God and time and space

[Horatio Parker]

Is there perhaps a confusion between 'psychic' and 'psychological'?

A stray from the context of what was said. Horatio used psychic in the more classic sense of "of the mind", instead of the sense of mind interacting with reality "wirelessly" (without a wired nervous system).

Yes. It's psychological. A psychic reality is an idea which influences the mind, and so is real to that person's mind. God is an obvious one. Or, in the example above, a snake.

It comes back to the question of what's real. If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, that entity constitutes a reality to them. Not an empirical reality, but a symbol of something not easily understood. IOW a psychic reality. If an idea is shared by many people, such as beauty, it seems to me a case can be made that beauty is real. If real, it can possess properties and qualities, one of which is eternity. Is that an empirical label? No. What a feeling of eternity or timelessness is, in an empirical reality, if anything, is unknown.

The point of all this is that these abstract subjective things are an intimate part of our lives. I don't see anything wrong with a systematized approach, as long as the parameters are understood.

 

[Juma]

A stray from the context of what was said. Horatio used psychic in the more classic sense of "of the mind", instead of the sense of mind interacting with reality "wirelessly" (without a wired nervous system).

Yes. It's psychological. A psychic reality is an idea which influences the mind, and so is real to that person's mind. God is an obvious one. Or, in the example above, a snake.

It comes back to the question of what's real. If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, that entity constitutes a reality to them. Not an empirical reality, but a symbol of something not easily understood. IOW a psychic reality. If an idea is shared by many people, such as beauty, it seems to me a case can be made that beauty is real. If real, it can possess properties and qualities, one of which is eternity. Is that an empirical label? No. What a feeling of eternity or timelessness is, in an empirical reality, if anything, is unknown.

The point of all this is that these abstract subjective things are an intimate part of our lives. I don't see anything wrong with a systematized approach, as long as the parameters are understood.

You have still not explained how beauty is eternal.

 

[bilby]

Yes. It's psychological. A psychic reality is an idea which influences the mind, and so is real to that person's mind. God is an obvious one. Or, in the example above, a snake.

It comes back to the question of what's real. If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, that entity constitutes a reality to them. Not an empirical reality, but a symbol of something not easily understood. IOW a psychic reality. If an idea is shared by many people, such as beauty, it seems to me a case can be made that beauty is real. If real, it can possess properties and qualities, one of which is eternity. Is that an empirical label? No. What a feeling of eternity or timelessness is, in an empirical reality, if anything, is unknown.

The point of all this is that these abstract subjective things are an intimate part of our lives. I don't see anything wrong with a systematized approach, as long as the parameters are understood.

You have still not explained how beauty is eternal.

Perhaps he meant to say 'internal'

 

[Horatio Parker]

You have still not explained how beauty is eternal.

Because it's one of the qualities traditionally associated with profound experiences of beauty. Not simply a superlative, but an attempt to render the transcendent intelligible.

As for what that means more objectively, let's consider universals in general. Truth, justice, freedom, courage are ideas that influence our lives. If your sense of what justice is changes over the course of your life, have you changed or has justice changed? And you are a part of a tradition involving many others over a long period of time who compare and discuss. So are all these minds continually constructing, deconstructing and altering a multitude of ideas that fall under the label justice, or is there a vision of justice that we are all continually trying to realize?

 

[Juma]

You have still not explained how beauty is eternal.

Because it's one of the qualities traditionally associated with profound experiences of beauty. Not simply a superlative, but an attempt to render the transcendent intelligible.

So its poetry.

As for what that means more objectively, let's consider universals in general. Truth, justice, freedom, courage are ideas that influence our lives.

Universals? You must be kidding. Those are some of the basic emotions, not universals. Humans has tried to define these concepts logically but utterly fail because they are not logical but emotional.

If your sense of what justice is changes over the course of your life, have you changed or has justice changed?

Now you uses two different meanings of the word "justice": "Sense of justice" and "justice" is as separate as "apple" and "fruit". But both are human concepts and neither are eternal.

