Actually we have never detected a supersymmetry particle. So far they are only theoretical constructs in a theory that goes beyond the Standard Model that is part of canonical particle theory. And the Higgs Boson is not a supersymmetry particle: it is part of the Standard Model that electrons, quarks, photons, and gluons are part of and all of which have been detected. The Higgs Boson is the one particle in the Standard Model that has yet to be detected. > > Anyhow, none of that changes anything I've said.-You are correct about my misunderstanding of supersymmetry (SUSY). The following arrticle shows how finding the Higgs may lead to supersymmetry.-http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427341.200-in-susy-we-trust-what-the-lhc-is-really-looking-for.html?page=3
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by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 16:09 (5265 days ago) @ David Turell
You are correct about my misunderstanding of supersymmetry (SUSY). The following arrticle shows how finding the Higgs may lead to supersymmetry. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427341.200-in-susy-we-trust-what-the-lhc-is-rea...-The article actually shows that before we find the Higgs we'd better find supersymmetric particles, because theoretically the most fundamental supersymmetric particles have less mass than the Higgs. So if we find the Higgs without finding supersymmetric particles, the standard model is at a dead end and we have no theories for tying up all the holes.-How does this tie into this religious thread? Well, if the discovery of the Higgs proves that supersymmetry theory is wrong, the infamous God of the Gaps looms its ugly head bigger than ever. It should be a wild victory for the Christian fundamentalists LOL.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 16:38 (5265 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> How does this tie into this religious thread? Well, if the discovery of the Higgs proves that supersymmetry theory is wrong, the infamous God of the Gaps looms its ugly head bigger than ever. It should be a wild victory for the Christian fundamentalists LOL.-But one could argue it the other way: if the Higgs is on target for the theory,the fundamentalists can claim God made a beautiful plan of supersymmetry in creating the universe.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 18:09 (5265 days ago) @ David Turell
"But one could argue it the other way: if the Higgs is on target for the theory,the fundamentalists can claim God made a beautiful plan of supersymmetry in creating the universe."-They make claims like this already, all the time. They still pull up the design of the eye as an example of God's plan that could not have been formed by evolution, when it was shown how this would be possible 150 years ago. It's enough to put the worst insomniac to sleep.-Anyhow, I'm betting that supersymmetry will be corroborated. It explains so many, apparently unrelated phenomena, so neatly that the scientific community is going to be astounded and demoralized if the theory is refuted.-On the other hand, I saw one analysis that would welcome a refutation of supersymmetry, as it would spark a rich search for something entirely new that would revolutionize our understanding of physics. Corroborating supersymmetry would just be ho-hum, surprising nobody and not stimulating a bunch of new research, especially since taking the next step -- actually looking for evidence for string theory -- is so far beyond our physical capabilities as to remain strictly pie in the sky.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 22:05 (5265 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> I saw one analysis that would welcome a refutation of supersymmetry, as it would spark a rich search for something entirely new that would revolutionize our understanding of physics. Corroborating supersymmetry would just be ho-hum, surprising nobody and not stimulating a bunch of new research, especially since taking the next step -- actually looking for evidence for string theory -- is so far beyond our physical capabilities as to remain strictly pie in the sky.-Great point. String theory is beyond any proof so far, and I suspect it may be beautiful but the wrong answer.-I'd still like a comment on the following I brought up before, as Whitehead is so surprising to me: > >I will innocently ask this of all folks here (Matt and you, Frank) with philosophic knowledge: how mainstream is Whitehead? Or is he a side channel? I'd heard about him and process theology, but is as far as I ever went. It doesn't open up any vistas for me, now that i have had a slight exposure.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 23:43 (5265 days ago) @ David Turell
"I'd still like a comment on the following I brought up before, as Whitehead is so surprising to me:-"I will innocently ask this of all folks here (Matt and you, Frank) with philosophic knowledge: how mainstream is Whitehead? Or is he a side channel?"-I don't know what I'm doing wrong but my responses sometimes don't show up, and I haven't been saving my responses on my own machine. I gave you a long answer to this yesterday and now I can't find it. I did the same thing to another post you made that you also asked for more than once, and could not find my response and had to try to reconstruct it. -So I'll try again. Whitehead co-authored with Bertrand Russell a seminal treatise on the foundations of mathematics called Principia Mathematica in 1910-1913. After that, he changed the course of his career and became a metaphysician inspired by the findings of modern science, specifically relativity theory and quantum theory. In doing this he founded an entirely new branch of philosophy called process philosophy. Charles Hartshorne was the first theologian to "get it" and became a principal exponent of that philosophy in works of theology. It spawned an entirely new branch of theology that has had numerous and influential theologians ever since.-Process philosophy cannot be considered a "side channel" because then you have to ask, aside what? It is an independent line of thought that stands on its own, with a strong following among Christian theologians who reject traditional Christianity as being made entirely obsolete by the findings of modern science. Naturally, they are going to be in a small minority because, as you know, Christianity is still quite the going concern. That doesn't mean in the least however, that traditional Christianity has a viable future in the long run. Process theology is much more attractive to scientists with a strong sense of the divine than traditional theology, at least once they hear about it. It is often received with a sigh of relief and as a breath of fresh air. The transformation often happens early in theological training, while the brain is still resilient and open to new and fresh ideas. Those long entrenched in traditonal ways of thinking won't get very far with it. Such is human nature.-"It doesn't open up any vistas for me, now that i have had a slight exposure."-A "slight exposure" isn't going to do it for you. You can't expect to penetrate into its depths by reading the superficial meanderings of dilettantes like myself on these fragmentary forums. Sometimes I wonder why I take them at all seriously, since nothing is ever resolved on them. I think people think they're going to find easy answers to the most difficult questions ever posed by the mind of man. Sheer fantasy and wishful thinking. You won't get anywhere unless you're willing to do the hard work of going to the original sources and studying them deeply. The superficial passes at these ideas on these forums are almost entirely a waste of time, yet I constantly find myself being sucked into them. The Web is a disease. I even read about this sickening disease several times recently in Time Magazine.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Friday, November 20, 2009, 00:19 (5265 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> I don't know what I'm doing wrong but my responses sometimes don't show up, and I haven't been saving my responses on my own machine. I gave you a long answer to this yesterday and now I can't find it. I did the same thing to another post you made that you also asked for more than once, and could not find my response and had to try to reconstruct it. -I had the same problem until I did two things. I held the submit button for seveal seconds, and items were published. Also I always go back to the forum to make sure it got there.--> "It doesn't open up any vistas for me, now that i have had a slight exposure." > > A "slight exposure" isn't going to do it for you. You can't expect to penetrate into its depths by reading the superficial meanderings of dilettantes like myself on these fragmentary forums. Sometimes I wonder why I take them at all seriously, since nothing is ever resolved on them. I think people think they're going to find easy answers to the most difficult questions ever posed by the mind of man. Sheer fantasy and wishful thinking. You won't get anywhere unless you're willing to do the hard work of going to the original sources and studying them deeply. The superficial passes at these ideas on these forums are almost entirely a waste of time, yet I constantly find myself being sucked into them. The Web is a disease. I even read about this sickening disease several times recently in Time Magazine.-I've enjoyed this website, the only one I have ever been on. My own website for my second book has brought me emails from all over the world. I can follow the dispute over global warming on two sites I like, and there are five science sites I look at almost daily, which allows me to bring interesting new findings to this place.-I am a retired internest-cardiologist, living with my second wife on a paint horse ranch outside Houston. The ranch with horse shows keeps us busy, but I keep reading in this arena of thought, currently, "Not a Chimp", Jeremy Taylor, 2009. He covers the rather vast genetic difference between humans and chimps. It is not 98%, which is just counting bases. I'll give a little review when I am done.-I still can't respond to your encouragement to try Whitehead at this time. I'll mull it over, but there is another book awaiting me on the shelves, that I must absorb.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Friday, November 20, 2009, 00:36 (5265 days ago) @ David Turell
"I still can't respond to your encouragement to try Whitehead at this time."-I'm not recommending Whitehead, as you have to be a professional philosopher teaching at a university to have a ghost of a chance of understanding him. Read from his disciples: Hartshorne, Cobb, and Griffin.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Friday, March 04, 2011, 02:22 (4796 days ago) @ David Turell
"You have given me a very clear pictue of fundamentals. They are the particles of supersymmetry that we know and the ones we are hunting for , i.e., Higgs Boson..." > > > > Actually we have never detected a supersymmetry particle. The Higgs Boson is the one particle in the Standard Model that has yet to be detected. > > You are correct about my misunderstanding of supersymmetry (SUSY). The following article shows how finding the Higgs may lead to supersymmetry. > > http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427341.200-in-susy-we-trust-what-the-lhc-is-rea... far at the LHC, no Higgs, and some think it may not exist, which requires a new particle physics to better explain the standard model:-http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110228/full/471013a.html
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, March 17, 2011, 23:02 (4782 days ago) @ David Turell
"You have given me a very clear pictue of fundamentals. They are the particles of supersymmetry that we know and the ones we are hunting for , i.e., Higgs Boson..." > > > > > > Actually we have never detected a supersymmetry particle. The Higgs Boson is the one particle in the Standard Model that has yet to be detected.- Rivals hunting at high speed for the Higgs:-http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45390
Problems with this section; for Frank
by BBella , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 05:37 (5266 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"I need further definition of the concept of 'processes'."-> Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly), that gets into the very heart of what process philosophy is all about. It is far beyond my ability to explicate the concept of process in this philosophy. The best you can hope for from me is an intuitive notion of what process is....All I'll do here is give you a couple quotes from Jungerman's book, pp. 4-5: > > 'Process thought views events, not substance, as primary. According to Whitehead, 'the simple notion of an enduring substance sustaining enduring qualities expresses a useful abstract for many purposes in life. But whenever we try to use it as a fundamental statement of the nature of things, it proves itself mistaken." The idea of inert matter as considered throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, which is still a pervasive idea, gives us no possible basis for explaining interrelationships -- especially those relations conceived in physics as "Forces." > > 'Fundamental to process philosophy are events, understood as actual occasions. In the process view, the fully actual entities are not things that endure throughout time, but momentary events. Actual entities are, thereby, called actual occasions. Such events take place during a short time interval, a fraction of a second, at a particular place. Thus, actual occasions occur in space and time, space-time.' > > 'Actual occasions occur at different levels, such as at the level of atoms and at the level of human experience. An enduring entity composed of actual occasions could be an atom or an organism, such as a human being. At the most elementary level, electrons and quarks can be understood as a series of actual occasions. For Whitehead, a moving electron has a different identity at every instant because its position has changed. Its trajectory is a series of events. Whitehead calls this a serially ordered society of actual occasions. A human being is a very complex society of events, the dominant member of which can enjoy emergent, unitary consciousness. A human being in process terms is described as a complex spatiotemporal society of events.-I believe this "process philosophy" written about above is exactly the process that I witnessed during my "experience" and have described in my poems, etc. I have mentioned this very process spoken with my own words in one or two posts here on Agweb. I can't imagine how I would find them to quote here, suffice it to say...I know exactly what is being spoken of above and I've never heard it spoken about before now in your post!-bb
