reason vs faith vs reality

[Whateverist]

I quite agree that I love discovery of new viewpoints rather than debate over the same territory.

I think it is interesting that you experience yourself inhabiting your expanding explanatory systems, exchanging the more limited for those better able to cover all the various aspects of lived experience. While I have tended to keep all the systems handy and move about among them. I'm the fish moving between habitats. None of them completely satisfies all aspects of my lived experience. All of them work very well for parts of my mental life. Some are way better at at holding together almost everything. I usually stick with those and visit the others!

But it looks like we're the last ones left here. Not so much interest in this type of exchange?

I think debate is the coin of the realm here but we're free to create all the alternative sub-currents we like. The threads with the most activity aren't always the ones I enjoy most.

[wandering soul]

OK so what are your thoughts on the original ideas I proposed. That the Christians and the atheists are using similar methods of analysis but applying them to different data sets. Also in their respective methodologies, the anomaly that is different between the two methodologies is not reason vs faith, but skepticism vs faith.

I see the atheist data set defined as exclusive to the material universe studied through the hard sciences, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history. (I have a side theory that many of those who prefer the debate over discourse model are from the hard sciences rather than such disciplines as history or anthropology which deal with all the variability that human populations bring to any data set!). There is no need for a god, no data for the existence of a god and in fact the addition of a god throws the whole system off. So by definition this reality set can have no god.

I see a further world/reality construct that is exclusively mental/ abstract/ conceptual. This is comprised of pure abstract math, music, philosophy, linguistics - things that in their natural state exist purely in the mind, though they can each be expressed in their own language from one mind to the other. Physics is an interesting blend of the pure abstract world of of math and the experimental world of the hard sciences. And music can be expressed directly in the material world through material objects. And language, of course is always evolving through actual physical speech, writing, etc. But they actually exist only in the mind unless they are expressed through some physical means. And they exist in their full form in the mind even if never expressed. To me "reality" is a philosophical mental object which the discipline of philosophy spends a lot of time analyzing, deconstructing, defining, etc. All in the mind.

I see religions as the bottom end of a spectrum of reality construction that extends to some very complex stratopheric multivalent systems of thought, method, practice, experimentation and discipline. The problem with defining religions simply as thought systems is that they cannot be reduced to simply sets of beliefs. In fact they are and have always been systems of dynamic interative sub-systems which deal with society formation and management, culture generation, psychological treatment, and philosophical thought.

If we do reduce the religious reality structure for the sake of comparison and contrast to a set of ideas about the nature of reality, we find the data set is different from the atheist material universe model. The religions reality data set (for the most part) does in fact posit God as the primary reality with the rest of everything derivative and conditioned by its relationship to the primary reality.

Let us discount the religious faithful and the religious professionals at this point because they really don't think through things, they go by revelation. Looking at the data set from the outside there are religious thought systems that are way better at conceptualizing this form of reality than Christians. So I'm going with this larger composit picture pulling from a variety of older traditions and newer disciplines. I see it as a dual system comprised of a material and a spiritual dimension (whether that spiritual dimension has gods, God, or none is irrelevant).

In these reality constructions, the spiritual precedes the material both temporally and ontologically. The spiritual dimension has been observed, studied, tested, experimented with and its properties, attributes, functions, and interactive mechanisms mapped and patterns both observed and deduced. Then checked and verified by independently by others.

I think it would be really challenging to seek a point of congruence around which to build bridges between the single-valent reality structure of material universe as the exclusive reality and the bi-valent system of the dual spiritual-material reality

[Whateverist]

OK so what are your thoughts on the original ideas I proposed. That the Christians and the atheists are using similar methods of analysis but applying them to different data sets. Also in their respective methodologies, the anomaly that is different between the two methodologies is not reason vs faith, but skepticism vs faith.

