What puzzles me is that mercy is so often represented as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card that is handed out more or less at random to those who don't deserve it. How is this a good thing? — Ludwig V

Yes, this is part of the "very deep question" that @Wayfarer points out. Mercy is precisely most admirable when it's undeserved. But consider this from Hamlet:

"Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?"

This begins to explain the power of mercy, I think. An impartial, unmerciful judge would treat all of us justly -- and what a terrible fate that would be!

Here's another way to think about it: Justice = being given what you deserve. Injustice = being given less than you deserve. Mercy = being given more than you deserve.

Note that i haven't said that the discovery of universal metaphysical truths via intellectual intuition is obviously impossible, but that it is obviously impossible to demonstrate that what has been purportedly discovered is truly a discovery and not simply an imagining. — Janus

A fair distinction. The individual who claims to have made such a discovery may be in the position of indeed having done so, but being faced with the impossibility of ever demonstrating it. (I still don't think anything here is obvious, but no matter. :smile: )

I'm gloomily contemplating the idea that one of the underlying cultural problems around all of this was, in fact, created by Christian culture itself, in that the way it developed inadvertently demolished the idea of the 'scala natura' and the idea of higher truth, that being deemed elitist and in contradiction of the universal salvation offered to all who would believe. — Wayfarer

A fascinating and difficult issue. If philosophy is understood as an ideal form of rationalism, then I do think it "stops at the door" of spiritual or religious forms of life. But you're pointing out that it doesn't have to be understood that way. Philosophy might be a doorway to a higher, non- or super-rational truth. But on this construal, it raises the problem of elitism, just as you say. Or, if "elitism" is a bit worn-out as a term, we could say "privileged access."

It certainly offends most Christian ears that access to the highest and most God-like realities is limited to a few who have walked the difficult path of philosophical knowledge. But this possibility is surely there as far back as the Gospels -- only it's not the intellectual or rational path that is difficult, but the ethical one. When Jesus (in one of his rare moments of humor) tells the rich young man who's done everything right that there's "just one more thing" he has to do -- give all his riches to the poor and join the Jesus followers -- he's making it clear that the kind of "salvation" the young man wants is not for everyone, but only for those who are really willing to go all the way in their lives, not their thoughts. That can't be very many, then or now.

But anyone can quote scripture for their own purposes, and there are plenty of traditional Christian teachings that say the opposite -- "only believe" and you will be saved, etc. And this doesn't touch the specific question of the role philosophy ought to play. Maybe we should just say that the relation of intellect to spiritual insight is vexed, with no clear consensus having emerged.

So long as it remains notional, it is impotent. It requires an engagement beyond the word-processing department, so to speak. — Wayfarer

You'd have to elaborate. Are you talking meditation and such?

It seems to work like this:
T1: We are all one, manifested in different forms...
T2: That bastard cut me off!

The end of unity.

So, the Bang must have had the potential for purpose. — Gnomon
That would only seem to hold if you take the so-called laws of nature to be fixed and immutable from the beginning. Peirce didn't think that, and as far as I remember from studying Whitehead quite long ago, nor did he. — Janus

The link below says that Whitehead viewed natural laws as "emergent patterns"*1. And they are indeed emergent in the sense of our understanding of them. For example, Newton's view of Gravity has been significantly modified by Einstein. But the cosmic Law of Attraction didn't change, only our scientific & mathematical models.

Aside from those philosophers, most scientists today assume that Natural Laws are "empirical regularities"*2 upon which we may depend for developing our knowledge and technologies. Either way, the burst of Causal Energy & Regulating Law that we metaphorically imagine as a Big Explosion (voila!), necessarily included the Potential (latent capacity) for all subsequent forms.

For my philosophical worldview, I assume that the various Laws of Nature in effect today, were inherent in the mathematical Singularity that went Bang, but only as generic Potential, not actual or specific. If so, then the possibility of emergent Intelligence & Purpose must have been "programmed" into the metaphorical Singularity. That "point of infinite density & curvature" --- no space, no time --- could not contain anything that we now know as physical or Actual, so the myriads of Real things today, may have originated as what Whitehead enigmatically called "Actual Occasions" : fundamental, irreducible units of reality.

In computer programming, we understand that the Output (result) of the computation process began as a Goal or Purpose in the mind of the Programmer. And that's how I imagine the otherwise mysterious something-from-nothing Big Bang input, followed by the creative computations of evolution. Some imagine that the BB was just a blip in an eternal process of universe production, with no beginning or end. Maybe, but I find that notion difficult to reconcile with the contingent & entropic Reality we experience today. :nerd:


*1. In his philosophy, Alfred North Whitehead argued that natural laws are not fixed, pre-existing rules, but rather emergent patterns arising from the relationships between "actual occasions" (events) and "eternal objects" (concepts). He emphasized that these laws are not separate from reality but are part of the ongoing process of becoming
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+natural+law

*2. Most scientists take it for granted that the laws of nature were fixed at the moment of the Big Bang,
https://opensciences.org/open-questions/are-the-laws-of-nature-fixed

This begins to explain the power of mercy, I think. An impartial, unmerciful judge would treat all of us justly -- and what a terrible fate that would be! — J

If the punishment prescribed for various crimes is disproportionate, then it is unjust punishment. Mercy doesn't come in to it.

Here's another way to think about it: Justice = being given what you deserve. Injustice = being given less than you deserve. Mercy = being given more than you deserve. — J

Very neat. But you are over-simplifying. Injustice sometimes means being given less than you deserve (e.g. damages) But sometimes it means being given more than you deserve (e.g. punishment).

