Spirituality without faith

Discussion in 'Existentialism' started by Deidre, May 20, 2018.

  1. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    Science and math just “is,” it doesn’t require much from us.
     
  2. Alternative_Thinker

    Alternative_Thinker Darth Mysterious

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    Maybe, but that's still limiting in my opinion. When I perceive 1+1 as 0, that 0 can also become 42 if I just imagine it. Imagination, as far as I'm concerned, is far more powerful than anything science than "prove", because there really is no limit. Science can say water freezes when it reaches below zero degrees, or whatever the freezing temperature of water is, but I can imagine water can catch fire at the temperature of maybe 57 degrees celsius with the help of a Martian descendant who walk among us. No one can take that away from me, and that alone makes imagination more powerful than anything science can prove. At least that's how I look at things, anyway.
     
  3. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    Well, I think we can be spiritual and still lovers of science. Adherents of science. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, in my opinion. It’s important to not taint science and math with what we want it to look like. Everything isn’t abstract and left up to interpretation, but spirtuality is.
     
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  4. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    But without science, you would not be able to voice your thoughts here through the computer. So is it really limiting?
     
  5. Alternative_Thinker

    Alternative_Thinker Darth Mysterious

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    Yeah, but computer is just a tool. It's not replying to your post. I am replying to your post. And I'm a 100% organic, spiritual entity that just happens to be utilizing a computer to express various thoughts. Unless you perceive me as an AI with emotions, in which case, maybe I look like Haley Joel Osment in real life.
     
  6. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    That's my point, you are replying to my post through a tool brought about by science. There is objectivity here regardless if you think of yourself as a spiritual entity or even a dolphin.
     
  7. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    Humankind discovers science, though. And who determines the objectivity? There was a time when Einstein’s theories were laughed at. Now we accept them as objective truths. How to explain that? Is it arbitrary? There are new theories in response to the Big Bang, by scientists. Math is a little easier to agree upon, perhaps.
     
  8. Alternative_Thinker

    Alternative_Thinker Darth Mysterious

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    What exactly is your point? That I still use the scientific technology to post my opinion? What does that have to do with how I perceive spirituality? I can express my spiritual outlook without being on the Internet. You just wouldn't hear it then. In fact, the Internet is only one small outlet when it comes to expressing spirituality.Outside the Internet, a spiritual being may ponder, meditate, reflect upon, and perhaps ponder some more. At least that's what I do. But my thought is my thought. When I'm on the Internet, I'm merely using technology to convey what I think/feel. My thought doesn't originate inside the computer. My brain and heart haven't been branded "Intel iCore 7".
     
  9. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    Someone formulates a hypothesis, tests it, if the results match their predictions, they have other people test it in the same way, objectivity develops. I guess it depends what the theory is though, some theories are primarily granted validity by experts, other theories, such as those which have more utilitarian functions such as computers, are granted validity by their usage.

    I've never heard of Einstein's theories being "laughed" at but not all Einstein theories are accepted as accurate either.

    There are some theories in science, perhaps even branches of science, such as cosmology, which are definitely more difficult to get an objective consensus about, but similarly there is probably some obscure and higher level math that is also relatively more difficult than arithmetic as well. So I wouldn't say it's an indictment on science as a whole if there are some theories not yet fully understood. Like just because there is some varying ideas of what precipitated the rapid expansion of the Universe ~13.8 billion years ago with the lack of evidence thus far that gravity was once coalesced with the other fundamental forces, that this calls into question the composition of water or something.
     
  10. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    LOL My point is that through the use of the computer, you use scientific technology and your text is objectively evidential. I don't get what you're finding so difficult about understanding this. Therefore I am suggesting your problem with science is one of it's strengths. The computer is just an immediate example here to discuss the benefits of science, how you perceive your spirituality is irrelevant, I am not responding to that. Your thoughts don't originate inside the computer but the computer does have to translate and interpret the text you type.
     
  11. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    lol Not laughed at, you're right. I have read that though, but I think it's more metaphorical, like ''people laughed at....'' when talking about people in history. But, they didn't literally mean ''laughed at.'' His theories were dismissed by many though, until eventually...they weren't.

    Just a random question, why do such theories that have been tested over and over to prove objectivity, only remain as theories, though?
     
