First Believe, Then Understand

Discussion of articles that appear in the magazine.

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Nick_A
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by Nick_A »

uwot
And that is what is wrong with everything you say. You have made up your mind about something that nobody has ever successfully demonstrated to be true. It is your belief and faith that it is the experience of god; rather than being open minded, you have closed off any possibility that god does not exist.
You are closed to concepts more than three inches in front of your nose and rely on negativity to support rejection. I can say God doesn't exist but cannot find the means to reconcile the complimentary truths of science and religion by rejection so I begin with the idea of the ONE as revealed by Plotinus. Then through deductive reason and a knowledge of universal laws I can understand intellectually why creation is as it is. It is a beginning which allows me to inwardly open so as to experience the human attraction to eros or the middle between Man and the ineffable Source

You have a negative reaction to the concept of the Great Beast. This reaction will prevent you from opening to the possiblity that society is a living organism.
In sociology, the social organism is an ideological concept in which a society or social structure is viewed as a "living organism". From this perspective, typically, the relation of social features, e.g. law, family, crime, etc., are examined as they interact with other features of society to meet social needs.
This is just modern sociology catching up with Platonism. If you want to live with emotional rejection it is your choice, I prefer to believe my experiences which have proven to me the reality of what is beyond my sensory perception as a beginning.
Last edited by Nick_A on Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
surreptitious57
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by surreptitious57 »

Nick wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:
Science is the study of observable phenomena by definition as that is literally what it does . The word is derived from the Latin scientia which means knowledge . Science is therefore the means by which knowledge of observable phenomena is obtained [ through the scientific method ]
And so there is no ulterior motive here with regard to interest as what it does is contained within the actual definition of the word in question
A woman is an observable phenomenon which can be studied by use of the scientific method to acquire knowledge of what she is
There can be no other reason or method to study a woman as an observable phenomenon . All else is fantasy and demeans science
That bolded bit is both false and irrelevant and does not at all logically follow from what I actually said
Impenitent
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by Impenitent »

Hugh Hefner is smirking...

-Imp
uwot
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by uwot »

Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pmYou are closed to concepts more than three inches in front of your nose and rely on negativity to support rejection.
No Nick_A. I have used this quote of Michael Faraday many times, precisely because it represents my core belief: "All this is a dream. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency." I am open to absolutely anything that isn't flatly refuted by experimental facts.
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pmI can say God doesn't exist but cannot find the means to reconcile the complimentary truths of science and religion by rejection so I begin with the idea of the ONE as revealed by Plotinus.
Well let's examine this claim. Name one truth of science and one truth of religion that you think are "complimentary". And just for historical accuracy the idea of "the ONE" in western philosophy goes back to Parmenides, 500 years before Plotinus.
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pmThen through deductive reason and a knowledge of universal laws...
Universal laws, eh? Surprise me Nick_A; I have read nothing you have written in your years on this forum to suggest you know anything at all about "universal laws", but I'm happy to be corrected.
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pm...I can understand intellectually why creation is as it is. It is a beginning which allows me to inwardly open so as to experience the human attraction to eros or the middle between Man and the ineffable Source
Well, you have created a story that makes sense to you, and congratulations, the world is a mysterious place to anyone but idiots.
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pmYou have a negative reaction to the concept of the Great Beast.
I think you have a bit of work to do to demonstrate that any such thing exists. Just saying it doesn't make it so.
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pmThis reaction will prevent you from opening to the possiblity that society is a living organism.
In sociology, the social organism is an ideological concept in which a society or social structure is viewed as a "living organism". From this perspective, typically, the relation of social features, e.g. law, family, crime, etc., are examined as they interact with other features of society to meet social needs.
So you can't see the difference between "is a living organism" and "is viewed as a "living organism""? As it happens, I'm quite happy to entertain both possibilities; I can even take Michel Callon and Bruno Latour's Actor-network theory seriously; that's the sort of thing that being open minded entails.
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:48 pmThis is just modern sociology catching up with Platonism. If you want to live with emotional rejection it is your choice, I prefer to believe my experiences which have proven to me the reality of what is beyond my sensory perception as a beginning.
Nick_A, you need to understand that "proven to me" is not the same as 'proven'.
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A_Seagull
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by A_Seagull »