 

[George S]

Universals? You must be kidding. Those are some of the basic emotions, not universals. Humans has tried to define these concepts logically but utterly fail because they are not logical but emotional.

There is a thing that people do. They project a point-of-view. A point-of-view like ours. We look out at the world, hear the world, feel the world, taste the world and change a single point of view. Another agency with a point-of-view at all must "see" something analogous if not precisely similar.

It is easy to imagine stepping outside reality. Being able to look down on everything real at once. Physicists do it with mathematics. Philosophers with a priori logic. Mathematicians do it with axioms (there is a +1, -1, and 0 and all else follows). Not an emotion in sight.

Well, maybe awe.

That there is being and I'm part of it and know it and know that someday the run-on sentence will end and I will able to say no more. My story having then been told I must forevermore be content for I will be able to do no more.

A universal? All things must end for those like us....

 

[Speakpigeon]

A stray from the context of what was said. Horatio used psychic in the more classic sense of "of the mind", instead of the sense of mind interacting with reality "wirelessly" (without a wired nervous system).

Yes. It's psychological. A psychic reality is an idea which influences the mind, and so is real to that person's mind. God is an obvious one. Or, in the example above, a snake.

Not God, no. The idea of God, yes.

Don't you make this basic distinction? Most people do it, you know. So if you want to talk about Universals, you better used words like other people do.

It's not a trivial point either. What is conceived of as eternal is obviously not the idea people have in their presumably mortal minds. Rather, it's probably what some people here call "abstractions". The same people tend to see these sort of abstraction as not in any way "in the mind". Whatever would be in the mind would be at best pale representations of them and definitely not eternal.

Seems to me you are just equivocating.

It comes back to the question of what's real. If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, that entity constitutes a reality to them. Not an empirical reality, but a symbol of something not easily understood. IOW a psychic reality.

Again, this is equivocation. I agree that people may come to think of the entities they have some idea of as real. Yet, this is very different from saying that these entities constitute realities to them, which would really mean that these entities would be realities to them. Please use the proper words. You could say for example: If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, they feel that that entity is a reality to them.

Short of that you are just equivocating.

If an idea is shared by many people, such as beauty, it seems to me a case can be made that beauty is real.

No, it cannot. Something else than beauty (say X) may cause people to share something that may feel to them like beauty even though each of them has a different feeling. What matters, in terms of the logic of it, is that we should nonetheless come to use the same word, believing we are talking about beauty when in fact we would be indirectly talking about X through our private idea of beauty. The reason this would work would be because of X, not beauty.

If real, it can possess properties and qualities, one of which is eternity. Is that an empirical label? No.

Not eternity. The idea or feeling of eternity, yes.

Again, equivocation. I'm not sure it's curable, though.

What a feeling of eternity or timelessness is, in an empirical reality, if anything, is unknown.

Unknown?! No, it's just meaningless. How a "feeling" could be "in" an empirical reality?! Beats me.

The point of all this is that these abstract subjective things are an intimate part of our lives. I don't see anything wrong with a systematized approach, as long as the parameters are understood.

No they are not. What is part of my intimate life are things philosophers call qualia. Nothing abstract about them. Nothing eternal. Nothing shared either.

If they are intimate, how could they be shared? If they are shared, how could they be intimate? How could they be both "in the mind", "shared" and "eternal".

Of course talking as if they were eternal may have it usefulness like mathematical concepts are usually understood by mathematicians as some sort of absolutes and their concepts are definitely useful. However, this is only if you make sure to eschew equivocation and ambiguity. Mathematicians are definitely very careful as to language. They don't usually go about their job on the theoretical basis that their concepts are eternal. And you could try to take from them and bring in some philosophical rigour to what you say.
EB

 

[Horatio Parker]

Because it's one of the qualities traditionally associated with profound experiences of beauty. Not simply a superlative, but an attempt to render the transcendent intelligible.

So its poetry.

