Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:32 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:06 pm
anybody who anthropomorphizes "Nature" has done that. If you haven't done that, fine: but then you must believe mere randomness produces cosmic order out of chaos. The minute you impose a regularity on that, you've anthropomorphized the concept.
What makes you think that the human concepts of "order" and "chaos" are to be applied?
What species's concepts would you like applied? If not our own concepts, then whose?
Please also respond to my other questions (re-posted below). I would very much like to hear your honest answers.
Why would man’s model of reality, which is based on very limited perception and awareness, be “the model” for that which is vastly expansive beyond man’s reality?
I will happily respond...if I could figure out the meaning from the syntax. But I can't.
Can you rephrase?
Why would there need to be a separate identity directing everything?
An entity "separate" from what? Separate from the universe?
If that's what you're asking then the answer is simple, and comes from Spinoza. It's the Principle of Sufficient Reason. One element of this theory is that a purported cause must be sufficient to its purported effect. If it's not, then the right assumption is that it is not the cause of that effect.
Any purported cause of the universe must be sufficient in nature to the proposed effect, the universe. That means it must be greater than, and pre-exist the universe. If it's not, it's as absurd as saying, "I'm my own grandfather."
Is it not observable that there is an energy flowing/shared throughout all, displaying no grand intentions other than creativity, exploration, and expression? Why would humans reject this non-ego potential, and superimpose a human story/model?
Answer: no, it's not observable. It seems to be a sort of religious postulate, and one not borne out by the empirical evidence. Moreover, "creativity, exploration and expression" are far from "non-grand intentions": they're things only a
person can do. Indeed, they are among the most celebrated features of humanity.
So again, you're anthropomorphizing "Nature" there.
But you do raise a very interesting question: if human beings are about "creativity, exploration and expression," and these things are only possible to persons, then why would we not also be drawn to the postulate that the Creator also has these features?
I think you have the idea that in using human terms we are possibly under-describing something. And that's probably partly right. But what we're doing is
attempting to describe, not attempting to control, or even to "model". We are approximating the realities with the best tools we have, not trying to shape our findings beforehand.
Science can only use human terms. And those are inevitably human. So however short we may fall of describing cosmic realities, we have to trust we can keep getting better. And in any case, we have no other means for understanding them at all. So the alternative is blank silence.