Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 8:44 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:49 am
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am There isn't even a hint of a hint about the origins of the laws of the universe.
Well, unless you include revelation. Then, there just might be.

Or consult every religion that has a creation myth.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:Hope? Why would I hope one way or the other?
Are you going to answer the question? Or are you just tacitly admitting that you have no evidence at all?

I did answer. I said theism is irrational because it is a belief in the supernatural.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 10:49 am**

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 8:44 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:49 am
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am There isn't even a hint of a hint about the origins of the laws of the universe.
Well, unless you include revelation. Then, there just might be.
Or consult every religion that has a creation myth.
IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:Hope? Why would I hope one way or the other?
Are you going to answer the question? Or are you just tacitly admitting that you have no evidence at all?
I did answer. I said theism is irrational because it is a belief in the supernatural.

...for the existence of which there is no credible evidence whatsoever - to my knowledge - and certainly no sound argument.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:33 pm**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am How could "order preexist the universe"?

It’s the damndest thing.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:13 pm**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:36 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:31 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:14 am What? Do you think if we all start believing in God the laws of the universe (which God would thereby have been the creator of) will change?
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's certainly unlike anything I ever said or suggested.
The point is, the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a scientific theory based on experiment and observation. If you think it's wrong...

I don't. I can't imagine where you got that idea. I was pointing out that it shows a couple of things: 1. That the universe is definitely not eternal in the past, and 2. That things tend from a state of higher order to one of lower order...and anybody who thinks things tend from lower order to higher is swimming upstream against that.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:16 pm**

Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 6:49 am Even if Chaos does not literally produce order, it nevertheless emerges from it.

"Pattern" is a good deal less than what Evolutionism requires. It requires that chaos generates complex life forms. There's absolutely no indication in any of what you cite that chaos can do that, or ever has.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:19 pm**

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 8:44 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:49 am
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am There isn't even a hint of a hint about the origins of the laws of the universe.
Well, unless you include revelation. Then, there just might be.
Or consult every religion that has a creation myth.

Why not? Compare them all, and see what's credible. Good strategy.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:Hope? Why would I hope one way or the other?
Are you going to answer the question? Or are you just tacitly admitting that you have no evidence at all?
I did answer. I said theism is irrational because it is a belief in the supernatural.

That's presumptive, not demonstrated, again.

There are plenty of non-material things that are real that you believe in. Reason is one. Your own identity is another. Maybe morality is a third, and maybe meaning is fourth. You certainly claim to believe in the human mind, which is a non-material entity. A strict Materialist would have to call all these things "supernatural" and thus "irrational." Would you?

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:49 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:13 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:36 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:31 am I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's certainly unlike anything I ever said or suggested.
The point is, the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a scientific theory based on experiment and observation. If you think it's wrong...
I don't. I can't imagine where you got that idea. I was pointing out that it shows a couple of things: 1. That the universe is definitely not eternal in the past, and 2. That things tend from a state of higher order to one of lower order...and anybody who thinks things tend from lower order to higher is swimming upstream against that.

In a closed system, yes.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:01 pm**

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 amTheism is basically a belief in the supernatural, which I consider to be irrational.

It [theism] certainly makes it plain that that’s the case. That a godly power exerts itself in the world, in man’s world. But there is a problem, and not a small one, when the “supernatural” is categorically rejected and described as unreal. A similar word to supernatural is metaphysical. And if you (if one) thinks it through man’s world is interwoven with — indeed constructed through — ideas and concepts that are metaphysical.

I think I do understand how you are using the word “supernatural” though: like a supernatural appearance (ghost, an angel) or even perhaps the notion that one might pray and receive an answer to that prayer. It requires some being or intelligence that is out there somewhere to respond, to answer, to provide.

Be that as it may, all higher orders of ideas are evidences of the realness and indeed potency of metaphysical notions.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:34 pm**

What horrifies — me in any case — is Immanuel Can’s literalist mind. It is a very modern mind, familiar with philosophy and culture, but a mind that nonetheless channels both fanaticism and strange absolutist realism into that most absolutist of assertions: either you will / or you will not. And if you don’t — well then eternal punishment awaits.

It is not enough to say that it is “wrong”. The truth is that it misses everything of substantial value.