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 14:10 (5265 days ago) @ BBella
All I'll do here is give you a couple quotes from Jungerman's book, pp. 4-5: > > > > 'Process thought views events, not substance, as primary. According to Whitehead, 'the simple notion of an enduring substance sustaining enduring qualities expresses a useful abstract for many purposes in life. But whenever we try to use it as a fundamental statement of the nature of things, it proves itself mistaken." The idea of inert matter as considered throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, which is still a pervasive idea, gives us no possible basis for explaining interrelationships -- especially those relations conceived in physics as "Forces." > > > > 'Fundamental to process philosophy are events, understood as actual occasions. In the process view, the fully actual entities are not things that endure throughout time, but momentary events. Actual entities are, thereby, called actual occasions. Such events take place during a short time interval, a fraction of a second, at a particular place. Thus, actual occasions occur in space and time, space-time.' > > > > 'Actual occasions occur at different levels, such as at the level of atoms and at the level of human experience. An enduring entity composed of actual occasions could be an atom or an organism, such as a human being. At the most elementary level, electrons and quarks can be understood as a series of actual occasions. For Whitehead, a moving electron has a different identity at every instant because its position has changed. Its trajectory is a series of events. Whitehead calls this a serially ordered society of actual occasions. A human being is a very complex society of events, the dominant member of which can enjoy emergent, unitary consciousness. A human being in process terms is described as a complex spatiotemporal society of events. > > I believe this "process philosophy" written about above is exactly the process that I witnessed during my "experience" and have described in my poems, etc. I have mentioned this very process spoken with my own words in one or two posts here on Agweb. I can't imagine how I would find them to quote here, suffice it to say...I know exactly what is being spoken of above and I've never heard it spoken about before now in your post! > > bb-I guess you have to experience it to understand it.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Thursday, November 19, 2009, 23:57 (5265 days ago) @ David Turell
"I guess you have to experience it to understand it."-Here's another post I responded to that never got posted. I'm getting sick of this. Why spend time answering when the posts get lost?-The point I made when I answered this is that you experience processes all the time. Since after all this you still don't even have an inkling of what a process is, merely experiencing process is not going to give you an understanding of what it is. Since my feeble explanatory powers are evidently absolutely incapable of getting through to you, your only hope is to go to original sources, like Griffin. If you're unwilling to spend the time to do that, then don't complain to me or anyone else that you "don't get it" and that you're unwilling to do some serious reading. Don't ask for explanations of it on this forum, either. You're just wasting everyone's time. On the other hand, that's why I believe a lot of people come up on these forums, just to waste time, because these forums are not much good for anything else.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Friday, November 20, 2009, 00:46 (5265 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"I guess you have to experience it to understand it."-The 'experience' I referred to is that you and BBella have had mystical events. I haven't. She responded to you immediately with understanding,as she said, because of her experiences. That is what she wrote. > > Here's another post I responded to that never got posted. I'm getting sick of this. Why spend time answering when the posts get lost? > > The point I made when I answered this is that you experience processes all the time. Since after all this you still don't even have an inkling of what a process is, merely experiencing process is not going to give you an understanding of what it is. Since my feeble explanatory powers are evidently absolutely incapable of getting through to you, your only hope is to go to original sources, like Griffin. If you're unwilling to spend the time to do that, then don't complain to me or anyone else that you "don't get it" and that you're unwilling to do some serious reading. Don't ask for explanations of it on this forum, either. You're just wasting everyone's time. On the other hand, that's why I believe a lot of people come up on these forums, just to waste time, because these forums are not much good for anything else.-I know full well what a process is. I watched disease processes all my life and curative process too. I just can't get my head around what has been offered by you. I am NOT complaining. It is not your fault. I'm not asking for any further explanation. So stop being so defensive or snide, whichever it is in your above paragraph. My concepts are perhaps too rigid. I told you I have to see how a gets to b, and understand it. What you have offered is an interesting and different approach to addressing the problem of 'is there a God, and what does science show us?'.- And, as I understand it, our individual concepts are not that far apart. I conceive of God as universal intelligence who thought up the universe, and I am conviced that the DNA, given by Him, is programmed to evolve life to us, giving us consciousness so that we can come to understand our creation and have comunication with Him. I think there is a joining with Him in an afterlife of thought, based on the early results of NDE research. He watches the process that is going on and may occasionally interfere. Since He thought up the universe and us, He encompases both and is inside and outside the universe, and that makes me a panentheist.-Where we differ is, I don't think chance is involved. Despite Matt lecturing me, I think the odds of what we have discovered in life's processes are too complex to have been developed as a result of chance development.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Friday, November 20, 2009, 02:16 (5265 days ago) @ David Turell
"I know full well what a process is."-But do you "get" that everything is process? That that's what modern science leads up to? That's where Whitehead's thought goes, and he follows it all out to its logical conclusions.-"And, as I understand it, our individual concepts are not that far apart."-But, as you shall see in my response to some of your specific beliefs listed below the above quote, I believe you open yourself up to serious criticism from scientifically literate agnostics and atheists. To avoid those criticisms myself, I make minimal assumptions about how all things got started, and shy away from anything that smacks of the miraculous. Theology does not have to assume that we live in a universe that requires the supernatural. That is process theology's major contribution to thought.-"I conceive of God as universal intelligence who thought up the universe"-I've had trouble with that view for 40 years. The main trouble I have with it is that if God knows what's in store for him, he'd be bored silly. What he wants the universe for is a laboratory that unfolds his own nature to himself, which is so full of wonder that it is surprising to God himself when it unfolds. The universe is thus an expression of God's essence, a way for God to look in the mirror and see his beauty and fullness, aspects that only gradually unfold over billions of our years.-The point of my theology is that God doesn't have to "figure anything out" beforehand to get things going in such a way that his essence is gradually revealed. He just dumps an infinite number of tiny reflections of himself out there and watches what unfolds as they come together and form brighter and brighter images of himself.-"I am conviced that the DNA, given by Him, is programmed to evolve life to us"-This is where you're going to get into trouble with scientifically literate people who have a deep understanding of evolution. They see that at the deepest levels evolution does not require any sort of preconceived design whatsoever, that the most fundamental laws of nature are absolutely sufficient to evolve life from bottom to top, and it probably doesn't even require DNA specifically to get to life.-If you require DNA to produce life, if your concept of God demands that, what would happen to your beliefs if science discovers life on another planet that has nothing to do with DNA, where genetic codes are constructed out of an entirely different chemistry? Why make an assumption that DNA is necessary for a genetic code? All you need to assume is that the fundamental laws of chemistry and physics have within them the power to evolve genetic codes whatever form they take. We have no right to assume that there is anything whatsoever that is magical about DNA. Frankly, that smells of superstition and nothing more.-"I think there is a joining with Him in an afterlife of thought"-Superficially, that's a pleasant thought, but I'm not sure it isn't beset with problems when you start analyzing it more closely. Where does it lead? Is there an evolution of thought in the afterlife, or do we suddenly know "everything"? Do you have any ideas of the afterlife that are more clearly spelled out than that simple sentence?-"He watches the process that is going on and may occasionally interfere."-This is where you're going to run into trouble with the scientifically literate, who see not a shred of evidence that the basic natural laws of the universe have ever been violated. This is why process theology from Whitehead to Hartshorne, to Cobb and Griffin and a host of others have developed the idea that God can only inject himself into the world as a moving force through conscious creatures, when God presents himself to consciousness and acts as a lure, drawing conscious individuals towards his will. But absolutely, no miracles ever occur that counteract the basic laws of nature, i.e. "interfering," to use your term. That's why God does not, can not, deliberately design DNA to produce life. He doesn't have to. That just happens naturally, not supernaturally.-"I think the odds of what we have discovered in life's processes are too complex to have been developed as a result of chance development."-And I think that anyone who truly understands the nature of evolution knows that only natural processes are required to produce life. Your belief as stated above will be regarded as blind faith and a confession that you don't truly understand how evolution works. I know evolutionists will believe this about you, because I've seen highly respected evolutionary scientists who absolutely believe in God totally rejecting the above assertion and claiming it can only be made by those ignorant of how evolution works. And here is a name for you of a theistic evolutionary scientist who takes this exact position: Donald R. Prothero. Look him up. Take a gander at his book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters. Just read pp. 351-359.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Monday, November 23, 2009, 22:05 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"I know full well what a process is." > >But do you "get" that everything is process? YES > > But, as you shall see in my response to some of your specific beliefs listed below the above quote, I believe you open yourself up to serious criticism from scientifically literate agnostics and atheists. I frankly am a free spirit. I don't care about the criticism you warn me of. > > To avoid those criticisms myself, I make minimal assumptions about how all things got started, and shy away from anything that smacks of the miraculous. Theology does not have to assume that we live in a universe that requires the supernatural. That is process theology's major contribution to thought. Good explanation. Undertood. But the universe was started by God, who by definition is supernatural. -"I conceive of God as universal intelligence who thought up the universe" > >I've had trouble with that view for 40 years. The main trouble I have with it is that if God knows what's in store for him, he'd be bored silly. I think you are anthropomorphizing Him. We don't know what He thinks, or if His boredom even exists. > >The point of my theology is that God doesn't have to "figure anything out" beforehand to get things going in such a way that his essence is gradually revealed.-This allows you to follow science exactly as it is interpreted by the atheistic scientists: "Darwin is perfect". The current consensus is not proof. "I am conviced that the DNA, given by Him, is programmed to evolve life to us" > > This is where you're going to get into trouble with scientifically literate people who have a deep understanding of evolution I am just as literate. I have different conclusions. > > If you require DNA to produce life, if your concept of God demands that, what would happen to your beliefs if science discovers life on another planet that has nothing to do with DNA, where genetic codes are constructed out of an entirely different chemistry?-Then I have to change my concepts. "I think there is a joining with Him in an afterlife of thought" > > Superficially, that's a pleasant thought, but I'm not sure it isn't beset with problems when you start analyzing it more closely. Where does it lead? Is there an evolution of thought in the afterlife, or do we suddenly know "everything"? Do you have any ideas of the afterlife that are more clearly spelled out than that simple sentence? NO. I have no idea, nor does it matter to me.-"He watches the process that is going on and may occasionally interfere ." > >This is where you're going to run into trouble with the scientifically literate, who see not a shred of evidence that the basic natural laws of the universe have ever been violated. And I have read scientists, mainly atheists, who wonder where the laws came from.-"I think the odds of what we have discovered in life's processes are too complex to have been developed as a result of chance development."-> > And I think that anyone who truly understands the nature of evolution knows that only natural processes are required to produce life. Your belief as stated above will be regarded as blind faith and a confession that you don't truly understand how evolution works And here is a name for you of a theistic evolutionary scientist who takes this exact position: Donald R. Prothero. Look him up. Take a gander at his book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters. Just read pp. 351-359.-And I have read theistic scientists who feel exactly as I do. You are describing as consensus that is not proven. Yours is blind faith also.
