Atheism Equals Cosmic Solipsism
We know from ourselves that our universe is a consciousness-bearing universe.
We also know from QM there is crosstalk between observer and observed, thus establishing the essential sociability of both existence and consciousness.
With amazement we see at the sub-atomic level bi-directional negotiation between observer and observed regarding the identity of each.
These facts alert us to the social design of our universe. It is not a place of isolation and solitude in any absolute sense.
Few disagree that the natural world of our everyday lives is socially configured and socially negotiated. These are echoes of what physicists perceive more starkly at the sub-atomic level.
Theism claims God-Spirit dwells beyond the natural world and, moreover, causes its histories and experiences as physical events.
There is an issue with this claim that can be labeled the point-of-contact Venn diagram problem. As we know from geometry, when two circles overlap partially, they create a shared space or common ground known at the Venn diagram. Its obvious that within the boundaries of the Venn diagram, the two circles exist as one. Well, if two circles intersect, it cannot be the case they simultaneously lie beyond each other.
Point-of-contact precludes parallelism and thus all relationships assume positive values of sameness between inter-related things. Since theism centers the dialogue between God-Spirit and human, it necessarily assumes a positive degree of sameness of the correspondents. It even asserts human being created in the likeness of God-Spirit.
With such claims, theisms claim of God-Spirits transcendence of humans physical realm establishes an untenable contradiction. If God-Spirits realm is parallel to our human realm, how does God-Spirit talk to us? How does providence nurture us into the good life?
The unintelligible mystery of existence offers an answer to the point-of-contact Venn diagram problem.
The short version of the answer simply says, existence is social.
God socializes with human by way of the axiom.
No one, neither God-Spirit nor human, stands alone. God-Spirit didnt so much create human as allow for the co-creation of human alongside God-Spirit. This is why human has free will. This is love. This is Tevi walking out to the fence that encircles his hovel and having talks with God-Spirit, sometimes agreeing, sometimes arguing.
Through the lens of theism, God-Spirit talks to science through axioms. Experiments like all other types of narratives must have a beginning. They take recourse to the axiom, assumption without argument.
Every narrative boils down to some axiom or other because narrative is existence organized into meaning. Without the filter of narrative, sensory overload en route to chaos ensues.
One might argue God-Spirit is fulminating creation without restraint. For this reason Moses on Mount Sinai had to look askance from the Presence lest he get ripped apart by excess of possibility.
Now we have a useful synonym for mysticism, fulminating creation without restraint.
Axioms as self-evident truths without argument is scientific mysticism.
Existence is the limit of logic, the infra-structure of narrative.
Narrative is human talking towards existence. The big however here is the presupposition of existence towards narrative.
Theres no escaping this dog chasing its tail.
Axiomatic existence is the arbitrary and necessary starting point for consciousness. Narratives can explain themselves up to the point of the naked fact of their existence.
Existence, fulminating creation without restraint, remains unintelligible without consciousness giving it limitation and thereby form.
Reality is the upshot of the negotiation of the yin-yang creative conflict of the two inseparable formative powers.
Existence is divine. Consciousness is sacred.
God-Spirit speaks the language of axioms. This is IAM speak.
Denial of God-Spirit establishes a cosmic solitude for sentient beings in relation to existence; they are not solitary in relation to each other. As a whole, sentience by view of atheism is an arbitrary existence since science cannot explain or justify existence.
Is life peer-to-peer? Given the recent lab fabrication of synthetic cells, the answer is almost no. Human is still operating at the Dr. Frankenstein phase of reconstruction of pre-existing vital parts towards construction of a sentient being.
If we suppose, however, that human can fabricate sentience from the scratch of organic compounds, such fabrication fails no less than before regarding human silence face-to-face with the mystery of existence.
Logic is a continuity. Existence is the limit of continuity. This is why there is not nothing. Nothing is the ultimate dis-continuity and continuity (and its categorical negative) cannot arrive at existence.
God speaks in axioms. This IAM speak. Axioms to science is IAM speak. This is spirit world to science, as science is limited to continuity.
Science gets its holy writ - self-evident truths from IAM speak.
Atheism, denial of IAM speak = cosmic solipsism. It assumes physicalist sentience is alone in existence. But what about the axioms that science cannot create? These axioms ground science.
Atheism = reductive physicalism. Theism is compatible with non-reductive physicalism.
Existence is not a continuity. It is a serially transcendent holism. The spontaneous popping into existence of elementary particles is propagation from a physicalist ground; it exemplifies serial holism. Life propagating spontaneously from a physical ground is transcendent holism. Existence is peer to peer. Existence never propagates from non-existence.
The mystery of otherness is ordained by the inherent sociability of QM entanglement of knowing_being. This cosmic tango requires a minimum of two. Given the essence of creation as a duet, we also have as essentials self-and-other and to-and-from.
By action of its own intimate partner science, atheism is precluded from extirpating cosmic otherness.
The two parts of the creation: self and other at present remain rooted in mystery. Existence is not a continuity, so space and time cannot tell us anything about the mystery of the cosmic duet.
Serial holism is a fiction of language trying to rationalize existence which cannot be rationalized at the level of a 3D matrix.
Perhaps 4D logic, another fiction of language, attains to a level of continuity that gives meaning to serial holism.
Theism through faith knows we come from God but does not understand God.
Atheism, though faithful, in the absence of physicalism explaining existence, has no idea where it comes from.
The universe cannot create herself except through the mysterious dialogue of self and other.
Existence, positioned beyond meaning, brooks no isolation and that is the undying hope of the cosmos.
We also know from QM there is crosstalk between observer and observed, thus establishing the essential sociability of both existence and consciousness.
With amazement we see at the sub-atomic level bi-directional negotiation between observer and observed regarding the identity of each.
