Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
- Consul
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Not true, because aesthetic taste is open to dispute. Anyway: De veritate est disputandum!
Frege's distinction is the one between meaning and reference [*, which is a standard distinction in contemporary linguistics. There's an analogous distinction between the intension and the extension of a concept. Intensional contentfulness is compatible with extensional emptiness. That is, the extension of a meaningful concept can be the empty set.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 12:00 amAs for Frege, he divorced Sinn from Bedeutung. I think he was wrong.
[* The German noun "Bedeutung" means "meaning", but Frege meant "reference" by it.]
Fregean concepts are like universals, so the falling-under relation is exemplification or instantiation.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Philosophy, IMO, is not about truth, but about taste. Anyway, I think there is only Bedeutung, no Sinn. I am not a fan of linguistics. The meaning of a sentence is its referent.Consul wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 12:20 amNot true, because aesthetic taste is open to dispute. Anyway: De veritate est disputandum!
Frege's distinction is the one between meaning and reference [*, which is a standard distinction in contemporary linguistics. There's an analogous distinction between the intension and the extension of a concept. Intensional contentfulness is compatible with extensional emptiness. That is, the extension of a meaningful concept can be the empty set.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 12:00 amAs for Frege, he divorced Sinn from Bedeutung. I think he was wrong.
[* The German noun "Bedeutung" means "meaning", but Frege meant "reference" by it.]
Fregean concepts are like universals, so the falling-under relation is exemplification or instantiation.
- Consul
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
I see a difference between philosophy and art.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 12:27 amPhilosophy, IMO, is not about truth, but about taste.
Frege thought that the referent of a (declarative) sentence is a truth-value (and as such a simple abstract object): either das Wahre (the True) or das Falsche (the False). He regarded (declarative) sentences as proper names of the True or the False. Others think that (declarative) sentences refer to states of affairs. But understanding a sentence is solely a matter of its meaning (the meaning of its linguistic components), and you can understand it without knowing whether it refers to an actual state of affairs or fact or not. Meaning is independent of and irreducible to reference, especially as the latter is determined by the former.GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 12:27 amAnyway, I think there is only Bedeutung, no Sinn. I am not a fan of linguistics. The meaning of a sentence is its referent.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Here's more of my messy writing on the topic - https://tapaticmadness.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/belief/
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
I love it and its liberating anarchistic power.
I like it too.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
But concepts are not in the mind only; concepts are physically in the brain-mind.There are no such things as concepts, which are only in the mind and must be tested against reality to see if they exist or not.
Your lifetime of experiences of vivid sensations must always be lacking in completeness. The same for all people. You probably have neither time nor opportunity to appreciate the lively beauty of brain-mind as neuroscientists know it.
Your subjective perspective is both necessary and valuable however there are other perspectives besides yours.
If you are to evaluate perspectives i.e. concepts and reactions, you need a criterion to do it with. You have a criterion maybe. I don't know if your criterion is quantity of feeling, or alternatively if it's beauty i.e. quality of feeling.
A young male is beautiful only if his muscles are quite toned and he is sufficiently nourished. Wouldn't you agree? Beauty must be defined naturalistically or not at all.
If I want to define some particular sensational beauty it could not be a universal but would have to be a particular, definitive paradigm case of beauty. And there is not even one of those that does not relate to contexts. The context is cultural.However paradigms of beauty are at least potentially multicultural, therefore it's possible that there is universal quality of beauty.
I repeat, how do you differentiate between your own sensations and beauty? A poet can and does define beauty. So does a scientist by implication of truth standards.
"Can such a rite be performed except as something sexual? No. Concentration. Penetration. Possession. In the Forms. Another Place." (GLS)
You can't possess If you 'succeed' in possessing you have enslaved which defeats your aim. Sensation as beauty is a dynamic process despite how we wish we could fix the butterfly forever.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Beauty cannot be defined. Neither can the Good or Truth or Reality or Justice or Taste or any of the other BIG ideas that govern our lives. We all see them where we may and that's the end of it. You will see them here and I will see them there. There will be no agreement. I am not looking to convince you that my idea of where Beauty is found is correct. I just write what I see and maybe someone else will see the same. That's all.Belindi wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 6:01 am GaryLouisSmith wrote:
But concepts are not in the mind only; concepts are physically in the brain-mind.There are no such things as concepts, which are only in the mind and must be tested against reality to see if they exist or not.
Your lifetime of experiences of vivid sensations must always be lacking in completeness. The same for all people. You probably have neither time nor opportunity to appreciate the lively beauty of brain-mind as neuroscientists know it.
Your subjective perspective is both necessary and valuable however there are other perspectives besides yours.
If you are to evaluate perspectives i.e. concepts and reactions, you need a criterion to do it with. You have a criterion maybe. I don't know if your criterion is quantity of feeling, or alternatively if it's beauty i.e. quality of feeling.
A young male is beautiful only if his muscles are quite toned and he is sufficiently nourished. Wouldn't you agree? Beauty must be defined naturalistically or not at all.
If I want to define some particular sensational beauty it could not be a universal but would have to be a particular, definitive paradigm case of beauty. And there is not even one of those that does not relate to contexts. The context is cultural.However paradigms of beauty are at least potentially multicultural, therefore it's possible that there is universal quality of beauty.
I repeat, how do you differentiate between your own sensations and beauty? A poet can and does define beauty. So does a scientist by implication of truth standards.
"Can such a rite be performed except as something sexual? No. Concentration. Penetration. Possession. In the Forms. Another Place." (GLS)
You can't possess If you 'succeed' in possessing you have enslaved which defeats your aim. Sensation as beauty is a dynamic process despite how we wish we could fix the butterfly forever.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
As I sort of said above, I agree with you beauty can't be defined. What we can do is communicate beauty from person to person. Some objects can communicate beauty from person to person and some artists can make objects that communicate beauty from person to person. I include beautiful performances with 'objects'.You can't possess. If you 'succeed' in possessing you have enslaved which defeats your aim. Sensation as beauty is a dynamic process despite how we wish we could fix the butterfly forever.
There have to be a components of truth and freedom from authority in it for an object to be beautiful. Even those artists who make art to earn their bread are not liars if they include those components.
Simple sensations can't be beautiful as those are neither true nor false. A beautiful tree does not dwell on its own perfection.
- Consul
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Philosophers have a lot to say about it: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
You're amusing, you proclaim your definition of beauty and then announce that it cannot be defined.GaryLouisSmith: Beauty cannot be defined.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Why not use reason rather than repeat factoids at me that I have probably known for longer than you have been alive? Each time you play gatekeeper, you just play a game a labels. Feynman makes clear the relationship between labels and understanding - none.
Reality does not neatly parse between "living" and "nonliving" but it exists in varying states of dynamism on a range of continua.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
Show me where I defined beauty. As far as I tell all I did was show where it has appeared to me. Others will certainly see it somewhere else.
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
I as a philosopher speak of beauty all the time. I say it is a simple existing thing that cannot be captured or contained in a definition. And as with all simple existents it is uncontrollable. It is incorrigible. It comes and goes when it wants and where it wants. We bend our knee to it; it does not bow to us. The most a human being can do is point to where it has appeared to him. Then it vanishes without a trace. The perfect crime.Consul wrote: ↑August 16th, 2019, 1:22 pmPhilosophers have a lot to say about it: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/
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Re: Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
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