It's not. It shares with poetry the use of language to communicate or invoke a state of mind, and much of the writing is beautiful in a poetic sense. But we're discussing specific states of mind, and specific ideas whereas poetry can communicate anything.

Universals? You must be kidding. Those are some of the basic emotions, not universals. Humans has tried to define these concepts logically but utterly fail because they are not logical but emotional.

Not kidding. That's what the game is about. We use universals all the time.

If your sense of what justice is changes over the course of your life, have you changed or has justice changed?

Now you uses two different meanings of the word "justice": "Sense of justice" and "justice" is as separate as "apple" and "fruit". But both are human concepts and neither are eternal.

The analogy is correct. Our sense of apples and fruit is eternal in the same sense, meaning that it does not change.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Humans has tried to define these concepts logically but utterly fail because they are not logical but emotional.

Humans are definitely logical. They can't stop themselves.

However, I would agree that logic is just one process in what we do. We also do emotion, deception, confabulation etc. and often logic takes the back seat, probably for good reasons (evolution again!). But the logic is still there, except perhaps for a few very ill and unfortunate individuals.

Further, is it really possible to resolve this issue purely on logical ground? It appears that nominalists and universalist (Realists) are still at it after one or two millenia of argumenting against each other. If logic isn't going to do it, we need some degree of emotional involvement, like "I believe that's true (and you're an idiot)!".
EB

 

[Horatio Parker]

Don't you make this basic distinction? Most people do it, you know. So if you want to talk about Universals, you better used words like other people do.

If you'd paid the slightest attention, you would already know. The point is that ideas are real. Or, to be more precise, they are real to us.

It's not a trivial point either. What is conceived of as eternal is obviously not the idea people have in their presumably mortal minds. Rather, it's probably what some people here call "abstractions". The same people tend to see these sort of abstraction as not in any way "in the mind". Whatever would be in the mind would be at best pale representations of them and definitely not eternal.

Seems to me you are just equivocating.

So these abstractions exist?

Again, this is equivocation. I agree that people may come to think of the entities they have some idea of as real. Yet, this is very different from saying that these entities constitute realities to them, which would really mean that these entities would be realities to them. Please use the proper words. You could say for example: If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, they feel that that entity is a reality to them.

Short of that you are just equivocating.

I'm equivocating? Physician, heal thyself.

If an idea is shared by many people, such as beauty, it seems to me a case can be made that beauty is real.

No, it cannot. Something else than beauty (say X) may cause people to share something that may feel to them like beauty even though each of them has a different feeling. What matters, in terms of the logic of it, is that we should nonetheless come to use the same word, believing we are talking about beauty when in fact we would be indirectly talking about X through our private idea of beauty. The reason this would work would be because of X, not beauty.

You assume X. Instead of introducing another variable, why not say that ultimately we don't know what beauty is.

What a feeling of eternity or timelessness is, in an empirical reality, if anything, is unknown.

Unknown?! No, it's just meaningless. How a "feeling" could be "in" an empirical reality?! Beats me.

How can feelings be real? Are you serious?

The point of all this is that these abstract subjective things are an intimate part of our lives. I don't see anything wrong with a systematized approach, as long as the parameters are understood.

No they are not. What is part of my intimate life are things philosophers call qualia. Nothing abstract about them. Nothing eternal. Nothing shared either.

If they are intimate, how could they be shared? If they are shared, how could they be intimate? How could they be both "in the mind", "shared" and "eternal".

So you cannot communicate or understand intimacies with others? And know one has ever had similar feelings?

As for how they are both in the mind and eternal, that's called participation. When we behold beauty, we participate in the universal, eternal beauty.

Of course talking as if they were eternal may have it usefulness like mathematical concepts are usually understood by mathematicians as some sort of absolutes and their concepts are definitely useful. However, this is only if you make sure to eschew equivocation and ambiguity. Mathematicians are definitely very careful as to language. They don't usually go about their job on the theoretical basis that their concepts are eternal. And you could try to take from them and bring in some philosophical rigour to what you say.
EB

Is the number one eternal?

