Of course you would say that james, but there are two kinds of pantheism. There’s the spiritual native American new age stuff by the alien conspiracy section and there’s the bruno/spinoza rationalism of the enlightenment. Now that you mention it AO is readily compatible with what ontology there is in these philosophers ideas. I don’t see how you don’t recognize the substance philosophy of spinoza to be something like the affectance. It’s a singular acausal plane of immanence of effects over what we observe as the material world. These pantheists are arguing from a technical point of view… the causal and logical problems of two substantial things such as ‘god’ and ‘creation’ coexisting and being able to relate. How does the work? Hint: it doesn’t.
Pantheism, the real stuff, not what the couple at the coffee shop poetry reading in turtleneck sweaters call themselves… i promise you they got that word out of an astrology book. I’m talking about property dualism (monism), not substance dualism. None of this conflicts with the basic tenants of AO.
Of course you would say that james, but there are two kinds of pantheism. There’s the spiritual native American new age stuff by the alien conspiracy section and there’s the bruno/spinoza rationalism of the enlightenment. Now that you mention it AO is readily compatible with what ontology there is in these philosophers ideas. I don’t see how you don’t recognize the substance philosophy of spinoza to be something like the affectance. It’s a singular acausal plane of immanence of effects over what we observe as the material world. These pantheists are arguing from a technical point of view… the causal and logical problems of two substantial things such as ‘god’ and ‘creation’ coexisting and being able to relate. How does the work? Hint: it doesn’t.
Pantheism, the real stuff, not what the couple at the coffee shop poetry reading in turtleneck sweaters call themselves… i promise you they got that word out of an astrology book. I’m talking about property dualism (monism), not substance dualism. None of this conflicts with the basic tenants of AO.
I merely said that it was primitive. RM:AO is not so much so.
And although Espinoza was at least clever enough to attend to definitions in proper rationalist style, it too was relatively primitive. Espinoza’s version of Pantheism relates God to what he would have accepted as Affectance. But that is an issue of proper definition, most importantly of “God”. A substance cannot be God merely due to the definition of God (any one of many).
There is a definite distinction between God and physicality. Pantheism implies simple ignorance of that distinction.
By definition, there are “things” that are not part of God (again any one of many definitions).
There is a Conceptual/Divine realm, a Physical/Mortal realm, and recently designated Perceptual/Apparent realm.
“But that is an issue of proper definition, most importantly of “God”. A substance cannot be God merely due to the definition of God (any one of many).”
Right because that would be circular reasoning. But if being infinite, eternal, uncaused or self caused or any of the other characteristics we usually attribute to a ‘god’ is possible, then some aspects of nature cold be said to be ‘godly’ in that respect. Thats what spinoza did… Deify nature. But we add nothing to nature by calling it god, so you could probably get away with calling spinoza an atheist.
In any case i don’t know about that three realm stuff. Thats the kind of obscure stuff you don’t have to sort out if you’re a monist. Which realm is god located in, Gary? The second one, sir? NO. The first one. Why? Because transferentional interdimensionals don’t correspond in 2d? That is correct, Gary!
I think youre just unwilling to accept there are big problems with transcendent theories of god… Logical and causal problems. The theoretical model of god with the least amount of obfuscation is probably spinoza’s. Its certainly the simplest. Less can go wrong with it… Think your uncles old Buick. Now think about AO and one of those new scions. Look at how jam packed the engine is and all that gratuitous wiring. It would take you an hour just to get to the problem if you even knew what it was.
This is the kind of problem you might have with the AO three realm theory of god. It overcomplicates things.
The issue that brings up the need to have a Conceptual realm involves the question and concern of the existence of conceptual entities, such as circles, squares, laws of physics, and gods. Espinoza didn’t handle that issue (as far as I know).
An ontology is a matter of choice. If the material, physical universe is all you care about, the Conceptual realm of existence isn’t relevant, so you can limit your ontology to deal only with the physical. And in that case, you are stuck with AO. Or if you want to be more sophisticated and deal with ideals, concepts, forms, and so on, as Plato did, then you can include a Conceptual realm into your ontology, separate from the physical realm (as it has always been defined). And in that case, you are also stuck with AO.
Oh man, you haven’t read the ethics before have you? I’m telling you spinoza covers all the angles. A modern materialist conception of the universe with a psychologistic explanation for knowledge. None of the platonic realism hocus pocus. All knowledge is knowledge about the body, immanently. There is no cartesian theater, no transcendental realm of concepts, no noumenal side to nature. There is no mere ‘representation’ here… the senses do not (re)present the world, but are active constituents in making it.
No. He conflates Ethics issues with ontological issues.
…thus leaving out what I said that he left out.
Espinoza did his best to explain reality in strictly physical terms. That is fine. You can do the same, and even better, with AO. But some people think in terms of the abstract also. Thus more is needed for sake of those minds. RM:AO allows for both mindsets to function without conflict rather than each claiming the other to be wrong. They typically aren’t wrong until they claim the other to be wrong.
