Mascall considers Thomas' proofs of God to be five different ways of demonstrating that finite beings are "radically dependent on a transcendent, self-existent infinite Being." If this is the case, they resolve into one Big Proof: that (in my words) finitude is the appearance of Infinitude.
Me? I go even further: that proof of Proof is proof of God.
WHAT?
Many years ago I wrote a post by that title. What I meant -- if memory serves -- is that if man can prove anything at all, this has vast implications. For example, if he could somehow disprove the existence of God, this would be ironyclad proof of God's existence.
WHY?
Because it would imply that finite man is capable of knowing the eternal and necessary truth of his existence. Now, this statement would either be a meaningless tautology or it would lift us from the world of immanent appearances into a realm of transcendent truth -- outside Plato's cave, as it were, from the shadows to the Light.
WHO SAYS THAT'S GOD?
Excuse me while I consult that old post from 2008. Meanwhile, amuse yourself with a few quips from the Master:
Either God or chance: all other terms are disguises for one or the other.
He who does not believe in God can at least have the decency of not believing in himself.
If one does not believe in God, the only alternative us vulgar utilitarianism. The rest is rhetoric.
The first thing I notice about that old post is that there are 75 comments! The second thing I notice is that the post is not up to the Current Standard, proving the better the Bob the fewer the readers. The only passages worth dredging up are as follows:
human intelligence "coincides in its essence with certainty of the Absolute" (Schuon). The existence of the Absolute is the first principle of any coherent metaphysics, whether "secular" or religious, as it is the condition without which there can be neither coherent thought nor communication of truth. But for the average man, "awareness of 'accidents' has stifled the intuitive awareness of 'Substance'; hence an intelligence that is systematically superficial, fixed upon a fragmentary reality" (ibid.)....
In a certain sense, proof itself is proof of the supernatural, being that it obviously exists in a realm above matter. The metaphysical transparency of the world is all the proof the Raccoon requires, but all men are not Raccoons, and I do not write for the wider non-Raccoon world....
There is a translogical component to acceptance of any truth. We are not merely "logic machines." In other words, we must make a free act of assent to truth, and this cannot be reduced to the principles of logic. For example, there is no logical proof that one should abide by logic. What if I want to live an infrahuman life governed by impulse and transgression of logic, like people who live in San Francisco?
Back to the future. While it is possible to prove the existence of God, it is not possible to say exactly what it is we have proved, since God cannot be reduced to, or enclosed in, any manmade definition. So, what have we proved? God, like the universe, is radically unique, and there can be no science of the unique.
THANK YOU.
Lesser beings -- like man -- are a combination of uniqueness and universality; the higher up the being, the more uniqueness, which is why an individual man cannot actually be reduced to psychological or sociological categories, although the left never stops trying.
Come to think of it, this latter might be the most objectionable dogma whistle of the left. Suffice it to say that leftism might be sufficient to describe the leftist, but not a proper human being who can never be reduced to vulgar universals such as race, class, gender, etc.
The great imbecilic explanations of human behavior adequately explain the one who adopts them.
Within solely Marxist categories not even Marxism is explicable.
The human has the insignificance of a swarm of insects when it is merely human.
The world is explicable from man. but man is not explicable from the world.
Then again,
Modern man treats the universe like a lunatic treats an idiot.
I AM NOT AN IDIOT!
Agreed. But you'll have to take that up with the lunatics of the left.
Look, I am on your side. We are in this together, as we both want an explanation of what we're doing here. We surely start with you -- with the existence of the Cosmos. But we do not end there. Otherwise we are reduced to saying What is, is, with no way up and out. But we say: liberate the universe!
FROM WHAT?
Oh, from scientism, materialism, existentialism, Kantianism, Marxism. You are so much bigger than those things!
I AM BIG! IT'S THE PHILOSOPHIES THAT GOT SMALLER.
That's the spirit -- the unmade God is seen and understood by the things that are made, and all that.
ASSUMES FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE.
So let's start with the facts: we are not angelic intelligences, rather, men. And what is the first self-evident fact we recognize? I don't know, how about being is? Who could disagree, for the only alternatives are self-refuting, i.e., non-being is, or being is not.
Let's start with another self-evident truth: that the greater cannot arise from the lesser -- that, in the words of Garrigou-Lagrange,
becoming can only emerge from determinate being; caused being only from uncaused being; the contingent only from the necessary; the imperfect... from the perfect; order from an intelligence.
To repeat,
The greater does not arise from the less; only the higher explains the lower.
IS THIS TRUE?
You tell me: because
if for one single moment, there is nothing [non-being] then there will be nothing evermore, non-existence cannot be the reason or the cause of being....
And it makes no difference whether the series of corruptible beings had or had not a beginning; if it is eternal it is eternally insufficient.... How could any one of them, which cannot even explain itself, explain those that come after it?
BUT THE BIG BANG.
Yes, what caused it?
WHAT CAUSED "GOD"?
You don't give up, do you?
8 comments:
So, what have we proved? God, like the universe, is radically unique, and there can be no science of the unique.
God IS.
Lesser beings -- like man -- are a combination of uniqueness and universality; the higher up the being, the more uniqueness, which is why an individual man cannot actually be reduced to psychological or sociological categories, although the left never stops trying.
