Change like Cause is an Intelligent Design

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Change like Cause is an Intelligent Design

Change is an abstract idea; it does not exist by itself but only when combined with a substance, which is also an abstraction that does not exist independently. Humans appear to be the only animals capable of abstraction.

An example of an abstraction might be the concept ‘love’. I love my dog, I love chocolates, I love mom, etc, are specific examples of how the concept ‘love’ is used. If we remove all the contingencies (not necessities) we are left with an emotion. The necessary and sufficient essence of ‘love’ is emotion.

Absent the concept of change we humans need deal only with the here and the now. We can include the past and the future but only in that they are an extension of the here and the now. Since the past and future are extensions they must be a unity like the present, the past and future can be only what now is, they can be nothing else.

Thinking, that excludes change, eliminates a great deal of complexity. It simplifies greatly our task of thinking, because we need deal only with concrete things; we need to deal with only what we sense here and now. Some call this a traditional mode of thinking. It exemplifies the thinking of primitive humanity up to the Greek period that began around 500 BC. It is, I think, a good way to comprehend what myth is all about.

I have read a small bit of Joseph Campbell’s writing on the subject of myth and have discovered that Soros’ book “Age of Fallibility” helps me better comprehend myth; at least in so far as comprehending the mind of primitive humans.

I quote Joseph Campbell–“poetry is not the thing said but a way of saying it…the intellect is not the font of poetry, it may actually hinder its production…the first axiom of all creative art…is that art is, not like science, a logic of references but a release from reference and rendition of immediate experience: a presentation of forms, images, or ideas in such a way that they will communicate, not primarily a thought or even a feeling, but an impact.” “Mythology was historically the mother of arts” and cannot be understood rationally.

Myth, the “mother of arts”, cannot be understood by reason but by emotional “impact”. Joe tells me that myth is an art form that can be understood by its impact upon me. Just as myth impacted the primitive (and everyone I guess) so I can understand it only if I use an entirely different way of understanding than I used to understand science.

If we recognize that primitive humans had not reached a stage of using abstract concepts, then we can more easily see how they created the myth stories and ritual. I find the process difficult because I am in this modern age in which abstractions permeate all our thoughts and thus I have a difficult time holding the abstract back when trying to comprehend the primitive mind.

Does this comprehension of abstract thinking help you better comprehend myth? Can you explain this difference in primitive mind and how it clarifies myth in some other way than I have tried to do?

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I think you discredit too much in your appraisal of the early human’s mind. Humans have been biologically the same for at least two-hundred thousand years, with estimates ranging as far back as two million years. Art existed even before modern humans, in the form of beads and other jewlery, dyes for clothes and skin, and pigments for drawing. At the very least, detailed representations of animals on cave walls exist: the Chaucet Cave in France has drawings from around thirty to thirty-two thousand years ago. More than a dozen species of animals are represented on cave walls, drawn in few colors.
What about this does not show the presence of abstract thinking? It seems to me that in order to depict three-dimensional, multicolored, and quickly moving creatures, using a two-dimensional surface and colors that are limited to a few vaguely similar hues in still life, one must be able to abstractly represent the creatures in one’s head. There are also lines and dots in the same cave, almost surely indicative of representation of shapeless concepts, like numbers of rank.
And this is nearly 30 thousand years before the greek period. What this seems to mean is that abstract thinking existed and was used proactively by humans long before any of the myths we’ve ever heard were created.
And really, I think modern abstract thinking provides a better understanding of myths than trying to analyze them without. The modern world is not without myths that are actively believed and followed. We might look back and think it absurd to believe in a mountain home of the gods, but modern religious beliefs are no less fantastic in regards to the orgins of the world. The modern mind is perfectly equipped to understand ancient myths, because we can relate.

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I disagree with your idea of Love. I think it can be very simply explained as putting someone else’s needs and desires before your own, its perfect charity. This of coarse begs the question of Why? And the Why seems to point to some form of purpose and purpose denotes design, and a design that completes a task must be a form of intelligence.

So Love must be an intelligent designer if it does have purpose.

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In the traditional mode of thinking, before the use of abstract concepts, the central tenet is that things are as they have always been and the future will be likewise—thus they cannot be any other way. The status quo is fate and all we need do is learn that fate and to organize our lives in accordance. In such a world logic and argumentation has no place because there exists no alternatives.

When we examine the nature of epistemology–what can we know and how can we know it–in such a mode of thinking we quickly illuminate the advantages and drawbacks. In such a society there is no bifurcation between thought and concrete reality. There exists only the objective relationship between knower and known. The validity of traditional truth is unquestioned; there can be no distinction between ideas and reality.

Where a thing exists we give it a name. Without a name a thing does not exist. Only where abstraction exists do we give non-objects a name. In our modern reality we label many non-concrete things and thus arises the separation of reality and thoughts. The way things appear is the way things are; the traditional mode of thinking can penetrate no deeper.

The traditional mode of thinking does not explain the world by cause and effect but everything performs in accordance with its nature. Because there is no distinction between the natural and supernatural and between reality and thought there arise no contradictions. The spirit of the tree is as real as the branch of the tree; past, present, and future melt into one time. Thinking fails to distinguish between thought and reality, truth and falsehood, social and naturals laws. Such is the world of traditional thought and the world of mythological thought.

The traditional mode is very flexible as long as no alternatives are voiced, any new thing quickly becomes the traditional and as long as such a situation meets the needs of the people such a situation will continue to prevail.

To comprehend the traditional mode we must hold in abeyance our ingrained habits of thought, especially our abstract concept of the individual. In a changeless society all is the Whole, the individual does not exist.

The individual is an abstraction that does not exist whereas the Whole, which is in reality an abstraction, exists as a concrete concept for traditional thought. The unity expressed by the Whole is the unity much like an organism. The individuals in this society are like the organs of a creature; they cannot last if separated from the Whole. Society determines which function the individual plays in the society.

The term “organic society” is used often to label this form of culture. When all is peaceful with no significant voices placing forth an alternative then this organic society exists in peace. In this organic society a human slave is no different from any other chattel. In a feudal society the land is more important than the landlord who derives his privileges from the fact that he holds the land.

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Culture died when Plato came onto the scene and abstrahized the Olympic myths into pure rationalities.
The Romans couldn’t care less for Plato - it was their reinstitution of the irrational myths that made them into the center of the world.

Victor Hugo says to the scientists:
“Well then; progress, no more soul. The human race will be a beast from now on.”