These facts alert us to the social design of our universe. It is not a place of isolation and solitude in any absolute sense.
Few disagree that the natural world of our everyday lives is socially configured and socially negotiated. These are echoes of what physicists perceive more starkly at the sub-atomic level.
Theism claims God-Spirit dwells beyond the natural world and, moreover, causes its histories and experiences as physical events.
There is an issue with this claim that can be labeled the point-of-contact Venn diagram problem. As we know from geometry, when two circles overlap partially, they create a shared space or common ground known at the Venn diagram. Its obvious that within the boundaries of the Venn diagram, the two circles exist as one. Well, if two circles intersect, it cannot be the case they simultaneously lie beyond each other.
Point-of-contact precludes parallelism and thus all relationships assume positive values of sameness between inter-related things. Since theism centers the dialogue between God-Spirit and human, it necessarily assumes a positive degree of sameness of the correspondents. It even asserts human being created in the likeness of God-Spirit.
With such claims, theisms claim of God-Spirits transcendence of humans physical realm establishes an untenable contradiction. If God-Spirits realm is parallel to our human realm, how does God-Spirit talk to us? How does providence nurture us into the good life?
The unintelligible mystery of existence offers an answer to the point-of-contact Venn diagram problem.
The short version of the answer simply says, existence is social.
God socializes with human by way of the axiom.
No one, neither God-Spirit nor human, stands alone. God-Spirit didnt so much create human as allow for the co-creation of human alongside God-Spirit. This is why human has free will. This is love. This is Tevi walking out to the fence that encircles his hovel and having talks with God-Spirit, sometimes agreeing, sometimes arguing.
Through the lens of theism, God-Spirit talks to science through axioms. Experiments like all other types of narratives must have a beginning. They take recourse to the axiom, assumption without argument.
Every narrative boils down to some axiom or other because narrative is existence organized into meaning. Without the filter of narrative, sensory overload en route to chaos ensues.
One might argue God-Spirit is fulminating creation without restraint. For this reason Moses on Mount Sinai had to look askance from the Presence lest he get ripped apart by excess of possibility.
Now we have a useful synonym for mysticism, fulminating creation without restraint.
Axioms as self-evident truths without argument is scientific mysticism.
Existence is the limit of logic, the infra-structure of narrative.
Narrative is human talking towards existence. The big however here is the presupposition of existence towards narrative.
Theres no escaping this dog chasing its tail.
Axiomatic existence is the arbitrary and necessary starting point for consciousness. Narratives can explain themselves up to the point of the naked fact of their existence.
Existence, fulminating creation without restraint, remains unintelligible without consciousness giving it limitation and thereby form.
Reality is the upshot of the negotiation of the yin-yang creative conflict of the two inseparable formative powers.
Existence is divine. Consciousness is sacred.
God-Spirit speaks the language of axioms. This is IAM speak.
Denial of God-Spirit establishes a cosmic solitude for sentient beings in relation to existence; they are not solitary in relation to each other. As a whole, sentience by view of atheism is an arbitrary existence since science cannot explain or justify existence.
Is life peer-to-peer? Given the recent lab fabrication of synthetic cells, the answer is almost no. Human is still operating at the Dr. Frankenstein phase of reconstruction of pre-existing vital parts towards construction of a sentient being.
If we suppose, however, that human can fabricate sentience from the scratch of organic compounds, such fabrication fails no less than before regarding human silence face-to-face with the mystery of existence.
Logic is a continuity. Existence is the limit of continuity. This is why there is not nothing. Nothing is the ultimate dis-continuity and continuity (and its categorical negative) cannot arrive at existence.
God speaks in axioms. This IAM speak. Axioms to science is IAM speak. This is spirit world to science, as science is limited to continuity.
Science gets its holy writ - self-evident truths from IAM speak.
Atheism, denial of IAM speak = cosmic solipsism. It assumes physicalist sentience is alone in existence. But what about the axioms that science cannot create? These axioms ground science.
Atheism = reductive physicalism. Theism is compatible with non-reductive physicalism.
Existence is not a continuity. It is a serially transcendent holism. The spontaneous popping into existence of elementary particles is propagation from a physicalist ground; it exemplifies serial holism. Life propagating spontaneously from a physical ground is transcendent holism. Existence is peer to peer. Existence never propagates from non-existence.
The mystery of otherness is ordained by the inherent sociability of QM entanglement of knowing_being. This cosmic tango requires a minimum of two. Given the essence of creation as a duet, we also have as essentials self-and-other and to-and-from.
By action of its own intimate partner science, atheism is precluded from extirpating cosmic otherness.
The two parts of the creation: self and other at present remain rooted in mystery. Existence is not a continuity, so space and time cannot tell us anything about the mystery of the cosmic duet.
Serial holism is a fiction of language trying to rationalize existence which cannot be rationalized at the level of a 3D matrix.
Perhaps 4D logic, another fiction of language, attains to a level of continuity that gives meaning to serial holism.
Theism through faith knows we come from God but does not understand God.
Atheism, though faithful, in the absence of physicalism explaining existence, has no idea where it comes from.
The universe cannot create herself except through the mysterious dialogue of self and other.
Existence, positioned beyond meaning, brooks no isolation and that is the undying hope of the cosmos.
Comments (74)
How do you know that a 'physical ground' is bereft of life? It seems like you excluded the possibility as an assumption in order to introduce it as a necessity.
Quoting ucarr
This is the dilemma that both modern religious and scientific thinking has created for itself. It has managed to extricate itself from static mechanistic and rationalist models in order to embrace a perspective of holism, historical transformation, organicism, dialogical relationality and interdependence. And yet it still insists on deriving this dynamism, interconnectedness and historical becoming from a ground which is anything but dynamic. Why does change have to come from something unchanging , some dead first cause, either nothingness or a God who creates axioms? Isnt such a creator the essence of solitude and isolation? Why not let time and history stand on their own, without having to nail them down to a beginning?
