God is Real: a dialogue

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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Terrapin Station
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Terrapin Station »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 20th, 2020, 12:25 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: September 20th, 2020, 7:55 am

What I just explained has nothing to do with nominalism. It simply has to do with the implied logic required to reach the conclusion you reached. Are you not capable of addressing that?
That's what I said: your post poses a realist question -- you seem to have abandoned nominalism. Knowledge is propositional, and your asking for the ontology of knowledge. Are you not capable of recognizing that?
What would you say asking for the ontology of knowledge has to do, one way or the other, with realism on universals/types or with positing real (extramental) abstracts?

(You should say "nothing," but I'm curious what the heck you're thinking. Again, the issue has nothing at all to do with nominalism.)
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Terrapin Station »

You're not thinking that nominalism is some sort of general or overarching antirealism are you?

Nominalism is antirealist only about specific issues: universals/types/kinds/categories and/or abstracts.
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Papus79 »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 20th, 2020, 4:59 pm To be sure, "We have to kind of, to the best of our ability, sketch out a relationship with it because its all we have...." Personally, I avoid "the bind" by separating my religious faith in a God of a certain nature and my philosophical belief in the sheer existence of God. So I avoid theodicy altogether.
I can't think of all of the reasons why a person would chose or not to to chose evaluation of theodicy but one of them is if the blade is constantly just missing your throat no matter what you do or how well you plan. That will happen to some people and part of keeping internal consistency under that pressure, almost a requirement for staying sane and surviving, is being able to square whatever gaps they can in their observations and solve as many lacunas and paradoxes as they can.

I have a funny feeling, for example, that we'll find evolutionary tie-outs with NDE's - not just having them or not having them but also that it might be the flip side of the same coin of genetic group or lineage in some senses in that genetic group might have 'spiritual' consequences or persistence in certain ways. I try that one on for size because 1) panpsychism and other related information phenomena and 2) Darwinian evolution by natural selection and permutations of success/failure in application of game theory, seem like they're two huge elephants in the room and they have to connect somewhere.
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

Terrapin Station wrote: September 20th, 2020, 5:28 pm
Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 20th, 2020, 12:25 pm
That's what I said: your post poses a realist question -- you seem to have abandoned nominalism. Knowledge is propositional, and your asking for the ontology of knowledge. Are you not capable of recognizing that?
What would you say asking for the ontology of knowledge has to do, one way or the other, with realism on universals/types or with positing real (extramental) abstracts?

(You should say "nothing," but I'm curious what the heck you're thinking. Again, the issue has nothing at all to do with nominalism.)
Propositions are "extra-mental universals" -- your perennial bugbear -- and if knowledge can be said to have an ontology, it would be propositions, and so in your harping on the ontology of knowledge you appear to acknowledge the existence of propositions -- these extra-mental universals. From your reaction to my pointing this out to you, this acknowledgment was unwitting.
Terrapin Station wrote: September 20th, 2020, 5:30 pm You're not thinking that nominalism is some sort of general or overarching antirealism are you?

Nominalism is antirealist only about specific issues: universals/types/kinds/categories and/or abstracts.
See above.
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Steve3007
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Steve3007 »

Angel Trismegistus wrote:Beauty cannot be separated from the beautiful object except by way of abstraction
Steve3007 wrote:Nor can it be separated from the "eye of the beholder". Unless you're a solipsist, the object can, and is, separated. That's central to what it means for something to be an object.

Beauty is a function of the interaction between the subject and the object. Therefore it does not have the same ontological status as objects. Objects are perceived by subjects. But, by definition, they are the things we propose to exist independently of any individual sensations of them. This is not true of value judgments such as beauty.
Angel Trismegistus wrote:Does light not have a value (speed) irrespective of our measurement of that value?
Fallacy of equivocation. (They're quite common around here). The word "value" is used in two distinct senses in, for example, the sentences:

"The value of the speed of light is about 300,000 km/s."

and

"I value your friendship."

