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

I know it's probably not netiquette to start your own conversations, but what about alternatives?
Using Vardy's analogy of God on the mountain, what if God is walking by the river whilst humanity gets it's feet wet, yet He knows all the tributaries possible for humans too take. Therefore, he knows the future, because he knows every possible future, knowing each to be equally likely. At the same time, however, it also leaves humanity with being free.

Points to ponder:-
In theology the presumption of the existence of god is necessary; it defines the subject.
In philosophy the presumption is liable to be questioned.
What is to COUNT as being God? (Is the Standard Theological Metaphysical Model to be the only one?)
What would COUNT as evidence of this entity? (What is to be explained and how does the existence of God explain it where nothing else will?)
How does God help us to explain free will?
What do we mean by existence?
What constitutes an explanation as EXPLANATORY?
Sage

Firstly: the trad theistic god isn't the only god possible, but it's the most interesting
Evidence could be standard form: causation, evil, morality, aesthetics, the lot!
Sorry my mind's not really thinking today, [exams ] though I will get back to you tomorrow probably when I can think again!

Am awake again [exams are over!]

God's existence can be argued, and indeed has been. However for this guide entry, He has to be pre-supposed for it to work!
The standard definition raises the most arguments, and is the one people are most familiar, it is also the one I'm most familiar with!
Evidence for God depends on which argument for His existence you use: if it's moral argument, then the conscience is evidence, and so on.
God explains free will as a gift to humanity. Ireneous [can't spell it sorry!] says that free will was a gift so that we could develop in His likeness, something that has to be developed rather than store-bought.
Existence is to be...ergo cogito sum....existence has loads of problems in of itself, and scares me witless, so I won't traverse that rocky road!
I have to admit to being confused by your last point...can you explain it to me please?

FwT

plus can you give me a quote of wisdom to put in my library: see my p.s. for the link. PLease!
Thank ye!

Under what general condition is A an explanation of B (even if it is actually an incorrect explanation)?
Why isn't "The sky is blue therefore murder is wrong," an explanation, even though both parts of the statement are true?

Could a TOTALLY inert object be said to exist?

Hope i'm not being too gnomic (from gnosis, not gnome).
Sage


P.S. It's spelt Irenaeus

When A and B are linked... i suppose there is no explicit explanation or proof for God, but that what James called 'ineffability', and our ol' buddy Kant said 'one must make room for faith' [paraphrased]

An inert object existence is reliant on other people for it's existence: would a mountain exist if there was no human there to observe it? Like the old saying if a tree falls in a wood with noone around, does it make any sound?

I'm sorry, my philosophy studies are really quite shallow, could explain gnosis for me!!
Thank you for the spelling: I suppose I could have looked it up...but I was feeling lazy!
Thanking ye,
FwT [how long is it going to take for thanking ye to get old...[evilgrin]

Gnosis...Greek of course, meaning knowledge, opposite of agnostic(not knowing).
You're quite right that explanation requires a certain relation between axplanans and explanandum, a link, a connection; but what makes a connection? (There's a clue in my quotes).
Mountains and trees are not TOTALLY inert.
The tree that falls makes no sound, but it does make air pressure waves; it has effects.
Regards
Sage

the connection is proof: tomatoes are red, i am red, therefore I am a tomato
Mountains and trees aren't inert, but what is inert?
Plus trees do make sounds, just there's noone there at the time
FwT

On an entirely different note , are there any alternatives to an omniscient god, besides everlasting and timeless?

Mmmm, so you're a tomato... that explains a lot....
Your explanation as to WHY you are a tomato violates the rules of Logic, however, and must be regarded as invalid.
A sound is a particular form of sense perception; no perceiver, no sound.
According to the eighteenth century Irish philosopher, Bishop George Berkely, matter is inert and therefore doesn't exist; our sense impressions are caused by spiritual substances which must be dynamic and exist in their own right.
According to modern science spiritual substance don't exist; our sense impressions are caused by material substances which are dynamic (matter is energy) and which can be neither created nor destroyed (they exist in their own right).
A God who exists inside time, or one who exists outside time seems to exhaust the logical possibilities as we understand them, unless He does both at the same time. (Or neither, but that probably wouldn't count as existing.)
Regards
Sage

I know it does: my fallacious argument shows the pitfalls of logic : 'it's just ignorance by numbers!'
I always though of sound as independent of humanity: I know that before humans existed, with noone to perceive sound, that if a tree fell, it would make a sound.
It appears to be a move from [is idealism the right word: I can't remember?] to materialism: I prefer dualism, but to be quite honest I don't know if that is because it is more meritous or because I was brought up within that tradition.
He could do both: He could involve Himself both in and outside the time-stream.
FwT

All valid logic is tautologous.
Sound (and other forms of sense perception) are translations of the actual features of the World into the forms we understand.)
If you are a monist it doesn't matter much what you call the stuff things are made of. If you are a dualist you should be able to give some account of the difference. And whichever you are you should be wary of the assumption that the world organises itself in line with your definitions.
Regards
Sage

