God exists, Whatever thinks exists, thoughts exist, whatever exists

god must be atheist

I do not understand the discussion and the posts in Banno's thread with a similar title, but that is only because I am not up to the level of depth of knowledge of jargon they are. They use short forms that I don't understand, and so be it, their knowledge and my ignorance takes away neither from their wisdom nor from mine.

But the title of this recent thread by Banno, and my in-person discussions with friends in recent days made me come up with the following thoughts:

"Cogito ergo sum." I think therefore I am. If I did not exist, I could not think, therefore thinking alone proves undoubtedly to myself that I exist.

But by thinking I must have thoughts. If I did not have thoughts, I would not be thinking. Therefore thoughts exist.

Thoughts exist, but not in the physical world. With any man-made instrument you can't point at or identify something physical, and know that "hey, now, that there thing is the physical manifestation of thought."

Instead, thought is thought to exist in the mind. And the mind is thought to exist only in the mind. Strangely, true, but really, there is nothing that you can point at, that you can see or detect with physical measuring devices, including your own senses, and say, "hey, here this thing is the mind." Mind only exists in the mind.

Many evolutionists, (not all), many physical scientists, and to the point, many materialist philosophers dismiss thought, soul, spirit, consciousness, as mere functions of the mind, things that don't actually exist. But if they don't exist, then thinking does not exist, and also I (from my point of view) don't exist. So don't you, from your point of view.

So materialist philosophers who deny the existence of intangibles are wrong.

Extrapolating from this: maybe god exists, too, in the same functional way as thought and consciousness exist. God can be thought of as a temporarily created existence by the mind.

Does god such as the thought- or belief-created image of it in our minds, have a physical manifestation? No, as far as we know. God never revealed anything of himself or herself to humans, so its existence is at best doubtful. But a certain image of god does exist, which is the image of god in the minds of the faithful.

I admit this is neither here nor there. But I surprised myself with this insight, and here it is, for you to chew up my insight, and spit it out or else internalize it, or else make extravagant extrapolations from it.

Go wild.

DingoJones

Thoughts exist, but not in the physical world. With any man-made instrument you can't point at or identify something physical, and know that "hey, now, that there thing is the physical manifestation of thought." — god must be atheist

I would say this is where it breaks down. You start with the conclusion that thoughts do not exist in physically but you havent established that. Just because we dont have man made instruments to measure something doesnt mean it doesnt exist physically. We know thoughts have something to do with chemicals and electrical pulses in the brain, that certain thoughts come from certain areas of the brain and that by damaging the brain in part or whole we can effect or stop thoughts in part or whole. These correlations between the physical brain and thoughts doesnt show that thoughts are physical but its fairly strongly implied I would say and that should at least establish we have no basis to conclude thoughts are not physical.

Extrapolating from this: maybe god exists, too, in the same functional way as thought and consciousness exist. God can be thought of as a temporarily created existence by the mind. — god must be atheist

Yes, a figment of imagination. :wink:
Even if god existed in some intangible way we would still be able to detect gods interactions with the physical in the same way that detect thoughts interacting with the physical.

god must be atheist

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, DingoJones!

I would say this is where it breaks down. You start with the conclusion that thoughts do not exist in physically but you havent established that. Just because we dont have man made instruments to measure something doesnt mean it doesnt exist physically. — DingoJones

You're right. I should have said "we have no evidence that thoughts exist physically." So... then the question to ask you begs itself, "DingoJones, do all things, of the physical existence of which we have no physical evidence, exist as physical things? Must they necessarily exist as a physical thing? Why must we assume that they do exist in a physical manifestation in the physical world?"

My approach is this: I calls them as I sees them. If there is no evidence of a thing, and there is no reasonable need to assume of that thing to exist, then I treat it as non-existent. There may be and are other approaches, but I am satisfied to have it my way.

Even if god existed in some intangible way we would still be able to detect gods interactions with the physical in the same way that detect thoughts interacting with the physical. — DingoJones

If gods decided to interact with us. Why or why not they do or don't I don't know. At present time, again, they never showed us any initiative to communicate -- that is, initiative, that I can believe.

