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Goodbye Jesus

Language, Truth, God, And Humanity


Antlerman

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We are wired to experience life.

 

AMEN...........PREACH IT BROTHER!

 

 

thankyou now i dont have to think those words up, you have already done it and may the ultimate being that is the sum of reality grant it's blessing to the light of our understanding that we may grow thereby.

 

 

 

 

anyway gooooooood head work there.

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Antlerman, I think pretty much everything you've said is what I mean when I say, I think that the the spiritual world is being created from the physical world. And not vice versa. In other words, to borrow some of your language, the universe and all it's aspects desire to observe and experience themselves. The process of subdividing. It makes sense when you consider various different forms of expression. Some people say all works of fiction are somewhat autobiographical of the authors. I think it's true. The process of creating art, making myths, telling stories, all that. Is like holding up a mirror on a level that a physical mirror doesn't permit things to reflect through.

 

To me asking whether any of it is real or not is kind of silly. My spiritual self is just as real as my physical self. It's the same thing, its just two peices of the whole. One reflecting on the other.

 

I do think there is a way to connect though. I don't believe we are all completely isolated within our brains. Simply because of the fact that all the 'stuff' that IS us is the same stuff that IS everything else. Or atleast, it's connected. We're only as separate as we percieve ourselves to be. There's times when I'm absolutely lost in the outside world, I don't even remember "I" exist. Or times when I'm so wrapped up in a good book that there IS nothing besides the story. It's as if I become the person who was telling it. I think it is possible to cross that boundary, and mundane day to day life is just as much a myth as any other. None of it is mundane or boring or cliche, it's all got worth and beauty if you have senses to experience it. Whether they are physical or otherwise.

 

OK. That was probably. Fairly incoherent considering it is 3 in the morning and I have a Math final tomorrow XD But I wanted to get back int he habit of actually replying instead of just -thinking- about stuff. So I hope it made some sense!

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“Do you think it's possible for the human mind to live with and reconcile paradox - to let the paradox stand as it is and accept it - not try to rationalize it - but reconcile it by just allowing it to be as it is?”

 

Hi all. I am very interested in this dicusssion as the limitations of language are key part of my own beliefs, but I'm a little lost as to the above. What "paradox" are you referring to?

 

Guess I've never run into a good paradox in the real world...

 

Thanks,

Skankboy

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“Do you think it's possible for the human mind to live with and reconcile paradox - to let the paradox stand as it is and accept it - not try to rationalize it - but reconcile it by just allowing it to be as it is?”

 

Hi all. I am very interested in this dicusssion as the limitations of language are key part of my own beliefs, but I'm a little lost as to the above. What "paradox" are you referring to?

 

Guess I've never run into a good paradox in the real world...

 

Thanks,

Skankboy

I would love for this thread to come back to life!

 

Skankboy,

 

I think what is being referred to are two apparently opposite sides being necessary to each other. Like science and spirituality (in the broadest sense of the word) or differening beliefs within religions. When examined at a deeper level, they are all reflecting different aspects of the human experience. They are setting something alive within each person. This inner reaction is what is common amongst all people.

 

When we take a convex piece of glass and turn it over, it is now its complete opposite...concave. Yet, they are the same piece of glass. No one side is given priorty over the other. They exist side by side, but understood as one.

 

I hope you continued reading the rest of the thread beyond the quote by O_M that you have above. The rest of the posts will give you a better insight into what was meant.

 

Man...I love this thread!

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As I said before, aestheticism and existentialism were born as philosophical movements in response to the rise of positivism. Kierkegaard is attributed to be the first to use the term Leap of Faith. Modern Evangelicals hate this term, and it is misapplied to tem all the time. They have a teleological approach to religious belief. But the leap of faith is more a decision to accept something as a paradox and accept it as true without any benefit of reason. This is more how I see what you are asking above about accepting paradoxes.

I just wanted to comment on this one paragraph here.

 

From what I can gather, the word belief comes from the root word lief which can go back to meaning a fervrent hope or desire that life is what you believe it is. Believe means to accept as true. To me, this has nothing to do with faith. I agree with you (yes, again) here that faith is being misapplied to religious belief. Faith is letting go and accepting what life is. Struggle in the water and you will sink. Let go, and you float. :) It is a willingness to accept what is true when things change.

 

Faith is getting a bad rap, IMO. :HaHa:

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Antlerman, I think pretty much everything you've said is what I mean when I say, I think that the the spiritual world is being created from the physical world. And not vice versa.

In other words, to borrow some of your language, the universe and all it's aspects desire to observe and experience themselves. The process of subdividing. It makes sense when you consider various different forms of expression. Some people say all works of fiction are somewhat autobiographical of the authors. I think it's true. The process of creating art, making myths, telling stories, all that. Is like holding up a mirror on a level that a physical mirror doesn't permit things to reflect through.

Hey Monsterfeets, good to see you still around.

 

I didn’t exactly say the universe and its aspects desire to experience and observe themselves. I believe that would more likely have been Open_Minded who used that language. I’ve never cared for that language myself, as to me it seems to ascribe to the universe emotions and a type of conscious intention that exists independently outside the human experience of it. I can appreciate the language of myth in this regard on some levels, but when it comes to talking in terms as it has been about a more objective scientific reality, the language of myth is inappropriate and can be used to mislead people. Talking about the universe in terms of having emotional desire and a subtle conscious intention appears as a form of anthropomorphizing the universe. I can be objective about a human having consciousness and intent, but the universe?

 

However, that said… if we were to want to find a way to express our experience of the universe on an emotional/spiritual level, then using languages that frame the universe in symbols and metaphors has a definite place. We can look at the universe and say we perceive “love” everywhere in it, but isn’t this a way for us to experience something that originates inside ourselves by putting it outside ourselves as something bigger than us?

 

I’ve often said that we are the God we seek; that the God we see “out there” is simply a projection of own selves reflecting back at us with a face we create because we are frightened to recognize it as our own. I think this is what you are also saying in your own analogy of mirrors. We don’t want to allow ourselves to look too deeply into that void. It’s the terror of seeing we are alone, and alone have the power to create the universe in our own image. The language we use creates reality for us, and in turns creates us in that image of reality we create. Language is God.