If life has no discrete physical boundaries, does not emerge from non-vital substance, then the universe is wholly alive and the animism of the ancients has always been true. I hold no opposition to this claim. If I have implied otherwise, I have blundered in some of my assumptions and in some of my language.
You have introduced a 'non-vital' substance to surprise us with what it is not. Aristotle took a different approach.
Quoting Joshs
Quoting Joshs
I have tried to show that God-Spirit is never alone, was co-created alongside of human. I have tried to say identity is socially negotiated by insight of QM. I have placed the self-and-other dialogue at the core of reality. The gist of my premise, that IAM speak forestalls the isolation of solipsism, abhors a vacuum. Where have I said or suggested the creation is static?
You first suggested I deal in the currency of non-vital substance.
Did you not introduce transcendence as what the 'physical' could not provide?
Anthromorphizing compositional fallacy at the very least. And, without a clear conception of "consciousness" either in philosophy or science, the phrase "consciousness-bearing" is uninformative. The rest of your post, trafficking as it does in pseudo-science / misinterpreting QM's 'observer effect', doesn't make much sense either except maybe as wishful thinking (i.e. "theology"). Lastly, I don't recognize the theisms of Abrahamic, Vedic, or any other pagan faiths in your account, ucarr, so on that point, again, I don't know what you mean by "theism" or, for that matter, "atheism".
Quoting ucarr
In the above statement I'm trying to say consciousness is an emergent property of elements and compounds. This claim presumes a physical foundation of awareness that supports it non-reductively. The foundation and the emergent property, being linked, are not mutually exclusive.
Yes, I see that you are not saying that one realm excludes the other. But how do we know enough about consciousness to recognize it as a player in the universe in relationship to 'physical' components you refer to as accepted facts?
If there's one thing that's not anthropomorphic, it's human consciousness. What does human consciousness look like? Does your sentience, considered as a whole, look like your physical body? Yes, your sentience has an impression of your physical body. Does that motivate you to claim your sentience is a facsimile of your body?
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting ucarr
Without addressing its veracity, can you elaborate how the above claim is devoid of intelligible content?
Quoting 180 Proof
Is QM's vector-cloud of probability and its collapse not part of the observer effect? Is Shroedinger's cat never super-positioned as a life/death ambiguity? Is the wave function not hard to establish and easy to collapse within the lab?
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting ucarr
What is it about the above description of theism you fail to recognize?
Does my premise that atheism, in denying God-Spirit's dwelling outside of the phenomenal universe, (thus rendering it a solitude of self-contained physicalist sentience), position itself as a point of obscurity to you?
More than one physicist living today has claimed QM the most experimentally and phenomenally verified scientific theory of all time. Please present your counter-narrative.
I was not questioning the validity of QM. It is the connection of that theory to the emergence of consciousness that needs more than wishful thinking.
Wtf?
IIRC, the "live/dead cat" is only a construct within a thought-experiment that makes explicit some of the ways measurements of quantum phenomena are epistemically inconsistent with classical physics; the "live/dead cat" is not itself an actual phenomenon.
"Wave functions" are only mathematical structures and not concrete, or real, things (i.e. misplaced concreteness fallacy). Also, there are more than a few interpretations of QM in which "the wave function" does not "collapse", so ...
What's 4D logic? Just curious...
I agree with you. Entanglement has all interested parties ruminating. Great!
I hope you'll agree thought-experiments are road maps to practice and experience. Google's qubit computer is not a thought-experiment. Is it?
It is continuity of spacetime dimensional expansion within a hyper-cube.
If God was co-created alongside of human, what accounts for the dualistic split between the natural( the human as a physical and biological entity) and the spiritual? These two realms seem to be interacting from across an unbridgeable divide. What makes scientific naturalism isolated and solipsistic if not as
one pole of a nature-spirit dialectic? In other words , dont we first have to assume your nature-spirit co-creation , and then by subtracting away God arrive at a solipsistic physical nature? Dont we eliminate the problem by not starting from the dualism of nature and god? That is , if all there is is the natural , by comparison to what can we call it isolated? I agree that the hard problem of consciousness is the product of a certain approach to naturalism, but there are ways of dissolving it through a modification of the understanding of naturalism. Your way leaves the dualism intact, leaving the interior of both nature and spirit as solipsisms even as they superficially interact. Kant made human conceptualization and empirical nature inseparably co-dependent, and yet Kantianism is accused of a solipsistic conception of subjectivity.
Well said, 180. :fire: :100:
:up: :100: :cheer:
What do you make of the Venn Diagram problem?
Quoting Joshs
Do you find the unparsible nature of axioms interesting? Since nature has no approach to axioms save acknowledgement, there is the implication of duality with respect to origins: a) nature; b) unsearchable self-evident truths as arbitrary starting points for narratives. The natural sentient can decide the source of axioms is a mysterious power beyond the physical world or embrace natural phenomena as a creation of unknowable origin or understand the natural world as an eternal system without origin.
Quoting Joshs
Do you understand the natural world as an eternal system without origin?
Quoting Joshs
I see this is Kant's prescient understanding of QM that you told me of earlier.
QM perceives the vagueness of the electron's position within an attached nucleus as a cloud of possible positions of the electron prior to establishment of a definitive valence under observation.
God_human, though co-created simultaneously, are Venn diagrams, thus overlapped only partially; much of the makeup of each does not overlap. Just as different languages don't translate completely, God_human don't translate completely. This untranslateability entails some of the mystery of otherness.
