My thoughts in this regard are mainly in reaction to those who say there is no evidence for God. There is evidence, they just aren't convinced by it. That makes a big difference to me. — T Clark

I think that's correct. As an atheist I take this view too. I would even include scripture as evidence. How one regards or rates this evidence is a different matter.

1. Ignorance/Ignorantia (this is, I'm told, the state of mind one dislikes the most)

2. Confusion/Aporia (just a fancy word for total bafflement); a constant source of irritation/vexation for me and others like me)

3. Gnosis/Knowledge (the holy grail of philosophy, excluding those philosophers who think aporia is more their thing) — Agent Smith

In the absolutist context:

1. Ignorance (even of the questions)

2. Knowing the questions, uncertainty of the answers

3, Delusory certainty.

In relative contexts:

1,Ignorance.

2. Learning

3. Knowledge

So, in my view aporia is indeed the wise state in relation to so-called "ultimate questions".

I would even include scripture as evidence. How one regards or rates this evidence is a different matter. — Tom Storm

Yes. I agree.

Do you suppose people who recommend aporia (bafflement) as a healthy state of mind were conflating it with "awe and wonder". — Agent Smith

Maybe Einstein was a closet magician, pretending to be a mere scientist. He often attributed his curiosity about Nature to its inspiring "awe & wonder". But, instead of trading on occult mystery, he revealed the smoke & mirrors that had long concealed the underlying magic of reality. :cool:


One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day."
___Albert Einstein

I would not say that we have surpassed Greek culture in wisdom, only that we rival them in folly. — Cuthbert

:fire:

My thoughts in this regard are mainly in reaction to those who say there is no evidence for God. There is evidence, they just aren't convinced by it. — T Clark

"Evidence for God" such as? A dozen years of Catholic education (including Bible Study and altar boy service) as well as over a decade more of earnest comparative religions study, yet thirty-odd years on and this so-called "evidence" still eludes me. :eyes:

1. Ignorance/Ignorantia (this is, I'm told, the state of mind one dislikes the most)

2. Confusion/Aporia (just a fancy word for total bafflement); a constant source of irritation/vexation for me and others like me)

3. Gnosis/Knowledge (the holy grail of philosophy, excluding those philosophers who think aporia is more their thing) — Agent Smith

My two drachmas in the agora's wishing well:

1. illusions of knowing (i.e. not to know that one does not know)

2. understanding 'one does not, perhaps cannot, know completely / with certainty (i.e. an intractable perplexity)

3. knowing what one does not know (i.e. understanding 'the more one knows also includes the more one does not, perhaps cannot, know')

The examined life pursues self-understanding, no? :death: :flower:

:up: Interesting.

My two drachmas in the agora's wishing well:

1. illusions of knowing (i.e. not to know that one does not know)

2. understanding 'one does not, perhaps cannot, know completely / with certainty (i.e. an intractable perplexity)

3. knowing what one does not know (i.e. understanding 'the more one knows also includes the more one does not, perhaps cannot, know')

The examined life pursues understanding, no? :death: :flower: — 180 Proof

I'll get back to you. Thanks.

"Evidence for God" such as? A dozen years of Catholic education (including Bible Study and altar boy service) as well as over a decade more of earnest comparative religions study, yet thirty-odd years on this "evidence" still eludes me. — 180 Proof

As I noted, the fact that you don't consider something good evidence doesn't mean it isn't evidence. That's one of the things reason is supposed to do, provide a process for working these things out. Your typical smarty-pants response does not constitute reason.

I can't consider something "good evidence" (or not good) when there isn't any evidence given (by you et al) to consider. Trying answering the actual question I posed in my previous post. :confused:

understanding — 180 Proof

What's understanding?

Aporia, whatever else it might be, gives me the impression that it includes, as part of experiencing it, the grasp of the major (and minor) aspects of a problem at hand. The end result of a philosophical analysis terminating at two points:

1. The assumptions/presuppositions (where did we begin?).
2. The methodologies employed (what technique are we using?)

My hunch is that once a (real/true) philosophical analysis is complete, what we end up with is

1. A list of unknowns, some of them probably unknowable.
2. A critique of our methodologies.

This end point is, in my humble opinion, aporia, literally meaning "difficulty in passage". We're stuck so to speak.

Maybe Einstein was a closet magician, pretending to be a mere scientist. He often attributed his curiosity about Nature to its inspiring "awe & wonder". But, instead of trading on occult mystery, he revealed the smoke & mirrors that had long concealed the underlying magic of reality. :cool:


One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day."
___Albert Einstein — Gnomon

Clearly, awe and wonder is an emotional experience even if brought on by the application of cold, unfeeling rationality.