 

I do think there is a way to connect though. I don't believe we are all completely isolated within our brains. Simply because of the fact that all the 'stuff' that IS us is the same stuff that IS everything else. Or atleast, it's connected. We're only as separate as we percieve ourselves to be.

To me our connection is… you guessed it.. through language. :grin: This is where we have a sense of shared reality. I believe that our common connection is through our humanity. Our languages we come up with, our common mythologies, are all expressions of this state of being human. It originates in our humanity, becomes expressed through symbolic language, and in turn shapes our own evolution. What has made us so different from the other animals? For a million years we did nothing but shape a single stone tool. We were just one of the animals in the greater eco-system. Then everything changed overnight it seems. As we are today, our perception of reality is completely tied to our humanity, which is completely tied to the development of our language.

 

You complain about not feeling like you were able to express yourself well on this. I’m feeling the same way right now so I may have to come at this from a different angle later.

 

As I said before, aestheticism and existentialism were born as philosophical movements in response to the rise of positivism. Kierkegaard is attributed to be the first to use the term Leap of Faith. Modern Evangelicals hate this term, and it is misapplied to tem all the time. They have a teleological approach to religious belief. But the leap of faith is more a decision to accept something as a paradox and accept it as true without any benefit of reason. This is more how I see what you are asking above about accepting paradoxes.

I just wanted to comment on this one paragraph here.

 

From what I can gather, the word belief comes from the root word lief which can go back to meaning a fervrent hope or desire that life is what you believe it is. Believe means to accept as true. To me, this has nothing to do with faith. I agree with you (yes, again) here that faith is being misapplied to religious belief. Faith is letting go and accepting what life is. Struggle in the water and you will sink. Let go, and you float. :) It is a willingness to accept what is true when things change.

 

Faith is getting a bad rap, IMO. :HaHa:

To add to this, those who claim to have religious faith the most loudly are the ones who try so hard to offer evidences for the basis of their beliefs. This is not faith. They have no faith. Their beliefs are anything but something that can possibly offer any sense of spiritual satisfaction, because it sets itself against reason. I suppose in the sense of Kierkegaard it can be said that is an acceptance of something “beyond reason”. There is a difference between this and living in denial, like the literalists do. Fundamentalism is the height of religion, and religion is the opposite of spirituality. White-washed sepulchers, full of dead-men’s bones. It’s an outward form that is mainly a political beast.

 

Truth in a “spiritual” sense is purely an individual reality. It can’t be institutionalized.

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Talking about the universe in terms of having emotional desire and a subtle conscious intention appears as a form of anthropomorphizing the universe. I can be objective about a human having consciousness and intent, but the universe?

You know Antlerman, I see it just the opposite. I see someone anthropomorphizing the universe's "intelligence" and "consciousness" when they think that when one says it has these qualities that it means it has the same qualities as human consciousness and intelligence.

 

I understand it more as different degrees or categories myself. I can't claim I know what the consciousness of a plant entails, so I certanly can't claim that I know what that means in the scope of life itself. I just find it beyond reason that intelligence can arrise from non-intelligence.

 

I think what it boils down to is who the listener is. If I said that the universe is intelligent and conscious, and the listener is one who has the understanding of God as being a human form, then the listener assumes that the speaker is anthropomorphizing the universe. It has to do with the speaker's understanding of course also.

 

Here is the language barrier again. When I say that the universe must have intelligence, I mean that there is a force in the universe (energy) that sustains life and since this is in everything then eventually some forms will evolve intelligence and consciousness (as we know it). This energy beats my heart and keeps me breathing. I don't consciously do these things. I would soon die if I had to. This energy gave rise to life itself through itself. Man...this is hard to say without creating a separate entity.

 

I don't see a human form when I say God or when I say that the universe is intelligent and/or conscious. I have no idea what type of intelligence it would take to where protiens combine in a way that eventually gave rise to life. I don't see the universe as a dead system that somehow managed to produce life. What is dead cannot come alive, IMO. A "god" would be needed. ;) How can anyone ever prove this? It's not possible because intelligence and consciousness is formless. We can only recognize form; we can't see what the substance of these forms are.

 

We are just something the whole universe is doing. We are a process along with everything else. We are it. This leads me into the language thing again. Our language is spoken in a way that creates ghosts. We have nouns and verbs to where the verb forces an action on the noun when in reality it is just a process of the noun itself. Let's say that I close my hand and look at it. I am looking at a fist. When I open my hand, the fist disappears. In reality, it was just a fisting. By adding "ing", I've turned the noun into a gerund (verbal noun). The ghost has disappeared. The same can be said when we said "it" is raining. What is raining? There is no ghost there causing it to rain. It is just a process too. Everything that is done and is doing is just a process or something that shows action. There is no "thing" forcing these actions. The entire universe and everything in it is in constant motion.

 

This is why I have a hard time explaining this without creating a separate entity. Also, this is why in cultures that have no nouns, or very few, they see themselves as part of the process of nature. In some of what I've read about the Chinese, a child there would ask, "How do I grow?" instead of what our children would ask, "Who made me?" or "Who would I have been if my father was someone else?" This type of thinking divides the sense of self from the body instead of seeing themselves as a process that nature does. It creates a separate 'soul', or ghost, that exists outside somewhere other than their bodies. So, it's not just a religion thing, it's very much a language thing first.

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"The Word became flesh.”

I missed this thread in February. There's one thing in that phrase that shows that "words" are mostly only words and they mean different things depending on situation and context. According to author of Romans the "flesh" isn't really a good thing but is one of the causes for our sins, so if God's word became "flesh", doesn't it sound like a conflict? The idea of a "non sinful word" that became "the sinful flesh", leads to think that somewhere, someone, didn't think through the theology or the translation.

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"The Word became flesh.”

I missed this thread in February. There's one thing in that phrase that shows that "words" are mostly only words and they mean different things depending on situation and context. According to author of Romans the "flesh" isn't really a good thing but is one of the causes for our sins, so if God's word became "flesh", doesn't it sound like a conflict? The idea of a "non sinful word" that became "the sinful flesh", leads to think that somewhere, someone, didn't think through the theology or the translation.

Amen to that! Words have the power to create good and bad ideas in everyone. They have the power to determine how we view all of life just by the way their grammatical form is. This can go totally undetected on how much this shapes our thinking.

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Talking about the universe in terms of having emotional desire and a subtle conscious intention appears as a form of anthropomorphizing the universe. I can be objective about a human having consciousness and intent, but the universe?