 

[Speakpigeon]

You have still not explained how beauty is eternal.

Because it's one of the qualities traditionally associated with profound experiences of beauty. Not simply a superlative, but an attempt to render the transcendent intelligible.

As for what that means more objectively, let's consider universals in general. Truth, justice, freedom, courage are ideas that influence our lives. If your sense of what justice is changes over the course of your life, have you changed or has justice changed? And you are a part of a tradition involving many others over a long period of time who compare and discuss. So are all these minds continually constructing, deconstructing and altering a multitude of ideas that fall under the label justice, or is there a vision of justice that we are all continually trying to realize?

This is an interesting case of doing something broadly right but wrong in the context, like using the (ordinary) concept of mind in the context of physics.

You are basically systematising our ordinary use of concepts (beauty, justice etc.). Yet, our ordinary use of concepts is only really good and effective within day-to-day contexts of interpersonal relationships, in our jobs, family life, social relations, our lives as citizens etc. (but they become mostly useless in science). So you can systematise that and it would be no problem (but that's already done rather more effectively by dictionaries and linguistic studies). Yet, you want to do it by introducing ideas like "eternity". Mathematical concepts can get to be useful in many contexts but what's the use of the idea of "eternal beauty" in ordinary contexts? Or in what context is it at all useful exactly?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If you'd paid the slightest attention, you would already know. The point is that ideas are real. Or, to be more precise, they are real to us.

It's not a trivial point either. What is conceived of as eternal is obviously not the idea people have in their presumably mortal minds. Rather, it's probably what some people here call "abstractions". The same people tend to see these sort of abstraction as not in any way "in the mind". Whatever would be in the mind would be at best pale representations of them and definitely not eternal.

Seems to me you are just equivocating.

So these abstractions exist?

Again, this is equivocation. I agree that people may come to think of the entities they have some idea of as real. Yet, this is very different from saying that these entities constitute realities to them, which would really mean that these entities would be realities to them. Please use the proper words. You could say for example: If eg a person feels that their mind is controlled by an outside entity, they feel that that entity is a reality to them.

Short of that you are just equivocating.

I'm equivocating? Physician, heal thyself.

If an idea is shared by many people, such as beauty, it seems to me a case can be made that beauty is real.

No, it cannot. Something else than beauty (say X) may cause people to share something that may feel to them like beauty even though each of them has a different feeling. What matters, in terms of the logic of it, is that we should nonetheless come to use the same word, believing we are talking about beauty when in fact we would be indirectly talking about X through our private idea of beauty. The reason this would work would be because of X, not beauty.

You assume X. Instead of introducing another variable, why not say that ultimately we don't know what beauty is.

What a feeling of eternity or timelessness is, in an empirical reality, if anything, is unknown.

Unknown?! No, it's just meaningless. How a "feeling" could be "in" an empirical reality?! Beats me.

How can feelings be real? Are you serious?

The point of all this is that these abstract subjective things are an intimate part of our lives. I don't see anything wrong with a systematized approach, as long as the parameters are understood.

No they are not. What is part of my intimate life are things philosophers call qualia. Nothing abstract about them. Nothing eternal. Nothing shared either.

If they are intimate, how could they be shared? If they are shared, how could they be intimate? How could they be both "in the mind", "shared" and "eternal".

So you cannot communicate or understand intimacies with others? And know one has ever had similar feelings?

As for how they are both in the mind and eternal, that's called participation. When we behold beauty, we participate in the universal, eternal beauty.

Of course talking as if they were eternal may have it usefulness like mathematical concepts are usually understood by mathematicians as some sort of absolutes and their concepts are definitely useful. However, this is only if you make sure to eschew equivocation and ambiguity. Mathematicians are definitely very careful as to language. They don't usually go about their job on the theoretical basis that their concepts are eternal. And you could try to take from them and bring in some philosophical rigour to what you say.
EB

Is the number one eternal?

