RE: Panentheism and Brute Facts
March 28, 2014 at 4:23 pm
(This post was last modified: March 28, 2014 at 4:32 pm by MindForgedManacle.)
(March 26, 2014 at 10:49 am)ChadWooters Wrote: You’ve mentioned the preponderance of atheists among philosophers before. What you say is true. Earlier I chose not to address it since it seems like an argument from authority similar to “4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest”. I imaging parallel discussions of metaphysics happen in theology departments and do not cross the academic divide.
You misunderstand me, though I should point out that an argument from authority, when referencing an actual authority(ies) on the topic is not actually logically fallacious.
My point was that if you think that theist philosophers, on the topic of causality, have evaded circularity while atheist philosophers on this topic have not, I have no clue how you're justifying that given that discourse on causation has effectively been non-theistic, at least beginning with Hume and onward.
Quote:No, I do not agree with presuppositionalism. I think it’s stupid. And yes this is more of an axiom, but (I think) one that tacitly accepts an active role for intellect. My thoughts on this remain sketchy. I’m still thinking about the issue. We can drop it for now.
Mmkay.
Quote:I will need to know more about entropy theories. I believe you mentioned Sean Carroll? In the same way that you do not understand my primal matter/informing principle distinction, I’m not fully understanding your references to entropy. I trust that you have put much thought into it and have background knowledge that remains unexpressed.
With respect to your second point, yes, ultimately everything does go back to Divine Will, but I’m stopping short of that holding to intentionality (awareness & choice) as a fundamental aspect of reality that supplies essential attributes.
Lol, you have way too much confidence in regards to the extent to which I've thought out all my philosophical positions. :p
From what I [think I] understand of Carroll's work on the topic it goes something like this:
The Big Bang is a chance from a more ordered state to an increasingly disordered one. This phenomenon of increased disorder is what we calk entropy. Given that the Big Bang was such an event, it's unsurprising that our current cosmological models indicate that only very simply elements were present in the early universe. However, as the amount of disorder increases - which is necessary purely as a matter of statistics - more complex elements are created via nuclear fusions, which in turn is ultimately responsible for complex phenomenon like life.
Quote:Not exactly. We all agree that some aspects of reality are readily apparent and everyone (except radical skeptics, like Hume) accepts them, either tacitly or explicitly. I say that based on these facts, you can identify common principles unite them into a single theory. I’m not saying that God IS the unifying principle, since (as you observed) that only pushes the problem back. I am saying that the deduced unifying principles are consistent with those commonly attributed to God.
The problem is that some of these 'readily apparent aspects' are just assumptions which are generally just made on the basis of pragmatism, not from any real metaphysical insight.
Quote:There seems to be no shortage of ‘quantum woo’. From ‘What the #&^% Do We Know” to “The Secret”. I find it silly but also somewhat entertaining. That said, I do believe that quantum process deserve serious consideration since a) they bear directly on the fundamental structure of reality and b) some problems, like mind-brain interaction, haven’t advanced using 19th century physics.
Oh I agree quantum mechanics deserves consideration, just that there is a considerable amount of woo-woo made on the basis of it, and ALL of it contrary to all but 6% of physicists.
Quote:If you find it more interesting, I would not mind focusing on the problems you see with panetheism. I welcome the serious criticism. I do not doubt that some are valid, since no philosophical system is entirely complete; questions always remain.
Some general objections that come to my mind are the seeming conflicts between it and orthodox Christian beliefs, though I don't know how much your beliefs are in line with the orthodoxy. For example, it is commonly held that, as per the Bible, God is not of this world, he is separate from it and that unatoned for sin cannot be in the presence of God. Yet under panentheism, it seems all these things are necessarily the case. Sin is then very much within God himself.
(March 26, 2014 at 3:48 am)bennyboy Wrote: I'm not so sure about this. Rational thought is valid by definition IN THE CONTEXT of ideas which are validated by rational thought. There's a dangerous self-reference there that shouldn't be dismissed so readily.
You misunderstand me. In that context, by 'rational thought' I meant logic basically. Perhaps a better way of putting what I meant is that, contrary to presuppositionalists, the claimthat logic itself needs some kind of external justification to determine its validity is nonsense. Logic is the means by which something is declared valid or not. The rough equivalent of that would be to claim that it's sensible to ask "What is the measure by which you measure that your measuring device is as long as it is?" Clearly this will not do, seeing as our measuring devices are the means by which we measure things.