Disagree with each other over what? The definition of a word? — goremand

Perhaps "definition" is the wrong word here. I just meant that people disagree about what a good life for human beings is. But those disagreements are taking place in a context where some things are agreed, or not contested. For example, there would need to be broad agreement on which creatures are human beings.

This begins to explain the power of mercy, I think. An impartial, unmerciful judge would treat all of us justly -- and what a terrible fate that would be!
— J
If the punishment prescribed for various crimes is disproportionate, then it is unjust punishment. Mercy doesn't come in to it. — Ludwig V

I think you're missing Hamlet's point. :smile: He was suggesting that just, proportionate punishment is what we all have coming, because we've all missed the mark to varying degrees. But the fact that it's just doesn't make it any less terrible to endure.

Here's another way to think about it: Justice = being given what you deserve. Injustice = being given less than you deserve. Mercy = being given more than you deserve.
— J
Very neat. But you are over-simplifying. — Ludwig V

Definitely. Just working with the idea that "justice" has more than one opposite.

A fair distinction. The individual who claims to have made such a discovery may be in the position of indeed having done so, but being faced with the impossibility of ever demonstrating it. (I still don't think anything here is obvious, but no matter. :smile: ) — J

So, you don't think it is obviously impossible to demonstrate that a speculative metaphysical claim (purportedly) based on reliable intuition is just that rather than something merely imagined? If you believe that one might ask then why such has not already been demonstrated such that no impartial person could reasonably question its veracity.

Well, yes. But then philosophy is in direct competition with religion - or, maybe, religion is a species of philosophy for those who don't grasp the point, or importance, of reason.
What people don't seem to face up to that even asking that question presupposes a complex conceptual structure which needs to be in place to enable potential answers to be articulated and evaluated.
I also have serious difficulty that our problem is in any way articulated as a list of options on a menu, from which we choose. Who writes the menu? Perhaps we live as we must and the only question is how far we can mitigate the down-sides that turn up in every item on on the menu. — Ludwig V

Sure, people find their answers where they are capable of looking. As I've said all along I am not at all against people believing whatever they might be capable of believing that gets them through the night and day, whatever provides them emotional sustenance and existential comfort, provided they don't try to force it down others' throats. I have more respect for those who simply hold to their groundless faith without feeling a need to convince others that their faith is the one truth and that it is rationally demonstrable to boot. That's just nonsense; the very fact that such believes can be rationally questioned shows that there are no demonstrable absolute truths.

Then, from Gods perspective it might be good when people suffer. And since his opinion is the only one that matters, — goremand

We've reached the end of our conversation, because it has circled back to the point where you are saying the opposite of what I said earlier which was that it is only human opinions which matter. No one knows God, so there can be only human opinions as to what God's opinion is. To say that God's opinion trumps human opinions is to abandon rationality altogether and rely on a completely groundless faith that revelation shows the absolute truth. I'm not prepared to waste my time arguing against anyone who believes that. As Mark Twain said: "Never argue with a fool, they will drag you down to their level, and beat you with experience".

So, you don't think it is obviously impossible to demonstrate that a speculative metaphysical claim (purportedly) based on reliable intuition is just that rather than something merely imagined? If you believe that, one might ask then why such has not already been demonstrated such that no impartial person could reasonably question its veracity. — Janus

This is one of my perennial favorite philosophical puzzles. If Major Philosophical Position A is obviously correct, how is it that Major Philosophical Positions B, C, and D remain on the table, amongst skilled philosophers? I'm sure you're aware that your question, when applied self-reflexively, yields the same question you're asking about the opposite view: If it is indeed the case that the lack of demonstration of the SMC (speculative metaphysical claim) shows it to be impossible to so demonstrate, why then hasn't everyone agreed that this is so, and closed the book on the question?

I don't have a pat answer to this waiting in the wings. I genuinely believe it's a meta-question about philosophy that deserves much more attention than it gets in analytic-philosophy circles, not just about SMCs but about any longstanding philosophical dispute.

Either God would have liked to create a perfect world free of suffering but was unable to do so, or didn't realize what he had done in creating the world, or else such a god simply does not exist in which case there is no "problem of Suffering". — Janus

That two option analysis seems to be a slam-dunk for critics of Judeo-Christian-Islamic theology. But, since our world is pretty good --- stop and smell the roses --- but not yet perfect, and it does include suffering of sentient beings, I have considered a third option. What if this world was not created as an instant Paradise, but as an experiment in Cosmic Creation*1, similar to Whitehead's evolutionary Process*2?

Plato knew nothing of Big Bang theory, but his Chaos to Cosmos theory could be adapted to suit modern cosmology. In this case, I would recast the Demiurge (creative worker) in the role of Causal Energy (ergos = work). His Chaos would be an infinite Pool of Potential, again unrestricted Energy (power to cause change). Although, in the real world Potential Energy is relative to position, in pre-bang infinity it would be absolute.

The Chaos to Cosmos program would not be "modeled on a perfect form", but a learning process of trial & error, similar to our modern methods of Evolutionary Programming*3. The evolution of our universe seems slow & wasteful because it began from scratch and works toward a near infinite universe. But computer programming can begin with the output of previous operations, and is given a narrow definition of success.

