Feb. 20, 2016, by jrl:
Here are my latest thoughts about what's important, and what, if anything, is God:
First, there is a context:
1. One finds oneself in a life.
That's the context.
2. The life is worth something to the person living it.
3. There are various significances in a life. One could care only about pleasure and pain in crude simple selfish thoughtless ways. One may think more deeply about the things that happen in the life; one may call that being spiritual.
4. Distilling the deep thoughts into some essence, one may call that essence God.
5. By experience I found that God exists as much as you or I or anything exists. I don't understand why or how that is. I don't even want to understand it. My experience was fairly isolated.
6. God does not require that we think about God. However, the value of a life is related to thoughtful values such as kindness to others; and thoughtfulness and values are like God.
7. Human society has produced religions, which can be an aid to thoughtfulness and values. Unfortunately, religions can also lead to great wrongs. So, being religious is insufficient for knowing right from wrong. One has to be thoughtful and discerning. An ingredient of the thoughtfulness is humbleness*: the realization that oneself may be wrong, and that helpful ideas may come from unexpected or even antagonistic directions. You can find hints in religions for all such ideas.
*( I don't like the word humility, which sounds too much like humiliation, whereas the meaning I'm after is more like being humble. So I made up the word humbleness to use instead of humility.)
8. God allows, and does not punish, reason. God allows, and does not punish, sincerity. God allows, and does not punish, kindness.
9. I do not absolutely know much about God, and I don't think anybody else does either.
10. For me, the most practically useful, and the most rational, way to think about God is to think of ideals as God. In this way, God is imaginary, but real in the imagination. And, God is an ideal or ideals. God is other things too: God is love. But love is hard to describe well. Love is caring. Kindness is a kind of love. Also: God is an entity that exists whether we think so or not. But that real God is hard to think about, and hard to describe well. God (or at least the God I'm thinking about) is a friend.
11. Just as we can live without some friend, we can live without God. What matters most is that we have love. For me, God is the ideal love. The ideal love is more important than the objective existence of a real God. Like this: whatever is the essence of God (perhaps it is love), that essence (or, that spirit) is more important than whatever objectively-existing entity is associated with that essence. So, if it is possible to have love without God, then that would be good enough. The existence of God is not the most important thing, except that God were just the name we assign to the most important thing. It is important to have good behavior toward other feeling beings, and that's probably more important than whether God exists.
12. I have some beefs (that is, objections or complaints) about religion. My religious heritage is Christian, so my beef is about Christianity. But don't take that personally. If my religious heritage were some other religion, I'm sure I'd have a beef about that one instead. One thing I notice about Christianity is its exclusivity, as in "the only way to God is this way". I don't think like that. I think it is better to allow that there may be other ways to God.
13. I think God agrees with me. I mean, assuming that God exists and is paying attention here, then God does not object and allows me to follow this path, and does not demerit me for it; and moreover I think God would actually agree with me if God's paying attention here.
-jrl, Feb. 20, 2016
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Universes
In The Beginning, this was a work of fiction. However, it might still be about as real as normal reality, anyway. Who's to say?
Toward The End, it's non-fiction, in the nature of a journal entry.
If, without any experience of a universe, I were to think one up, it might be this:
That's because my imagination is limited, at least for imagining a universe from scratch.
A typical universe would probably have things in it. What sort of things do I think of? Boxes, or squares. It looks like kind of a boring universe.
Over time, I might think up other ideas for universes. The following are some:
In the above case, I instead of everything being square boxes, which are 4-sided polygons, I thought of polygons with different numbers of sides. In typical limited fashion, I the universe inventor was still only thinking of regular polygons.
In Universe Version 3, I got more daring. In this case, one of the regular polygons is a different size! I don't know what it took to think up that idea. Also, notice how I cleverly put polygons of different types in unpredictable places in the sequence. This should make things more interesting, says my imagination the universe inventor.
