:up:

an update of Spinoza's deus sive natura, to accommodate modern cosmology — Gnomon

Funny thing, though, Einstein didn't see a reason for "an update of Spinoza's Deus, sive nature, perhaps because he actually studied Spinoza, unlike you, Mr Enformer-of-the-gaps, and therefore does not conflate, or confuse, metaphysics with physics as pseudo-thinkers do. Fwiw, the philosophical speculation I find most parsimonious and consistent with "modern cosmology" is pandeism¹ (not your "PanEnDeism" or panentheism or pantheism).

(2022)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/607424 [1]

I agree that the laws of nature are enforced by an entity called the Mind — MoK

Fundamental physical regularities are not legistlated "laws" that need to be "enforced" but are mathematically derived from countless, extraordinarily precise observations (measurements) of the most explanatory physical theories available (SR, GR, QFT, Standard Model, etc). The term "laws of nature" is a metaphorical shorthand that it makes no sense to attribute some hidden (occult) agency such as "the Mind" to – which only begs the question 'and whence the Mind?' leading either to an infinite regress or unwarranted, arbitrary terminus (e.g. "first cause", "unmoved mover", "intelligent designer", "creator", etc).

But we need a reason for the existence of the laws of nature in the first place. — A Christian Philosophy

Why?

continuation of ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/981975

[deleted]

The search for metaphysical causes is essentially religious in its origins, and has been a great hindrance to the advancement of human knowledge. — alan1000

:up: :up:

There is an impressive lack of self-awareness in that article — Count Timothy von Icarus

When you say "lack of self-awareness", are you referring to the article's author, American readers? American writers? or ???

@Bob Ross

An incisive précis on literature in Pax Americana ...
https://lithub.com/viet-thanh-nguyen-most-american-literature-is-the-literature-of-empire/

addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/961000

Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR): For every thing that exists, there is a sufficient reason/explanation/ground for its existence or occurrence. — A Christian Philosophy

And the "sufficient reason" for (every instantiation of) the "PSR" is what exactly? :chin:

Matter doesn't exist. This is all an elaborate dream. — RogueAI

:roll:

I guess you didn't get the memo, Rogue: There are no antirealists (immaterialists, disembodied minds, etc) in foxholes.

On the one hand you are saying it's all just chemicals and yet on the other you say that these thoughts about it all being chemicals are not due to chemicals but are "logical conclusions". Do you not see that you are contradicting yourself? — Janus

:up: :up:

This cannot be repeated enough (esp. here in the effin' United States of Kakistan since 1980) ...

Translating the bullshit we have been sold in plain English, the trade unions have lost their bargaining power, the population has been taught that it is not the rich that are responsible for their misery but gays and foreigners, and that a state that supports the poor and the sick is undesirable and cost them too much. Hence taxes have gone down, real wages have gone down, and government spending on social care has gone down. This is also partly because we no longer have an Empire covering a third of the world to exploit. Those wretched foreigners again wanting to run their own lives. — unenlightened

:100: :fire:

if it's all just chemicals — Darkneos

From what perspective? At what level of analysis? Why not instead: if it's all just quarks ...? C'mon, the premise is weak, reductive nonsense.

Here's a 2022 post from a thread Experience Machine ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/655601

A 2024 post from another thread Boethius and the Experience Machine ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/889496

I think of Whitehead's actual world as equivalent to Spinoza's immanent Nature-god [ ... ]. Yet, Whitehead's logically inferred deus sive natura[panentheism] was described as "transcendent", in the sense that any creator or programmer stands apart from its creation. — Gnomon

:rofl: Again, "immanent" is "equivalent to" not-immanent (i.e. "transcendent"). Good job! :clap:

What went wrong?

From across the pond over here in Kakistan¹ it looks like, iirc, a clusterfuck of knaves: the Royals, Margaret Thatcher, the Tories, Tony Blair's "New Labour" & fuckin' UKIP. Just a wild guess ... but hey I get the latest on the collapse of the UK from that singular, man-in-the-street jounalist Jonathan Pie².

