GCB and GMBA, pardon my brevity. Some people are worried, in the context of this sort of matter, whether if we go beyond, we come across "god", and I am suggesting this in the context of a commonplace conception of god.

I was trying to envisage how life in fewer dimensions looks, when viewed from more dimensions, and vice versa. At the moment of going but not yet gone beyond, we will still look (both to ourselves and "anyone else") somewhat bound by our present set of dimensions.

I think that is why many people reasonably believe that we will cease to exist altogether.

I was putting this far too briefly.

I am sure there are myriad additional explanations too (many good ones given by others here).

Oranges are granular and volts are a continuum.

I remember being fascinated by this in infants' school and have never ceased since.

The reappearance of both the granular and the continuum keeps recurring everywhere in nature, as I have been reading in Charles Seife's books.

Some of the forms of argument that aren't on the list will probably be complex combinations chosen from the above, however there may also be fresh types.

Arguments are dependent, for usefulness, on being "understood".

Nonetheless there are also many kinds of fallacies and textbooks can list those.

Then there will in practice be the employment of combinations of sound and unsound arguments. The more complicated the "better" in some people's eyes.

Rhetoric is a very interesting field of study altogether. Rhetoric can be good. J H Newman and S J Gould were skilled rhetoricians.

Some forms of argument can be used both soundly and unsoundly. For example, under "argument from authority": "Dr J Smith, biology professor, says the British political system will not last more than 30 years in its present shape." It was alleged this was asking to be shot down on the "grounds" that it wasn't his field. BUT I say, he is just as qualified to express this opinion (as every observant member of this society), indeed I see he is a wide and deep thinker about "political animals"!

Michio Kaku points out in "Hyperspace" that immediately after the landing, Johnson abolished restrictions on the draft for graduate researchers, with the result that graduate research sharply dipped, which explains why the programme was suddenly curtailed. Apart from the space station collaborations, the main "thrust" after that was the unmanned research probes which have been sending those marvellous pictures and signals from planets, comets and asteroids of late, and I'm very glad of those I can assure you.

Therefore what Alcontali is saying is that IF the content had been stated explicitly, this would be what is happening, yes.

TMF (a day ago), I was trying to point out that in the example cited by the OP, and in your version of it, there are far more premises than the ones stated and that both of you are probably misinterpreting those that you give. A text like that which is probably behind this thread was not designed or intended to be used that way, not by the actual recipients either.

Arguments can be of a huge variety of different kinds. The things that have been pre-validated don't need to be stated afresh.

Perhaps the key elements are quality of will ( = character), quality of reason, and memory ("live" with it).

Given that God is so much larger than us, and beyond dimensions we know, what appears eternal to Him (and described thus in Revelation) is momentary to us, or perhaps I mean the other way round. This is what I see as the curve of time. When we are beyond our existing dimensions, our experience will change.

Many teach that soul is composed of the mind, the will, and the emotion. When we see ourselves as making "unseen" impact, this gives the hint as to the connection with the above.

Some teachers also highlight reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc along with the above. James Hillman saw "soul" as the "substrate" upon which one's consciousness rests, so I've been reading.

I'm growing to like the idea that I'm making an impact, as I become less ashamed of myself. Some "unseen" parts of me and of what I am achieving are already extending beyond "our" dimensions. The multidimensional really has been far more ordinary than we are used to thinking, all along. Perhaps it is egg-shaped, like happiness.

To my mind I think it is left slightly open whether "body" is in St Paul's usage sometimes a metaphor for soul, or refers to a kind of body which we've not known before.

Christians . . . simply believe as a presupposition of their faith. If anyone's "justifying," you can challenge them on their faith - faith has no need of justification, it only needs belief. And that not for itself, but as an animating principle. It's not (so much) that you have a soul, but rather what it means to have one

Tim Wood (5 days ago), what a nice clear explanation!