Over time, I keep churning them out. When I get to version 9, I realize that thus far all my universes had been shown as two-dimensional drawings. But universes wouldn't have to be two-dimensional. Some universes might be one-dimensional or many-dimensional. Version 9 appears as a 3-dimensional universe. Notice how I have made a grid. Universes 5, 6, and 8 (not shown here) were grid-like. Version 9 is a 3-dimensional grid. It appears as lots of 3-dimensional cubes stacked neatly together, Notice how some of the cubes are different: they are colored in.
Pretty early on, I the author had an agenda here. My conception of universes is similar to an idea I heard about in a computer programming class in the early 1980s. That idea was called "Conway's Life" and it was a two-dimensional grid with two kinds of cells: the cells that had something in them, and the cells that were empty. Those are the two kinds of cells. There's actually an additional dimension to Conway's Life (that dimension is time). Things got surprisingly interesting in Conway's Life.
Here's a rough approximation to what Conway's Life looks like:
This is a 3-dimensional universe. It is a series of two-dimensional grids, and the third dimension is time. In my drawing, notice how the grids are numbered 1, 2, 3, .... Those numbers represent the passage of time. This "time" is in discrete intervals. Grid number 1 has some configuration of filled cells among empty cells. Then, an interval of time passes, and the configuration in the grid has changed. It is always "the same grid", but changes occur in it with the passage of time. So, the grid at time 1 has a configuration in it, the grid at time 2 has a different configuration in it, the grid at time 3 has yet a different configuration in it, and so on. What Conway did was to make up some rules which determine how that configuration shall change from one time to the next time. You can see the rules, and much more, at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life (or, if that link doesn't work, just look up "Conway's Game Of Life" on wikipedia.org).
Conway's Life may give you some ideas.
My Interpretation Of All That:
So, in case anyone was wondering what I was really thinking, I was thinking several things, as follows.
One thing I am thinking is that a very simple universe could evolve into a very complex one. I've had some rudimentary version of this idea for many years, maybe since I was in my twenties. (When I first started thinking about something similar, I was trying to find some most basic thing to think about, or some most basic belief that I had.) Conway's Life seems to illustrate the same idea, that a very simple universe could evolve into a very complex one.
Also I am thinking that if there are miracles of creation, they might be very simple miracles. In particular, rather than a god creating all the animals, fully developed all in a single day, there could instead be a god creating some much simpler thing (such as a single dust mote in an otherwise empty universe) which could then be left alone to evolve into a more complex universe such as the one we live in.
Ever wonder where God came from? Perhaps nobody knows, but I have a theory about it. In brief, the universe evolved from whatever is the simplest, most likely to occur thing, and eventually one of the things that evolved in the universe was God.
Most of this needn't concern us in any practical way. We will continue to live and die, behave well or ill, and be happy or sad, similarly as always.
I really cannot know much, rationally, about God. I only mentioned God because so much has been said about the creation of the universe involving God, so naturally I took that as a point of reference. There may or may not be any God involved in the creation of the universe we live in. Personally I do believe there's a god but not one who meddles with nature. Or if he does, he's modest and circumspect about it so that you probably wouldn't even notice he was there.
Back on the topic of universes, I am just guessing, of course, but if the theory's good, then the guesses may have an appealing charm to them, stemming from some internal consistency of thought which, somehow, produces a symmetrical or beautiful result.
I think there are many universes, or have been many universes, and some of them fizzled out, while others, perhaps relatively few others, evolved into something interesting. Conway could have invented any set of rules. The rules could be arbitrary, and the starting conditions could be random, but sometimes they just happen to hit it off well and evolve into something interesting. Our universe is like that. That's what I think.
-jrl, 2015/08/02
Toward The End, it's non-fiction, in the nature of a journal entry.
If, without any experience of a universe, I were to think one up, it might be this:
A typical universe would probably have things in it. What sort of things do I think of? Boxes, or squares. It looks like kind of a boring universe.