I won't go into more detail here, but I'll note that your Either/Or statement does not, in the real world, eliminate the "problem of suffering". It only makes the Genesis account of creation seem implausible. And it leaves us sufferers with no one to blame for our misery*4. Yet, in the Cosmic Creation experiment, sentient intelligence is not the only goal, but also moral & ethical behavior will be selected for. Perhaps working toward an immanent God, or gods, who have experienced suffering and can empathize with it. :smile:


*1. Plato's view of the cosmos is presented in his dialogue Timaeus. In this work, Plato describes a universe created by a divine craftsman, the Demiurge, who fashions the cosmos from pre-existing chaos and eternal Forms. The cosmos is a living, spherical being with a soul, modeled on the perfect Form of a living being. It is not eternal but is a moving image of eternity, reflecting the eternal Forms. The Demiurge creates time along with the cosmos.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=plato+cosmos

*2. Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy provides a framework for understanding evolution as a dynamic, relational process of becoming, rather than a static or predetermined outcome. He emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things and the role of eternal objects and actual occasions in shaping the evolutionary journey.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+process+evolution

*3. Evolutionary programming is an evolutionary algorithm, where a share of new population is created by mutation of previous population without crossover. . . .
It was first used by Lawrence J. Fogel in the US in 1960 in order to use simulated evolution as a learning process aiming to generate artificial intelligence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming

*4. Philosophy Now magazine, article on GUILT :
The following sums up the consequences of dealing with guilt in an unhealthy manner : "they refuse any responsibilities for their deficiencies, refuse to go out in any positive way to others, and blatantly blame everything on a wicked God, a God who is totally guilty".

That's a really good question. The only answer I can offer to support a claim that such demonstration has not only been impossible in the past, just as it is now, but that it inevitably will be so in the future, would be that when it comes to introspected intuitions we always will be working with the same data, that is the human mind, that we have always been working with.

In science we may be working with previously unknown data, newly discovered phenomena, and I think this has clearly happened in the history of science. But when it comes to the purely speculative metaphysical ideas, unless we admit science into the equation and don't rely solely on intuitions (which has certainly happened in some metaphysical quarters) there would seem to be no new data to work with. And nothing in science itself apart from accurate observations are definitively demonstrably true in any case. Metaphysical ideas seem to be, to repeat loosely something I remember reading somewhere that Hegel said: "the same old stew reheated". I would add to that and say "the same old ancient stew reheated".

Perhaps the reason metaphysics hasn't been given up is on account of, as Kant pointed out, the human inability to let go of such questions, despite the impossibility of definitely answering them. I also think there is much inspiration and joy to be found in such imaginings, especially for the creative type of person. I think speculative fiction is great: just don't imagine that any of it is literally true. We don't need to imagine that in order for it to have poetic value and meaning.

What if this world was not created as an instant Paradise, but as an experiment in Cosmic Creation*1, similar to Whitehead's evolutionary Process — Gnomon

Sure, it's a speculative possibility, and is not inconsistent with a creator God that is either not all-knowing and/ or not all-good, and/ or not all-powerful. Whitehead's God was understood to be evolving along with its creation. I never quite got the need for, or understood the place of, God in Whitehead's system, though.

A fascinating and difficult issue. If philosophy is understood as an ideal form of rationalism, then I do think it "stops at the door" of spiritual or religious forms of life. But you're pointing out that it doesn't have to be understood that way. Philosophy might be a doorway to a higher, non- or super-rational truth. But on this construal, it raises the problem of elitism, just as you say. Or, if "elitism" is a bit worn-out as a term, we could say "privileged access." — J

When I say that philosophy ‘drops you at the border,’ I mean that aspect of philosophy which points beyond the bounds of reason — not into the irrational, but into the supra-rational. This is the realm that confounds reason, not by denying it, but by exceeding it. You find this implicitly in Neoplatonism, and explicitly among the mystics. That’s why in classical and ancient thought, the line between philosophy and religion was so often porous: philosophy led you to the threshold, but what lay beyond it required something other than reason alone. (I think calling it faith is often dismissive, 'oh, you mean belief without evidence', when, for the aspirant, it may comprise an insight into something that is abundantly evident to them.)

I think that sense is better preserved in the Catholic and Orthodox worlds which still held to an hierarchical ontology, within which the sense of there being a 'higher truth' remains meaningful. Less so in Reformation theology, which swept away the whole superstructure which mediated between, and mirrored, the great chain of being. Hence the origin of today's 'flat ontology'.

It certainly offends most Christian ears that access to the highest and most God-like realities is limited to a few who have walked the difficult path of philosophical knowledge. But this possibility is surely there as far back as the Gospels -- only it's not the intellectual or rational path that is difficult, but the ethical one. When Jesus (in one of his rare moments of humor) tells the rich young man who's done everything right that there's "just one more thing" he has to do -- give all his riches to the poor and join the Jesus followers -- he's making it clear that the kind of "salvation" the young man wants is not for everyone, but only for those who are really willing to go all the way in their lives, not their thoughts. That can't be very many, then or now. — J

This brings up a lot of difficult issues for me. When I was a (mature-age) undergrad, I was persuaded of the reality of spiritual enlightenment, mainly under the sway of popular literature about the subject (all the usual sources, D T Suzuki and Alan Watts). Also that the gnostics had a similar conviction and that this had been suppressed by the 'church triumphant' in early Christianity. I read up on the gnostic gospels. Also read a book on the persecution of the Cathars of Languedoc, which launched the Inquisition, reinforcing my suspicion of ecclesiastical religion. But despite earnest efforts I never made much headway with the 'path of seeing' - more like fragmentary glimpses briefly illumined by lightning, so to speak (although leaving an enduring trace). So, like a lot of people, I find at this stage of life the prospect of realising such higher states impossibly remote (even if in another sense nearby). I'm very much wrestling with that. I can sense the appeal of 'salvation by faith' although it's impossible to will myself to believe it.

