Everyone? I think “unlimited” would be a clearer word for what you are referring to. So you have an unlimited being. There’s nowhere he’s not, nothing he’s not. That makes contemplation kind of obsolete, doesn’t it? What’s he like? Everything.
Why is the word “God” better than the word “Universe” for something that’s completely unlimited? Isn’t that confusing? “God” has traditional connotations of “someone else”, a “higher being” separate from us, but that would be a limitation. I can’t delimit myself from such a thought. And you don’t need to worry about whether or not the Universe exists - if anything does, it does.
I gather from that that you think I’m an atheist. Well, if I were it may bother me, but I’m not and you haven’t. The only thing I have against the argument is that it’s the sort of babble that gives philosophy a bad name. It’s more irritation than upset. So there’s my motivation: what’s yours?
Where does it lead me? What do I gain? What does humanity gain? Why is it better to spend time contemplating a theoretical being than loving real beings? Why is “contemplation” so much further up your value scale than action?
If Universe is an acceptable substitute, then you could argue Spinoza got there first.
I’m not trying to “give philosophy a bad name” by proposing this. The idea of contemplating this “greatest being” (whatever you wish to call it) still makes the loving of other beings necessary. If I understand that the purpose of all rational beings is to contemplate this entity, then my obligation to others would be to help them move in such a way as to accomplish this. So, if someone is dying of thirst on the side of the road, I don’t sit on the other side of the road and contemplate God while he dies; I get him some water so he may live to contemplate God another day, etc.
There is no material good that is gained from contemplating this being. I am proposing this “contemplation” as the highest rational function (even if it’s something we never actually get to do) because it puts the rest of our obligations in place.
Fortunately, by contemplating him without concern for whether or not He actually exists, we retain our moral obligations to help others contemplate Him, while diffusing the corrosive effects of faith-based religions.
I do apologize for implying you were an atheist. I guess I took too much of a cue from your user name. Now that I think about it, I recall reading that Hume never actually came out and said he was theist or atheist.
I explained my position after you accused me of giving “philosophy a bad name” and you aren’t going to retract your statement? I am insulted.
Of course, you were actually the one giving philosophy a bad name by not seeing that the “ethics that fall into place when one views the contemplation of God as his ultimate duty” as a given. Anyone could have seen that those obligations were IMPLIED. I merely apologized to keep the discussion going! Some good that did!
I meant no insult. I also don’t believe you’re trying to give philosophy a bad name. I do think that rationalism of this sort does do so, though, by replacing real life experience with abstracted “logical imperatives”. So I won’t retract my statement, but I don’t mean it as a personal attack; I didn’t frame it as such.
So your apology wasn’t meant? I understand.
The ethics that fall into place with the contemplation of your God will be the ethics you wanted to push before you called upon almighty logic to back you up. That’s inductive, not deductive.
Look, even the most conventional of ethics (don’t kill, don’t steal, etc.) are coming under assault because of our society’s obsession with morally relativistic philosophy.
At some point we have to stand our ground against everything being made into a “matter of opinion.” I tried to find a common activity that must be the same for all rational beings: the contemplation of God. When thinking of a being that is the complete antithesis of human limitation, the human effectively considers the greatest sort of being that his powers can comprehend. If all humans have the same limitations (in kind, not degree), then the complete antithesis of these limitations is the same for every rational being: the all powerful, all knowing, and omnipresent God.
Is there a lot to think about when we consider this being? No. But the unavoidable commonality that all will share by contemplating this being in the same way will create a unity and purpose for mankind. Conventional ethics fall into place when one considers the contemplation of God to be the highest action to which a human can ascertain. Can you use your reason to think of a greater being?
The contemplation of God, free of concern for God’s actual existence, is the activity that will bring man to ultimate peace.
I am fully aware that this is never going to happen, and that people will not let go of their religions and societal practices. Similarly, Immanuel Kant was fully aware that there may not have been one recorded instance of a person being a perfect friend to another person, but he still recognized it as something worth admiring.