Over time, I might think up other ideas for universes. The following are some:
In Universe Version 3, I got more daring. In this case, one of the regular polygons is a different size! I don't know what it took to think up that idea. Also, notice how I cleverly put polygons of different types in unpredictable places in the sequence. This should make things more interesting, says my imagination the universe inventor.
Over time, I keep churning them out. When I get to version 9, I realize that thus far all my universes had been shown as two-dimensional drawings. But universes wouldn't have to be two-dimensional. Some universes might be one-dimensional or many-dimensional. Version 9 appears as a 3-dimensional universe. Notice how I have made a grid. Universes 5, 6, and 8 (not shown here) were grid-like. Version 9 is a 3-dimensional grid. It appears as lots of 3-dimensional cubes stacked neatly together, Notice how some of the cubes are different: they are colored in.
Pretty early on, I the author had an agenda here. My conception of universes is similar to an idea I heard about in a computer programming class in the early 1980s. That idea was called "Conway's Life" and it was a two-dimensional grid with two kinds of cells: the cells that had something in them, and the cells that were empty. Those are the two kinds of cells. There's actually an additional dimension to Conway's Life (that dimension is time). Things got surprisingly interesting in Conway's Life.
Here's a rough approximation to what Conway's Life looks like:
This is a 3-dimensional universe. It is a series of two-dimensional grids, and the third dimension is time. In my drawing, notice how the grids are numbered 1, 2, 3, .... Those numbers represent the passage of time. This "time" is in discrete intervals. Grid number 1 has some configuration of filled cells among empty cells. Then, an interval of time passes, and the configuration in the grid has changed. It is always "the same grid", but changes occur in it with the passage of time. So, the grid at time 1 has a configuration in it, the grid at time 2 has a different configuration in it, the grid at time 3 has yet a different configuration in it, and so on. What Conway did was to make up some rules which determine how that configuration shall change from one time to the next time. You can see the rules, and much more, at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life (or, if that link doesn't work, just look up "Conway's Game Of Life" on wikipedia.org).
Conway's Life may give you some ideas.
My Interpretation Of All That:
So, in case anyone was wondering what I was really thinking, I was thinking several things, as follows.
One thing I am thinking is that a very simple universe could evolve into a very complex one. I've had some rudimentary version of this idea for many years, maybe since I was in my twenties. (When I first started thinking about something similar, I was trying to find some most basic thing to think about, or some most basic belief that I had.) Conway's Life seems to illustrate the same idea, that a very simple universe could evolve into a very complex one.
Also I am thinking that if there are miracles of creation, they might be very simple miracles. In particular, rather than a god creating all the animals, fully developed all in a single day, there could instead be a god creating some much simpler thing (such as a single dust mote in an otherwise empty universe) which could then be left alone to evolve into a more complex universe such as the one we live in.
Ever wonder where God came from? Perhaps nobody knows, but I have a theory about it. In brief, the universe evolved from whatever is the simplest, most likely to occur thing, and eventually one of the things that evolved in the universe was God.
Most of this needn't concern us in any practical way. We will continue to live and die, behave well or ill, and be happy or sad, similarly as always.
I really cannot know much, rationally, about God. I only mentioned God because so much has been said about the creation of the universe involving God, so naturally I took that as a point of reference. There may or may not be any God involved in the creation of the universe we live in. Personally I do believe there's a god but not one who meddles with nature. Or if he does, he's modest and circumspect about it so that you probably wouldn't even notice he was there.
Back on the topic of universes, I am just guessing, of course, but if the theory's good, then the guesses may have an appealing charm to them, stemming from some internal consistency of thought which, somehow, produces a symmetrical or beautiful result.
I think there are many universes, or have been many universes, and some of them fizzled out, while others, perhaps relatively few others, evolved into something interesting. Conway could have invented any set of rules. The rules could be arbitrary, and the starting conditions could be random, but sometimes they just happen to hit it off well and evolve into something interesting. Our universe is like that. That's what I think.