To assume a more academic and less personal tone, the 'flattening' of ontology that characterises modernity intersects with 'salvation by faith alone' and the emphasis on individualism that commenced with Descartes' cogito, that 'my own existence is the only thing I can know for sure'. This has lead to a kind of hyper-pluralised and individualised form of Christianity we see today, where salvation is often equated to a state of individual enthusiasm (and a well-adjusted bourgeois existence).

I find myself again at least philosophically more drawn to the Catholic philosophers:

Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they must be conformed to the truth of things given in creation. And such conformity is possible only as the moral virtues become deeply embedded in our character, a slow and halting process. We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. The full transformation of character that we need will, in fact, finally require the virtues of faith, hope, and love. And this transformation will not necessarily—perhaps not often—be experienced by us as easy or painless. Hence the transformation of self that we must—by God’s grace—undergo “perhaps resembles passing through something akin to dying.” — Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher

Amen to that.

We've reached the end of our conversation, because it has circled back to the point where you are saying the opposite of what I said earlier which was that it is only human opinions which matter. — Janus

I'd like to respond, but at this point it seems you have lost all interest and I'd just be wasting space. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

I don't mind if you respond and of course it's up to you...but I cannot imagine any argument that God's opinion matters more than human opinion or even that anyone could know God's opinion could be convincing, or that revelation could be demonstrated to be more than a human production or even that God actually can be rationally, logically, empirically or some other way, demonstrated to exist.

I'm not trying to be difficult or inflammatory...and I've spent many, many years examining all the arguments, so I doubt you can present anything I haven't already encountered.

That's a really good question. The only answer I can offer to support a claim that such demonstration has not only been impossible in the past, just as it is now, but that it inevitably will be so in the future, would be that when it comes to introspected intuitions we always will be working with the same data, that is the human mind, that we have always been working with.

In science we may be working with previously unknown data, newly discovered phenomena, and I think this has clearly happened in the history of science. But when it comes to the purely speculative metaphysical ideas, unless we admit science into the equation and don't rely solely on intuitions (which has certainly happened in some metaphysical quarters) there would seem to be no new data to work with. — Janus

Our intuitions are not universal and unchanging. They are influenced by experience, exposure to ideas (from science, but also from history, philosophy, religion), socioeconomic conditions, moral attitudes... That's not to say that there is some fixed asymptote towards which our collective metaphysical intuitions are inevitably converging. They may well diverge, swing and meander this way and that forevermore.

. . . there would seem to be no new data to work with. . . . Metaphysical ideas seem to be, to repeat loosely something I remember reading somewhere that Hegel said: "the same old stew reheated". I would add to that and say "the same old ancient stew reheated". — Janus

Yes, there's a lot to this. A great deal may depend on the idea of "data." Are questions considered to be data? It looks to me like the questions that philosophy poses keep changing, era to era and tradition to tradition. And yes, the data that philosophers then appeal to in order to answer those questions tend to be more or less the same -- with a big exception for current advances in cognitive science. So is philosophy in the question-answering business, or the question-proposing business? I think, usually, the latter. The inability, thus far, to answer the question about SMCs may be because the question is badly framed. It's not new data we need, but new insight. The hell of it is, part of the "new insight" we so badly want would involve a new way to understand the relation of rationality to philosophy.

That said, I have some sympathy for those, like Wittgenstein, who want to use (a version of) philosophy to free us from metaphysical fly-bottles.

That’s why in classical and ancient thought, the line between philosophy and religion was so often porous: philosophy led you to the threshold, but what lay beyond it required something other than reason alone — Wayfarer

Yes.

But despite earnest efforts I never made much headway with the 'path of seeing' - more like fragmentary glimpses briefly illumined by lightning, so to speak (although leaving an enduring trace). — Wayfarer

Same here. Emphasis on "enduring."

We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. — Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher

I'm not crazy about the "purity" theme, but this certainly sets out the problem concisely: What sort of person must I be, or become, in order to pass across that threshold? We all know the usual suspects: "I must become intellectually accomplished (good at philosophy)." "I must become ethically good." "I must make a certain profession of belief in an avatar." "There is no threshold; shut up and calculate."

In part it's a self-reflexive problem: If we knew how to choose among those standard answers, we would presumably also be demonstrating, in so choosing, why our answer is true or wise. Can that be done without going in circles?

Our intuitions are not universal and unchanging. They are influenced by experience, exposure to ideas (from science, but also from history, philosophy, religion), socioeconomic conditions, moral attitudes... That's not to say that there is some fixed asymptote towards which our collective metaphysical intuitions are inevitably converging. They may well diverge, swing and meander this way and that forevermore. — SophistiCat

Right, I haven't said or implied that our intuitions are universal and changing. They are conditioned by culture and tradition. My point was just that the idea of intellectual intuition as source of metaphysical truth is the idea of revelation or of some pure insight which is beyond the relativistic mediations of culture.

I think it is arguable that most of the remodeling of our metaphysical intuitions since the Middle Ages has come form science. It seems reasonable to think that if it hadn't been for science there would have been no really new data. When it comes to mystical intuitions as they are presented to us in the literature there is a base commonality across traditions and cultures, and it is only science which has thrown a spanner in the works, so to speak.

Are questions considered to be data? It looks to me like the questions that philosophy poses keep changing, era to era and tradition to tradition. And yes, the data that philosophers then appeal to in order to answer those questions tend to be more or less the same -- with a big exception for current advances in cognitive science. — J

As I say above, I think many if not most of the new questions have come on account of science, and as you note, especially cognitive science.

