Ender

Just like a typical theist- overlooking everything i said in order to zoom in on one, single thing. Let's see if you really did put in any effort to understand my post...

Just give me your understanding of phenomenological reduction or stop wasting my time with red-herrings that only seek to prove how skinny your little strawmen are.


Pffth. Don't you know that the only thing more expensive than education is ignorance? the wet-nurse of prejudice? the mother of fear? the thing that causes a lot of interesting arguments? a voluntary misfortune?
Next.

Adrian Selby

"Beyond our existential limits of experiencing relationships between existent things, is the experience of being the existent thing. But we've already established that we cannot be an existent thing, only experience relationships between existent things."

Why can't I be myself? Also, are you suggesting that for something to be, it must experience itself being, or have something experiencing its being? It seems perfectly right to me that things just are, and unless we are those things we can't be those things.

"existent things, being indirectly experienced, are only indirectly knowable and not substantive."

What do you mean by substantive here. How does an indirect experience of a thing completely lack substance? Is it because we cannot be it?

"If existent things are not completely experienced they cannot be completely known.
6) Being a thing is how a thing is completely experienced and completely known substantively.
7) Ergo, if things exist substantively, are completely informational and relational, a Being must be supposed."

I agree things cannot be completely known, but why does this mean they might not completely exist? I see that something's existence seems to depend on its informational status with regard to being observed. Your defence that the existence of things equates to the information about them seems to be this little gem.

"So that pink rhino in orbit around the earth that Koy keeps landing on Rainbow Walking DOES exist after all??? What possible meaning can existence have if it cannot in some way be experienced? "

Existence does not imply meaning. I don't have a problem with allowing that slightly beyond our ability to observe them at T1 there existed galaxies, and this was observed at T2, perhaps when Hubble was launched. Can there be meaning in the existence of these galaxies? How do they become meaningful when i set eyes upon them? If they didn't objectively exist independently of observation, how could I have observed them a first time? Perhaps presuming that they're information and thus must have been experienced as being by God is assuming the truth of your position?

"If a Being IS NOT SUPPOSED, the universe is informational only to the extent of our ability to experience its relationships."

Here's the crux of my dispute I think. The universe provides information to the extent that we can experience it. For me then, what meaning we give the universe comes from what we know of it so far. A thing's existence does not depend on its being known completely. My baby daughter in my wife's womb does not know herself, can she completely exist? Are the bits I don't know about myself made up by God, because to completely be I must be completely known?

Adrian

Ted Hoffman

Ender
I take it you cannot provide us with the SI unit for measuring and quantifying emotions.
Its not surprising though because emotions are abstract. They cannot be quantified.

Phenomenological reduction? Will it provide us with the SI Unit for measuring emotions?

Anyway, If you want to juxtapose an empirical viewpoint and a phenomenological one as far as emotions being abstract are concerned, be my guest. I was arguing from an empirical viewpoint and if you are a phenomenologist, too bad we cant redact the context of my argument to make you happy.

Did I mention that ignorance is bold?
I should have.

Most phenomenologists have lots of diffuculties looking at issues from empirical viewpoints. So your pathetic attempt at changing the subject with new terms failed.

Sophistry does not suit you Ender. Try Honesty.

[edited to clear out phenomenological dancing chairs]

[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear John,


No. When I speak of pantheistic gods I do not capitalize the word. Thus, I indicate my distinction between gods in name only and the one true Catholic God. I'm using the word "god" imprecisely in the same way God Himself used it when He said we were not to have any "false gods before Him." Certainly you would not accuse Him of believing in more than one god just cuz He referred to pantheistic gods, would you?



Please read my post to Jaliet above where I cite three giants of the Catholic Church who share my description of God. I am totally orthodox here.



The link is revelation. God Himself gave Himself only one name, Yahweh, which means I Am Who Am. So profound a concept is this that the Jews would not utter that name. They wrote down only its consonants, leaving the vowels out. Over time, since no one dared to pronounce it, the Jews forgot how to pronounce it. This precisely symbolizes how their "chosen people" status was lost.

Today, we flesh in the dead consonants transcribed by the Jews in Exodus 3:14 with the word "Yahweh." It is an approximation of how the original name God gave to Himself might have sounded. That word, His name, is the "special link" of the Catholic theology and De fide dogma to the absolutely simple God of Being I've labored to describe here. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Helen,


I'd say that "God seeks in mysterious ways"

Ha! I couldn’t resist that. Just joking, just revealing that my meds are wearing off.

Seriously, if God is not seeking you, He is failing at His job as God. Every moment of everybody's life is God's providential way of incarnating Himself with His creation, i.e. seeking us.

Providence is not just miraculous, but everyday juxtapositions of ideas in your head, events you experience, people you meet, dreams you have. If you pay attention to the beauty, synchronicities, and subjective experiences, in short if you tune into the poetry of creation, you can't help but hear His metrical knocking.

But to answer your question hypothetically, if you in this life, like a child in the womb, never had the occasion to hear God's knocking, I speculate, based upon God's mercy and His descent into Hell after His death on the cross, that He would come knocking in His own way in your afterlife.

