Thursday, April 24, 2008

Cosmic Man and the Source of Certitude

Last night the Dreamer gave me a series of vivid dreams that confirmed most everything I wrote in my post yesterday, including, most importantly, the existence of the Dreamer himself. That's a form of confirmation and a source of certainty, but it obviously isn't "scientific" certainty. In fact, whatever I write, I feel as if it is backed by the full faith and credit of forces greater than myself, hence, the certainty that is so bobnoxious to trolls.

On the other hand, I often wonder at the source of the scientific materialist's certainty, since it is a metaphysic that doesn't permit man access to any certainty at all. Only revelation can do that, understood in its three senses as the Cosmos, the uncreated Intellect, and Scripture. So why is the materialist so insistent about his beliefs? It makes no sense. Of all people, they should be the ones to not only confess ultimate ignorance, but the impossibility of exiting that impoverished, third-world state in any absolute way that transcends matter.

But they don't. Rather, they are filled with certainty, which is only a disguised form of pseudo-faith. Today at American Thinker there is a piece that touches on this, The Left's Theft of the Open Society and the Scientific Method. It goes into a topic we have discussed here in the past, that is, the curious fact -- Orwellian, even -- that George Soros, one of the sweetest sugar daddies of the sour infantile left, claims to be an advocate of Karl Popper's "open society," when his leftist philosophy represents its single greatest threat. It is strictly impossible to believe in the open society and to be a man of the left. Impossible. Popper was a liberal, not a leftist. How can someone be so stupid -- unless they aren't stupid at all, just evil? Yes, that was ratorical.

But this is hardly anything new. Carson writes of the truism that "the Left misappropriates intellectual capital for perverse ends, in order to lend itself a veneer of respectability and befuddle its critics." I'm not a big fan of Popper's philosophy -- I much prefer his coontemporary, Polanyi, who covered the same ground as Popper, but in a deeper way that is entirely compatible with religion. In fact, to my knowledge, Popper was a materialist, which automatically makes his philosophy ungroundable, and rooted in the same metaphysical error as his opponents. To blame Plato for Marx is like blaming Moses for Chomsky.

As Carson notes, Popper's main villain was "Marxist historical inevitability and its pink cousin Western progressivism. We cannot predict scientific discoveries. Otherwise, they would not be discoveries. Scientific discoveries have an enormous influence on the future. Therefore, we cannot predict the future. Marxists and progressives who think that they represent the future are dangerous and deluded."

But Popper was ultimately wrong because man does have access to certainty, just not the horizontal certainty of scientism or leftist historicism. Rather, he has access to a realm of "vertical certainty" that comes clothed in various symbolic or exoteric forms that must be "decoded" to reveal their essential harmony and their unitary source in the Cosmic Dreamer.

In this sense, religion is certainly "falsifiable," just not in the scientific/materialistic sense of the word. For example, to say that "God is evil" is easily falsifiable on the plane of a priori metaphysical certitude, just as "all men are created equal" is easily confirmable. Besides, to say that "falsifiability" is the key to knowledge is like saying that "no" is the key to "yes." Again, as per Gödel, man has a source of certainty that cannot be reduced to any logical system.

You can never vanquish the left on its own materialistic level, otherwise you have made the central concession that matter is the only level. It is fighting ire with fire. A Popperian would have to say: we hold the following hypothesis to be untrue because unfalsifiable, that all men are created equal.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program about the human body. Speaking of which, is it really possible that biology and natural selection tell us everything we need to know about the human body? What a moronic belief. It's like suggesting that physics tells us everything we need to know about music or architecture. I suppose in a way it does, being that architecture is "frozen music," just as quantum physics suggests that the ponderable world is a kind of "solid energy." Therefore, man's body is a combination of geometry + music. And we are once again back to Male and Female, or the Absolute and the Infinite.