Philosophy Now wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 6:47 pm Peter Adamson reviews the relation of reason & revelation.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/133/Fi ... Understand

a proper use of reason is unattainable without religious commitment. It is the Vedas, or the Bible, that give us the truth, and the ‘scientist’s’ job is to understand that truth.
George Orwell explained it well in '1984': First get brainwashed into believing that 2+2=5, then later on understand why it must be so.
Nick_A
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by Nick_A »

Uwot
I am open to absolutely anything that isn't flatly refuted by experimental facts.
You must then be open to the division of universal structure described by Plato. You must be open to the visible level below the sun which science can measure and the intelligible level above the divided line available to us by noesis even though we cannot necessarily prove it by science.
Well let's examine this claim. Name one truth of science and one truth of religion that you think are "complimentary". And just for historical accuracy the idea of "the ONE" in western philosophy goes back to Parmenides, 500 years before Plotinus.
Draw a cross on a piece of paper. The horizontal line refers to factual knowledge of what you know scientifically. The vertical line which intersects it refers to the line of being which refers to objective value in relation to the source of creation. Where the horizontal line is based on duality the vertical line refers to the quality of a moment defined as a middle between the quality directly above and below it.

Where science functioning on the horizontal line defines what is known, the vertical line defines the objective value of what is known. A person with understanding has acquired a human perspective uniting what is known through the senses with the objective value of what is known, knowledge of which is beyond the domain of the senses. Where the laws of science seek to increase what is known, the laws of being enable us to remember what has been forgotten. The laws are the same. Science is incapable of measuring a moment in time and it is the laws of being which provide the objective value which is felt and acquired through noesis: the highest intellectual function we are capable of.
Universal laws, eh? Surprise me Nick_A; I have read nothing you have written in your years on this forum to suggest you know anything at all about "universal laws", but I'm happy to be corrected.
Why bring up such ideas where they are not wanted and will be scorned? If even the simple division of Plato’s divided line is emotionally rejected, what good will explaining the universal laws which unite them serve? It just invites negativity which does more harm than good and may even harm a lurker by associating essential ideas which can open the mind with negativity. We went through this in the secular intolerance thread. We have seen that an impartial attitude is necessary for a worthwhile discussion. Unfortunately it is usually lacking.
Well, you have created a story that makes sense to you, and congratulations, the world is a mysterious place to anyone but idiots.
I am not bright enough to create these ideas. I am just a student of perennial ideas the essence of which was always known.
So you can't see the difference between "is a living organism" and "is viewed as a "living organism""? As it happens, I'm quite happy to entertain both possibilities; I can even take Michel Callon and Bruno Latour's Actor-network theory seriously; that's the sort of thing that being open minded entails.
There have been n are now debating the idea that society is a living organism; the Great Beast Plato wrote of. Herbert Spencer has written on this but it is still too insulting for modern secularism which glorifeies the beast to consider. The Beast consists of reacting automatons? Too insulting to consider!

https://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/Evolu ... ciety.html
There are two great classes of aggregates with which the social aggregate may be compared--the inorganic and the organic. Are the attributes of a society in any way like those of a not-living body ? or are they in any way like those of a living body ? or are they entirely unlike those of both 2
The first of these questions needs only to be asked to be answered in the negative. A whole of which the parts are alive, cannot, in its general characters, be like lifeless wholes. The second question, not to be thus promptly answered, is to be answered in the affirmative. The reasons for asserting that the permanent relations among the parts of a society, are analogous to the permanent relations among the parts of a living body, we have now to consider.
Nick_A, you need to understand that "proven to me" is not the same as 'proven'.
Scientific proofs require proof to others. Proofs for the objective values of our inner life cannot be proven. They must be experienced by those who are open to these experiences. Inner experiences are personal. The Ways seek to further awakening or opening the mind so as to be able to experience and verify their realty through impartial efforts to “Know thyself” Unfortunately people have been shot for less.
uwot
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by uwot »

Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:24 am Uwot
I am open to absolutely anything that isn't flatly refuted by experimental facts.
You must then be open to the division of universal structure described by Plato.
I take it you mean only the epistemic structure illustrated by the Analogy of the Divided Line, rather than the structure of the universe he describes in the Timeaus, which open as I am, is complete bollocks. But yeah, with a bit of license I can go along with the divided line. I am also open to the possibility that it is not the case; that is what being open entails.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:24 amYou must be open to the visible level below the sun which science can measure and the intelligible level above the divided line available to us by noesis even though we cannot necessarily prove it by science.
Science isn't committed to proof, if anything that's logic and mathematics. Instead, science is in effect a bunch of tools that work for a particular application, or they don't. The reason being that science cannot prove that any particular tool will work in every future instance that it is applied to. That's just basic underdetermination. That we cannot prove the things we can see makes it very difficult to accept that we can prove things we can't see, Plato's Form of the Good being the case in point. Those who claim to apprehend The Good may be correct, but it's a philosophically vacuous claim if it cannot be communicated and I'm sure someone better versed in neuroscience could offer descriptions of The Good as simply a particular brain state that has no existence outside of the head. Being open, I'm open to all possibilities, but the advantage that neuroscience has is that they can map and demonstrate those brain states, whereas believers in The Good can only point to their emotional responses.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:24 amWe have seen that an impartial attitude is necessary for a worthwhile discussion. Unfortunately it is usually lacking.
Here I think there is potential for agreement. Do you believe your attitude to your opinions is impartial?
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:24 amI am just a student of perennial ideas the essence of which was always known.
Interesting ideas, but they have been thought and sometimes believed rather than known.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:24 amProofs for the objective values of our inner life cannot be proven.
Why then should anyone accept your characterisation of any such value as "objective"?
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by attofishpi »

Two important points to remember:-

1. Seek and ye shall find. (in other words believe first and the source of the truth can then be found)
2. Entropy dictates that a 'God' will eventually exist where intelligent species continue to proliferate.
Nick_A
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by Nick_A »

uwot
Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 3:24 am
Proofs for the objective values of our inner life cannot be proven.

Why then should anyone accept your characterisation of any such value as "objective"?
This where both atheism and the secularized church makes its fatal error. They are both limited to belief or denial. They deny the third option which true philosophy invites us to experience: conscious contemplation

For example the Timeaus is nonsense for you. If so you are closed to the possibility of a conscious universe within which the demiurge serve the purpose sustaining our universe through the actions of relative consciousness

You won't find anything more secular than NBC news. Yet NBC even reports on the conscious universe. Of course if the demiurge exist the obvious question is the source of the demiurge which no self respecting Trump hater should have to endure.

https://www.n[/quote]bcnews.com/mach/science/universe-conscious-ncna772956

Blind deniers and blind believers are both incapable of the open mind necessary for conscious contemplation. Yet there is a minority who know the value of conscious contemplation inviting the experience of noesis. They are ridiculed by both sides
The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation. Simone Weil


Suppose we do live in a conscious universe with the ability to serve either the general purpose of animal life or the potential to serve the higher purpose of conscious life along with animal life? How can we know? The key is opening to the first step, our potential for impartial conscious contemplation which is too repulsive to consider for those caught up in the war between blind believers And blind deniers. So as they say: the beat goes on, the beat goes on.
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attofishpi
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by attofishpi »

Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pm
Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 3:24 am
Proofs for the objective values of our inner life cannot be proven.