-jrl, 2015/08/02
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Philosophy 3, or, the Unphilosophy
In my last post ("Philosophy 2 ...") I ended with: It's good to be able to say "I don't know" or "I don't care".
Supposing one couldn't say those things. What then?
Well, not being able to say "I don't know", one might be forever having to answer every question, either by doing a lot of good research, or by lying, or by incompetently giving some poor answers to some questions. One could opt for saying nothing at all, which is antisocial.
While not being able to say "I don't care", one is likely to be often accosted by people who want involvement -- like telemarketers for charities. One could say to them, "Sorry, I cannot help" which would often be a lie. One could just say "No"without giving an excuse, but that's about the same as saying "I don't care" -- you would at least be thinking to yourself, "I don't care about this, compared with other things".
I do love to know some things -- I just don't want to do it every time somebody else wants me to, and I don't want to have to make excuses to them. And there are going to be lots of things I won't be able to figure out.
Whereas in the posts Philosophy 1 and Philosophy 2, I was saying that in addition to the respected ways of knowing by "observing" and "reasoning" there is a third, undefined way that I call intuition, now in Philosophy 3 I say that in addition to knowing there is not knowing, and in addition to caring there is not caring, and, depending on circumstances, all these may be options.
So, sometimes I care and want to know, and sometimes I don't. During the typical middle class life such as mine, the option of not caring or not pursuing a particular truth is as important as being able to know. So, for the well-rounded individual, there are both philosophy and unphilosophy, and either one might occasionally be better than the other, in social situations, such as when one is asked questions, or in private, such as when one is just sitting still, alone in a room having quiet time.
I hope that when I'm interested in a topic (such as to know a truth and to reason what is a better way to do things) others will be interested enough to get involved too. But generally it's good for them to have a choice in which things they do or don't want to get involved in. I might know it's really important that they be involved in a topic, such as climate change, but if they are to have meaningful existence as individuals, they should have options and choose for themselves which things they want to get involved in.
jrl20140101_935pm
Supposing one couldn't say those things. What then?
Well, not being able to say "I don't know", one might be forever having to answer every question, either by doing a lot of good research, or by lying, or by incompetently giving some poor answers to some questions. One could opt for saying nothing at all, which is antisocial.
While not being able to say "I don't care", one is likely to be often accosted by people who want involvement -- like telemarketers for charities. One could say to them, "Sorry, I cannot help" which would often be a lie. One could just say "No"without giving an excuse, but that's about the same as saying "I don't care" -- you would at least be thinking to yourself, "I don't care about this, compared with other things".
I do love to know some things -- I just don't want to do it every time somebody else wants me to, and I don't want to have to make excuses to them. And there are going to be lots of things I won't be able to figure out.
Whereas in the posts Philosophy 1 and Philosophy 2, I was saying that in addition to the respected ways of knowing by "observing" and "reasoning" there is a third, undefined way that I call intuition, now in Philosophy 3 I say that in addition to knowing there is not knowing, and in addition to caring there is not caring, and, depending on circumstances, all these may be options.
So, sometimes I care and want to know, and sometimes I don't. During the typical middle class life such as mine, the option of not caring or not pursuing a particular truth is as important as being able to know. So, for the well-rounded individual, there are both philosophy and unphilosophy, and either one might occasionally be better than the other, in social situations, such as when one is asked questions, or in private, such as when one is just sitting still, alone in a room having quiet time.
I hope that when I'm interested in a topic (such as to know a truth and to reason what is a better way to do things) others will be interested enough to get involved too. But generally it's good for them to have a choice in which things they do or don't want to get involved in. I might know it's really important that they be involved in a topic, such as climate change, but if they are to have meaningful existence as individuals, they should have options and choose for themselves which things they want to get involved in.
jrl20140101_935pm
Philosophy 2, on Jan. 1, 2014
My last post ("Philosophy 1, on Dec. 31, 2013") ended as follows:
[begin quote]
7. Observation and reasoning are widely respected concepts. I think I first heard about them in late grade school. I would add a third way, which is less generally respected: intuition. I mean intuition in a broad sense, to mean almost anything which isn't strictly reason nor observation.