As I already suggested, never mind.
EB

 

[Horatio Parker]

This is an interesting case of doing something broadly right but wrong in the context, like using the (ordinary) concept of mind in the context of physics.

You are basically systematising our ordinary use of concepts (beauty, justice etc.). Yet, our ordinary use of concepts is only really good and effective within day-to-day contexts of interpersonal relationships, in our jobs, family life, social relations, our lives as citizens etc. (but they become mostly useless in science). So you can systematise that and it would be no problem (but that's already done rather more effectively by dictionaries and linguistic studies). Yet, you want to do it by introducing ideas like "eternity". Mathematical concepts can get to be useful in many contexts but what's the use of the idea of "eternal beauty" in ordinary contexts? Or in what context is it at all useful exactly?
EB

Sometimes I wonder if you read your own posts.

Our day to day lives is precisely where this stuff is relevant. Or do you live in the world of science?

The point is that it doesn't conflict with science. It's a system that provides meaning in a naturalistic, intuitive way. Revelation has a part, but we aren't asked to accept ideas because they are revelations. Revelations are subject to the dialectic.

 

[Juma]

This is an interesting case of doing something broadly right but wrong in the context, like using the (ordinary) concept of mind in the context of physics.

You are basically systematising our ordinary use of concepts (beauty, justice etc.). Yet, our ordinary use of concepts is only really good and effective within day-to-day contexts of interpersonal relationships, in our jobs, family life, social relations, our lives as citizens etc. (but they become mostly useless in science). So you can systematise that and it would be no problem (but that's already done rather more effectively by dictionaries and linguistic studies). Yet, you want to do it by introducing ideas like "eternity". Mathematical concepts can get to be useful in many contexts but what's the use of the idea of "eternal beauty" in ordinary contexts? Or in what context is it at all useful exactly?
EB

Sometimes I wonder if you read your own posts.

Our day to day lives is precisely where this stuff is relevant. Or do you live in the world of science?

The point is that it doesn't conflict with science. It's a system that provides meaning in a naturalistic, intuitive way. Revelation has a part, but we aren't asked to accept ideas because they are revelations. Revelations are subject to the dialectic.

Wow. This is so fucked up.... Of course we live in the world of science. That is what science is for. But the world we live in is not the same as the world of our experienced since those are filtered by our senses and the rest of the nervous system. This inner world is what you seem to call reality. Which makes everything you say so fucked up.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Sometimes I wonder if you read your own posts.

Our day to day lives is precisely where this stuff is relevant. Or do you live in the world of science?

The point is that it doesn't conflict with science. It's a system that provides meaning in a naturalistic, intuitive way. Revelation has a part, but we aren't asked to accept ideas because they are revelations. Revelations are subject to the dialectic.

Wow. This is so fucked up.... Of course we live in the world of science. That is what science is for. But the world we live in is not the same as the world of our experienced since those are filtered by our senses and the rest of the nervous system. This inner world is what you seem to call reality. Which makes everything you say so fucked up.

Do you ever communicate meaningfully with another human being? If you do, that is not the world of science.

 

[Speakpigeon]

This is an interesting case of doing something broadly right but wrong in the context, like using the (ordinary) concept of mind in the context of physics.

You are basically systematising our ordinary use of concepts (beauty, justice etc.). Yet, our ordinary use of concepts is only really good and effective within day-to-day contexts of interpersonal relationships, in our jobs, family life, social relations, our lives as citizens etc. (but they become mostly useless in science). So you can systematise that and it would be no problem (but that's already done rather more effectively by dictionaries and linguistic studies). Yet, you want to do it by introducing ideas like "eternity". Mathematical concepts can get to be useful in many contexts but what's the use of the idea of "eternal beauty" in ordinary contexts? Or in what context is it at all useful exactly?
EB

Sometimes I wonder if you read your own posts.

Our day to day lives is precisely where this stuff is relevant.