That said, I have some sympathy for those, like Wittgenstein, who want to use (a version of) philosophy to free us from metaphysical fly-bottles. — J

I do too, and I think the thrust of that project was to show that such questions are to be dissolved rather than resolved.

I'm not crazy about the "purity" theme, but this certainly sets out the problem concisely: What sort of person must I be, or become, in order to pass across that threshold? We all know the usual suspects: "I must become intellectually accomplished (good at philosophy)." "I must become ethically good." "I must make a certain profession of belief in an avatar." "There is no threshold; shut up and calculate."

In part it's a self-reflexive problem: If we knew how to choose among those standard answers, we would presumably also be demonstrating, in so choosing, why our answer is true or wise. Can that be done without going in circles? — J

I think you've hit on something important here. When it comes to how to live, which in my book is what philosophy is (or should be) really about, we do better the freer we are of concern about the self. I think it is arguable that we see our lives and others with greater clarity the more relaxed, the more at peace with ourselves we are.

It is the state of radical acceptance that I see as being the essence of enlightenment, and not imagined knowings of the answers to the great questions, which have never been, and I think arguably never can be, answered definitively. So "crossing the threshold" for me is a metaphor for a radical shift in our total disposition to life.

Can that be done without going in circles? — J

Well, saṃsāra literally means 'cyclic existence'. Liberation from that is the ultimate aim of Indian religious systems (which I why I don't think 'mokṣa' can be understood apart from it.) It is alien to the middle-Eastern religions which hold to a linear understanding of history. (Hence the doctrines of the dead awaiting judgement in some distant future time, which I could never make sense of.)

(This brings to mind another of the watershed books I read back in the day, The Heretical Imperative, by sociologist Peter Berger. Very briefly, he argues that the original idea of 'heresy' was 'having an opinion' - that the whole principle of religion was that salvation was something done to you or given to you, in which you had no say. 'Heretics' were those of different views or who promoted 'opinions'. But now, he says, in a pluralistic world awash with competing ideas, it's necessary to make a judgement about which path - hence the book title. And, he says, the biggest decision is what he described as 'Jerusalem or Benares' - the choice between Biblical and Vedic religions.)

:up: :up:

I cannot imagine any argument that God's opinion matters more than human opinion or even that anyone could know God's opinion could be convincing, or that revelation could be demonstrated to be more than a human production or even that God actually can be rationally, logically, empirically or some other way, demonstrated to exist. — Janus

And I don't believe any of that so arguing for it is not my intention, I just think that claiming that suffering is sometimes good is a logically valid solution to the problem of evil.

I think this comes down to you having a different idea of goodness, I am guessing you would say it's derived from human nature or something like that? Whereas I would say good and bad are determined by objective normative properties which are wholly divorced from humanity and whose content could be pretty much anything, including "suffering is good".

That said, I have some sympathy for those, like Wittgenstein, who want to use (a version of) philosophy to free us from metaphysical fly-bottles.
— J

I do too, and I think the thrust of that project was to show that such questions are to be dissolved rather than resolved. — Janus

Ah, but which ones are the fly-bottles? :wink: Problem is, to ask "Should all metaphysical questions be dissolved rather than (if possible) resolved?" is to ask a very metaphysical question. Witt's answers, whatever their merit, also depend on evident metaphysical premises.

It is the state of radical acceptance that I see as being the essence of enlightenment, and not imagined knowings of the answers to the great questions, which have never been, and I think arguably never can be, answered definitively. So "crossing the threshold" for me is a metaphor for a radical shift in our total disposition to life. — Janus

I appreciate any point of view, such as this one, which recognizes that "answering philosophical questions correctly" may not (shock! horror!) actually be the purpose of doing philosophy. Where do we go next, with this insight? Should we conclude that the answers to such questions will never be forthcoming? Or simply never forthcoming within rational philosophy? I think philosophy has to question itself -- its own nature, its own "radical self-acceptance" -- in much the same way you recommend that individual philosophers question themselves. And I'll say again that one of the great clues to the direction of this philosophical self-examination is out there in plain sight: Why can't philosophy generate a body of knowledge, as science does, or settle for a canon of "beautiful" ideas, as art does? What are we really doing when we ask philosophical questions?

As to ego as impediment: certainly true in my ethical life. Probably in my intellectual life as well, since like anyone else I enjoy being correct about things, and get seduced by this pleasure into believing that there is no end to the topics about which I could be correct . . . see above.

if there is no god and no meaning then needless suffering actually makes sense? It’s what you’d expect to see in a world with no inherent purpose - struggle, chaos and suffering, — Tom Storm

This makes sense to me too. In a way, it’s a tautology and doesn’t really say anything. I can reword it this way: In a world with no meaning, meaningless suffering makes sense (like everything would be meaningless in a world with no meaning.). The tautology is: world with no meaning = all aspects or parts of the world (such as suffering) have no meaning.

But even in this world with no meaning, it still means (sorry) for us here in this conversation that we exist, we suffer, and that there is no power or person (no God) who can change those realities. (So we have to bring into existence meaningful/logical arguments to speak of a world with no meaning, meaningfully to each other, which is a contradiction itself, but I digress into some other, linguistic game. I raise this because that is the main point - we are creating contradictory conclusions in order to defeat the premises we created for n the first place.)

