Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Felix »

GaryLouisSmith: The difference between a universal and what some call an attribute is that a universal is a substantial thing, i.e., it too can exemplify other universals, e.g. roundness is a shape.
If a round shape can be a universal than so can any other shape: triangle, curve, pentagram, straight line, etc. Where does that end? - practically any form could be a universal.
GaryLouisSmith: I think that one must believe in universals if one is to escape Idealism.
Most scientists have no difficulty denying both idealism and the concept of universals.
GaryLouisSmith: There being a generic form of Horse or House or Bicycle doesn't mean that there can't be an infinity of different species of that.
The horses most ancient ancestor looked like a deer, and rhinoceroses and tapirs are closely related to horses but don't resemble them. It seems that Nature doesn't have much confidence in your Universals.
GaryLouisSmith: As far as I know radio waves aren't colored.

Tamminen: Some creatures may see them as colors.
Some human beings can too, it's called synesthesia: seeing sounds, hearing colors, etc.

See: https://www.britannica.com/science/synesthesia
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Consul
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Consul »

Sculptor1 wrote: October 14th, 2019, 11:55 amPlato's theory is dead, and has been for a long time.
It's not insofar as there are living philosophers who believe in transcendent universals. Peter van Inwagen is a prominent example. (By the way, he's a theist and thus a supernaturalist; and transcendent universalism is clearly incompatible with naturalism.)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Tamminen wrote: October 14th, 2019, 9:36 am
GaryLouisSmith wrote: October 14th, 2019, 8:20 am Sorry, I'm still a little confused by the word "subjects". Do you mean minds or do you mean any particular that exemplifies properties, such as the particular in front of me that exemplifies desk?
I mean the subject of consciousness of the world. I think this is the usual way it is used in philosophy. Desks are objects in my vocabulary.
Why do you say that many subjects cannot exemplify the same Platonic form?
If there are Platonic forms, many objects can exemplify such a form, but not many subjects. The "forms" of subjects, like colors, are strictly private and have nothing in common until they become public in language. Only then you can say that your 'red' is the same as mine. But they are still private as such, outside of our using words like 'red'. The existence of language proves that our phenomenal worlds are similar, and within that world, as part of its structure, my 'red' becomes the same as your 'red'. There is no mysterious "sameness" that falls into the minds of all individuals from a Platonic heaven.
So much of what seems impossible to you, seems obvious to me. Why is that?
I think that is because I am more analytic than you, but blind to those things you claim to see. However, as you have noticed, I have other intuitions that many see as absurd as I see your Platonic forms. Such is philosophy.
I think part of my problem in understanding your words is that you speak of a subject, a mind, as "exemplifying" a property such as red. The word I use is "intend". I intend that my water bottle is red. Or I intend the redness of by water bottle. I would never say that my mind is red. Exemplification is that little word "is". Also I would NOT say that the red that I see is "in" my mind. If it is in anything, it is in the water bottle and that water bottle is on my desk, not in my mind.

I have no doubt that when you look at that water bottle you may see a color that is different from what I see, maybe not. Nonetheless, the color you see can be repeated countless times all through the world, all through time. That repetition is, as i see it, the appearance of the universal ever again. And a generic universal such as red doesn't always have to appear as the same shade and hue. Specific shades of red are all still red. Fire engine red is different from sunset red is different from popsicle red, but they are all red.

It is also part of my philosophy that the logical form of the world exists in the world. Sameness is part of that along with difference and all the quantifiers. Such logical properties don't depend on language.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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GaryLouisSmith wrote: October 14th, 2019, 2:58 pm I think part of my problem in understanding your words is that you speak of a subject, a mind, as "exemplifying" a property such as red. The word I use is "intend". I intend that my water bottle is red. Or I intend the redness of by water bottle. I would never say that my mind is red. Exemplification is that little word "is".
I used the word 'exemplify' because I thought you use it as almost a synonym for 'intend' in the case of a subject's consciousness of something, like seeing red.
Also I would NOT say that the red that I see is "in" my mind. If it is in anything, it is in the water bottle and that water bottle is on my desk, not in my mind.
The water bottle is surely on your desk, but the red you see is not in the water bottle. It belongs to your relationship with the water bottle. It is in your seeing, not in what you see. It is the phenomenal correlate of certain light waves that reflect from the water bottle and hit your retina. Your mind is a self-contained information system that gets its information from the real world. The red water bottle belongs to that information system, but the bottle itself has no color, other than the light waves. But you are right when you say that you see the real water bottle. We perceive things, not perceptions, as some epistemic idealists seem to think.
I have no doubt that when you look at that water bottle you may see a color that is different from what I see, maybe not. Nonetheless, the color you see can be repeated countless times all through the world, all through time. That repetition is, as i see it, the appearance of the universal ever again. And a generic universal such as red doesn't always have to appear as the same shade and hue. Specific shades of red are all still red. Fire engine red is different from sunset red is different from popsicle red, but they are all red.
The problem is not that we all have different 'reds'. The problem is that our 'reds' cannot be compared at all because there are no criteria for such comparing until we have language where my 'red' and your 'red' mean the same. Only a reductive materialist may say that our reds can be similar in themselves before language becomes possible to make them public. Whether our ways of seeing the world in general, our phenomenal structures, are similar or dissimilar is a public, empirical fact, but the qualia that are the subject's way of seeing the world from its own point of view are inaccessible to others except by understanding what that subject says. This is how colors exist, we do not get them from heaven.
It is also part of my philosophy that the logical form of the world exists in the world. Sameness is part of that along with difference and all the quantifiers. Such logical properties don't depend on language.
I have only tried to analyze the logic of sameness and universals among conscious subjects, i.e. intersubjectivity. Therefore language necessarily comes into play. I leave the status of logic in general for future discussion.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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Consul wrote: October 14th, 2019, 1:06 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: October 14th, 2019, 11:55 amPlato's theory is dead, and has been for a long time.
It's not insofar as there are living philosophers who believe in transcendent universals. Peter van Inwagen is a prominent example. (By the way, he's a theist and thus a supernaturalist; and transcendent universalism is clearly incompatible with naturalism.)
Theists and Philosophers are mutually incompatible categories in my opinion.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Tamminen wrote: October 14th, 2019, 4:41 pm
... but the red you see is not in the water bottle. It belongs to your relationship with the water bottle. It is in your seeing, not in what you see.
This is a crucial difference between your philosophy and mine. I think the red is a simple thing external to all seeing. Even if all seeing stopped, the phenomenal color red would still exist and my water bottle would still be red.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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This is a crucial difference between your philosophy and mine. I think the red is a simple thing external to all seeing. Even if all seeing stopped, the phenomenal color red would still exist and my water bottle would still be red.
But isn't 'phenomena' pertinent only to conscious beings? Don't you perhaps mean 'the property red' ?
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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Belindi wrote: October 14th, 2019, 7:48 pm
This is a crucial difference between your philosophy and mine. I think the red is a simple thing external to all seeing. Even if all seeing stopped, the phenomenal color red would still exist and my water bottle would still be red.
But isn't 'phenomena' pertinent only to conscious beings? Don't you perhaps mean 'the property red' ?
No, I call myself a phenomenological realist, which means that I think phenomena are real,i.e. they exist separate from and independent of the mind.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Sculptor1 wrote: October 14th, 2019, 6:26 pm
Consul wrote: October 14th, 2019, 1:06 pm