  12. Alternative_Thinker

    Alternative_Thinker Darth Mysterious

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    Your argument is based solely on the fact that I use scientific technology, whereas my argument is that scientific technology has no effect on my spiritual belief itself. I've never said that I have a problem with what science excels in. I've already established that I recognize the benefits of science. I'm using a computer, I have a smartphone, I'm surrounded by modern technology. It's not like I'm flat out dismissing science. All I am doing here is that I'm expressing my own spiritual belief since this is a thread about spirituality. Of course how I perceive spirituality is relevant, that is what this whole thread is about. If you feel like this is all irrelevant and therefore you choose not to respond to what I say about my spirituality, then you are totally welcome not to. But here you are responding to what I've been saying, so that's why we're having this discussion. I'm cool with that, too, don't get me wrong.
     
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  13. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    If you are thinking of the Cosmological Constant, that is still generally dismissed. Quick Wiki search shows he rose to prominence in his mid-20's, so it's not like all his theories were rejected and rediscovered decades later.


    Theory in the scientific context is different than theory in colloquial usage. A theory in the scientific context is well substantiated with evidence, it's not only an idea as how many would use the term. With how frequently this question arises, I feel like it would behoove the scientific community to use different vernacular for the general public's understanding but alas.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2018
  14. tikoo

    tikoo Senior Member

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    Human thinking is beginning to emulate Artificial Intelligence . It's creepy . Like when the drum-machine became
    popular and drummers mimicked it . Intelligence and Spirit can be synonymous .

    Na is earth, Ma is water, Śi is fire, Vā is air, and Ya is ether, or Ākāśairit
     
  15. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    I agree with you in every situation except that in the case of naturalism I see using the label of spirituality as inauthentic. It is categorically incorrect because materialism/naturalism denies everything spirituality represents. I don't mean to say that they can't or shouldn't have an ecstatic connection to the universe. But don't label it as spirituality. Call it something else----naturality for example, or a naturalistic experience...

    The problem I have is that there is often an agenda involved with proponents of naturalism just as there is with Christians that prosyletize. The agenda with Naturalism is more than just prosyletization, it is all too often an attempt to construct meaning from the ashes of a world that naturalism has already stripped of meaning. There is an ongoing attempt to paint it a different color so that it doesn't look so bad, but just like many religions, it tries to deny any alternative point of view, without sufficiently proving that one side or the other is wrong.

    I actually had to laugh when I read your post---for some reason it reminded me that when I first returned to the States after many years abroad, and experienced my first Fall in many years, I became very philosophical, and started to write a book that probably would have attempted to do much the same thing. My idea was to take the spiritual experience out of religion and attach it to an aesthetic experience of the universe. My idea was inspired in part by the experience of haiku, and in part by the beauty of nature. It was supposed to be a way of connecting to the universe in a manner that the religious and atheist alike would be able to gain from. The difference however is that I didn't deny or defend a spiritual aspect of reality. I had been inspired by participating in an indigenous healing in the Philippines of my stepdaughter. But by that time the shock to my Western rational sensibilities had largely worn off, but even then I had no cultural context with which to even make sense out of what the healer had said or told me.

    I prepared an outline, gathered notes, did a few chapters, played around with the idea, and then dropped it. But that was shortly before I hooked up with the Native Americans that have showed and taught me so much. It was through those ways (and frankly the indigenous healer in the Philippines, and others since then) that showed how real the nonphysical really is, and gave me the proof I had looked for all my life.
     
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  16. tikoo

    tikoo Senior Member

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    Well , life is wild . What can you know about wildness ? the more you
    love , the more you can know

    There is no alternative point of view .
     
  17. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    I will respond to this now. But first I want to mention something about consciousness that I forgot to write:

    The AI community is really big on HBO's Westworld as I understand. They have come to see the mind in very epiphenomenalist terms, as if it is nothing more than an organic computer. There is a sense that we will actually be able to achieve levels of AI where the computers represent a form of consciousness----even to the point of the legal question of subjective legal rights for computers and robots----for example, is there a question of rape in the case of a sexbot---can the sexbot say no?

    But what we are forgetting here is that we developed computer programming to mimic the decision making process of a human mind, (for example, If a = b then d; If a = c then e; a = c; therefore e). It makes sense that as we improve our ability at programming, and gain greater computing ability, and more powerful memory systems, that that ability to mimic the human mind would improve, even to the point that if we forget the original intent, we might be decieved into believing that the human mind mimics computer thought processes. That is what is happening now. To that I say that no matter how masterful and expert the forgery, a forgery is still a forgery.

