Nature and Logos

[Ella S.]

I'm interested in comparing/contrasting some ideas here.

To me, I worship the Nature described by the ancient Stoics and by Spinoza, which was often called God. More specifically, the Stoics saw God as the animating force entangled within (but inseparable from) matter, and they called this animating force the "logic of God" or the Logos. This was because Nature was seen as being ordered rationally, given that it expresses itself through predictable patterns of motion, and determinism/fatalism was extracted from that.

Rather than having faith in a monotheistic God, I put my trust in the logic of Nature. Part of that is trying to cultivate a love of fate, sometimes called Amor Fati. Rather than seeing everyone as unified in an ultimate divinity, I see them as parts of an interconnected whole, which tends to be quite similar in practice.

I realize that this extends to spiritual practices as well. I partake in introspective meditation, for instance, in order to stay aligned with my ideals. When I want to affect change in the world, logic is my magic. Just as practitioners of magic believe that their spells and rituals will make the outcomes they seek more likely to occur, I believe that logic gives me strategies and solutions that make the outcomes I seek more likely to occur.

Which is something I find interesting. There's a similar psychospiritual need being fulfilled by my naturalistic worldview that is traditionally filled by more supernatural perspectives:

Instead of trusting in God when everything feels like it's going awry, I accept the outcomes of the logical processes of Nature, both of which sooth the mind of distress. Instead of praying when I need something, I turn to logic to figure out what I need to do in order to increase my chances of obtaining it, both of which can engender feelings of control. Instead of viewing myself as having a divine purpose in a greater cosmic plan, I believe that I was fated to be exactly as I am as a consequence of Nature's logical processes, both of which can be validating when one feels lost. Instead of gaining my morality from a God through divine command theory or moral supernaturalism, I gain my morality from logic through moral rationalism.

In a way, logic is my God.

I'm particularly interested in the perspectives of other naturalistic pantheists on whether they, too, have found satisfying replacements for spiritual practices and ideas that are normally exclusive to religion, but I'm also open to input from those who are more oriented towards supernatural panentheism or who might combine pantheism with spiritual panpsychism about how pantheism fills their spiritual needs.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Big question. Gimmie time so I can sit and write a proper answer.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Rather than having faith in a monotheistic God, I put my trust in the logic of Nature.

I don't put my trust in Nature. But I DO put my trust in logic.

Nature is beyond me. Probably beyond all logic. (At least at a certain point.) Obviously, all observable nature can be understood logically.

1. If "mass x acceleration = force"
2. Then "an object with x amount of mass and y amount of acceleration will have z amount of force"

That's entirely logical, and our entire visible universe is subject to these laws. It is illogical to reject this conclusion.

But there may actually exist "the thing that created the thing that created the thing that caused the big bang." Who knows how much logic may be able to understand as we go further back in that chain? Maybe the first link lies beyond all human reason and human comprehension. I still call such a thing Nature. But I dare not call it "necessarily logical." It may defy logic. Who am I to say it can't or doesn't? By logic alone, I can determine that such a statement either way is unknown to me, and therefore I can conclude nothing about it.

That being said, logic is an INCREDIBLY useful tool in supplying us with correct conclusions. It is indispensable in telling us all we CAN know about Nature. But I am dubious about Plato's claim that everything that exists can be apprehended or clarified by logic.

I am careful not to be unrealistic about the universe, even though I wonder if it is entirely logical. It is tempting to personify the universe. But I am not tempted to put any kind of sentient being at the beginning of the causal (or logical) chain.

That being said, I do put my trust in Nature. We all do. Our brains are wired to. And I don't think it's unwise to put one's trust in Nature. But logic (by which I mean proper logic, mind you) is far more reliable than Providence.

 

[Ella S.]

I don't put my trust in Nature. But I DO put my trust in logic.

Nature is beyond me. Probably beyond all logic. (At least at a certain point.) Obviously, all observable nature can be understood logically.

1. If "mass x acceleration = force"
2. Then "an object with x amount of mass and y amount of acceleration will have z amount of force"

That's entirely logical, and our entire visible universe is subject to these laws. It is illogical to reject this conclusion.

But there may actually exist "the thing that created the thing that created the thing that caused the big bang." Who knows how much logic may be able to understand as we go further back in that chain? Maybe the first link lies beyond all human reason and human comprehension. I still call such a thing Nature. But I dare not call it "necessarily logical." It may defy logic. Who am I to say it can't or doesn't? By logic alone, I can determine that such a statement either way is unknown to me, and therefore I can conclude nothing about it.

This is an interesting point and it's one that I think must be taken seriously.

The "logic of nature" is, of course, an approximation based on how the natural world appears to us through simple observation. It should not be mistaken as a deductive truism about reality itself. The ancient Stoics, I would argue, were even wrong about the mechanisms they proposed, since they believed in a vaporous physical "ether" that animated the universe.