It's not insofar as there are living philosophers who believe in transcendent universals. Peter van Inwagen is a prominent example. (By the way, he's a theist and thus a supernaturalist; and transcendent universalism is clearly incompatible with naturalism.)
Theists and Philosophers are mutually incompatible categories in my opinion.
Of course you would think that because for you philosophy is really anti-philosophy.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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GaryLouisSmith: I would NOT say that the red that I see is "in" my mind. If it is in anything, it is in the water bottle and that water bottle is on my desk, not in my mind.
It is obviously a product of both mind and matter, of subject and object together. It's a dualistic leap of faith to presume that it can exist independantly in just one or the other.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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Felix wrote: October 15th, 2019, 1:02 am
GaryLouisSmith: I would NOT say that the red that I see is "in" my mind. If it is in anything, it is in the water bottle and that water bottle is on my desk, not in my mind.
It is obviously a product of both mind and matter, of subject and object together. It's a dualistic leap of faith to presume that it can exist independantly in just one or the other.
I am a dualist and I really don't understand the idea that it is obviously a product of mind and matter. That said I don't expect this dualist and you to ever come to an agreement. Dualists and monists have been battling it out for a very very long time.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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I am a dualist and I really don't understand the idea that it is obviously a product of mind and matter.
It's not difficult to imagine. What do (can) you experience during dreamless sleep? No objects of perception there.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Felix wrote: October 15th, 2019, 1:23 am
I am a dualist and I really don't understand the idea that it is obviously a product of mind and matter.
It's not difficult to imagine. What do (can) you experience during dreamless sleep? No objects of perception there.
Once again, in dreams I do believe that the objects experienced do exist as something separate from the act of dreaming. I am still a dualist concerning dreams. I believe I have explained this before on this forum a number of times.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

GaryLouisSmith wrote: October 15th, 2019, 1:35 am
Felix wrote: October 15th, 2019, 1:23 am

It's not difficult to imagine. What do (can) you experience during dreamless sleep? No objects of perception there.
Once again, in dreams I do believe that the objects experienced do exist as something separate from the act of dreaming. I am still a dualist concerning dreams. I believe I have explained this before on this forum a number of times.
Ooops. I misread what you wrote. You wrote about dreamless sleep and not the act of dreaming. To tell the truth I think I have no experience with dreamless sleep. I dream vivid dreams all night long. I always have. And in the morning I am tired from it all.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

The Bare Particular

The bare particular is the most easily dismissed idea in philosophy.  Few have embraced it.  Let me come to its defense by way of analogy.  Say you are a modern guy into UFOs and strange encounters, even abduction.  You start to use the word “plasma”.  It’s a word that I think is all throughout such literature.  It might be the same as the ancient word “pneuma”, which was a type of material substance moving mysteriously all through the universe.  And that spirit pneuma was alive, conscious stuff.  Today, of course, now that Descartes has taught us that consciousness is immaterial, we do not believe in conscious plasma moving all about us, taking on the forms of cats and ghosts and floating heads.  We are not into eerie, spooky ectoplasm.  I think you get the idea.



Now as you sit there so quietly in your chair, look about and see all the forms that the bare particulars have taken.  A lamp, a window, a muffled noise, some disheveled papers.  Today people generally want to say that all those forms are mind dependent and not really out there.  I have been saying for a long time that they really are out there and they are mind independent.  What you thought of as evidence of consciousness in here is really out there.  Think of bare particulars as plasma, which comes from the same root as plastic, moldable.  And look at them out there all about your room.  It’s almost like you are living with ghosts.  With ancient universal Forms.  With the intimate binding nexus.  You are a piece of plasma, or rather a bare particular, that has taken on the ancient form of Thought.  Everything is very old.  And it is all out there.  Oh, there is so much more to say.
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