But if creation is about genius design and magnificent order and if God cares for us and wants a relationship with us, then suffering by apparent design does not make much sense. It seems contradictory. — Tom Storm

In an effort to show that I’m following you, I’ll take ‘genius’ as all-knowing, ‘magnificent order’ as all-powerful (organizing, creating physical force), and ‘God cares’ as all-good. Now, if we invent such a God, the formerly meaningless suffering from the formerly Godless world seems to take on a meaning the suffering doesn’t have. It means God is purposely inflicting the suffering on us, or he at least doesn’t care. And so the contradiction arises inside our definition of God. The contradiction is squaring God’s goodness with my own estimation of suffering as badness; God must be bad if I suffer, but God must be all-good if God is God, so God contradicts himself if he inflicts suffering on me and I suffer, so God must not be.

So I see the contradiction. Creator all-powerful good God and my bad suffering shouldn’t co-exist.

What I’m saying is this seeming contradiction arises because of my own invention of who/what God is, and my own invention of the meaning of suffering is that only arises when I assert my invention of who/what God is.

So yes, if we presume to know how God operates, and presume an all-good God would by definition care for my suffering, and presume I know what “all-good” actually means, and I suffer, then either my presumptions are false OR God doesn’t exist.

And so, if my presumptions about God may be false, it is not logically necessary to conclude God does not exist. Therefore, the conclusion of the problem of evil argument that “God does not exist”, is not necessarily a sound estimation of what actually exists and what suffering actually means. The problem of evil is a logical exercise, but not a sound estimation of God and suffering proving anything either exists or does not exist.

——

How should God build bliss from scratch? Since we a judging the process of creation/evolution for improvements.

If we would all call God truly “all-good” had this God created us from our first moment of consciousness to know only perfect bliss and zero suffering, aren’t we just eliminating the process of growth? How is bliss physically built up from nothing? Of bliss is to born from not-bliss, don’t we need not-bliss too? Wouldn’t any process, along the way towards eternal bliss, carry suffering, struggle and process behind it? Does bliss feel blissful in a creature that can’t or doesn’t feel pain, that can’t even remember suffering and struggle and chaos ever? Maybe. Or maybe not as blissfully?

So my conclusion is, if we play God ourselves, invent and create our “God” to be all-good/powerful/knowing, invent our feeling that we know what this even means, it makes sense that we would judge this new God we’ve created as failing to do good or failing to know or have power to do good by me, because I suffer. That does make sense. But I’ve merely stacked God’s deck against himself to rule him out of existence. The animating force behind the problem of evil is our own judgement that God is Not good for allowing or inflicting my suffering, but this same suffering is meaningless (neither good nor bad) without God, so maybe there is a middle ground, where an all-good God and my suffering can coexist (as in a world where God will bring redemption, but I digress again).

Bottom line, there is no logical need for us to be such a harsh judge of God or a harsh judge of our own suffering. Maybe suffering can seem good (as in hard work and growth) and maybe God can seem bad (as in children with cancer, and seemingly unexplainable suffering), and instead of eliminating the seeming contradictions by eliminating the presence of God and eliminating the presence of meaning to my suffering, we simply need to further investigate the meaning of both God and suffering in a world where we can imagine bliss.

complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll: — Wayfarer

Essentially, my whole way of thinking about the problem of evil. :100:

The argument concludes the premises on which this conclusion was based make no sense, so why would anything concluded based on those premises be able to be held soundly?

I find myself again at least philosophically more drawn to the Catholic philosophers:

Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they must be conformed to the truth of things given in creation. And such conformity is possible only as the moral virtues become deeply embedded in our character, a slow and halting process. We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. The full transformation of character that we need will, in fact, finally require the virtues of faith, hope, and love. And this transformation will not necessarily—perhaps not often—be experienced by us as easy or painless. Hence the transformation of self that we must—by God’s grace—undergo “perhaps resembles passing through something akin to dying.”
— Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher

Amen to that. — Wayfarer

Amen to that Amen.

So yes, if we presume to know how God operates, and presume an all-good God would by definition care for my suffering, and presume I know what “all-good” actually means, and I suffer, then either my presumptions are false OR God doesn’t exist.

And so, if my presumptions about God may be false, it is not logically necessary to conclude God does not exist. Therefore, the conclusion of the problem of evil argument that “God does not exist”, is not necessarily a sound estimation of what actually exists and what suffering actually means. The problem of evil is a logical exercise, but not a sound estimation of God and suffering proving anything either exists or does not exist. — Fire Ologist

Yes, we agree - it isn't a logical necessity. The argument is directed at believers, specifically, most believers I've met, who hold to a personal God they think saves people from cancer, rescues lost children and helps them find parking spaces, and yet permits immense suffering on the world.

complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll:
— Wayfarer

Essentially, my whole way of thinking about the problem of evil. :100: — Fire Ologist

As you know, the argument from evil is often used by atheists to respond to certain believers who often insist, and I had one say this to me recently: 'Look at the perfection of the world and how good it is; it must be the creation of a benevolent God.' That was the thinking I heard in sermons as a child. The obvious response is that the world is bathed in suffering, and that creatures were created to hunt, kill, and eat each other, with pain as a fundamental expression of life. In my experience that usually ends that line of thinking.

Whatever people think of the argument, for some theists, the problem of evil gives rise to doubt. No less a thinker than David Bentley Hart has conceded this and believes it is one of atheism's best arguments. He is a sophisticated theological thinker, although conservatives often dislike his Left-leaning views. Believers are as tribal as any other group.