8. Intuition could be evaluated according to its consistency and according to how it feels emotionally -- or simply whether one likes a particular intuition or not.
9. So, for me, there are at least 3 ways to know things: observation, reasoning, and intuition.
[ end quote]
Now I'll explore some more about "intuition".
I observe, I reason, and I intuit.
If I wanted to evaluate a mathematical proof, I'd use mostly reason.
If I wanted to grow up and survive in this kind of world that I'm in, I'd use mostly observation and imitation, to grow up and survive.
If I wanted to know whether some proposition is objectively true, I would want to use observation and reason. I'd prefer observation. But sometimes the thing(s) to be observed is too far away such that I can't observe it, and then I'd resort to reason. But I might seek witnesses who have observed the thing(s) and then I'd apply a little reasoning.
I read a little about Aristotle. My thoughts about him are that he preferred reasoning over observation and that he was wrong about some things.
For many propositions, for the question: "Is it true?" the appropriate answer will be "I don't know."
I mentioned math proofs, growing up, and surviving. In my life, mathematical proofs haven't been very interesting, compared with, say, eating, or the opposite sex, or taking a walk, of sleeping. In my life, I've already grown up, and survived well enough, and live in good circumstances, such that most of the time I don't need to focus on survival. So, as most of the time I'm not particularly interested in math proofs, growing up, nor survival, what is the relevance for me of:
(a) observation, or
(b) reasoning
?
Shall I just love knowledge for its own sake, or love "winning"? Observation and reasoning would be good for these things.
Intuition -- by which I mean ways of thinking and knowing which aren't strictly observation nor reasoning -- is a way to decide what I _like_ or what I _want_.
A life of observing and reasoning, without intuition, would be a dry existence. It might have some rational purpose, and it might have physiological pleasures, but it would lack love and inspiration.
I conclude that all three are needed: observation, reasoning, and intuition. Intuition is what guides us to ponder some things rather than others, above and beyond whatever we need for survival or mathematical proofs.
There are degrees of comfort. One might advance in them by means of observation and reasoning, without much intuition. However, for a middle-class person such as myself, to find love, inspiration, or meaning, I would probably start with both observation and intuition, and it's primarily intuition which leads me to pursue one path over another.
"Knowing" may be good, but intuition tells me what sort of thing is worth knowing and what sort of thing to ignore.
I suppose that, in a way, for my purposes intuition is the king because it directs which way to observe and which thing to reason about. But really it takes all three together to get satisfaction, and it takes all three together to know well that which is worthwhile: the three ways of knowing are: observation, reasoning, and intuition -- where I haven't really defined what intuition is, except that it's something different from the other two.
Also, it's very good to be able to say "I don't know" or "I don't care".
-jrl20140101
[begin quote]
7. Observation and reasoning are widely respected concepts. I think I first heard about them in late grade school. I would add a third way, which is less generally respected: intuition. I mean intuition in a broad sense, to mean almost anything which isn't strictly reason nor observation.
8. Intuition could be evaluated according to its consistency and according to how it feels emotionally -- or simply whether one likes a particular intuition or not.
9. So, for me, there are at least 3 ways to know things: observation, reasoning, and intuition.
[ end quote]
Now I'll explore some more about "intuition".
I observe, I reason, and I intuit.
If I wanted to evaluate a mathematical proof, I'd use mostly reason.
If I wanted to grow up and survive in this kind of world that I'm in, I'd use mostly observation and imitation, to grow up and survive.
If I wanted to know whether some proposition is objectively true, I would want to use observation and reason. I'd prefer observation. But sometimes the thing(s) to be observed is too far away such that I can't observe it, and then I'd resort to reason. But I might seek witnesses who have observed the thing(s) and then I'd apply a little reasoning.