[2]

[1]

:smirk:

I'm assuming that God [ground of Being] can’t or doesn’t act like a being in this world [contrary to accounts of "miracles" in religious scriptures / teachings], but instead provides the conditions that make action [e.g. "sin"] possible. — Tom Storm

It seems to me that "faith" in such an abstract, impersonal deity doesn't serve a religious function or even makes sense (despite theology/theodicy).

Tom Storm Count Timothy von Icarus
This is a great discussion. — T Clark

:up:

Even our arch-atheist 180 Proof Is playing nice.

:smirk:

Spinoza is not a pantheist but a... I forget... is it an acosmist? — Tom Storm

Yes, from the perspective of eternity (like e.g. Brahmanism), as I understand his thought:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/#GodNatu

or more succinctly ...

(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/528116

(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/578506

What does it mean to say God is the fundamental existence or essence that underlies everything in the universe? — Tom Storm

This reminds me of Spinoza's natura naturans, Schopenhauer's World As Will, (Hindu) Brahman or the Dao – even though, in a more pragmatic sense, I prefer Democritus-Epicurus-Lucretius' swirling atomic void.

I'm not sure what you're looking for when you write "outline a clearer picture" of "Being" (with respect to "God"?) Please clarify.

:up: :up:

:smirk:

I certainly see problematic aspects of theism, especially the whole emphasis on 'sin', including original sin and sexuality. — Jack Cummins

Afaik, "sin and sexuality" belong particularly to Abrahamic forms of theism and not to most others like Mesoamerican, Aboriginal, Greco-Roman, Aegyptian, Celtic, Norse & Hindu traditions. As a concept, or category, of god/s, across all religious traditions theism seems to me to consist of only three claims:
(1) a deity is the/an absolute mystery,
(2) a deity is the/a creator of the whole of existence;
(3) a deity is the/a providential intervener (i.e. cause of impossible changes) in the universe-nature-world-creatures.

what I mean by magic [ ... ] whatever is impossible magic [ ... ] "makes" possible — 180 Proof

magic is about patterns and connections, and there being more to sensory (or extrasensory) perception than Cartesian-Newtonian thinkers have acknowledged — Jack Cummins

As superstitions gave way to theodicy and astrology gave way to astronomy and alchemy gave way to chemistry and teleology gave way to mechanics & natural selection, magic was rationalized (i.e. domesticated, deflated) into parapsychology (or pataphysics) especially in the 19th & 20th centuries. Remember, Jack, Newton was an alchemist and Descartes postulated occult or miraculous interactions between different physical (body) and spiritual (mind) substances. Until recent centuries, magic had always been considered much more than just "perception" (such as miracles, curses, blessings, transmutations, shapechanging, exorcism, necromancy, oracles-divination, fetishes amulets & talismans, etc :sparkle: :pray:).
.

So,↪180 Proof's 2025 solution to the God problem seems to be to just ignore the evidence for Big Bang & Big Sigh (the standard model of cosmology), then assume that the natural world has been ticking right along for eternity. Hence, no gap to be filled, and no need for [non-explanation]super-natural "help". — Gnomon

:roll:

As always, more of the same, troll is as troll does.

My interpretation of cosmogeny from p.1 ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976427

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976662

In particular, atheists often attack the most crude arguments for theism as opposed to being open to more in depth analysis. — Jack Cummins

Given that the overwhelming majority of the religious worship "the most crude" forms of theism, we atheists (or, in my case, antitheists) don't bother wasting our efforts on arguing against a "God" so devoid of distinctions by this "in-depth analysis" that no one (including theologians and philosophers) persecutes or kills or martyrs themselves in the name of ... "the ground of being".

When someone says they don't believe in God, the reasonable next question is: "What do you mean by God?" — Tom Storm

Well, I don't believe in magic, and what I mean by magic is "God" (i.e. whatever is impossible magic=god "makes" possible :sparkle:).

a return to earlier thinkers — Tom Storm

Maybe, but not a return to earlier believers ... who are still the vast majority of God-worshippers (e.g. Abrahamic theists who believe in "miracles", etc). After all, nobody prays to "being itself" – what would be the point of that?