If “the world contemplating God in unison” is an admirable and desirable state for the world to be in, then I should focus all of my energies to bring the world as close to this state as possible, regardless of the unlikelihood of my desired outcome. Why would I use my reason for lesser activities? I cannot waste my time fulfilling arbitrary wants while neglecting my reason’s desire to comprehend God. All people desire to do this, only some are very good at keeping themselves distracted.
I almost died in a car accident and my last thought was restricted to the flash of the oncoming vehicle. No words went with this image, at all. I was dumb.
It now leads to me to conclude that the trick is in the words. The words shape the illusion. That extra layer of play acting.
And as long was we use them, just like now, we will go around in circles trying to answer the problems that we create. I am misdirecting as we speak.
So you’re saying that we already know everything and all of our problems are due to confusions in language? That’s funny, because you probably understand what I mean by saying that.
Am I creating some confusion when I ask you to imagine a being that has no human limitations? Do you really think the being that you imagine will be so dissimilar from the one your neighbor imagines?
Exactly. So your purely rational enquiry has nothing to do with a search for logical truth and unavoidable conclusions, it’s a search for a method to justify pushing your ethics onto others.
What if morality is a matter of opinion? It needn’t stop you punishing murderers and thieves. Societies reach a consensus of opinion and act on that. Just as they have, in various cultures at various times and with various effects, on things like slavery, democracy, intellectual property and so on. Why should you not feel passionate about your opinions and wish others to share them?
Opinions are far more worthy of passion than facts, and treating your morality as such has the advantage of making you defend them to yourself, rather than accepting them as unquestionable. Of course, this is uncomfortable, but I don’t think opinions held out of laziness are much worth holding.
Because they might have more practical benefit. But that’s a judgement call for you, of course. It’s your opinion.
I don’t agree with the statement either, but “all problems arise from language” does not lead to “all language causes problems”.
I’m guessing you’ve lived all your life in the same country.
Do you think the conceptions of the supreme being created by Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus are all the same? They’ve had more than their share of contemplation and ascribed omnipotence. You have a blank placeholder onto which you project what you want to believe.
No, I do not think that various religions all conceive of the same God. However, the God I am positing is the God of necessity; the God that is simply the opposite of human limitations, free of the arbitrary qualities that various religions have assigned to him.
If we accept that all humans have the same limitations (again, the same limitations in KIND rather than DEGREE), then the being that represents the antithesis of these limitations would have to be the same for everyone. Yes, this is a very simple being, but positing this being as the object of our contemplation places the rest of ethics in context.
If we acknowledge a being that is all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent, and without need as the antithesis of our limitations, and as something superior to us, then we can also recognize it as something worth emulating. In doing so, we make it our objective to become godlike. It is very difficult to weasel out of this by positing some subjective want or need as our final cause, as the one who has freed himself of such things, usually by exercise of superior intellect and prowess, arrives at the contemplative life. The contemplation of God is an activity that is reserved for those who have their lives in order. This does not diminish its status as the highest function that a sentient (and limited) being can perform.
The problem I used to get stuck at was trying to prove that God exists. I now realize that it does not matter. God is the greatest being that COULD exist, so he is worth contemplating and emulating. This is similar to what Kant once said: that there does not have to be one real example of “a person being a perfect friend to another person” for us to recognize the worthiness of such an activity. There does not have to be proof for God’s existence, or any cohesiveness in various religions’ views of God, for us to reason out the necessary qualities of a supreme being and contemplate it.
A few things that we need to agree upon to continue:
[b]All humans have the same limitations in kind (not in degree). Meaning that: all humans are NOT all-powerful, NOT all-knowing, NOT omnipresent, and have biological and other sorts of needs.
The degrees to which humans possess the above limitations is irrelevant when one considers a being that is the complete antithesis of all degrees of said limitations.
This being is the greatest being that a human can conceive without injecting some sort of arbitrary quality into it (such as name or appearance, I simply call it God because I must call it something).
This being is the same for all humans and all other rational beings who possess the above limitations when considered properly.
The lack of need is better than need. The lack of limitation is better than limitation.
Things (and beings) that are superior to us are worth thinking about, even if only in theory.