Problems with this section; for Frank
by Frank Paris , Monday, November 23, 2009, 22:55 (5261 days ago) @ David Turell
There's not much in here I can respond to, but there is this:-"And I have read scientists, mainly atheists, who wonder where the laws came from."-I'm not sure what your point is in saying this. Is this supposed to be some kind of indication that even atheists admit there are holes in their disbelief? Well, we all know that's true LOL.-String theory initially had the vain hope that once it was figured out, the fundamental laws would be seen to inevitably flow from the basic laws of logic alone. That truly would be a "Theory of Everything." Later it was realized that the fundamental constants of nature that string theory gave us resulted in something like 10**500 different possible combinations of these constants, just the opposite of the original dream of string theory.-The interesting thing is that both extremes have been used as arguments for atheism. But my theology allows for both possibilities without resorting to atheism, and it also allows for anything in between. Basically, it is independent of scientific reality, which any theology must be, or it begs for refutation once science knows enough. -"Yours is blind faith also."-I've freely admitted from the start that my theology is just a theory that I've tried to make consistent, coherent, and adequate to my experience. But I reserve the word, "faith," to being a state of being grasped by something that transcends any particular religious beliefs. This is more like how theologians like Paul Tillich and Martin Buber used the term. -Faith stems from encounters with the ineffable in varying degrees, and lots of people who profess to religious beliefs probably don't have an iota of faith in them. In any case, the term, "blind faith" does not use the word, "faith" as I do, but means something more like, "blind beliefs."
Problems with this section; for Frank
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 01:59 (5261 days ago) @ Frank Paris
>Later it was realized that the fundamental constants of nature that string theory gave us resulted in something like 10**500 different possible combinations of these constants, just the opposite of the original dream of string theory.-All we get from that is the multiverse theory, with no way of proving the thought.--> > "Yours is blind faith also." > > I've freely admitted from the start that my theology is just a theory that I've tried to make consistent, coherent, and adequate to my experience. But I reserve the word, "faith," to being a state of being grasped by something that transcends any particular religious beliefs. This is more like how theologians like Paul Tillich and Martin Buber used the term. > > Faith stems from encounters with the ineffable in varying degrees, and lots of people who profess to religious beliefs probably don't have an iota of faith in them. In any case, the term, "blind faith" does not use the word, "faith" as I do, but means something more like, "blind beliefs."-I accept your correction in terms. Blind beliefs is a good compromise. My system of belief comes from my readings for many years as an agnostic. I gradfually arrived at the view I have and wrote an autobiographical summary of my reasoning. At no time did antecedent religious values enter the picture, to answer a previous comment of your in a previous post I can't locate at the moment.
Problems with this section
Frank continues to explain his process theology to me, and we continue to blunder through one misunderstanding after another. -I've been trying to find out whether you think God knew or did not know that he was creating the mechanisms for life and evolution when he created the "fundamental particles". By linking the world and humanity, I thought I was making it clear that I was referring to life on Earth, which is the only life we know of. I expressed surprise that you did not consider this to be of theological importance. Your reason is now clear: you are not even thinking about life on Earth, but about whether "the fundamentals in any particular universe have the potential to evolve into life" ... to which of course your answer is that you don't know. This is indeed irrelevant to theology; it's also irrelevant to my line of questioning. The problem of Chance v. Design is of theological interest in relation to life on Earth, because if life here came about by accident, this exonerates God from responsibility for suffering. You have merely taken up my remark about the "originality" of this view, but do not seem to have realized that this is the thesis I was concerned with from the start. You have probably also missed the link with the "trick up my sleeve" with which I ended that post. It may be that your study of Aristotelian logic has made you too prone to split things up, and perhaps a little dose of hermeneutics might help you to stick them back together again. Let us therefore move to Part 2 of this particular discussion.-dhw: Given that God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles", has a purpose (to see himself reflected), and has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials, I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind chance is!-I was referring here to a point you made in an earlier post. You now write: "When have I ever said God is incapable of creating conscious reflections of himself? I believe that all I've said is that in our particular universe God has only created the fundamentals." On 3 November at 16.31, I wrote: "I find [your account] a very coherent scenario, but it could hardly be further away from the belief (27 October 15.45) that "life and the codes for evolution" came about "by accident". You responded: "I don't see that, if you're talking about genetic codes. Those are far beyond the conscious ability of God to create, given the complete lack of control that God has over his fundamental particles once he "cuts them loose"." -I had, perhaps erroneously, assumed there was a link in your theology between genetic codes and the evolution of consciousness, but from my standpoint it makes no difference, since human consciousness could scarcely have evolved without the genetic codes. Let me then spell out my credulity problem to you, although of course I now no longer know what you consider God capable of. I will put in bold those parts which represent the arguments I have taken directly from your various posts; the rest is mine:-I find it difficult to believe that God, given infinite time and his infinite consciousness, and given his purpose, which is to see himself reflected in the universe, does not have the conscious ability to create the genetic codes which have led to human consciousness, whereas blind, unthinking chance can create them (you have "no trouble believing that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident").-Your theology needs this theory to exonerate God from responsibility for suffering, which is why I say the Chance v. Design argument is of vital theological concern. Your faith that chance can achieve what God can't at least explains the somewhat muddled affinity you felt with Dawkins in your original smoke-filled post, but it adds a great deal of fuel to the atheist argument that we don't need God to explain anything, so why bother with him at all? If you prefer a more learned formula, then I'll just murmur "Ockham's Razor". -However, none of this has the slightest bearing on the mystic experiences that have given you your faith or your insights. I'm only trying to explain to you why I continue to find the details of your theology confusing. David Turell's very welcome comments seem to me to offer a much clearer and more coherent image of God, and it will be interesting to see if he can untangle the threads better than I can.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 13, 2009, 00:17 (5272 days ago) @ dhw
'I've been trying to find out whether you think God knew or did not know that he was creating the mechanisms for life and evolution when he created the "fundamental particles".'-I don't think the answer to that question matters much. The important thing is realizing that what God is looking for is advanced life forms that can know him and (eventually) respond to his lure with, so to speak, zero inertia.-Maybe God tries an infinite number of experiments, tossing out fundamentals in infinite variety to see how good each different set of fundamentals are at creating life. Or maybe the fundamentals in every single universe are exactly the same. Maybe that's something that science will figure out some day, and as such, is hardly a subject for theological speculation. Basically, it utterly doesn't matter whether I think God knew or did not know that he was creating mechanisms for life, only that that is perhaps his ultimate goal. (BTW, I think "life and evolution" are redundant. You can't have one without the other, at least in our universe.) He may also enjoy tossing out experiments just to see what happens, for his own amusement. But his "serious business" is looking for advanced life forms.-Even if fundamentals are exactly the same in every universe, we just don't know whether they imply our genetic code. That's a question for science, not theology. In any case, even if the fundamentals are exactly the same in every universe, there's still room for an infinite number of different forms of life and it could mean that God simply doesn't need the "extra variety" of different sets of fundamentals to satisfy his basic desire to see himself reflected in advanced stages of evolution. In any case, whether there are an infinite variety of universes based on an infinite variety of the fundamental properties of the fundamentals (the "constants" of nature) is absolutely not a theological question, at least any theology that doesn't beg to be refuted by further progress in science.
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by Frank Paris , Friday, November 13, 2009, 00:47 (5272 days ago) @ dhw
"I had, perhaps erroneously, assumed there was a link in your theology between genetic codes and the evolution of consciousness"-Absolutely an erroneous assumption. I have absolutely no idea whether our particular genetic code is required for the evolution of consciousness, although I rather doubt it. That's also a scientific, not a theological, question.-"I now no longer know what you consider God capable of."-In our universe or in general? If you're talking about just our universe, I'm confused that you're confused. I don't know how I could make that any clearer than I already have. The fundamentals are set up such that no miracles against the physical laws of nature are needed for the emergence of life and eventually consciousness. As Griffin says, "reenchantment without supernaturalism."-"I find it difficult to believe that God, given infinite time and his infinite consciousness, and given his purpose, which is to see himself reflected in the universe, does not have the conscious ability to create the genetic codes."-Maybe in general, but not in our universe. In our universe, it wasn't necessary. The fundamentals are capable of doing this on their own. If God did it in our universe, this meant he pushed matter around independent of natural laws, i.e. worked miracles. My theology dispenses with miracles, as does science and the process theology from Whitehead to Griffin. God's relationship with genetic codes on our planet is extremely abstract: his fundamentals were created with the potential to create the genetic codes on Earth, and who knows how many other perfectly working but entirely different genetic codes on other planets? This is simply not an interesting theological question, and I don't know why you seem to be so hung up on it.-"Your faith that chance can achieve what God can't..." (my italics)-Doesn't, or chose not to in our universe, would be better ways to put it.-"it adds a great deal of fuel to the atheist argument that we don't need God to explain anything"-I never denied that we don't need God to explain anything natural that happens in the world. Personally, I only need God to explain my own religious experience, and I believe that mystics throughout the ages are not lying when they claim to have had experiences that sound very much like my own, and that they also required God to explain these experiences. I think the only question for you and me is whether my theology is coherent and consistent, not whether it is connected to anything real. I believe it is, but also it absolutely doesn't matter to me whether you believe it is.-"so why bother with him at all?"-You obviously shouldn't. You don't have any reason to, so don't fret about it. I do. So I have my theories.-'If you prefer a more learned formula, then I'll just murmur "Ockham's Razor".'-Fine, if that makes you happy. Be done with all this, then. In your experience you have every right to apply that principle. But I'd betray my own experience if I did.-"David Turell's very welcome comments seem to me to offer a much clearer and more coherent image of God, and it will be interesting to see if he can untangle the threads better than I can."-You think I'm opaque. You should give Whitehead a try sometime.