Eliminate essential mystery and the understanding becomes overburdened. By rubbing against the unknowable, we keep ourselves vital and our imagination fertile.
I know from your writing you already know all of this. I'm just letting you know I too respect some of the essential and necessary contradictions that glitch the complacency of a smooth running understanding.
by reason the inherent features of the natural by the power of reason.
Partly for political reasons this ideology sets divine will and reason upon level ground. The Christian mandate for a transcendent God could thereby be somewhat appeased while the human pursuit of reason and practical production thereof could go forward free of incursions by a meddling church.
This ideology is Deism. It is an eighteenth century iteration of intelligent design. It discovers by rational examination teleology within natural processes. The headwaters of reason are acknowledged to be Gods will expressed as axioms funding and organizing the algorithms of rational practice.
Atheism, the ideology of only nature, no God* immerses itself within rational practice with axioms included. Axioms are explained as self-evident truths. Self-evident truths are claims of reason without reasoning arguments to support them.
Existence is the limit of reason. With an existing thing embraced as a given, reason proceeds thereof towards myriad permutations of rigorously parsed continuities.
Reasoning upon an existing thing can unfold and compact itself through oscillations that are sometimes deemed natural cycles.
When a new narrative gets expressed such that it turns a curve in the established narrative unfolding from self-evident truths, the comprehensive rational understanding deepens and new tributaries of reasoning emerge. This is a paradigm shift.
A paradigm shift occurs when a new facet of an existing thing flashes its presence like a scintillation into the comprehending mind of a thinking sentient.
Manipulation of permutations of self-evident truth continuities, logic, ranges out from its tether, the axiom. In so doing, logic falls prey to becoming arrogant, believing its axiomatic foundation is another part of itself, albeit a self-sufficient part.
Reason is a derivation of existence that only completes itself in the doing of being as presence. Presence, an existing thing, stands mystical in the pantheon of creation because the knowing of reason doesnt know whereof presence arises.
Atheism, reason falsely divorced from the inscrutable otherness of axiom, the IAM speak of Deus, talks to itself within the oscillations of self-referential logic. It bites the hand that feeds it, axiom. Instead, it praises itself, swathed in the glowing raiment of self-referentiality. When you deny otherness, self-referentiality is all that remains.
We have thus the Big Bang Theory. This is the grand oscillation of nature. It is a continuity writ large that enfolds itself like a Mobius as it remains silent upon the seminal question of the origin ontology of the singularity.
Shall we intuit the singularity as the axiom of existence of the self-evidently true and physical universe?
*180 Proof
I do not understand atheism as an "ideology" or as derived from "axioms". One who claims, as I do, that theism is demonstrably not true and, therefore, disbelieves in every theistic deity, is an atheist. However, most nonbelievers merely say 'I do not believe in God or gods', usually not for specified reasons, but from (lazy) incredulity or lack of the emotional need for a god. In my own case, philosophical naturalism (e.g. Democritean atomism in particular) made sense to me only after I'd recognized at 16 that I, despite 11 years of Catholic indoctrination and observance, disbelieved in the "God of Abraham" for similiar reasons I'd disbelieved in the gods of "pagan" myths, comic book superheroes & magic. In no way I'm aware of, ucarr, does atheism entail anything about existence as such (e.g. "the origin of the universe").
Furthermore, there's nothing "axiomatic" about philosophical naturalism either because it's only a paradigm (i.e. a criterion for judgment, methodology or interpretation) and not an indefeasible system for deducing formal truths from "self-evident truths". The best available theories of the natural sciences, especially those in fundamental physics and cosmology, are properly used as testable approximate explanations of nature and not as "final" (metaphysical?) "truths". Thus, to the extent a natural science contains supernatural notions, its theories do not explain nature, begging more questions than they answer by introducing in their models untestable mysteries (e.g. "Goddidit" "First Cause" "Unmoved Mover" "teleology" "phlogiston" "demons" "horoscopes" etc). A naturalist, whether or not she is a believer, usually agrees with the great polymath scientist Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace ...
Quoting 180 Proof
:fire:
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but it seems to me that the only logical consequences of atheism wrt e.g. ontology, metaphysics, cosmology, etc, are negative; i.e. the exclusion of theistic propositions: in other words, atheism doesn't dictate any particular position on how (or whether) the universe began... only that whatever it is, God had nothing to do with it.
And same for positions on traditional philosophical disputes like materialism/idealism, Platonism/nominalism, and so on: atheism is logically independent of both positions (so atheists can be materialists or idealists, they can be realists or anti-realists wrt truth, value, abstract objects, etc), except for the one thing atheism necessarily excludes: i.e. anything involving the existence of God/gods
This is true only of theistic God/gods (of which deism, I think, is a subset).
Sure. The point is only that atheism has a fairly narrow scope (a point on which I expect we largely agree), and doesn't make (or imply) any positive truth-claims about e.g. the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, whether moral judgments are cognitive or propositional, or any other topic in philosophy or the sciences... only a very specific negative claim: i.e. the denial of theism.
So atheism doesn't dictate any particular position on e.g. the origin of the universe, it only excludes the proposition that theism has anything to do with it (and similarly with any other topic or proposition).
Well and who also seem to think that atheism is synonymous with or entails things like materialism, moral nihilism/anti-realism, and so on. It does not. Obviously there are many atheists who are also materialists or moral nihilists/anti-realists/etc, but this is not a logical consequence of atheism: atheism is logically independent of most positive philosophical positions, and doesn't commit one to any particular position or view on most topics.
I think this misconception/misrepresentation has to be deliberate in at least many cases, because it does seem to persist no matter how many times people point out and explain this particular error.
I don't dispute this, but others will, so I think that proving this should be your starting point.