I read a little about Aristotle. My thoughts about him are that he preferred reasoning over observation and that he was wrong about some things.
For many propositions, for the question: "Is it true?" the appropriate answer will be "I don't know."
I mentioned math proofs, growing up, and surviving. In my life, mathematical proofs haven't been very interesting, compared with, say, eating, or the opposite sex, or taking a walk, of sleeping. In my life, I've already grown up, and survived well enough, and live in good circumstances, such that most of the time I don't need to focus on survival. So, as most of the time I'm not particularly interested in math proofs, growing up, nor survival, what is the relevance for me of:
(a) observation, or
(b) reasoning
?
Shall I just love knowledge for its own sake, or love "winning"? Observation and reasoning would be good for these things.
Intuition -- by which I mean ways of thinking and knowing which aren't strictly observation nor reasoning -- is a way to decide what I _like_ or what I _want_.
A life of observing and reasoning, without intuition, would be a dry existence. It might have some rational purpose, and it might have physiological pleasures, but it would lack love and inspiration.
I conclude that all three are needed: observation, reasoning, and intuition. Intuition is what guides us to ponder some things rather than others, above and beyond whatever we need for survival or mathematical proofs.
There are degrees of comfort. One might advance in them by means of observation and reasoning, without much intuition. However, for a middle-class person such as myself, to find love, inspiration, or meaning, I would probably start with both observation and intuition, and it's primarily intuition which leads me to pursue one path over another.
"Knowing" may be good, but intuition tells me what sort of thing is worth knowing and what sort of thing to ignore.
I suppose that, in a way, for my purposes intuition is the king because it directs which way to observe and which thing to reason about. But really it takes all three together to get satisfaction, and it takes all three together to know well that which is worthwhile: the three ways of knowing are: observation, reasoning, and intuition -- where I haven't really defined what intuition is, except that it's something different from the other two.
Also, it's very good to be able to say "I don't know" or "I don't care".
-jrl20140101
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Philosophy 1, on Dec. 31, 2013
Today I wanted to find out something about philosophy. I didn't know what I wanted to find out, but I felt there was something in it that I wanted.
I started at wikipedia.org. I entered "philosophy" and got the following information near the beginning of the article, which I list together with a few comments from myself:
1. Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems.
2. Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
3. In more casual speech ... 'philosophy' can refer to 'the most basic beliefs, concept, and attitudes of an individual or group'.
4. Within philosophy is the sub-topic "epistemology". Epistemology is about knowledge. [ From what I heard elsewhere, epistemology is about how we can know things. ]
5. I encounter two common concepts, within the realm of "how we can know things". They are:
a. Observational evidence
and
b. Reasoning.
6. ( The notion of observational evidence is connected with the philosophical term "empiricism" and with the logic term "induction". The notion of reasoning is connected with the philosophical term "rationalism" and with the logic term "deduction". )
7. Observation and reasoning are widely respected concepts. I think I first heard about them in late grade school. I would add a third way, which is less generally respected: intuition. I mean intuition in a broad sense, to mean almost anything which isn't strictly reason nor observation.
8. Intuition could be evaluated according to its consistency and according to how it feels emotionally -- or simply whether one likes a particular intuition or not.
9. So, for me, there are at least 3 ways to know things: observation, reasoning, and intuition.
I started at wikipedia.org. I entered "philosophy" and got the following information near the beginning of the article, which I list together with a few comments from myself:
1. Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems.
2. Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
3. In more casual speech ... 'philosophy' can refer to 'the most basic beliefs, concept, and attitudes of an individual or group'.
4. Within philosophy is the sub-topic "epistemology". Epistemology is about knowledge. [ From what I heard elsewhere, epistemology is about how we can know things. ]
5. I encounter two common concepts, within the realm of "how we can know things". They are:
a. Observational evidence
and
b. Reasoning.