But of course, those who want to believe in a just personal God will always construct some kind of exculpatory theory or version of God in which suffering is either necessary, the result of some contamination, or entirely unrelated to the deity. Of course they would. And as I have already said, the argument is primarily used in response to certain naive accounts of God.

Ah, but which ones are the fly-bottles? :wink: Problem is, to ask "Should all metaphysical questions be dissolved rather than (if possible) resolved?" is to ask a very metaphysical question. Witt's answers, whatever their merit, also depend on evident metaphysical premises. — J

Would that not be more an epistemological question? Why must we make any metaphysical assumptions at all? Surely we can just accept the world as it appears to us without worrying about what might be "behind it"?

Where do we go next, with this insight? Should we conclude that the answers to such questions will never be forthcoming? Or simply never forthcoming within rational philosophy? — J

I can't believe that pure rationality (speculative reasoning) can have anything more after nearly three millennia to offer apart from thinking about fresh material that has come from science. I mean I think it has nothing more to offer that derives purely from itself. It's come to look like "pouring from the empty into the void".

I also think we don't so much find answers as new ways of looking at and thinking about things. If the purpose of philosophy is to come to terms with our lives and live them the best way we can, and if this entails radical acceptance of our condition, then it would seem the task is not so much trying to find answers to abstruse metaphysical questions, but rather coming to understand and work on ourselves.

As to ego as impediment: certainly true in my ethical life. Probably in my intellectual life as well, since like anyone else I enjoy being correct about things, and get seduced by this pleasure into believing that there is no end to the topics about which I could be correct . . . see above. — J

Yes, we all suffer from that particular affliction to one degree or another. I used to think analytic philosophy was useless, dry "logic-chopping", and pedantic concern about being correct, but I have changed my view on that. What I have come to like about analytic philosophy is its ability to free us from conceptual confusions. That may not give us wisdom per se, but I think it can help clear the way to seeing our condition more clearly.

All that wriggling and to-ing and fro-ing just to admit that the usual conception of a loving, personal God does not jibe with the reality of the world we find ourselves living in!

But I wonder why I sense an underlying, lingering "and yet..." in your words? Something you find hard to let go of?

complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll:
— Wayfarer

Essentially, my whole way of thinking about the problem of evil. :100:

The argument concludes the premises on which this conclusion was based make no sense, so why would anything concluded based on those premises be able to be held soundly? — Fire Ologist

That's a poor characterization of the critique of what merely amounts to two ideas which are inconsistent with one another. It's a lame attempt to dismiss the critique by attempting to explain it away psychologically, as though those pointing out the inconsistency are merely whiners.

It's very shallow indeed if that's your "whole way of thinking about the problem of evil".

To ask "Should all metaphysical questions be dissolved rather than (if possible) resolved?" is to ask a very metaphysical question. — J

Would that not be more an epistemological question? Why must we make any metaphysical assumptions at all? — Janus

Yes, epistemology strictly speaking, but isn't epistemology a sub-inquiry under metaphysics? Is it possible to frame a question about what we can know, without an explicit or assumed metaphysical framework? I don't think so.

The larger question about metaphysical assumptions, regardless of their connection with epistemology, is interesting. We can, as you say, simply accept the world as it appears to us. Are you also saying that to do so would free us from any metaphysical assumption? I don't quite see how. Common-sense realism is full of (perhaps unspoken) premises about what the world/life/reality consists of.

I also think we don't so much find answers as new ways of looking at and thinking about things. — Janus

Yes. That was what I had in mind about new questions rather than definitive answers.

Yes, epistemology strictly speaking, but isn't epistemology a sub-inquiry under metaphysics? Is it possible to frame a question about what we can know, without an explicit or assumed metaphysical framework? I don't think so. — J

We can know all kinds of basic things, like whether it is raining or not, for example. We know things because we see them. I know I am looking at a tree for example. Now you could object and say "how do you know it is really a tree?" or "how do you know you are not being tricked by a demon?" or "Does the tree exist apart form its being perceived?", and so on. Those are metaphysical questions, and I consider them to be pointless in one way, simply because there cannot be any way of answering them if they have no empirical or logical solution.

So, I see accepting that basic human situation, accepting the world as we find it, as eschewing metaphysical speculation not as assuming any metaphysical framework. I am not opposed to metaphysical speculation, though, as I've said on these threads many times; I think it can be a great exercise of the creative imagination. I just don't take it very seriously or expect any answers from it. New ways of thinking? Sure...

Sure, it's a speculative possibility, and is not inconsistent with a creator God that is either not all-knowing and/ or not all-good, and/ or not all-powerful. Whitehead's God was understood to be evolving along with its creation. I never quite got the need for, or understood the place of, God in Whitehead's system, though. — Janus

Whitehead's God was not defined in those "omni" terms, but described in functional roles*1. But then, his Process Philosophy was written prior to the cosmological evidence that our space-time universe had a beginning in philosophical time*2. And that apparent Creation Event would place his Immanent God into a new context : how to explain the "birth" of God/Nature. All answers to the pre-space-time questions are speculative & theoretical, not empirical & scientific. Which includes Multiverse notions. And they are only religious if they become dogmatic.

In my own "speculative" thesis, I would describe Whitehead's (and Spinoza's) creative force, and Plato's Demiurge (world builder) in terms of Energy (causation) and Law (regulation). But the question remains : how & why & whence did those practical Forces suddenly appear in a "cosmic explosion" birth-event of the world we now inhabit? Again, all postulated answers to such questions are philosophical, not scientific.