Hey, I'm all for godless communism, so they're right about that part I guess :grin:
I took this as "I am conscious, and I came into being in the Universe, so therefore the Universe is capable of giving rise to something conscious." Which, as far as I know, can't really be proven, only experienced with an n=1.
Unless that's not quite what you meant, @ucarr?
That's actually a proof. It is not proven in an a priori way, but in an a posteriori or empirical way, but it's still a proof.
Per @RogueAIs comment this seems fairly incontrovertible to me are there really folks here who would disagree? If so Id be curious as to their reasoning.
Quoting ucarr
This sort of reminds me of the trinity.
It's a Venn diagram in disguise. Due to the "is not" - exclusion zones and "is" - the overlap
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting busycuttingcrap
Quoting RogueAI
Quoting tomatohorse
Quoting god must be atheist
If human cons can only be verified up to the level of practical experience of the everyday world a posteriori, given its presence in nature, doesnt that allow, in the absence of preclusion, the possibility its source might be super-ordinate WRT nature? I'm not talking about a realm of mysterious power over humanity from on high. By super-ordinate I mean "a thing that represents a superior order or category within a system of classification."
If so, then that location might be supernatural or extra-natural, etc, right? On the other hand, if cons, like matter, takes the default position of having always existed, being neither created nor destroyed, then its axiomatic that nature is cons-bearing, right? If thats so, then science begins with cons as a self-evident truth. From here it follows that axiomatically cons humans cannot, on a logical basis, be uncoupled from a cons sourced outside of nature. Thus a supernaturally-sourced cons cannot be logically excluded.
In spite of my speculations above, Im in favor of propositional logic elaborating a continuity of symbolically representable expressions following strict rules of inference to the effect of proving nature is cons-bearing. A cons-bearing universe allows human to be Venn-diagramed with a cosmic cons, and thats evidence of a cosmic dialogue, and thats more interesting than the cosmic soliloquy of atheism, what with its trace of Hamlets suicidal despair (Camus).
Atheism excludes God as creator of the material universe. Does that not make atheism a theory of what the origin of the universe is not? If so, atheism is not independent of metaphysics. It's metaphysical claim says, God did not create the material universe.
Even if non-life can be scientifically transformed into life, science cannot explain scientifically the ground of physicality. Thus atheism as to the why and how of existence is no less an article of faith than is theism. Atheism is therefore a type of epistemology.
Atheism is not an ideology? I suspect a statistically significant number (certainly not all) of atheists practice their atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism. They don't want to live under the rule of a dictatorial, humanoid deity whose self-serving morals are brutally mediated by an elite priestly class of
clerics.
I'm trying to approach the premise of a super-ordinate theism from within the field of science.
My main idea herein is drawing a parallel with Riemann's zeta function.
Prime numbers are the axioms of number theory. The Riemann Hypothesis examines this. The zeta function yields primes on a critical line extending along the complex number line. This is where the primes are organized. So far, the critical line appears to be of infinite extent. How does one categorize the entire set mathematically?
I say in parallel axioms are the primes of scientific theory. Within scientific theory, they are the irreducible singularities. Do they too have a mathematical function that produces a critical set of axioms along the complex number plane?
Deus = the axiom plane. As the ground and source of existence, the axiom plane is a transcending, non-local dimensionalizer of actuated possibility.
Deus is uncontainable, even as an abstract concept. That it is super-ordinate to anything is a fiction of language.
Deus is prior to the singularity of the Big Bang.
Deus is evidence numericality is an essential attribute of the material creation. Numbers are discovered, not invented.
I'm curious what this means, exactly; can you say more?
Only a "theistic" origin of the universe is "excluded". Atheism does not reject other possibilities (e.g. pandeism, acosmism, eternal inflation, etc).
No.
One more time for the slow ones way in the back: atheism is disbelief in theistic deities (& stories) If the material universe was "created", then an atheist only states "I disbelieve stories of 'the universe created by a theistic deity'". This is an epistemological commitment and not a "metaphysical claim" (whatever that means).
Nonsense. That's like saying 'celibacy is no less a sex position than sodomy'. :roll: :confused: :sweat:
The pure argument here, so to speak, between the atheist and the theist is a simple statement the one has faith in the belief in God and the other denies God's existence. That is not, or course how such arguments typically occur. They typically present as one ridiculing Creationism and the other ridiculing evolution or something similar.
While it's logically possible one may be an atheist and believe the world followed a 6 day course to come into being (so long as it's not attributable to God) and it's logically possible to be a theist and believe all morals are subjective human creations (so long as God still exists) such positions rarely correlate.
What this means is that the diversity of theistic and atheistic positions that flow from the described respective foundational requirements can be vast, and it is for that reason one side or the other is constantly screaming strawman at the other because it was assumed incorrectly by one or the other that they held a typically correlated view.
Statistically significant means a set with a volume of members too large to be unimportant and not worth considering as a factor in collection of numerical data; a group too large to be considered insignificant.
Martin Luther and his followers revolted against the imperious control of the Catholic Church. Those who reject big organized religion in favor of a personal walk with God bolstered by bible readings are Protestants.
A secular protestant is a person who rejects God and the imperious control of organized religion.
I wasn't asking for definitions of statistical significance or Protestantism, I was asking you what exactly "practicing atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism" involves or consists of. What does this look like, in practice?
:up: Agreed. And you're certainly right that this cuts both ways, and it is equally obnoxious and counter-productive no matter who is doing it. Frustrating how so many people are unwilling to allow the other person to stake out their own position, in their own terms, without making assumptions about what they must think or believe on other topics in virtue of their being an atheist or theist.
In my Apple Dictionary I see that theism derives from THEÓS or THEOI meaning "god" or "gods." Both theism and deism include God.
