Are God Concepts Incoherent?

[blü 2]

No, we have been here before. That you act in your mind as if the world is real, doesn't mean that the world is real. You use a belief in real to say that other beliefs are not relevant because of your beliefs, which are not really beliefs.
That is what we are playing. Your belief in real is not really a belief.

I told you it was an assumption, not a proposition whose correctness I can demonstrate. It is however an assumption I believe to be true.

And as I also pointed out, it's an assumption you share and use. If you do so not thinking it's true then perhaps you can explain why you like to act as though it were true anyway.

 

[Left Coast]

If all concepts don't have physical referents, then how can you see all thoughts as physical in the brain?

Regards
Mikkel

Thoughts can be a products of the brain without referring to anything actually outside it. I can have an idea, produced by my brain, that my partner is cheating on me. Yet, my partner may not actually be cheating on me.

 

[izzy88]

This would be the time to educate me, since you think I need more education. Other than just saying, "you're wrong," perhaps explain how you think I'm wrong?

Are you familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave? I've been trying to explain to you why you're mistaken, and your responses have made it clear that you don't have the foundational knowledge to understand this stuff right now. It's not an insult, so please don't be offended; I'm sure there are plenty of things that you know more about than I do. This simply isn't one of them, and I'm trying my best to be helpful, but judging by this conversation you have hours upon hours of research to do before coming to an accurate understanding of what we're talking about when we talk about the mind. And it's not just you, by the way; it's the majority of people here. Of course, this isn't a philosophy forum, so it's completely understandable that lots of people here don't have much of a philosophical background, but when people who haven't been educated in philosophy try to have philosophical conversations, the result is going to be a mess - which is almost exclusively what I've seen on this forum so far. It's like watching people who don't know how to do math argue about geometry (a hyperbolic example, but you get the idea).

Anyway, as I said, start with qualia. It's an absolutely crucial concept in the philosophy of mind that you don't seem at all familiar with, and understanding qualia will bring you much closer to understanding why the mind/brain dichotomy is much more complicated than you currently believe.

All the best.

 

[PureX]

Alright I see what you're saying, I think. Numbers are concepts that exist inside our minds which our minds apply to quantify physical phenomena. So we're back to saying things exist physically, or they exist as concept in our minds. In your view, is there any other kind of "existence," aside from the conceptual and the physical?

I (we) don't know what the 'medium' of this metaphysical phenomenon of conscious awareness, is. It emerges as a physiological effect, but it becomes something else. It becomes an existential reality of it's own. The only one we know. It's created via imagination, but of what?

So far as we know, everything that exists, exists as one form or expression of 'energy' or another. But we still don't know what energy is, or what governs it's expression. So we have no idea how many variations of expression it might manifest.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I told you it was an assumption, not a proposition whose correctness I can demonstrate. It is however an assumption I believe to be true.

And as I also pointed out, it's an assumption you share and use. If you do so not thinking it's true then perhaps you can explain why you like to act as though it were true anyway.

You don't get it. You assign materialism to your assumption of real. I don't. You attach a lot of thoughts to your assumptions beyond the core simplicity of those.
I don't share those add-ons. I have others. You are a materialist, I am not.

Just because we apparently in the same world doesn't mean that the world is material.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Left Coast]

In effect you treat all words as concrete for what they are about. Not all words are about something physical, tangible, concrete.
As long as you do that to the following effect of a mental idea: Only that which is physical is real. And as long you don't understand that "only that which is physical is real" is neither physical nor real as physical, we will be going in circles.

Regards
Mikkel

Again, from the very beginning of the thread, the argument proposed by Blu was that things either exist conceptually or physically. If you think concepts "count" as non-physical, okay, I'm fine with that. It's not a hill I need to die on. What I'm interested in is the notion that a deity could exist who is non-physical but also not just conceptual, ie the deity actually exists outside our minds. That's what I started the thread to talk about. Do you believe in a deity that is non-physical but also not just conceptual? If so, in what sense does the deity "exist?"

 

[PureX]

Why doesn't that force the conclusion that to speak of God is to have no idea what you're talking about, and no hope of finding out?