Obviously, everything we know can only be known within the "environment" of our human form, both in its objective and subjective modes. Nevertheless, the human form is absolute, being that man, unlike any other animal, is capable of transcendent truth. In other words, as Schuon points out, "the human form cannot be transcended, its sufficient reason being precisely to express the Absolute, hence the untranscendable." Critically, this cuts off any purely evolutionist, reductionist viewpoint at the knees -- or ankles, really. For if man could be reduced to the forces of natural selection, his form "would be the result of a prolonged elaboration starting from animal forms; an elaboration that is at once arbitrary and unlimited." No final truth could be known, including that one.

Do you see the point? In this context, there could exist no truth-bearing animal. The ontological gap between the highest animal and the lowest man is so great as to be quite literally infinite, as infinite as the gaps between being and non-being, or between a living and non-living cosmos. In fact, to even say "cosmos" is to say life and mind, no? Here's a hint:

"The word Cosmos... meant originally 'order,' and this order is perceived as harmony, as consonance between ourselves and the Universe. This idea was developed as the correspondence between the Macrocosmos (the World) and the Microcosmos, or Man, with sometimes the Temple as link, as 'proprotional mean' between the two" (Perry).

Thus when you "go to church" -- in whatever form -- you are attempting to reconcile the Micro- and Macrocosmos; or, to be perfectly accurate, to personally experience their a priori unity. You know, One Cosmos. Under you-know-who, the only thing it could possibly be under. Call it 1 under O, if you like. It's certainly not "one cosmos over matter," much less "one mind over Darwin." That is strictly impossible.

Rather, you can only know about a unitary cosmos to the extent that you yourself are one: if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Again, obvious, is it not? The human mind intuits the prior oneness of existence because that is the human privilege. It cannot be surpassed by "evolution," because it is already ultimate. "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Rom: 1:20).

By this we know, that all human properties proceed from one; that they all have but one only root and mother; otherwise, one man could not understand another.... Man has indeed all the forms of all the three worlds lying in him; for he is a complete image of God, or of the Being of all beings. -- Jacob Boehme

Of this you may be certain. For it is the certainty without which there can be none, and to deny it is to deny the very roots of knowledge. Plus, Petey said so, and that should be enough for anyOne.

46 comments:

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"In fact, whatever I write, I feel as if it is backed by the full faith and credit of forces greater than myself, hence, the certainty that is so bobnoxious to trolls."

Ha ha! That's another confirmation, although it's not as great as the highest form of confirmation of revelations.
More like a wailing and nashing of teeth form of confirmation that, ironically, is lost on the trolls themselves.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"You can never vanquish the left on its own materialistic level, otherwise you have made the central concession that matter is the only level. It is fighting ire with fire."

So true. Once we concede that erronious goalpost, we're playin' a game that nobody can win, with mere power as the prize of the most charismatic losers.

Anonymous said...

you said:

In this sense, religion is certainly "falsifiable," just not in the scientific/materialistic sense of the word. For example, to say that "God is evil" is easily falsifiable on the plane of a priori metaphysical certitude, just as "all men are created equal" is easily confirmable. Besides, to say that "falsifiability" is the key to knowledge is like saying that "no" is the key to "yes."

This paragraph demonstrates a profound non-understanding of the subject on which you are attempting to comment.

Error the first; You suggest that Religion[or, more properly understood, Metaphysics] is falsifiable, just not in the scientific sense. This completely non-understands the meaning of 'Falsifiable', in every possible sense, 'Metaphysics' and 'a priori'.

What makes Metaphysics Metaphysics is its a priori character. And what makes something a priori is the very fact that it cannot be falsified. For something to be falsified you must be able to observe an instance of it not being true or present, which is obviously not possible, by definition, for something which is true in all contexts, times and places.

Error the second; Neither Popper, nor nearly any other Philosophers of Science who discuss Falsifiability, assert that Falsifiability is the 'key to knowledge'. Instead, they think Falsifiability to be the key to 'Science', which is a vastly different position. The very practice of the Philosophy of Science requires that one acknowledge that there is knowledge outside of science.

You said:

A Popperian would have to say: we hold the following hypothesis to be untrue because unfalsifiable, that all men are created equal.

