Because we and life are complicated. People say things like 'my boyfriend left me because he couldn't deal with intimacy' and I know they left becuase the person was a control freak or something else. I don't take everyone's claims about their experiences at face value. This doesn't suddenly go out the window when dealing with phenomena that some people consider anomalous. A guy came up to me and said he was in contact with God. He told me some of the things God was telling him. They were all about restricting his diet in very ascetic ways, for example The voice was very judgmental. I said to him that I was not convinced that was God or a voice good to listen to. He disagreed. He came back to me 6 months later after a complete breakdown and said he now agreed. The voice had been demonic, and he now felt that the entity hated him and had wanted to destroy him, it's restrictions later covering relationships, not being allowed to leave the house and more, until the poor guy had a total collapse. He never looked healthy again.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 5:45 pm Why make it complicated? Why don't you simply say that the goddess Kali came to possess him erotically and then left?
Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
If someone comes up to me and tells me that he has been talking to God, I believe him. And I will tell him that he should believe also and not become skeptical about his own experiences.Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 9:56 pmBecause we and life are complicated. People say things like 'my boyfriend left me because he couldn't deal with intimacy' and I know they left becuase the person was a control freak or something else. I don't take everyone's claims about their experiences at face value. This doesn't suddenly go out the window when dealing with phenomena that some people consider anomalous. A guy came up to me and said he was in contact with God. He told me some of the things God was telling him. They were all about restricting his diet in very ascetic ways, for example The voice was very judgmental. I said to him that I was not convinced that was God or a voice good to listen to. He disagreed. He came back to me 6 months later after a complete breakdown and said he now agreed. The voice had been demonic, and he now felt that the entity hated him and had wanted to destroy him, it's restrictions later covering relationships, not being allowed to leave the house and more, until the poor guy had a total collapse. He never looked healthy again.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 5:45 pm Why make it complicated? Why don't you simply say that the goddess Kali came to possess him erotically and then left?
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
Well, sometimes that's gonna be you talking people back into spousal abuse situations. And, I know the above is true about you. And my take is not skeptical about what get called supernatural entites. I am not out there talking people out of theism. He thought he'd found an entity that would help him. I doubted this in the extreme. He came to agree with me, not because I mounted some campaign, or even used logic. I told him the entity felt bad to me. That's it. He came to agree. That happens. People make mistakes. I have. These can be mundane or not.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 10:13 pm If someone comes up to me and tells me that he has been talking to God, I believe him. And I will tell him that he should believe also and not become skeptical about his own experiences.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
Another story: a friend told me she had met the love of her life and introduced me to this 'great guy'. Me, and another friend of hers, a woman, felt immediately like jumping out of a nearby window. We were surprised to find out later that we both had the same reaction. Well, years later and unfortunately after the birth of a child the truly evil nature of this 'great guy' who became a stalker who mistreated the child and mother alike, the mother understood to the bone our reactions. It was not a 'great guy'. This kind of pattern happens with all types of entities and phenomena. I get it, you are a phenomenal realist. To me that is limiting. I don't take all things at face value. I find it useful to notice that others can not notice facets of phenomena, project onto entities, take an entity of one kind and confuse it with another. That while all things are in some sense real, what is real differs and is important. Most of the time I say nothing, because people tend to be at least socially violent when their estimations are not supported or are disagreed with. If I love them, I am more likely to share my reactions, and just as I experience them. Sometimes I know things that contradict what they say about X. Sometimes it is a gut feeling. Sometimes a bit of both. But i am not going to pretend that people don't mislead themselves.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 10:13 pm If someone comes up to me and tells me that he has been talking to God, I believe him. And I will tell him that he should believe also and not become skeptical about his own experiences.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