This harmonises I think with J H Newman's "assent to degrees of inference". My inference (from not only Scripture but from authoritative interpretations and that takes diligence and a lifetime of being led up the garden path), my degrees of it, my assent.

It's taken a long time to get this far. My parents happened to be broad and deep thinkers (and times were different then) even though we were materially poor. Enough teachers and acquaintances likewise. Enough college teachers. Enough job colleagues. I was slow to put gratefulness into action, I stagnated a long time, I was depressed then. Every time I do something for myself, I am paying it forward. With 8 billion fine minds, it ought to be a good world.

Please do NOT add to the confusion between Kant - a specific bloke who said specific things - and "Kant" - ian - ism which means a huge survey of all the things said on all topics by a huge number of people, most of it mutually contradictory, some of whom called themselves "Kant" - ians and some who are closer to him but didn't.

The ethics of Kant are:

- make of yourself an end in yourself and not a means only (the pawn of the "machine")
- when possible give those around you the same chance, especially if you have more power than them

I don't get the supposed complaints about "blindness to outcomes".

It falls in the lap of each one of us every moment of every day, to work this out, if we can, as best we can at the time.

None of us can control outcomes.

Where's the problem - other than getting up in the mornings!

As for your group, the more separately identified and scheduled topics the better, no matter whether they overlap. Life does overlap with itself!

RNA in meterorites probably resembles a solid more than the other configurations. As for the "stuff" in "space" or "vacuums", scientists know little as yet.

Philosophically, I think, like Streetlightx, membranes are the core concept because membranes are about boundaries which are about integrity.

P.S the things I list preserve healthy boundaries, they merely transcend impoverishing barriers.

In my schooldays, unbearable as the pressure was at times, at least I twigged imagination is about reality as well as fantasy. Helping one's fellow develop their faculties - the sheer verve of doing this for oneself - whether the subject matter is science, history etc, whether it is all about horse training, whether it is about crafts - I think all these things are the meaning in what you say.

Gnostic Agnostic, life is going to get difficult sometimes and fear is like a warning light. Perhaps this is where "holy spirit power for caring" comes in and I don't know what other religions have to offer in its stead (or deficient versions of Christianity for that matter).

The image of god is creativity, generosity, pleasure in "seeing that it (things in nature) is good" - which flow from our mode of dwelling in particular dimensions - an image so many people so often abandon.

In the genuine version of New Testament teaching, in my opinion, the "holy spirit power for caring" economy of crown-gaining by trading the talents and gifts with one's peers, being connected to one version of "sin" that some people are invited to hold, the cheating our fellows is supposed to lie on our conscience (and everybody's has its unique sensitivity) then we can try and rectify our side of the street so that grace can continue to abound.

I don't understand "sin" in other types of theology, sufficiently.

A sacrifice to restore communion between mankind and "god" (who in the original Christian scheme represents the little ones) is a recurring motif. But regarding how this happens and what comes next or how we can benefit from this, everybody differs. (Churches know lamentably little about "holy spirit" and His purpose.)

Gnostic Agnostic has observed accurately how the situation often got twisted by the powerful into a shaming, blaming, controlling mechanism against those to be considered inferior or the enemy and I think this is occurring uniformly despite differences in “correct” theology.

Some things - like human beings - are more more, and some other things - inert ones - are less more. Exclusion of the excluded middle (an interest of Brouwer reputedly) is very often so faint as to be negligible, but in the spectrum or continuum of existence "analogy" or "proportionality" of existence applies (which according to my secondary sources, Duns, Leibniz and Kant missed because they didn't understand time).

Sourpusses like Ryle, and Sam Harris, say everything and everybody is less and less, and if it isn’t they demand to know why not!

This is why Rickert and Windelband pointed out that in human sciences, a different kind of approach is needed from what "positivists" usually called "positivism".

