Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Primal · 01-20-2003, 11:10 PM

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Which it does. Idealism does not require any individual mind to create the world, but rather says the world has no components beyond qualities (no bare particulars) and that no qualities have non-mental components. The entire enterprise of contemporary science is compatible with idealism.

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Are you aware of any objective idealism that has no God? Are we limited to discussing objective idealism of which you are aware? Besides, you are quite aware of an objective idealism that has no God.... mine. And what is prayer after all, but imposing our will on God

How does that work?

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But isn't your reasoning an expression of your will, or does logical argument just propel itself out of your mouth. And surely the purpose of engage their will as much as their reason, since being heard is never enough is it, but also changing the mind of the listener.

False dillemma. My reasoning can be a component of my will, an activity. However one completely independent of otehr wishes in regards to truth-value and validity.

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Why? If we were to understand that idealism consisted of an overmind projecting the world like an old-time movie projector, you might have something, but no actual idealist understands it that way, except perhaps Plato, and Plato is a strange bird indeed. (And probably a dualist besides.)

Berekley for one adhered to this kind of idealist theism....

Old Idealist poem:

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There was a young man who said, "God,
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

REPLY:
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Continues to be,
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."

Hence theism being the basis for objective idealism.

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On the one hand, which standards can I appeal to but my own. Secondly, I will appeal to their standards. Should their standards serve to prove that relativism is absolutism, then I shall ignore them, relying on the only standards I have to make such decisions on, my own.

You can apeal to ones with which we can both agree. And one's that are established instead of one's merely conveniant.

crocodile deathroll · 01-21-2003, 02:35 AM

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Originally posted by Primal
How does that work?

Hence theism being the basis for objective idealism.

You can apeal to ones with which we can both agree. And one's that are established instead of one's merely conveniant.

I just cannot get my mind around "objective idealism" it sounds like a bit of an oxymoron to me like "objective soliptism". Are you speaking of the universe being one big dream or thought dreamt up by a god or what?

However IMO, Materialism is a highly evolutionary philosophy, it adapts with new paradigms. We know in a block universe we all have a material interconnectedness as all our worldlines converge on one great ontological hierarchy, and ultimately to the big bang event itself.

Some classical materialists believe there is an expanding bubble of reality we call the "present" or "now" time. like they say how old is the universe "now" but the block universe is all possible ages this is "presentism". I think is debunked especially as is
I think presentism is being so eloquently summed up with Arthur Schopenhauer in ON THE VANITY OF EXISTENCE :

"That which has been no longer is; it as little exists as does that which has never been. But everything that is in the next moment has been. Thus the most insignificant present has over the most significant past the advantage of actuality, which means that the former bears to the latter the relation of something to nothing."

This is the general thinking of the man on the street but it is on a par with a flat earth philosophy.

I drew up an illustration between the difference between presentism and the more preferable block universe

AnthonyAdams45 · 01-21-2003, 08:25 AM

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Berekley for one adhered to this kind of idealist theism....

No, Berkeley took God's role to be passive. Take at look at the old poem:

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Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God.

Observation is not creation, nor is it active. SO Berkeley did not take

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idealism consisted of an overmind projecting the world

God holds the world together through observation, so that it is there to present itself to us.

And actally, he uses objective idealism to prove the existence of God, to be non-ad hominen toward Berkeley. Have you read his "Three Dialogues" and not the libelous account in Magill?

As to how prayer serves to change the divine mind, I don't know, but surely its practitioners believe that it does. Why else pray?

As for your accusation of "false dilemma," you begin your accusation by agreeing with my dilemma (that reasoning is an activity of the will) and then mutter something about truth values that has nothing to do with the discussion at all. If all were persuaded by the truth, and truth alone, we'd have no arguments and you'd be an idealist.

Primal · 01-21-2003, 02:21 PM

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And actally, he uses objective idealism to prove the existence of God, to be non-ad hominen toward Berkeley. Have you read his "Three Dialogues" and not the libelous account in Magill?

Nope. Sorry can't say I have. In any event, the God is still sustaining the trees existence and had to "observe" it into being in the first place before man. The "first perception of the tree" had to come from somehwhere, which is in essence "creation". So while Berkley may say his God is passive, it seems to be very active.

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As to how prayer serves to change the divine mind, I don't know, but surely its practitioners believe that it does. Why else pray?

This is a very different sort of change then the actual being willing a certain thing to happen. In one case, it just happens by the own agent's hands. In the other, the agent acts out of whatever motive for the other out of its own volition.

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As for your accusation of "false dilemma," you begin your accusation by agreeing with my dilemma (that reasoning is an activity of the will) and then mutter something about truth values that has nothing to do with the discussion at all. If all were persuaded by the truth, and truth alone, we'd have no arguments and you'd be an idealist.

That's a bit of a stretch, since this is what we are debating.

AnthonyAdams45 · 01-21-2003, 06:27 PM

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The "first perception of the tree" had to come from somehwhere, which is in essence "creation".

Reminds me of a story I heard in a philosophy of science class. It seem when the divine put the universe together, no real thought was given to how to put it together. Just sort of slapped it together like a Dagwood sandwich. Then the first humans looked up and said "Oh, it's a inverted bowl over a plate." The divine heard this and said, "What the hell!" And turned it all into and inverted bowl over a plate. Then Ptolemy came along with his circles and eventually his epicycles. The divine loved it, and lo, that's the way it was. When Kepler put his theory out there, the divine switched it all around to match him. The same every field of science.

Why can't we perceive the tree, then God hold it there?

Primal · 01-22-2003, 10:54 PM

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Why can't we perceive the tree, then God hold it there?

Because that in essence is no different then subjective idealism. Why even have a God if that is to be done?

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