DingoJones

You're right. I should have said "we have no evidence that thoughts exist physically." So... then the question to ask you begs itself, "DingoJones, do all things, of the physical existence of which we have no physical evidence, exist as physical things? Must they necessarily exist as a physical thing? Why must we assume that they do exist in a physical manifestation in the physical world?" — god must be atheist

I think the answer is we do not know. There are things we once thought were not physical that we later learned were physical so judging by that trend we might expect everything to turn out to be physical but we dont know.

My approach is this: I calls them as I sees them. If there is no evidence of a thing, and there is no reasonable need to assume of that thing to exist, then I treat it as non-existent. There may be and are other approaches, but I am satisfied to have it my way. — god must be atheist

A good approach.

If gods decided to interact with us. Why or why not they do or don't I don't know. At present time, again, they never showed us any initiative to communicate -- that is, initiative, that I can believe. — god must be atheist

I suppose it depends on how you define god. Most concepts of god have god doing something that we should be able to detect and when we dont the approach you describe above seems best.

tim wood

So materialist philosophers who deny the existence of intangibles are wrong. — god must be atheist

Or maybe they just suffer from a failure to adequately define - or understand - their own words. Of course thoughts exist. So does this baseball bat. Can a materialist philosopher tell the difference? And if they say they cannot, shall we hit him or her with both as an exemplary lesson in not being stupid?

john27

So materialist philosophers who deny the existence of intangibles are wrong. — god must be atheist

When materialist philosophers deny the existence of intangibles, I think they apply a subtle but albeit variabley important change of definition.

In my opinion there's two ways that we can describe non-existence:

1. Just zap it out of existence,

Or

2. Displace the variable outside of your mode of observation.

I think materialist philosophers don't intrinsically deny the existence of thought. After all, that would be against their own rules. It Just happen to be that the creation of thought is (probably) so incredibly complex, that they displace it out of their perception.

god must be atheist

I love your answers and contributions, guys! (And ladies, if some of you are female, and people, if you are not in the extremes of the gender-spectrum.)

god must be atheist

I suppose it depends on how you define god — DingoJones

Defining god is a most difficult thing. It has given no indications of its characteristics. So anything goes, including and excluding anything, because it's a completely blank slate.

Hence the faith in god. It is not knowledge; it is faith, that is, belief in the unknown. In this case, in the completely unknown.

Miller

god soul spirit is just the old word for consciousness

we call it hard problem of consciousenss now

DingoJones

↪god must be atheist

That definition of god strikes me as so open as to be completely useless. I do not understand how you can believe in something you cannot define. What is it you actually believe in? “God” is just an empty placeholder here, with no substance.

god must be atheist

↪DingoJones

You actually touched on my beliefs. Very good sleuth work. I am only logically consistent, not a skeptic.

I don't think there is a god out there. But that's just a secondary point, because basically there could be a god there out there. I don't know. All I know is that god gave no indication ever of its power, of its characteristics, of its motivation, nothing. There is nothing we can learn about god. It never manifests itself, and it never gives any clues as to its own nature.

So... my philosophy is, like you said, useless, if I were to say I believe in a god. That was a very astute observation by you. But actually I don't believe in a god. It's a personal choice, and not something I wish to force on other people.

I allow that my belief could be false, and god may exist... but it's futile to discuss its wishes, desires, nature and powers, when we have nothing to go on. God, if it exists, certainly enjoys incognito status.

god must be atheist

↪Miller

Yes, that's correct, the consciousness problem is the same as the soul problem.

Miller

↪god must be atheist

consciousness problem is superior. because it gets rid of old mystical fuzzy words like god and soul

god must be atheist

↪Miller

Some would say that ranking expressions for superiority is mystical and fuzzy. :smile:

I actually don't know anyone who would say that. All I know is that there are two meanings to evolution. One is the Darwinist meaning, and it does NOT insinuate superiority even by complexity. But the other meaning of evolution does: used socially, when people use it as "I have evolved", or "his moral code has evolved", or such like.