You know Antlerman, I see it just the opposite. I see someone anthropomorphizing the universe's "intelligence" and "consciousness" when they think that when one says it has these qualities that it means it has the same qualities as human consciousness and intelligence.

 

I understand it more as different degrees or categories myself. I can't claim I know what the consciousness of a plant entails, so I certanly can't claim that I know what that means in the scope of life itself. I just find it beyond reason that intelligence can arrise from non-intelligence.

Well…. :grin: I’ll be careful not to get too sidetracked on this discussion, but I did want to point out that if what you’re saying is valid reasoning, then it’s no different than the Creationist’s reasoning in saying that life can’t come from non-life. It seems beyond reason to them also how that “everything is just too perfect to support life, for it not to have been an intentional design.” This of course is a fallacy of logic.

 

If I throw a box of 10,000 nuts and bolts into the air and they land in various patterns and perhaps even stable structures, were those patterns and structures “intentional” patterns and structures, or simply the result of their various properties with energy applied to them? Life exists because things just turned out for us in such a way as for life to emerge. However, there are countless zillions of other examples where life can’t exist. Perhaps non-life was the intention of the Universe and we are an unintentional anomaly?

 

Yes, I know you’re cringing right now. :grin: But this was just to show an example that you can’t say it’s beyond reason to imagine how intelligence can arise from non-intelligence. I can imagine it quite easily. ;)

 

I think what it boils down to is who the listener is. If I said that the universe is intelligent and conscious, and the listener is one who has the understanding of God as being a human form, then the listener assumes that the speaker is anthropomorphizing the universe. It has to do with the speaker's understanding of course also.

Which brings up a point. I’ve never applied the word “intelligence” to a non-living thing. So therefore, the assumption would naturally be that the speaker is viewing the universe as a living thing. In fact in my exposure to anything in nature, I’ve never hear anyone refer to something like the sun as intelligent, as in “the sun’s intelligence allows it to constantly use the surrounding gasses in space to burn as fuel.” I’ve never spoken like this, nor recall hearing others use language like that. This is why when I hear someone say the Universe is intelligent, I can’t help but apply some sort of organic reference to it.

 

A plant is a living thing and I can see maybe saying it has a certain “awareness” it responds to, but isn’t that more our perception that it’s aware, and it really more simply a stimulus/response? Does a river responding to obstacles in its path alter its course guided by its intelligence, or is it following the laws of physics?

 

Maybe you mean these things follow predictable patterns, and therefore can be understood intelligently? With this I agree.

 

Here is the language barrier again. When I say that the universe must have intelligence, I mean that there is a force in the universe (energy) that sustains life and since this is in everything then eventually some forms will evolve intelligence and consciousness (as we know it). This energy beats my heart and keeps me breathing. I don't consciously do these things. I would soon die if I had to. This energy gave rise to life itself through itself. Man...this is hard to say without creating a separate entity.

Yes I agree, it’s nearly impossible to say this without anthropomorphizing nature. :grin: The whistle produced by wind blowing through a narrow crack in a rock is recognizable and has meaning to us. We can produce a similar sound with our own mouths. But is the pattern of sound the result of intelligence? Perhaps our own heart muscles are likewise following the properties of its make up, and as a result it’s a functioning organ that works as part of a highly evolved system that gave rise to a by-product of intelligent awareness?

 

But where I always get hung up is where people try to say that the essence of the universe has some intelligence because we do. It seems that we are again seeing the earth as the center of the universe. Why is intelligence such an achievement of nature? Because it’s highly significant to us?

 

Did the universe produce random by-products elsewhere in nature? Then why is intelligence some sort of overarching force that binds the worlds together? Again, isn’t it because it’s so important to us?

 

(I know, I’m being annoying again. I’m just testing you. :wicked: )

 

I have no idea what type of intelligence it would take to where protiens combine in a way that eventually gave rise to life.

It would take no intelligence. It does this naturally. When I open the plug in my sink and the water spirals down in a predictable pattern, should I question what sort of intelligence designed it thusly?

 

I don't see the universe as a dead system that somehow managed to produce life. What is dead cannot come alive, IMO.

Of course the universe is not a dead system. It’s full of energy. You’re right something that is dead cannot produce life. If the universe had expended all its energy then it would no longer be able to produce anything anymore - organic or inorganic. But organic life can and does come from non-organic matter, and intelligence can arise from non-intelligence. It just takes time, matter, energy, and the proper environment.

 

A "god" would be needed. ;) How can anyone ever prove this? It's not possible because intelligence and consciousness is formless. We can only recognize form; we can't see what the substance of these forms are.

We can measure intelligence, can’t we? We can test for consciousness too, right? Are they formless? Yes and no. Gas is also formless, but you can capture it in a balloon and measure its volume. My thoughts are seemingly abstract, floating ideas in my head (I say “seemingly”) but they are able to take a more “concrete” form right now as I type my response.

 

We are just something the whole universe is doing. We are a process along with everything else. We are it. This leads me into the language thing again. Our language is spoken in a way that creates ghosts. We have nouns and verbs to where the verb forces an action on the noun when in reality it is just a process of the noun itself. Let's say that I close my hand and look at it. I am looking at a fist. When I open my hand, the fist disappears. In reality, it was just a fisting. By adding "ing", I've turned the noun into a gerund (verbal noun). The ghost has disappeared. The same can be said when we said "it" is raining. What is raining? There is no ghost there causing it to rain. It is just a process too. Everything that is done and is doing is just a process or something that shows action. There is no "thing" forcing these actions. The entire universe and everything in it is in constant motion.

 

This is why I have a hard time explaining this without creating a separate entity.

With this I very much agree. Our language developed out of a certain way of looking at the world, and as such shapes our minds ability to conceive outside the framework of that language. It is quite likely that our brains are wired towards thoughts of a religious nature for this very reason. Our language influences and reinforces our perception of reality. We project ourselves out onto the universe with the face of some separate entity. It’s what we do.

 

Blame our first parents, blame evolution. But now we’re left with the task of trying to understand the world in the light of scientific knowledge and language along side the vocabulary we inherited into our very brains from them. How to reconcile our perceptions of the universe through both a scientific, and an emotional response? That’s the sixty million dollar question.

