No Magic

[blü 2]

So, we can't trusts our own judgement or even trust our own senses. Given that, perhaps belief in God is not so far-fetched.

Except that God doesn't even have a definition appropriate to an entity with objective existence such that it we found a real suspect we could tell whether it was God or not.

Which if God is indeed real, has objective existence, is not purely conceptual/imaginary, I find inexplicable.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not sure I understand what you are saying ... but what is wrong with 'proof'?

How I have learn words like proof, truth, evidence and so on mean to me different concepts in regards to certainty. If I claim proof, it is necessary and sufficient and can't be another way. i.e. it is absolute for all times and all relevant cases and so on. Where as evidence is a set of beliefs that at least for now apparently works.

Historically in Western culture it is old school philosophy back to the Greek idea of rationality, proof and truth. That didn't work, so philosophers can up with evidence. That is the short version.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Except that God doesn't even have a definition appropriate to an entity with objective existence such that it we found a real suspect we could tell whether it was God or not.

Which if God is indeed real, has objective existence, is not purely conceptual/imaginary, I find inexplicable.

Objective existence in the strong sense is itself empty. It is a compound mental abstract and you don't need to believe in objective existence, just as you don't need to believe in God.

 

[blü 2]

Objective existence in the strong sense is itself empty. It is a compound mental abstract and you don't need to believe in objective existence, just as you don't need to believe in God.

No, objective reality is the world external to you, which you were born into and where your air, food, floor, sky, companions and internet connections exist.

You know this is true because as I keep pointing out, your actions in posting here are only possible if you think there's a world external to you and that your senses are capable of informing you of it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, objective reality is the world external to you, which you were born into and where your air, food, floor, sky, companions and internet connections exist.

You know this is true because as I keep pointing out, your actions in posting here are only possible if you think there's a world external to you and that your senses are capable of informing you of it.

The joke is that your "No" is not external to you or a part of objective reality.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I believe in reality (that's all I can do) but I think the use of the word "mundane" in the OP makes it sound a bit dull.

I believe reality is an illusion, but a sufficiently coherent one at the macroscopic level, to sustain the narratives that enable us to live seemingly deterministic lives.

But essentially,

In Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And there’s nothing to get hung about…

Knowing this does not help us pay the rent. It may help us stop worrying about the rent.

 

[Secret Chief]

I believe reality is an illusion, but a sufficiently coherent one at the macroscopic level, to sustain the narratives that enable us to live seemingly deterministic lives.

But essentially,

In Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And there’s nothing to get hung about…

Knowing this does not help us pay the rent. It may help us stop worrying about the rent.

Ugh, the Beatles.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Ugh, the Beatles.

You don’t like Beatles band?

 

[PearlSeeker]

No Magic, no supernatural stuff.

Does this make reality more or less interesting to you?

No crystals, no good luck charms, no prayer fulfillment. Nothing but physics and repeatable cause and effect. Mundane reality. Is this good enough or do you need more?

Is it possible to be happy without the other stuff?

Nature itself is magical and mysterious. That makes it interesting. Reality with no magic would be less interesting for me.

Nothing but physics and repeatable cause and effect? Sorry, but this is not mundane reality. It's actually disbelief in things that are part of normal everyday experience. This reminds me of Chesterton's words:

It was not that I began by believing in supernormal things. It was that the unbelievers began by disbelieving even in normal things. It was the secularists who drove me to theological ethics, by themselves destroying any sane or rational possibility of secular ethics. I might myself have been a secularist, so long as it meant that I could be merely responsible to secular society. It was the Determinist who told me, at the top of his voice, that I could not be responsible at all.

/.../There is still a notion that the agnostic can remain secure of this world, so long as he does not wish to be what is called ‘other-worldly.’ He can be content with common sense about men and women, so long as he is not curious of mysteries about angels and archangels. It is not true. The questions of the sceptic strike direct at the heart of this our human life; they disturb this world, quite apart from the other world; and it is exactly common sense that they disturb most. There could not be a better example than this queer appearance, in my youth, of the determinist as a demagogue; shouting to a mob of millions that no man ought to be blamed for anything he did, because it was all heredity and environment. Logically, it would stop a man in the act of saying ‘Thank you’ to somebody for passing the mustard. For how could he be praised for passing the mustard, if he could not be blamed for not passing the mustard?”

