Re: Yet again...
Posted by diogenes on 2025-July-1 03:10:01, TuesdayIn reply to Yet again... posted by LaudateAgno on 2025-June-30 21:25:27, Monday
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Everything I say is false? Well, that's quite something. I'm sure very few have managed to not utter a single true proposition, not even by accident. It's quite an accomplishment! Just dealing quickly with a few misunderstandings... “no theist worth his salt in the last few millennia has ever thought there was a God anywhere in the universe” Well, I was being uncharacteristically poetic; the point was that the loving, caring God is conspicuously absent from the universe. The universe does not present itself as either loving or caring. "Are you aware of the Book of Job, and of the Jewish and Christian understanding of its theodicy?" You imply that I am ignorant of a presumably successful theodicy, but sadly you don't deign to tell me what the content of this theodicy is, leaving me as much in the dark as I was before! The point about Darwin (and Hume, and also Leopardi - I would recommend the Zibaldone as your bedside reading) is that the universe presents no appearance of teleology. The one apparent exception to this - the adaptation of organisms to their environment - is explained mechanistically by Darwinism. The statement that we can only grasp the world in a manner adapted to our faculties is a tautology if it is interpreted, uncharitably, as the proposition that we can only perceive what we can perceive. However, what I meant by the statement was that we don't perceive the world as it “really is”. This is why I quoted Russell's refutation of naïve realism. I am indeed suggesting that there are aspects of the universe that we cannot grasp, since, as evolved biological creatures, our faculties are fitted to enable us to successfully navigate the world, not to comprehend it in its inner nature. And this leads to the last portion of my OP. If I admit that ultimate reality is unknowable, then how do I know that it is not spiritual? The last section of argument was an attempt to answer that, but I clearly failed to make my meaning clear, so I shall try again. Just to be clear about one thing, however: I hold that the movements of all material things in the universe, including the behaviour of living organisms, is rigidly governed by law. I do not admit the occurrence of “free will” anywhere; in fact, I am fairly sure that the concept is unintelligible. What I was suggesting was a criterion whereby one can distinguish the presence of mind from its absence, namely, the capacity to form conditioned reflexes. (I am not saying that this is the only distinguishing characteristic of the mental as opposed to the non-mental; I am saying that this is a minimum characteristic.) Creatures with 'mind' do not always respond in the same way to the same stimulus – not because their actions are not causally determined, but because they are highly complex beings, whose structure and thus behaviour is influenced by previous experience. However, the course of the material universe is utterly rigid, utterly stereotyped, utterly predictable. Given the same causes, the same effect follows without fail. It is on this ground that I hold that the ultimate reality that gives rise to our sense-impressions must be conceived as Matter rather than as as Mind, even though I can know nothing about its inner nature. You write: “Who ever thought God could "explain the universe?"” The question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” has been thought to require a deity; I seem to remember that your beloved David Bentley Hart rejects the notion that the universe could just be inexplicable. Consistently with this, he defends the ontological argument (or a version of it). But if, by contrast, you regard the question of "why is there anything at all?" as unintelligible, as I do, then we would appear to be in agreement; so I'm not sure what you're complaining about! I still can attach no intelligible meaning to the proposition that “God is the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.” What does “the True” (with the definite article) mean? The totality of facts? Or the class of all true propositions? You do not say. Nor do you explain how either of these could be regarded as equivalent to "God". Personally, I would not speak about such fluffy notions as “the True” (with the definite article). Truth and falsity are properties of propositions, judgements or beliefs, and I do not see how the fact that propositions have a truth-value implies the existence of the deity. Nor do I see how my appreciation of beauty commits me to such a being. As for “the Good”, since so many people here are Platonists, I would just refer the reader to the Euthyphro, in which Plato comprehensively demolishes, for all time, the idea that morality rests on theological propositions. The main point of this atheist's (s)creed was to argue that philosophical naturalism makes a great deal more sense than the sort of metaphysical tangles that you seem to prefer to clear speech. In the famous Nāsadīya hymn from the Rig Veda, the author writes: Who really knows? Who will proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whence this creation has arisen – perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know. (Penguin, 1981, pp. 25-26).This sort of gentle scepticism and rationalism, perfectly familiar in Indian and Greek philosophy, was eclipsed in the West for hundreds of years by Christianity, and was not revived until the Enlightenment and men like Hume. I am suggesting that it is far simpler and intellectually cleaner to accept the face that the universe presents to us as indicative of what it actually is, and abandon the illusions that flatter human vanity. After all, the universe is merely indifferent, not hostile, and we have some power to adapt it to our desires. Religious transcendentalism has nurtured a completely spurious sense of alienation from the natural world. I am suggesting that we should accept nature as our home, and cultivate our garden. “You've lured me in, you bastard.” Well, I'm very glad you took the bait!  |
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