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FRANK: God's relationship with genetic codes on this planet is extremely abstract: his fundamentals were created with the potential to create the genetic codes on Earth, and who knows how many other perfectly working but entirely different genetic codes on other planets? This is simply not an interesting theological question, and I don't know why you seem to be so hung up on it.-Then let me spell it out for you. My interest is not in what God may or may not have done in other universes, but in his nature and in our human relations with him. The conventional view of him is that he is the creator of life on Earth, and this, as you well know, leads to major theological headaches concerning the origin of evil and suffering. How does one reconcile all the pain with a God who, as you say in your reply to David, "has love and infinite concern for the welfare of individuals in the universe."? Your own solution to this theological problem is that life on Earth (the only kind we know anything about) came into being by accident, which means God was not responsible and has no control. I am questioning this thesis.-We come back, then, to God's powers. On 3 November at 16.31, you wrote, on the subject of genetic codes: "Those are far beyond the conscious ability of God to create, given the complete lack of control that God has over his fundamental particles once he "cuts them loose"." That was why I referred, disbelievingly, to "your faith that chance can achieve what God can't." You responded: "Doesn't, or chose not to in our universe, would be better ways to put it." The shift from "far beyond God's conscious ability" to God's choice represents a divine somersault. He would not have had the choice if he had not had the ability. -Now, as opposed to his being incapable, you say it wasn't necessary for God to use his ability in our universe because the fundamentals were "set up" to create the codes on their own. (To my knowledge, no-one on this forum has ever suggested that God performed miracles against the physical laws of Nature. If genetic codes can come into being naturally, why should God have to go against Nature to produce them? Some past contributors may, however, have said that God himself created the laws of Nature.) You believe that God's purpose is to see reflections of his own consciousness in the universe, which leaves us with the following situation: we humans are potentially just such reflections, and we are here because in order to achieve his purpose he "set up" his particles to create the codes needed to get us here. How, then, can this be construed as life and the codes for evolution coming about "by accident"? -It seems to me that in order to accommodate the vision of an all-loving God, your theology requires just as many intellectual contortions as that of the conventional Creator model. But once again let me stress that I'm not questioning your faith. You are absolutely right when you say: "I think the only question for you and me is whether my theology is coherent and consistent." (In your post to David, you add "intellectually satisfying".) I hope the above will help you to understand why it's so difficult for me to find consistency and coherence in some of your thinking. I also hope such discussions are not too frustrating for you.
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 15, 2009, 17:55 (5269 days ago) @ dhw
"My interest is not in what God may or may not have done in other universes"-But the quote of mine that you opened with doesn't not talk about other universes. It talks about our universe. In our universe, it may be possible for the natural laws to produce genetic codes that differ from what happened on planet Earth.-"Your own solution to this theological problem is that life on Earth (the only kind we know anything about) came into being by accident"-Let me refine that statement. The particular form of life on Earth is the result of unknown historical accidents along the path that life actually took on Earth. We don't know whether in our universe life "came into being by accident," because we don't know how much of the laws of nature were deliberately designed by God to have the potential to develop life. The particular path it took on Earth is the result of accidents that science hasn't figured out yet. But the potential to produce life in general seems to be written into the very structure of the physical laws of our universe. In that sense, the phenomenon of the development of life itself would not be accidental but would be inevitable, given "friendly" enough initial conditions.-Where my theology comes in is recognizing that a primary goal of God is to produce fundamentals that have the potential to evolve into forms of life that eventually reach sufficient complexity that God can contact them from within and influence their behavior by exposing himself to them, and that contact and influence takes place through consciousness.-"...which means God was not responsible and has no control. I am questioning this thesis."-I would question that thesis also, and I'm certainly not making it in the naive way you're expressing it. God is responsible for setting up the particular nature of the fundamentals out of which the laws of our universe arise. He is not responsible for the particular directions that the workings out of those laws take, and has no control of those particular directions until -- and this is an incredibly important point that you keep overlooking -- organisms achieve consciousness. At that point, the divine influences can rise up in those creatures and influence them. That is what God is "waiting for": the development of creatures that he can influence by exposing himself in their consciousness. -His influence is still minimal in human beings (and elephants and Rose-breasted cockatoos, etc.). But as species continue to evolve in powers of consciousness, his "control" over them continues to increase until eventually he has complete control, and in a technological civilization that can lead to the self-conscious, divine transformation of galaxies, and certainly within the 13.7 billion year lifetime of the universe that we live in. -It's just that it hasn't yet happened here on planet Earth. There is still an enormous struggle between good and evil on our planet, a struggle I might add that only arises with the emergence of consciousness. Before the emergence of consciousness, there is no good and evil in life. Evil arises only when the divine promptings in consciousness are ignored or rejected.
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by BBella , Monday, November 16, 2009, 05:48 (5269 days ago) @ Frank Paris
There is still an enormous struggle between good and evil on our planet, a struggle I might add that only arises with the emergence of consciousness. Before the emergence of consciousness, there is no good and evil in life. -I can see what you are saying above; before consciousness, man was living as the other animals on earth, by instinct alone. When or what circumstances do you believe brought about the beginning of the rise in consciousness of man? Do you think this consciousness of man grew along side or out of the birth of the mental conscience? If so, what do you think could have sparked this birth? ->Evil arises only when the divine promptings in consciousness are ignored or rejected.-Before the rise of consciousness in man, wouldn't man pretty much have been in the animal instinct mode? If so, it seems to me evil would have came about when man became conscious enough to call or name something evil that would have been considered animal instinct before his growth in consciousness. -I can see the consciousness of man growing as we speak, so there is no doubt in my mind that we are growing a more expanded consciousness, and that we are, again, to my mind, growing toward a mind meld with a more peaceful, loving and more caring way of being. It does seem to me there is a "lure" drawing us toward this more altruistic way? It seems quite conspicuous to me...but then again, that is just me.-bb
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 16, 2009, 17:52 (5268 days ago) @ BBella
"I can see what you are saying above; before consciousness, man was living as the other animals on earth, by instinct alone."-Well, not exactly. The emergence of consciousness was not a binary event and not an event that occurred in human beings alone. An example of consciousness in animals besides humans is the sense of beauty and the sense of right and wrong (in elephants for example).-There are also two quality levels of consciousness, what might be called simple awareness of what is around you and awareness of the self. Awareness of the self, or self-consciousnss, is certainly most highly developed in human beings, but I'm not sure you can say that it exclusively appears in human beings. There appears to be rudimentary self-consciousness even in a few higher animals, including some birds, like crows, magpies, and parrots.-Consciousness requires some kind of reflection or awareness on top of instincts, resulting in behavior that modifies purely instinctive impulses. I think it would be a mistake to believe that consciousness arises as if by magic suddenly out of the blue. It is a gradual emergence in higher animals stemming from certain complexifications in the organization of the brain.-"When or what circumstances do you believe brought about the beginning of the rise in consciousness of man?"-As implied by the above, I think this was a gradual emergence that started probably long before creatures arose that could be clearly identified as human. There was no "spark" that suddenly ignited in human beings, like traditional theology believes with the divine creation of a human "soul."-"Do you think this consciousness of man grew along side or out of the birth of the mental conscience?"-I'm not sure that you're making a legitimate distinction here, or if you are, I don't understand what you're asking. -"what do you think could have sparked [the] birth [of consciousness]?"-As mentioned above, there was no "spark." It gradually emerged out of the complexification of certain structures in the brain, and not necessarily exclusively in human beings. -I'll answer the rest of your post in a second one of my own.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 16, 2009, 18:10 (5268 days ago) @ BBella
"Before the rise of consciousness in man, wouldn't man pretty much have been in the animal instinct mode?"-First of all, I think it is virtually certain that consciousness arose in the lineage of human beings long before they were recognizably human. Additionally, it was undoubtedly in Neanderthals, who probably arose alongside the human lineage, not as an offshoot of it.-So a more properly phrased question would be: "Before the rise of consciousness (period!), wouldn't animals pretty much have been in the animal instinct mode?" Phrased thus properly, you can see that this is just a tautology.-"it seems to me evil would have came about when man became conscious enough to call or name something evil that would have been considered animal instinct before his growth in consciousness."-You're assuming that consciousness requires verbalization. I think animals can have a sense of right and wrong as well as a sense of beauty without having the ability to formulate grammars for their vocalizations. Various animal calls and "body language" can express moral and aesthetic feelings.-To address the point I think you're making without all this hair splitting, without a sense of good and evil, the only thing an animal can act on is unreflective instinct, uncolored by any other conscious awareness of "values." But isn't that true almost by definition?
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by BBella , Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 19:13 (5266 days ago) @ Frank Paris
[bb]"Before the rise of consciousness in man, wouldn't man pretty much have been in the animal instinct mode?" > > First of all, I think it is virtually certain that consciousness arose in the lineage of human beings long before they were recognizably human. Additionally, it was undoubtedly in Neanderthals, who probably arose alongside the human lineage, not as an offshoot of it. > > So a more properly phrased question would be: "Before the rise of consciousness (period!), wouldn't animals pretty much have been in the animal instinct mode?" Phrased thus properly, you can see that this is just a tautology. > -Yes, that is more clear. I see what you are saying here.->[bb] "it seems to me evil would have came about when man became conscious enough to call or name something evil that would have been considered animal instinct before his growth in consciousness." > >[FP] You're assuming that consciousness requires verbalization. I think animals can have a sense of right and wrong as well as a sense of beauty without having the ability to formulate grammars for their vocalizations. Various animal calls and "body language" can express moral and aesthetic feelings. > > To address the point I think you're making without all this hair splitting, without a sense of good and evil, the only thing an animal can act on is unreflective instinct, uncolored by any other conscious awareness of "values." But isn't that true almost by definition?-I agree that animals might possibly have a "sense" that might include, for some, right, wrong, beauty, etc. But the word "evil" always brings up a whole can of worms for me I think. I also see what you are saying about right and wrong and not needing verbalization to know or express right from wrong. But the word 'evil' leaves a religiously satanic idea to it that I'm pretty sure animals do not have and people probably didn't have before verbalization. Is this how you see it?-bb
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 20:28 (5266 days ago) @ BBella
"the word 'evil' leaves a religiously satanic idea to it that I'm pretty sure animals do not have and people probably didn't have before verbalization. Is this how you see it?"-I was using "good and evil" as a synonym for "right and wrong." But speaking more precisely, there are "senses" of right and wrong in some conscious animals (as adult elephants "knowing" that it is wrong for adolescent elephants to gang up and kill rhinoceroses, which young elephants do just for the "fun" of it and older elephants teach them not to do that) whereas humans make judgments about what is good and evil based on what they sense is right and wrong, and often when their judgments have nothing to do with their sense of right and wrong, but merely what they believe the Bible tells them. The latter is when I'd judge that their judgments about good and evil would be demonic, or "satanic" as you put it..