    But then again, I have philosophical reasons for believing that consciousness transcends physicality and that therefore AI, being trapped in physicality, will never achieve actual sentience.

    Anyway, on to my last point---the idea that we can gain some profound meaning from naturalism that will give life value and meaning. The Rationalist Philosopher Liebniz, came up with the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Basically this says that for every question of why, there is a deeper question of why. If you go through the process of asking ever deeper questions of why, then eventually you should get to the deepest question of Why----which is a question of Divinity or God or the Absolute, for this is the Absolute sufficient reason of everything else. If there is no answer to the deepest question of why, or a positive answer, he said, then the questions of why would continue ad infinitum and life, being, and reality would be absurd.

    Naturalism does not provide an answer to the deepest question of Why, other than 'No.' Some people are fine with that. but many others are not. And even though many people are religious or spiritual, naturalism has become the Zeitgeist----the Spirit of the Times for Modern Western Culture----it is the dominant weltanschauung (world view). And so yes, life, meaning, value, truth, and even authenticity has become absurd in the modern world----this is the Age of Nihilism. Even Nietzsche, as he declared 'God is dead,' knew that this would lead us into the Age of Nihilism.

    What solace does Naturalism give us? That our life has value because it is temporal and has finality. Or that we should live life to the fullest because of its finality. This was Heidegger's attempt to give meaning to an absurd physical world.

    That may be fine and dandy until you are sitting on your deathbed realizing that you have wasted your life, and never got to do what you wanted to do. Or consider the life of a small child---full of dreams, and desires, anxious to experience life to the fullest, only to be gunned down and killed in a school shooting. How tragic is that? Could anyone even be punished enough knowing that this person has turned this young child's only chance at life, here and in the beyond, into nothing but dust, a living happy life, now mere meat and bone rotting on a school floor, and everything else snuffed out in its totality?

    And what of the rest of reality---the objects around us, the earth we walk on, the resources we are using up? To me the biggest problem of Cartesian philosophy is that it set a precedent for the modern age of holding objectivism as dominant. Everything became objectified into nothing more than an object, stripping away most if not all intrinsic value, which was then replaced by an abstract and ever-changing market value. This objectification spreads throughout our culture, throughout our reality. Eventually, even living things, and finally people themselves, are objectified into mere objects. In fact, even existentialism rose up as a reaction to this objectification in an attempt to return to subjectivism and give intrinsic value back to the individual.

    It is inevitable, once our focus becomes dominantly objectivistic, that at some point materialism or naturalism becomes the rule of the day. The objective world around us is the material world outside of our mind; the physical world---outside of our inner subjectivity (it is the other, or the object-sans-subject). So we become fixated on the physicality of things, the appearance. Such hidden realities as essence and subjectivism become meaningless. Sartre, for example, in the beginning of his introduction of 'Being and Nothingness,' dismissed the concept of essence as an embarrasment we have thankfully dropped. For him, the essence of a thing was in its appearance; its existence---the object's outer objective reality (and yet, even the subjectivism he was trying to save was also a hidden reality buried under objectivity!). Therefore the Naturalist world, no matter how earth-friendly sounding its name is, becomes nothing more than a world of objectified objects, both inanimate, or dead, and living. There is no sufficient cause to give anything meaning, so it is all meaningless. Everything and everyone is a tool for 'My, Me, Me, My' as the Beatle's sang. We take, we reap, we pollute, we destroy, we discard, we crush, we hurt, we kill---everything and everyone.

    Even existentialism, trying to milk and squeeze whatever meaning it could from the overlying materialist (naturalist) context it was born into, could not achieve enough to save man's subjective self, and survive. (It was doomed by the materialist overtones of existenzial.) It was replaced by structuralism, which sought meaning from the objectivistic and overly abstract structure of language, until eventually, post-structuralists were arguing that the subjective self does not even really exist, and reality is determined by language. (No---not the objects themselves---remember? They are meaningless---so it is not something real and material that creates reality, but something abstract and objectively immaterial---words.)

    In an absurd world, naturalism therefore only perpetuates the absurd.