In science books I’ve been reading, six of the first 10 dimensions (out of at least 26 so I’m told!) are “envisaged” or “imagined” as curling up into cones, having a zero-dimensional point sometimes and a flat circle or egg shape section sometimes, which we are so used to including in our space that we don’t take any notice. (They arrived at these by 200 years of calculations – since Faraday - as well as a wealth of observations.) (The "curling up" event could have "happened" a split instant after what might be seeable as "creation" due to the action of light! Scientists are realising how little they know about light.)

To my mind, not only space, but also time, is curved. The psychology is part of the picture but is VERY FAR FROM inventing the reality. Probably time is a reason why humans have personality. Realistic philosophy is modular to the extent that it fits all kinds of theism and atheism, without being exclusively “materialistic” in the narrower sense.

Perhaps "systems philosophy" is a sly way of getting back to - Philosophy! I’ve always seen metaphysics as a branch of logic but then that’s just me!

These factors might be why our world picture is so often a couple of sliced eggs short of a picnic

Robotics is merely control systems – levers that work remotely through numbers.

Your example sounds like one of the epistles of Paul, for example. Now, sending a letter was sticking one's neck out. Therefore they had to be on the brief side. Now he will have taught them at length when he saw them and they will also have had their regular teachers ever since.

Therefore, the bulk of the "premises" are outside this text. I think the word "if" is more like "you know when we said that . . . , well . . ." The logical basis of saying "because" or "seeing that" is contained in the background knowledge of the addressees of the text.

The text being apparently about life, the question of whether it says anything about death as well is not contained in the extract you gave.

There may be clues elsewhere in the text of the letter - and St Paul (if it is him - I haven't matched it up exactly) no doubt says something about that. Depending on the shared theology of the writer and addressees, we may be able to deduce something of that.

This even depends on the larger context of the correspondence, for example any letter that the addressees had sent to the writer enquiring on a point and asking him to explain it more.

If we are outsiders, spectators, not in the loop, then what we can do is like Tim Wood says, use epoche, remain agnostic, identify an antinomy (which is a perfectly respectable thing).

I call it "intelligible configuration", after all we are the ones that are here finding it to a degree intelligible, and we wouldn't be here if we weren't here.

Some extinctions of many life forms made room for other life forms to further develop e.g increase in size and range.

If we are destined to be here that is how we got here, in the view of many people.

In regard to what got translated as "dominion" some theologians see it as originally intended as kindly stewardship (as opposed to devious distortions afterwards).

To "theistic evolutionists" like John Henry Newman, ID doesn't disprove evolution. Evolution, creation, "dominion" or stewardship, are all modular concepts.

Some atheists profess nervousness at an agent termed "design-er", nonetheless I think Brian hots the nail on the head, in terms of science, in the phrase "interactive operation". This can apply not only when pantheism is envisaged but other forms of metaphysics - and of theology or non-theology - also.

It strikes me as a more than three-part "syllogism" because the remainder of the premises, background, ramifications etc will be contained elsewhere in the book you are reading and elsewhere in Scriptures and above all you have to choose what to your mind will be a discernibly authentic interpretation thereof (there are so many misleading interpretations doing the rounds).

In the real real world, indeed, logic has to help us grapple with multipartite questions, it is rare that a situation in its entirety is simple.

Nonetheless I think logical tools are meant to help us "chunk it down" and then we can arrive a jigsaw pieces (even tentative jigsaw pieces) for each "corner" of the issue so that we can then move on to seeing how the tentative jigsaw pieces might dovetail at the next level.

I'll leave it to other respondents to add their insight regarding tollens and ponens, for now (a challenge to me to do some homework on it myself).

Poetic Universe, and Uncanni, the interesting scenarios you describe are only part, in my view, of the panoply of different theologies that peoples and cultures worldwide, and during history, have and have had.

To some peoples it is as you have variously described and to others "god" is a quite small bit player. The elements Zhoubotong lists only refer to a subset of candidates for "God" even with a capital G.