In my childhood days, I recall quite enjoying the experience of utter bafflement even though it was brought on by the simplest of things (I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer). As an adult, that primal joy has been replaced by annoyance, anxiety, and anger. I remain as perplexed as ever, but I now dislike it, it's not fun anymore.

Aporia can be interpreted as a state of readiness (imagine athletes at their starting positions in a race, legs cocked as it were, read to sprint at the signal to do so) to learn. A philosopher then is just a student, an eternal pupil, alway learning, but never, ever completing the process of absorbing information and processing that into knowledge and, ultimately, wisdom.

What's understanding? — Agent Smith

Here's an old post addressing this question. Another sketch of understanding excerpted from a different old post.

Don't forget the use of aporia by our beloved leaders...

"Can it really be, my fellow partisans? Were they truly considering this? Did it actually cross their minds? My mouth fell open wide, sweet comrades! It cannot be. It will not be!! It won't be!!! Brothers, in aaarms!!!!"

A philosopher then is just a student, an eternal pupil, alway learning, but never, ever completing the process of absorbing information and processing that into knowledge and, ultimately, wisdom. — Agent Smith

You mean a philosopher is a computer? A computer has no understanding. Without understanding no knowledge. Understanding means being what you wanna understand. Learning is being. Understanding is learning is being. But why doing this eternally?

What do you eat? :grin:

My takeaway from the post you linked to:

1. Form vs. content. Very important concepts as far as I can tell.

2. (Over)simplify. I like the sound of that. Very mathematical. In a gravitational equation the sun which can swallow up a million earths is but a point. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

If I've missed anything, do lemme know. :up:

the use of aporia by our beloved leaders — EugeneW

:lol: I don't wanna talk to you!

I don't wanna talk to you! — Agent Smith

???????????????........

"Aporia, the black-veined whites or blackveins, is a genus of pierid butterflies found in the Palearctic region."

Amaaaazing....

You mean a philosopher is a computer? — EugeneW

DOES NOT COMPUTE! = APORIA!

Not a clue what you're talking about ... :yawn:

DOES NOT COMPUTE! = APORIA! — Agent Smith

Exactly! Being in aporiaticalistic state means being unable to compute. We're all Aporians, living close to Ignorantia. Gnosis of Philo has had his cynosure days, ruling from the hierarchy apex.

Not a clue what you're talking about ... :yawn: — 180 Proof

:lol:

I can't consider something "good evidence" (or not good) when there isn't any evidence given (by you et al) to consider. — 180 Proof

This is just more anti-religious bigotry, so prevalent here on the forum.

This is just more anti-religious bigotry, so prevalent here on the forum. — T Clark

It's anti-"because I say so" bigotry, sir. :shade:

It is a horrible fact of life that the apparently-devout can participate in such terrible atrocities. But I regard this as an indication of human weakness, rather than as anything intrinsic to spirituality. Recall that many of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century were committed for political or nationalistic causes. Humans are capable of corrupting anything. — Wayfarer

:clap: Magnifique!

A bad workman blames his tools!

To be fair, many religions are pragmatically-challenged i.e. many of their injunctions are quite simply undoable, clearly beyond the reach of (say) 90% of people. One could even say that to be a person of faith, one has to be superhuman. So much for Nietzsche and his übermensch, supposedly beings that emerge from the mortal remains of God. :chin:

most of the thinking about religion or the religious aspects of philosophy on this forum are highly stereotyped in my view. This is because religion itself has become institutionalised and defined in terms of anachronistic dogma. And what that does, is create guard-rails around what should and shouldn’t be said and thought - which itself is an echo of the religious concern with orthodoxy, with having the right views - which nowadays are dictated by science and liberal democratic values in the place of religious dogma but functioning in a similar way. Where Christianity insisted on the ‘one true God’ its secular offspring now insist on the sole primacy of science as the truth and the way. The ‘jealous God’ dies hard.

My approach is counter-cultural - that both sides of the ‘religion v science’ mindset grow out of the same historical background and mirror each other in some vital sense. That’s why for a lot of people in my generation, alternative and Eastern religious ideas provided a circuit-breaker, a way out of the interminable deadlock in Western culture which Nietzsche also criticised (although in my view there was something profoundly lacking in his understanding of it.)

That has allowed me to re-interpret the meaning of religious ideas at least to some extent, knowing that in some real sense, there are no answers, the existential plight of existence remains as it always has been. And yet……

Humans are capable of corrupting anything. — Wayfarer

One question that arises is to what extent the original message is corrupt. For example, Abram's sacrifice of his son Isaac is held up as the height of faith. It seems to me that at best this should have occasioned aporia. How could God demand such a thing? Have I (Abram) understood it correctly? But there is no evidence in the story of even a moment of hesitation or questioning.