Another Error; Popper would not say that a hypothesis is untrue because it is unfalsifiable, but that it is unscientific because it is unfalsifiable. This is a significant distinction.

You should stick to things which you understand. I leave it an open question as to whether that is an empty set or not.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Namu Butsu-
Thanks for demonstrating your profound non-understanding, but you don't hafta go overboard telling us all that you don't know.

Anonymous said...

All of the belief systems of man, including scientism, arise from one basic glitch: God is partially veiled to us.

To chide one another for being unable to see through the veil is non-productive; the reason being, the veil has a purpose for existing. Why are we partially blind? Some, like Bob, see through it better than others, for instance Chomsky. But, the ultimate responsibility for the state of affairs lies squarely on the shoulders of the Master Itself.

The correct path is to forgive the blind and try to lead them if they will be led.

The only correct response to the blindness of others must be compassion, otherwise one arrogates to humanity a mistaken level of blame, which is a way of denying the Master.

Yet, and in contrast to the above,those who see through the veil, Its Vibhutis, are held to a much higher standard of responsibility in this area.

To see clearly through the veil and yet still to choose to dislike some elements of humanity is a wandering from the right path and should be corrected.

The point: chiding Leftists is non-productive. Chiding the spiritually astute to be ever more so is productive.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Sounds like a lot of chiding.

Anyway, Bob - wouldn't you agree that not only is there an a priori unity, but that it is inherently irreducible? I.e. I as a human have the same genes in all of my cells, but can not be reduced to my genes. All humans share the same nature, but can not be reduced to one man. (Rather, they must be increased to him I suppose.)

So the idea of trinity is quite necessary; to be one and many at the same time. Three's company, you know.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Anon-
The only correct response to other is Truth, not blind compassion.
Compassion without truth only causes more blindness.

And chiding the wise is the epitomy of foolishness.

"Compassion first and foremost religion" does far more harm than good.
Much like pacifism.

julie said...

No chiding, Anon (and as River pointed out, chiding seems to be the sole purpose of your comment)? Are you sure about that? I'm just wondering, because if you're coming from a Christian perspective (or at least from a perspective of respecting the wisdom and truth contained within Christianity, even if you don't consider yourself a believer), there are entire books of the New Testament which consist of almost nothing but "chiding," both gently stated and not so gently stated; seems to me Paul wielded a mighty big ClueBat, and he wasn't afraid to use it.

Anonymous said...

"Therefore, man's body is a combination of geometry + music."



Besides reading Grotstein's “Dreamer who dreams the dream,” I'm also kind of also skimming through some others that I picked up at the library. One called "the Primitive Edge of Experience” by Thomas Ogden introduced me--or at least offers the proposition--to the concept of an even early position than Klein's paranoid-schizoid, a mode that he calls the autistic-contiguous mode—autistic being the defense mechanism, and contiguous (sensory oriented) referring to the psychological organization. We could imagine it as the “underbelly” of paranoid-schizoid. (this has little to do with autism as a disease)

Whereas the relationship within the depressive position is defined by the unfolding of (k) between subjects, and the schizoid position defined by proto-affective relationships between objects, the autistic-contiguous mode is a “relationship of shape to the feeling of enclosure, of beat to the feeling of rhythm, of hardness to the feeling of edgedness. Sequences, symmetries, [and] periodicity” are rudimentary beginnings of “self-experience.”

Sequences, symmetries, and rhythm—geometry—therefore, have something to do with laying down in an archetypal way the constitution of ones form. I would say this mode is where, either through extreme regression (downward transcendence) or transcendence of the body, geometrical and ecstatic (ecstasy uncontained equals terror, the impingement of O) shapes along with their counterpart of celestial music lie. This probably bounds on the most finite (or is it bordering the infinite?) a posteriori category, I think; sounds like Bions uncontained symmetrical nightmare, Beta-space.

(this is from my journal, so it’s really about me. I sometimes feel bad, though, responding in my own way to the post, but not posting; all while bob just keeps on going. He’s got the form, and the music—reciprocal indwelling of trans-autistic-contiguous mode, the marriage father geometer and motherly music?)

