I have not gone thru all this thread so I apologize if this has already been brought up:
the JW Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig works at the German Max-Planck-Institute and he his promoting Intelligent Design. He got in trouble for promoting his views on his website on the Max-Planck-Institutes server.
His private website is here: http://www.we-loennig.de/
Intelligent Design
by Delta20 234 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
GermanXJW
-
AlanF
Excellent points about meeting the Maker, Pole and Onacruse!
I've often thought about that, usually in the context of some believer wondering what I'd do if I met the Maker and had to explain myself. I tell them that I'd love to do exactly that! I'd like to spend a considerable amount of time getting an explanation from Him about why he did things the way he did, and see if he had a reasonable explanation. If not, then He should just kill me and be done with it. If so, then my next question would be why He made it so difficult for intelligent people to understand and believe, given the complete lack of reasonable explanation in religious or any other writings, and the simple fact that His creation has always been full of unbelievable cruelty.
AlanF
-
AlanF
Ellderwho, you are the one who brought up the subject, so it's your problem to define your terms.
Quit being so intellectually lazy.
AlanF
-
Narkissos
Ellderwho,
If you care to answer AlanF's question, please make sure to explain how "logic" is supposed to transcend, or exceed, human language and its necessary, although partial, adaptation to its environment. My current impression is that the ID reasoning, just as the classical "proofs of the existence of God" (only in a more "modern way" perhaps attractive to Sci-Fi addicts), is an unwarranted extrapolation, extending human logic way beyond its safe validity area.
As FBF pointed out, at the heart of the problem is anthropocentrism, i.e. the only "too human" way of imagining ourselves at the top of the mountain of being, and looking for a suprahuman (=> human-like) "intelligence" above. If there were speaking mushrooms they could speculate about a mushroom-like Creator of the forest (or the essence of mushroomhood) in a similar manner.
I am quite sure nobody can prove anything, but I feel that ID demonstration can only appeal to people blissfully unaware of the limited sphere of human language and conceptualisation process. Of course there are many of them.
Btw, if logic is God, shouldn't Aristotle be his prophet rather than Jesus? -- or, in theological terms, doesn't ID revive the old Catholic natural theology, which the Reformers condemned?
-
Pole
Narkissos,
Ellderwho,
If you care to answer AlanF's question, please make sure to explain how "logic" is supposed to transcend, or exceed, human language and its necessary, although partial, adaptation to its environment. My current impression is that the ID reasoning, just as the classical "proofs of the existence of God" (only in a more "modern way" perhaps attractive to Sci-Fi addicts), is an unwarranted extrapolation, extending human logic way beyond its safe validity area.
No problems with the latter statement - I also think it's "an unwarranted extrapolation" to apply one variant of logic or another to the task of proving the existence of a Supreme Creator.
You may remember I promised to give you an example of super-linguistic cognition or reasoning some months ago.
I thought at one point that all science has to conform to the same limitations of human cognition that get constantly manifested in language, such as the heavy dependence on metaphors and modality (necessity, possibility, permission, etc.).
However, I once thought about the possibilities of formal systems transcending human language or more generally - human cognition while working on one simple mathematical problem. I'm very selective about maths (translation: from time to time I have to spend a few hours trying to understand a formula which I have to implement ), so correct me if I'm wrong about the example I'm going to give.
Here it goes. It's not a complex point, as it reflects my level of maths:
In linear algebra there is the concept of a dimension. Lines and points may have one dimension. They may also exist on a two-dimensional plane - just like some more complex geometric figures. Moreover we may talk of a 3D space in which all sorts of cubes, cones, etc may exists. So far so good. All of those three (sub)spaces I have mentioned so far can be described by means of an algebraic (numerical) formalism, but they may also have some real-life, experiential interpratation, because humans can actually conceive of 1-D, 2-D and 3-D spaces. We live in a #D space - we were tuned for it.
Here is my point: in linear algebra you may apply exactly the same numerical formalism to compute the parameters of hyperspaces. For instance you may want to compute the similarity of two vectors in a 4D hyperspace using the same formalism you would use for a 3D, human-concieveable space. The only difference is that you need to compare one more pair of numbers for the 4D vector.
The vector {1,2,3} can have a geometric interpretation.
The vector {1,2,3, 4} cannot have a geometric interpretation. But it does have an algebraic one.
The point of it? It is possible to algebraically describe and analyze 4D spaces, although nothing like that exists in the real world that our brains were tuned for. The limit for human cognition and human language is IMO 3 dimensions. The formal language of algebra allows you to deal with an infinite number of dimensions in hyperspaces.
