romansh

Hi Paul ... I would generally agree with the way you use these words ... just to play fair I will give my use for these words.

1. Divine/divinity: Generally try and avoid this word as it seems to be read differently by different people. But if I do use it (them) I tend to follow the Oxford definitions ... Godly or pertaining to god.
2. Transcendence/transcend/transcendent:  Again I try and avoid the use ... the simple use to go beyond I can live with but my experience on the Joseph Campbell site it could point to beyond all categories of thought, apparently this is from Eastern traditions or beyond natural this apparently is more of a Western interpretation.
3. Immaterial: I would agree with your use ... of no consequence though I recognize that people do use in the sense of no physical substance despite them always pointing to something that indeed is physical and responds to cause and effect.
4. God: with an upper case G refers to a personal being that responds to our needs. With a lower case g, this could be a whole range of gods which include deistic versions (delinquent Dads) to literally being synonymous with the universe (or multiverse if we are inclined that way).
5. Holy: Something pertaining to God which some people revere.
6. Spirit/Spiritual: When I use spiritual for me it is a moment of a sense of awe. Spirit - Glenfiddich or perhaps a feistiness etc.
7. Grace: Could be a short prayer of gratitude before a meal or a behaviour or trait with an easy manner.

Welcome Anthony.

The scientist in me rails at the title of your thread. Science does not deal in proof. It looks for corroborating evidence and when enough has been found we might treat it as a tentative truth. I can't say that Jesus has been the best teacher in my life. Life itself has been a teacher ... and of course I can point to various people that I have shared a path at times as teachers.

The best teacher of that in my life has been Jesus of Nazareth

Pointing to a single almost mythical character in an ancient text and saying it was the best, I suspect misses out those that have shaped your life and also events that have shaped your life. All the best.

Divine:

might be synonymous with common or garden (as an adjective)? Thormas suggests Being, Presence or Love (all upper case). I have a sense of love, but is Love something different? Being I can only translate as existence? Presence again similar to existence. Burl suggests it is Primary source for creation or a first mover.

My Oxford Concise goes along the lines Godly or pertaining to God.

Burl's first cause ... could be a quantum fluctuation?

Now I am not saying we can't have different views of what divine means ... we plainly do. But using the word when we have clearly disparate meanings means we each paint our own meaning. Which I think is Joseph's point. Having said that it leaves me flummoxed when reading about divine this, that or the other.

edit .... I have heard people describe cheesecake as divine. OK I understand they are taking liberties with the word here.

On ‎2017‎-‎07‎-‎16 at 5:56 PM, JosephM said:

ROM,

Perhaps none, Perhaps it depends on ones choice of words, where one is viewing it from and their awareness or realization of its source.

Hi Joseph

Can see that as a reader I am no further ahead here in the understanding stakes?

I am still not sure what the difference between divine intuition and the plain common or garden variety?

Quote

16 hours ago, JosephM said:

It seems to me that all divine revelation can be explained away by the thinking mind if one is so inclined and the event is thought about long enough. Perhaps, there is a logical explanation or evidence that will be understood in the future?  However, after many personal experiences it becomes evident to the one who has the experiences that there is something in our very being that we can't explain in words that (for good or bad, right or wrong, i can't say) intercedes (for reasons at the time unknown) in the normally natural accepted flow of thoughts in the mind and unmasks a state of awareness that i can only describe as divine. Here is another such life story of mine for those who have interest in such things.

So what does divine mean in this context?

On the original/earlier Wiki page for ignosticism there was a position quoted along the lines that words should be defined otherwise conversations would not be meaningful. I must admit I tend to agree. Now there are many words used here in these threads that seem to mean slightly different things to different people and at times seem at odds to my trusty Oxford Concise (trust me you would not want have Concise dropped on your bare feet). Some of these words include:

1. Divine/divinity
2. Transcendence/transcend/transcendent
3. Immaterial
4. God
5. Holy
6. Spirit/Spiritual ... OK this has been done before
7. Grace

Now I may add some other words as they crop up but I would be interested in people's succinct definitions for each these.

I am not expecting agreement but just a sense of how people use these words.

Thanks in advance

rom

I really like Susan Blackmore

https://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/first-person-into-the-unknown/

Personally I have not had any paranormal experiences.