Anonymous said...

I've got a question if anyone cares to opine. Is this statement true: what is a priori to some beings is a posteriori to others. There's bi-directional relationship between the two, a constantly evolving dialectic.

James said...

All of the belief systems of man, including scientism, arise from one basic glitch: God is partially veiled to us.

Anon at 9:53,

I used to say the same thing, like it's God fault we make the same stupid mistakes over and over. I'm rereading the Bible. I'm in Judges now. What is remarkable to me is as soon as the generation who, endured the exodus and witnessed God and his power first hand, passed away the next generation immediately started doing the things God told them not to do. It has been the same story ever since. God has provided the instructions, but we are a stiff-necked people which is a nice way of saying we are idiots. The problem isn't with God it's with us following instructions.

Namu,

You do have a point about Popper. He would say that religion is unscientific. Although I think Bob was talking more about faulty metaphysics. The very practice of the Philosophy of Science requires that one acknowledge that there is knowledge outside of science. You are correct, but we must take this deeper. Here is the rub that most folks reject: Science as we know it today is only possible because of Judeo-Christian metaphysics. That gets a raise out of people who would like to think we are oh so clever and would have came up with science on our own. Different era, same story, back to Judges.
I goggled your comment name. It's to think of Buddha or something like that. Are you Buddhist?

Anonymous said...

James, Science is most certainly neither dependent on, nor consistent with, Christian metaphysics. Christian metaphysics includes and requires an inherent teleology present in existence. This is taken over from Aristotle and Plato as well as from Judaism and Zoroastrianism. And if there is one thing we do not find, or can even cohere with, in the metaphysics of Science, is teleology.

While it seems an oversimplification to attribute the metaphysics underlying Science, in some essential way, to any pre-existing thought or thinkers, if we are to think in this way it makes much more sense to attribute the genesis of Science to the thinking of the pre-socratics, such as Heraclitus, to the Stoics and Epicureans, and especially to Spinoza. The rationalism which Spinoza clearly and forcefully demonstrated in the Ethics is very sensibly seen as the true beginning of Science as well as Modernity itself.

Gagdad Bob said...

I don't have time to unravel namu amida butsu's raveled agenda. Let it speak for itself.

Lisa said...

This is weird because I kept re-reading the same quote Namu quoted and thinking, "Something is not quite kosher here, and I thought it was the analogy of falsifiability to knowledge as yes to no or I just don't understand what Bob is saying at the moment (happens occasionally, I can be unusually dense sometimes). In my limited experience, a yes doesn't really mean anything unless the answer has been no at sometime. Just like the saying that Peace is not possible without a war. There is a very dualistic God/Man paradox present which also mirrors Eastern spirituality. My answers always lead back to Infinity or God, as does yours in the following paragraphs, "And we are once again back to Male and Female, or the Absolute and the Infinite."

Ultimately interesting how some of us, Racoons, arrive at three, while others arrive at two and in the end everyOne is back at One....;)

Anonymous said...

Error the third; Your Birth.

Anonymous said...

I just noticed that Dennis Prager is interviewing the author of the book "U.S. Verses them: How a half-century of conservatism has undermined America's security." I know that the Integral movement shares the same opinion, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

I'll be honest, I don't have a complete clarity on the issue. But I am attracted to conservatism and do have a U.S. verses them (axis of evil) attitude. That's just part of my constitution, though. It's really a natural defense mechanism.

The link.

Anonymous said...

Okay, the boy is napping, so time for just a little unraveling. I do not intend to debate the troll, just to quickly demonstrate what a pretentious ass he is.

According to Bryan Magee -- a confidante and great admirer of Popper -- Popper developed his scientific epistemology "into a full-scale theory of knowledge." It was his belief that "physical reality exists independently of the human mind, and is of a radically different order from human experience -- and for that reason can never be directly apprehended."

Raccoons are logoistic, so this is a non-starter for us.