 

Also, this is why in cultures that have no nouns, or very few, they see themselves as part of the process of nature. In some of what I've read about the Chinese, a child there would ask, "How do I grow?" instead of what our children would ask, "Who made me?" or "Who would I have been if my father was someone else?" This type of thinking divides the sense of self from the body instead of seeing themselves as a process that nature does. It creates a separate 'soul', or ghost, that exists outside somewhere other than their bodies. So, it's not just a religion thing, it's very much a language thing first.

This is nice. I think this goes nicely along with our discussion about the mythology of the Fall of Man. The biggest problem with that language is that it has a dangerous potential of making someone conceive of themselves as disconnected from the rest of life, or that the value of humanity is trash.

 

We are part of nature, but the ironic element is this: What sets us apart if anything is that our “thoughts” have directly affected own biological evolution. In this sense then, the creation of modern humans is the direct result of actual conscious thought! God did create us, so to speak. We created God, and God created us in his image in turn. The Idea became us! :grin:

 

Ok, you can punish me now for my response. :wicked:

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ME - You know Antlerman, I see it just the opposite. I see someone anthropomorphizing the universe's "intelligence" and "consciousness" when they think that when one says it has these qualities that it means it has the same qualities as human consciousness and intelligence.

 

I understand it more as different degrees or categories myself. I can't claim I know what the consciousness of a plant entails, so I certanly can't claim that I know what that means in the scope of life itself. I just find it beyond reason that intelligence can arrise from non-intelligence.

 

Devil Boy...oops...I mean Antlerman -

Well…. :grin: I’ll be careful not to get too sidetracked on this discussion, but I did want to point out that if what you’re saying is valid reasoning, then it’s no different than the Creationist’s reasoning in saying that life can’t come from non-life. It seems beyond reason to them also how that “everything is just too perfect to support life, for it not to have been an intentional design.” This of course is a fallacy of logic.

 

Me - It is soooooo very different Antlerman. Although I do say that life can't come from non-life it is in a different respect that I say this. Both you and the Creationists, in this example, are telling me that life came about from non-life. You are telling me that life came from this non-life from blind, stupid forces and the Creationist is telling me that life came from this non-life by magic. I can't agree with either of you. Although I do respect you and not them! :HaHa:

 

IMO, life is the energy that I call "Life". This "Life" is the eternal force that relgions point to but screw it up by taking it away from everything. They create a ghost that performs magic on dead things.

 

If I throw a box of 10,000 nuts and bolts into the air and they land in various patterns and perhaps even stable structures, were those patterns and structures “intentional” patterns and structures, or simply the result of their various properties with energy applied to them? Life exists because things just turned out for us in such a way as for life to emerge. However, there are countless zillions of other examples where life can’t exist. Perhaps non-life was the intention of the Universe and we are an unintentional anomaly?

Phooey! :P (I'm just teasin' you!)

 

Again, you too are removing life from everything and calling things that don't represent life (as we understand it - anthropomorphisizing it) dead.

 

You are the one that applied the energy to the bolts. What type of energy is it that runs through the metal in order for us to use it, as a metal, to make the bolts? A blind, stupid sort of energy? Do figs grow on thistles? They just might if you blink because this force has no intelligence. (hehehehe)

 

Yes, I know you’re cringing right now. :grin: But this was just to show an example that you can’t say it’s beyond reason to imagine how intelligence can arise from non-intelligence. I can imagine it quite easily. ;)

I can too say that! :HaHa:

 

Which brings up a point. I’ve never applied the word “intelligence” to a non-living thing. So therefore, the assumption would naturally be that the speaker is viewing the universe as a living thing. In fact in my exposure to anything in nature, I’ve never hear anyone refer to something like the sun as intelligent, as in “the sun’s intelligence allows it to constantly use the surrounding gasses in space to burn as fuel.” I’ve never spoken like this, nor recall hearing others use language like that. This is why when I hear someone say the Universe is intelligent, I can’t help but apply some sort of organic reference to it.

 

A plant is a living thing and I can see maybe saying it has a certain “awareness” it responds to, but isn’t that more our perception that it’s aware, and it really more simply a stimulus/response? Does a river responding to obstacles in its path alter its course guided by its intelligence, or is it following the laws of physics?

 

Maybe you mean these things follow predictable patterns, and therefore can be understood intelligently? With this I agree.

It's the energy that is in everything that I address as intelligent. It's a necessary counterpart of forms.

 

Are you seeing the universe as a living thing in a matter of form alone when the speaker says this? It is only living because of this energy. Would there be any forms at all with no energy?

 

Laws imply a law-giver. Hey, I couldn't help saying that!

 

Stimulus/response? What are we? What is intelligence? Is it the ability to take radom things (ideas) and combine them in a way that produces different outcomes? What does the energy in the universe do?

 

Here is the language barrier again. When I say that the universe must have intelligence, I mean that there is a force in the universe (energy) that sustains life and since this is in everything then eventually some forms will evolve intelligence and consciousness (as we know it). This energy beats my heart and keeps me breathing. I don't consciously do these things. I would soon die if I had to. This energy gave rise to life itself through itself. Man...this is hard to say without creating a separate entity.

Yes I agree, it’s nearly impossible to say this without anthropomorphizing nature. :grin: The whistle produced by wind blowing through a narrow crack in a rock is recognizable and has meaning to us. We can produce a similar sound with our own mouths. But is the pattern of sound the result of intelligence? Perhaps our own heart muscles are likewise following the properties of its make up, and as a result it’s a functioning organ that works as part of a highly evolved system that gave rise to a by-product of intelligent awareness?

 

But where I always get hung up is where people try to say that the essence of the universe has some intelligence because we do. It seems that we are again seeing the earth as the center of the universe. Why is intelligence such an achievement of nature? Because it’s highly significant to us?

I'm not saying that. Intelligence is not something that just happens, IMO, so it's not an end product of nature. The entire process of life contains intelligence if humans were here to notice it or not. I would agree with you below when you say intelligence can be measured. The same goes here, IMO, but don't take the intelligence out of the forms.

 

Did the universe produce random by-products elsewhere in nature? Then why is intelligence some sort of overarching force that binds the worlds together? Again, isn’t it because it’s so important to us?

It's the force that binds the forms together is what is intelligent. Freakin' words!

 

(I know, I’m being annoying again. I’m just testing you. :wicked: )

Bad boy....