Why then should anyone accept your characterisation of any such value as "objective"?
This where both atheism and the secularized church makes its fatal error. They are both limited to belief or denial. They deny the third option which true philosophy invites us to experience: conscious contemplation

For example the Timeaus is nonsense for you. If so you are closed to the possibility of a conscious universe within which the demiurge serve the purpose sustaining our universe through the actions of relative consciousness

You won't find anything more secular than NBC news. Yet NBC even reports on the conscious universe. Of course if the demiurge exist the obvious question is the source of the demiurge which no self respecting Trump hater should have to endure.

https://www.n
bcnews.com/mach/science/universe-conscious-ncna772956

Blind deniers and blind believers are both incapable of the open mind necessary for conscious contemplation. Yet there is a minority who know the value of conscious contemplation inviting the experience of noesis. They are ridiculed by both sides
The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation. Simone Weil


Suppose we do live in a conscious universe with the ability to serve either the general purpose of animal life or the potential to serve the higher purpose of conscious life along with animal life? How can we know? The key is opening to the first step, our potential for impartial conscious contemplation which is too repulsive to consider for those caught up in the war between blind believers And blind deniers. So as they say: the beat goes on, the beat goes on.
So what R U?

A blind piggy in the middle?
uwot
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by uwot »

Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pm uwot
Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 3:24 am
Proofs for the objective values of our inner life cannot be proven.

Why then should anyone accept your characterisation of any such value as "objective"?
This where both atheism and the secularized church makes its fatal error. They are both limited to belief or denial.
This isn't true. My atheism is not a denial that one or other God exists, I simply don't think that the evidence is compelling. You can twist that and argue that I deny that the evidence is persuasive, which is fair enough, but that is not the same as denying the existence of any particular god.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmThey deny the third option which true philosophy invites us to experience: conscious contemplation
Well, having done my share of conscious contemplation, I think the god hypothesis is roughly as tenable as several other explanations for the universe. I'm open to any of them.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmFor example the Timeaus is nonsense for you. If so you are closed to the possibility of a conscious universe within which the demiurge serve the purpose sustaining our universe through the actions of relative consciousness
You misunderstand. The part of the Timaeus which is nonsense is the geocentric cosmology. For all I know, there is a demiurge and, yeah, I can entertain some version of panpsychism, but again, I find the evidence unconvincing.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmYou won't find anything more secular than NBC news. Yet NBC even reports on the conscious universe.
Why wouldn't they? It's an newsworthy hypothesis.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmOf course if the demiurge exist the obvious question is the source of the demiurge which no self respecting Trump hater should have to endure.
If a demiurge could be demonstrated, I'm sure even the most vociferous Trump haters could accept it. Why do you make that connection? Do you have any evidence that Trump supporters, or Trump himself, are particularly receptive to Plato's demiurge?
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmBlind deniers and blind believers are both incapable of the open mind necessary for conscious contemplation.
Well yes, that's what "blind" implies. The mistake you make is to insult anyone who holds a belief that isn't yours by insisting they do so blindly.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmYet there is a minority who know the value of conscious contemplation inviting the experience of noesis. They are ridiculed by both sides
By far the most common reason that people are ridiculed is that they say ridiculous things.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pm
The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation. Simone Weil
Suppose we do live in a conscious universe with the ability to serve either the general purpose of animal life or the potential to serve the higher purpose of conscious life along with animal life? How can we know?
Isn't Simone Weil's point that knowing would degrade the "mysteries of faith"?
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 pmThe key is opening to the first step, our potential for impartial conscious contemplation which is too repulsive to consider for those caught up in the war between blind believers And blind deniers. So as they say: the beat goes on, the beat goes on.
And it will probably continue for as long as there are people who cannot respect the results of another's impartial conscious contemplation if it doesn't match their own. What is wrong with people disagreeing with you, Nick_A?
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

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Re: First Believe, Then Understand.

I can't believe someone wrote this as a true assessment. I can't understand how it could be true.
Scott Mayers
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

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Nick_A wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:18 am Fortunately there is a minority who realize the importance of the religious truths which enable a person to experience the objective value or quality of what the partial truths of science reveal. Because they are open minded as opposed to being agenda driven they can experience revelation by intuition.
It's the other way around. Politics favor religion as a mechanism to justify laws where it lacks complete agreement by objective standards whether it be at odds with science or to sufficient popular appeal. Science, while not without similar politics, is strictly intended to deal with the lowest denominational truths agreed upon by all people regarding nature itself, ...as opposed to something 'super-natural' or beyond our objective AGREEMENT about them.

