Created???

[MG 2.0]

I guess if there is a shortage of interest then one can always complain about MG. It is not just MG who sidetrackes discussion to the subject of MG.

I would not AT ALL be disappointed if the discussions did not include "the subject of MG". It is a waste of my time to continually have to respond to inaccurate posts and innuendo thrown in my direction.

I would LOVE to see it stop.

I'd rather keep on topic. And where I think it is appropriate provide more information rather than simply relying on the words of posters.

More information is always better than less.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

Of course not. I hadn't even heard of this Weinstein fellow before watching the Piers Morgan interview. You've got to remember, Rivendale, I'm just a regular guy. I'm not like you...with all your fancy degrees (assuming this is the case). I just have one, and it's in Education. Some folks might not even entertain that as being a real degree. I get it.

I don't live in the Ivory Tower...and never wanted to. Nothing against those that do, however.

But I do like to learn. I'm a lifelong learner.

I appreciate the correction in regards to this fellow, Weinstein. One thing I think we can agree on, they really got into the weeds. I was completely lost here and there with the jargon and names. Whew!

I am a subscriber to Mindscape, Carroll's podcast. Fun stuff.

Regards,
MG

This is a pleasant and honest post.

Yes, it would be except that mg made some very specific statements about a person that he now says he never heard of. When his error was pointed out, he obfuscated, and when the issue was re-stated by Rivendale he played dumb and tried to blame them for making a big deal of it. The problem is, it IS a big deal in a discussion when someone makes very specific statements that are untrue but then they refuse to take responsibility for their error. It's not the error that is the issue, it's the obfuscating afterwards, the ad hominem accusations about the one who pointed out the error, the game-playing, and the refusal to be open and honest about the situation. This is just one of the ways that mg derails threads, over and over and over.

The "information" mg now says he provides is all too frequently incorrect, and his reliance upon A.I. opinion is just exacerbating that. He follows this up with accusations about any poster who disagrees with him. Additionally, he has frequently used A.I. not for informational purposes, but to clog up a discussion. No amount of ignoring him seems to work, as he persists in his irrelevant disruptions.

I predict it won't be long before he throws in a comment about our "toxic wasteland" (his phrase) of a board, and how anyone not in his religion is obviously (to him) dishonest or unethical. Look up mentalgymnast's phrase "purveyors of sin and sodomy" if you're interested in how long mg has been calling people here names like that. It's been decades. His intent is to disrupt.

[MG 2.0]

His intent is to disrupt.

That is partially true. I disrupt the 'party narrative' promulgated by some. I do think that those who accuse and criticize the Brethren and disparage the doctrines, policies, and practices of the CofJCofLDS need to be challenged.

Half truths are not full truths.

That takes "disruption" to the common refrain and the effects of an 'echo chamber".

A.I. usage, at times, makes that 'job' easier and less intrusive upon my own time. I've spent more time here today than I would have liked. But darn it, when you have folks, like yourself, disparaging my good name I'm gonna' fight cha.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Sorry huckelberry, here we go again. I think I'll let the rest of what Marcus said fall off into the ether. I've taken her on point by point in the past and it doesn't go anywhere.

Sometimes its better to let her...and some others... have the last word.

Especially after going back and forth ad nauseum.

Regards,
MG

[Morley]

Neither of us could get a handle on what it means to choose to believe something, especially in a religious sense, though apparently some people can do so.

I think it depends on exactly what one means by "believe". Belief is a somewhat fuzzy concept, and I think that there are real and important things which can reasonably count as forms of belief, and which one can or even must choose to do.

For instance, I believe that i times i is minus 1. To me this is a mathematical fact that by now is almost as familiar as two plus two being four. When I first learned to accept the concept of imaginary numbers, though, I think I must have found it difficult. I had no intuitive picture of what it meant for something times itself to be a negative number, the way I could picture two sets of two things merging into one set of four. I reckon I must have spent some time just saying, "Well, let's just say that it's so." Gradually it stopped taking effort. I began to take for granted that i squared was negative one, to consider that it was a fact.

Does this example really count as choosing to believe? It's a subtle point, but I think in the end that it does.

It's subtle because whether or not imaginary numbers exist isn't exactly an empirical question that has to be either true or false as a matter of fact. It's a game rule that we're allowed to invent; it extends the concept of multiplication, and even the concept of number. Accepting a weird rule as a rule in a game isn't the same as believing it's true.