 

You know I love it!

 

I have no idea what type of intelligence it would take to where protiens combine in a way that eventually gave rise to life.

It would take no intelligence. It does this naturally. When I open the plug in my sink and the water spirals down in a predictable pattern, should I question what sort of intelligence designed it thusly?

What does naturally mean?

 

It's time to go...I'll have to catch the rest tomorrow.

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I just find it beyond reason that intelligence can arrise from non-intelligence.

it’s no different than the Creationist’s reasoning in saying that life can’t come from non-life. It seems beyond reason to them also how that “everything is just too perfect to support life, for it not to have been an intentional design.” This of course is a fallacy of logic.

Both you and the Creationists, in this example, are telling me that life came about from non-life. You are telling me that life came from this non-life from blind, stupid forces and the Creationist is telling me that life came from this non-life by magic. I can't agree with either of you. Although I do respect you and not them! :HaHa:

You missed my point. It was to say that you can’t dismiss something as possible simply because it’s hard for you to fathom how something like order can come from disorder. The comparison was how Creationists use this same logic argument to reject the science behind discovering how biological organisms arise from less ordered forms. It’s the classic watch-maker’s argument dressed up a little.

 

IMO, life is the energy that I call "Life". This "Life" is the eternal force that relgions point to but screw it up by taking it away from everything. They create a ghost that performs magic on dead things.

Really? How does this sound? “I’ve got to remember to stop and get some life to put in my tank today so my car can drive me to work.” :grin:

 

I don’t think it follows to say that a rock is non-life and calling it dead. Dead only applies to something that at one state was alive. A rock is neither alive nor dead. A rock has energy inside that holds it together but the rock doesn’t “live”. A battery has energy, but isn’t life.

 

What is energy? Simple answer: Potential to do work. Is Potential Life? Or is Life the result of Potential applied to objects that activate them into various forms that follow their inherent properties?

 

Think of it in terms like this. I have a 12 volt battery. It has 12 volts worth of potential to do work. It however does not have any load on it. It accomplishes nothing just sitting there, waiting for some way to discharge its potential to go back to a state of zero. Now I take various components that have various characteristic properties such as capacitor, a resistor, a diode, a light bulb, etc. When I link these together in a circuit they just sit there doing nothing. But when I apply the Energy to them, that Potential to do work, suddenly finds a path to discharge its potential across, and the current goes through these components, activating their various characteristic properties, and suddenly you have Work! The resistor puts off heat, the light bulb glows, etc.

 

In nature, these things ordered themselves rather than being designed for a specific use. They ordered themselves based upon the characteristic properties of the construction. This occurs when energy, or the potential to do work was applied to them. As they formed more stable structures as part of their inherent qualities, as energy is applied to them now, they exhibit new behaviors. These then combine with other stable structures, and on and on until you have highly complex things like human beings.

 

We are nothing less than a circuit that consumes and discharges energy. What is the purpose of life, you ask? The true purpose of life is to consume and discharge energy.

 

Rats… I’m out of time.

 

I'm going to bring this back on topic, trust me. But at least I'm not that uptight about my own threads being 100 percent on topic at all times. Strength comes through flaws.

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You missed my point. It was to say that you can’t dismiss something as possible simply because it’s hard for you to fathom how something like order can come from disorder. The comparison was how Creationists use this same logic argument to reject the science behind discovering how biological organisms arise from less ordered forms. It’s the classic watch-maker’s argument dressed up a little.

We are talking past each other obviously. The watch-maker's argument takes what is non-living and puts it together in the shape that things are in now. This is not how things grow. They grow and expand from the inside out (yes, from less ordered forms). Then the mechanical materialist comes along and tells me that there is really no sense in the less ordered forms. They just "happened".

 

Alllllrighty then!

 

I don't think you understand anything I'm saying, so I'll let it go.

 

New Age Lady? :kiss: my :moon:

 

This understanding is ancient.

 

Really? How does this sound? “I’ve got to remember to stop and get some life to put in my tank today so my car can drive me to work.” :grin:

I'm not the one with this understanding and I can't believe you think I am. :HappyCry:

 

You are judging this intelligence as having human qualities. Shame on you...

 

I don’t think it follows to say that a rock is non-life and calling it dead. Dead only applies to something that at one state was alive. A rock is neither alive nor dead. A rock has energy inside that holds it together but the rock doesn’t “live”. A battery has energy, but isn’t life.

I know what energy does, but thanks for the overview! :HaHa:

 

I never said anything was designed for a specific use, intentionally. The metal is metal regardless of whether we use it for anything.

 

I give up, you win, or in other words, I don't wanna play with you anymore...I'm taking my toys and going home! :HaHa:

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We are talking past each other obviously. The watch-maker's argument takes what is non-living and puts it together in the shape that things are in now. This is not how things grow. They grow and expand from the inside out (yes, from less ordered forms). Then the mechanical materialist comes along and tells me that there is really no sense in the less ordered forms. They just "happened".

 

Alllllrighty then!

 

I don't think you understand anything I'm saying, so I'll let it go.

I understand what you’re saying. I just don’t call energy life. Energy is the potential when I applied to things makes them “come alive” so to speak.

 

New Age Lady? :kiss: my :moon:

 

This understanding is ancient.

Don’t be so serious. You called me “devil-boy”. I had to say something that would get your goad. :grin: (I don’t really see you as New Age anymore, I’m just playing, I hope you know that. :shrug: ).

 

Really? How does this sound? “I’ve got to remember to stop and get some life to put in my tank today so my car can drive me to work.” :grin:

I'm not the one with this understanding and I can't believe you think I am. :HappyCry:

 

You are judging this intelligence as having human qualities. Shame on you...

No, I’m understanding your context, but I think it’s a misapplication of the term intelligence. I could also say “How much life is left in that battery?” But it’s obviously a metaphorical use of the word life. In the same sense, one could say there is intelligence in a cells behavior, so to speak. But what is it we’re really saying? Isn’t it saying it follows predictable patterns of behavior based on its properties and the environment it’s exposed to? In other words it follows intelligent, predictable behaviors. But it’s just a word we use “loosely” do describe it. A cell doesn’t per se’ possess intelligence in the sense of active reason guiding choices.

 

I know what energy does, but thanks for the overview! :HaHa:

 

I never said anything was designed for a specific use, intentionally. The metal is metal regardless of whether we use it for anything.