    The problem is we now see the world through post-enlightenment eyes. So we can't expect spirituality or religion to rise up and save the day. We can't expect Naturalists, for example, to suddenly become spiritual. Perhaps this is part of why the existentialist, Martin Heidegger, felt it very important to build a philosophical pathway back to the God or Gods, so that if they do exist, there they are, and if they don't, well at least we better understand our own Being. But there is a path back to the Gods---one that was still a bit obscure for existentialists to latch onto, and Naturalists have certainly failed to understand the implications----Quantum Mechanics.

    The Quantum World is most certainly a hidden world, and as I mentioned previously, it is a world that transcends space-time. Therefore it represents a world beyond existence. I can say this because even the root meaning of existence is to 'stand out in (or with) appearance, in other words to have physicality; to have a fixed position in space-time. This fixed position is dependent upon only one side of quantum reality----that of the collapsed particle, as opposed to the superpositioned wave-field. A particle can collapse anywhere and anytime in the universe. But it collapses right then and there to participate in creating that object. What determines why it should do this is the Quantum Information encoded into it---a nonphysical thing that we could relate to intention, and therefore, in this sense, mind.

    I have come up with my own modern version of Liebniz' Principle of Sufficient Cause. It has a long name and a shortened name (since both names are sitting in a manuscript with a publisher, whether both names will survive to publication, or whether they will publish it is another matter). The long name is Principle of Sufficient Quantum Facticity and Reason in Consistency of Physicality (I borrowed facticity from Sartre) and the shortened name is Principle of Sufficient Quantum Form. The principle is stated in language similar to that of Liebniz: For every physical existent, because it remains consistent from one moment to the next, there must be, at the Quantum level, sufficient facticity, reason, and cause (Quantum Information) for each quanta to overcome the superpositioned wave-field state, and quantum randomness, in order to maintain such physical consistency.

    This principle does not take us to the Absolute as Liebniz' Principle does. But it is a Quantum Mechanical argument for essentialism---i.e. Quantum Information is essence---or as the Ancient Greeks called it, eidos----the idea, the nonphysical form. Quantum Mechanics has returned us to that hidden reality that Sartre called an embarassment, and now we must wonder if the real embarassment was that we had denied the nonphysical as a potential reality.

    Eidos is intimately connected with mind. Consider that every thought you have represents, as the philosopher Brentano stated, an Intentional Object. It always refers to a 'thing.' You always think of a thing, and cannot have a thought without it representing some thing. Quantum Information as well, I argue, has an intentional object. This intentional object is the particle that collapses from the 'entire' universe into a single point of space and time. It is there for only the briefest moments of time---so brief that it was almost not even there (after all, it was, and always is, across the entire universe...) We understand the appearance of a particle to be potentially random, and argue that Quantum Information is a probability (In other words, there is a free will built into the universe). Yet from moment to moment every object in the universe, and in particular, those within our own realities, continue to exist with a consistent continuous form---the direct result of countless brief moments of countless collapsed particles appearing from nothingness---the whole universe collectively becoming each one of those very objects.

    Here we begin to recreate intrinsic value-----every thing, every 'being,' has physical existence because it is the direct result of intention at a subatomic, atomic, and molecular level. It is there because somehow it was intended to be there. But this is idealism, not naturalism---the concept that idea, or eidos, permeates the entire universe; that everything has essence.
     
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  18. tikoo

    tikoo Senior Member

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    Holding the essence is a spiritual thing to do . I've seen little kids doing it lately , which means - they appear
    to be holding an invisible ball and studying upon it curiously . Elemental sign-language : yet not necessarily
    social .

    Last night I witnessed a 3yr at such play . So , I made the sign too , so he could see an essence of all his relations .
    One of which is his Uncle .
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2018
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  19. tikoo

    tikoo Senior Member

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    For me , the written symbol for Essence is a bowl (such as for receiving food ) . Sometimes I'll ask ,
    " So , what's in your magic bowl ? " Perhaps the reply is Feeling . And you are considering the essence
    (the magic) of that , and if you like - then we shall think of this together .

    Spirit in motion .
    .
    .
    .
     
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  20. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    I don't think the author of that article fully understands the implications of duality. Science also paints a very dualistic picture of the world. In fact, civilization is founded upon dualism and it affects our whole perception of reality. So the author is not exactly correct in demeaning religion for its dualism and thinking that Naturalism resolves that.