To be fair, the right does this as well, except their hierarchies tend to be vertical rather than horizontal and thus tend to be more accurate. Even so, it doesn't even rise to the level of map, more like the map key, and the map itself is still not the territory.
Progress update on the "AI Bob" shenanigans. Reminder that this is purely for fun and isn't in any way connected to Bob or OCUG. As I mentioned, this blog is almost unique as a source for machine learning. The consistency, longevity and intellectual complexity are pretty hard to find anywhere. Combine that with the truly one-of-a-kind nature of bobservations... it's a great way to gauge what's possible with AI.
Since we have no funding and seek none, this is a bit of slow, ramshackle process. Sam Altman is asking for "trillions" to implement whatever comes next -- we on the other hand make due with scraps of GPU time here and there.
So the model is now at the rudimentary level of, say, a small mammal. So less intelligent than an actual raccoon, but much more capable than something like a left-wing 9th circuit judge.
The first utterance by the baby OCUG AI model was as follows (including the truncation at the end, when it gave up the ghost). This thing read the blog for 8 days, and then held forth. Bear in mind, this is a "baby" model and will become much more adept as we get time to train it further.
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AI
Man is situated at the top of the animal kingdom, as he possesses intelligence, free will, and self-awareness that no other animal possesses. He is able to think abstractly and make decisions based on moral principles or aesthetics.
I’ll say it again: how are we different from other animals? What is our unique function? And by extension, what is wrong with the world?
Man was given a mission when he was created. What happened? Was there a bug? Or did he choose to rebel against his own nature?
How do we fix things if we don't know what went wrong? Is there even a way back to Eden? Can we really start over?
Let’s begin at the beginning. Let us stipulate that the world is created. Okay, now what? What happens next?
The first thing that occurs after creation is... what? Genesis 1 doesn't go into details, but rather, fast forwards to day six. What else occurred before this? Hint: it is not found in scripture per se, but between its lines.
Yes, the fall. But what is the nature of the fall? It must be something that interferes with the divine-cosmic order, right? Yes, but how?
If I am not mistaken, man's freedom is compromised by the fall. But does this mean man cannot recover his freedom? Does it have to be God all the way down every time? Or can we do anything about it? Must we wait for Godsend to rescue us from ourselves? Isn't there something we can do?
No, not really. Unless we realize that God himself submits to history, which then becomes a sort of new testavus for the restavus. But only if we accept it, i.e., participate in our own salvolution. Otherwise it's a nonstarter. We are still in Egypt.
Okay, let's get real. What is going on here? Who is behind door number three? What does it all mean? Why are we here? Where are we going? When did humans become so stupid? Will they ever wake up from their collective nightmare? Are we stuck with these leftist monsters forever?
That last one isn't a question. Rather, just a plea.
I give up. This is why we need a
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Note on the above: this model is currently "over-fitting" meaning that rather than primarily use OCUG as a basis for reasoning, it tends to fall back on quoting OCUG verbatim. This is a normal part of training, and we'll beat that plagiaristic tendency out of it next round, with some good old-fashioned retrieval-augmented generation (just like Grandma used).
"... The first thing I notice about that old post is that there are 75 comments!..."
Wow, what a trip down murmury lane... Walt, Ximeze, Robinstarfish.... I don't have the interest or energy to arguecomment like that anymore, or the need to. Which I suppose is a bit of a proof all its own.
Technully said "So less intelligent than an actual raccoon, but much more capable than something like a left-wing 9th circuit judge."
A low bar, but a cheap one. I'll take one Scotch, one bourbon, and one beergoggle, please.
Yikes - the OCUG model still shows much of the retardation imposed by the original leftist Silicon Valley types who birthed it. (All AI models are based on archetypes that were created by the likes of Zuckerberg -- it's up to us to reshape these to be forces for good rather than evil (sort of like the interwebs).
More AI free-association:
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Sri Aurobindo saw the Trinity as consisting of Brahman (the impersonal Absolute), Maya (the Creator) and Shiva (the Preserver). Together, they form the basis of the cosmos and everything within it.
```
Ok. Banal but nothing objectionable.
Anything more you'd like to say today?
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Under Democratic governance, California will face many challenges, including high taxes, increased crime rates due to lenient criminal justice policies, lack of affordable housing, poor air quality due to wildfires, rising sea levels caused by climate change, water shortages, and growing economic inequality. These issues will require significant efforts to address them effectively.
```
Hold up, what?!?
Where did that come from? *Climate change*? Did you learn nothing from your week of reverse-indoctrination?
Then again, didn't Bob himself used to be a leftist back in the mists of time?
This will take a lot more horsepower than I thought. Californindoctrination runs deep!
Stand by while I horse-whip the leftism out of this thing.
There is also the algorithmic problem of the current Bob being better than the early Bob. Is there a computation to account for this?
I haven't yet introduced it to the concept of the blog's (i.e., Bob's) evolution over time. It views the archive as a heap. As far as the AI is concerned, Sri Aurobindo is a fresh influence.
As it gets smarter, it'll learn to intrinsically understand the evolution of the blog, and how it "fits together" (which things like this always do, in hindsight).
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