That belief was formed from observing the degassing of the recently deceased through the mouths of their corpses. That was believed to be their soul leaving the body, so the soul was composed of a vital, animating air. Of course, Christians and Muslims would make the same assertions about the soul and about demons, teaching that they were beings composed of a thin, invisible vapor.

That material does not exist, and it does not form some larger panpsychist mind underlying the entire universe as some thinkers influenced by Stoic metaphysics proposed. This demonstrates that any of our models are subject to the same limits we are. We see logic in the universe because we are logical, but, as far as I know, the universe has no instrumental rationality. It does not pursue truth. Rather, we can describe it through the language of logic for the sake of our own comprehension. In other words, we are the ones who logicalize regarding Nature.

As you point out, it's possible that the underlying reality of the universe is impossible to comprehend or conceive of, given the computational limitations of the human brain. Logic is our invention as a means to navigate our small slice of it.

However, I have more to say on this below.

That being said, logic is an INCREDIBLY useful tool in supplying us with correct conclusions. It is indispensable in telling us all we CAN know about Nature. But I am dubious about Plato's claim that everything that exists can be apprehended or clarified by logic.

I am careful not to be unrealistic about the universe, even though I wonder if it is entirely logical. It is tempting to personify the universe. But I am not tempted to put any kind of sentient being at the beginning of the causal (or logical) chain.

That being said, I do put my trust in Nature. We all do. Our brains are wired to. And I don't think it's unwise to put one's trust in Nature. But logic (by which I mean proper logic, mind you) is far more reliable than Providence.

I think this is closer to how I conceive of it.

Consider this: are our individual logics not products of Nature, themselves? Are we not, in some way, Nature reflecting upon itself through logic?

In some sense, logic is how we are able to relate to Nature. Perhaps many ideas cannot be translated into logic, but logic still serves as a bridge between ourselves and Nature. Even if we were solipsists, we must admit that there are some things external to our control which feed into our understanding through perception.

That is, in a way, a language. Concepts are being communicated to us.

Now, I agree, we should not assert agency behind this communication. Personifying Nature seems to me to be a route to many misunderstandings. So, we can dehumanize and objectify Nature, which tends to lead to a better understanding much like the clinical objectification of human anatomy has furthered the medical sciences.

However, that conceptual input still exists, and I think it's fair to say that the perceptions we receive tend to come to us in a way that is coherent. So what we have is a simplified language that is self-coherent, which is the foundation of logic. In a way, it is Nature communicating to us through our rational faculties, which is formalized by logic.

So I do think it makes sense to conceive of a "logic of Nature," even if we might be unable to holistically essentialize Nature down to algorithmic processes.

I'm not sure if you've heard of the phrase, "garbage in, garbage out," in computer science. It's the idea that, no matter how well-written a process is, the quality of its output depends on its input. It could be the case, for instance, that the universe we perceive is due to some kind of Ganzfeld effect where our inherent pattern-recognizing minds are drawing patterns that are not necessarily there. The world we inhabit might be far more chaotic than we think, and our current way of describing it according to logic might be an impressive feat of extreme misguidance on the part of our collective species.

The input we're receiving might not be properly formatted for our logical minds to comprehend at all. It's possible that we are misinterpreting the universe in an effort to cogitate it through reason. What could we do in such a case? Convert to Discordianism?

I do think that, from our current vantage point, it is reasonable to think that Nature can be described and predicted mathematically. In that sense, I think it makes sense to talk about the mechanistic logic of nature, up until we realize how horribly wrong we were to have ever conceived of it in that way. As a logical being, my only recourse is to await good reason to demonstrate that the universe is not as likely to be the way we think it is, and hopefully from there adopt a superior model when the time comes.

 

[Quintessence]

What led you to accept dualism in your worldview? That is, why do you believe there are two contrasting paradigms of "naturalistic" and "supernaturalistic?" Where do you suppose you learned these notions?

In my experience, getting stuck in dualistic thinking is problematic for approaching and understanding theologies outside of Abrahamic monotheisms. Pantheism begins with the foundational assumption that nature and the gods are not two - it rejects dualism outright, doesn't it? I'm not understanding the need to layer dualism into pantheism - it seems unnecessary to me, and a product of the cultural dominance of dualistic thinking when we do it as pantheists. Or is this coming from somewhere else?

 

[vulcanlogician]

I'm not sure if you've heard of the phrase, "garbage in, garbage out," in computer science.

It's a pretty important concept in logic too. Logic may be completely without error, but if the premises are untrue, the conclusion is worthless.

I loved your analysis. And I think it's reasonable to mention a "logic of nature"... so long as one acknowledges the caveats I've listed.

 

[Ella S.]

What led you to accept dualism in your worldview? That is, why do you believe there are two contrasting paradigms of "naturalistic" and "supernaturalistic?" Where do you suppose you learned these notions?

The division between "natural" and "supernatural" is a form of "mitigated dualism." The rejection of that dichotomy as depicted here is a form of metaphysical monism, not dualism. In this case, that monism is naturalism, which rejects the reality of the supernatural and affirms only the reality of the natural.