... deep roots, going back to the early Church Fathers who wrote extensively about the nature of God

You have to go back a millennia or more before the derivative logos of "God" to the ancient Hebrews, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, etc (just in the West) for the existential mythos of "God". The Church Fathers were apologists-come-lately even in the recorded history (of histories) theist religion.

The claim “atheists live by faith too” trades on a confusion about what faith means. Atheists acknowledge basic assumptions but generally would treat these as provisional and open to revision, not sacred truths. Foundational beliefs like causality are not equivalent to teleological or theistic explanations, because they don’t posit an agent or a purpose we must subscribe to without evidence. — Tom Storm

:100: :up:

Westerners worship "the God of Abraham", for instance, rather than a "more sophisticated" god of the philosophers (e.g. "the ground of being", or "being itself", or "the one", or "the unmoved mover"). Arguments against the latter "god" (absolute) are far less consequential culturally and existentially, it seems to me, than arguments against the former "God" (creator).

:up:

:up: :up:

Read the OP and the rest (almost all) of this thread. The predominant context within which "faith" has been discussed so far is religious.

What about faith in oneself ... — kindred

What about it? That's nothing to do with the thread topic and mere equivocation.

Some theists attempt an equivocation fallacy by equating faith in God with faith in things like air travel. — Tom Storm

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Your obstinate dismissals without argument, sir, are now dismissed by me without (further) argument. Hopefully, someone much more thoughtful than you will offer credible counters to my arguments.

↪180 Proof's ironic fairy tale of acausal (random) fluctuations as the First Cause ... — Gnomon

And another strawman. :roll:

Pay attention, troll ...

Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo NO 'first cause' — 180 Proof

... just as there is no edge to a sphere, no beginning of a circle (or Möbius loop) and NO 'first' random vacuum fluctuation. — 180 Proof

Suffering is [a fact] though it is a personal thing. — Darkneos

Yes, "a personal" objective fact like every physical or cognitive disability; therefore, suffering-focused ethics (i.e. non-reciprocally preventing and reducing disvalues) is objective to the degree it consists of normative interventions (like e.g. preventive medicine (re: biology), public health regulation (re: biochemistry) or environmental protection (re: ecology)) in matters of fact which are the afflictions, vulnerabilties & dysfunctions – fragility – specific to each living species.

addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/980498

:smirk:

:up:

spontaneously assembles itself — Wayfarer

Red herring.

Wayf, you're not one of those evolution-deniers who mischaracterize natural selection as "a process of random chance", are you?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis

The reason I go this route is, of course, that the particles we are made of are indistinguishable from any other particles in the universe. So what is in us that makes us conscious must be in all the other particles. — Patterner

Hasty generalization & compositional fallacies. :eyes:

What "makes us conscious" is the (rarified) arrangements of our constituent "particles" into generative cognitive systems embedded-enactive within eco-systems of other generative systems. Afaik, all extant evidence warrants that 'consciousness' is an emergent activity (or process) of complex biological systems and not a fundamental (quantum) property like charge, spin, etc.

So you believe that there isn't any aspect of suffering that is a fact of the human condition (i.e. hominin species)?

If the universe was "born" in a Big Bang, don't you think it's reasonable to determine its paternity? — Gnomon

:roll:

Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo no "first cause"; spacetimes (nonrandom event-patterns (e.g. universes)) do emerge rarely as it's reasonable to expect (re: law of very large numbers ... of random events), etc. A god-fairytale (e.g. "prime mover", "enformer / programmer", etc) is not needed and does not explain anything – even in principle; it just begs the question as a woo-of-the-gaps appeal to ignorance. — 180 Proof

Everything on that list is subjective feelings — Darkneos

Nonsense. Human facticity is not "subjective". Being raped or starved, for example, are not merely "subjective feelings" just like loss of sustanence, lack of shelter, lack of sleep, ... lack of hygiene, ... lack of safety .... injury, ill-health, disability ... maladaptive habits ... those vulnerabilities (afflictions) are facts of suffering.

Semantics.