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 15, 2009, 18:24 (5269 days ago) @ dhw
"Some past contributors may, however, have said that God himself created the laws of Nature."-Count me in there. The laws of nature flow out of the fundamentals. God created the fundamentals. It is a mystery however if God knew beforehand that the laws of nature would actually produce life forms. The only thing that is not a mystery is that it is possible to produce a set of fundamentals that can produce a universe that can evolve conscious organisms. The fundamentals upon which our universe is based obviously can evolve conscious organisms.-'we are here because in order to achieve his purpose he "set up" his particles to create the codes needed to get us here. How, then, can this be construed as life and the codes for evolution coming about "by accident"?'-It is not known whether God set up his particles to create the particular codes need to get us here. All that is known is that the particles he did set up had the potential to produce the particlar codes life on Earth is based on. We don't know whether the particles also have the potential to produce other codes upon which life could be based. I've said this twenty times. We don't know whether the particular genetic codes developed on Earth were the result of accident. Also, any evolutionist worth his salt realizes that there were plenty of accidents involved in the emergence of life on our planet, and also that it could not have taken place in the way it has without the laws of nature having the properties they do have.-"It seems to me that in order to accommodate the vision of an all-loving God, your theology requires just as many intellectual contortions as that of the conventional Creator model."-Why should any adequate description of reality be easy to express? That statement seems more like mud slinging than anything else. Any adequate description of reality will require substantial intellectual efforts to comprehend, especially if it flies in the face of the channels your brain has been programmed to travel through.-"I hope the above will help you to understand why it's so difficult for me to find consistency and coherence in some of your thinking."-All I see is a persistent resistence against coming to grips with what I'm trying to get at, repeating the same difficulties over and over again, regardless of how many attempts I make to put it into different words. This actually doesn't really surprise me. Whenever someone is confronted with statements that fly in the face of his basic assumptions, he's going to have trouble coming to grips with them.-"I also hope such discussions are not too frustrating for you."-Don't worry about it. Just try to remain non-judgemental and open-minded.
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by BBella , Monday, November 16, 2009, 06:30 (5269 days ago) @ Frank Paris
All I see is a persistent resistence against coming to grips with what I'm trying to get at, repeating the same difficulties over and over again, regardless of how many attempts I make to put it into different words. This actually doesn't really surprise me. Whenever someone is confronted with statements that fly in the face of his basic assumptions, he's going to have trouble coming to grips with them. > > "I also hope such discussions are not too frustrating for you." > > Don't worry about it. Just try to remain non-judgemental and open-minded.-I just want to say, you do not have to worry about dhw not being openminded as I personally have not found a more open-minded forum, or person, as dhw. I do not see dhw's questioning as a "persistent resistance against coming to grips with what [you] are trying to get at." He really is trying to get his mind around what you (and not just you but all of us) are expressing by placing everything that is said here through a meat grinder (as much as he humanly can). For me, his questioning is not meant to judge but to try and flesh what is said down to it's most comprehensible (for him). -His way has actually encouraged me to flesh out just how I think by allowing me to get to the very core of my own perspective. Where else can a person go to express how they think and not get a barrage of preconceived notions thrown back at them? Maybe you think that is what he is doing here but you can be sure it is not. Unlike me, you may have already expressed your experience and perspective (about your experience) to others before coming here, and maybe those people assumed they knew what or where you were coming from so therefore never gave you much of the floor to really express your thoughts. That is not what is going on here. Dhw is not assuming anything. He really is trying to understand where we all are coming from, trying to flesh out our multifaceted perspectives within the frame of our knowledge, personal experiences and predicament of being.... possibly, to grind out his own.-Hopefully you will not take the above wrong or dhw wrong, as I know, for me personally, I have really looked forward to reading your perspective, and the more the way you see things get fleshed out, or maybe could be said, gets peeled away and closer to the core, the more interesting it is getting, not less. So hopefully you will continue to be patience with our questioning. It's not a questioning of doubt and disbelief, trying to show you up, but of true curiosity and wanting to understand your perspective.-bb
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 16, 2009, 18:25 (5268 days ago) @ BBella
"So hopefully you will continue to be patience with our questioning."-What keeps me coming back is, frankly, how easy I am finding it to answer the questions being posed to me. I may be failing to communicate to the posers of questions, but I am certainly finding it easy to express my position to myself in all of this. Thus, whether others are having trouble following what I'm saying or not, my confidence that I am fundamentally coming from a sound position is only being confirmed.-It would be different if I found "curve balls" being thrown to me left and right that I'd never considered before, and I constantly found myself having to reconsider a new position, but that isn't what's happening. If anything, what is happening is that further clarification is needed on specific things I've said because I'm not writing a book here, but am reacting to specific questions that arise because there isn't enough space or time to present a fully fleshed out position. The very structure and limitations of a forum impose a certain "style" of "progressive disclosure" (to borrow a term from computer user interface design) in the expression of one's position.-Even as I'm writing, I realize that things are being unsaid that need to be said, and my hope is that what I've said will prompt questions and thus bring up new opportunities to flesh out the "holes."
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by David Turell , Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 00:25 (5268 days ago) @ Frank Paris
"So hopefully you will continue to be patience with our questioning." > The very structure and limitations of a forum impose a certain "style" of "progressive disclosure" (to borrow a term from computer user interface design) in the expression of one's position. > > Even as I'm writing, I realize that things are being unsaid that need to be said, and my hope is that what I've said will prompt questions and thus bring up new opportunities to flesh out the "holes."-I hope you will respond to my post of Saturday. I am attempting to ask one simple question at a time, for a simple progressive disclosure, as you have stated is the best approach. That will fill the holes in my understanding of your concepts.
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by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 01:07 (5268 days ago) @ David Turell
"I hope you will respond to my post of Saturday."-I don't know what post you're referring to. As far as I know, I have responded to every post made to me on this forum that asked questions. The only question I can find that you might be referring to is this: "What I am really asking, is it your concept that God is a universal intelligence, composed entirely of energy, an energy that may create material items, but remains pure energy and immaterial."-If that's it, I can't find my reply to it. So just in case, I'll answer it again. If I recall, it wasn't much of an answer because I didn't understand the question. First, I don't know what you mean by "a universal intelligence." Second, I don't know what you mean by "composed entirely of energy." I asked if by energy you meant E=MC**2, in which case I would never claim that God is composed entirely of energy, as then basically energy is just another form of matter: they can be converted into each other. The final part of your question, "but remains pure energy and immaterial" is just as ambiguous, since energy can be converted into matter. The only sense to the terms, matter and energy, that make sense to me belong to the universe, and what God is "made out of" is outside of the universe. You can't really specify what God is "made out of." He's just God and is only "made out of" himself, nothing we can point to in the world. The whole question smacks of "substances," which went out with Kant, if I remember my philosophy 101.-I also remember talking about God as being the source or ground of all process, and matter and energy are just processes. I also talked about panentheism, where God can get inside matter and energy and come up into the world through them. But until I know precisely what question it is that you think I haven't answered, I'm probably just wasting my time here.
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FRANK: "All I see is a persistent resistance against coming to grips with what I'm trying to get at, repeating the same difficulties over and over again, regardless of how many attempts I make to put it into different words."-I hesitate to continue this discussion, as my comments have clearly offended you, but you have once again gone to a great deal of trouble to explain your ideas, and this persuades me that you have not given up hope of getting them across to me. I'm sorry if you felt that one of my statements seemed like "mud slinging" and am even sorrier that you think my resistance is due to my own "basic assumptions". Perhaps I need to make it clear that I assume nothing on the subject of God's existence/non-existence/nature, and when confronted by other people's beliefs or non-beliefs, I can only comment on the arguments they put to me. Are they consistent, coherent, and intellectually satisfying (to use your own criteria)? On various occasions in your posts I've stumbled over statements which you have later modified. Please bear in mind that I have nothing else to go on except these statements, and it's only by querying them that I can come to a clearer understanding of what you're trying to say. -In this latest post, there are two further examples. I have several times quoted what I took to be your belief that life and the codes of evolution came about "by accident" (linked to your earlier statement that God did not have the conscious ability to create genetic codes). You have now refined this ("we don't know whether in our universe life came into being by accident..."), and have clarified your meaning in greater detail. This is helpful.-The second instance is related to the same subject. On 10 November at 17.33 I wrote: "You propose a loving God who wants to see his own reflection in the universe. Others might argue that if he deliberately designed life as it is, he's responsible for the suffering of all living creatures. That's what I took to be the originality of your thesis: God didn't make us, so he's not responsible." You replied: "It's not all that original. It's a main theme in the process theology from Whitehead to Griffin." This gave me the impression that you accepted the thesis. On 15 November I wrote: "Your own solution to this theological problem [i.e. of evil and suffering] is that life on Earth (the only kind we know anything about) came into being by accident, which means God was not responsible and has no control. I am questioning this thesis." You now write: "I would question that thesis also, and I'm certainly not making it in the naïve way you're expressing it." This removes an important obstacle to my understanding of your ideas. You then go on to give an interesting and coherent explanation of why you question the thesis. I hope that through this example you can see how our misunderstandings arise, and why further clarification is sometimes necessary. -We may come back to the struggle between good and evil, but I'm anxious to post this in order to clear the air between us. Besides, it may well be that your discussions with David, a fellow panentheist, will provide a smoother passage than my perhaps too confrontational approach.
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by Frank Paris , Monday, November 16, 2009, 18:51 (5268 days ago) @ dhw
"I hesitate to continue this discussion, as my comments have clearly offended you"-No, they haven't in the least. Rid that idea from your mind.-"you have once again gone to a great deal of trouble to explain your ideas, and this persuades me that you have not given up hope of getting them across to me."-Well, I don't know if "hope" is a legitimate issue here. Your continued questioning is for me just an opportunity to satisfy myself that I truly have worked out a "coherent and consistent" position that is adequate to the data (explained below). Whether or not I'm ever able to entirely satisfy your questioning is a desirable goal certainly, but it's not something that I require here.-"Perhaps I need to make it clear that I assume nothing on the subject of God's existence/non-existence/nature"-Please don't be offended if I regard this as wishful thinking on your part, a little bit pretentious in fact. Nobody is entirely free of preconceptions and unconscious assumptions except mystic saints that devote all their time to contemplation and meditation techniques designed to rid themselves of all illusions and preconceptions. Very, very few people are as "pure" in their thought as you are claiming to be here. That may be your goal, and a worthy goal it is, but a little humility might be in order here.-"Are they consistent, coherent, and intellectually satisfying (to use your own criteria)?"-Did I say intellectually satisfying? If so, I retract that statement. I mean to say, "adequate to the data", in this case the data to my own experience. I'm not sure what "intellectually satisfying" would mean. How would that differ from "wishful thinking"? It almost seems as if "intellectually satisfying" is just a euphemism for "emotionally satisfying."-"On various occasions in your posts I've stumbled over statements which you have later modified."-Sometimes I may be a little impatient and not take the time to accurately describe what I mean. At other times, I may knowingly be holding back a complete explication simply due to a limitation of space and time, and hope that the "holes" implied in what I'm saying can be filled out by answering questions those holes prompt.-But enough of "meta-considerations."