(Commonplace Holiness Blog)

Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.

(Chesterton, Orthodoxy)​

 

[Secret Chief]

You don’t like Beatles band?

Not at all.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Not at all.

It’s okay. You can not like The Beatles and still be a good person. Perhaps you didn’t grow up in the 60s?

 

[Secret Chief]

It’s okay. You can not like The Beatles and still be a good person. Perhaps you didn’t grow up in the 60s?

Born in 1960. I can appreciate they (and possibly their producer) moved popular music on a bit but their music never moved me. The first band that made me sit up and go "oooh music!" was King Crimson in 69. Real magic!

 

[RestlessSoul]

Born in 1960. I can appreciate they (and possibly their producer) moved popular music on a bit but their music never moved me. The first band that made me sit up and go "oooh music!" was King Crimson in 69. Real magic!

21st Century Schizoid Man. Was that King Crimson? I’m not overly familiar tbh., seem to remember that one though. In fact it was on the jukebox of a pub I used to drink in in the 70s. Along with The Doors, Riders On The Storm…

I was born in 1961. For a while I regretted that I’d been a child and not a youth in the 60s. Then along came The Clash, and changed everything…

 

[Secret Chief]

21st Century Schizoid Man. Was that King Crimson? I’m not overly familiar tbh., seem to remember that one though. In fact it was on the jukebox of a pub I used to drink in in the 70s. Along with The Doors, Riders On The Storm…

I was born in 1961. For a while I regretted that I’d been a child and not a youth in the 60s. Then along came The Clash, and changed everything…

Yes Schizoid was first track on the first album. My older brother had borrowed it from a friend.

 

[Justanatheist]

Born in 1960. I can appreciate they (and possibly their producer) moved popular music on a bit but their music never moved me. The first band that made me sit up and go "oooh music!" was King Crimson in 69. Real magic!

Had to find my copy of The Court of the Crimson King and stick it on the deck, thanks for the reminder.'

 

[Altfish]

How I have learn words like proof, truth, evidence and so on mean to me different concepts in regards to certainty. If I claim proof, it is necessary and sufficient and can't be another way. i.e. it is absolute for all times and all relevant cases and so on. Where as evidence is a set of beliefs that at least for now apparently works.

Historically in Western culture it is old school philosophy back to the Greek idea of rationality, proof and truth. That didn't work, so philosophers can up with evidence. That is the short version.

"Where as evidence is a set of beliefs that at least for now apparently works."
No it is not!

Let's take a murder .... Evidence is fingerprints on the gun; blood on the shoes of the suspect, etc. - those are not 'a set of beliefs'; they are facts that lead to the conclusion of who the murderer is.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

"Where as evidence is a set of beliefs that at least for now apparently works."
No it is not!

Let's take a murder .... Evidence is fingerprints on the gun; blood on the shoes of the suspect, etc. - those are not 'a set of beliefs'; they are facts that lead to the conclusion of who the murderer is.

Yeah. Let me explain. It has nothing to do with its Wikipedia. It has good inline references.
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

What evidence is, as a history of ideas and thoughts that led to the concept of scientific evidence has nothing to do with folk beliefs about what evidence is.
You even use evidence as in part legal concept and not just scientific.
So no, you can have your beliefs and I have mine.

 

[savagewind]

I see patterns in little things that happen to me and at least one of my friends too. They are wonderful and I have called them magic. My life is better for them, I think. I do not make them happen and I do not look for them. I am observant, is all.

 

[blü 2]

The joke is that your "No" is not external to you or a part of objective reality.

No, my joke is that you're real.

 

[Altfish]

Yeah. Let me explain. It has nothing to do with its Wikipedia. It has good inline references.
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

What evidence is, as a history of ideas and thoughts that led to the concept of scientific evidence has nothing to do with folk beliefs about what evidence is.
You even use evidence as in part legal concept and not just scientific.
So no, you can have your beliefs and I have mine.

In other words, You have your definitions, I'll have the accepted one.