[/b]
If you agree on these points, then you essentially agree with me.
If you don’t agree with these points, then why? What makes this being NOT worth contemplating? What are you trying to accomplish by dissuading me from doing so? Are you taking pity on me because you think I’m wasting my time? Are you trying to bring ME to a better state of being by discouraging me from traveling this silly path? If so, what compels you to do so?
Don’t get mad. I just get sick of how everyone on this forum sits back and waits for everyone ELSE to posit something, and then takes pot shots at these brave souls by deliberately misunderstanding what they say! For example, I was upset that you actually THOUGHT that I meant a person should sit on the side of the road and contemplate God while someone is dying, when it should have been clear that if someone understands that the purpose of human existence is to contemplate God, then he needs to act in such a way as to help others do so! I can’t believe you made me clarify this! It’s time for you to explain yourself and your disdain for my position, as well!
To say that this contemplation of God is fabricated for the purpose of fulfilling of some need or the compensation for some weakness (as Satyr, or any empirical pragmatist, would say) is to forget that the REAL contemplation of the divine; the non-religious divine that is merely the lack of human limitation; is reserved only for those who have met all personal needs and have their lives in order. This is not an activity in which a problem-ridden and unsettled being will find enjoyment or solace. It is not an activity that will be deemed worthy by those who have stopped short and prematurely concluded that the happiness of life exists somewhere in the sensual world of human limitation. Certainly there are wonderful things to be enjoyed in the sensual world, but these sensual activities will become boring to those who have had their fill. Only the use of reason, and the subsequent contemplation of the divine that grows out of abstracting the complete lack of human limitations, will hold sway over a mind that has become bored with its mundane surroundings.
I’m not implying that you haven’t reached this point. I simply think that you’re kicking and screaming against the proposition that such a simple (yet amazing) being could be greatest thing that your mind can ever conceive. It must be shattering to one’s ego to know that none of his seemingly complex thoughts on social engineering, moral causality, and religious dogma have any influence on someone who has dutifully fulfilled his physical and intellectual needs and has moved on to the contemplation of the logically necessary and simple God. The busybody rhetorician has to accuse the man of the transcendent, contemplative life of being a simpleton because he has apparently graduated past such worldly, mundane idea far too quickly, and hasn’t monastically struggled with them enough to have any true happiness. I scoff at this state of affairs.
To recap, since this thread may seem to have strayed:
The Ontological Argument is not a trick. It is perfectly valid, but it can be argued that its premises are unsound; namely, the premise stating that “it is greater for something to exist than to not exist.” I then proposed that, regardless of the Ontological Argument’s lack of soundness, we should still consider God because he is the greatest being that COULD exist, if viewed as the complete antithesis of human limitation. And then the rest of the discussion ensued…
The God of necessity exists in all possible worlds; perhaps a God of unnecessity is a catchier name for your formulation? It’s not necessary at all that he/she/it exists…
Insofar as “being a friend” is an action, it’s worthwhile, it can guide us in our actions. Insofar as “being omnipotent”, it’s futile, as we cannot be guided by things beyond our limitations. Are you saying we should try and make ourselves as powerful as possible? How does that apply to omnipresence?
Once you start to answer these things, you get involved in subjective valuations. Some will say yes, we should try to make ourselves powerful, others will say no, others that we should as humanity try to do so, others as living beings, others that we should live in harmony. Reason alone leads nowhere, that’s an 18th-century conceit - it is guided by desires and values.
I’m not sure what you mean. If, as you said, you want to lead your contemplation back to morality, then the limitations of humans are not irrelevant - they are all-important.
Disagree. I’m sure everyone has their own ideas of what “proper consideration” entails; I don’t think there’s a mathematical inevitability that people will reach consensus.
Disagree. It’s better not to limit pollution or nuclear armament? The dead have no needs, the living have many - is death therefore a better state?
Not necessarily. Things that can improve the world are worth thinking about, things that have no effect and just waste time, or have a negative effect, are not worth thinking about. That’s almost a tautology. Unicorns live forever and never fall over - what do I gain from contemplating unicorns?
