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Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - Ostronomos - Apr 4, 2019

When attempting to reach a conclusion on the existence of God, logic is far more reliable than empiricism since it enables a kind of absolute and permanent epistemological foundation.


RE: Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - Zinjanthropos - Apr 4, 2019

(Apr 4, 2019 03:39 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: When attempting to reach a conclusion on the existence of God, logic is far more reliable than empiricism since it enables a kind of absolute and permanent epistemological foundation.

Hey Ostro, how's it going? Hope you're doing well. 

Why would God create empiricism? As a faith test? God wouldn't experiment would he?


RE: Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - C C - Apr 4, 2019

(Apr 4, 2019 03:39 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: When attempting to reach a conclusion on the existence of God, logic is far more reliable than empiricism since it enables a kind of absolute and permanent epistemological foundation.


Reason is all there is to begin with when it comes to exploring anything prior in rank to the sensible world (or our sequences of experiential events). But as Kant pointed out, the multiple possibilities that rational processes output are resistant to culling since they are just that: Do not involve phenomenal or immediate appearances subject to observing slash measuring at a time/location (manifested spatiotemporal attributes go out the window). Whether it's a nomological next-level of generative principles or the noumena of an intellectual world, there is nothing but language and abstract symbolic description for even handing those affairs.

In contrast: Single photons can be manipulated and either indirectly or directly "seen". Ultra-microscopic entities have actually long since become part of the empirical world. Just the ability alone to test and perform experiments on such reels them in from the attempts of old-school positivists and antirealists to keep them condemned to metaphysical turf. It's when entering an area like QM interpretations and quantum-gravity models/theories that a lack of culling rears its head and physics is flirting with trans-phenomenal speculation -- appeals to mathematics and aesthetics isn't going to negate the brute fact of those pursuits being descriptively realized in variable, multiple ways (there's no competition going on when a winner can't be declared or resists a finale).

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RE: Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - Ostronomos - Apr 9, 2019

(Apr 4, 2019 06:31 PM)C C Wrote:
(Apr 4, 2019 03:39 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: When attempting to reach a conclusion on the existence of God, logic is far more reliable than empiricism since it enables a kind of absolute and permanent epistemological foundation.


Reason is all there is to begin with when it comes to exploring anything prior in rank to the sensible world (or our sequences of experiential events). But as Kant pointed out, the multiple possibilities that rational processes output are resistant to culling since they are just that: Do not involve phenomenal or immediate appearances subject to observing slash measuring at a time/location (manifested spatiotemporal attributes go out the window). Whether it's a nomological next-level of generative principles or the noumena of an intellectual world, there is nothing but language and abstract symbolic description for even handing those affairs.

In contrast: Single photons can be manipulated and either indirectly or directly "seen". Ultra-microscopic entities have actually long since become part of the empirical world. Just the ability alone to test and perform experiments on such reels them in from the attempts of old-school positivists and antirealists to keep them condemned to metaphysical turf. It's when entering an area like QM interpretations and quantum-gravity models/theories that a lack of culling rears its head and physics is flirting with trans-phenomenal speculation -- appeals to mathematics and aesthetics isn't going to negate the brute fact of those pursuits being descriptively realized in variable, multiple ways (there's no competition going on when a winner can't be declared or resists a finale).

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CC,

In keeping with the topic of generative principles as you call them, could not God connectively and coherently self-configure as reality thereby negating his own non-existence at will? There seems to be some misunderstanding in the mind of many materialists, where those who have never experienced mortal triumph take their own life for granted. But I don't think it is premature to state that when facing the greatest of uncertainties, we tend to see reality on a deeper level, as one that includes a God.

Question: Could the mind be actual and prior to the supposed external concept of reality?


RE: Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - C C - Apr 9, 2019

(Apr 9, 2019 03:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: CC,

In keeping with the topic of generative principles as you call them, could not God connectively and coherently self-configure as reality thereby negating his own non-existence at will? There seems to be some misunderstanding in the mind of many materialists, where those who have never experienced mortal triumph take their own life for granted. But I don't think it is premature to state that when facing the greatest of uncertainties, we tend to see reality on a deeper level, as one that includes a God.


Various belief groups can entertain all sorts meta-phenomenal scenarios as to what's going on prior in rank to experience's exhibited external world and the latter's domestic network of interdependent reasons/causes (for its events and affairs). But accordingly those speculations are not amenable to science -- they lack empirical means to test them as well as to greatly reduce the number of possibilities. Reasoning can only evaluate the internal consistency of such ideas or systemic doctrines, potentially disqualifying some on those grounds. But is useless for verifying those sorts of things with respect to yielding publicly "real" and immediate objects and instrument detections, past information evidence of whatever _X_, etc -- or abstracting effective, useful generalizations (as in the case of so-called "laws" of nature and science).

As Kant contended[*], metaphysical turf as entertained by practical philosophy is purely a refuge secured for the survival of cultural traditions and argued necessities. (As well as enabling peace between those beliefs and naturalism or science, by keeping each out of the other's territories). But not something that can be "proven" to the masses via inter-subjective comparing of perceptions and experimental methods.