On a more practical level, I would say that most people don't hear God because they are listening for the wrong sounds. One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament describes this:



-- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

HelenM

Hi Albert

So, your answers to "I didn't ever perceive being sought by God." are

1) You're listening for the wrong sounds
or
2) He IS seeking you regardless of what you perceive
or
3) You'd know it if you really paid attention to the beauty of life (etc)
or
4) He'll seek you in your afterlife if not before

(not necessarily in that order)

Is that a reasonable summary of what you said?

love
Helen

Albert Cipriani

Dear Adrian,


Yes. Our experience of an apple is just that, our experience of what may or may not "really" exist. I, as a traditional Catholic, believe, (don't know, don't experience, but believe) that the apple exists as a manifestation of God and has no existence independent of that manifestation of God. In other words, the apple's being is God; what we experience of the apple is God's being in the form of the apple, not an apple per se.



No, on the basis of the operative word "your" experience. The apple has no existence apart from experience itself, not apart from my own experience of it. God's experience of the apple is the means whereby the apple is maintained in existence. If no sentient thing experiences the apple, we might as well say, for all intents and purposes, that the apple never existed. But if God for a split second did not experience the apple, it would really and substantially cease to exist.



Nothing "is itself." All things are in relationship with other things. It is through that relationship with other things that all things experience their own existence. As no man is an island, so too, does no thing exist in itself



Yes, for you it is only the side you experienced. If you are old enough and experienced enough to bring memories of other apples to that experience, then you may imagine the apple’s other side. But its other side does not exist for you, only the side you experienced exists for you.



Yes, for us the existence of other galaxies is the sum total of what we can sense from them (experience) and process of them (knowledge). When we experience and know more about them, they become more real, more existent for us.

Galaxies are completely real and totally existent only to God, as only God can completely experience them directly by being them in the sense that He is being Himself through them. Or you could call this God manifesting Himself through the expression of His being in Creation's existence. Or even more accurately: Creation is God's experience of Himself.



For me it does. For you it does not. Hence all our divisions, misunderstandings, contradictions and wars. What either of us can experience of the same apple represents only 0.0001% of that apple's existence. My 0.0001% will necessarily be a somewhat different percentage of your 0.0001%, unfortunately, because my means of apprehending my 0.0001% (i.e., my brain) is necessarily different than yours. Only God's total experience of the apple sums up the apple entirely. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