My point is that in language when someone speaks using scientific terms like “energy” it means something to my mind. Energy doesn’t equal “Life”, to me, if it is being used metaphorically as in, “How much life is left in that battery.” I’d like you to understand that when I hear this term from science applied to a principle of the universe, I’m hearing it in scientific terms. If anything the energy of the universe, applied to the elements of the universe, creates life. The energy without the elements is not life. Life is a response if you will.

 

I give up, you win.

I didn’t expect you to give up! I think you’re taking me far, far too seriously here. I’m hoping for a good discussion to come from this, as I feel I am making points that are very germane to the topic. How do we frame perceptions of the world now? What language works, and what doesn’t? The language of science and the language of myth have run into each other. Is that what is happening here? Don’t give up. Neither you nor I either win or loose. That’s not the point of this.

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Don’t be so serious. You called me “devil-boy”. I had to say something that would get your goad. (I don’t really see you as New Age anymore, I’m just playing, I hope you know that. :shrug: ).

 

I did? I called you that? :Doh: Sorry! I must have had some bad eggs this morning Antlerman...either that or I care too much what you think of me!

 

No, I'm understanding your context, but I think it’s a misapplication of the term intelligence. I could also say “How much life is left in that battery?” But it’s obviously a metaphorical use of the word life. In the same sense, one could say there is intelligence in a cells behavior, so to speak. But what is it we’re really saying? Isn’t it saying it follows predictable patterns of behavior based on its properties and the environment it’s exposed to? In other words it follows intelligent, predictable behaviors. But it’s just a word we use “loosely” do describe it. A cell doesn’t per se’ possess intelligence in the sense of active reason guiding choices.

Okay...now I need to do this: :begood:

 

You can see using it metaphorically in a patterns sense? I have been saying that it isn't human intelligence I was pointing to, but this word is all I can use to point to what is being observed. I have also been using it loosley, I thought! I didn't mean to say that it acts and does things the same way a human would...like drive a car! :begood:

 

My point is that in language when someone speaks using scientific terms like “energy” it means something to my mind. Energy doesn’t equal “Life”, to me, if it is being used metaphorically as in, “How much life is left in that battery.” I’d like you to understand that when I hear this term from science applied to a principle of the universe, I’m hearing it in scientific terms. If anything the energy of the universe, applied to the elements of the universe, creates life. The energy without the elements is not life. Life is a response if you will.

Oh my god...we are saying the same thing (again!). Can you see why what I bolded above in your statement would lead someone who was listening to you to claim an outside God? Of course the energy without the elements is not life and the elements without the energy is not life. That is dualistic thinking! I'm a oneness person! Energy and elements are two sides of the same thing (coincidence of opposites again). I couldn't separate the energy from the form. That is why I say that the intelligence is in the forms. The formal (formative) cause doesn't come from an outside entity. It is in it already. Separating the life from the forms creates an outside entity, or Living God that "breathes" life into it. This is why life (in the more technical sense) can come from rocks and water. The rocks contain life (in a more metaphoric sense), everything contains this. We are it, the trees are it, the rocks are it.

 

This is a tricky area and is it any wonder why so many people don't understand the essense of religious teachings and why it took many years to master it and to understand what people are saying is not what it appears to be on the surface? I couldn't figure it out without help and still have a hard time. I have to study something over and over in order to understand what the person is trying to say with words. It's painstaking!

 

In the begining there was only potential...then the freakin' Word came!

 

I didn’t expect you to give up! I think you’re taking me far, far too seriously here. I’m hoping for a good discussion to come from this, as I feel I am making points that are very germane to the topic. How do we frame perceptions of the world now? What language works, and what doesn’t? The language of science and the language of myth have run into each other. Is that what is happening here? Don’t give up. Neither you nor I either win or loose. That’s not the point of this.

I'm sorry...I know that sounded bad, so I added the little part about toys while you were posting I guess.

 

I'm just a bag of emotions today. :Hmm::lmao::vent::grin::HappyCry::Wendywhatever:

 

I want a new language!!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...
My point is that in language when someone speaks using scientific terms like “energy” it means something to my mind. Energy doesn’t equal “Life”, to me, if it is being used metaphorically as in, “How much life is left in that battery.” I’d like you to understand that when I hear this term from science applied to a principle of the universe, I’m hearing it in scientific terms. If anything the energy of the universe, applied to the elements of the universe, creates life. The energy without the elements is not life. Life is a response if you will.

Oh my god...we are saying the same thing (again!). Can you see why what I bolded above in your statement would lead someone who was listening to you to claim an outside God? Of course the energy without the elements is not life and the elements without the energy is not life. That is dualistic thinking! I'm a oneness person! Energy and elements are two sides of the same thing (coincidence of opposites again). I couldn't separate the energy from the form. That is why I say that the intelligence is in the forms. The formal (formative) cause doesn't come from an outside entity. It is in it already.

Picking up this conversation again, what I don’t follow here is how you say the formal cause doesn’t come from an outside entity. Granted I won’t accept it being called an “entity”, as that implies some sort of functioning being, but is it correct to say that the resultant form is inseparable from its components? I see the components that constitute life. Life is a product of energy, plus matter, plus physical laws, plus time.

 

So what is it you are saying? Intelligence is one feature of a resultant form. Are you saying that the universe is comprised of all resultant forms and is therefore intelligent? If so isn’t it also non-intelligent, ordered and disordered, hot and cold, dark and light?

 

I guess when I hear someone say the universe is intelligent, it is hard to be able to apply that to the mechanics of how it works. Again, the language of the scientist. The Christian believes that Intelligence ordered it; the Christian pseudo-scientist then using a quasi-scientific language to attempt to provide examinable evidence of this hypothesized intelligence in how things work in nature.

 

Separating the life from the forms creates an outside entity, or Living God that "breathes" life into it.

Does it? Using my analogy of the battery, the circuit, and the work: The battery is stored energy - a potential source to do work. That’s all it is. The circuit is a physical pathway for that energy (or potential) to follow in releasing its energy. The work is the resultant product of the release of energy through the physical properties of the circuits components, producing a wide variety of ordered and predictable phenomena. In the universe analogy, one of these “work” results is biological life, and within that biological life, one of those attributes in intelligence.