I'm not doubting anything you have written, it's just that I have known too many people who are so extremely judgmental about other people, such busy-bodies into other people's affairs, and they make me sick. I don't think it is your place to go around telling people how they should live their lives.Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 10:30 pmAnother story: a friend told me she had met the love of her life and introduced me to this 'great guy'. Me, and another friend of hers, a woman, felt immediately like jumping out of a nearby window. We were surprised to find out later that we both had the same reaction. Well, years later and unfortunately after the birth of a child the truly evil nature of this 'great guy' who became a stalker who mistreated the child and mother alike, the mother understood to the bone our reactions. It was not a 'great guy'. This kind of pattern happens with all types of entities and phenomena. I get it, you are a phenomenal realist. To me that is limiting. I don't take all things at face value. I find it useful to notice that others can not notice facets of phenomena, project onto entities, take an entity of one kind and confuse it with another. That while all things are in some sense real, what is real differs and is important. Most of the time I say nothing, because people tend to be at least socially violent when their estimations are not supported or are disagreed with. If I love them, I am more likely to share my reactions, and just as I experience them. Sometimes I know things that contradict what they say about X. Sometimes it is a gut feeling. Sometimes a bit of both. But i am not going to pretend that people don't mislead themselves.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 10:13 pm If someone comes up to me and tells me that he has been talking to God, I believe him. And I will tell him that he should believe also and not become skeptical about his own experiences.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
Sure, it's no one's place. I don't do that. But if someone come's near me and shares their story, I will, if I don't feel like it will **** me over, sometimes share my reactions. If there is love between us, it'll be often. That's telling them my reactions. I am not going to shut myself down either. IOW you are getting very close to saying to me how I should live my life. If people come and share things with me, especially friends and people who are in close relationships with me, they need to be willing to experience me and my reactions, just as I am willing to experience theirs. I won't turn myself off, just in case my reactions and thoughts might control them. I assume they will make their own decisions, perhaps informed by my reactions, perhaps not. I don't want people to shut down their reactions and hide their thoughts out of some fear of destroying my autonomy. I want their reactions. Now the guy with the voice was not real close to me, but we had had very open discussions, including of anomalous stuff, and he walked up to me not looking so good, telling me his version of what was happening to him and what the voice was saying. He was being real with me, I was real back. He did what he wanted to do. I didn't chase him around trying to talk him out of it. But in that moment I told him my reactions, person to person.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 10:47 pm I'm not doubting anything you have written, it's just that I have known too many people who are so extremely judgmental about other people, such busy-bodies into other people's affairs, and they make me sick. I don't think it is your place to go around telling people how they should live their lives.
Everyone gets to be free. Them to believe whatever and express their version, me to express my feelings and thoughts. They can always avoid me or break up with me as friend or beloved.
And if you can't deal with me being honest with my reactions - which are, of course, not always perfect or right - then you are just another judgmental person busybodying around my affairs.
What was my first reaction to the Kali story? I don't know. I don't know the guy.
The whole thing feels like baiting me to judge and then you can't be snarky about judgmental people.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
Fair enough. When I interjected myself into the discussion, others were talking about dreamless sleep, lucid dreams and other states of consciousness, including a type of mental and physical paralysis that people feel sometimes while waking up. So I asked about the feeling of being possessed by a god/goddess. I sort of expected people, who are mostly atheists, to object and say it was probably something physical or psychological and not really a spirit of some kind. I was on guard against that reaction. So when you offered it up, I jumped to it and defended the idea of spirit possession. In this world we need skeptics and I have no objection to people not believing in god/goddess and spirits. Perhaps I overreacted. But I do love the argument. I really really like philosophical argument. And here in Kathmandu, I am always surrounded by people who do believe in and perform ritualistic worship of Kali. I suppose I am coming to their defense.Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 1:00 amSure, it's no one's place. I don't do that. But if someone come's near me and shares their story, I will, if I don't feel like it will **** me over, sometimes share my reactions. If there is love between us, it'll be often. That's telling them my reactions. I am not going to shut myself down either. IOW you are getting very close to saying to me how I should live my life. If people come and share things with me, especially friends and people who are in close relationships with me, they need to be willing to experience me and my reactions, just as I am willing to experience theirs. I won't turn myself off, just in case my reactions and thoughts might control them. I assume they will make their own decisions, perhaps informed by my reactions, perhaps not. I don't want people to shut down their reactions and hide their thoughts out of some fear of destroying my autonomy. I want their reactions. Now the guy with the voice was not real close to me, but we had had very open discussions, including of anomalous stuff, and he walked up to me not looking so good, telling me his version of what was happening to him and what the voice was saying. He was being real with me, I was real back. He did what he wanted to do. I didn't chase him around trying to talk him out of it. But in that moment I told him my reactions, person to person.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 10:47 pm I'm not doubting anything you have written, it's just that I have known too many people who are so extremely judgmental about other people, such busy-bodies into other people's affairs, and they make me sick. I don't think it is your place to go around telling people how they should live their lives.