sandlewood

I had dropped out of this thread because I didn’t see it as being fruitful. Definitions shifted around too much, or things were defined in terms of other ill-defined things. But I saw 5) below and so thought I would add a bit more. Ah, well this sounds like Bishop Berkeley doesn’t it? To be is to be perceived. Nothing can exist unless it is being perceived by someone. Fortunately, God is everywhere and perceives everything constantly, so all things stay in existence even when we aren’t around to watch them. But I believe your argument is slightly different. You don’t say that things would blink out of existence if we didn’t perceive them. You say that we aren’t fully perceiving them. In order for them to exist, therefore, they must be fully perceived by something or someone. Or rather, as you present it, if one is going to assert that anything exists at all, then they must agree that they are being fully perceived by something.
The first demand the skeptic would make to this argument is an explanation about just how something would fail to exist just because it’s not being perceived, or in your case fully perceived. The clue is in 5) above where you say “experience is existence”. If one can equate experience with existence, this problem is solved. So a look around the thread and I find this: In logic, the converse of a statement is not necessarily true. “All ostriches are birds” is a true statement. “All birds are ostriches” is not a true statement. You are saying: that which I experience, (I infer) exists. Therefore, that which exists is experienced. This is not necessarily true, and I don’t see any reasoning why it should be.
That is half of it. Your following point is that we can only partially experience things. That is, we only experience the information of a thing, not the thing itself. You say that there is more to be experienced about the thing’s existence than what we experience. So since there is more existence there to be had, by the converse argument there must be something more experiencing that extra part, because everything that exists is experienced. But even if your “converse” operation were true, all you would have shown is that only that part which you experience is experienced by something. You are just assuming that the other part we don’t experience also needs to be experienced by something. But based on what? You jump from 2) above to 3) without any justification:
First, you make the assumption that whatever we do experience, must be experienced. It is not necessarily true. Second, you make the further assumption that even what we don’t experience must be experienced. I see no reason for that.
This theory has problems in multiple places. It depends on the idea that we don’t exist without our sensory input, that is, without our experience: But I say that we would still think, and we would know that we were thinking. So we would know that we exist (see more below on Descartes). But actually, any such claims are pretty baseless since none of us know what it would be like to have our memory completely zapped and then to be put into a sensory depravation chamber.
Another problem is the tricky use of the word “infer”. You say that by our experience we infer that things exist. You don’t want to say that we can actually know that things exist through experience, so you use the word “infer”. Then from this you’re able to use the converse argument and say that, likewise, things that exist are experienced. But if “infer” does not mean that we really know that things exist, then the converse argument cannot be justified. You temporarily let us experience things existing only for the purpose of making the converse argument, then you take it away saying that we really can’t know that things exist.
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Your argument depends on throwing away or in some way diminishing the concept of “I think, therefore I am”. That is, if a person could really determine their own existence after doubting the sensory input, then there would be no reason for introducing God. Same with St. Thomas or anyone else in history you care to quote for your own arguments. As I already said, it was not an argument from authority. I didn’t go into detail because I didn’t think it was necessary. Until now, I never met anyone who didn’t think it made sense. The word “I” may be in the premise, but existence is not assumed in the premise. I don’t have to assume I exist; I only need to assume that I think. You may say that to assume thought is to assume existence, but that is the whole point. It does not assume existence, only thought. Do you doubt that you think? (If you do, then how did you come up with your whole theory for the existence of God. Surely not by thinking of it.) Thinking is not something you can doubt because doubting requires thought. I may not know that other things in the world really exist, but at least I know that I am a thing which thinks.
Do any theists understand and agree with your theory? I believe you’ll have to get them to agree that the argument of “I think, therefore I am” is rubbish. There may not be many such people. I think you conveniently decided to disregard that argument because it would mess up your whole theory.
Anyway, a couple paragraphs later you seem to think that we can know that we exist by our thought: So, you say, we experience our own existence but we still don’t know that we exist. Somehow our own thinking process is not a direct enough experience of our own existence? There is some mysterious, more direct way? How can anyone know this? Why would it be necessary?
I didn’t say that I know that other things really exist. I only said that I know I exist. That’s why I said there is a difference between detecting that I exist and that other things exists.
So why can’t things just exist? Why do they need “being”? (which I still don’t know the clear definition of). Nearest I can make out, this is an assertion. It’s just a restatement of the conclusion that existence requires being. How is existence an activity? What does that mean? You seem to be setting things up and defining them so that you can slip in the conclusion you want. You’ve redefined “existence” so that it’s limited in some way. To exist is not to “be”. Somehow a thing that exists is not really “there yet”. Then there’s this new concept of “being” slipped in that is somehow better than existence, more substantial. Why can’t “to exist” just mean “to be” and then our problems are solved more simply?
I still think Draygomb’s point is not answered sufficiently. We don’t have to use the word “cause”. Somehow, as you claim, existence needs to be sustained by something, and that something is “being”. But “being” does not need to be sustained. But if being does not need to be sustained, I don’t see why existence does. You deny that your argument is not the first cause argument, but everything you say is just like it. So what else can one think? Life and existence are not the same thing. To say that life needs life means that we need to eat to stay alive. You’re mixing up meanings. Why? You haven’t really given a good reason why existence needs something else. Why can’t things just exist? If God can simply exist without being sustained, why can’t anything else?
Why must things be “directly” experienced for them to exist? What is this mysterious “direct” method experience? How does it work?
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A bit on information: You can certainly claim that I do not have information. But you can ask me if I have the information and I can tell it to you. You can ask me what color the rock was that I just saw and I can tell you. Then you’ll know I have that information.
This is careless playing around with the definition of “information”. Is a photon from a star information? Well no, it’s a photon. If that photon is a particular frequency, it can tell us something about the star it came from. We say it has information, or it carries information. We use that language to mean that we have gained knowledge by studying that photon. We’re using the words “has” or “carries” in a loose way. We don’t think the photon is literally carrying anything. To go from this language to saying that the photon is information is not far. It is convenient shorthand. We mean that the primary characteristic of the photon that is of interest to us is the information it “carries”. So in that sense, the photon is information to us because that is the only purpose we have for it. For example, I need food to live. So I may look into my refrigerator at a piece of cheese and say “that cheese is life”. I don’t mean the cheese is alive, or even that the cheese is the essence of life. I just mean that it is life to me in the sense that I need food to stay alive.
I believe that language and thinking are intertwined. Can we think without thinking in a language? And I believe an unfortunate pitfall of this is that loose use of language can lead to loose thinking. Vagueness is the lifeblood of weak theories. The vaguer they are the more believable they sound. But when they are described in clear language, the cracks are revealed. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that we can’t always go around inventing new words for each variation of an existing word. And I think you want to have a special meaning for the word “information” for the context of this discussion, which I can understand. But you have to be careful, then, that you don’t use the old meaning anymore or mix up the two meanings, otherwise you get an equivocation fallacy.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Helen,
Yeah. Your summary of what I said is reasonable. So why do I suspect, despite your happy faces, that I'm being set up for an ambush?!

May I add a #5? God seeks us through His design of us.

That is, to paraphrase St. Augustine, He has made us restless until we rest in Him. So in a sense, what may pass as His knocking on our door is actually our sleepless listless listening to "things that go bump in the night" that we attribute to Him.

Call it hallucination, call it subjectivism run amok. I have no pride in this regard and accept even such indirect echoes of His knocking as examples of Him knocking at our door. Like a cousin once removed, it's still related. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

HelenM