    Dualism began to shape our perception of the world in the early planter communities---the villages that grew into city-states, and eventually nations. Prior to that, man looked at his world as a multiplicity. What had changed is that man had developed a group ethic in these communities. No longer could a hunter or a few hunters go out and hunt and thereby feed a portion, or even all, of the community. No longer was subsistence planting sufficient for the needs of the people. As these planter communities were established, they could no longer move about the land, so they were limited to the resources at hand. It required a group of people to clear the fields, plant, and harvest enough crops that the community as a whole could be sustained, with ample food lasting even outside of the harvest season. They needed a surplus. So it took a group working together, and this group had their fields, and they had their homes, and their community, so now we have a stronger sense of ownership, this meant that the fields were theirs, and theirs alone. The group ethic therefore implied an in-group ethic. Anyone who came from outside of the group and wanted something of the harvest was a member not of the group---he represented an out-group. This person therefore needed to offer something in return to be able to have any of that harvest. In this way dualism began to be formulated: us-them, mine-theirs, and so forth. Ownership was a very big part of this rising dynamic of dualism. This was also the dawn of a more specific objectivist thought---the duality of the object vs the subject. Man had gained control from the gods over producing his own food, and so he had a greater focus on the physical world around him---the objects in his reality. Suddenly there was a stronger distinction between the subject and object, and he as subject was able to control the objects in his reality.

    The feminine reigned supreme in the early planter communities, when birth and sprouting (fertility) were so significant. Everything was about the goddess and the vagina. Therefore the women had the greatest control in many of these communitites, even down to property rights. But duality was not yet so strongly defined. As fields and crops became more established, the focus began to shift from the birth to the fertilization----from the vagina to the penis. As the male God rose to power, the world became more black and white (more dualistic) and more objectivistic. The female was demonized and as she became the marginalized half of the male-female duality, she was objectified into little more than property.

    All of this happened as the institutions of civilization, including religion, were being shaped and formed. So civilization was founded upon dualism, a group ethic, and objectivism, and at an early stage the masculine took over.

    You see this same dynamic of a shift from a hunter-gatherer multiplicity to a planter culture duality playing out even in the Americas where, for example, the Plains Indians are more multiplistic and individual oriented than the tribes in the Southwest where they lived in fixed dwellings in communities as a planter culture. Ceremony in the Southwest is therefore more specific to the group, such as with the kachina dancers which present to the group. You also see the rise of the twin motif as dualism begins to take hold. But the end-game of this evolution is not the same in every society. In my observation it depends on how separated the people are from an older indigenous spirituality. The Judeo-Christian tradition is far more removed from its ancestral roots than say Taoism which held onto the multiplicity of the Ural-Altaic shamanistic traditions it passed down from. Therefore in China there is still a tradition of balance between the multiplistic forces rather than the more defined battle between two opposing forces that you have in the West.

    The problem is that this dualism, group ethic, and objectivism are very divisive, and are therefore responsible for many of the problems of civilization and the world today. In fact this is what I find so distasteful about Chrisitianity. It often offers no tolerance for those of different beliefs, and the good-evil duality leaves it overly judgemental.

    I disagree that Naturalism provides a third path. If we say that religion is the first path, and atheism the second one, the Naturalist would be on that same second path. You are very right though, there are many paths.

    I think that Materialism or Naturalism, and the present day Nihilism represent the final end-conlcusion to the dualism, group ethic, and objectivism of Western civilization. It was inevitable, including the materialism and secularization of the Modern World. In order for civilization to survive we need to find a new Unifying Truth---and to rediscover meaning, value, and authenticity. I believe this means breaking away from the dualism, the group ethic, and the objectivism. I would say that we have already begun. For example, as the Theories of Relativity gave rise to a new way of looking at the universe, relativism spread through our culture, allowing for a break down in the stiff structure of dualism. As Quantum Mechanics begins to shape a greater world view and impact more of our culture, I believe it will bring about a greater focus on subjectivity and individuation. The internet has already impacted society in this manner and will continue to do so (though search algorithms have also had the opposite effect, and have served to divide our Nation in a largely dualistic manner).

    But there are many answers. That is the multiplicity. In a multiplistic society, balance is the key, rather than a cosmic competition.
     

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