A Hypercosmic God?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
21

I claimed neither, and I certainly didn’t say that any position on the subject was justified. Just the opposite.

If I’d stated a position one way or another, it’d have been an argument from ignorance. But since I didn’t, since all I said is that we don’t know or have any evidence one way or another, it is an argument for ignorance–IOW, that we are ignorant. Any argument that we must assume a negative because we have no evidence for the positive (even though there is no evidence for the negative either) is an example of an argument from ignorance.

It reflects a desire for answers where one resorts to blind faith in the negative as strongly as others use blind faith in the positive, both in order to achieve a sense of false security based on self-delusion.

22

Felix:

This could be a common way of thinking. But I’m still hesitant to call this way of thinking “pre-modern” since I don’t think it applies to all pre-modern cultures. How would you say Buddhist culture fits into this mold for example? What is the higher power that we descend from in this extensive pre-modern culture? Isn’t Buddhism, contrary to what you describe of pre-moderns, an ascent, i.e., from depravity to Buddhahood?

What about Plato? Although he speaks of a good beyond being, or contact with perfect forms before and after life, does he not also describe a chariot ride into the heavens or an ascent out of a cave? Indeed, Plato too seems to be more about ascent than descent, contrary to what you say here…

Did they? Biblical cultures, from their texts anyways, seemed to think that the ending for humanity could be either good or bad, that it was in humanity’s own hands what the result would be… i.e., Heaven and Hell are both described throughout the Bible. One never prevails over the other but rather both remain a constant threat/promise.

This I might accept. Nihilism might be a more modern mode of thought, although I don’t think it is characteristic of modernity.

Let’s look at Plato (or Buddha) again. To him the world is illusory (or for Buddha decadent). The real “home” is before/after the world. The world, in both these world views, is a transient place, whereby “transient” I mean most especially the sense of homeless… We are homeless while in the world… We are transients in a transient space…

Isn’t Descartes, a clear dualist, the “Father of Modern Philosophy”? Locke was also dualist. And Berkeley was pure spiritualist (i.e., contrary to your point that materialism dominates modernity its early history was in fact very spiritual…). But indeed, materialism is prevalent in modern thinking.

Some contradictory claims here. (Are you suggesting that the moderns are inconsistent?) i.e., How can modern human beings recognize themselves as an ascent, or how can they see progress as a very real possibility, yet still look forward to the end of life? Belief in progress strikes me as naturally optimistic, i.e., it makes more sense to couple this with the “happy ending” thinking you ascribed the pre-moderns.

Also I don’t think post-modernism is “the collapse of modernism including its hope”. Post-modernists seem very hopeful actually, at least some of them. Post-modernism is, basically, the open-ended potential of life. It is both every reason to hope and every reason to fear because of the endless possibilities it admits… But you are right; there is a meaninglessness to post-modernism. When it admits the open-endedness of things there is no longer any authority, no final answer, no beginning or end. Everything remains an ongoing affair. I don’t think this comes from the collapse of modernism though, but rather from following modernism through to its perhaps bitter result.

23

Buddhism historically came out of Hinduism. Buddha was born into Hinduism. Hinduism sees humanity as descendents of the gods. Mayhayana Buddhism completes the circle with the Buddhas and Bodhisatvas of the golden age.

Plato was an aristocrat who looked back to a golden age. He talked about a higher lost civilization–Atlantis and a time when music preceded language. He was all about recovering the ancient lost wisdom of time when men were closer to the realm of ideas. His ideal of the perfect city was one that was according to the ancient ideal pattern.

The apocalyptic vision including Revelation is about passing through an ordeal the ultimate end of which is entry into the New Jerusalem the eternal city. Even hell is temporary. It perishes before the end of the book.

You have a point here. But I’m comparing pre-modern with modern thought. So I’m saying that in traditional societies, they saw transcendent reality symbolically or allegorically present in everything. Kings were a type of The King. Bread was a type of The Living Bread. The farmer was a type of the Sower. People were enacting a type of ultimate reality on the mundane plane. Modernism has nothing comparable. Nominalism paved the way for that. The result is a depletion of the resonance of life in favor of instrumental dominance of life. It’s a trade off. Still your right, the pre-modern could look forward to going from the Shadow to the Really Real when she passed beyond the Pale.

