RE: reason vs faith vs reality
July 22, 2013 at 10:27 pm
(This post was last modified: July 22, 2013 at 10:31 pm by wandering soul.)
OK guys, I haven't abandoned you. Caught in stuff needing to be done then driving back to the city where I work, cat being killed by dogs, new nephew being born, and bad internet connections. Yes all in one 24 hour period. But you all have been running off in far too many directions at this point for me to pick up on everything.
Appophenia is right that there are philosophical overtones in this idea. But I posted here because I was introducing a different perspective on the faith vs reason debate. I like to attempt to re-direct ideas into unexpected avenues, bring together disparate streams of thought to see what new ideas result. So yes. philosophical but in the pursuit of questions regarding faith and reason.
I like that Michael brings in the ideas of paradigms in relation to reality. I am actually perceiving a distinction between the abstraction "reality" and the term "real" which corresponds to that which exists or is factual.
I find Max-Greece's responses really interesting. So many intriguing directions to expand and pursue related ideas. I am primarily a visual artist and poet. I like my ideas dynamic (non-static) and multi-valent. I know that probably makes the hard science and math types apoplectic! Sorry for not coloring in the lines all the time! I use the Thesaurus the way you all use the dictionary - instead of the dictionary. I like it much better. And at my age I want to do what makes me happy. Way too much makes me way too unhappy
Will you all forgive me for not answering you all directly but posting the next step I took in my own thought experiment. Perhaps some of you can suggest different terms to express the idea of reality as a conceptual abstraction in this sequence of ideas. end of explanations. I'll give the next step in a separate post to keep the responses from getting really confusing.
I am proposing that however you express it, we cannot get outside of our own minds our own subjective experience. No matter how hard we try to be objective, we are witnessing, observing, evaluating, analyzing, everything outside and inside of ourselves through the lens of our personal subjective self.
We cannot actually live in some objective "reality" that exists outside of our minds. I see Reality as the abstraction that our mind creates out of all the raw materials of the existent universe mixed and colored by our own psychological, emotional, mental frames of reference. Everyone experiences the external world and their own internal worlds in unique ways. There can be some congruence between our own individual lived experience and that of others. But there is no actual 100% correspondence. Can't be. We all just come close to one another in our experiences and also simultaneously far distant from one another.
My primary point is that Atheists and theists are each using different data sets and applying different mental tools and as such the conclusions cannot be mapped cleanly or even messily onto each other. The questions asked by one cannot be answered by the other.
Atheists, using the selected dataset of information, knowledge and empirical analysis of the material universe which is being passed down and continually developed and advanced through the scientific endeavor, using the mental tools of reason, logic, and skepticism have constructed a reality which does not include God with all the accompanying issues with which religion has saddled that idea of God. The data set, methods, mental tools, and conclusions hold together perfectly and create a reality that is satisfying and cohesive. It frames the experiences of life in a reliable and sustainable framework. The idea of God not only does not fit the dataset but cannot be even theorized based on the methods and mental tools.
Christians (and yes mostly Christians who have made faith a -if not the- key component of their religious beliefs) using the selected dataset of information, knowledge, and yes empirical analysis of a cosmos comprised of both material and spiritual dimensions which is being passed down and continually developed and advanced through well established religious methods, using mental tools of analytic reasoning, logic, and faith have constructed a reality which begins and ends with God and the spiritual dimension of life.
Faith is not the counterpart to reason in the equations of reality construction, it is the counterpoint to skepticism. In other words the key difference which cannot ever be resolved is that not only are the selected datasets of information being used radically different but the actual mental tools are mutually exclusive.
Appophenia is right that there are philosophical overtones in this idea. But I posted here because I was introducing a different perspective on the faith vs reason debate. I like to attempt to re-direct ideas into unexpected avenues, bring together disparate streams of thought to see what new ideas result. So yes. philosophical but in the pursuit of questions regarding faith and reason.
I like that Michael brings in the ideas of paradigms in relation to reality. I am actually perceiving a distinction between the abstraction "reality" and the term "real" which corresponds to that which exists or is factual.
I find Max-Greece's responses really interesting. So many intriguing directions to expand and pursue related ideas. I am primarily a visual artist and poet. I like my ideas dynamic (non-static) and multi-valent. I know that probably makes the hard science and math types apoplectic! Sorry for not coloring in the lines all the time! I use the Thesaurus the way you all use the dictionary - instead of the dictionary. I like it much better. And at my age I want to do what makes me happy. Way too much makes me way too unhappy
Will you all forgive me for not answering you all directly but posting the next step I took in my own thought experiment. Perhaps some of you can suggest different terms to express the idea of reality as a conceptual abstraction in this sequence of ideas. end of explanations. I'll give the next step in a separate post to keep the responses from getting really confusing.
I am proposing that however you express it, we cannot get outside of our own minds our own subjective experience. No matter how hard we try to be objective, we are witnessing, observing, evaluating, analyzing, everything outside and inside of ourselves through the lens of our personal subjective self.
We cannot actually live in some objective "reality" that exists outside of our minds. I see Reality as the abstraction that our mind creates out of all the raw materials of the existent universe mixed and colored by our own psychological, emotional, mental frames of reference. Everyone experiences the external world and their own internal worlds in unique ways. There can be some congruence between our own individual lived experience and that of others. But there is no actual 100% correspondence. Can't be. We all just come close to one another in our experiences and also simultaneously far distant from one another.
My primary point is that Atheists and theists are each using different data sets and applying different mental tools and as such the conclusions cannot be mapped cleanly or even messily onto each other. The questions asked by one cannot be answered by the other.
Atheists, using the selected dataset of information, knowledge and empirical analysis of the material universe which is being passed down and continually developed and advanced through the scientific endeavor, using the mental tools of reason, logic, and skepticism have constructed a reality which does not include God with all the accompanying issues with which religion has saddled that idea of God. The data set, methods, mental tools, and conclusions hold together perfectly and create a reality that is satisfying and cohesive. It frames the experiences of life in a reliable and sustainable framework. The idea of God not only does not fit the dataset but cannot be even theorized based on the methods and mental tools.
Christians (and yes mostly Christians who have made faith a -if not the- key component of their religious beliefs) using the selected dataset of information, knowledge, and yes empirical analysis of a cosmos comprised of both material and spiritual dimensions which is being passed down and continually developed and advanced through well established religious methods, using mental tools of analytic reasoning, logic, and faith have constructed a reality which begins and ends with God and the spiritual dimension of life.
Faith is not the counterpart to reason in the equations of reality construction, it is the counterpoint to skepticism. In other words the key difference which cannot ever be resolved is that not only are the selected datasets of information being used radically different but the actual mental tools are mutually exclusive.
having passed through many states of believing I was right I have come to the place of finding "rightness" rather irrelevant to the project of becoming human