I see the atheist data set defined as exclusive to the material universe studied through the hard sciences, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history. (I have a side theory that many of those who prefer the debate over discourse model are from the hard sciences rather than such disciplines as history or anthropology which deal with all the variability that human populations bring to any data set!). There is no need for a god, no data for the existence of a god and in fact the addition of a god throws the whole system off. So by definition this reality set can have no god.

I see a further world/reality construct that is exclusively mental/ abstract/ conceptual. This is comprised of pure abstract math, music, philosophy, linguistics - things that in their natural state exist purely in the mind, though they can each be expressed in their own language from one mind to the other. Physics is an interesting blend of the pure abstract world of of math and the experimental world of the hard sciences. And music can be expressed directly in the material world through material objects. And language, of course is always evolving through actual physical speech, writing, etc. But they actually exist only in the mind unless they are expressed through some physical means. And they exist in their full form in the mind even if never expressed. To me "reality" is a philosophical mental object which the discipline of philosophy spends a lot of time analyzing, deconstructing, defining, etc. All in the mind.

I see religions as the bottom end of a spectrum of reality construction that extends to some very complex stratopheric multivalent systems of thought, method, practice, experimentation and discipline. The problem with defining religions simply as thought systems is that they cannot be reduced to simply sets of beliefs. In fact they are and have always been systems of dynamic interative sub-systems which deal with society formation and management, culture generation, psychological treatment, and philosophical thought.

If we do reduce the religious reality structure for the sake of comparison and contrast to a set of ideas about the nature of reality, we find the data set is different from the atheist material universe model. The religions reality data set (for the most part) does in fact posit God as the primary reality with the rest of everything derivative and conditioned by its relationship to the primary reality.

Let us discount the religious faithful and the religious professionals at this point because they really don't think through things, they go by revelation. Looking at the data set from the outside there are religious thought systems that are way better at conceptualizing this form of reality than Christians. So I'm going with this larger composit picture pulling from a variety of older traditions and newer disciplines. I see it as a dual system comprised of a material and a spiritual dimension (whether that spiritual dimension has gods, God, or none is irrelevant).

In these reality constructions, the spiritual precedes the material both temporally and ontologically. The spiritual dimension has been observed, studied, tested, experimented with and its properties, attributes, functions, and interactive mechanisms mapped and patterns both observed and deduced. Then checked and verified by independently by others.

I think it would be really challenging to seek a point of congruence around which to build bridges between the single-valent reality structure of material universe as the exclusive reality and the bi-valent system of the dual spiritual-material reality

I just stopped for lunch and read this but I'm having some difficulty processing as it seems so abstract. I think I'll need to think about it some more after I finish my project. Our side gate and front fence need major work and I'm going to try to do it myself. So right now my head is in a very concrete problem solving mode. Bear with me for a while.

[Rahul]

The spiritual dimension has been observed, studied, tested, experimented with and its properties, attributes, functions, and interactive mechanisms mapped and patterns both observed and deduced. Then checked and verified by independently by others.

Hello, Wandering. Nice to meet you.

I'm not big on philosophy but this caught my eye. Can you provide links for me to verify this information? Thanks.

[Angrboda]

But there are traditions which do not start or end with God but have conducted rather rigorous and repeatable experimentation on consciousness itself. There are different schools of thought, different conclusions and different encompassing reality structures. But that there are multiple traditions engaged in the same types of work on the same range of observable, experienced data, to my mind puts them in a strong position.

"What a bunch of hooey."

[Undeceived]

I see the atheist data set defined as exclusive to the material universe studied through the hard sciences, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history. (I have a side theory that many of those who prefer the debate over discourse model are from the hard sciences rather than such disciplines as history or anthropology which deal with all the variability that human populations bring to any data set!). There is no need for a god, no data for the existence of a god and in fact the addition of a god throws the whole system off. So by definition this reality set can have no god.

I don't understand. Hard sciences have to do with the world at present. God has to do with the origins/purpose of the universe. How does God's creating the hard sciences "throw the whole system off"?