Christian Theism believes in an active God who relates with humans as a mentor. Deism believes in a passive God who leaves humans to their own devices.
In either case, God is acknowledged as the creator of the universe. Unless the God of deism is a physical god who created a physical universe, thus rendering deism indistinguishable from materialism, belief in a spirit God as creator is a metaphysical belief. This separates deism from atheism.
Atheism is the negation of acknowledgement of a spirit God as creator. A negation does not negate itself.
If I negate acknowledgement of light as the fastest moving material object in the physical universe, I posit a theory about what is not in the realm of physicalism. It is a physicalist theory.
In parallel, if I negate acknowledgement of a spirit God as creator in the metaphysical realm, I posit a theory about what is not in the realm of the metaphysical. It is a metaphysical theory.
Even if I negate metaphysics entirely, I posit a theory of metaphysics > non-existent.
Negation no less than affirmation attaches itself to the realm about which it posits a theory.
Quoting 180 Proof
If you turn away from a claim about reality because you are personally repelled by it, but make no commitment about the truth or falsity of the claim, that is doubt. Disbelief cannot be based upon doubt. Disbelief is properly based upon commitment to belief in negation. Committed negation of a transcendent God is a metaphysical claim. If you know there is no spirit realm housing a transcendent creator God, then you're trading in metaphysical coinage and that's a metaphysical claim.
A secular protestant, lying on his deathbed, in defiance of his own emotional past as a boy raised Catholic, exhorts his parents, wife and children, to their great anguish, not to hold any type of religious services at his funeral.
A secular protestant breaks off his engagement to a beloved fiance because she and her parents insist upon a church wedding.
A secular protestant eschews observance of Christmas.
There are a number of Christian apologists who make a similar point - they argue that the atheist's value system is essentially one of Christianity (Protestantism generally gets left out of this argument). Basically they are unable to imagine any notion of secular morality and values and insist that any moral system in atheism must be derived from a Christian morality. Why would you value other humans if there is no transcendent meaning? That old thing. A 'true' atheist to them would be a nihilist who would commit mass murder, rape and theft before breakfast each morning.
Quoting ucarr
It's not always a vacuous culture war out there.
Many atheists I know have had church weddings, don't care what their funeral ends up being and find Christmas engaging, have religious friends and enjoy visiting churches. Some atheists are not engaged in any debate about gods and do not consider themselves in opposition to religion, they are just not concerned with religion and find any idea of god/s irrelevant to their experience of life.
:100:
Temporal logic?
:rofl:
Atheism is, I would have to agree, (cosmic) solipsism. A question that might be of interest to you: What would be the mental & physical environment such that no one in that environment would ever entertain the idea of (a) god(s)? Are there existing communities, perhaps uncontacted Amazonian tribes, that have never thought of god(s)? I suppose the number is nought but then that means theism has, dare I say it?, (proto-)rational roots i.e. it's reasonable, even if only in the most basic sense of reasonable.
Wtf :roll:
Oh come on!
I consider myself theistic, but was married in a courthouse the first time and in a secular ceremony the second time.
My issue with religion is that it unfortunately offers an opportunity to separate people by drawing firm lines in the sand as to what is demanded of one another in terms of belief and custom. As religiosity increases, who can sit with you at the table often shrinks. The same holds true in other contexts, political divisions being the polarization du jour.
It seems to me that if your religion requires exclusion, you heard the sermon, but maybe missed the message.
Quoting ucarr
For the sake of clarification, let me add that with my examples to busycuttingcrap I was only trying to show what an atheist might choose to do as observances of his atheism. I acknowledge your examples of atheist behavior demonstrate with equal truth how some atheists behave. I have no opposition to atheists doing these types of things and wouldn't hesitate to socialize with them while they were doing so.
I do think an atheist who, in his socialization with close friends, celebrates Christmas, attends mass and acts as best man at a Christian wedding lacks integrity and honesty if doesn't declare his beliefs beforehand, instead allowing others to assume he shares empathy with their convictions and rituals.
I'm here trying to get a better understanding of things. Although it's imprudent to discuss religion, I find trying to understand it is more interesting than ignoring it.
If I make a wrong claim about atheism herein, my correspondents are on the job with pushback. Doing philosophy is the easy part. Getting the attention of correspondents is the hard part. Whereas written statements can only reflect light, live humans with incandescent sentience provide the important thing.
Exchange of ideas stirs thickets of fierce rhetoric. Sometimes I get hit by the verbal shrapnel of serious thought coupled with strong feelings. Sometimes I get hoisted aloft by the nearby landing of someone's witty petard.
Black eyes and fat lips are my tattoos. I always get them en route to grinding out the cognitive gems only I appreciate.
:fire:
Of course I reformulate what you've written because that's how I try to substantively engage your stated positions. If I were you and we were me, there'd be just one and thus no dialogue.
My straw-men are caused by cerebral viruses that occasionally infect my thinking with unintentionally flawed interpretations of correspondent's intended meanings.
Below is a piece of your writing I tried to interpret. Help me see what's actually there.
Quoting 180 Proof
Please fill in the blank. 180 Proof > a = atheism is disbelief in theistic deities (& stories); ucarr > a? = [fill in blank here]
Metaphysical Claim - a declaration of truth about the root causes, designs and operations of the creation as understood to be separate from the mundane world of everyday physics.
Quoting ucarr
What happens to the above sentence if I add one of your important adjectives?
Quoting ucarr
What happens to the first sentence if I add another one of your important adjectives?
Quoting ucarr
As I understand philosophy, "metaphysics" does not consist of factual truth-claims; it's not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional like poetry but rather, metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality, insofar as reality both constitutes and encompasses all of our hypothetical inquiries (e.g. formal natural & historical sciences and arts), in order to rationally make sense of make whole 'human existence'. The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' (or world-making) but are not themselves demonstrable truth-claims about the world. Thus, for me at least, ucarr, "metaphysical claims", as Witty says, is nonsense.