Descartes was a transitional thinker. His “spiritual” side was more of an end point for medievalism. It didn’t go anywhere. It was the material side of his philosophy that could be built on as he started to do himself with analytic geometry etc. Locke cleared the way for empirical control of stuff. Berkeley’s philosophy became the reductio ad absurdum of idealism for subsequent thinkers.

Well sure people still hope to be able to materially benefit from progress in the immediate future. But unadulterated belief in progress is rarity. One has to put some big blinders on to buy it any more. So this segueways into the postmodern perspective.

I haven’t seen the hopefulness you refer to so I’m open to more information. Post-modernism begins with the breakdown of the modern synthesis. There’s no overarching narrative that works for everybody. But modernism is still with us. But it coexists with critical theories. It isn’t the monolithic force it once seemed to be.

24

Oh, alright.

Just to be clear though, it is on the person trying to bring forth new knowledge about something that the burden is on. If there is nothing to justify the belief that X exists, and nothing to justify the belief that X doesn’t exist, then the first move must be made by the former of the two.

Actually, someone wouldn’t have to have evidence that X doesn’t exist. They need only have evidence that the evidence for X’s existence is bad, or that it doesn’t warrant X.

25

It depends on the frame of reference. Within our universe, that is exactly so since all rational, non-hearsay evidence favors the natural. But we have no evidence whatsoever from before the Big Bang, pro or con. Why should the con- not share equally in the burden of proof with the pro-. They are both adversaries against the agnostic as well as with each other since they both stake out a position to which the agnostic merely says, “show me”. Limited to the universe, however, the agnostic sides with the natural to the point of accepting it as proven.

26

It’s not really about what exists and what doesn’t. It’s about whether it is or isn’t reasonable to believe X exists. When someone posits that it is reasonable to believe X exists, then the person arguing the opposite - that it isn’t reasonable to believe in X - has to deal with the evidence that supposedly supports X. Were this evidence not on the table then the person wanting to argue that it isn’t reasonable to believe in X would have nothing to work with. There would be nothing to discredit if nothing had been posited. At best, such a person would be waxing metaphysics in an epistemological discussion.

It is senseless to ask me, the unbeliever, to argue against the evidence for the existence of a flying pink invisible elephant, if the believers of such a thing haven’t posited the evidence and argument stating that the evidence supports and is the cause of the belief that it exists. When the table is empty, that is to say, if no evidence has been presented, then it is reasonable to disbelieve in such a thing’s existence.

27

Indeed, recollection is huge in Plato. But correct me if I’m wrong, Plato held that the living are never in contact with the Ideas. Once upon a time they may have been closer, perhaps, but never direct contact. Contact with the Ideas is only possible in death, which is why Socrates is quite amenable to his fate.

So while the whole idea in Plato is to recollect, the process of recollection is itself an ascension, i.e., again, look at the cave and chariot metaphors… Platonism, although recollective, is at the same time progressive…

My point is, the Atlantean culture would have been just as depraved (or perhaps deprived) as the Athenian culture of Plato (according to Platonism). Both are cut off from the Ideas, which inhabit a space/time before/after life.

It is the before/after aspect that, I think anyways, removes Platonism from your depiction of pre-modernism. i.e., Human beings cannot be thought of as descendent from a higher order in Platonism. They are both descendent and ascendent. They have left the higher order behind in birth and will reunite with it in death…

I grant you that the prophecies always end on a good note, but I can’t accept what you say here. I don’t think the prophecies are describing historical necessity, as if they lay out a linear path that history is destined to follow, but rather I think Biblical prophecies tell humanity how it is.

By this vague statement I mean, for example, that the prophecy of Moses in Deuteronomy holds just as much now as it did when first spoken, i.e., when Israel was on the cusp of taking possession of the Promised Land. Moses basically tells the Israelites this:

“Uphold the covenant and there will be life and prosperity in the new land. Break the covenant and there will be death and adversity.”

This indeed corresponds to what happens to the Israelites, i.e., they were prosperous for awhile but as they drifted to other gods their kingdoms were eventually destroyed and the people enslaved by Babylon. However even after these historical events transpire, Moses’ prophecy does not become outdated… i.e., It is still true that if Isral holds fast to God there will be life and prosperity, and that if they reject God there will be death and adversity.