In my opinion the word "god" is a job title (like "cook" in the "great houses") and the variety pans out from there, never to be exclusively pinned down.

The questions you Uncanni are asking are in cosmology, and physicists are doing a lot of maths on this, which is based somewhat on observations, albeit with rather sophisticated equipment. They feed into branches of philosophy like ontology, while philosophy of science (e.g in the need to continually pose more hypotheses) feeds into it. For those who are interested in religions which include these matters there is additionally a philosophy of religion angle.

The statement by Poetic Universe on quantum entanglement is inspiring, in the light of what (littlish) I know about it having dropped out of physical science for too many years, the features of reality give me much joy also.

Necessity, eternal, and existence (Poetic Universe), are vital and exciting questions, that come into "god" questions for some people, as well as having far wider relevance anyway.

Uncanni, we can and must choose what images to accept or not, nonetheless I took the OP as inviting a general survey. To my mind the answer is staggeringly general and diverse. Wayfarer touches on this and I would further add that in those religions which are supposed to be deeper, there may sometimes be a duty on leading members to help members to not obscure truths from the public when or if they would be helpful.

If God could see that some "revelations" contained greater value than others (which is not a numerical scale such as "positivists" would tend towards) that is not an excuse for us to do other than Os Guinness recommends, namely defend pluralism, which would be the basis on which we could then offer our teaching without bad nerves (if we ourselves knew what it even was).

Maureen, when you consider that human beings have the highest faculties of any life form, plus the many stupendous new facts scientists are constantly finding about the world, the universe and everything, and how the dimensions intersect, and how everything comes in various different spectrums, and how we dwell in some of those dimensions sensorily, and perhaps don't know about most of the facts of our lives, why not regard knowledge not only as a mosaic, of which we hope to get more pieces, but even the gaps seem harmonious for the time being, like the silences in the music of Haydn.

As most religion is relational, information that is given to us that illustrates that, and examples set by members of religions that illustrate that, are going to be part of our sources of information. I think these are the sorts of things 3017 is referring to. In my definition of "objective" they would be objective in value but only partially known.

Above all, like 3017 says, living life and knowing ourselves, that means acknowledging our own faculties - we are not figments of the politico-commercial machine after all.

Hegel and Heidegger were self-proclaimed theologians not backed by identifiable authority. As can any of us be, if we want. The point being as a guide for those who propose to base their own thinking on them, e.g specific churches. As for who would be authority in the sense I have in mind, they have to look to the basis of what would carry their teachings, and I think they haven't been.

I looked up deconstructionist and a strong version of it seems to mean that words only "mean" other "meaningless" words. . This, being nominalist reification, is a version of fundamentalism in effect. Therefore it doesn't get us anywhere.

Hume far overdid "scepticism" and people take him and the likes of Derrida too seriously, so we have to do lots of homework to rescue the reputation of philosophy from the opprobrium which on the basis of its substance it should never have been laid open to.

On this forum we are all talking to all of each other, fortunately.

I forgot to add that the details of the content of each "revelation" will have differed, ostensibly and/or substantially, between periods and locations.

I summarise the Old and New testaments as "don't stunt the growth of your fellow adopted widows and orphans in Father's firm" which explains the raison d'etre of Holy Spirit and also explains questions in other threads such as why is God shy.

Others may be able to offer insights about other religions?

"The old testament says teaches [sic] that God can order you to slay your family. This was never revoked in the new testament."

The incident with Abraham seems to reflect a moon worship sort of situation. The meaning of the story was to show that a better way of worshipping was replacing that.

There is no Bible teaching without its meaning, despite what Pat Robertson says.

As for your earlier question I think that the contrast will become clearer when times become appreciably harder than they were in Kant's day bless 'im.

Joseph S, in regard to "taking no action" and at the same time the bad structure of the tool, I would point out to you the different ethics of opportunity and of obligation.