No. Read my post again.

Yes concepts of beauty, justice etc. are relevant to interpersonnal relations and social life (and that's already in my previous post).

No the notion of eternal beauty is not relevant. Or could you explain how by any chance?

The point is that it doesn't conflict with science. It's a system that provides meaning in a naturalistic, intuitive way. Revelation has a part, but we aren't asked to accept ideas because they are revelations. Revelations are subject to the dialectic.

I repeat my question: in what context is it useful, or effective, to talk of beauty as eternal?

Me, I don't see how it is in interpersonal relationships. There is nothing literally true about it so maybe its usefulness is the usefulness of a lie? It's basically a deception? Maybe it could be used in politics or in religious sermons? Can you help me here?
EB

 

[Horatio Parker]

Sometimes I wonder if you read your own posts.

Our day to day lives is precisely where this stuff is relevant.

No. Read my post again.

No what?

Yes concepts of beauty, justice etc. are relevant to interpersonnal relations and social life (and that's already in my previous post).

No the notion of eternal beauty is not relevant. Or could you explain how by any chance?

Unity. Clarity. Simplicity. Conceiving of all beauties as the same, universal. To recognize it visually, aurally, conceptually, or as a result of human interaction. To distinguish between an ornament and a moving experience.

Me, I don't see how it is in interpersonal relationships. There is nothing literally true about it so maybe its usefulness is the usefulness of a lie? It's basically a deception? Maybe it could be used in politics or in religious sermons? Can you help me here?
EB

What is beautiful to you? Not beauty, but the beautiful. What do you or have you experienced as beautiful. Have you ever had a moving, profound experience of beauty? Something life changing? Something that shaped or defined who you are? Is there anything in your world that creates a sense of awe in you?

 

[Juma]

Do you ever communicate meaningfully with another human being? If you do, that is not the world of science.

Do you ever communicate? I mean: you managed to be totally unintelligable in two short sentences.

 

[Juma]

No. Read my post again.

No what?

Yes concepts of beauty, justice etc. are relevant to interpersonnal relations and social life (and that's already in my previous post).

No the notion of eternal beauty is not relevant. Or could you explain how by any chance?

Unity. Clarity. Simplicity. Conceiving of all beauties as the same, universal. To recognize it visually, aurally, conceptually, or as a result of human interaction. To distinguish between an ornament and a moving experience.

Me, I don't see how it is in interpersonal relationships. There is nothing literally true about it so maybe its usefulness is the usefulness of a lie? It's basically a deception? Maybe it could be used in politics or in religious sermons? Can you help me here?
EB

What is beautiful to you? Not beauty, but the beautiful. What do you or have you experienced as beautiful. Have you ever had a moving, profound experience of beauty? Something life changing? Something that shaped or defined who you are? Is there anything in your world that creates a sense of awe in you?

Of course. But that is a feeling. An emotion. Noting universal or eternal.

 

[Horatio Parker]

No what?

Yes concepts of beauty, justice etc. are relevant to interpersonnal relations and social life (and that's already in my previous post).

No the notion of eternal beauty is not relevant. Or could you explain how by any chance?

Unity. Clarity. Simplicity. Conceiving of all beauties as the same, universal. To recognize it visually, aurally, conceptually, or as a result of human interaction. To distinguish between an ornament and a moving experience.

Me, I don't see how it is in interpersonal relationships. There is nothing literally true about it so maybe its usefulness is the usefulness of a lie? It's basically a deception? Maybe it could be used in politics or in religious sermons? Can you help me here?
EB

What is beautiful to you? Not beauty, but the beautiful. What do you or have you experienced as beautiful. Have you ever had a moving, profound experience of beauty? Something life changing? Something that shaped or defined who you are? Is there anything in your world that creates a sense of awe in you?

Of course. But that is a feeling. An emotion. Noting universal or eternal.

Yes. A feeling that every human has and has had as long as we can look back. Ergo, they're the same or similar enough that we can consider them so.