Not you personally, although I might be tempted to flatter myself I’m doing this purely altruistically towards you. It’s an idea that could spread, and if it did, it might lead people to waste time that could be better spent improving things. As for what my aims are… this is an internet discussion forum, would you rather I debated with you, ignored you, or patronised you?
I’m not mad. I don’t think you will be a very happy person if you get upset that someone doesn’t understand what you mean instead of what you say. Or that you ascribe deliberate intent to their misunderstandings. And if you want your self-evident truths to find a wider audience, it might pay to word your theories as clearly as possible. All of this advice is meant altruistically.
So it’s something that you’ll only appreciate if you’re satisfied enough with your own brilliance, spirituality and achievements? I think we can probably agree on that. For example, the quote from you below.
However, my point was not that you’re compensating for anything; simply that you’re disguising your own attempts to push your morality on others as something higher and nobler than it is, the cool breath of reason and the will of God is on your side, etc etc.
Scoff on, great sage. Transcendence clearly hasn’t taken you beyond getting upset at human limitations.
You’re clearly not interested in defending your points so much as advertising your marvellousness, so further correspondence seems futile.
I was not trying to appear marvelous. I’m not anywhere near the point of contentedness that I feel is required for this contemplation of God; I’m still trying to argue for its viability. I have to leave for work but I’ll work on a more proper response for later.
You’re right. It isn’t necessary that this being exists. My use of the word “necessity” here means that I have not arbitrarily assigned any attributes to this God (as religions does). The greatest being that COULD exist is a being that is the complete antithesis of our limitations. The God of necessity, in this respect, is the one I am speaking of.
We should try to make ourselves as knowledgeable and benevolent as possible. Just because you are predisposed to think of the “antithesis of human limitation” as some malevolent force does not make it so. The God of necessity has no room for malevolence; it has no needs.
No. There is one, clear path to becoming like this being: learning as much as possible and freeing oneself of need and want. Wants and needs can be immediately quelled by fulfilling them with the fruits of our pursuit for power, but the only way to silence them permanently is to live in a stoic manner. Trying to “become as powerful as possible” would only compound our desires rather than remove them.
Power to an infinite degree is omnipotence.
Knowledge to and infinite degree is omniscience.
Presence to an infinite degree is omnipresence.
All humans are limited in all three of the previously mentioned categories. This is what I mean when I say that humans have the same limitations in kind, but not in degree. Thus, the being that has none of these limitations is the same for everyone. This is an exercise of the imagination that does not leave room for individual interpretation. I don’t have to experience the “greatest conceivable being” to talk about it. I just have to combine my limited understanding of infinity and apply it to my limited powers; an exercise any ordinary human can do. Perhaps it is infuriating that the greatest conceivable being can be spoken of by the great unwashed, who sit outside of the elite world of intellectualism.
The lack of need and limitation in HUMANS is better than need and limitation in HUMANS, when the limitations and needs are eliminated in the manner I mentioned before- in a way that truly eliminates the needs (instead of temporarily fulfilling them but compounding greater desires for later on).
Perhaps you are simply irritated that the realm of thoughts in which all humans can participate is far more limited than you previously thought, at least when it comes to concepts that are objectively apply to everyone (which are the only things worth talking about in philosophy).
I didn’t say anything about malevolence, nor do I believe it to be. but if it has no room for malevolence it has none for benevolence either. And you haven’t answered how we as humans should approach omnipotence in a kindred way to our approach of omniscience.
OK: Your understanding is limited. My understanding is limited. You hold that our understandings are limited in exactly the same way - this is entirely necessary to your argument. Otherwise I might understand things you don’t, and vice versa, and our conceptions will differ. In fact, each of six billion limited understandings must be limited in the same way, although not to the same degree - as though there is a numbered list of things we understand and some people get as far as line 30, while others get as far as line 45. But if one person understands 90% of lines 100-200, and another understands 80% of lines 400-500, they will talk past each other.
Knowledge and concepts are constructed, not discovered. You have knowledge about categories of things, and people define such categories in the terms of their languages and cultures, dependent upon their collective experience of the world. We don’t just understand the same things in different degrees; we understand the same things differently, and in many cases we understand different things.