Popper's epistemology applies "not only in science but in all other fields of activity, including everyday life. It means that our approach to things is essentially a problem-solving one.... The search for certainty, which obsessed some of the greatest Western philosophers from Descartes to Russell, has been given up, because certainty is not available."

In short, no is yes. The only thing certain is doubt. Suffice it to say, this bloodless pragmatism is not the the Raccoon view, which is not only yes, but fuck yes, with bells on!

Furthermore, "Certainty, Popper argued, was was no more available in politics than in science...in politics we are continually replacing established ideas with what we hope are better ideas." In short, there is no perennial truth about man as such, such as the truth that our liberty is derived from our Creator.

Again, I am not a big fan of Popper, and agree with Charles Taylor's assessment that the man's contributions are overrated.

Now go away.

Anonymous said...

The man who wishes to know the visible -to know it both in entirety and in depth - is obliged for that very reason to know the Invisible, on pain of absurdity and ineffectualness; to know it according to the principles which the very nature of the Invisible imposes on the human mind; hence to know it by being aware that the solution to the contradictions of the objective world is found only in the transpersonal essence of the subject, namely in the pure Intellect.

James said...

James, Science is most certainly neither dependent on, nor consistent with, Christian metaphysics. Christian metaphysics includes and requires an inherent teleology present in existence. This is taken over from Aristotle and Plato as well as from Judaism and Zoroastrianism. And if there is one thing we do not find, or can even cohere with, in the metaphysics of Science, is teleology.


Namu,

Lets see teleology means..
1. The study of design or purpose in natural phenomena.
2. The use of ultimate purpose or design as a means of explaining phenomena.
3. Belief in or the perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in nature or history
Free online Dictionary
Of course I'm sure you know what it means I just put it here because I don't understand how teleology is most certainly not part of the scientific metaphysics. To me it seems that science is all about def 1. Definition 2 is also used in science. Without looking at how natural systems are designed how could Darwin discover the principles of evolution. Of course def 3 is beyond the scope of science but not strictly incompatible with science. Now I admit I may be misunderstanding what you are trying to say. You use such strong language to separate Christian metaphysics from science metaphysics, but I don't see it. Can you make an argument as to why the two shall never meet? There good arguments in the archives here that suggest science as we know it could only develop in the space provided by Christian metaphysics. Check it out.

James said...

Folks,

About my questions to Namu, I'm curious. I hope I'm not annoying anyone.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Science is shot through with teleology, but simply denies it for political reasons. As the cliche goes, teleology is analogous to the mistress science cannot live without, but with whom it would never be seen in public.

Van Harvey said...

Namu de butt said "...This paragraph demonstrates a profound non-understanding of the subject on which you are attempting to co..."

sigh. Looks like we've moved up from a seasonal, to a monthly rotation of epistemotrollocs. Considering that Popper's ideas were wrong right off the bat, your examination of them are somewhat less than interesting, sort of like listening to lectures on the proper way to describe the seasonal migratory patterns of flying pigs.

Popper was a fan of Hume, which if you read my last post (ok, 'are reading' it has only been out a couple weeks...darn that brevity thing), you know what I think of that. With Hume as inspiration, and Kant to boot, not much of worth could follow.

I haven't read the full paper here, but with a cursory lunchtime review, it seems to hit the target, Debunking Popper: A Critique of Karl Popper's Critical Rationalism. (Keeping in mind this is from an Objectivist, but a Libertarian as well... which implies a few issues... but for these purposes, seems fairly solid.) A couple highlights,

"Hume, whom Popper called "one of the most rational minds of all ages" [PKP2 1019], is renowned for elaborating the 'problem of induction' - a supposedly logical proof that generalisations from observation are invalid. Most later philosophers have accepted Hume's arguments, and libraries have been filled with attempts to solve his 'problem.'"