So it would be a fallacy of equivocation to conclude "therefore the value which I hold for your friendship is an objectively existing physical constant".
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

Terrapin Station wrote: September 20th, 2020, 5:25 pm
Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 20th, 2020, 12:22 pm
Yes, I make the argument in the dialog, which must be read for the argument.
Actually, you do not make an argument supporting that you discover/detect/ etc. value rather than feeling/inventing/constructing it in the dialogue. What you do is ask a number of questions that you have your skeptic answer incorrectly, and then you simply make an assertion that value is real in the same sense that something like a flower or a person is real. That's not a supporting argument.

You ask, "And the value different people find in things -- this value called 'beauty' -- is that not also real?" The correct answer is, "No, that's not real in the same sense that the things that people find value in are real. The value is only a mental phenomenon. The things that people assign the value to are not only mental phenomena."

You ask, "But aren't these people finding the same value in these different things?" Different people can value various things the same, but that doesn't imply that the value is external to their feelings.

You ask, "if the thing is real, isn't the value of the thing real?" The correct answer is, "No, not at all. The fact that the thing is real (in the sense of existing extramentally) doesn't at all imply that the value exists extramentally (and is simply discovered or anything like that)."

You ask, "And to the one who finds beauty in another face -- isn't that face and the beauty of that face one and the same?" Again, the correct answer would be, "No, not at all. Even if we believed that beauty (or any value judgments in general) existed extramentally, that wouldn't at all imply that x and the valuation of x are identical."

You say, " Then the many judgments of beauty by many different people in many different things -- these all find something real when they find Beauty in these things." An appropriate response would be, "No, again, value is not real in the sense you're referring to." And of course, this is simply an assertion on your part, where you did absolutely nothing to argue in support of your assertion.
How Quixotic of you, sir, engaging an argument that isn't there! And although your counter-argument boils down to the immortal refrain "No! No! A thousand times No!", still it must be granted that in your capable hands the method of Denial and Assertion receives the passionate treatment of a nominalistic new-atheistic knight of the sorrowful countenance. Nevertheless, in the name of good sense it must be maintained, against the most strenuous denial, that the value, the value judgment, and the object of value cannot, on pain of absurdity, be dissociated, sir.
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

Steve3007 wrote: September 21st, 2020, 2:47 am
Angel Trismegistus wrote:Beauty cannot be separated from the beautiful object except by way of abstraction
Steve3007 wrote:Nor can it be separated from the "eye of the beholder". Unless you're a solipsist, the object can, and is, separated. That's central to what it means for something to be an object.

Beauty is a function of the interaction between the subject and the object. Therefore it does not have the same ontological status as objects. Objects are perceived by subjects. But, by definition, they are the things we propose to exist independently of any individual sensations of them. This is not true of value judgments such as beauty.
Angel Trismegistus wrote:Does light not have a value (speed) irrespective of our measurement of that value?
Fallacy of equivocation. (They're quite common around here). The word "value" is used in two distinct senses in, for example, the sentences:

"The value of the speed of light is about 300,000 km/s."

and

"I value your friendship."

So it would be a fallacy of equivocation to conclude "therefore the value which I hold for your friendship is an objectively existing physical constant".
Your charge of equivocation is supported by equivocations. I point to the character of speed possessed by light, and you point to the measurement of that speed according to one of mankind's standards of measurement. More dirty pool. Speed, whatever its measurement, is a characteristic of light. Light possesses speed as a characteristic just as a face or a flower possesses beauty as a characteristic. Speed in the one case and beauyu in the other is what I mean by value. To valuate, in the sense used in the OP dialog, is to appreciate. To appreciate the character of something is to determine its value. In short, no equivocation by Angel; equivocation only by Steve in order to support his charge of equivocation.

Angel's point
beauty:flower::speed:light

Steve's straw point
beauty:flower::300,000 km/s::light
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Steve3007
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Steve3007 »

Angel Trismegistus wrote:Light possesses speed as a characteristic just as a face or a flower possesses beauty as a characteristic.
I disagree for reasons previously stated.

