Question for bomgeography about the flood

[_Themis]

If I see a being floating in the air do some reasonable basic tests, am reasonably sure I'm not mentally ill then why should I question the experience?

If I may interject one thing here. It is quite common for the mentally ill, especially in cases of schizophrenia, to experience religious delusions. Commonly, people with schizophrenia have anosognosia or “lack of insight.” This means the person is unaware that he has the illness, which can make treating or working with him much more challenging.

So it is quite common for a mentally ill person to be unaware he is mentally ill and to have religious delusions. That is one reason why you should question the experience.

You don't even have to be mentally ill to have these kind of experiences.

[_ClarkGoble]

Hi Spotlight. You are certainly correct that Aquinas thought is well outside of LDS views. ClarkGobel was mentioning it as an alternative I think.

That's correct. I was bringing up the point that he then accused me of not bringing up that just because I have an encounter it doesn't mean my theories of the encounter are correct. There are different ways of interpreting the data. I raised two different ontologies of angels to highlight that.

I was left with my own private not quite orthodox wondering whether the presence of nothing in relation to creation illuminates a form or limitation to Gods potential action in creation. I do not know if that is a residual for me from LDS thought or a simpler sense that the world is too disorderly not to suggest that a creator God, if there is one, is struggling with the process.

This may be wandering off topic, sorry.

Philosophically Nothing is quite an interesting topic. Relative to the scholastics I find Duns the Supreme Court more interesting than Aquinas but that's just me. Part of the issue of nothing is that it means multiple things. It can simply mean not-a-thing or it can mean the empty set. So you have some people speaking of nothing as a proto-thing out of which things are made. Aristotle's prime matter is more or less a theory of that which then gets taken up by the neoPlatonists in late antiquity. It becomes significant again in the 20th century in things like the debate between Carnap and Heidegger.

[_ClarkGoble]

Next point for ClarkGobel is that Joseph Smith taught that all spirit is matter, just more refined, so "incorporeal" doesn't fit within LDS theology.

Goble. Think Clark Gable but with an 'o' instead of an 'a' and that I give a damn instead of not giving a damn.

As to what fine matter as spirit means, I don't know. Quinn argues as I recall Joseph got it out of neoPlatonism. Unfortunately Quinn isn't terribly familiar with the ideas of that movement so there are reasons to distrust that identification. If it is that then it's roughly "place" for intelligence the way prime matter was "place" for soul. Other people like Orson Pratt took it to mean Priestly atoms that were becoming prominent in mid 19th century science. I don't think it's atoms but I don't think we need identify it.

A natural reading is to simply see it as matter in the sense that the traditional folk view of spirits was gaseous that sometimes was viewable. i.e. roughly analogous to water vapor. That was the folk theory of spirits from the Renaissance on up and still is the main way Hollywood treats ghosts. However just because that was the folk view and would explain "fine" that doesn't mean it's what Joseph meant.

If I may interject one thing here. It is quite common for the mentally ill, especially in cases of schizophrenia, to experience religious delusions. Commonly, people with schizophrenia have anosognosia or “lack of insight.” This means the person is unaware that he has the illness, which can make treating or working with him much more challenging.

If we have a form of mental illness where we can't know we're ill, apparently have no noticeable ramifications in life such that others would know it, and can't tell what's real then of course all bets are off. It's impossible for such a person to really function so I'm not sure it's terribly relevant since I'm fairly confident I'm not in that state and would assume those I'm discussing it with aren't. If you think you have that form of mental illness feel free to discount my argument though.

If the argument is if I see something unusual then my default should be to assume I'm in that rare condition I'm quite skeptical. Especially if I appear to function normally. But I think this is caught up in my point about fallibilism as well. After all I can always be fallible. I may actually be, after all, in the matrix with all of my encounter with real things being mere simulations. However I can't really act as if that were true and more importantly most of us can't really make ourselves believe such a thing. So we continue to inquire as if it weren't.

[_Fence Sitter]

If I may interject one thing here. It is quite common for the mentally ill, especially in cases of schizophrenia, to experience religious delusions. Commonly, people with schizophrenia have anosognosia or “lack of insight.” This means the person is unaware that he has the illness, which can make treating or working with him much more challenging.

If we have a form of mental illness where we can't know we're ill, apparently have no noticeable ramifications in life such that others would know it, and can't tell what's real then of course all bets are off. It's impossible for such a person to really function so I'm not sure it's terribly relevant since I'm fairly confident I'm not in that state and would assume those I'm discussing it with aren't. If you think you have that form of mental illness feel free to discount my argument though.