It is not as if he never questioned God. With regard to Sodom and Gomorrah:

Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

(Genesis 18:23)

His concern for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah seems odd in contrast to his seeming lack of concern for his son.

Socrates questions Euthyphro regarding his self-proclaimed knowledge of piety. An aporia arises regarding the problem of reconciling what it is he imagines the gods want of him and what is just. This raises the question of what is to serve as the measure of the corruption of spirituality? Was the Inquisition a corruption or the logical response to the importance of saving the eternal soul, even if it comes at the cost of pain and suffering during the short time we are on the earth?

One question that arises is to what extent the original message is corrupt. For example, Abram's sacrifice of his son Isaac is held up as the height of faith. It seems to me that at best this should have occasioned aporia — Fooloso4

It certainly seems like that from the perspective of our culture 2,600 odd years later. But all ancient cultures were built around sacrifices. Sacrifice was a way of repaying to God or the gods what man had been given or had taken. It was an inevitable consequence of the development of human self-awareness with its realisation of loss, pain and death. Our animal forbears have no such burdens. Many religions still observe sacrificial rituals to this day. (There has only been one globally significant religious culture that does not include sacrificial ritual, and that is Buddhism.)

Jesus' crucifiction was understood as the sacrifice that put an end to the need for all sacrifice - hence 'the lamb of God', the final sacrifice, that reconciled humanity and God for all time.

I think from an anthropological perspective the need for or meaning of sacrifice in that archaic sense is no longer understood. We recognise and applaud self-sacrifice in the sense of foregoing one's own advantage for the sake of others, but not the literal idea of sacrifice that animated the earlier cultures. So, sure, from our perspective, it seems an irrational and cruel demand. But 'the past is a different foreign country, they do things differently there.'

Was the Inquisition a corruption or the logical response to the importance of saving the eternal soul, even if it comes at the cost of pain and suffering during the short time we are on the earth? — Fooloso4

I very much doubt it. But even despite the evils of the Inquisition, I would still like to think that the Christian religion is not inherently corrupt or wicked.

When I studied comparative religion, I formed the idea that some fundamental element or perspective was forgotten or missed at the formation of Christian orthodoxy, that being the idea of 'experiential realisation', that is found in Eastern religious cultures with their emphasis on meditative experience.

That element, I felt, was more characteristic of the gnostic movements (not that there was any one thing called Gnosticism). I found the work of Elaine Pagels, based on the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codex. She argues in her book Beyond Belief (review here) that the formation of early Christianity was marked by an internal struggle within the Church between the gnostic and pistic (faith-based) factions, with the latter eventually prevailing. The gnostic style of interpretation was much more characteristic of the Gospel of Thomas, which was rejected by the redactors of the Bible as a consequence of this struggle.

(1) And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."

(2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

It was much more convergent with the kind of spirituality that myself and many others of my generation were seeking than the time-worn tropes of Churchianity.

As an adult, that primal joy has been replaced by annoyance, anxiety, and anger. I remain as perplexed as ever, but I now dislike it, it's not fun anymore. — Agent Smith

Your frustration may be due, in part, to unrealistic expectations. When I was young, I learned the hard way that I was a perfectionist, who couldn't deal with his own imperfections. As you grow older though, you learn to lower your expectations. Especially in Philosophy, Ideals are an impossible dream. Ambition is good, in moderate doses. :cool:


"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" ___Robert Browning

Your frustration may be due, in part, to unrealistic expectations. When I was young, I learned the hard way that I was a perfectionist, who couldn't deal with his own imperfections. As you grow older though, you learn to lower your expectations. Especially in Philosophy, Ideals are an impossible dream. Ambition is good, in moderate doses. :cool:


"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" ___Robert Browning — Gnomon

It's quite possible that you're right on the money. I am kinda sorta perfectionist, although looking back I see no evidence of it in anything I've been involved in. I'm sloppy and lazy, always looking for shortcuts and cheat codes if you know what I mean.

Let's put this discussion back on track. A while ago, that's a coupla moons, I came to the conclusion that being unsure/uncertain (skepticism) makes decisions impossible for, as per my own thoughts on the matter, decision-making can only be done based on propositions being either true or false (not both or unknown or neither).

Aporia, puzzlement, is a state when the truth of some relevant propositions are undecidable (truth value unknown) and that's supposed to be a good thing in re making good decisions.

As you can see these two don't jibe with each other: on the one hand knowing is better than not knowing (2^nd paragraph above) as decisions can only be made knowing what's true and what's false and on the other hand, there's this belief that we make high quality decisions when we're confused (aporia, 3^rd paragraph above).

These two antipodal views both makes sense and does not is an instance of aporia (for me).

Can you help clear up the matter for me?