NB: Atheism is a 2nd order statement about theism which is a 1st order statement about "god"; the latter is metaphysics (i.e. onto-theology) and the former epistemology / logic.
Thanks for clarifying.
Nicely put.
With 180 Proof > a ? ucarr > a? I'm asking you to write a description that elaborates how a ? a?, which is to say, 180 Proof's statement a gets turned into ucarr's non-equivalent a.? I'm asking you to write my straw-man distortion a? of your original a.
If you'll be specific in this way, I'll best understand the underlying cause of my straw-man distortion.
Below follow my takeaways from your info
Quoting 180 Proof
So paradigms can only be supposed without affirmation or refutation.
Quoting 180 Proof
Actually no, paradigms cannot even be supposed. Furthermore, paradigms cannot express assertions.
Quoting 180 Proof
Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
The ontology component of metaphysics dovetails with functionalism. Metaphysics says, "Mentally I am my operational, relatable, useful states."
Quoting 180 Proof
The endgame of metaphysics arrives at axiomatic utterances not parsible into logical expressions. The ground of being is a given. It potentiates analyses but is their unbridgeable limit.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Theism is the ground of atheism as arithmetic is the ground of algebra. By algebra I know arithmetic cannot be reduced to logic. So logic too, is grounded by arithmetic. 2nd order expressions convey their meanings through their first order foundations. Because atheism cannot exist without theism, it cannot be categorically separable from theism, thus all atheistic expressions are theistic expressions in the negative.
How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.
And why would atheism equal solipsism, cosmic or otherwise? There is no reason to believe that. Atheism is a belief there is no god, there are no gods. This is a far cry from solipsism. Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist. Cosmic (?) or otherwise.
This entire thread, my dear friends, is put forth by a philosopher whose words SEEM to make sense, but they don't. In responding to him, other philosophers admit that ucarr makes sense. I blame these other philosophers who have made the initial mistake of taking ucarr seriously.
What do I mean? I mean, that ucarr will make propositions in perfectly clear syntactical statements, that semantically make no sense; and he dupes people into believing he makes sense. Take any statement by him in this thread. I randomly picked the following:
Quoting ucarr
What's an induction-deduction oscillation? What do paradigms do to sever this? And sever this from what else? The rest I don't understand, but that may be only my problem, because I was never told properly what inductive and deductive reasoning is. My guess is that the rest of ucarr's statement in the quote makes no sense; someone smart and learned can study and tell whether it's valid or sheer nonsense.
I am curious what on earth possessed the moderators to not notice the thinly veiled but screamingly obvious style and tactic of ucarr to engage serious thinkers in joining to discuss a very long tirade of nonsense.
Well, there has been quite a few people who have taken up to discuss ucarr's propositions; they all seem to be having fun with it, inasmuch as a frustrating and leading-to-nowhere never-ending argumenting is fun.
Ucarr is not the first such philosopher on this site who I noticed does this. I can't remember the monikers of others. The tactic is reminiscent of that of Bartricks. But they are fundamentally different. Ucarr makes no sense. Bartricks makes statements that are fallacious, and he contradicts himself often, and when he is shown his own contradiction, then he comes back with ignoring the logic there. Ucarr is more sophisticated: he can't be called out on a self-contradiction, because he makes no sensible propositions, he only spews nonsense; and he will defend himself with more nonsense when called out, in a fashion that will drag the conversation out yet in another vein.
:100: :up:
You've taken your time and done a careful job of profiling, per your perceptions, my writing, its meanings and, moreover, you've detailed your inferential conclusions about my intentions and strategies.
A writer whose writing is somewhat queered away from the common sense orthodoxy of its chosen discipline - in this case philosophy - overflowing as it may be (as in my case here) with idiosyncrasies of thought and personality quirks, asks a lot of his readers.
You have delivered. The serious attention of another person is one of the finest things a person can receive and a detailed profile bespeaks close and serious attention. I thank you for it. You could've taken the easy path by standing pat awaiting my implosion from overindulgence of selfish alienating impulses.
Beyond being a critique your statement is a warning. If I don't change my writing I run risk of being seen by consensus as a self-absorbed crackpot willfully peddling what I know to be nonsense. Such indulgence will put me on the permanent-ignore list vis-a-vis justifiably esteemed correspondents such as those participating in this conversation. Even more ominous, moderators, sharing the crackpot consensus, might feel compelled to block such perceived bandwidth-wasting verbiage.
I'm one who can heed warnings.
Quoting god must be atheist
Atheist humans are no less social than all other types of humans. They neither embrace nor propound notions about being alone in the universe. It's not a stretch to suppose some politicians are atheists and, well, politicians are people-persons; they thrive in crowd scenes.
The above declarations pertain to human-to-human interactions. What about humanity-the-collective to cosmos-the-totality-of-creation? At this level I assert that atheism is solipsistic.
This so because human consciousness vis-a-vis the totality of creation must first answer the question posed by the interstellar probe Jimmy Carter sanctioned. He asked, "Is anyone out there?"
Let's assume the answer is "yes." Other sentient (hopefully humanoid) beings are out there. Even so, this only dispels the interstellar solipsism of the human collective vis-a-vis other intra-cosmic sentience.
It still doesn't dispel the cosmic solipsism of atheism because the interstellar collective of sentience
vis-a-vis the cosmos is still alone unless the cosmos (and beyond) is sentient as distinguished from the interstellar collective of sentience, a state of being denied by atheism.