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s only your suggestion so far, not a hard fact. Armchair theorising about logical necessities and Classical epistemologies is all well and good, if a few hundred years out of date, but the benefit of stoicism is a pragmatic one - and not one that requires a fundamentally flawed ontological argument to get going.
I don’t really see much point in continuing the discussion from here, it’s digressed from the OP to “so what if it is a trick?”
The point is that if there’s not something that all humans can look to as an objective point toward which they should strive, then all lesser actions have only subjective meaning.
People do not walk around believing this by default. Philosophers have merely convinced themselves that this is okay.
But if that’s how things are, that isn’t a bad thing. If that’s how things are, it’s surely worse to try and convince yourself and others of things that are not the case, simply to further your whim?
People don’t walk around believing the Earth is a small planet orbiting an unremarkable star in the outer spiral arm of a normal galaxy by default, either. You do philosophy to become right, not to prove yourself right.
Then, rather than wasting your efforts trying to negate everyone else who tries to find a common thread or philosophical objective for the human race, perhaps you should posit one of your own.
I think too many philosophers are content with the idea that there is no “objectively correct” way for a human to think so that they may substitute their philosophies in the place of this void. However, when people read the ideas of these know-nothings, the authors conveniently forget to mention that their philosophy is just part of what they perceive as non-objective whole of ideas. They would rather the readers forget this and simply take their philosophies to be the objective reality they have been looking for. Take Satyr, for example. He starts with the premise that there are no absolutes, and that ALL egalitarian philosophies arise from some personal angst, and proceeds from there. He doesn’t mention that his starting point is completely arbitrary, but he shoots you down if you suggest a different one.
You philosophers who never say anything, but merely sit back and wait for someone else to TRY (and most of these attempts will have errors, yes) are a bunch of cowards. If you don’t think there is some common theme that is worth contemplating for all humans, then why are you practicing philosophy?
There has to be some theme that all rational beings can grasp. And once we’ve grasped this theme, we can progress from there.
So, I’ll start again.
If we free ourselves from the concern for the actual existence of a being, is there some theoretical being that, when considered as the antithesis of all human limitations (in kind, not degree), is the same for everyone? And is this being worth thinking about?
If the answer to this question is “no,” then is there any other theoretical being or state of affairs that would necessarily be the same for all people who considered it? If we can’t find some objective commonality in our rational inquiries, and how we go about them, then our inquiries are not rational at all.
I’m done with the philosophers who insist that nothing is absolute, but then slip absolutes into their own arguments after craftily deconstructing the work of all their predecessors. Either we agree that all rational beings have some objective commonality in their inquiries, or we throw out all inquiries as completely subjective (and worthless on anything other than a personal level). I’m not a solipsist, and if I can’t find some sort of theme that all humans can think of in a similar manner, then I want no part of any of this.
Don’t call me an armchair philosopher just because I am not yet completely jaded by the ways of the know-nothings. I’m still willing to bet that the people who insist their are no absolutes are just like teenagers who thrash about at any mention of “rules.” It’s time to reign in the childish nihilists, solipsists, pragmatists, and all other philosophers who have attempted to reduce man to a complex, fatalistic machine out of resentment for their own failed relationships.
I realize that this particular thread has now digressed from the Ontological Argument into an argument on how philosophy ought to be done, but I’m willing to have it out if you are.
I think you need a good dose of realism. Rules, conventions, ideologies, “absolutes” are only expressions of power. Whoever convinces the most people their view is “right”, then have the claim to possess “truth”. Once the structures of power fade, so does the supposed “truth”.
An absolute, maybe, but in a different sense from what you’re speaking of. You have a static conception of the absolute, one that has set particulars. Power doesn’t allow there to be static conceptions. Power continually undermines any attempt at a foundation. To claim that power structures are an absolute in the same sense as the absolute you desire is to play antics with semantics.
Physicality and deception are two ways of maintaining power. There are penty of others. Even the simple positing of a supposed epistemological principle is an act of power.