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 04, 2009, 21:09 (5280 days ago) @ dhw
"let me finish with apologies for what must seem like a very aggressive critique."-It just seems that what you're "critiquing" has nothing to do with that I actually said (or at least meant), and so why would I be the least bit disturbed by your post? Your "aggression" is towards ideas that I've never held.-"I do like arguments to be clear. I hope you'll understand."-Of course I understand. I'm the same way. But when you're encountering ideas that you freely admit are new to you, you're bound to have misunderstandings and unconscious presuppositions about what I'm saying, even if my exposition is perfectly clear and coherent. You're bringing your own preconceptions into the mix and it's very difficult to avoid coloring my formulations with your own preconceptions of what I'm likely to say. I'm not saying that that's what's actually happening. I freely admit that I might be a poor writer. I'll just keep on trying to clarify what I really mean, time and time again, if I have to.
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by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Friday, October 30, 2009, 21:01 (5285 days ago) @ Frank Paris
Excuse my intervention.-But the world is "made out of" God, or tiny "particles" of God. God spins off little "pieces" of himself, minimally conscious fundamental particles, that when they stick together and rise up in complexity, produce organisms that are more or less conscious, have more or less experience. The source of that experience and consciousness is God, all these tiny fundamental particles coming to a focus and potentiating each other, and making God more and more "apparent."-It occurs to me that your "God" must be the "string" out of which the particles are made according to string theory. The particles that they make depend on the way they vibrate, so its all just God humming to himself.
--
GPJ
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by Frank Paris , Friday, October 30, 2009, 22:15 (5285 days ago) @ George Jelliss
"Excuse my intervention."-Oh my heavens. Do we have to make statements like that on this forum? I thought this was a free for all! I guess I don't understand the protocol.-'It occurs to me that your "God" must be the "string" out of which the particles are made according to string theory. The particles that they make depend on the way they vibrate, so its all just God humming to himself. '-LOL. Sort of!-Is there just one string in the multiverse? If there are strings in our universe, does this mean there are strings in all universes? Who knows, eh?-I wouldn't say that God is the string. Rather, if strings are the fundamental particles, then all that God creates are strings, each with its own nature which it receives from God, but it is so fundamentally simple that it isn't very conscious, and so God can't get in there and push it around by influencing it internally. Strings are like black boxes to God. He can watch them externally, but is completely powerless to influence them one way or another.-It's only when strings come together, or "stick" together in higher and higher organizations of them (organisms), that the individual experience of each string "adds up" or comes to a focus and eventually is bright enough to produce consciousness. That's when God can step in and push organisms around ("lure" them in this direction and that, in competition with all other "lures," or temptations, of the world), up from within the organism, not from without as an efficient cause.-Why does God create just strings, and not complete, higher organisms? Because that would be "cheating." God wants to be "surprised" and delighted by what his nature does. There is no surprise or delight in fashioning complete organisms from scratch, since God is all-knowing -- which means God knows everything that it is possible to know. But God can't know what a fundamental particle will do from one instant to the next. Quantum indeterminism is fundamental, even for God! All God knows is that, given enough time, organisms will evolve that will reflect more and more of his essence, but in what form, he has no way of knowing at the beginning.-Of course once things get going, God can make excellent guesses where what things might do in the short run, because "he's seen it all" through an infinite number of universes in the past. But ultimately, since organisms are free, he doesn't absolutely know, and so there will always be surprises. The multiverse will never run out of surprises and delights for God, and of course tragedies stemming from the behavior of species on the threshold of consciousness, like human beings.-But I believe the tragedies of humanity are just a passing phase. The object of the evolution of human beings isn't human beings as an end, but the development of conscious creatures that are just the beginning. Only now does the "fun" start.-This post wouldn't be complete, however, if I didn't point out the obvious. The fact that the arrival of human beings on the scene is not the final purpose of God is obvious from the very shakiness of the human presence on this planet. We may not make it! We could simply die out before we've evolved enough for God to completely take over our reigns -- and thus delivering us to complete freedom, I might add.-Does this mean that the divine enterprise is possibly a failure, if human beings utterly destroy themselves? Hardly! There are probably hundreds of millions of planets in our galaxy alone with higher forms of life on them -- not to speak of the billions of planets with nothing more than bacterial infections. All it takes is one intelligent, technological species arising on one planet in the history of our galaxy for that species to sweep through the entire rest of the galaxy in as short as ten million years, a blink of the eye compared to the life of the galaxy as a whole.-I'd be very surprised if this hasn't already happened, and happened multiple times in the history of the galaxy. I'd be shocked to learn that the galaxy isn't teeming with an interstellar civilization that is billions of years old.-Then the perennial question: where are they? I give a perennial answer: we on our primitive planet are a "designated wilderness area." If they don't want to be discovered, they won't be discovered, even if they are right under our noses (which they probably are). After all, technologically, they are billions of years ahead of us and if they don't want to be seen, there's no way in hell that we'd ever detect them!-Once we "prove our mettle,", then "all will be revealed." Until then, we're on our own, free to destroy ourselves. That's just "life in the big city."
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by George Jelliss , Crewe, Saturday, October 31, 2009, 21:10 (5284 days ago) @ Frank Paris
My "Excuse my intervention" was just politeness, since I won't be posting regularly on this thread, which is largely a conversation between you and dhw, but my thought about God being the ball of string from which the particles of the universe are made was too amusing to pass up. At least it gave you laugh. dhw is right when he says "George would say that the ungraspable is ungraspable because there's nothing to grasp." I'm afraid I find most of your exposition pure fancy or fantasy.-I will however reply to your observation about alien life forms: "I'd be very surprised if this hasn't already happened, and happened multiple times in the history of the galaxy. I'd be shocked to learn that the galaxy isn't teeming with an interstellar civilization that is billions of years old. Then the perennial question: where are they? I give a perennial answer: we on our primitive planet are a "designated wilderness area." If they don't want to be discovered, they won't be discovered, even if they are right under our noses (which they probably are). After all, technologically, they are billions of years ahead of us and if they don't want to be seen, there's no way in hell that we'd ever detect them!"-My guess is that the evolution of life-forms with reasoning abilities to the extent that we have them is very rare. Possibly only one or two in a galaxy. And the galaxies are too far apart for communication to occur. We could be the first of the type, because the earlier part of the evolution of the cosmos was concerned with the production of the higher elements (carbon, oxygen, etc) needed for life to evolve, so there hasn't really been that much time for our evolution to occur. It is also a very unlikely event in view of all the accidents needed to bring us about.-Incidentally the idea that there are invisible aliens all round us was apparently put forward by Humphry Davy in his last book "Consolations in Travel or The Last Days of a Philosopher". This is mentioned in "The Age of Wonder" by Richard Holmes which I've just been reading.
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GPJ
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by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 16:01 (5281 days ago) @ George Jelliss
This is the first post to me where George Jelliss stops joking around and gets serious, demanding a more serious response.-"My guess is that the evolution of life-forms with reasoning abilities to the extent that we have them is very rare."-Ah! A proponent of the "Rare Earth" viewpoint. I've found that there are two kinds of people attracted to this viewpoint:-1. Atheists, who prefer to believe they live in a universe devoid of purpose.-2. Religious fundamentalists, who believe that, however large the universe is, its primary purpose is to serve as a home for the human species and there would be no point for God to create other intelligent species.-So here we have another case where atheists and religious fundamentalists have something in common. Big surprise.-In any case, there is plenty of scientific disagreement about the arguments for a "Rare Earth" hypothesis. As has been pointed out, there's a big difference between baterial life and multi-cellular life. Once you make that jump, the sky seems to be the limit. Then question then is, exactly how rare is that jump? That's where there is scientific disagreement, and it may be aeons before humanity reaches the point where it can resolve the question by itself. But even if it is thousands of times more common to be stuck in the bacterial stage of evolution, that still leaves millions of planets in each galaxy with multi-cellular life forms. You obviously believe it is billions or even trillions of times more common. We are all welcome to our religious beliefs: whatever makes you happy.-"Possibly only one or two in a galaxy."-Sheer speculation, in the same category as my "they are everywhere." Well, this is a religious forum, and so it's not surprising to see you making religious speculations.-"And the galaxies are too far apart for communication to occur."-For that very reason, I "religiously" refrain from talking about intergalactic civilizations and only talk about interstellar civilizations.-"We could be the first of the type, because the earlier part of the evolution of the cosmos was concerned with the production of the higher elements (carbon, oxygen, etc) needed for life to evolve, so there hasn't really been that much time for our evolution to occur."-Full of flippant assumptions. Define "earlier part." So it took seven or eight billion years to evolve enough heavy elements to form stony planets. So what does that leave? Five or six billion years for intelligent, technological civilizations to evolve in the universe? I rest my case: intelligent life could have been around for two to three billion years, especially given the case that there has undoubtedly been a wide period of time where pockets of stony planets formed well before the "average."-"It is also a very unlikely event in view of all the accidents needed to bring us about."-That assertion depends on the highly controversial "Rare Earth" hypothesis. We're far, far from proving that hypothesis one way or the other, and as I pointed out in my previous post, believing in it one way or the other is currently more a matter of religious belief than scientific fact.
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by BBella , Sunday, November 01, 2009, 08:01 (5284 days ago) @ Frank Paris
[George] "Excuse my intervention." > > 'It occurs to me that your "God" must be the "string" out of which the particles are made according to string theory. The particles that they make depend on the way they vibrate, so its all just God humming to himself.