[*] KANT: But as will be shown, reason has, in respect of its practical employment, the right to postulate what in the field of mere speculation it can have no kind of right to assume without sufficient proof. For while all such assumptions do violence to [the principle of] completeness of speculation, that is a principle with which the practical interest is not at all concerned. In the practical sphere reason has rights of possession, of which it does not require to offer proof, and of which, in fact, it could not supply proof. The burden of proof accordingly rests upon the opponent. But since the latter knows just as little of the object under question, in trying to prove its non-existence, as does the former in maintaining its reality, it is evident that the former, who is asserting something as a practically necessary supposition, is at an advantage (melior est conditio possidentis). For he is at liberty to employ, as it were in self-defence, on behalf of his own good cause, the very same weapons that his opponent employs against that cause, that is, hypotheses. These are not intended to strengthen the proof of his position, but only to show that the opposing party has much too little understanding of the matter in dispute to allow of his flattering himself that he has the advantage in respect of speculative insight. Hypotheses are therefore, in the domain of pure reason, permissible only as weapons of war, and only for the purpose of defending a right, not in order to establish it. But the opposing party we must always look for in ourselves. For speculative reason in its transcendental employment is in itself dialectical; the objections which we have to fear lie in ourselves. We must seek them out, just as we would do in the case of claims that, while old, have never become superannuated, in order that by annulling them we may establish a permanent peace.


Quote:Question: Could the mind e actual and prior to the supposed external concept of reality?


As random-selected example... If realism about fields being fundamental were the case (i.e., particles are just vortices, nodes, knots, etc occurring in them), then obviously that manner of existence qualifies more as a kind of non-technological processor than a "world of corporeal entities". So such is both not phenomenally represented as the latter and not generalized and linguistically/abstractly conceived as a "reality" until certain patterns -- which in turn self-conceive themselves as "minds" -- do arise in the roiling complexities of the fields.

Generic mind (not pertaining to particular or individual instances of such) is just a category that subsumes rational order and the power of manifestation together. The former instantiates as reasoning (or whatever) when deflated to a brain, with the "showing forth" of manifestation becoming known as experience or the various sensations with respect to animals/people.

An isolated or individual example of mind obviously has no control over the external world manifested to it, through willful thought and desire alone. It's in the same fix as a dream avatar, barring the dream becoming lucid and the avatar identity still barely managing to avoid annihilation after its abnormal conflation with the waking identity. Both however, would be construed as products of "transcendent" or non-transparent neural activities which lack such personal properties (in the context of scientific explanations), which otherwise would have no interest in the god-like exploits and imaginative violations which the personal identities engage in during a dream gone lucid.

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RE: Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - Ostronomos - Apr 11, 2019

(Apr 9, 2019 06:28 PM)C C Wrote:
Quote:Question: Could the mind be actual and prior to the supposed external concept of reality?
[*]
As random-selected example... If realism about fields being fundamental were the case (i.e., particles are just vortices, nodes, knots, etc occurring in them), then obviously that manner of existence qualifies more as a kind of non-technological processor than a "world of corporeal entities". So such is both not phenomenally represented as the latter and not generalized and linguistically/abstractly conceived as a "reality" until certain patterns -- which in turn self-conceive themselves as "minds" -- do arise in the roiling complexities of the fields.
[*]
Can you tell me if such a case would help establish a proof that mind contained reality as described by the CTMU's incoversion versus a reality that contained the mind (as in the generalized sense of the word) or coinversion? If these patterns can become intelligent by processing themselves (in the non-technological sense), assuming such is possible, then would what we typically view as a mind become self-distributed?


RE: Logic versus empiricism in the case for God - C C - Apr 12, 2019

(Apr 11, 2019 06:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: Can you tell me if such a case would help establish a proof that mind contained reality as described by the CTMU's incoversion versus a reality that contained the mind (as in the generalized sense of the word) or coinversion? If these patterns can become intelligent by processing themselves (in the non-technological sense), assuming such is possible, then would what we typically view as a mind become self-distributed?


Digital physics and digital philosophy drop the pre-20th century categorization of generic "mind" and replace it with the procedural manipulation of information (computation). So that's the contemporary area of thought orientation and work-effort that you'd probably need to chummy up to. A mere similitude or used metaphor of "computers" is as far as one should go, however, since a literal proposal of a device being behind such cosmic processing activity just opens up a Russian-doll scenario of one ontological level nested inside another, endlessly. The procedural manipulation of information has to be either non-technological ("... and now for something completely different" --Monty Python), or how its is substantively realized left unknown, apart from the abstract description expressing it.

A proof via reasoning, rather than empirical observation, is just a detailed demonstration that _X_ rationally falls out of select premises which in turn are grounded in the standards, concepts, and principles of whatever (supposedly) internally coherent system it is recruiting, utilizing, and appealing to as justifying it. IOW, the system (which is valid both because it circularly says so and because it was [hopefully] vetted by another, venerated institution) approves _X_ and accepts it as a qualified member, if the latter is applicable. But that kind of formal proof does nothing to undeniably substantiate _X_ corresponding to something that exists in a concrete or non-fictional way. Other than _X_ thereby piggybacking onto whatever respect its mother system has acquired globally (like mathematics). The latter is often earned by just being currently useful or having been useful at times in the past. If the system itself has zilch respect or has been discredited (is not even axiomatically harmonious with itself), then _X_ accrues nothing -- which oppositely would still not have been existential validation, anyway.

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