It may just be the limits of another metaphor, but it
doesn't(corrected) does seem to be unlike any other metaphor I know because up to the level of 3 dimensions the correspondence between algebra and geometry is mathematically perfect.So can formal systems in some cases transcend human language and standard human cognition without being just metaphors?
Pole
-
onacruse
Narkissos:
people blissfully unaware of the limited sphere of human language and conceptualisation process
Are you sure you're not related to Wittgenstein?
The very way we think, i.e., with a limited number of words passed down to us, with visualizations and sensations we receive via our limited physical organism, and with the even more limited psychological interpretations and meanings we necessarily attach to all that input--oh my, what an idiot I was to believe for so long that some bunch of men across the continent from me could actually have the answers, all the answers, and the only correct answers (if only I had the faith, right?). You can certainly count me in with the "many of them" deluded ones.
Pole, I'd be willing to bet that you've read Ouspensky. Your observations about the dimensional limitations of human perception are right on the mark, and play directly into this issue of intelligent design. For, if in fact God is a 4D, 5D, 6D... being, and It designed (or, by default of its own existence, caused to exist) a 3D being, then It knows that such 3D beings are instrinsically incapable of understanding anything more than their own dimensionality. Which leads to your question:
So can formal systems in some cases transcend human language and standard human cognition without being just metaphors?
Kant, and others, assert that the only way such a thing could happen is by having a super-imposed transcendent experience. But even then, the "value" of that experience is limited to the capacity of the 'vessel' in which such an experience is experienced. Perhaps the Biblical proposition of "transformation" (e.g., the resurrection of the anointed) is a way to get around this problem.
But, then, even again, this presents problems of its own. How is the uninterrupted continuity of personal existence maintained in the transformation from a 3D existence to a higher plane of life? Does that transformed being carry along with the "pollution" of its lower dimensional conceptualizations? How much excising (I was tempted to use the word lobotomizing) would have to occur for a 3D being to survive such a transformation?
Ahhhhh...today is a good day, and this is a great conversation!
-
Narkissos
Pole,
Before leaving high school to pioneer I was quite fond of mathematics, although with a somewhat literary-oriented mind. Especially the aesthetics of geometry (with the implied "freedom from 'reality'") appealed to me.
However, I would hesitate to call the description of a x-D hyperspace "supra-linguistic". It is "supra-realist" indeed, but we do access to it through language (namely, through the symbolical analysis of the "real world" as a 3-D system, and the subsequent construction of its abstracted "dimensions" into a different structure). Although it is not representable it is still an "imaginary" construct, a projection of our symbolical function.
Btw, that goes for hypospaces (?) such as the 1-D line or the 2-D plane too. None of them exists in the real world. We can imagine a dot or a line with no thickness whereas no such thing really exists. And there, perhaps, lies the metaphor (in two ways: we use an abstraction from an existing 3-D world to describe a non-existing 1-D "object", or we use a 1-D concept such as "dot" or "line" to describe 3-D objects such as a town, a road or a river on the map).
What is clear to me is that language, which we have built in contact with our real environment, opens to us a potentially infinite realm of "unreality," from mathematical hyperspaces to literary fictions. But once we have entered this realm as speaking subjects our only contact with the "real world" we live in (and its hypothetical Creator!) is through symbolism and metaphors.
If God is the creator of the "real world" we have become alien to him by learning to speak. If God is the creator of both the "real world" and "language" (as you jokingly suggested in a former post) then the "symbolical cut" (Lacan) runs through him just as it runs through us.
-
Narkissos
Btw, the popularisation of relativity also spread an alternative 4D model for "reality," construing "time" as a fourth "dimension" (and thereby adding one more metaphor into the pattern).
Craig,
Indeed, if a truly transcendant "God" revealed him/her/itself to us we couldn't tell him/her/it from a construct of our mind.
Forbidding to make an image of "God" was really the beginning of atheism.
-
ellderwho
Alan F:Ellderwho, you are the one who brought up the subject, so it's your problem to define your terms.
I did? Logic was brought up on pg. 4 or 5.
How about universal standards of rationality. Or do you have a problem with that?
-
Pole
onacruse,
I'd be willing to bet that you've read Ouspensky. Your observations about the dimensional limitations of human perception are right on the mark, and play directly into this issue of intelligent design. For, if in fact God is a 4D, 5D, 6D... being, and It designed (or, by default of its own existence, caused to exist) a 3D being, then It knows that such 3D beings are instrinsically incapable of understanding anything more than their own dimensionality.