Intuition is an artistic aptitude with regards to thinking creatively and is useful for us to 'visualize' something prior to determining any proof needed that science later takes on. This does not exclude things that relate to religion but has to require a strict means to test claims that are not universally shareable. Science is a 'politic' in that it collectively votes upon observed phenomena, interpretation, and the routines used to determine the best agreement. But the ethics itself involves people which is a form of 'religious' participation of subjects within the minds of each scientist.

"Truth" itself is just a human term itself used to reference agreement between two or more people. Since all beliefs are broader an issue than the minimal things we agree on, all beliefs not shareable belong to philosophy properly but science to a subset of it that deals with Nature we can determine with what we have absent of mere 'faith'.
Scott Mayers
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by Scott Mayers »

uwot wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:06 pm
Nick_A wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:18 amMan BELIEVES first by experiencing the awe of wholeness which arouses curiousity as to how the parts of creation relate; the calling of science to UNDERSTAND material relationships which serves our daily needs. Seems easy enough but society as a whole rejects it in favor of fighting over agendas.
The period known as the Dark Ages, roughly between the fall of Rome and the Italian renaissance, is the one time in the history of western science when a single agenda suppressed any challenge to the intuition it advanced - precisely that god is the answer to everything we don't understand. It's called the Dark Ages for a reason, you apparently want to go back there.
Just a side thought: I think that the Dark Ages were not necessarily 'dark' even though the Christianized Roman Empire may have been more apparent and more vocal where issues are raised. I believe that the era was one of 'proprietary' protectionism such that people begun to keep certain learned ideas to themselves for their own advantages. They didn't have copyright protections and the Church itself introduced a probable threat of one's ability to keep their interests secret DUE to a clever 'religious' idea: the confession booth.

This is just my own hypothetical conjecture (as an 'intuitive' guess!) But it seem plausible. I think even the formation of the transition of Empire to Church was partly rationalized where the fears of the prior Greek intellectualism spread far and might have been blamed for any social upheavals against the prior Empire's capacity to hold the authority on 'truth'. Altering the Roman Empire to become a religion instead was more welcoming at a time when skepticism was becoming more popular and powerful among the 'common' people.

Interestngly, maybe this might be a potential example to show how religion is more politically powerful in light of pure intellectual insight through science and reasoning. If you 'understand' something, you have a direct reason to believe. But if you can reverse the logic to the masses, it has more power over them because it is simply easier to wish for Santa to keep you off his 'naughty' list than to invest in the depth needed to understand how to acheive something on your own reflections and hard work.

P.S. To everyone in general: I'm atheist and still enjoy the idea of the Christmas cartoons that more often than not have a common morale: if you don't believe in the magic of Santa and the North Pole, don't be surprised if all you get is a lump of coal in your stocking. As entertaining and fun that some of these stories can be for the imagination and the potential hope it raises to people in a world of struggle and hardship, Christmas is just a BREAK from the harsh reality. The 'science' of this belongs to the 'Social' ones and even this doesn't require formal religious approval to prove its virtue.
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Re: First Believe, Then Understand

Post by Scott Mayers »

-1- wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:10 am Re: First Believe, Then Understand.

I can't believe someone wrote this as a true assessment. I can't understand how it could be true.
It is somewhat similar to the positive-thinking (not so 'positive' when they see in terms of black-and-whites) movements that propose the general concept: Fake it until you make it.

The latest Simpsons had Lisa get a braces (....again) and it forced her face in a perma-grin. Although she went against the logic of the masses to place mere faith in those simply based upon appearances, she discovered that others were actually trusting her more regardless of their normal resistance to her environmental conscience. In the end, she had her braces removed just in time for the school leadership debates (School Counsel President?). As you might guess, she feared that people would lose the power of her smile as her new face without the braces gave her a scowl she was told would take years to go back to normal. So she faked being sick and had used a teleconference setup to be present but used it to have technology place a smile over her face like those extra social media add-ins for apps that place customizable masks over your image.

[That add-in I referred to is the Snap Chat feature such as this image:
https://photos5.appleinsider.com/galler ... hat1-l.jpg]
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