Here is a RadioLab excerpt .... it is about free will. https://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/777882

The first 27 minutes sets up the twenty minute discussion at the end with Robert Sapolsky.

The first 27 min: In short, "Kevin" has epilepsy and has part of his frontal cortex removed. He does various societally unacceptable misdemeanours, gets caught and goes to jail. The last twenty minutes is the discussion with the Radioab host and Sapolsky (author of Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst). I will definitely read this in the future.

and this may of interest ... have not had a chance to listen to it yet.

https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/05/15/robert-sapolsky-tackles-best-and-worst-of-human-nature-in-behave/

11 minutes ago, JosephM said:

Rom.

Perhaps what Jung meant is in my words.... "i have no need to believe in God as to me God is self-evident, therefor i know. Of course that begs the question to define the word God and even the word know.

Joseph

Joseph

I am not overly fussed ... more a mild philosophical amusement  .... being agnostic 'n all.

But I agree Jung's quote is far more nuanced than a typical (Tia?) "I believe in God."

Here is Jung on the very subject with a bit more context.

Hi Tariki

Not overly familiar with Jung ... just read a potted biography and followed discussions about him on the old Joseph Campbell forum.

Things that stick in my mind (or at least readily come to mind) are:

A quote that went something like, "I do not believe in God, I know."

I am skeptical (sceptical) of concepts like a collective unconscious, synchronicity and archetypes but I can see the arguments for them.

Jung apparently drove himself to close a mental breakdown searching for these archetypes.

A fairly popular personality indicator Myers Briggs Type Indicator is based on Jung's earlier work. I am a very consistent INTP.

I also think he came up with (or at least perpetuated) the thought that when we don't like someone there is a internal fear that we possess that trait that causes us not to like that person. While a little skeptical I find that a useful thought (regardless of veracity), when I start dealing with people I find I have difficulty with.

15 minutes ago, Burl said:

The troll avoids an honest, two-way comparison of ideas.  He just wants to lure Tia into embarassing herself.

Funnily enough I did not feel sorry for Tia. I think she was brave and bright enough to understand she did not have the underpinnings to girder her faith.

I can't help thinking asking questions and answering them is a grand way to bring new stuff to the table, it might not be new to me or you but it could well be to some third party.

So the apocryphal Socrates was a troll. So learnt something new today. Poor Gorgias.

I agree statistics is an area where we have to apply care as to how we use them.

And I agree statistics especially in the human sciences a fraught with traps.

The presentation like you the one you provided show us the error of our ways ... in this sense science is self correcting over time. .Like many people saying there are errors in our current findings, completely and routinely miss the point of science. It is a process for getting closer to a more accurate description of reality. The fact that science (as a process) goes back and checks for errors is a plus and not some negative.

I would argue people in general use the scientific method more than the think   .... data, hypothesis, more data, confirm the data fits, do this for a few more loops, come to a tentative conclusion keep collecting more data. It is when people have come to definitive conclusion is when the fun starts.

And what is the alternative to getting models and data for the supposed immaterial?

Just speaking of debate and dialogue ... here I think is a really sweet example of dialogue.

I will never have one. [/tongue cheek]

Overall not terribly in favour of them, but then bringing an unwanted child into this world is not doing anyone any favours. Essentially it is complicated. I ultimately would side with, it is mother's choice (free or not). Forcing my choice on to another person ultimately will not lead to the sort of world I would want. Some might argue abortion forces a choice on the unborn, but there the unborn is barely sentient. We force choices upon the unconsummated all the time and for the clear majority it is not a problem.

1 minute ago, Burl said:

Haven't read the book.  It may be possible to scientifically determine the physical conditions which are required for the creation of matter but only if matter is actually created.

This "piecing together" of science by unscientific means is where the dragons lie.  Extrapolation, generalization, correlation, probabilities and other methods of informed guesstimation are often incorrectly passed off as science.

 

And when the pieces don't fit when more evidence turns up then a new hypothesis is formed. Science is a process not an end point.

Science is not without error or backtracking. But contrary to assertions like cannot assess free will I would argue it can. There might be certain things we don't know how we might understand certain concepts, but that does not mean at some future date we won't.