We can know THAT we don't know, without knowing WHAT we don't know. That's how a mystery is generated. We identify it by context. By the question's we are being caused to ask based on what we think we DO know.

That even the idea of an imaginary God is incoherent?

It's not incoherent. Mysteries are logical, and real.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Thoughts can be a products of the brain without referring to anything actually outside it. I can have an idea, produced by my brain, that my partner is cheating on me. Yet, my partner may not actually be cheating on me.

Hold that thought - "Thoughts can be a products of the brain without referring to anything actually outside it." Now try to expand on it. Is that real? Does it happen? Does it exist? If yes, then you have problem. You accept something which have no physical referent.

There is a way of that problem, but it requires that you stop thinking in metaphysical terms and start doing phenomenology.
Here it is in philosophy, forget science:
"Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. ..."
philosophy | Definition, Systems, Fields, Schools, & Biographies

We are now going to do the second version: "...of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience."
We don't start with the world as such. We start with you.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Again, from the very beginning of the thread, the argument proposed by Blu was that things either exist conceptually or physically. If you think concepts "count" as non-physical, okay, I'm fine with that. It's not a hill I need to die on. What I'm interested in is the notion that a deity could exist who is non-physical but also not just conceptual, ie the deity actually exists outside our minds. That's what I started the thread to talk about. Do you believe in a deity that is non-physical but also not just conceptual? If so, in what sense does the deity "exist?"

It is not that simple. You are taking to much for granted.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[PureX]

Yet there are millions of people convinced that they know their Gods and their God's Will. Are their Gods fake because they are insufficiently mysterious to them?

They have just confused the conceptual artifice they use to represent the unkowable in their minds, and enable them to 'interact' with it in whatever ways they feel they need to.

Are they doing religion wrongly because they are centering their lives around a set of known beliefs and practices rather than the fundamental unknowability of reality, and the terrifying uncertainty and nihilism of all existence?

In short, are practicing theists, in your opinion, working with an incorrect definition of God?

There is no "incorrect definition of God", because we cannot define God. People adopt whatever definitions and characterizations of God that suits them; because it suits them. Most religions try to remind their adherents that God is a/the great incomprehensible mystery, but people fear what they can't understand, because they can't control it. So they prefer to conceptualize the unknowable in ways that allow them to imagine that they have some sort of control. They usually personify it, because doing that helps them feel that they can 'interact' with it, and thereby gain some sort of understanding and control of it.

Is this "wrong"? There's no way for us to know.

 

[Left Coast]

Are you familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave?

I am. I actually mentioned a (neo-)Platonic conception of God earlier in this thread, though I got sidetracked and didn't circle back to it.

I've been trying to explain to you why you're mistaken, and your responses have made it clear that you don't have the foundational knowledge to understand this stuff right now. It's not an insult, so please don't be offended; I'm sure there are plenty of things that you know more about than I do. This simply isn't one of them, and I'm trying my best to be helpful, but judging by this conversation you have hours upon hours of research to do before coming to an accurate understanding of what we're talking about when we talk about the mind. And it's not just you, by the way; it's the majority of people here. Of course, this isn't a philosophy forum, so it's completely understandable that lots of people here don't have much of a philosophical background, but when people who haven't been educated in philosophy try to have philosophical conversations, the result is going to be a mess - which is almost exclusively what I've seen on this forum so far. It's like watching people who don't know how to do math argue about geometry (a hyperbolic example, but you get the idea).

I apologize that we are not up to your level in terms of philosophical understanding of the subject matter. This is a forum for laypeople; we don't require academic degrees for participation (although I do have a couple). I hope that you'll stick around and elevate the discourse. What has your formal education in philosophy been, incidentally?

Anyway, as I said, start with qualia. It's an absolutely crucial concept in the philosophy of mind that you don't seem at all familiar with, and understanding qualia will bring you much closer to understanding why the mind/brain dichotomy is much more complicated than you currently believe.

All the best.