This is in contrast to transcendental monist schools like Platonic Idealism or Advaita Vedanta, which reject the natural world as an illusion and affirm only the reality of a "super" natural substance which is somehow beyond, beneath, or "above" the visible world.

In my experience, getting stuck in dualistic thinking is problematic for approaching and understanding theologies outside of Abrahamic monotheisms. Pantheism begins with the foundational assumption that nature and the gods are not two - it rejects dualism outright, doesn't it? I'm not understanding the need to layer dualism into pantheism - it seems unnecessary to me, and a product of the cultural dominance of dualistic thinking when we do it as pantheists. Or is this coming from somewhere else?

Abrahamic theology is also mostly monist, not dualist. Pop Christianity and Islam can sometimes stray towards mitigated dualism with their concepts of sin and the devil, but philosophical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all been highly influenced by Aristotlean and Neoplatonic metaphysics, which are monist.

Dualism is more closely tied to Wicca and Gnosticism than erudite Abrahamic worldviews, in my opinion. I have spent some time as both a Wiccan and a Gnostic, and I no longer harbor a dualist worldview.

That said, I am not a non-dualist in the sense of Advaita Vedanta. I don't accept the idea that everything stems from a single, unmitigated consciousness. That is also not an Abrahamic idea, but it is still a supernatural one.

I don't agree that Abrahamic religion is the only religion with a concept of the supernatural. Almost every shamanic religion has a division between the natural world and the spirit world, in some way, and many of them have ideas about the afterlife, which is an inherently supernatural concept. Magic has also been practiced by almost every religion that's older than a few centuries, including onmyodo, qi gong, brujeria, hoodoo, etc. and all of these are supernatural practices with non-Abrahamic roots.

That said, many ethnic religions place more of an emphasis on orthopraxy and story-telling rather than literal supernatural doctrine, which can allow for a wide range of naturalistic worldviews to co-exist with supernatural ones in some traditional settings. That can often include a breakdown of the division between notions of "supernatural" and "natural." It is rather uncommon, though.

Anyways, that's mostly a tangent. In my opinion, dualism is more closely associated with supernaturalism than naturalism, and I don't view supernaturalism as an Abrahamic construct by any means. Remember, Abrahamic religion came out of Mesopotamian and Mediterranean paganisms; it is unique in its monotheism, but it's still visibly tied to these roots. Catholic priests in particular perform shamanic roles, being intercessors between the divine world and the mortal one, and that's a very, very old concept. It's older than Abraham.

ETA: And I also disagree that the division between "natural" and "supernatural" necessarily makes one a dualist any more than making a division between a car and an orange does. Abstract categorization doesn't necessarily make any statements about composition.

 

[Ella S.]

It's a pretty important concept in logic too. Logic may be completely without error, but if the premises are untrue, the conclusion is worthless.

I loved your analysis. And I think it's reasonable to mention a "logic of nature"... so long as one acknowledges the caveats I've listed.

I agree when it comes to logic. That is one of my major criticisms of ancient Stoicism, actually. They had an incredibly logical approach to analyzing whether particular actions were just or not. The only problem is that this logical analysis relied heavily on common sayings and aphorisms, which they used to help define what goodness means in order to describe how to be good.

In other words, their foundational moral statements were all products of their culture and time, with no real philosophical justification for them. They simply took moral statements at face value and tried to form them into a coherent system, even coming up with a few strangely complex discourses when attempting to make mutually contradictory ideas about goodness compatible with one another.

The closest they get to foundational moral statements is when the later Stoics started using heavy appeals to nature in their arguments. In my opinion, that's illogical and a naturalistic fallacy, but, more than that, it's incoherent. Stoic metaphysics teaches about fate and that all things are ultimately natural. So how can any actions be unnatural?

There are a few arguments from different Stoics about that, but none of them really hold up, in my opinion. I think it's pretty clear that by "natural" they really meant "common" so, whether they meant to or not, later Stoics just ended up reinforcing the status quo of ancient Rome and stigmatizing anyone who stood out too much. Musonius Rufus and Marcus Aurelius are particular examples of this, with the latter corrupting Stoicism so horribly that he's often considered to have killed the movement.

Luckily, several centuries later, the Enlightenment revisited Stoicism and the Socratic intellectualism that it was founded upon during the rise of moral rationalism, allowing thinkers like Spinoza to wash away some of the more egregious sentiments. For the Modern Stoic who cares, they can enjoy an ethic with a purer logic.

Although most of them seem to just use Marcus Aurelius as an excuse to be misogynistic and queerphobic, so the damage these later thinkers did to Stoicism has left a scar that's lasted all the way into the modern day. It's why I've started labeling myself a "moral rationalist" who adheres to "Socratic virtue" as a way to distance myself from the fallacious rationalizations of passion that masquerade as "logic" in the Modern Stoic movement.