On the other hand, though, when I really think hard about it, it's not so clear to me that two plus two being four is quite exactly an empirical fact. If I look closely, there also seems to be a subtle bit of rule invention involved just in deciding that two-ness and four-ness are general qualities that are independent of any particular sets of real items. I can't help concluding that basic arithmetic is also a game whose rules we have invented, or perhaps discovered. We keep playing it because it matches common patterns we see in the world. So when we say that we believe that two-plus-two equals four, we really aren't just saying that this is a rule in our game. We're saying the rule fits the world.

And the square root of minus one is the same kind of thing, a rule in a game that fits a lot of real things. So when I say that i times i is minus 1, I'm also really not just saying that we can play a game in which this is one of the rules. I'm also saying that it's a good game to play, because it fits the real world, albeit in less obvious ways than the way that two-plus-two fits the world. It's a game I play all the time, now.

There is no way that I could have gotten this comfortable with using imaginary numbers if I hadn't spent a long while just suspending disbelief, by deliberate choice, and thinking as though all their weird rules were true. The utility of imaginary numbers doesn't really show up until you see things like de Moivre's theorem about the exponential of an imaginary number, or how you can get real-number roots of a cubic equation by using imaginary numbers in your arithmetic. You need to choose to entertain the weird rules, and think with them, before you can see how they make sense.

Thanks for this, PG. This is the first argument I've read that makes the concept of 'choosing to believe' an idea that's worth considering. Fortunately, I have just enough of a background in math for it to make sense to me. However, now that you've brought it up, I can think of parallels where choosing to accept what seems to be an abstraction is necessary in the fields of art, music, and economics. I'm sure there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) more.

Kudos!

[Gadianton]

At the outset it is explained why "theology" may not be an adequate descriptor in explaining 'everything Mormon'.

And yet, Kuhn uses that term over and over.

It seemed to take him aback a bit that there weren't the long convoluted answers that he would typically get from other theologians.

So, Faulconer, who is possibly the most qualified person in the world to speak on the intersection of Mormonism and philosophy from an academic standpoint explains that Mormonism isn't theological. And then, Kuhn, who has a phd in anatomy, worked in finance, and teaches finance at MIT, who dabbles in philosophy and knows nothing about Mormonism, persists in using the term theology, and you're going to go with that? Interesting.

I crossed out the word "other" in the last quote to help you see where you go wrong. He didn't get "long convoluted answers" because he didn't get theological answers.

People of other religions can answer questions about their faith in simple descriptive, just-so ways, and most believers are also stage 2 mythical literalist thinkers like you, who talk about Jesus straightforwardly without a lot of jargon.

You didn't ask what religion supersedes Mormonism in terms of just-so postulates about God, you asked what religion supersedes Mormonism in terms of theology.

A great many of Mormon church leaders have said that theology is misguided, and that Mormonism doesn't need it because it has revelation. I would tend to agree that if a church has revelation, it doesn't need theology. Perhaps you should investigate your terminology, and find a better way to frame the comparison you're trying to make.

[MG 2.0]

A great many of Mormon church leaders have said that theology is misguided, and that Mormonism doesn't need it because it has revelation. I would tend to agree that if a church has revelation, it doesn't need theology. Perhaps you should investigate your terminology, and find a better way to frame the comparison you're trying to make.

I think that was the point Faulconer was making in his rather short answers of "Yes". There wasn't anywhere else to go with the question being asked because...'revelation'.

Kuhn seemed to find that rather unique. I guess it is.

Regards,
MG

[huckelberry]

There is a point that LDS does not have much academically studied and clarified theology. It has a body of teaching presented as revelation not derived from theological study. I think MG in referring to valuing Mormon theology he means the body of teaching, ok. There's some point to pointing out Mormon teaching answers Mormon questions. But a step back and it might be viewed that Mormon questions about exaltation, authority, and lost teachings are peculiar takes upon common Christian concerns of the meaning of salvation and sanctification, how to find authority to clarify confusion and disagreements and overcome Christian errors. MG is being straightforward in stating his preference. Others like myself prefer other possibilities. I see a Christianity with enough historical awareness to see that thinking in a context containing uncertainties is a positive responsibilities. The growing Christianity will not be dug up out of the past or will fall from heaven. It will grow with engagement with the commission to care for each other and to live great full for the gift of life in creation.

[malkie]

Neither of us could get a handle on what it means to choose to believe something, especially in a religious sense, though apparently some people can do so.

I think it depends on exactly what one means by "believe". Belief is a somewhat fuzzy concept, and I think that there are real and important things which can reasonably count as forms of belief, and which one can or even must choose to do.