In short his problem is that he assumes that reality is not graspable, we can never truly know anything, and therefore logical induction, among other things, can lead to no valid information or understanding of reality; he doesn't believe that any understanding is ever deepened, only overturned. Hume said we couldn't know anything, Popper came up with the cutesy idea of saying that we can pretend we know something as long as it hasn't been proven false. You can imagine the solid sense of 'truth' you can enjoy, when your entire sense of it being true requires a quick 'psst! Hey! Anyone refute this yet?' His only real argument against someone saying that a billiard ball being struck by a cue ball will, instead of rolling across the table, burst into a bouquet of flowers instead, is: "It hasn't happened before, and unless you can show me an instance of it happening now, then the expected result that the cue ball will roll across the table is the expectation to go with... until it's falsified... that is." Such an approach may lead to many things, but useful knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is not going to follow in abundance.

Such a shallow grasp of Truth as disconnected factual instances, is a fry cry from grasping any truth, and indeed precludes it.

Another snippet from the same paper:

"... Despite his great skill as a thinker and writer, Hume missed the point. Induction does not depend for its validity on observation, but on the Law of Identity.

Hume stated, in essence, that since all ideas are derived from experience we cannot have any valid ideas about future events - which have yet to be experienced. He therefore denied that the past can give us any information about the future. He further denied that there is any necessary connection between cause and effect. We experience only repeated instances, we cannot experience any "power" that actually causes events to take place. Events are entirely "loose and separate.... conjoined but never connected."...

However, Hume also wrote: "When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false"10 and the idea that one might gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles is surely absurd enough to qualify. And false is what Hume's opinions most certainly are. Left standing, they lead to what he himself called "the flattest of all contradictions, viz. that it is possible for the same thing both to be and not to be."11"


And the real key to it:

"The crux of the case against Hume was stated in 1916 by H.W.B. Joseph in An Introduction to Logic: "A thing, to be at all, must be something, and can only be what it is. To assert a causal connexion between a and x implies that a acts as it does because it is what it is; because, in fact, it is a. So long therefore as it is a, it must act thus; and to assert that it may act otherwise on a subsequent occasion is to assert that what is a is something else than the a which it is declared to be."12 Hume's whole argument - persuasive though it may be - is, to borrow Joseph's words, "in flat conflict with the Law of Identity."13

Existence implies identity. It is not possible to exist without being something, and a thing can only be what it is: A is A. Any actions of that thing form part of its identity: "the way in which it acts must be regarded as a partial expression of what it is."14 Thus to deny any connection between a thing, its actions, and their consequences, is to assert that the thing is not what it is; it is to defy the Law of Identity.

It is not necessary to prolong this discussion. Entities exist. They possess identity. ...And, because it rests on the axiom of the Law of Identity, correct induction - free from contradiction - is a valid route to knowledge. The first premise of CR is therefore false."


And therefore Popper's Falsifiability theory of knowledge is false, and not worth further consideration unless you are interested in that sort of thing, sort of like an Intellectual Forensics Coroner - 'CSI – Academia!’

Van Harvey said...

Ah. I see Petey already musically F-Bombed it. Now that's brevity.

Anonymous said...

James, if you think that Science involves any of these:

-The study of design or purpose in natural phenomena.

-The use of ultimate purpose or design as a means of explaining phenomena.

-Belief in or the perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in nature or history

you have no idea what Science is. To think that the Universe has design and purpose is to commit the error of anthropomorphism; applying human descriptors to non-human things. The Universe has regularity and necessity, but it is an invalid inference to then assert that it has design, intention and purpose.

As to my handle, Namu Amida Butsu is Japanese and is a central part of Pure Land Buddhism. It roughly means 'I take refuge in Amida Buddha'. While literally it refers to a mythic Bodhisattva, Amida[the Buddha of infinite light], the real meaning of the practice[known as the nembutsu] is that Amida Butsu refers to, is a symbol for, one's true nature, which is also the true nature of all existence. This nature is always working, unobstructed, in all things and all places. So to 'take refuge' in one's nature is the simple affirmation that self and other are illusions and existence is none other than itself.

Petey and Van, I'm not arguing for or against Popper's ideas, I was merely pointing out that you don't understand them, which is obvious.

Anonymous said...