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by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 01, 2009, 15:14 (5283 days ago) @ BBella
"Let me see if I have this right, Frank; God is not the string"-The string is not the totality of God. The string is a severely narrowed down "reflection" of God, so much so that once God creates it, he can't get "inside" of it to know what it is "thinking" and what it is liable to do next. But because it is a reflection of God (however dim), When different instances "collide" under different circumstances and stick together, and grow into higher and higher organisms (not just piles of them like a stone, but an organization of them, in an organism), the individual reflections of God come to a focus and reflect more and more fully the essence of God, until the organism reaches consciousness and can be conscious of its own essence, and eventually break through to the direct perception of its true identity at the base of its being, God himself.-"rather God created the string and then observes the string and when any of the created beings from the string arrives at a certain level of consciousness that God can relate to, God then communicates as best as possible with that created being. Is this correct?"-Close, but I'm not sure why you're using "string" in the singular. God created an unlimited number of them, each its own being, and they can "experience" each other by coming into contact, and build up into organisms with richer and richer experience, until they can exhibit consciousness, at which time God can get "inside" of them and influence them.-My theology is not Deism, where God creates the foundation, then sets it in motion, to watch dispassionately what happens like an impersonal scientist with no stake in the process. The purpose of God's creating is to watch his own essence unfold in greater and greater realizations so that God can "discover" himself in his creation and gradually take it over through his own conscious "lure," thereafter directing it with greater and greater power. When that begins to happen, evolution no longer occurs haphazardly with no direction.-So, unlike Deism, from the very beginning, God is intensely interested in what unfolds, and "can't wait" (to be anthropomorphic about it) until organisms reach the point where God can commmunicate with them. The whole purpose of creation is to evolve to the point where God can "talk" to it and self-consciously take over its direction, by working at it from within the organisms. And God cares deeply about everything that happens, and regrets injustice and tries as best he can to lure conscious creatures away from injustice and towards his own loving compassion.-"If this is near correct, I would wonder then what God created the string from?"-God spins off miniscule "reflections" of himself, and when untold numbers of them unite together into organisms, all these reflections come to a focus, reflecting greater and great realizations of the divine essence. God "sees" himself more and more in these concentrated reflections.-"I personally believe that everything is God including the string...all that IS is God matter."-Finally someone who sees things similar to the way I do. Of course mystics throughout the ages have formulated their vision in terms where it is only the illusions of finitude that prevent humans from realizing their true identity with God himself, but you're the first I've encountered who provides a "mechanism" for how all this works, in terms taken from modern scientific theories.-"I arrived at my belief by a very similar process as you have, probably over the same amount of years. I'd say we are pretty close in our thought process and understanding."-It does seem that way. So at least two of us are "crazy" in the same way!
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by BBella , Sunday, November 01, 2009, 07:38 (5284 days ago) @ George Jelliss
Excuse my intervention. > > But the world is "made out of" God, or tiny "particles" of God. God spins off little "pieces" of himself, minimally conscious fundamental particles, that when they stick together and rise up in complexity, produce organisms that are more or less conscious, have more or less experience. The source of that experience and consciousness is God, all these tiny fundamental particles coming to a focus and potentiating each other, and making God more and more "apparent." > > It occurs to me that your "God" must be the "string" out of which the particles are made according to string theory. The particles that they make depend on the way they vibrate, so its all just God humming to himself.
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by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, November 01, 2009, 19:06 (5283 days ago) @ BBella
Just in case there should be any future misunderstanding, I should emphasise that I don't think there is any creator God. I was quoting Frank. If the string is made of anything I imagine it is made of some sort of fluctuation in the void, a sort of vibrating nothingness. There is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere but in evolved beings of sufficient complexity, like us. But you are welcome to my image of the God that Hums the universe into existence, if you like it, but for me it is just an imaginative fiction.
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GPJ
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by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 15:28 (5281 days ago) @ George Jelliss
Sorry for waiting so long to reply to your post, but I've been extremely busy with issues from "real life."-"If the string is made of anything I imagine it is made of some sort of fluctuation in the void, a sort of vibrating nothingness."-A "a vibrating nothingness"??? If something is vibrating, it isn't nothing. You're just applying the word, "nothing," to something you don't understand. Whatever is vibrating is "there." It may be pretty "low level," pretty far "down there," but it is there. Scientists who talk like this aren't talking as scientists, because science is supposed to be logical and coherent, and it isn't logical or coherent to be talking about "nothingness vibrating." You can only talk about something vibrating, however low level its existence might be.-"There is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere but in evolved beings of sufficient complexity."-In talking about "evidence," I think you're talking about the kind of public evidence available for peer review, by examining the physical world with various scientific instruments, including the human senses. But the origin of religious belief is elsewhere. Fundamentally, religious beliefs are based on internal experiences that are private to each individual. Therefore your above observation is totally irrelevant to the person with faith, and I don't even know why you'd bother making that observation. It has nothing to do with the conversation.-(It is immaterial that scientific instruments can detect neuronal impulses that are associated with internal experiences. The experiences themselves are not the same as the scientific detection of the neuronal impulses. The totality of neuronal impulses giving rise to experiences of mystical union will be puny compared to the experiences themselves, no matter how complex those impulses are.)-So you really aren't addressing the issue, probably because you (undoubtedly incorrectly) believe you don't want to talk about anything that isn't subject to scientific scrutiny. However, making statements like "vibrating nothingness" gives the lie to that belief.-"But you are welcome to my image of the God that Hums the universe into existence."-That's your analogy, not mine. excuse me if I decline your invitation and stick with my own formulations.-"but for me it is just an imaginative fiction."-I'm not interested in it, either. So please don't imply that that's what I'm saying.-The tone of your original post to me was facetious. Then suddenly you seem to be getting serious, and seriously going on the attack. At that point, I'm forced to take what you say seriously, so that you don't mistakingly think that I'm not replying because I'm somehow befuddled by your more serious observations.
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by George Jelliss , Crewe, Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 19:04 (5259 days ago) @ Frank Paris
Some responses to Frank's post-I wrote: "If the string is made of anything I imagine it is made of some sort of fluctuation in the void, a sort of vibrating nothingness."-Frank: A "a vibrating nothingness"??? If something is vibrating, it isn't nothing /// it isn't logical or coherent to be talking about "nothingness vibrating." -If you look back in the threads you will find we discussed this question quite extensively before you came along. I was referring to the idea, based on quantum theory, that the universe began as a "fluctuation in the void". The physicist Victor J. Stenger favours this view. His recent book "Quantun Gods" concludes with a chapter on "Nothingism".-I wrote: "There is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere but in evolved beings of sufficient complexity."-Frank: In talking about "evidence," I think you're talking about the kind of public evidence available for peer review, by examining the physical world with various scientific instruments, including the human senses. -Correct.-Frank: But the origin of religious belief is elsewhere. Fundamentally, religious beliefs are based on internal experiences that are private to each individual. Therefore your above observation is totally irrelevant to the person with faith, and I don't even know why you'd bother making that observation. It has nothing to do with the conversation.-If this is so then it seems religious belief is purely personal fantasy. We are talking about the universe as a whole having some sort of "consciousness". I would have thought this was a claim open to scientific study.-I wrote: "But you are welcome to my image of the God that Hums the universe into existence."-Frank: That's your analogy, not mine. excuse me if I decline your invitation and stick with my own formulations.-My comment was addressed to BBella.
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GPJ
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by David Turell , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 19:44 (5259 days ago) @ George Jelliss
edited by unknown, Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 20:00
> If you look back in the threads you will find we discussed this question quite extensively before you came along. I was referring to the idea, based on quantum theory, that the universe began as a "fluctuation in the void". The physicist Victor J. Stenger favours this view. His recent book "Quantun Gods" concludes with a chapter on "Nothingism".-I know that this idea is also expressed in a paper by NASA. Again, I ask, is there any other support by some of the cosmologic authorities other than Stenger. -Space-time is not an absolute void, but has potential quantum particles, popping in and out of our reality. An absolute void has a true nothing.-From Physics Forums on line:-Re: Nothingness and the rise of something --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I talked to Vic Stenger about his ideas a while back in an attempt to suggest that he is just reinventing Hegel's Absolute Idea, the spiritual unity that would be prior to the world of forms. George Spencer Brown's Laws of Form gives mathematical model of this idea, a calculus that captures the metaphysical scheme of Taoism, Buddhism, Sufism, etc. Russell praised this calculus highly but failed to see its true meaning. Stenger wouldn't even take an interest, mysticism being axiomatically a load of nonsense. -Personally, I would say that a rational thinker must find ex nihilo creation a load of nonsense, and that Stenger, Guth and others who favour it are poor metaphysicians. They don't seem to realise that the idea of the origin of the universe as ''nothing spontaneously breaking symmetry to become something' is just mysticism. Except, of course, that it would only appear to by Nothing becoming Something. If this process were any more than an appearance then the ancient paradox that causes normally sensible physicists to consider ex nihilo creation would arise. -I wish people like Stenger would do some research into these things, then he would not be so casually dismissing the only idea that works.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 23:19 (5259 days ago) @ David Turell
"An absolute void has a true nothing."-I guess this is sort of your definition of "an absolute void": it's a synonym for the word, "nothing." I think it's obvious that scientists who talk about "fluxuations in the void" could not possibly be talking about "an absolute void." If they are, any philosopher worth his salt would walk away shaking his head at the contradictions.-I love that quotation you give from that Physics Forum that scoffs at the idea of creation ex nihilo. As I pointed out in my previous post, Griffin also scoffs at this idea, but subscribes to the Biblical notion of "creation out of chaos," which to my mind leads to an untenable dualism, which is why I favor universes being created out of particles that God spins off of himself. This preserves monism and also explains why the universe seems to be unlimited and evolving relentlessly into higher and higher forms.
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by David Turell , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 00:53 (5259 days ago) @ Frank Paris
> I love that quotation you give from that Physics Forum that scoffs at the idea of creation ex nihilo. As I pointed out in my previous post, Griffin also scoffs at this idea, but subscribes to the Biblical notion of "creation out of chaos," which to my mind leads to an untenable dualism, which is why I favor universes being created out of particles that God spins off of himself. This preserves monism and also explains why the universe seems to be unlimited and evolving relentlessly into higher and higher forms.-I loved the quote also. Why Stenger isn't really taken to the woodshed is beyond me. He is trying to force atheism to its outer limits. When you are retired and tenure is not at stake, anything can happen.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 22:42 (5259 days ago) @ George Jelliss
"If this is so then it seems religious belief is purely personal fantasy."-I've explained several times that the way I am using the word, faith, is the way theologians like Tillich, Berdyaev, and Buber do, as being grasped by something ineffable that is life-transforming. You are confusing this sense of faith with religious belief (which even that isn't necessary "purely personal fantasy" but I won't get into that). Faith may stimulate a search for satisfying religious beliefs to account for the faith, but that isn't even necessary. Zen Buddhists often forego all religious beliefs. That doesn't mean that they are not grasped by something ineffable and life-transforming. Fantasy then has nothing to do with it. Sounds like you're just making a value judgment intended to provoke. Well, this response is what you provoked out of me.-"We are talking about the universe as a whole having some sort of "consciousness"."-Speak for yourself. I have no idea what it would mean to say that that universe as a whole has some sort of consciousness. Some processes in the universe exhibit consciousness. That's all I we can say for sure.