For instance, I believe that i times i is minus 1. To me this is a mathematical fact that by now is almost as familiar as two plus two being four. When I first learned to accept the concept of imaginary numbers, though, I think I must have found it difficult. I had no intuitive picture of what it meant for something times itself to be a negative number, the way I could picture two sets of two things merging into one set of four. I reckon I must have spent some time just saying, "Well, let's just say that it's so." Gradually it stopped taking effort. I began to take for granted that i squared was negative one, to consider that it was a fact.

Does this example really count as choosing to believe? It's a subtle point, but I think in the end that it does.

It's subtle because whether or not imaginary numbers exist isn't exactly an empirical question that has to be either true or false as a matter of fact. It's a game rule that we're allowed to invent; it extends the concept of multiplication, and even the concept of number. Accepting a weird rule as a rule in a game isn't the same as believing it's true.

On the other hand, though, when I really think hard about it, it's not so clear to me that two plus two being four is quite exactly an empirical fact. If I look closely, there also seems to be a subtle bit of rule invention involved just in deciding that two-ness and four-ness are general qualities that are independent of any particular sets of real items. I can't help concluding that basic arithmetic is also a game whose rules we have invented, or perhaps discovered. We keep playing it because it matches common patterns we see in the world. So when we say that we believe that two-plus-two equals four, we really aren't just saying that this is a rule in our game. We're saying the rule fits the world.

And the square root of minus one is the same kind of thing, a rule in a game that fits a lot of real things. So when I say that i times i is minus 1, I'm also really not just saying that we can play a game in which this is one of the rules. I'm also saying that it's a good game to play, because it fits the real world, albeit in less obvious ways than the way that two-plus-two fits the world. It's a game I play all the time, now.

There is no way that I could have gotten this comfortable with using imaginary numbers if I hadn't spent a long while just suspending disbelief, by deliberate choice, and thinking as though all their weird rules were true. The utility of imaginary numbers doesn't really show up until you see things like de Moivre's theorem about the exponential of an imaginary number, or how you can get real-number roots of a cubic equation by using imaginary numbers in your arithmetic. You need to choose to entertain the weird rules, and think with them, before you can see how they make sense.

Thanks, PG, for your reply.
I think I see your point abut suspension of disbelief, but I'm not sure that that quite corresponds to choosing to believe - especially in a religious sense.

I'm sure that many agnostics, for example, are quite able to suspend disbelief in gods, or a particular god, and use thi state to examine hypothetical questions such as those concerning what you might expect to see in the real world if god beings existed with specific properties and attributes.
But, in my opinion, that is not the same as believing in such, or choosing to believe in such.

Imaginary numbers, as you point out, have the huge advantage that they can be made (and have been made) subject to a consistent set of rules and formal operations that give reproduceable results that are useful in the real world.Literally anyone anywhere can do it, and get the same results every time. I'm no expert, but I imagine (!) that electrical and electronic engineering, for example, would look very different, and perhaps be of greatly reduced utility, without being able to apply complex numbers. That alone makes it worthwhile to believe.

By the way, can you believe that Euler's Identity is - I want to say "real"! - true? Can you choose to disbelieve it? How on earth, or in heaven, can e, i, and π be related in this way? Yet, as with plain imaginery numbers, if you aply the "rules" it's impossible to deny the reality.

For the god(s) question, do we simply lack a consistent set of rules and formal operations that give universally reproduceable results that are useful in the real world? Might this then allow us to choose to believe in god(s). Or might it be the case that application of such rules and operations would cause the belief to emerge, to creep up on us, without our having to, or being able to, make the choice? We would simply believe/accept/whatever?

[MG 2.0]

There is a point that LDS does not have much academically studied and clarified theology. It has a body of teaching presented as revelation not derived from theological study. I think MG in referring to valuing Mormon theology he means the body of teaching, ok. There's some point to pointing out Mormon teaching answers Mormon questions. But a step back and it might be viewed that Mormon questions about exaltation, authority, and lost teachings are peculiar takes upon common Christian concerns of the meaning of salvation and sanctification, how to find authority to clarify confusion and disagreements and overcome Christian errors. MG is being straightforward in stating his preference. Others like myself prefer other possibilities. I see a Christianity with enough historical awareness to see that thinking in a context containing uncertainties is a positive responsibilities. The growing Christianity will not be dug up out of the past or will fall from heaven. It will grow with engagement with the commission to care for each other and to live great full for the gift of life in creation.

Faulkoner made that pretty clear in his conversation with Kuhn.

Regards,
MG