6. ( The notion of observational evidence is connected with the philosophical term "empiricism" and with the logic term "induction". The notion of reasoning is connected with the philosophical term "rationalism" and with the logic term "deduction". )
7. Observation and reasoning are widely respected concepts. I think I first heard about them in late grade school. I would add a third way, which is less generally respected: intuition. I mean intuition in a broad sense, to mean almost anything which isn't strictly reason nor observation.
8. Intuition could be evaluated according to its consistency and according to how it feels emotionally -- or simply whether one likes a particular intuition or not.
9. So, for me, there are at least 3 ways to know things: observation, reasoning, and intuition.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Reality is overrated
(This began as a reply post in a google group (like a usenet group).)
There's no one absolute dividing line between "real" and "imaginary". Anything you imagine is real and significant if you care about it.
(Example: If you have a vivid dream in which you feel emotion, that is a real experience, whether you remember it later or not. Some people not only remember their dreams, but can also be aware that they are dreaming, while they are dreaming. And some people can re-enter their dreams. It's plausible to suppose that the reality within a dream is significant, as reality, and just as significant as what's real when you're "awake". The more you care about a thing, the more _significant_ it is, to you and to anyone else who cares about it, whether anyone wants to call it "real" or not. And that significance may be more important or relevant than whether it matches anyone else's definition of what's real or not.)
Yes we have a convention of 3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension but you can also add dimensions such as color or heat, or all the dimensions of a suit of clothes ("measurements" of the human body -- relevant when buying a suit). I think the convention of 3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension is actually arbitrary but we cannot see through that illusion.
Rather than count dimensions and define physical reality for all, it's usually better to adopt systems that are _useful_, while realizing that there may be _other_ systems that are useful in other ways!
For example a spherical geometry is useful in navigating on a planet, and in such a system, it may make more sense for "parallel" lines to meet in the distance rather than be forever equidistant for each other. There's a certain arbitrariness to these systems and utility is usually a good criterion for choosing a system for some purpose.
For the most part, I think it's just fine to accept the 3 plus 1 dimensional physical reality as a useful convention, while realizing that it could ultimately be less than the whole of reality.
As for imaginary numbers, yes the reality of those is kind of confusing but we can accept it as a convention and go with the flow. If you make up any set of numbers and get enough people to agree on it, you can use that system and call it real. Nobody is the final arbiter of what's real and what's not.
-jrl
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Is There Hope (without religion)?
I want something like a religion, but, I think, probably without the religion part. Some of the religious people have a big significance and a wonderful thing in their lives. I remember that parable of the seeds, just to take one example. The Christian sowing is a wonderful thing, if it's just love they're sowing. (If, on the other hand, they're sowing Spanish Inquisitions, then it's not wonderful in the same way.)
What big significances or wonderful things could an unreligious person have, I wonder. Right now I wonder: what would one call it, if not a "religion". How about a "philosophy"? I am tired of that big word. It got worn out in my mind and it needs a chance to rest and rejuvenate. How about, say, … "belief system"? No, that is still too highfalutin, for now. Today I'll just say "thoughts", as in "these are my thoughts" or "I am thinking this way".
Today I heard a great speaker on the radio. Sorry, I didn't get his name. He was on KPFA FM 94.1 on the Flashpoints radio show between about 5:40 and 5:58pm today (California time) Mar. 13, 2013. He said that the anti-nuclear folks (of whom he is one, and presently so am I, particularly after listening to him) should give up sarcasm. He suggested that we tell people about "nuclear trash", because the more usual phrase "spent fuel" (hope I got that right) doesn't mean anything to the vast majority of people. Also he said that there's never been a cost-effective nuclear power plant. So, in the sense of saving the physical world, my message of the day is: nuclear trash is a horrible legacy we are leaving to our descendants, and so is the current climate change due mainly to the burning of fossil fuels; and (as the speaker said) the relatively easy conversion to renewable sources of energy solves (not totally, but generally) both problems. So if you have at least one ear (or eye) to take in the thought, and some thought cells, that's my contribution today to saving the physical world: I am raising awareness -- usually a good step toward a better future.