If the bad structure makes a nonsense of any obligation on your part to sincerely attempt balanced input, you are absolved.

It seems habitual in this day to make interventions of opportunity, pretending to be do-gooding, so you should genuinely congratulate yourself on choosing not to.

In terms of awareness of our fellow billions, if you find it emotionally overwhelming can I recommend what I do, keeping abreast of developments but skipping the vast majority of the argy-bargying, on grounds of very little specific obligation to them to intervene and a definite obligation to myself and anyone that will be around me in the future, not to wear myself out.

Uncanni, as airborne cannabis doesn't give others the opportunity to abstain because it causes them illness and emergency, what you are recommending is unethical.

Your philosophical contributions so far are in line with the letters page of a local paper. You don't sound like a teacher of 66 but one of the well-known campaigners.

What I heartily recommend by contrast is pork, cheese and tea.

As for growing things, lettuce is a narcotic and when airborne, doesn't poison passers-by.

Teilhard had no religious faith so his religious standing sadly was unauthoritative, and his scientific standing incidentally is nil. That doesn't stop him as a private individual offering any sort of philosophy of course.

As I'm not familiar enough, the quote you give is insufficient - owned by whom, possessed by whom?

Also why do you call it "deconstructuralist"? I expect that for shamans it is anything but.

I would evince slightly stronger caution than fresco simply because what faintly shadows "mind", in rocks, trees or stars, is of a far smaller kind than we individual humans have.

Then what arises in communities is anarchic fragments of unresolved thinking from individuals who did or didn't try to contribute towards decision-making. Either the structure wasn't suited, or dominant personalities derailed matters.

Peirce pointed out the pre-existing fact that things are in relation to the beholder while separate from him; Arthur Young points out that things are projective, i.e objective and subjective (outside us and inside us) at the same time. Etienne Gilson's Methodical Realism goes through the explanations. Robert Nozik uses logic to demonstrate why there is something rather than nothing (this does not bear on his politics which are his weakest area).

Physicists and biologists enthuse about the Goldilocks effect. Then what about intersubjectivity, in which Ludwig is not fooled about the "beetle"!

What about the evidence of your own experience as a child? Stop saying the under 18s aren't entitled to testify. That includes your own young self.

Academy Of Fine Ideas

I was told I was too deliberate. As if things would do themselves! If they are mine to do, my muscles and my faculties have got to do them in their timing and with the best use of my faculties.

On retrospect, I was constructively excluded from several school subjects that I was actually suited to, because my chemicals wouldn't fizz, I needed support getting the hang of writing up, the teacher wouldn't explain calculus. Much of this happened while I was feeling most worn out by pressure.

Yes this life is tough, and that was when tough ones like us got going - somehow - in our own way.

Jude Joannis and Uncanni, some people are allergic to cannabis therefore it is NEVER ethical for anyone to use cannabis that becomes airborne. It should be injected or swallowed, only.

Adam and Eve, who are not the first man and woman, but only the first man and woman that are remembered (and their ancestress Mytochondrial Eve has been tentatively placed at around 120,000 y.a. and Stephen Oppenheimer has traced the movements of mankind in the intervening period), seemed to know a “person” they titled God, then in the time of Enos (Gn 4:26) were folks that called on a “person” they titled “The Lord”, then later on were Noah, Abraham and the like. Writing, for the Hebrews, probably began to come in around the time of the Exodus but only as an aide to oral expression (for double checking accuracy). Mass literacy came in during the Exile.

Hence the situation prior to Adam and Eve was probably similar to that following them.

That much is from the Hebrew and Christian Old Testament (as interpreted sensibly, as is intended); other traditions generally contain details that aren’t fundamentally contradictory with that.

The point made by Reshuffle 12 days ago establishes that “soft atheism” which is people I knew in my young day that would nowadays be called “atheistic agnostics” and weren’t against anyone else having a theistic belief of varying strength, is compatible with the above findings.