[wandering soul]

I just stopped for lunch and read this but I'm having some difficulty processing as it seems so abstract. I think I'll need to think about it some more after I finish my project. Our side gate and front fence need major work and I'm going to try to do it myself. So right now my head is in a very concrete problem solving mode. Bear with me for a while.

totally understand! I also have many other things needing attention so whenever you have a thought or two I'll check back.

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I see the atheist data set defined as exclusive to the material universe studied through the hard sciences, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history. (I have a side theory that many of those who prefer the debate over discourse model are from the hard sciences rather than such disciplines as history or anthropology which deal with all the variability that human populations bring to any data set!). There is no need for a god, no data for the existence of a god and in fact the addition of a god throws the whole system off. So by definition this reality set can have no god.

I don't understand. Hard sciences have to do with the world at present. God has to do with the origins/purpose of the universe. How does God's creating the hard sciences "throw the whole system off"?

It doesn't throw anything off in the world / reality structures of Christianity. You are in that reality structure so you would see it that way. But even in Christianity, God didn't create the hard sciences - science was created by the human mind to understand the universe. And the exclusive materialist reality set of data is not confined to the hard sciences but to everything and anything deriving from the material universe - so including history, art, psychology, etc. and ad-infinitum

People create sciences to study something. The methods and data sets used to study the material universe have nothing to do with God. And attempts to prove God through material science is an oxymoron. The purpose of any science is to understand something. The selected methods chosen either do or do not shed light on the thing studied or increase understanding; you continue to devise and use methods that do. The methods to study the data set of God would be totally different from the methods and data set used to study the material universe.

Christians believe that God is immaterial, outside of time and space, "Higher than your thoughts." How could investigation of the material universe even begin to study That?

To reduce your idea of God to: "God has to do with the origins/purpose of the universe." is a failure to actually understand God as such.

I would place the primary role of God as the one who entices the human mind to think beyond it's limited personal interests and see our connectedness to everything and everyone. God, if existing and if involved in the universe, doesn't really care whether we believe or not as long as we can be drawn out of our self-centered, self-investment and find connections with everything.

[wandering soul]

The spiritual dimension has been observed, studied, tested, experimented with and its properties, attributes, functions, and interactive mechanisms mapped and patterns both observed and deduced. Then checked and verified by independently by others.

Hello, Wandering. Nice to meet you.

I'm not big on philosophy but this caught my eye. Can you provide links for me to verify this information? Thanks.

Raul, afraid this wouldn't be as easy as links on the internet and it wouldn't be in the Western Philosophical type of discussion. And it would not be a small amount of information and you would need to do some study of non-western thought traditions to understand what was done, how it was done, how it was replicated, and the conclusions and results.

The experimental traditions that I am referring to are the Upaishadic, Vedantic, Sufic, and Buddhist disciplines which use intensive stringent body-mind exercises to experiment with consciousness itself. If it were just one of them and if it were from one period of history and if the practices grew out of and were based on the same religio-philosophical set of ideas, none of them would be particularly remarkable. And they could easily be dismissed as delusional thinking or as starting with the conclusion and working back to whatever makes that conclusion work - the biggest argument about those who believe in God.

What gets my attention is that these are from different millenia, different traditions, different geographic regions. And yet the reports of the results of the experimentation are remarkably congruent. And there are reflections of the same properties and non-local, consciousness influenced phenomena in a number of modern studies Dr. Larry Dossey (an atheist) has documented in a number of his books.

Two of these traditions do not believe in God, one does and the other held to the idea of an impersonal, unitary self-existent Reality as such as the basis of time and space.

Thus the spiritual to which I refer has nothing in particular to do with God. If there is a God, then both spiritual and material would be related in some way to that God. If there is no God that does not preclude the existence of a spiritual dimension to life.

If you do want to try and start reading in this area on the internet, give greater importance to websites from established universities with departments in Anthropology or Asian Studies, rather than book sellers or just anyone with a website.