Of course, I have no revelation from the Great Beyond. But as an amateur philosopher, I feel free to extend knowledge of the extant world, into the realm of logical possibilities. So, I have created my own conjectural thesis, based primarily on what we know of non-classical Quantum Theory, and post-Shannon Information Theory*3. I also go back to the origins of Rational Philosophy in Plato & Aristotle for the logical necessity of a First Cause or Prime Mover*4, which Whitehead assumed was "uncaused" in the physical sense*5.

The "need" for such an eternal Principle was probably based on Whitehead's pre-bang intuition, that all known space-time processes --- including biological evolution --- eventually come to an end (what we now know as Entropy), and must have an injection of Energy to begin. In effect, his Causal Principle is equivalent to the axiomatic (taken for granted, not proven) eternal Energy & Law inputs that sparked & regulated the primordial explosion of an infinite mathematical Singularity into an evolving & progressing Evolutionary Process of emergent Space & Time, and Life & Mind.

The pertinent question for this thread is : would you hold such a Nature God responsible for the evils of this world, or view H/er as a fellow sufferer : "a participant in the process of change"? :smile:


*1. In Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, God is not a supernatural being, but rather the persuasive ground of novelty and freedom, necessary for his metaphysical system. Whitehead saw God as an indispensable part of his system, as the force that provides order, novelty, and an aim for all entities. This God is not eternal, but rather a participant in the process of change, and his power is one of persuasion, not coercion.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=why+whitehead+god
Note --- Scientists refer to that "force" as Energy, but usually ignore the "order, novelty & aim" implications. His God is both an eternal Principle, and an immanent agent of change.

*2. Philosophical Time : The philosophical study of time explores the nature of time, its relation to space, and the implications of its passage. Key questions include whether time is a fundamental dimension of reality, or merely a human construct, and whether the past, present, and future exist as real entities or just as perceptions.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=philosophical+time

*3. Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory
Note --- "Claude Shannon is often described as "the father of information theory" although he described his work as "communication theory."
Subsequent developments have expanded the theory into Physics applications, in which Information functions as a form of Energy.

*4. Gnomon : I refer to the logically necessary and philosophically essential First & Final Cause as G*D, rather than merely "X" the Unknown, partly out of respect. That’s because the ancients were not stupid, to infer purposeful agencies, but merely shooting in the dark. We now understand the "How" of Nature much better, but not the "Why". That inscrutable agent of Intention is what I mean by G*D.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html
Note --- Whitehead referred to the causation & intention as "persuasion" & "concretion", but also as the"principle of limitation" (natural law) and the "organ of novelty" (creative causation).

*5. In Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, "first cause" is understood as the fundamental, uncaused source of all reality, a principle of creativity that underpins the universe and its ongoing process of becoming. Whitehead's concept differs from traditional notions of a "first cause" that is separate from and external to the world. Instead, he views God as both the primordial "how" and the consequent "why". God, as the primordial cause, initiates the creative process, and as the consequent cause, enjoys the beauty and goodness that result from the universe's ongoing development.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+first+cause
Note --- The notion of a God who creates, then inhabits, a physical world is usually labeled Pandeism. But I prefer PanEnDeism. The Creative Principle transforms into a Physical Process. Some imagine that humans are God's sensing & thinking organs.
"Whitehead's process theology proposes a dynamic and interactive God who is both immanent and transcendent" https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+pandeism

I find it interesting that you associate this sort of thing with Peterson. Nietzsche has tended to be more fodder for the left, and I think the "death of God" tends to get rolled out more often by post-structuralists, or at least Continentals more generally, than anyone else. The "political right" has, by contrast, tended towards "God never died in the first place" (or "if 'God is dead and we have killed him,' nonetheless he is risen!"), holding up living traditions as a counterpoint to modernity.

Peterson is, in this respect, definitely a figure of the "nu-Right," which tends to be more unmoored from tradition (even if it tends to be vaguely respective of it). In a lot of ways, the nu-Right is very post-modern in its sentiments and methodology, and its critiques of the liberal order (which is ironic because they blame "post-modernism" for all their ills, when in fact it seems like a lot of what they decry is a symptom of right-leaning neo-liberalism).

Ah, but which ones are the fly-bottles?

An excellent question. The problem with Wittgenstein's approach, at least in the hands of some practitioners, is that if very quickly shifts into seeing the entire world as made of nails because they (think they have) found a hammer. Every philosophical problem becomes a "pseudoproblem," and perhaps more importantly it becomes a particular sort of pseudoproblem. Language is always the culprit, not say, epistemic presuppositions, an understanding of mereology, etc. This is problematic if a problem might be (more or less) convincingly resolved by looking at the latter instead of language.

Why must we make any metaphysical assumptions at all?

I think we'd find it quite impossible not to. Can one do philosophy without making any assumptions about universals, how parts relate to wholes, whether something can both be and not be in the same way, at the same time, without qualification, identity, etc? How does one discuss the "act of knowing" without any assumptions about what act entails?

To "not make assumptions" is really just not to explore one's own assumptions and make them clear. A lot of analytic philosophy is guilty of this move. It "brackets" metaphysical questions, and then uses this "non-assumption" to make a defacto metaphysical assumption. To say: "I simply won't consider universals or parts and wholes," tends towards simply uncritically presupposing nominalism and a deflationary mereology for instance.

Pryzwarra has a good section on this in Analogia Entis. While epistemic and ontological questions will always jockey for primacy, it simply isn't possible to move into the epistemic without at least some ontic presuppositions. Epistemology itself doesn't even make sense without a reality/appearance distinction. If appearances are just truth, there is no problem of knowledge!