This is a mind of a most inferior order. Allegory, metaphor, a non-absolutist stance and indeed toleration are impossible for it. It is like a single-pointed mechanism, a small, directed mental machine. A rodent conditioned by habit to run on a single, small wheel.

Martin Lings, Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions:

Thought, which includes the reason, imagination and memory, is in itself a purely human faculty, but through the virtual continuity which exists between the soul and the spirit, thought may be penetrated in a certain measure by the light of the Intellect. The purpose of metaphysics, the study of what is “beyond nature” that is, beyond this world, is to open the mind to this penetration and to give the thoughts an up-ward bent. This is, strictly speaking, the greatest elevation that man as such is capable of, for beyond this the human ends and the superhuman begins. None the less, the essential characteristic of man is his contact with the superhuman, and this paradox is expressed in the Taoist term Chenn-jen (True Man) which is only applied to a man whose soul has regained contact with the Spirit.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:38 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:01 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 amTheism is basically a belief in the supernatural, which I consider to be irrational.
It [theism] certainly makes it plain that that’s the case. That a godly power exerts itself in the world, in man’s world. But there is a problem, and not a small one, when the “supernatural” is categorically rejected and described as unreal. A similar word to supernatural is metaphysical. And if you (if one) thinks it through man’s world is interwoven with — indeed constructed through — ideas and concepts that are metaphysical.

I think I do understand how you are using the word “supernatural” though: like a supernatural appearance (ghost, an angel) or even perhaps the notion that one might pray and receive an answer to that prayer. It requires some being or intelligence that is out there somewhere to respond, to answer, to provide.

Be that as it may, all higher orders of ideas are evidences of the realness and indeed potency of metaphysical notions.

I just had a thought too terrible to utter. A foreboding thought that I cannot wish to be real. Is it true? Is the thought I just had true?

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:55 pm**

Take a Med and settle down.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:12 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:19 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 8:44 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:49 am
Well, unless you include revelation. Then, there just might be.
Or consult every religion that has a creation myth.
Why not? Compare them all, and see what's credible. Good strategy.

Okay, you go ahead.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:I did answer. I said theism is irrational because it is a belief in the supernatural.
That's presumptive, not demonstrated, again.

I can settle for that.

There are plenty of non-material things that are real that you believe in. Reason is one. Your own identity is another. Maybe morality is a third, and maybe meaning is fourth. You certainly claim to believe in the human mind, which is a non-material entity. A strict Materialist would have to call all these things "supernatural" and thus "irrational." Would you?

I didn't say that believing in non-material things was irrational, I said that believing in the supernatural was irrational. And, no, I wouldn't say those other things are supernatural.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:23 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:01 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 amTheism is basically a belief in the supernatural, which I consider to be irrational.
It [theism] certainly makes it plain that that’s the case. That a godly power exerts itself in the world, in man’s world. But there is a problem, and not a small one, when the “supernatural” is categorically rejected and described as unreal. A similar word to supernatural is metaphysical. And if you (if one) thinks it through man’s world is interwoven with — indeed constructed through — ideas and concepts that are metaphysical.

I think I do understand how you are using the word “supernatural” though: like a supernatural appearance (ghost, an angel) or even perhaps the notion that one might pray and receive an answer to that prayer. It requires some being or intelligence that is out there somewhere to respond, to answer, to provide.

Be that as it may, all higher orders of ideas are evidences of the realness and indeed potency of metaphysical notions.

I don't think of ideas and concepts as being supernatural, and metaphysical concepts are still just concepts. By supernatural I mean something that exists outside of the regular laws of nature, and is not subject to them.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:35 pm**

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:23 pm I don't think of ideas and concepts as being supernatural, and metaphysical concepts are still just concepts. By supernatural I mean something that exists outside of the regular laws of nature, and is not subject to them.

A “concept” is actually metaphysical.

Our ideas, especially concepts of a high order, exist outside of “the regular laws of nature”.

They are metaphysical to nature.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:49 pm**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:35 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:23 pm I don't think of ideas and concepts as being supernatural, and metaphysical concepts are still just concepts. By supernatural I mean something that exists outside of the regular laws of nature, and is not subject to them.
A “concept” is actually metaphysical.

Our ideas, especially concepts of a high order, exist outside of “the regular laws of nature”.

They exist within our normal framework of reality, so I regard them as natural.

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