Everyone gets to be free. Them to believe whatever and express their version, me to express my feelings and thoughts. They can always avoid me or break up with me as friend or beloved.
And if you can't deal with me being honest with my reactions - which are, of course, not always perfect or right - then you are just another judgmental person busybodying around my affairs.
What was my first reaction to the Kali story? I don't know. I don't know the guy.
The whole thing feels like baiting me to judge and then you can't be snarky about judgmental people.
The fact that I am gay and I let it be known doesn't seem to bother anyone either here in Nepal or on this forum, but the fact that I am a theist does get people all bent out of shape here on this philosophy site. I don't mind. I really don't care. As I said I love to argue. So I do.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 1:16 am Fair enough. When I interjected myself into the discussion, others were talking about dreamless sleep, lucid dreams and other states of consciousness, including a type of mental and physical paralysis that people feel sometimes while waking up. So I asked about the feeling of being possessed by a god/goddess. I sort of expected people, who are mostly atheists, to object and say it was probably something physical or psychological and not really a spirit of some kind. I was on guard against that reaction. So when you offered it up, I jumped to it and defended the idea of spirit possession. In this world we need skeptics and I have no objection to people not believing in god/goddess and spirits. Perhaps I overreacted. But I do love the argument. I really really like philosophical argument. And here in Kathmandu, I am always surrounded by people who do believe in and perform ritualistic worship of Kali. I suppose I am coming to their defense.
I believe in spirit possession. And a lot of other mixing of beings as well.
OK. Yeah, most people on online philosophy forums have a real 'render unto science that which is science's' type attitude, and then add to this there certainties, often false, about what science rules out, what science is, what scientific epistemology is and more. And they are almost always presuming Christianity as the model for religion. So the contrast theism and science as faith vs. empirical research. Which apart from treating two things a mutually exclusive that are not mutually exclusive, they are also presume faith as the process that leads to belief for all theists, which is just plain wrong. Heck, it doesn't even hold for many Christians.The fact that I am gay and I let it be known doesn't seem to bother anyone either here in Nepal or on this forum, but the fact that I am a theist does get people all bent out of shape here on this philosophy site. I don't mind. I really don't care. As I said I love to argue. So I do.
Behind this is often a lot of rage and a sense that they don't even have to argue rationally.
And yes, they are generally not so likely to be as homophobic as they are theism-phobic. With the latter they are righteous victims or nobly refusing to be.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
OK, but I was just trying to say that my private red cannot be a property of an object as a quale. It is just how I see that object. We can of course say that all the ways each of us sees the object are its objective qualities and therefore properties, but in that case they must become public somehow in our language. But that is impossible. The differences of our qualia cannot be expressed in language. Language is possible because our phenomenal structures are similar, but the qualia themselves, the components of those structures, are like the beetle in the box in Wittgenstein's analogy: they cannot be defined in any way independent of language.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 6:26 pmLet’s say that Tom and Jerry are looking at a thing. Tom says it is a round, silver coin. Jerry says it is a black, oval slug. (Maybe they are standing in different light.) Those are two “subjective expressions of the same physical object”. That physical object has certain physical properties and a physicist can tell us what those are, but we cannot see them directly.Tamminen wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 12:36 pm @GaryLouisSmith
So you think it is external to the bottle too? Some think it belongs to the bottle, being one of its properties. I say it does not exist external to the bottle and it does not exist as a property of the bottle. It exists as a word in our language pointing to the physical properties of the bottle by means of the phenomenal qualities we have learnt to connect with those physical properties. The phenomenal qualities as such are nothing but relations within our color spectrums, colors in relation to other colors, and when our color spectrums are similar enough, we can refer to physical properties of objects using our similar color spectrums in telling what we see. Qualia without language cannot be properties of things because there is no way of determining whether they are similar or dissimilar compared to others' qualia. The structures can be compared, not the qualia as such.