I actually am reasonably familiar with the problem of qualia, and was pondering starting a thread about it. I agree with you that it presents a problem for materialist conceptions of mind. Since you are much more conversant in it than I am though, perhaps that would be a good thread for you to start.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

They have just confused the conceptual artifice they use to represent the unkowable in their minds, and enable them to 'interact' with it in whatever ways they feel they need to.
There is no "incorrect definition of God", because we cannot define God. People adopt whatever definitions and characterizations of God that suits them; because it suits them. Most religions try to remind their adherents that God is a/the great incomprehensible mystery, but people fear what they can't understand, because they can't control it. So they prefer to conceptualize the unknowable in ways that allow them to imagine that they have some sort of control. They usually personify it, because doing that helps them feel that they can 'interact' with it, and thereby gain some sort of understanding and control of it.

Is this "wrong"? There's no way for us to know.

"...because we cannot define God."

"...
Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:
(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;
(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.
..."
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

We are in the end playing a version of cognitive relativism for both (1) and (2).

Regards
Mikkel

 

[izzy88]

Again, from the very beginning of the thread, the argument proposed by Blu was that things either exist conceptually or physically. If you think concepts "count" as non-physical, okay, I'm fine with that. It's not a hill I need to die on. What I'm interested in is the notion that a deity could exist who is non-physical but also not just conceptual, ie the deity actually exists outside our minds. That's what I started the thread to talk about. Do you believe in a deity that is non-physical but also not just conceptual? If so, in what sense does the deity "exist?"

This thread is you trying to argue that a God who is outside the universe can't exist by changing the definition of "exists" to "things in the universe."

It's fallacious. It's question-begging. And you're just going to keep going around in circles until you realize it.

You are assuming a strictly materialist world, with nothing beyond it, and saying that therefore an immaterial God who is beyond this world cannot exist. In other words, you aren't actually saying anything meaningful.

"If X is true then Y is impossible, and I believe that X is true, so isn't Y impossible?"

Well, yeah, sure, if X is true. But you haven't established that, you're just taking it for granted.

 

[Left Coast]

This thread is you trying to argue that a God who is outside the universe can't exist by changing the definition of "exists" to "things in the universe."

It's fallacious. It's question-begging. And you're just going to keep going around in circles until you realize it.

You are assuming a strictly materialist world, with nothing beyond it, and saying that therefore an immaterial God who is beyond this world cannot exist. In other words, you aren't actually saying anything meaningful.

"If X is true then Y is impossible, and I believe that X is true, so isn't Y impossible?"

Well, yeah, sure, if X is true. But you haven't established that, you're just taking it for granted.

To clarify, if you go back and take a look, I was actually citing someone else's argument that I took issue with in the previous thread that I linked. However, I wanted to make sure I fairly and thoroughly summarized that person's argument for purposes of stirring up meaningful discussion.

If you disagree with the premise that non-physical, non-conceptual god concepts are incoherent, what I'm looking for are explanations of what that kind of existence actually means to you. In what sense do things "exist" if they are neither physical, nor merely concepts in people's minds?

I wasn't declaring victory from the outset, I was actually looking for people to explain variant conceptions of "existence," since I didn't buy Blu's argument that a non-physical god would be incoherent by definition. But I thought others would have fruitful ideas to explain it better than me.

 

[PureX]

Something personal to start this off.
In my journey through life I was taught not just to act, but to reflect upon my thoughts, feelings and actions. There is psychology in that as how to cope and use cognitive modification of one's own mental states and to be aware of that one is thinking. Not just be one's own thinking but to hold, examine and understand one's own mental states.

The fancy words are in part mentalization and meta-cognition. What I learned was that, before I could do that reliable and "on the demand", I would "react and be my mental states" without considering them.
So we are playing a game of the ability to check one's own thoughts, feelings and actions and not just take them for granted. That connects to philosophy as critical thinking, suspension of judgment, to doubt one's own assumptions and indeed to find one's own assumptions.

So let me give an example. Justification in the strong sense is not possible because of Agrippa the Skeptic's 5 modes. But to learn that requires in the end that you can reflect upon your own thoughts and feelings and not just be them.

So in practice some people can't do that on demand. They are in effect unable to get behind the flow of their thoughts and check what they are doing.

Regards
Mikkel

An old delta blues singer referred to that as his "second mind".

 

[izzy88]

I actually am reasonably familiar with the problem of qualia

Based on what you've been saying in this thread, I find that extremely hard to believe.

