By BlogSpotThinker
September 22, 2011
“Objective” appears to connote a realm beyond the influence of human perception and thought processing.
“Realness” appears to refer to actual existence and appears bifurcated for the sake of application regarding reality into (a) the “imagination-hosted”: that which exists due to and solely within human perception and (b) the “non-imagination-hosted”: that which exists not as a result of human perception.
The latter non-imagination-hosted group appears generally considered to contain a subset of its members which is represented within the former imagination-hosted group. Additionally, the former imagination-hosted group appears to contain a subset of members which is not represented in the latter non-imagination-hosted group.
“Know” appears reasonably described as referring commonly to two concepts: (a) recognition – “knowing a phenomenon exists”, and (b) understanding – “knowing a concept better than another”.
Perhaps a problem that science has is that it attempts, apparently reportedly for possibly admirable quality-control reasons, to process current perception through the analytic filter of prior perception. Apparently unfortunately, this filtering appears attempted regardless of the validity of the prior perception. Consequently, any experience perceived or reflected upon appears subject to categorizing into either imagination or non-imagination. Based upon the apparently scientific assertion that perception is fallible, “knowing God’s realness” can then never occur. One can never irrefutably determine whether a perception is (a) a real-time representation of an existence independent of that perception or (b) that which appears to be referred to by science as fabrication. Experiencing interaction with God might occur, assuming that the portion of that interaction that might be described by science as “outside of imagination” truly occurred. Science appears to suggest that neither the experiencer nor an observer can “know”.
I humbly and respectfully submit that the term “supernatural” appears to represent less of an intimidation to science than some appear to portray it to represent. The term appears reasonably defined to refer to that which exists beyond what science has yet recognized as truly existing. The term “natural” appears solely to mean “that which is a part of nature”. If nature is “that which truly exists”, and science apparently acknowledges incomplete understanding of all that truly exists, it appears to be a bit too early in science development to suggest the labeling of certain suggested phenomena as “supernatural” as an indicator that it does not exist. Science appears reasonably considered to have logic and reason to assert that it perceives no logical, reasonable basis for considering such a phenomenon to exist but not that said phenomenon does not exist.
Consequently, the term “supernatural” appears to either (a) mean that a suggested phenomenon suggested to exist but that science appears unable to verify either its existence or non-existence or to (b) have no true purpose.
You write: "Based upon the apparently scientific assertion that perception is fallible, “knowing God’s realness” can then never occur."
ReplyDeleteMy first query is:
If we can use science to determine the "realness" of some things, what is special about God's realness that we can not determine it through a scientific method? Can we know what is special about it, or are we just saying that there is an entity we call god that has unknown special qualities that make it unverifiable? On a related note are there other things that fall into this category of being real that can not be determined through a scientific method?
I believe you are saying that god's realness may fall into the subset of "non-imagination-hosted" that are also "imagination-hosted". There are things, including possibly god, that are objectively real, but only known through an "imagination-hosted" process of human perception. Is that correct?
I'll follow up with another post about this particular subset you describe, and how I think we can relate to this subset, or "know" it.
But right off the bat I feel it's worth noting that these questions are not just relevant to science. The same problem with subjectivity and reality is revealed through metaphysics, without bringing the scientific method into it at all.
However, the specific aspect of the scientific method that looks for falsification allows us to present the dilemma succinctly:
If it is possible for something to be both true and unfalsifiable, and everything unfalsifiable falls outside the purview of science, then there are some things that could be true that science will never be able to verify.
This, I believe, is a true statement. There are prominent string theorists today who are wrestling with exactly this issue. But pointing out the limitations of science can't be, in and of itself, an argument for god, and in this case makes no significant contribution toward knowing god's realness or reconciling perception with objective reality.
I'll write more on this later.
"Based upon the apparently scientific assertion that perception is fallible, “knowing God’s realness” can then never occur."
ReplyDeleteI believe language must necessarily encompass certain postulates of perception. In other words, sort of like a Lorentz transformation applied to Newtonian physics to correct them for space-time; but you only need to do that in those circumstances where it makes a difference...
"Real" is what is perceived to be real; if I put it down it will still be there when someone picks it up -- quality of permanence -- quality of shared experience. Babies do not have a sense of object permanence. Real interacts in some way with other things that are real.
If I say I "know" that "god" is "real", each word has common meanings that we do not really need to wrestle. Know goes beyond belief; it speaks to certainty. "God" is defined in a great many ways but for this purpose will simply be a transcendental spirit or being, self-willed and generally considered benevolent and "real" has the properties I defined above.
Many things are real the evidence for which is ephemeral. A flash of lightning is certainly real, but you cannot very well prove its existence to anyone more than a few milliseconds after it starts and you most certainly cannot prove to anyone you saw a flash of lightning last night. You know it with certainty; but you cannot prove it to others. So it is with God. He is not at your command, neither is lightning. They come, or not, at their own good pleasure and purpose.
"Know goes beyond belief; it speaks to certainty."
ReplyDeleteIt is an expression of certainty, but still has nothing to do with whether a belief is true or not. It is not even an argument that something is true. An expression of certainty has nothing to do with whether other people can or should accept the same assertion in any degree, let alone with equal certainty. To say "god is real" is a concept and an assertion, not an argument.
"A flash of lightning is certainly real, but you cannot very well prove its existence to anyone more than a few milliseconds after it starts and you most certainly cannot prove to anyone you saw a flash of lightning last night. "
Your lightning example doesn't explain "ephemeral" evidence of justice very well. Your concept is very vague. Is it "ephemeral" simply because it's a first-person account, and first person accounts are inherently dubious if they can't be backed by other bits of evidence?
This is simply a fact regarding witness accounts. There's nothing special about such evidence that lets us give such accounts special treatment relative to other forms of evidence. We still have to asses the validity of the evidence if we are going to use if. If we don't asses it's validity, we might as well NOT use it, as we would place such a low threshold for evidence that we wouldn't need any to believe the original claim to be true.
This is not the position of a hardened skeptic, by the way. It's absolutely natural and necessary to assess the validity of any evidence. It's certainly not a given that people should believe first person accounts at face value. This is something we learn at an early age, when we discover not just the capacity for people to lie, but the capacity for simply making mistakes. Perception isn't perfect. Magicians, con men, politicians...so many people would be out of business if perceptions were perfect. We make such careful and complicated judgements about what is real and what is not all the time, especially when considering other people's personal experiences.
Take two simple examples:
1. I saw the sun set yesterday
2. I was abducted by a green martian yesterday.
We don't accept both assertions equally. Both first person accounts, both equally confident beliefs, and yet one is far more plausible and believable than the other. We may in fact believe the first automatically. Why question it? But the latter almost certainly sparks a quite natural and healthy skeptical process of evaluating the plausibility of the assertion.
There's nothing unnatural or convoluted about healthy skepticism and doubt. It plays a necessary role in maintaining our grasp on what is real, which is an ongoing process.
I see no reason why god concepts should be treated any differently. If there is a reason you think god concepts deserve a special exception I would be interested in hearing about it.