If Tom cannot tell the difference between red and green, he cannot understand what 'red' and 'green' mean. He can perhaps communicate with others by inventing a word 'gred' and saying that he denotes by it what others denote when they say 'red' or 'green'. Now if phenomenal colors were properties of objects, 'red' and 'gred' would refer to the same physical properties but obviously different phenomenal properties. Phenomenal colors are real of course, but not properties of things. They express the properties of things in their own subjective ways, more or less adequately, becoming more and more objective as language makes it possible. If phenomenal qualities, taken apart from our common language, were properties of objects, objects would have as many properties corresponding to their physical properties as there are those who look at them.
Actually, I think, the subjective “expression” is not of the object, but of the object plus the whole context of other nearby objects, including a lamp, and the physical nervous system of the observers. The phenomenal world is an “expression” of a very complicated system of physical objects.
I put quotes around “expression” because that is what I am concerned about. What in the hell does it mean??!! I have no idea.
Phenomenal Red is an expression of a rather complicated physical system. A materialist would say that it IS the rather complicated system. Identity. The word “expression” seems to say that there are two things there: the phenomenal thing and the system. And there is a relation or nexus of “expression” between them. I’m lost. Help!
Back to Tom and Jerry seeing different things. I think that, in your philosophy, can be taken care of by saying they are operating in different physical systems.
It seems to me that my way of explaining things is much much simpler.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
The subject's relationship with the material world has the subjective side, the mind, and the objective side, the body. I used the word "expression" to describe that relationship, that the two sides of that relationship go parallel because they are just two perspectives to one and the same thing. I could as well have said that my body expresses my mind, but then I would have ignored the fact that my body is the functional basis of my mind.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 16th, 2019, 6:26 pm I put quotes around “expression” because that is what I am concerned about. What in the hell does it mean??!! I have no idea.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
Tamminen wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 3:27 am
OK, but I was just trying to say that my private red cannot be a property of an object as a quale. It is just how I see that object. We can of course say that all the ways each of us sees the object are its objective qualities and therefore properties, but in that case they must become public somehow in our language. But that is impossible. The differences of our qualia cannot be expressed in language. Language is possible because our phenomenal structures are similar, but the qualia themselves, the components of those structures, are like the beetle in the box in Wittgenstein's analogy: they cannot be defined in any way independent of language.
Unfortunately I have forgotten the beginning of this discussion so I can't go back and check where we’ve been and where we’re going, so I will just give my present thoughts on the matter. Let’s say that a particular bird is yellow. When I say “yellow” I mean the phenomenal color we directly see. There is no such thing as physical yellow as distinct from the phenomenal yellow. Physicists tell us that electromagnetic waves do exist and I have no reason to doubt them. There is a connection between them and our sensing yellow. I have no problem, though, thinking of yellow if they are not present. Or imagining it. Or remembering it. Or dreaming it. I know yellow even if those electromagnetic waves are not present. As for electromagnetic waves themselves, I have never directly seen them, so I can’t tell you what properties they have. Ask a physicist.
So what do I know when I know yellow? I know that it comes in various shades and hues and tones. Too many for me to count. There is generic Yellow and specific yellow. I think many people think that only specific shades exist and the generic is only a faint abstraction. I disagree. Generic Yellow exists. And when I read the word “yellow” I think of both the generic and the specific. Just which specific will be more a matter of chance than choice.
Now let’s go back to that yellow bird. Which specific yellow is it? It will certainly be more than one specific yellow and which one you see will no doubt be different from the one I see. So now the question is how something can have more than one specific yellow. If it is one shade of yellow doesn’t that exclude it having any other shade? Wouldn’t it be a contradiction to say it is both shades? If it is daffodil yellow, can it also be bright sunshine yellow? I seems to me that it can be both, even more than both. It can be many many different shades of yellow. It might even be both yellow and green at once. Which one you see is a matter of chance.