In what sense do things "exist" if they are neither physical, nor merely concepts in people's minds?

Example, you would not be asking this question if you were actually familiar with the concept of qualia.

All I'm saying is that you'd benefit a lot more from actually studying this stuff than from arguing about it on a forum with people who - as both you and I have pointed out - are largely not going to be educated in this area. Which is why I also have a hard time believing that you were just innocently looking for people to explain things to you. Why would you come to a religion forum to ask questions about the philosophy of mind and ontology? You wouldn't go to a cooking forum to ask about biology, would you?

You started this topic to have an argument.

If you actually want to learn, do research.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

To clarify, if you go back and take a look, I was actually citing someone else's argument that I took issue with in the previous thread that I linked. However, I wanted to make sure I fairly and thoroughly summarized that person's argument for purposes of stirring up meaningful discussion.

If you disagree with the premise that non-physical, non-conceptual god concepts are incoherent, what I'm looking for are explanations of what that kind of existence actually means to you. In what sense do things "exist" if they are neither physical, nor merely concepts in people's minds?

I wasn't declaring victory from the outset, I was actually looking for people to explain variant conceptions of "existence," since I didn't buy Blu's argument that a non-physical god would be incoherent by definition. But I thought others would have fruitful ideas to explain it better than me.

Back to the start.
The assumption is that the world can be explained in coherent terms for all of the world. That is not the case, because logic is a limited behavior in humans. I.e. you can't do everything as a human only using logic.
What happens in practice is that you over-reduce the world down to a too simple model.

That has nothing to do with materialism or other similar versions. Some religious people also do that.
In effect for coherent we are playing necessary and sufficient in regards to logic. The problem is that logic is not sufficient in describing the world. Nor is reason and logic. Nor is reason, logic and empiricism sufficient.
In short there is no singular coherent model of all of the world in sufficient terms.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[PureX]

Thoughts can be a products of the brain without referring to anything actually outside it. I can have an idea, produced by my brain, that my partner is cheating on me. Yet, my partner may not actually be cheating on me.

Yet, the concept still exists, and exists so fully that it determines your reality.

 

[Left Coast]

Based on what you've been saying in this thread, I find that extremely hard to believe.

Example, you would not be asking this question if you were actually familiar with the concept of qualia.

I disagree. You're aware, I assume, that all philosophers don't agree about qualia, right? That it's an area of intense disagreement? It's not as though we're talking about physicists' understanding of gravity here.

All I'm saying is that you'd benefit a lot more from actually studying this stuff than from arguing about it on a forum with people who - as both you and I have pointed out - are largely not going to be educated in this area. Which is why I also have a hard time believing that you were just innocently looking for people to explain things to you. Why would you come to a religion forum to ask questions about the philosophy of mind and ontology? You wouldn't go to a cooking forum to ask about biology, would you?

You started this topic to have an argument.

If you actually want to learn, do research.

Of course I started the topic to have an argument - I posted a thread in the "General Religious Debates" forum. That's what it's for.

However, believe it or not, we can both walk and chew gum. I have both done a decent amount of philosophical reading (for someone who's not a professional philosopher) and also enjoy a healthy debate to exchange ideas with others.

If you don't find online forums for discussing or debating religion or philosophy to be fruitful, then I'm honestly not sure what you expected to find here. I apologize, again, that I have not met your expectations. Perhaps try some exchanges with others here in other threads; there are some quite educated people here. They may be more worthy of your expertise.

 

[Left Coast]

Back to the start.
The assumption is that the world can be explained in coherent terms for all of the world. That is not the case, because logic is a limited behavior in humans. I.e. you can't do everything as a human only using logic.
What happens in practice is that you over-reduce the world down to a too simple model.

That has nothing to do with materialism or other similar versions. Some religious people also do that.
In effect for coherent we are playing necessary and sufficient in regards to logic. The problem is that logic is not sufficient in describing the world. Nor is reason and logic. Nor is reason, logic and empiricism sufficient.
In short there is no singular coherent model of all of the world in sufficient terms.

Regards
Mikkel

Understood. So in your view, a non-physical, non-conceptual God is in fact incoherent.

You just think all worldviews are incoherent as well.

Am I summarizing correctly?