 

Compare this to a filament in the hypothetical circuit. As energy is released through it, it produces light. In addition it also produces heat. In addition, it will also produce vibration, etc. Isn’t “Life” then simply a term we apply to everything that constitutes the work produced by that one particular component in the circuit? Isn’t intelligence simply one attribute of that one component in that circuit?

 

So when we apply the word “life” to the universe as a whole, or apply the word “intelligence” to a quality of the universe as a whole, is that appropriate? In the analogy of the battery, circuit, and work, the Universe if you will, would be more appropriately called a “Device”. The Device is comprised of Battery, Circuit, and Components, which when combined produce Work.

 

Is it appropriate in communication to speak of the Device in terms of one of its components features? Do we speak of a car as heat? Do we speak of a stove as hard? Then why should we speak of the Universe as intelligent? What is that hoping to say?

 

This is why life (in the more technical sense) can come from rocks and water. The rocks contain life (in a more metaphoric sense), everything contains this. We are it, the trees are it, the rocks are it.

But I don’t see that connection. Again if we are going to use language very, very loosely when speaking about understanding the nature of the universe, we are causing more confusion than good. We live in a scientific age that uses the language of science, like the breakdown of the Device outlined above, in order to understand its nature through its components – how it works. Life is not something that rocks are in; life is a product of the universe – not its nature.

 

I do understand the value of speaking of the Device in terms of its nature. But where I get suspicious is when it’s spoken of in terms of its “function” when viewed from only one of its features. The whole speaking of the universe in terms of Life, or Intelligence, seems like a little microbe sitting next to the light bulb in the circuit that sees the whole Device as infused with “light”, or speaking of its nature as having light or heat. Isn’t that a bit confusing?

 

But if you were a mystic microbe looking for “significance” to the meaning of your own existence which is inextricably linked to the position of the light bulb, you may wish to paint a picture of that bulb’s attributes as something integral to the nature of the Device. Maybe it’s not at all, and is just a pure fluke. But the microbe has a hard time viewing his own existence as not part of some big, overall connected part of the Device, let alone even conceiving that the Device itself is just some fluke.

 

So we’re left with language. What language do we use to give us significance on the one hand, and yet explain accurately in technical language how something works? Is speaking factually at one moment, then metaphorically the next about the same object useful to this problem?

 

This is a tricky area and is it any wonder why so many people don't understand the essense of religious teachings and why it took many years to master it and to understand what people are saying is not what it appears to be on the surface? I couldn't figure it out without help and still have a hard time. I have to study something over and over in order to understand what the person is trying to say with words. It's painstaking!

I think I understand more how to frame a portrait of the universe with this sort of conceptualization, but the language’s use in this culture of science isn’t consistent with it. Just look at the frustration you’re running into trying to use it, both with your own self, and in communicating it to others.

 

I do accept that language shapes our ability to conceptualize certain concepts easily, but I see it as made even more difficult by using words that already has significance in daily usage. You’re right we need a new language. That’s why scientists use math, to get around specific cultural significances of words. But what language do we use in speaking the language of metaphysics?

 

Maybe we should just not try? Maybe we should simply express feelings as the language? Maybe we should express “thoughts” about our response to the wonder of our own existence in the universe through actions, through song, through art, through poetry, through stories expressing the heights and depths of our imagination. As children we created worlds of reality in our imagination without limits. Maybe the problem is technology?

 

Were early humans more able to speak of the world as children see it because they didn’t need to understand it in order to master it in the ways we now need to? Have we fallen from Neverland because we desire to master tools to make our lives more simple, and in so doing have made them far more complicated? "Except you become as little children..."?

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Picking up this conversation again, what I don’t follow here is how you say the formal cause doesn’t come from an outside entity. Granted I won’t accept it being called an “entity”, as that implies some sort of functioning being, but is it correct to say that the resultant form is inseparable from its components? I see the components that constitute life. Life is a product of energy, plus matter, plus physical laws, plus time.

 

So what is it you are saying? Intelligence is one feature of a resultant form. Are you saying that the universe is comprised of all resultant forms and is therefore intelligent? If so isn’t it also non-intelligent, ordered and disordered, hot and cold, dark and light?

Hi Antlerman!

 

The universe is comprised of all resultant forms and the formless. And I would have to say yes to it being both intelligent and non-intelligent, but only on a certain dimension; the one we live in now. I don't know if I can do justice to what I'm about to say, but I'll try nonetheless.

 

From the Hindu thought, if I can recall, it reaches a point to where all things combine into one. It is not so much in this dimension. It's like trying to conceptualize a third dimension on a flat surface. We can draw a box on a piece of paper and if we do it right, our mind will see the third dimension to where it becomes a box with depth. It isn't really there, but it is. :shrug:

 

I guess when I hear someone say the universe is intelligent, it is hard to be able to apply that to the mechanics of how it works. Again, the language of the scientist. The Christian believes that Intelligence ordered it; the Christian pseudo-scientist then using a quasi-scientific language to attempt to provide examinable evidence of this hypothesized intelligence in how things work in nature.

You can't really apply it to the mechanics of how it works or it would be in the realm of science. It isn't available to science because science can only study forms, or patterns within the form. It can't look at what is formless. That doesn't mean that it isn't there, IMO.

 

Compare this to a filament in the hypothetical circuit. As energy is released through it, it produces light. In addition it also produces heat. In addition, it will also produce vibration, etc. Isn’t “Life” then simply a term we apply to everything that constitutes the work produced by that one particular component in the circuit? Isn’t intelligence simply one attribute of that one component in that circuit?

 

So when we apply the word “life” to the universe as a whole, or apply the word “intelligence” to a quality of the universe as a whole, is that appropriate? In the analogy of the battery, circuit, and work, the Universe if you will, would be more appropriately called a “Device”. The Device is comprised of Battery, Circuit, and Components, which when combined produce Work.

 

Is it appropriate in communication to speak of the Device in terms of one of its components features? Do we speak of a car as heat? Do we speak of a stove as hard? Then why should we speak of the Universe as intelligent? What is that hoping to say?

In my thinking :twitch::wicked: , there wouldn't be anything without that intelligence. There wouldn't be a circuit or the parts of a battery. It is in the smallest atom. "Energy/Intelligence/whatever" permeates every part of the parts of the whole. It not so much a description of a certain part but a necessary part of all parts.

