Belief that all objects, events, and and values can be wholly explained in terms of factual and/or causal claims about the world, without reference to supernatural powers or authority. Prominent naturalists include Clifford and Dewey. Quine proposed a naturalistic epistemology, understood as empirical study of the origins and uses of sensory information.
I was doing some posting in the Universal Truth thread over there and I got thinkin… If I were to take this theory one step further. If we were to take all things we believe to be metaphysical… for instance an idea. Where does an idea come from? No one knows as of yet…but we know that even an idea (which exists in the mind) still exists within time… making it a part of the natural world. At one point it must have been thought of (comming into existence).
And for shits and giggles… If we were to say the idea of God. At one point or another someone must have thought of the idea of god. Since there is no proof (physically) for the existence of god… just the Idea of god then he/she/it whatever should exist within nature/the universe.
Which again brings me back to my first bit of philosophy from way back…where I first had the idea that Values are a part of a natural world.
My logic was this:
humans exist in the natural world/universe Values are created by humans
Values exist in the natural world/universe
By the way…
This all came from someoneisatthedoor’s constant reinforcement of:
You know I’m a spitfire! Zshoom!
A thought is not created, a thought is eternal and not of time because thoughts encompass the physical into the abstract and the spiritual. Someone has had an exact thought thousands of years ago that comes to my own mind, is still in the same condition it was before, and will remain that way.
No but because we have brought it into nature by thinking of it, it exists in this world simply because it is my thought and I exist in the natural world.
If i think of something…NOW… then the idea happens now, in time, in the universe.
Otherwise I must also trancend time… hey maybe I could be god!!!
p.s. soliloquy go back to the universal truth thread and answer whether or not you accept god for me! thanks!
Yes, but it is not held by time and neither are we. Though we may be set in a nature held by time we are eternal beings and so are our thoughts.
Of course, we exist in nature! I never said we didn’t, I’m here now aren’t I? Thoughts don’t change and neither does God.
I still don’t get how this allows for free will then. If our thoughts are eternal, but our bodies are not, and my thoughts control my body - Then how do we have any choice in the world?
You said something about ‘choosing’ before all this… but I fail to see how that works.
1.) As long as we’re trying to be monists, why not idealists? It seems to me that I know more about my own mind than I do any of this natural ‘stuff’ that seems to exist. Why would I assume the mind to be part of the matter, and not the other way around? If I had to give up my dualistic ways, I think I’d side with Berkely, and say that if there’s only one kind of stuff, it must be mental stuff.
2.) How does naturalism account for the quality of existence? What I mean is, it’s all well and good to say that human values are natural things, and so are ideas, because they come from brains, which are very natural things. But if mind is a subset of nature, why does Nature conform to our minds so well? What I mean is, why do things ‘make sense’? Why are we able to think about the whole universe? In a universe that is essentially a bunch of tiny billiard balls ricocheting around, why are there such things as poets? And in case this all seems to be a question of mere asthetics, let me put it to you this way- if our brains came to be through processes with no more sense than rocks rolling down a hill, why in the world would we trust the conclusions those brains come to? If a tornado blew through a Scrabble factory, and the letters ‘c a t’ landed on my windshield, I wouldn’t go buy a cat. What makes brains so trustworthy, it seems to me, is that we assume they have the ability to ‘aim for the truth’, which is impossible for me to phrase in a purely materialistic way.
I have memories of being a child and it is nothing like my existence now. I remember being curious and suprised at life quite often. Moslty i was confused and had to ask alot of questions to sort things out. Well I still ask alot of questions… some things never change. I’m quite sure the mind develops over time. It is designed to order and make sense of the world so we can interact with it better and more efficiently so its easier to survive! Hence learning. I wouldnt say that nature is conforming to your mind as much as your mind conforms to nature.
-That’s- the illusion Spazk is talking about. Under your system… free will is an illusion. If your soul is eternal… then there can be no choice. God still knows every action you’re going to take.
Under your system God is the bourgiousie. Hey… maybe the revolution of the proletariate has already begun, Neitzsche leading the way in this attack of course.
You’re presenting a contradiction, and I don’t feel like I can accept it