If the argument is if I see something unusual then my default should be to assume I'm in that rare condition I'm quite skeptical. Especially if I appear to function normally. But I think this is caught up in my point about fallibilism as well. After all I can always be fallible. I may actually be, after all, in the matrix with all of my encounter with real things being mere simulations. However I can't really act as if that were true and more importantly most of us can't really make ourselves believe such a thing. So we continue to inquire as if it weren't.

Wrong!

Schizophrenia is not as disabling as you think and in fact most treated schizophrenics can function in society, some quite well. It is probable that you associate with such a person without even knowing it. The prevalence of schizophrenia is about 1.1% of the population, and the number of them who have had religious delusions is about 30%.
In other words there are more people dealing with this disease in the world than Mormons. So not rare at all.

Forgive me for being passionate here, but having been involved with this, and seeing up close first hand how this can affect someone, it has been eve opening. As a society we just want to pretend like it is not happening or that it is rare. It happens a lot more than most people think and is not rare at all.

[_ClarkGoble]

Wrong!

Schizophrenia is not as disabling as you think and in fact most treated schizophrenics can function in society, some quite well. It is probable that you associate with such a person without even knowing it. The prevalence of schizophrenia is about 1.1% of the population, and the number of them who have had religious delusions is about 30%.

Reread what I said. I was speaking only about a form such that (1) we couldn't tell we were ill (2) no one else could tell (3) we couldn't tell (know) what was real. I was pretty explicit. I agree with what you said and that was rather my original point a few posts back. I'm just saying that if someone raising mental illness to the stage it'd undermine my argument that I'm fine with that but it seems an usual case. And ultimately pointless since, as with the Matrix or Descartes' evil deity, we couldn't tell. i.e. this is just the argument of extreme skepticism that philosophers in early modernism thought they had to dealt with and no one today thinks we need to.

As an interesting aside Descartes thought the only things he could be sure of were his existing and that God existed, interesting relative to demanding absolute knowledge with no vagueness. But by the second half of the 20th century Descartes' approach had fallen out of favor and that position of foundationalism has few adherents. Most people are fine with vagueness or related ideas.

If we have reasons to believe we are mentally ill to the point we can't trust our experiences then of course we shouldn't trust our experiences. But we have to reach a point where that is the case.

[_Fence Sitter]

Reread what I said. I was speaking only about a form such that (1) we couldn't tell we were ill (2) no one else could tell (3) we couldn't tell (know) what was real. I was pretty explicit. I agree with what you said and that was rather my original point a few posts back. I'm just saying that if someone raising mental illness to the stage it'd undermine my argument that I'm fine with that but it seems an usual case.

If we have reasons to believe we are mentally ill to the point we can't trust our experiences then of course we shouldn't trust our experiences. But we have to reach a point where that is the case.

I assume you meant an "unusual case" and that is what I am trying to argue against.

I am pointing out there are millions of people who have such experiences who are unable to determine that their experiences cannot be trusted, who do not know when they reach that point and that this is not a rare occurrence that can be disregard as an aberration.

I just think this is a lot more common than you do. Having been involved in this the last few years, I can tell you if all of a sudden an angel appeared to me, I would be much more inclined to think it was some form of psychosis rather than an actual angel.

[_spotlight]

Hi Spotlight. You are certainly correct that Aquinas thought is well outside of LDS views. ClarkGobel was mentioning it as an alternative I think.

That's correct. I was bringing up the point that he then accused me of not bringing up that just because I have an encounter it doesn't mean my theories of the encounter are correct. There are different ways of interpreting the data. I raised two different ontologies of angels to highlight that.

I got it was an alternative. And what I get now is that you are making a defense of your beliefs by simply pointing out this mundane fact. Rather than commit to any specific interpretation and defend it you are happy to say well I really don't know and isn't that true for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet about the vast majority of subject matter that is out there?
Angels or the resurrection doesn't make any sense according to our present understanding of physics? Well maybe the resurrection means something different than what we thought it meant, blah, blah, blah.

Goble. Think Clark Gable but with an 'o' instead of an 'a' and that I give a damn instead of not giving a damn.

Fixed it now with a new shorthand. It's better than the temptation I felt and refused to refer to you as ClarkKent.

As to what fine matter as spirit means, I don't know.

Got it. That's your defense. "Weeelll there's so much we don't know. Could be this, could be that." It's perfectly reasonable to commit everything, literally everything without knowing anything, literally anything in your world.

Meanwhile others including myself bring up issues which you as a purported professional in the field of physics ought to address seem never to respond to. You simply ignored the heat death of the universe and did not address it at all. You speculate about brane collisions as it deals with some tiny aspect of the LDS problem without taking into consideration the fact that it introduces more problems than it solves for LDS theology.