If realizing that the Universe has design and purpose is to commit the error of anthropomorphism, then for a mere human to think that his true nature is the true nature of all existence is a deeply anthropocentric error. Highly illogical.

Anonymous said...

Spock, its not illogical at all.

The faulty logic of the Anthropomorphic error is to take a small set of existence [human minds], observe some characteristic, such as intention, and then extrapolate that the set of all existents has that characteristic.

The logic of the realization of the unified nature of existence has nothing to do with any particular characteristic or descriptor of either that nature in general or any particular existents. As such, it is certainly not illogical, though it is not logical either. It is alogical, which is to say that it is prior to logic, which requires separation.

Van Harvey said...

nome de ButtFu said "I'm not arguing for or against Popper's ideas, I was merely pointing out that you don't understand them, which is obvious." and "The Universe has regularity and necessity, but it is an invalid inference to then assert that it has design, intention and purpose."

No doubt.

To use the word 'invalid' alone, implies an understanding of the existence of existence, that IT has identity, grasping that shows that it is understandable to conscious beings such as ourselves, who are able to identify that it exists, and discover the Truth or Falsity of statements about it.

Falling back on 'falsifiability' constructs, as Gagdad said, is "to say that "falsifiability" is the key to knowledge is like saying that "no" is the key to "yes."", that and other such idiocies are what Hume admitted "When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false", Hume at least acknowledged that his 'philosophy' had no use or value beyond curious classroom disputations, Popper, you, and the rest of the epissedomotrollocs behave as if you really expect, insist even, that Zeno's arrow will and must remain motionless in mid air.

To blather on about "... a symbol for, one's true nature, which is also the true nature of all existence...", speaking of a whole 'all', and then ridiculing James for expecting Science to be able to piece together the structure of that whole, which among other things can be understood as a 'design', or cohesive structure, without a trace of your sophistic 'anthropomorphism' being implied (only inferred by pedants such as yourself), points out very obviously your own lack of understanding of Nature, Science or Philosophy.

"The rationalism which Spinoza clearly and forcefully demonstrated in the Ethics is very sensibly seen as the true beginning of Science as well as Modernity itself."

Descartes might say "I think not"

Van Harvey said...

Mr. Spock!
(love the ears)

Anonymous said...

Namu, I call bullshit. Nothing you have said about reality is falsifiable. You sound like an unemployable gasbag who sits clutching a bong in his trailer reading Christmas Humphries while waiting for a call for substitute lecturers in the Junior College extension school Pacific Studies department.

Anonymous said...

I disagree. This man sounds like an enlightened being to me. Shamu, come over with me to huffington post, where your deep insights will be appreciated by similarly lofty minds!

Anonymous said...

Van, you seem to be confused. You seem to take my telling you and Bob that you don't understand Popper for a defense of him. Don't mistake his thoughts for mine simply because I use his name in a sentence. What neither you nor Bob seems to get is calling something non-scientific, as Popper does, is not to say anything negative about it, but merely to describe it.

Karl Popper, I didn't claim that much of what I said is falsifiable and I never asserted that falsifiability is a criterion of knowledge or truth. Also, the real Karl Popper never did either. People have a real hard time[mainly I suspect because they are dumb] understanding what falsifiability entails and what it doesn't entail. Most people mistake Popper's views for something like Ayer's, which is totally wrong.

Metaphysics is, of course, by definition, not falsifiable. This doesn't make it nonsense, it simply means its not science, which is obvious.

Namu Amida Butsu

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Namu said-
"So to 'take refuge' in one's nature is the simple affirmation that self and other are illusions and existence is none other than itself."

So...you are an illusion attempting (quite poorly) to debate other illusions.

Here's a bit of advice:
drop a sledge hammer on your bare toes and then tell me that's an illusion.

Obviously truth is an illusion for you, which explains why your understanding is also an illusion residing in unreality.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

My fellow Raccoons:
I would appreciate any prayers you can spare for Oscar.

He may not make it through the night.
I'll explain more later, on my blog, if I have the time.