Good points. I've never heard of the guy, but I think I should make myself familiar with him. Coming up with the conclusion I presented above was a coincidence. I was doing some simple vector space maths and reading a book on cognitive linguistics at the same time. The claim in the book was that human cognition is exclusively experience-based and that when we come across anything abstract we need a metaphor to conceptualize it. I thought this was largely true, but inapplicable in the case of > 4 dimensional algebra.
Thanks for the reference. I see where you're getting at with your vision of dimension-stripped humanity :). Well, we're still better than ameobas, or are we?
Kant, and others, assert that the only way such a thing could happen is by having a super-imposed transcendent experience. But even then, the "value" of that experience is limited to the capacity of the 'vessel' in which such an experience is experienced. Perhaps the Biblical proposition of "transformation" (e.g., the resurrection of the anointed) is a way to get around this problem.
Kant was a mathematician as well, wasn't he? Anyway I see nothing transcendent about finding the cosine of the angle of two 4D vectors when using the formalism of algebra. I just see a cognitive dissonance between algebra (which gets a bit supra-linguistic in this case) and geometry (which is perfectly experiential up to the level of 3 dimensions).
In the case below case the it's easy to draw the 2D vector on a piece of paper and it corresponds perfectly with reality (geometry, etc.), so it's different from any metaphor (which are usually ontologically invalid).
v1 = {1, 2};
v2 = {2, 1};In the case below the formalism of algebra tells us we can measure those two vectors in pretty much the same way as the two above. However, the problem is we no longer understand the dimension metaphor when dealing with four or more dimensions.
v1 = {1, 2, 3, 4};
v2 = {4, 3, 2, 1};
Narkissos,
However, I would hesitate to call the description of a x-D hyperspace "supra-linguistic". It is "supra-realist" indeed, but we do access to it through language (namely, through the symbolical analysis of the "real world" as a 3-D system, and the subsequent construction of its abstracted "dimensions" into a different structure). Although it is not representable it is still an "imaginary" construct, a projection of our symbolical function.
See the upper part of this post. I think we need to make clear what we mean by language. I was thinking of natural (human or "god-given" for believers) language and not artificial formal systems which were devised consciously and dliberately from scratch as was the case with algebra although it is largely intuitive as well. The difference may be huge, depending on the context. An African tribe may have a 10-conjugation verb system, but the average tribal doesn't have to consciously conceptualize it to be a proficient speaker of the language. This is no the case with formal algebra. You asked for examples of supra-linguistic formalisms. By "linguistic" I understood natural language.
Btw, that goes for hypospaces (?) such as the 1-D line or the 2-D plane too. None of them exists in the real world. We can imagine a dot or a line with no thickness whereas no such thing really exists. And there, perhaps, lies the metaphor (in two ways: we use an abstraction from an existing 3-D world to describe a non-existing 1-D "object", or we use a 1-D concept such as "dot" or "line" to describe 3-D objects such as a town, a road or a river on the map).
Interesting point, but I still think cognitively it doesn't work both ways. It's not an ontological issue. All metaphors are out of keeping with ontology in one way or another. But they all have to be in keeping with cognition. Simply speaking, you can draw a line, you can see in 2D, and you can feel 3D objects. Now, how exactly do you conceptualize a 1500D hyperspace? I know you can give it empty labels, but they are dead metaphors. Just like the word "instant" is a dead metaphor. See my post above - if you can't conceptualize it metaphorically it has little or no meaning. But you can represent such a space in the consciously discovered/constructed language of algebra. It's the only way to make use of this concept.
Now I think I have to give it some more thought. Thanks for the input anyway. It was a very good aspect which I need to rethink.
What is clear to me is that language, which we have built in contact with our real environment, opens to us a potentially infinite realm of "unreality," from mathematical hyperspaces to literary fictions. But once we have entered this realm as speaking subjects our only contact with the "real world" we live in (and its hypothetical Creator!) is through symbolism and metaphors.
I have no problems with your views on ontology. I think we just disagree on some minor aspects of cognition/epistemology. Maybe it's the late hour (it's 1.47 here).
If God is the creator of the "real world" we have become alien to him by learning to speak. If God is the creator of both the "real world" and "language" (as you jokingly suggested in a former post) then the "symbolical cut" (Lacan) runs through him just as it runs through us.
Exactly. I think a number of folks have already acknowledged this theological "possiblity" on this thread. If the Supreme Designer exists he is far from the picture we get from any religious metaphor invented so far. The ID metaphor is no exception. For now I believe it makes no sense to believe in his existance.
Pole