Meanwhile, as I was saying yesterday (in The Parable of the Seed entry in the blog), the Christian sharing is of a higher order than centuries, and now furthermore it is even a higher order than the survival of the planet and the human race. It is a different kind of spiritual path. I want something like that, too; and in my faith, one can follow the highest spiritual path or paths, without harming the lower-order paths such as saving the world.
So, for all such ends, high and highest, I construct my "thoughts" which are somewhat like a religion but without the religion part.
There are questions about "what is" and questions about "what is not". I guess the best of these questions really are philosophical. I have another kind of question though (which is also philosophical), which is neither about "what is" nor about "what is not". My question, to start off with, is: how can one begin to think about important things such as a spiritual path or about deciding or discovering whatever is The Most Important Thing or Things?
So I invoke the thought, which is the same thought I had when I was 22 or 23 in the little house in the alley in Wichita -- the thought that a good way to begin is whatever is the simplest way to begin.
The simplest way to begin (so I think now and thought then) is to imagine a Void in which nothing ever was, nothing is, and nothing ever will be, for all space, time, and dimensionality.
Having thunk that up, I proceed to ponder some quality. I borrow from the church and think of the quality continuum "good versus evil". I don't know why I thought of that, but I did, when I was 22 or 23. Maybe we were raised, unwittingly, to think of it as an Important matter. Or you could instead think of any other quality that you care about. I imagine how such a quality might relate to the Void. Is the Void more good than evil, or more evil than good? Could the void be neutral? I guess so.
But then I have a faith, and my faith tells me that the Void is not evil. Why? I cannot prove why. I imagine it like this: supposing there were a God that existed above and beyond the Void, and had control over it. This Void is the most empty thing imaginable. This Void is innocent of all things. How would a supreme God regard such a Void, or how would a supreme God shape such a void? My faith says that God would not make it evil and would not regard it as evil.
So, I conclude that line of thinking, as follows: The Void is either neutral or good, but not evil.
There is another, similar line of thinking that I also pursue: it is the same as above, but without invoking God. Instead of God, I just think of The Way Things Are, or I just think of the All, or I just think of the Universe. As with God, so with the Universe. My faith tells me that the All is not bad. That means, the Way Things Are, taken as a whole, has a net value that is either neutral or good, but not evil.
Some of you could be thinking, "What good is that?", or, "So what?" Hold on just a little bit longer. The above "Void is not bad" concept (or more particularly, the "the All is not bad" concept), paired with the option of dying (something we all encounter within a hundred years or so) -- and I mean _really_ dying, not just physically dying -- means that none of us has to face an eternity of evil.
The idea, or belief, or fact if you accept it as fact, that none of us has to face an eternity of evil is quite significant and useful, in my opinion.
I hope that does not come across as too sarcastic.
I believe that we _do_ have the option of _really_ dying. That's part of my faith too. Similarly I believe that a supreme God would not condemn a person to an eternal horror for committing a finite sin. (I say that, because I am remembering a part of my Protestant heritage -- the fire-and-brimstone, or eternal punishment by burning in Hell, concept. I disbelieve that teaching of a branch of the Christian religion.)
Given all that, I like to think that I'll live forever and always have some joy ahead of me, such that the life is good. This frail husk I'm in now, body or mind, is in rather poor shape to live forever, but my emotional self feels that it doesn't want to die, and wants to go on and on to better and better things. So there could be a soul life to fulfill that longing. My faith says: if you _really_ need a thing, then there's a way you can get it. So, either I'll live, or it will turn out that real death isn't so bad after all. I suppose real death is either neutral or good (which is only logical, if it is given that the Void is either neutral or good).
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