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by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 23:05 (5259 days ago) @ George Jelliss
'If you look back in the threads you will find we discussed this question quite extensively before you came along. I was referring to the idea, based on quantum theory, that the universe began as a "fluctuation in the void". The physicist Victor J. Stenger favours this view.'-I've seen entire books written on "nothingness." I got 3/4 through one myself. Insofar as it actually did talk about nothingness, nothing was actually said. -I find it peculiar that anyone (scientist or not) would attribute any activity at all to nothing. In that case, the "nothing" they're talking about must in some sense be "something." -Something like a "fluxuation in the void" is not the same thing as saying a "fluxuation of nothingness." The "void" in this case is just something that doesn't contain anything we know about. It is empty of all the phenomena in our science. But if it can "fluxuate" obviously whatever the void is, isn't just nothing.-I'm reminded of the Biblical concept of "chaos." One version of the creation story is that God formed the universe out of "chaos," but "chaos" is never really defined. Griffin discusses this and accepts that version of the creation story. He leaves the word undefined as well, but in the process attempts to show that ideas that the universe was created out of "nothing" are unbiblical and that these ideas were an invention that took place long after the death of Jesus.-Personally, I think the concept of a pre-existing "chaos" that existed eternally before our universe is a form of Dualism, where two independent "substances" always existed, God and chaos, and at some time (or times) God can give form to chaos. -I've always had trouble with dualistic cosmologies. I can't help wondering how two completely independent "realms" that have always been and presumably always will be can manage to interact if they truly are independent of each other. Maybe it's my limited imagination, but I can't help asking, who or what gave rise to the dualism? Whatever gave rise to it, that is what is primordial, and whatever it is escapes dualism.
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by BBella , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 07:41 (5259 days ago) @ Frank Paris
Personally, I think the concept of a pre-existing "chaos" that existed eternally before our universe is a form of Dualism, where two independent "substances" always existed, God and chaos, and at some time (or times) God can give form to chaos. > > I've always had trouble with dualistic cosmologies. I can't help wondering how two completely independent "realms" that have always been and presumably always will be can manage to interact if they truly are independent of each other. Maybe it's my limited imagination, but I can't help asking, who or what gave rise to the dualism? Whatever gave rise to it, that is what is primordial, and whatever it is escapes dualism.-The primordial goo you speak of above is what I think of as God; the All That IS. Goo...God..good. The dualistic realms of this goo are light and dark and one cannot be without the other. I think of light and darkness like male and female. As they intertwine, they produce/create/process varied realms of being that reflect (twinkle) varied aspects (rainbow of colors) of the qualities of both....or can be put, the many faces of God that our eyes behold. But I believe there is a 3rd quality that is not considered in the "dualistic cosmologies" and without which there would only be light and darkness, and maybe even multifaces of God, but nothing more...and this 3rd quality is love (for lack of a better word).-I think of an enlightened being as one that holds more light than darkness within their own realm of being and therefore can connect to/with this quality of love that is within the All That Is.-This may not be what you are speaking of but is what came to mind in answer to your pondering.
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by BBella , Thursday, November 26, 2009, 07:51 (5259 days ago) @ BBella
> The primordial goo you speak of above is what I think of as God; the All That IS. Goo...God..good. The dualistic realms of this goo are light and dark and one cannot be without the other. I think of light and darkness like male and female. -Just to clarify, I relate the darkness to the male aspect and the light to the female aspect. No prejudice...just experience.-bb
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by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 14:57 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
'To say that "the natural laws are "smart enough" on their own" and "the natural laws are grounded in the divine nature", and "everything is "made out of" God-stuff" explains nothing about the process that led to life and evolution.'-What kind of an explanation are you looking for? The kind of talk I use is not intended to be scientific explanation. It's mythological. Are you looking for scientific explanations? Kauffman attempts those sort of things and I think he makes some pretty good attempts, but the jury still seems to be out.-'The simplest, earliest forms of life were so complex that they could not only reproduce themselves, but they also contained within themselves the potential to change and adapt, reproduce those changes and adaptations, and eventually even "invent" new organs. We all agree that it happened. Some say that the early forms were simple enough to assemble themselves. Others, myself included, find this incredible and wonder why, if it's all so simple, our conscious, intelligent scientists are still unable to figure out how it happened.'-Read Kauffman for serious attempts to figure it out. Just because there isn't a scientific consensus about his explanations, doesn't mean that canonical scientific explanations will not eventually be formulated. This is where "faith" in the scientific enterprise comes in, and where perhaps Dawkins' atheism becomes dogmatic and another form of religious (or anti-religious, if you will) belief. In a way, belief that fully scientific explanations for the origin of life will eventually be forthcoming is "religious." But the march of science has been relentless and discussion in the direction of origins is getting more and more promising. I think "faith" that science will eventually fully explain the origin of life is not at all unreasonable, given its historical relentless progress on all fronts. Science is still the best methodology that human beings have ever discovered for finding out how things really are.-'If your mystic "All is One" has no consciousness of itself, I see no alternative to belief that life and potential evolution were initially the product of random combinations. In that case, what is the role of the "divine"?'-This is why full disclosure has to be "piecemeal" on a forum such as this. Limitations of space prevent full exposition in a single post. Each post would then be a book!-First of all, the God in my theology is infinitely conscious and personal. It's just that he is not omnipotent. The role of the divine is to provide the foundations of existence with the potential to evolve into conscious creatures that can know (and love!) God, even in the Christian senses of knowing and loving. I have this belief strictly from my own mystical experience, and I haven't been able to discover anything in science that contradicts that belief. It is a "theory" I have formulated about my personal experience, a theory that it seems to me best explains that experience that at the same time is not contradicted by any canonical science with which I'm familiar.-In any case, don't bother asking me to "prove" that God knows and loves us, because my only "proof" is personal experience, and I believe that that is the only "proof" that could ever persuade anybody. If that's not part of your personal experience, then we don't have anything to talk about. -I might add that the rampant injustice and evilness we witness in the world is not an argument against the knowledge and love that God has for us, because God is not responsible for evil. In fact he does everything possible to work against it, but the only power he has is the power of persuasion through the exposure of himself to conscious creatures, and that exposure is largely clouded over by the vain imaginings of barely conscious human beings.-I'll break this off here for fear of running into the 5,000 character road block.
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by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 15:27 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
'I accept your criticism of the term "Intelligent Design", as it has become tainted, but "design" is too useful to jettison.'-Based on what follows in your post, I cannot accept your usage of the word, "design," as you shall see.-'My own concept entails a possible designer using the laws of nature which it has established. It could have set up the whole code which governs evolution. And it could even have intervened by experimenting with that code (e.g. exeunt dinosaurs, or enter hominids). By science, not by magic.'-First of all, I think calling a spade a spade requires us to abandon dancing around terminology and simply admit that what we mean by the word, "designer," is God. So at the very least, you believe that God consciously uses the laws of nature to deliberately move evolution in directions he wants it to go. The example you give is the extinction of the dinosaurs to make room for the rise of mammals and the eventual appearance of human beings, and you say this divine "use" of the laws of nature is "by science, not magic."-But it seems to me that fundamentally you are requiring God to do this by magic, not science. For example, suppose the extinction of the dinosaurs was precipitated by a large meteor strike (a theory that is becoming more controversial, I know). How did God make the meteor strike the Earth? He must have intervened somewhere along the line and bent the laws of nature ever so slightly, perhaps after aeons. Nevertheless, it involves getting in there and influencing individual atoms to go this way rather than that way, where they would go if they strictly followed their own nature.-In my theology, God can't influence individual atoms to go this way or that way, for the simple reason that atoms aren't conscious enough to be influence by the lure of God. Human beings are. I believe that even higher mammals and birds are. Reptiles? I doubt. Dinosaurs? Perhaps some (velociraptor?). In any case, within my theology (and canonical science), that meteor struck Earth strictly through the blind workings out of the laws of nature, and if humans were the result, it was strictly because there was "room" for them eventually to appear in eco-space, but no guarantee whatsoever. But once there, God can move in on human beings and have an influence, because (some) human beings are conscious enough to feel God's will and be moved by it.-Only through conscious creatures can God direct evolution by his will. Until consciousness emerges, all God can do is observe and enrich his own knowledge. (Part of process theology is the notion that God changes through his observation of what happens in the universe, so God's knowledge can indeed increase.)
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 15:45 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
"My view ... just to avoid any misunderstanding ... is that I haven't a clue. I don't believe that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident, and I don't believe in a designer."-I'm not altogether certain that your view as expressed here is coherent. If something doesn't happen "by accident", then how does it happen? What do you mean, "by accident"? One understanding of "by accident" is strictly through the laws of nature working themselves out. If "life and the codes for evolution" could not have come about strictly through the laws of nature, then what other alternative is there than that something outside the laws of nature brought about their development?-I'm more likely to believe that you don't believe in a designer, in which case I have to say that your belief "that life and the codes for evolution" could not have come about by accident is, frankly, nonsense. Personally, given my understanding of chemistry and the way evolution works, I have no trouble whatsoever believing "that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." No one familiar with canonical science will have trouble believing this, and it seems to me that it is only unfamiliarity with the richness of chemistry and the workings of evolution that would prevent someone from seeing how all that could arise perfectly naturally.-Nevertheless, because of my own religious experience, I have to postulate the existence of some kind of absolute reality as the ground of all being, a ground I openly name, God. It's just that canonical science does not leave any room for that God to have efficient causes on brute matter. God only "comes into his own" when consciousness finally evolves in the universe.
Problems with this section
by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 16:11 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
"And so, after this very long build-up, we come back to the two questions I'd like to put to your process theology: 1) At what point does consciousness begin? 2) What is its source?"-I touched on this earlier, I believe in my first answer to your post. There is no "point" where it begins. It gradually emerges from a sophistication of experience, as organisms naturally evolved to greater levels of complexity, where experience comes to a focus with greater and greater intensity until we recognize it as consciousness. So ultimately, the source of consciousness is experience, which "goes all the way down," as I believe Whitehead proves.-Let me back up to address one thing in your post: your definition of "theism", then I'll be done with your post: "theism: God (perhaps another name for Nature) has consciousness; life came about by design; evolution followed."-The first thing I have to say about this is, under that definition of theism, I am not a theist, yet I call what is behind my religious experience, the one and only personal God. And I would never claim that another name for God is Nature. Nature produces consciousness, because the basis for Nature is God and God is infinite consciousness, but the totality of God is not what we mean by the word, Nature. Panentheism says that God is both within nature and outside of it, and that's the way it seems to me that things are.-The second part of your definition of theism that I do not fall under is the assertion that "life came about by design; evolution followed." I believe that life came about naturally, and I believe that when science has fully worked out how that happen, we'll see that evolution doesn't follow the origin of life, but participated in it from the beginning. So I think that what will eventually be born out by the facts is that your definition of theism involves a conflict with the way things really are.-I think a proper definition of theism is disconnected from anything that science has to do with, and the origin of life and evolution is within the province of science, not theology. So any proper definition of theism would not say anything about the origin of life, or evolution. That's where religion gets into all kinds of trouble: encroaching on the province of science. The agenda of process theology is to stay out of that morass, and it accomplishes that by trying to understand exactly what the findings of modern science actually are.