 

But I don’t see that connection. Again if we are going to use language very, very loosely when speaking about understanding the nature of the universe, we are causing more confusion than good. We live in a scientific age that uses the language of science, like the breakdown of the Device outlined above, in order to understand its nature through its components – how it works. Life is not something that rocks are in; life is a product of the universe – not its nature.

Therein lies the problem. This is what happens when the form is broken down as if a machine. The language doesn't allow for speaking of the formless. They push it aside and just call it a law and describe the effects of that law and call it fundamental. They can't tell us why that law is. The language can also point to what can't be described if it can be allowed. It can never be known by conventional language and it can never be understood. It can only be 'known' by letting it be. :Doh:

 

I do understand the value of speaking of the Device in terms of its nature. But where I get suspicious is when it’s spoken of in terms of its “function” when viewed from only one of its features. The whole speaking of the universe in terms of Life, or Intelligence, seems like a little microbe sitting next to the light bulb in the circuit that sees the whole Device as infused with “light”, or speaking of its nature as having light or heat. Isn’t that a bit confusing?

Yes it is when it is viewed as being only a part of the whole. The fallace of composition would apply in this case. But, when viewed as integral in which there would be no parts, forgoing the whole, at all without it, then it wouldn't apply, IMO. The entire universe wouldn't be without it.

 

But if you were a mystic microbe looking for “significance” to the meaning of your own existence which is inextricably linked to the position of the light bulb, you may wish to paint a picture of that bulb’s attributes as something integral to the nature of the Device. Maybe it’s not at all, and is just a pure fluke. But the microbe has a hard time viewing his own existence as not part of some big, overall connected part of the Device, let alone even conceiving that the Device itself is just some fluke.

I think that even science will tell us that everything is connected. :shrug:

 

This is why I see it as integral...I can't imagine it being a fluke. This is all just something that makes sense to me and I am in no way saying that is how it is. How can we, with our use of 5 vowels and the reamining consonants produced by force of breath ever describe the universe? :) We have to try though, IMO. Mythology, art, music...all those thing you mention are wonderful for doing that too. But, that alone didn't do it for me, it took words phrased in such a way that allowed my thinking to shift in order to understand. Mythology (Christian) was taken as literal and failed horribly to make that shift happen. It took comparing what other traditions said with what this tradition said in order to make me go :Doh: ...that's what the hell they were saying! It adds layers to the words that were always there, but not seen. It causes something inside yourself to know it is true. Truth can be recognized in this way without "knowing" anything at all. Can I explain what it is I understand? No, not without using the words that can be mistaken for what they say on their surface. It goes beyond the words to an inner understanding of something more. It's understanding without a complete understanding. :wicked:

 

So we’re left with language. What language do we use to give us significance on the one hand, and yet explain accurately in technical language how something works? Is speaking factually at one moment, then metaphorically the next about the same object useful to this problem?

Yes, if we can allow ourselves to go beyond what the words are saying. It requires a shift in consciousness in order to do so. Factually about the mechanics of the thing and metaphorically about why it works the way it does or we will forever only be looking at the patterns and not "seeing" what the patterns exist in. We would only be able to understand half of the whole. They are opposites that can only be brought together by thinking differently about that same thing. :phew:

 

I think I understand more how to frame a portrait of the universe with this sort of conceptualization, but the language’s use in this culture of science isn’t consistent with it. Just look at the frustration you’re running into trying to use it, both with your own self, and in communicating it to others.

 

I do accept that language shapes our ability to conceptualize certain concepts easily, but I see it as made even more difficult by using words that already has significance in daily usage. You’re right we need a new language. That’s why scientists use math, to get around specific cultural significances of words. But what language do we use in speaking the language of metaphysics?

 

Maybe we should just not try? Maybe we should simply express feelings as the language? Maybe we should express “thoughts” about our response to the wonder of our own existence in the universe through actions, through song, through art, through poetry, through stories expressing the heights and depths of our imagination. As children we created worlds of reality in our imagination without limits. Maybe the problem is technology?

 

Were early humans more able to speak of the world as children see it because they didn’t need to understand it in order to master it in the ways we now need to? Have we fallen from Neverland because we desire to master tools to make our lives more simple, and in so doing have made them far more complicated? "Except you become as little children..."?

Yes!

 

Children have an unconditioned awareness of the world before they are told what this is and what that is. It is wonderful, but we can't remain in that state. We have to take things apart in a purely mechanical way in order to go forward so we can go back to that initial state. That is wisdom...

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I think that even science will tell us that everything is connected.

I think so too NBBTB.

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It already has... we're continuously swapping atoms with the environment we're in... If I sit near a tree that the tree and I will have swapped stuff at the atomic level. Thus, at some level, the information in both our bodies has been altered by proximity. That is connected.

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Antlerman,

 

Here is a site that goes into the formal cause in more detail. I hope you can take a look at it.

 

This site here is an excerpt from The Reflexive Universe by Arthur M. Young

 

Here is an excerpt from that site:

 

We have little difficulty in acknowledging the objective physical reality of our sense perceptions or the objective mental reality of concepts, language, mathematics, and logic. Both are subject to confirmation and communication independent of the observer. Note that we are recognizing two types of objective reality-one is physical and the other is mental and nonphysical. It is less easy for us to understand nonobjective reality because of the focus the modern Western mind has on objective reality.

 

Returning to our earlier example of the fourfold, Aristotle's four causes, we can show that the ancient recognition of nonobjective reality was lost to modern science. Aristotle's final and formal causes were assigned by Bacon to "metaphysics" since they were less discernible in nature (being noumenal rather than phenomenal). "Physics" appropriately studied the material and efficient causes: the substance undergoing change and that by which change was produced. Gradually these two branches of "natural philosophy" were separated and by the time of David Hume the term "cause" meant only "efficiency," the energy expended to produce an effect. Natural science had become limited primarily to description rather than broad explanation. Efficient cause was regarded as the only cause. The fourfold causal order of Aristotle was reduced to the simplistic relation of cause and effect and to the modern dogma of determinism.

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The more we find about the universe in general, the more process like it appears and the less like an artefact...

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NBBTB, Robert Rosen suggests in part, that excluding formal and final causes from physics has had profound effects on it's ability to address living phenomenon.

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I think that even science will tell us that everything is connected.

I think so too NBBTB.

:beer:

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