The problem comes when people use the social meaning of evolution, and apply it in the Darwinian sense. "Hungarians are more evolved than Roumanians", is clearly wrong because it attaches a false sense of value judgment to peoples.

The reason I laterally associated evolution with calling archaic mystical, is the fact that superiority is not measured by mysticism or by fuzziness in languages. Much like complexity or evolved features do not represent superiority between two differing species.

----------

One might argue that man is superior to cockroaches in an evolutionary sense. That is not true. 1. Both species are thriving at present time. 2. A nuclear holocaust can wipe out the human species, but cockroaches will survive. 3. Evolution is not a basis for a ranking system ab ovo. Darwin did not think of the products of evolution as more or less superior than others.

Banno

It's a shame that the other thread was too technical, but perhaps the discussion therein can be set out clearly with less technical language.

"Cogito ergo sum." I think therefore I am. If I did not exist, I could not think, therefore thinking alone proves undoubtedly to myself that I exist. — god must be atheist

This is considered a proof that I exist; but when formalised it can be seen to be circular. Consider the assumption: "I think"; notice that it already contains "I"? That is, it already assumes what it is attempting to prove.

The free logic of the other thread makes this circularity formally explicit.

Now remember that a circular argument is valid - the conclusions do follow from the assumptions. So all this does not make "I think therefore I am" wrong.

The same circularity happens in the arguments for the necessary existence of god.

god must be atheist

"I think"; notice that it already contains "I"? That is, it already assumes what it is attempting to prove. — Banno

To me "I think" is not an assumption, but an empirical observation. The statement is not purely logical; it contains an element form empirical observations. That is where I see the true genius of this statement: it contains an absolute, irrrrrrrrrrrrefutable logical proof of an empirical event. The genius basically lies in the ability to connect empirical reality to logical necessity.

god must be atheist

It's a shame that the other thread was too technical, but perhaps the discussion therein can be set out clearly with less technical language. — Banno

I agree. I could not get even close to kicking the ball in that thread. Whoosh! over my head.

However, I have attended a lecture once (one of the handfuls of quasi-formal learning processes I obtained in philosophy) at a humanist gathering, and the lecturer or guest speaker had come from the philosophy department of the local university.

He talked about Logic 1 and Logic 2. Logic one is empirically established by evolving humans. (Darwinian sense.) No two phyisical things can occupy the same space, nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect, and causes must precede effects. The professor said, these absolute truths of logic have been all belied by observed physical events in quantum mechanics. So he said, that Logic 2 is a logic which had not been developed in humanity's minds, because there had been no reason for it to develop. Now that we have QM, we must get back to the drawing board.

This is different, I think, from the "free logic" you espouse or else espouse and advocate. The Logic 2 is to be developed to encompass those events in QM which belie the logic of Logic 1. Free Logic, on the other hand, may be different or similar, but I can't tell you which, since I don't know what Free Logic is.

----------------

After the lecture I walked up to him, and said, "Dear doctor Professor, if we are forced to allow the acceptance of events to be true that are logically impossible, why do we have the right to keep rejecting the notion of the Holy Trinity?" I am shit disturber, as you know.

The professor looked at me, and without a word he turned around and left me standing there.

Banno

To me "I think" is not an assumption, but an empirical observation. — god must be atheist

It's an assumption for the purposes of the argument. That is, it is where the argument starts, in terms of it's logical structure.

Sure, it might be considered an observation as well. It's not empirical.

Book273

thought, soul, spirit, consciousness, as mere functions of the mind, — god must be atheist

I suggest the reverse is more accurate.

The mind is the manifestation of spirit through soul into consciousness and thereby becomes a mind. Without spirit there is no reason for the soul, without soul, no reason for consciousness, without consciousness the mind is an empty vessel. I think, therefore I have a mind, and consciousness, ergo a soul, all created through spirit.

I also dislike short forms of words, and abbreviations. They seem like a good way to confuse an issue further.

god must be atheist

It's an assumption for the purposes of the argument. That is, it is where the argument starts, in terms of it's logical structure. — Banno

This is true. It is also true that you can declare that an assumption in a logical structure be false or true.