Sidebar - Some will argue atheism takes no position on the cosmos (and beyond) with the exception of an over-arching trans-physical theistic God. I'm still searching for a definition of theism that doesn't apply to all God-concepts. Perhaps evolution might be conceived as a unitary cosmic consciousness. I know, however, that some (if not all) evolutionists reject the notion of teleology (intelligent design) being baked into evolution.
So the atheist dialoguing as s/he does with humanity and perhaps, eventually, interstellar sentience, nonetheless vis-a-vis the cosmos stands alone as denial of cosmos as sentient being means necessarily intra-mural dialoguing within an over-arching physical universe itself forever silent.
Here's where QM comes into the picture and makes things more interesting. QM entanglement of observer_observed suggests (at least sub-atomically) the blurring of the objective/subjective binary. I say the intriguing thing about QM entanglement is its disavowal of any type of solitude.
The sans-solitude of QM via implication tells atheism to stop playacting Hamlet soliloquizing to the heavens about suicidal solitude.
Final Note - When I ran my list of takeaways in response to 180 Proof's carefully worded definition of metaphysics,
Quoting 180 Proof
I was attempting to give my serious attention to the details of said definition. As we say, I was getting into the weeds. The narrative/counter-narrative is where the action is, man. I suspect all human individuals, when you get into their weeds, are no less weird than the fundamentals of QM. A big part of the trick and fun of debate, for me, entails walking a mile in the other-worldly strangeness of another individual.
You immediately jumped into nonsense in the first paragraph, explaining it with more detailed nonsense in the third.
Solipsism excludes community.
Solipsism is not concerned with extraterrestrials.
There is no such thing as interstellar solipsism.
You immediately reverted to saying nonsense... perhaps because you actually don't know the meaning of sopipsism?
Quoting ucarr
This is denied by many religions, and may be denied by some atheists; but the only thing that is denied by atheism is that there is a god and that there are gods.
So you sucked me in to reply to you. Let me assure you: this was the first and last time I wasted any thought on debunking your crazy theories.
godmustbeatheist
This definition contains an internal contradiction within the solipsist. He assumes his own existence yet designates his experience of himself as imaginary_illusory. Such extreme skepticism doesnt allow for the existence of a definite self even as that self has experiences it acknowledges, albeit as imaginary_illusory.
ucarr
solipsism the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
? The Apple Dictionary
This alternative definition, as applied to the atheist, leads to the statement: the collective selfhood of humanity (on earth) and, beyond that, (possibly in future) the collective selfhood of physicalist sentience throughout the universe is all that can be known to exist.
Theism, for which atheism is the negation, claims there is a cosmic dialogue between sentient humanity and transcendental¬_ universe_God consciousness.
QM provides evidence (at sub-atomic level) of entanglement of observer and observed. There is no isolation. This evidence is consistent with cosmic dialogue. It is anti-consistent with the cosmic solitude of physicalist atheism. The cosmic solitude of atheism positions sentience within a universe according to a bifurcated design that has circumambient universe and sentience separated into isolation. Science adds further demerits to this position with its observations that the physical universe has no center and no boundary.
How does its being cosmic affect this? There is no cosmos in solipsism.
godmustbeatheist
Given the supposition of [s]the dubious self of[/s] the solipsist that only the self can be known to exist, that [s]dubious[/s] self is the cosmos.
ucarr
Solipsism can exist in the philosophy of a theist and equally in the philosophy of an atheist.
godmustbeatheist
theism - belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures
? The Apple Dictionary
The above definition of theism, providing a description of dynamic relationship, which is cosmic dialogue_entanglement, sets it apart categorically from atheism, which is human-to-human entanglement only.
Atheism strongly implies a bifurcation of the physics and the circumambient universe. When that bifurcation dissolves, the ensuing entanglement of the physics and the circumambient universe propagates and the cosmic dialogue_entanglement becomes active.
Claiming human is cast in the likeness of God is simultaneously saying human is cast in the image of physical universe.
Denying God separates physicalist humanity from circumambient universe along the axis of cosmic sentience-to-human sentience entanglement. Following from this, isolated physicalist humanity is enclosed within non-sentient circumambient universe of local society amidst cosmic solitude. We see, however, the vitality of organic chemistry towards sentience, and yet atheism says the organic chemistry of the circumambient universe is non-sentient. Atheism equals cosmic solitude.
metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality,
180 Proof
Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. Only statements the resultants of induction are expressed; no reverse reasoning back to empirical details the resultants of deduction.
ucarr
My guess is that [the rest of] ucarr's statement in the quote makes no sense; someone smart and learned can study and tell whether it's valid or sheer nonsense.
godmustbeatheist
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes, context matters. Induction-deduction oscillation = general ? specific.
When I wrote, Paradigms sever the induction-deduction oscillation. I was responding to a series of claims by 180 Proof including, metaphysics does not consist of factual truth-claims, and its not theoretical and its expressions are not propositional.
Given these exclusions, metaphysics, as defined by 180 Proof, operates as a pure model. Its like the root of a word without its declension, or the infinitive of a verb, without its conjugation.
To claim the results of an examination of essential attributes of existence consist of no factual truth-claims, embody no theories, express no propositions and treat phenomena with broadest brushstrokes is to invoke mystery.
This invocation harks back to ancient times when seekers of truth paid visits to the Oracle for receipt of esoteric pronouncements.
Quoting god must be atheist
godmustbeatheist is a witty sitename. Notice how it assumes (ironically) a relationship between God and human. Even when making a little joke at the expense of theism, we have an atheist (I presume) who invokes human-sentience-to-cosmic-sentience entanglement.
While serious, godmustbeatheist notes how solipsism excludes community and is not concerned with extraterrestrials, and then s/he denies interstellar isolation due to solipsism.
I say we're most earnest while joking.