In the new hypothesis, however, "our universe begins in a static, featureless state" that persisted for eons, notes Paul J. Steinhardt of Princeton University. That dormant period may have lasted a hundred trillion trillion years. Then, there really was a bang—a giant collision that heated the cosmos to a high temperature. This collision sparked the steady expansion of the universe, and over time, gravity molded gas clouds into stars and galaxies—equivalent to what happens in the widely accepted Big Bang scenario.http://www.phschool.com/science/science ... llide.html

Tell me exactly where eternal beings are and what they are doing before the creation of places to hang out? And this for a hundred trillion trillion years?

I'm glad you got an education in the sciences CG but I'm sad it took place at BYU. Apparently they taught you to think as an apologist rather than a critical thinker.

[_ClarkGoble]

Rather than commit to any specific interpretation and defend it you are happy to say well I really don't know and isn't that true for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet about the vast majority of subject matter that is out there?

I take serious a logic of vagueness. So there are things I know and many things I don't. I try and keep the two as clear as possible in my mind (although I'm certainly not perfect in that - especially about things I've not thought about in a long while). So where my knowledge is vague I try to be as open to the possibilities as possible so as to pay attention to that vagueness. Thus my emphasis on hermeneutics and the nature of open texts.

It's the Peircean in me.

Angels or the resurrection doesn't make any sense according to our present understanding of physics? Well maybe the resurrection means something different than what we thought it meant, blah, blah, blah.

i.e. I'm just forthright that I don't know.

Fixed it now with a new shorthand. It's better than the temptation I felt and refused to refer to you as ClarkKent.

Clark Kent or Superman are fully acceptable alternatives.

It's perfectly reasonable to commit everything, literally everything without knowing anything, literally anything in your world.

You need to know enough. But at certain times you have to act without perfect certainty. Again perhaps this is an element of my pragmatism, but for instance when I go to turn on a light switch I don't need absolutely knowledge it will turn on. I expect it to turn on and if it doesn't I adjust. No big deal.

To me it's more odd the level of certainty you require.

Meanwhile others including myself bring up issues which you as a purported professional in the field of physics ought to address seem never to respond to.

To clarify while my background was in physics and for a while I worked at LANL I'm no longer in physics and haven't been for some time. I've done software development (anytime you search in Adobe Acrobat that's my code) and have since done some startups (I have one of the top chocolate companies I run). I like intellectual discussions like this because I don't have time to do physics but it can keep my mind fresh and lively. Plus I enjoy learning.

You simply ignored the heat death of the universe and did not address it at all. You speculate about brane collisions as it deals with some tiny aspect of the LDS problem without taking into consideration the fact that it introduces more problems than it solves for LDS theology.

Branes in string theory are one example of a multiverse but not the only one. Further they really have no empirical evidence (as neither does any multiverse theory). Thus it's almost impossible to pick one. I did say clearly at the beginning that I think Mormon theology requires information flow between universes. But I certainly make no claims of empirical evidence for that.

So this seems an odd criticism unless you think I need empirical evidence for every theological claim. (My sense is you do)

Tell me exactly where eternal beings are and what they are doing before the creation of places to hang out? And this for a hundred trillion trillion years?

Such a model without a multiverse communication would be incompatible with Mormon theology. Again I think I've been forthright about this. Right now there's no empirical evidence to confirm such models.

[_spotlight]

It's the Peircean in me.

Stuck in the 1800's in more ways than one?

Clark Kent or Superman are fully acceptable alternatives.

He's an imaginary character Clark. Do you aspire to become like imaginary characters? Oh wait...

I like intellectual discussions like this

It's really not much of an intellectual discussion sans evidence. I bit as I always seem to do when someone defending the faith in a new fashion appears. Still wondering I guess if there exist any arguments or defenses out there for the church. So far it seems there aren't any. Yours is just another disappointment. Even more so since you don't even bother to make an attempt. I guess you just showed up to add your 2 cents to make the church look bad.

Ok bye then.

[_ClarkGoble]

It's really not much of an intellectual discussion sans evidence. I bit as I always seem to do when someone defending the faith in a new fashion appears. Still wondering I guess if there exist any arguments or defenses out there for the church. So far it seems there aren't any. Yours is just another disappointment.

i.e. you only want public evidence for religion. Clearly there isn't therefore the discussion is over. What's odd is that I was forthright about this from the beginning. My point, pretty also clear, is that this is an incorrect position to take with regards to evidence. Yet every time I make these argument you consider it diversionary or the like. It's not. But since you don't want to question your assumptions it's moot.

So let me repeat what I've said many times. The type of evidence you demand doesn't exist.

Ok bye then.

Bye. Thanks for the discussion such as it was. Sorry we couldn't agree upon what to discuss.