From your point of view, if I say, "I think", it is not decided whether it is true or false.
From my point of view, when I say "I think" it cannot be false.

The proof is only a connection of the physical world to the world of logic, when interpreted by the speaker; and then it is an absolute proof, of a priori strength.

god must be atheist

Without spirit there is no reason for the soul, without soul, no reason for consciousness, without consciousness the mind is an empty vessel. — Book273

That's certainly one way to look at it. As from a philosophical point of view, your claim can NOT be proven wrong; it is not necessarily true, but it can't be shown to be necessarily false. Well done.

Banno

From your point of view, if I say, "I think", it is not decided whether it is true or false. — god must be atheist

Not at all. "I think" is true.

It's just that "I think" already is about the one doing the thinking.

Compare it to the following invalid argument:

There are thoughts
Therefore I exist.

Sam26

"Cogito ergo sum." I think therefore I am. If I did not exist, I could not think, therefore thinking alone proves undoubtedly to myself that I exist. — god must be atheist

The idea that one would need a proof to convince oneself that you exist, is ridiculous, better yet, it's just nonsense. How would a doubt about your own existence arise? And, if you could doubt your existence, which again, is nonsense, who would be doing the doubting, if not you? Presumably a proof is supposed to give you knowledge of your existence? I mean, if you could doubt your existence, then surely you could doubt the very words you're using to form the proof. There are certain beliefs that are so fundamental, so bedrock, so basic, that they need no justification, i.e., they fall outside the domain of epistemology. These beliefs form the very backdrop needed to have these kinds of conversations. If you can't be certain of your own existence, what could you be certain about? Nothing! Even being certain would lose all meaning.

Jamal

↪Sam26

Yes, this was Descartes' point, which GMBA has either misunderstood or just described incorrectly.

Sam26

↪jamalrob

What? Descartes was confused about the whole notion of doubting.

For those of you who haven't already, study On Certainty (Wittgenstein's final notes), it helps to clear up some of these misunderstandings. Then again, you might read it, and think, what in the world is he talking about? :wink:

Jamal

What? Descartes was confused about the whole notion of doubting. — Sam26

His point was that you cannot doubt your existence. It's not the kind of thing that can be doubted. I took that to be your own point.

Sam26

His point was that you cannot doubt your existence. It's not the kind of thing that can be doubted. I took that to be your point. — jamalrob

Well, my opinion is that his whole approach is incorrect. Of course I'm not a fan of Descartes.

It is my point, but Descartes analysis is not the same as Wittgenstein's analysis in OC, which is what I was trying to represent. :grin:

Jamal

↪Sam26

OK, but I wasn't addressing your general opinion of Descartes. Carry on.

god must be atheist

↪Sam26

You're right about that. Who would doubt his own existence? The significance here I believe is the proof. That a proof exists that connects the empirical realm to the a priori realm.

Jamal

It is my point, but Descartes analysis is not the same as Wittgenstein's analysis in OC, which is what I was trying to represent — Sam26

You were responding to a representation of the cogito, and you didn't acknowledge, probably because you didn't know, that the cogito makes the same point you were making. I intervened to correct this. I'm aware that Wittgenstein's analysis is different from Descartes'.

god must be atheist

es, this was Descartes' point, which GMBA has either misunderstood or just described incorrectly. — jamalrob

I admit ignorance of the context in which D said his "cogito...". I am only familiar with the utterance. I don't pretend to know more of the context.

However, my interpretation of the utterance, not considering the context at all, is correct.

From your point of view, if I say, "I think", it is not decided whether it is true or false.
— god must be atheist

Not at all. "I think" is true. — Banno

Please explain.

In my opinion your assessment of "I think" uttered by me is guided by your senses. This brings up the entire question of whether we can trust our senses. Hence, the division between empirical and a priori truths.

Case 1. My utterance "I think" is both empirical and a priori to me. Case 2. "I think" when I utter it, but not you, is wholly empirical to you. The truth value is not equivalent in the two cases.

God exists, Whatever thinks exists, thoughts exist, whatever exists

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