h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Berkeley explanation is wonderfully simple and clear. It is a clarification of the Descartes approach, you might say.

Descartes tried doubting as much as he possibly could. He found he could not doubt that he (or somebody) was doubting, which led to "Cogito ergo sum". The next thing he became unmistakably aware of was that he personally, René DesCartes, was not the be-all and end-all; that there is a universal consciousness that includes all limited individual consciousnesses, including his.

Now you may not like that step, but what are you to say? Are we not corresponding a little here? Is there not some shared consciousness between us, that is not the property of any one of us?

Berkeley's contribution was to allay the problem of perceiving God; rather as Wittgenstein was later to solve problems by making them disappear.

A perceiver is not perceived, Berkeley said. As Wittgenstein put it, the eye is not in the field of vision. If we don't ever perceive God, that should not worry us. We don't actually perceive ourselves (the perceiving part) either.

"The grand mistake" he said, "is to suppose that we have ideas of the operations of our minds." We have no right or reason to expect such matters to be apparent. They are on the other side of the perceptual transaction.

In religion, I venture to urge, the grand mistake is to try saying anything about divinity at all. Once we kick that persistent habit, we can live in peace

the eye may not be in the field of vision, but that is not to say that it cannot see itself. It can, but only through the use of an external agent - eg a mirror or camera. However, that seems rather too easy an answer so Iguess I'm missing the point!

Similarly, In being aware of ourselves are we not in fact perceiving ourselves? If we could not perceive ourselves, be aware of ourselves, then we would have no concept of 'I'. Perhaps it means to reduce to say that that bit which does the oberving within ourselves cannot observe itself ( a reduction from eye to part(s) of the brain I suppose) yet the fact that I can talk about such a thing and be conscious of it, be aware of it, means I am in some way detecting its presence.

Or is it that we cannot trust a third party intervention since the mirror may distort and the self perception or self awareness may be (indeed I'd argue demonstrably often is) full of innacuracies?

I have no problem with all that Descartes/ Wittgenstein/ Berkeley stuff...except that what they're taling about isn't god. They're certainly onto some intriguing and mind-blowing and sexy ways of looking at things, some useful new abstractions of the common-or-garden. But it's a complete redefinition of this creating, intervening source of goodness and morality that one is meant to worship. It's no more what the religious call god than Spinoza's god was. At best, it's something god-like; god as a metaphor.

(in much the same way as 'wave' and 'particle' are metaphors for electrons, which are neither) (actualy...that's not quite right. at least electrons do all the v = f lambda stuff. this god-like thing doesn't do godly stuff)

>>Similarly, In being aware of ourselves are we not in fact perceiving ourselves?

Indeed. Awareness of the self is really awareness of how others influence us and we them. We understand others to have minds similar to our own.

Having said that...there's an interesting thought experiment to be done about a child raised separately from contact with other minds. Or something along the lines of Avicenna's 'Falling Man' who's imagined as coming into being in mid-air, free of external stimulus.

God as superconsciousness. I guess that *has* got something to do with god as the source of morality. I keep banging on about morality as being something we sort out amongst ourselves in a messy, collective conversation. It's the opposite of god as an external Absolute.

Also...must get around to Lord Melvyn of Buttermere's discussion of Kierkegaard. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20080320.shtml
I only caught part of it, in which I heard that Truth only exists within Dialogue.

Hello Edward. I came across this and thought of you http://incredimazing.com/page/Science_vs_Faith_a_flowchart

I think this is the origin of that flowchart:
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-01-15%20--%20science%20vs%20faith.html

Check out his site. He has some good stuff!

For example:

http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2008-03-17-seven-deadly-sins-of-religion.html

and to both of you.

There great

I mentioned something along theses lines on the Dawkins thread, but it's something I've been thinking about. It's also why I've become more vocal in my atheistic posture than I have been in the past.

One of the reasons that so much acrimony exists between the religious camp and the rational camp is that the religious camp often starts from a position of assumed moral superiority while demanding that the atheist justify or explain any morality he might claim.

This is particularly vexing to the atheist who has, in all likelihood, given much deeper, more prolonged, more productive, and more rational thought to questions of ethics and morality than has the religious person. The religious person all too often has given these matters no thought at all and has simply spouted doctrine as a substitute for thought, while the atheist has had to rely on reason, experience, common sense, and anything else he can bring to bear on the issue.

'Xactly. So when it comes to, eg, - to name a topical example - homophobia, we have to be prepared to assume the moral high ground. Religious qualms aren't born of a special sensitivity but of a blind spot. We should say so.

Indeed.

I've just explained why a posture that assumes the moral high ground at the same time as denying that one is judging others is an untenable position. I'm curious as to what response I may get.

Why I like the side of the issue upon which we fall, is that we may assume the moral highground, indeed we must do so, but we needn't deny that we're judging others.

In my judgement, a bigot is worse than someone who is colour (or gender) blind. If that makes me better than the bigot, so be it. I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Some people ARE better than others. Bigots are worse than most.

I am an anti-bigot.

Nice essay.

"
It's been a revelation to me a year since my "epiphany". I feel as if I'm walking through life with the blinkers off. Suddenly all the religious mumbo-jumbo jumps out as so bonkers. Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of never having lived.

There is a school of thought that suggests atheists should not call themselves atheists but just say we apply rational thought to everything and religion is no exception.
"

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/red-hot-enlightenment-led-me-to-believe-in-one-fewer-god-20080722-3jas.html?page=-1

"There is a school of thought that suggests atheists should not call themselves atheists but just say we apply rational thought to everything and religion is no exception."

Interesting to hear that being said. Something I have thought for a long time, and why I don't call myself an atheist normally, but it doesn't get mentioned much in the more prominent articles.

Hi Ed

It's interesting to note that this thread started in Jul 20, 2005.

Do you think you know more about atheism/religion now, than you did then ?

Well there's always more to be learned by discussing ideas from an Atheist perspective.

One thing that I do regret, though, is that I've not managed to find a religious person who's willing to engage intelligently with Atheist ideas. I'm not interested (not in this thread, anyway ) in the tired, old argy-bargy of 'There's no god' vs 'Yes there is'. But it might be instructive if we were to find someone capable of saying 'OK - but without god in the picture, what about...'