Thanks and God bless you!

Van Harvey said...

namu shamu said "Van, you seem to be confused."

Nope. Just 'Coon-fused.

"You seem to take my telling you and Bob that you don't understand Popper for a defense of him. "

Got that. Grasped that. Understand what it means and entails. Don't buy it. Why? From your first comment

"This paragraph demonstrates a profound non-understanding of the subject on which you are attempting to com..."

... through to

"... you have no idea what Science is. To think that the Universe has design and purpose is to commit the error of anthropomorphism...",

and,

"People have a real hard time[mainly I suspect because they are dumb] understanding ..."

and

"...rationalism which Spinoza clearly and forcefully demonstrated in the Ethics is very sensibly seen as the true beginning of Science as well as Moderni..."

, you have conveyed enough to show the ideas you buy into, no matter the window dressing you wish to dress them up in. Whatever your actual position on Popper, you buy into the fundamentals which his ideas rest upon, that much comes through clear as the bell Petey rung for you.

Of course, I could be wrong - it's happened before, but ... nahhh.

Van Harvey said...

You know you got them, Ben...

Van Harvey said...

And what I intended to comment on, before being so rubely interrupted by namu foo foo,

"In fact, to my knowledge, Popper was a materialist, which automatically makes his philosophy ungroundable, and rooted in the same metaphysical error as his opponents. To blame Plato for Marx is like blaming Moses for Chomsky. "

"Besides, to say that "falsifiability" is the key to knowledge is like saying that "no" is the key to "yes." "

"You can never vanquish the left on its own materialistic level, otherwise you have made the central concession that matter is the only level. It is fighting ire with fire. A Popperian would have to say: we hold the following hypothesis to be untrue because unfalsifiable, that all men are created equal. "

"Rather, you can only know about a unitary cosmos to the extent that you yourself are one: if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."(really like that one)

"By this we know, that all human properties proceed from one; that they all have but one only root and mother; otherwise, one man could not understand another.... Man has indeed all the forms of all the three worlds lying in him; for he is a complete image of God, or of the Being of all beings. -- Jacob Boehme

Of this you may be certain. For it is the certainty without which there can be none, and to deny it is to deny the very roots of knowledge. Plus, Petey said so, and that should be enough for anyOne. "

But now I'm too tired to add anything more to them... but considering that they don't need anything more added to them, that's probably just as well.

Anonymous said...

Butsue,

What is a human being?

NoMo said...

NAB - And what / who ARE you? Perhaps an unfair question, I know.

robinstarfish said...

On the job, Ben.

James said...

It's late here on the east coast but I couldn't sleep. I had to see. My curiosity is satisfied. Thanks Van for the link, the depth, and the argument.

Namu,

Anthropomorphism Umm? No.
But thank you for the info about your handle. I have heard the phrase before.

Good Night Yall!

julie said...

Ben, Oscar (and you and Patti) will be in our prayers tonight.

Anonymous said...

>> . . . Last night the Dreamer gave me a series of vivid dreams . . . <<

The gates are really open this week, fer shore. Ooh Foes over Florida, Arizona, etc. Last week, too, for the most part - Midwest quake, which is good because Midwesterners suffer from quake envy.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Thanks guys! :^)

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

The faulty logic of the Anthropomorphic error is to take a small set of existence [human minds], observe some characteristic, such as intention, and then extrapolate that the set of all existents has that characteristic.

Clearly the error is reverse: To recognize that behind the cosmos is a will and intelligence and to assume that any reflection of it will have both. You sir, have done well to correct me. I am humbled.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Awesome, though, Van.

Hume was confused, he thought that for instance just because I call something a 'tomato plant' and don't know what it really is means that I can't know - not that I'm just an ignorant stooge.

How arrogant of him.

Science exists to further understand what things truly are.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

also, Isn't 'grapes from thorns' more logical than, 'a grape is not a grape'? What if there were grapes from thorns? I would just mean that we misunderstood grapes. The law of Identity is pretty much one of the few truly logical things.

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