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But there are traditions which do not start or end with God but have conducted rather rigorous and repeatable experimentation on consciousness itself. There are different schools of thought, different conclusions and different encompassing reality structures. But that there are multiple traditions engaged in the same types of work on the same range of observable, experienced data, to my mind puts them in a strong position.

"What a bunch of hooey."

Yes, Apophenia, from a few things I've read, I believe you are well versed in Western Philosophical discourse. This whole set of ideas does not fit into that mindset at all. And I presume that you consider only clear concise distinctions of philosophical classifications of thought to be the final arbiters of truth. So yes, this would be hooey in your world.

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I'm having some difficulty processing as it seems so abstract. I think I'll need to think about it some more .... right now my head is in a very concrete problem solving mode. Bear with me for a while.

Whateverist,
if my line of thinking is too abstract for your interests, I have another more concrete question which I find equally intriguing. You say that when your find a larger, more inclusive, better formed explanatory structure the larger "fish" eats the smaller and less developed one. You inhabit your fish which grow better and roomier for you as they are consumed by larger reality structures.

My question is this. In your metaphore, do the useful, nuourishing elements of the devoured world / reality / conceptual structure become broken down and re-absorbed, refashioned, re incorporated into the new one? In other words, do you experience this process in a similar fashion to digestion?

I am intrigued because as I mentioned I experience myself as the fish who wanders between my mental habitats. I keep the parts of each that work for me and kick the rest out. But obviously I find large parts of each that work for me.

[Whateverist]

Whateverist,
if my line of thinking is too abstract for your interests, I have another more concrete question which I find equally intriguing. You say that when your find a larger, more inclusive, better formed explanatory structure the larger "fish" eats the smaller and less developed one. You inhabit your fish which grow better and roomier for you as they are consumed by larger reality structures.

My question is this. In your metaphore, do the useful, nuourishing elements of the devoured world / reality / conceptual structure become broken down and re-absorbed, refashioned, re incorporated into the new one? In other words, do you experience this process in a similar fashion to digestion?

I am intrigued because as I mentioned I experience myself as the fish who wanders between my mental habitats. I keep the parts of each that work for me and kick the rest out. But obviously I find large parts of each that work for me.

I had some trouble wrapping my head around what you said in your previous post. To answer this question I would start by saying it was just an observation I had early on, that getting right is much more important than being right.

That said, I don't know how thoroughly each larger fish maintains what was best about the smaller ones. Frankly I think sometimes you just lose things when you go from one model to the next. For instance, having "God" as an inner sounding board probably has no direct correlate. Your greater self, unconscious and conscious mind included, gives a more inclusive view than the conscious mind alone can access. But that is far from omniscient and I sure don't think it is infallible. "Prayer", insofar as it is a focused opening to received wisdom, can probably be accounted for as a communion with the unconscious mind/greater self. But there is enough loss to account for some regret. But the upside is you are moving toward maturity/truth/clarity. So good enough.

That's a start. But today we're doing our postponed taxes. (Major yuck!)

[wandering soul]

The spiritual dimension has been observed, studied, tested, experimented with and its properties, attributes, functions, and interactive mechanisms mapped and patterns both observed and deduced. Then checked and verified by independently by others.

Hello, Wandering. Nice to meet you.

I'm not big on philosophy but this caught my eye. Can you provide links for me to verify this information? Thanks.

Rahul,
This is not external verification, but I wrote up a brief 2-page description of one of the experimental traditions (the Upanishadic) which led to several later schools of philosophy and scientific inquiry. I have posted the brief summary as a page on my blog at: http://omg-nomg.blogspot.com/p/the-most-...ts-of.html

This should give you at least some concrete information about the type of tradition to which I am referring. You may or may not find this interesting. But for a quick summary, this seemed like it might at least let you know if this were something you really were interested in reading up on or if, looking at the details you have no interest whatever in further reading.