English words often have different meanings in different usages. "Value" is an example. Hence your fallacy of equivocation.
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by h_k_s »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 19th, 2020, 2:48 am
h_k_s wrote: September 18th, 2020, 8:43 pm

Well here's what I taught:

1 - the overarching general rule of technical writing (anything that is not fiction or a novel) is to recognize your reader cannot ask you questions so you need to be thorough and specific;

2 - keep your language simple and understandable and your sentences short: subject, verb, and object;

3- explain technical terms as you go along;

4 - have a brief introduction, a brief conclusion, and a well organized body presented in the order you are developing your concepts from known to unknown;

5 - separate content into related paragraphs;

6 - prewrite (plan), write, rewrite (proofread).

Good luck with all that.
Six solid tips. That "overarching general rule" is especially incisive. Much obliged.
Did you take upper division undergrad technical writing in college?

Or are you a high school student still?
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

h_k_s wrote: September 21st, 2020, 6:21 am
Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 19th, 2020, 2:48 am
Six solid tips. That "overarching general rule" is especially incisive. Much obliged.
Did you take upper division undergrad technical writing in college?

Or are you a high school student still?
No, I did not.

I never in a sense left seventh grade, that annus mirabilis for boys.
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Terrapin Station »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 21st, 2020, 1:54 am
Propositions are "extra-mental universals" --
Ah--so it's based on a particular view of what propositions are ontologically. My view isn't at all that propositions are extramental or that they're universals. My view is that propositions, as meanings of sentences that can be true or false, are mental phenomena and are particulars (they're particular mental phenomena in particular individuals' heads).
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

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Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 21st, 2020, 3:20 am the object of value cannot, on pain of absurdity, be dissociated, sir.
Again, you'd need to provide some sort of argument is support of that claim, not just ask questions about it and make an assertion about it. Your initial post didn't make an argument in support of the claim you're making.
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Terrapin Station »

Oops re my typo: "You'd need to provide some sort of argument in support of that claim" that should have read.
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Thomyum2 »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 21st, 2020, 4:00 am Angel's point
beauty:flower::speed:light

Steve's straw point
beauty:flower::300,000 km/s::light
From the perspective of a logical argument, I would side with Steve on this one. The speed of light is going to be the same to any observer - the beauty of the flower will not. (If you believe that beauty is a property of the object and not dependent on the observer, I'd suggest you visit an art or music forum and see how often you can persuade anyone that a particular work of art or style of much is beautiful if they find it ugly - I predict your success rate at this will be very low.)

But that aside, I think there's more to this argument than first meets the eye, and Angel, I'm surprised you haven't turned to the work of your favorite philosopher on this point. In his lectures on Pragmatism, James said that:
truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it. The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.
In this sense, I think James makes a very important point that the truth of something, such as the correct measurement of the speed of light, is indeed a matter of value. We hold something to be true because it does have value in a particular sense. So if you follow me, I think you are approaching your case a little bit backwards by suggesting that value 'is real' - that Beauty, or God, are a subset of the collection of things that we identify as being 'real', or that we can can deduce or prove that they are real by any argument that proposes that they meet the requirements to be considered as such because they share some properties in common with those other objects. Rather, it is value itself, in its various forms, by which we make the determination itself that any and all things are real or beautiful in the first place. Value precedes these determinations - it does not follow from them.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
— Epictetus
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: God is Real: a dialogue

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

Terrapin Station wrote: September 21st, 2020, 9:13 am
Angel Trismegistus wrote: September 21st, 2020, 1:54 am
Propositions are "extra-mental universals" --
Ah--so it's based on a particular view of what propositions are ontologically. My view isn't at all that propositions are extramental or that they're universals. My view is that propositions, as meanings of sentences that can be true or false, are mental phenomena and are particulars (they're particular mental phenomena in particular individuals' heads).
\And whence the truth of these sentences if not the universal extra-mental propositions they express, the states of affairs or facts embodied by the propositions?
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