Is monism the right word: i was under the impression that Monism was the theory that addressed the problem of evil: by saying that evil didn't exist, only those that couldn't see the 'bigger picture'.
I can see the merits in Idealism, but the major problem with it, is that how can people interact with one another? Also, it also means that we spend a lot of time doing things for our body: which doesn't exist, so what's the point in buying a new suit for an interview when the physical world doesn't exist? Furthermore, what is the point in having a job in the first place, except to earn physical money, which buys physical things?
Materialism I find to be inherently repugnant and dangerously reductionalist!!
THis leaves dualism!
FwT

Mmmm, but is this dualism merely the addition of two unacceptable alternatives, or is it a third alternative?
You will have noticed, I expect, that I call myself a Zen Materialist, and divined that this ia a) a joke; and b) serious. The philosophy is an extension, or perhaps a thinking through of the implications, of Kant's Trancendental Idealism; so am I a materialist or an idealist? Or given that what is being attempted is a synthesis (rather than a mere combination) is it some form of third alternative?
The best analogy I can come up with at short notice is to imagine a computer programmer with two computers. On one he runs a "spiritual applications" program; on the other a "physical applications" program. As far as how they work is concerned our programmer simply has two black boxes (well, okay, they're actually gray boxes with made in Taiwan stamped on the side, but you know what I mean). Now, if our programmer is a dualist he BELIEVES that inside one box is some sort of "spiritual" stuff, and in the other some sort of "material" stuff. If he's a crude materialist he never runs the "spiritual" program because he BELIEVES it's an illusion. But the applications are both REAL and the stuff inside the gray boxes is the SAME stuff, so they're both wrong, but about different things. (Philosophers tend to talk about the stuff in the boxes, but in ordinary everyday discourse we tend to be talking about the applications programs).
I doubt that will convince you, of course, but it may help to explain how someone can subscribe to "a repugnant and dangerously reductionist" philosophy without the expected consequences to their actual behaviour.



Regards
Sage

I know the arguments, I just find it difficult to accept that there is only a physical side to humanity. Mental functions amaze me, and I find it difficult to see them being translated into electricity etc. I think that dualism is a viable alternative, but at the same time is constraining because it is the framework in which I have been brought up in.
OK, so I was a little heavy-handed , but I find it difficult to come to terms is: no doubt Freud would have something to say about that!
FwT

He probably would, and it would probably be nonsense. There's nothing psychologically odd about sticking with explanatory paradigms that you're used to; to chop and change on the whim of the moment would be a sign of lack of depth. Especially when there is an important sense in which you're right; conscious functions CAN'T be reduced to purely physical ones without a loss of content (of what it MEANS to be conscious, which is essential if the human condition is to be understood.)

Freud would probably say that I was clinging to something in an attempt to console myself that I am a human being in an alien harsh world.
But there we go! If conscious functions cant be reduced to purely physicalities, then how is it possible to be a materialist? You've probably anticipated this question and have a nice verbal rebuttal on the stands....
FwT

Buddhists do not require a belief in a god or gods. The spiritual plane does not need to have a divine being in charge. The modern analogy is the Force used by the Jedi knights. The force has no morality only those that use it.

Alji

Hi Alji! Nice of you to drop by. I take it from the handle that you're a fellow denizen of our fair land of Cymru? (I'm only an immigrant myself, not a native, but I've been here twenty years, so I almost count as Welsh}.
The thought that Buddhism is an authentic religious reponse to life, but one without the metaphysical mystery of an actual God, had crossed my mind, and the idea is an appealing one in many ways. That Buddhist philosophy has a close affinity with Kantian philosophy was remarked by the philosopher Schopenhauer, who also postulated the equivalence of matter and energy on philosophical grounds nearly a hundred years before Einstein.
I'm not sure about the spiritual plane or the Force, except as symbolic of the way everything is connected. (It's moral neutrality would probably be the moral neutrality of the universe as such.)
FwT: Freud would probably regale you with his obsessions about infantile sexuality, quite forgetting that adult pair-bonding behaviour is derived from mother-infant pair bonding behaviour, not the other way about. Clinging to things for comfort in a harsh world is part of the human condition. Clinging to particular explanations is only neurotic if the explanation causes you to behave counterproductively, and most metaphysics are pretty consequence free at the everyday level, so there's not usually much reason to abandon them. (I cling to mine as much as anyone).
ETHICAL materialism IS a repugnant and dangerous philosophy. It just doesn't logically follow from substance materialism, which is morally neutral as such.
I wish; although there is abundant empirical evidence that mind functions are causally related to brain functions the empirical content of the rules concerned cannot be observed (logically cannot), nor do we have any analogous process to give us a clue; consequently the reduction cannot be performed. Also we would have to be able to imagine what it's like to be not conscious. 'nuff said.



Regards
Sage