This is why it ends on a good note, so that we see full well that no matter how far we drift from God all we need do is repent, and life and prosperity will find us again… Does that make some sense? Biblical prophecy is an ongoing exhortation. It doesn’t describe history or any future series of events. It describes events that have already happened, that are happening right now, and that will happen far into the future… Biblical prophecy is the application of a simple formula, which I stated above, which will always hold true, which can never be nullified no matter how good things get or how bad things get…

That’s a bold claim! It seems the creators of the Matrix were quite taken with his spiritual side (to name just one popular example)…

Although these are broad pointers check out Derrida or Caputo, his interpreter. Most of my direct po-mo experience comes through Caputo, who perhaps, like I said, sees every reason to hope and every reason to despair… But anyways, I was quite serious when I said I’m no scholar!

28

No, I seem to recall that in Phaedrus Plato had Socrates speak of the fall of souls after gazing on sacred objects (the forms). Souls originated in heaven but fell to earth where they were entombed in mortal bodies.

We’re still talking about the pre-modern “world-view’ right? The prosperity part I doubt. In the OT that may have been a literal promise. In the NT it’s spitualized. Jesus didn’t prosper in any literal sense.

The ongoing exhortation part of what you say, I’m inclined to agree with. But it isn’t like what is symbolized by Paradise, or the Promise Land, Kingdom of God, or The New Jerusalem can be held as less real than the present age. The two must be held in tension with one another. The promise of entering into the transcendent realm must remain open.

Uccisore has some interesting things to say about Descartes in the essay section of this website. I think that in Descartes the spiritual side was a nod to the past. The clockwork material world was the main inspiration of modernism. With the 19th century modernism reached its height. Einstein was the beginning of the end of that epoch.

Who is? I have read quite a bit of Heidegger and a bit of Derrida. I’ll check out Caputo.

29

Sure; for Plato it’s a fall in birth and a reunion in death. It’s a cycle, like reincarnation. The point is there is no linear descent from higher beings in Platonism but recurring fall and subsequent reunion.

Of course. I’m trying to point out cultures that don’t fit with your notion of the pre-modern world-view.

Unfortunately for Jesus he lived in a time when few held fast to God. Jesus was living in an era that Moses would characterize with “death and adversity” (Hell) rather than “life and prosperity” (Heaven).

The prophecy is for a nation, for a people, not for a person… One person holding fast to God is not enough to bring about life and prosperity for a people, as promised in the prophecy. One person is too easily smothered by the countless others who live wicked or indifferent lives.

The present age is what is real. IMO the present age could be characterized as either Heaven or Hell depending. The present age is Heaven when those present in the age hold fast to God. It is Hell when they don’t. I agree with you though that the promise of Heaven remains open. Conversely, though, the threat of Hell remains open too. Even if the present age is Heaven it could oh-so-quickly unravel and become Hell. Conversely no matter how Hellish the present age is, times can change for the better.

But anyways! Sorry for distancing this from your OP. It seems I have a tendency to do that. I guess I remain skeptical of what you call the pre-modern worldview. Call me a fan of plurality and leave it at that. I don’t think there’s anything substantial in the “modern world-view” that doesn’t have some sort of counterpart in the pre-modern. Or perhaps more than this, I think such categories are grossly reductive of the colourful eras they claim to represent.

30

Alyoshka–

No problem about digressing from OP. I merely posted it because the physicist seems to offer another source of support for a metaphysic similar to what some have called a "Perrenial Philosophy. According to Aldous Huxley, the perennial philosophy is:

“the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the perennial philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions.”

and

“The Perennial Philosophy is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula, tat tvam asi (‘That thou art’); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for himself, to find out who he really is.”

Plato’s myth of the fall and transcendence is a model of the perrenial philosophy that was a major influence on Christian theology through neoplatonism. Neoplatonism can readily be seen on Saint Augustine’s theology for example.

I don’t doubt that there are differences. Every personal philosophy and religion is probably unique in some aspects for that matter. But I think there is substantial transcultural evidence for a perennial philosophy.

31

Yes search for the truth is paramount. We are the searcher and the experiencer. If the experiencer did not exist

there’d be a dead universe. Physical

existence is as a selected configuration of information.

The understanding of nature; through the use of science, thoughtful

reasoning, and mathematics , will bring a mergence of life, the cosmos

and mind. ?What is mind? To began the answer - The mind

is of ,for and from beyond matter.