Extrapolation is where we can falsify a hypothesis or even a theory. It is where scientists put their appendages on the chopping block.

Correlation is a measure of how well the data fits the hypothesis.

Probabilities ... eg statistical mechanics is a powerful for understanding the behaviour thermodynamics. You will have to explain why this is here dragons lie.

Debate and dialogue, Burl. Debate and dialogue.

While debates and dialogue can work without questions *Oxford style" or not they are certainly not precluded.

The fundamental requirement is not new information but accurate information and if it is new accurate information for me that is a bonus.

Now if the other party feels needled by being asked questions, I might speculate that on occasion that feeling is actually a result of cognitive dissonance. Either way that party that is feels it is being trolled has many options and one of them is to answer the question openly and accurately.

36 minutes ago, Burl said:

So your question is, "Is it proper to ask a question?"?

Yes, but the person being questioned is not obligated to respond.

Absolutely ... I have no way nor do I wish to force anyone to answer questions. Having said that, when we don't answer questions in a debate and dialogue thread the whole thing becomes fairly pointless; don't you think?

On ‎2017‎-‎05‎-‎31 at 5:06 AM, Burl said:

Only a subset of reality can be examined scientifically. If you have spent any time in real science, you know that scientists usually examine only very minute aspects of reality. They are sharpening knowledge to a wire edge, not casting fishing nets into the unknown.

I just went, beginning of June, to the Imagine No Religion 7 conference. There I heard Lawrence Krauss give a synopsis of his book ,,, The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far. And whilst on holiday I read the book. Now it is clear that things like the origin of the universe can be studied scientifically. We do that even unknowingly when studying light.  I must admit I am intrigued by quantum phenomena. It is where the very small meets the universe in cosmology. So plainly the assertion we cannot scientifically study the origin of the universe is false. Scientists piece those very minute aspects of reality together into a bigger picture.

We might agree that the efficacy might be limited, but then you are discussing this with a devout agnostic. But I also use solipsism as excuse not to fail.

Now as to your assertion that that science only deals with physical noumena ... fair enough. But then the immaterial (I presume this is the other subset you refer to) is written in the physical (assuming for a moment the immaterial exists). We can only see this immaterial (again if it exists) in the material. I have no reason to assume this immaterial subset.

To quote a famous philosopher, Marx (out of context) ... Beyond the Alps lies more Alps. And the Lord Alps those that Alp themselves.

5 minutes ago, Burl said:

What is your point, Rom?  This discussion was over a month ago.

Do not ask a question.  Make a constructive statement and we can proceed from there.

My point is, it is OK to ask professors and people in general to clarify/defend their point..

Why should I not ask a question Burl? Perhaps if you could give a constructive answer we could proceed from there.

2 hours ago, Burl said:

What is specifically it that seems difficult?  Science is based on data collected through repeated, controlled observation.  If there is no data, no repeatability or no observation there is no science.  

There is absolutely nothing difficult about this. Who is qualified to question a professor who apparently can deduce or perhaps induce stuff without controlled observation or data? My question is not difficult Burl.

You missed my extended point Burl ... is a student not allowed to question a mistress or master?

I am questioning you right now. This is an opportunity for both the pupil and teacher to learn. Should not one think so... to put it in the third person?

On ‎2017‎-‎06‎-‎01 at 10:02 AM, Burl said:

Sorry. I have been privately instructed by our admin Joseph to not communicate with you in the first person. Concepts and ideas only svp.

 

Please rephrase your question in third person and feel free to contact me personally via PM.

Somebody with forty six years of working in science etc ... would they be qualified to question a philosophy professor? For that matter is there anyone who "should" not question a philosophy professor or for that matter any other professor or even teacher or god forbid a fellow contributor on a forum?

Philosophy of Science was a required course for my BS. Too late for you my friend, but you can catch up with Wikipedia.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

Just skimming through the article ... philosophers are not aligned and it does not even mention noumena.

Who taught your philosophy of science course? This is usually covered in the first lecture.

Funnily enough it was the tone (I read into) Jen's posts to Paul that inspired this thread. I see it lives elsewhere also.

I never took philosophy Burl. Did you question the professor in your first lecture?

Having said that I have been in science in some shape or form the last 46 years, so I am qualified to question your philosophy of science first lecture ... don't you think?