Therefore the existence of written scriptures in relatively recent times tends to support the highly probable existence of various forms of agnosticism and theism, including atheistic agnosticism, well before that. At the same time there would certainly have been hard atheists, who would not allow their fellows to have theistic or agnostic beliefs.

Fresco clarified the issues on the same day as does Brian W 7 days ago.

You now focus on a different aspect of the question, how did people think they knew (or think they thought) there was a God or Lord or Ishvara or so on. To what extent was it through their senses? Personally I think that through their shallowness those who claim to present God to the public have been increasingly occulting Him (but that's just me).

The real point is, that all this predated the present religions by many tens of thousands of years.

Like Terrapin Station, I am trying to guide you to formulating relevant enquiries.

Keep at it, very interesting field!

"Hijab" is a confusing term because it might mean a decorative scarf over the hair.

If we are talking about clothes, which I would include the above in, we really can't second guess why people are wearing them. I think the conformity that compels some girls to look as if they have encountered the Slasher is oppressive.

" ... any kind of determinism appears to be just approximate ... "

Dzung, I think that is the crucial factor.

Removing ourselves somehow from a causal loop (e.g when we are in a communal situation where problems have developed) is the main foundation of making amends to whoever was damaged. By ceasing to reinforce the problem, we strengthen the possibility of solutions developing.

The minute transition between the immediate past, the "present" and the immediate future is called the Planck time. I presume that if its characteristics were plotted, the "curve" would look a lot steeper (or flatter) than usual.

Now supposing God is immensely huger than us - that might mean His Planck time is different from ours.

(I think this also resolves some people's quandaries around the survival of an "eternal soul" versus disappearance at death.)

I don't know about total outsiders but our "lasting" guilt if we are church insiders will have to do with how much we stunted the growth in integrity of our fellow adopted widows & orphans.

In Pharaoh's case it was probably similar in that Joseph had introduced good teachings to his country's government some time before. The phrase "God hardened his heart" boils down, in practice, to: Pharaoh missed his chance to see the light and think better of it. His own heart hardened and he wanted to continue oppressing them, or to pursue them out of revenge. We don’t of course know what kind of judgment was to be passed on him since his death.

We have to get used to the idiosyncratic phraseology of some of the old Bible stories, which owe their style to a certain background.

Not doing, is itself doing. It creates time for thinking. Before one knows it, one has written much - especially if one's name is Schopenhauer (or Fine Doubter)!
Obligations and numerous other factors cause tensions - that's life.
I get the impression Schopenhauer exaggerated or misrepresented a point for a bit of fun, and to provoke debate. In the atmosphere in which he lived, the overwhelming influence of Hegelism had to be counterbalanced by any means.

In their publicity material it ought to state their brand name, affiliation, and governance arrangements. This is equivalent to their denomination.
With time - if you're interested in it - it will emerge what this means in terms of their doctrines and practices. You are then free to evaluate those things as you please and relate at any level or no level, as you wish.
Some of these are cageyer than others, about important issues.
With a lifetime's practice, one develops a discernment capability!

Thank you Alcontali for this informative post. A reference work I followed up stated that the idea of the Salafis was to strip away as it were accreted viewpoints of commentators, which seems to be a recipe for weakening one's grasp of the original texts. Even while accepting the general existence of commentators' views as a body, one should surely feel free to accord them varying weight (or not), to differ in detail, etc., thereby bypassing any "need" to adhere rigidly to an "original" that maybe lacked interpretation.
I have been in lots of situations where hard liners hijack a name of a group (in my case not Salafi), leaving moderates in the position of having to call themselves dissidents (e.g dissident Salafi, "real" Salafi), etc etc.
People of principle can always cope with nuances, it's only the unprincipled that have to go the way of censorship.
In four volumes of Taleb's that I've read I didn't think his political observations obtruded from his occasional mention of his personal background.