Compare this to an electron in quantum mechanics having contrary properties in superpositioning. Why not”
Kant had the idea that is assuming the reality of some property led to a contradiction then one should instead see that property as being in the mind as a lens that one looked through, i.e. as some a priori structure in the mind. I, on the other hand, just let the contradiction or quasi-contradiction stay. The object out there has many properties that aren’t consistent with each other. So what? I am not a Kantian.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
We all have our private yellows that we talk about publicly because we have invented language, but there is no way of comparing our yellows with others' yellows, to tell if they are similar or not. Therefore they cannot be propeties of objects. They remain subjective as qualia.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 4:34 amTamminen wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 3:27 am
OK, but I was just trying to say that my private red cannot be a property of an object as a quale. It is just how I see that object. We can of course say that all the ways each of us sees the object are its objective qualities and therefore properties, but in that case they must become public somehow in our language. But that is impossible. The differences of our qualia cannot be expressed in language. Language is possible because our phenomenal structures are similar, but the qualia themselves, the components of those structures, are like the beetle in the box in Wittgenstein's analogy: they cannot be defined in any way independent of language.
Unfortunately I have forgotten the beginning of this discussion so I can't go back and check where we’ve been and where we’re going, so I will just give my present thoughts on the matter. Let’s say that a particular bird is yellow. When I say “yellow” I mean the phenomenal color we directly see. There is no such thing as physical yellow as distinct from the phenomenal yellow. Physicists tell us that electromagnetic waves do exist and I have no reason to doubt them. There is a connection between them and our sensing yellow. I have no problem, though, thinking of yellow if they are not present. Or imagining it. Or remembering it. Or dreaming it. I know yellow even if those electromagnetic waves are not present. As for electromagnetic waves themselves, I have never directly seen them, so I can’t tell you what properties they have. Ask a physicist.
So what do I know when I know yellow? I know that it comes in various shades and hues and tones. Too many for me to count. There is generic Yellow and specific yellow. I think many people think that only specific shades exist and the generic is only a faint abstraction. I disagree. Generic Yellow exists. And when I read the word “yellow” I think of both the generic and the specific. Just which specific will be more a matter of chance than choice.
Now let’s go back to that yellow bird. Which specific yellow is it? It will certainly be more than one specific yellow and which one you see will no doubt be different from the one I see. So now the question is how something can have more than one specific yellow. If it is one shade of yellow doesn’t that exclude it having any other shade? Wouldn’t it be a contradiction to say it is both shades? If it is daffodil yellow, can it also be bright sunshine yellow? I seems to me that it can be both, even more than both. It can be many many different shades of yellow. It might even be both yellow and green at once. Which one you see is a matter of chance.
Compare this to an electron in quantum mechanics having contrary properties in superpositioning. Why not”
Kant had the idea that is assuming the reality of some property led to a contradiction then one should instead see that property as being in the mind as a lens that one looked through, i.e. as some a priori structure in the mind. I, on the other hand, just let the contradiction or quasi-contradiction stay. The object out there has many properties that aren’t consistent with each other. So what? I am not a Kantian.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
Your therefore conclusion does not follow from what went before.Tamminen wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 5:17 am
We all have our private yellows that we talk about publicly because we have invented language, but there is no way of comparing our yellows with others' yellows, to tell if they are similar or not. Therefore they cannot be propeties of objects. They remain subjective as qualia.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?
If there is an object that nobody has ever seen, and then somebody sees it, does it thereby get new properties? I mean the looker's private qualia.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 5:46 amYour therefore conclusion does not follow from what went before.Tamminen wrote: ↑October 17th, 2019, 5:17 am
We all have our private yellows that we talk about publicly because we have invented language, but there is no way of comparing our yellows with others' yellows, to tell if they are similar or not. Therefore they cannot be propeties of objects. They remain subjective as qualia.
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