What? He doesn’t even say anything about ethics in the ethics James. So now I know you haven’t read it. His ethical theory is laid out in the politicus.
Yeah I know… What kind of a dumbass names a treatise the ethics when it has nothing to do with ethics. spinz saw in his work a moral design, something the understanding of which would lead men to the only rational point of view possible… Assuming men want to be rational. That only a free civil agreement on laws between people that protect and preserve their property and right of movement is the most logical way to do ethics. Everything follows from that premise and while spinoza didn’t write politically or in great detail to describe his ethics, he made it clear that given the case be what it is, this is the best way for men to coexist.
Yeah I know… What kind of a dumbass names a treatise the ethics when it has nothing to do with ethics. spinz saw in his work a moral design, something the understanding of which would lead men to the only rational point of view possible… Assuming men want to be rational. That only a free civil agreement on laws between people that protect and preserve their property and right of movement is the most logical way to do ethics. Everything follows from that premise and while spinoza didn’t write politically or in great detail to describe his ethics, he made it clear that given the case be what it is, this is the best way for men to coexist.
thats just it though. You want to avoid greater detail in ethics theory and just go with a general outline like a constitutional free market. You completely let go of the reigns and let the keynesean animal spirit free. Fuck it, let the natural evolutionary forces and trends straighten it all out. Sometimes you gotta just globalize everything and let the economic mechanisms take control… The simulucrum of simulated simulucra.
[ paces in deep thought ]
What matters today, gentlemen, is not what is right for the immigrants or the rebels or the feminists or the atheists or the homosexuals or anyone else with a moral or political interest… What matters today is whether or not we can sell it.
Behind every great thinker there is an economist. Whom among you will be that next great thinker or economist?
Well it would also be wrong in the pan part of pantheist. Since there are ‘things’ or even realms that are not God, in your tripartite schema above.
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That would depend on the pantheist, but that everything is God and there is nothing beyond God or not God would, it seems to me, necessarily be part of any pantheist’s beliefs. God is therefore at least also immanent. That we are a part of God and so is all of what gets called the physical universe. That the entire ‘thing’ is a conscious deity. Unlike, say, panentheism where the universe we experience can be seen as not divine but all of which is infused with the divine soul of God. And unlike the transcendent God religions, like the Abrahamic ones, where God is seen, generally, as outside of the universe, unsullied by it. How the individual pantheists view that God - could be anything from a Vishnu or Braham who really is everything with Maya making it seem like there are many things, but everything is nevertheless considered conscious and a part of this deity, to pantheist versions which are very depersonalized, with a kind of spread out panpsychism with no overriding center - though to me that should not really be called a theism - or some kind of religious naturalism, despite how that will be an oxymoron to some. The versions with a centralized vantage in that deity or overriding vantage could have that God with a personality, goals and motivatations, relations with its ‘parts’ and so on.
Well … using Espinoza as the standard, a pantheist would not agree that the conceptual realm nor perceptual realm actually exist. Those are not part of the pantheist ontology. But that doesn’t make the ontology wrong, merely more confined to compensate for those concerns (of the ideals and the perceptions). Pantheism would merely be more cumbersome for leaving out those realms from the ontology.
Think about how science would have to define an idea while maintaining a strictly materialistic perspective. They have to go into brain patterns and/or information patterns. If they could include a Conceptual realm, they could still go into those same descriptions when needed, but also merely say that an idea is not a physical entity, but rather a conceptual entity, affecting only other conceptual entities. It works either way. It is much like being bilingual.
Well, now you are making that same definition mistake.
What makes something a god verses being anything else?
The fact that God (cap G) is everything “else” does not tell me what “a god” is.
What makes “everything else” a god verses just being “everything else”?
And of course, then you have to deal with everyone having a different god, so there really couldn’t be a “God”. And if you choose to include oneself as part of God, then God and the universe are the same thing, so why bother distinguishing them?
And all of that indicates the primitive nature of it. When entities of great importance don’t even have a consistent definition, it is implied that the ontology isn’t entirely coherent.
Seems to me that still means they are wrong about the Pan part.
If you have any term for everything you have that issue. In the case of Universe, what distinguishes Universe from everything else, is every other term is included in Universe but the reverse is not true. In Pantheism this would be true, but in addition, at least in some pantheisms that everything would be the overriding consciousness of all things,wheres any other consciousness would only have a partial perspective. From there that deity might have control of everything or specific things that no other ‘thing’ has.
For some universe would entail consciousness as mere qualia, deadness and lack of sentience the rule, no control, purpose, etc. Just a forward domino unfolding of matter. In pantheism at least some of them - this is why it is hard to answer given the range - it is deity rather than a mere universe. Thus is has intents, control, consciousness and out of this even makes choices.
Sure, you could say that. Theism would be an even less coherent term, then.
