...since we seem to have reached an impasse.
It seems to me the basic difficulty is both of us have pretty much the same set of "facts" before us, and yet we draw radically different conclusions from those facts, conclusions so sweeping that they effectively constitute — or should I say reflect? — a "worldview." How to account for this?
Trial answer: Possibly you and I are looking at the problem from different perspectival "levels." It is difficult to describe this situation. But there's a marvelous analogy in Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe (a/k/a multiverse) model.
The linked paper classifies different "species" of multiverse theories at four levels. The fourth is Tegmark's own proposal (I gather). And I find it brilliant. He proceeds by analogies, populating his Level IV model with "birds" and "frogs," the representatives of Plato and Aristotle respectively:
ARISTOTELIAN PARADIGM: The subjectively perceived frog perspective is physically real, and the bird perspective and all its mathematical language is merely a useful approximation.You can't get more "basic" questions than that! LOLOL!
PLATONIC PARADIGM: The bird perspective (the mathematical structure) is physically real, and the frog perspective and all the human language we use to describe it is merely a useful approximation for describing our subjective perceptions.
What is more basic — the frog perspective or the bird perspective? What is more basic — human language or mathematical language?
Trial answer: One is not "better" than the other. This is not a true/false proposition; it is a BOTH are valid in their respective domains proposition. And Natural Law theory is premised on their intimate correspondence.
Me, I tend to be "birdlike." In practice, this means that one tries always to "fly to the highest point," and look down on problems "from there." The problem with that is, the higher the bird flies, the more detail "below" fades away. Yet strangely, what emerges next in the bird's view is pattern.
Meanwhile, the frogs "down there" are masters of detail. They don't seem to be particularly interested in "pattern." Or to put it yet another way, the important thing for them is that something "works," not that it "means" anything.
But you know what? It seems to me that both perspectives are entirely valid within their respective domains. They are not "mutually-exclusive," but essentially complementary. Indeed, it seems to me the world of Truth emerges (evolves?) from their mutually productive, dynamic synergy.
Dear A_perfect_lady, I don't know whether you would align yourself with either the "birds" or the "frogs." Or would even consider doing such a thing.
Thank you ever so much for conversing with me!
p.s.: I hope you don't mind, but I invited a few friends to this post, thinking they might be interested in our topic.
Interesting thread bump. Thank you for the education, BB. I learned something new today.
I think you are right, again. Although I had friends much like you, I grew up in what is now called a very dysfunctional family. I was the illegitimate child of a mother who became a born-again Christian while pregnant with me. We still lived in her parents house along with her other siblings. Her parents and siblings were drinkers, smokers, and general hell raisers and she was trying to "raise me right" in that environment. In addition she was raising her older sisters child, a boy a year older than I and she seemed to favor him more than me. He tormented me until we were in our teens. I even obtained some boxing gloves and although he was bigger than me he refused to box me unless I promised I wouldn't hit him, only let him try to hit me. If, on occasion, I reflexively hit him he would run to my mother and complain.
I carried the guilt of an illegitimate child although I had nothing to do with it, and the confusion of conflicting values, with my mother and I in the minority, and the others seeming to be having all the fun. In addition, my grandfather worked nights so I had to be very quit during the day while he slept. Throw in WWII from three years old until seven, the years when our characters and personailites are basically form and set, and it was an "interesting time."
My friends who lived a more structured life did not wrestle with the emotions I did and they had better work and study habits. I can easily see how the differences in our, mine and yours, backgrounds could lead to different perspectives.
BB, I also think the birds and frogs reference is apt here.
A-G, the first part of your post #99 speaks to earlier comments I made, somewhere, about God being in everything and that He was either energy or that He made His energy available for our use. As I said then, I base that on Jesus saying that if we had the Faith of a grain of mustard we could do all that He had done. He said we could even move a mountain. (You guys know those scripture better than I.
I know that God made all and is the larger picture but isn't he also all there is? Isn't that the Truth we are talking about?
Here's an excerpt from his Scientific American article to help visualize the difference in worldview between the bird and the frog:
Consider, for example, a world made up of pointlike particles moving around in three-dimensional space. In four-dimensional spacetime — the bird perspective — these particle trajectories resemble a tangle of spaghetti. If the frog sees a particle moving with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined like a double helix. To the frog, the world is described by Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird, it is described by the geometry of the pasta — a mathematical structure. The frog itself is merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex intertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store and process information. Our universe is far more complicated than this example, and scientists do not yet know to what, if any, mathematical structure it corresponds.
The Platonic paradigm raises the question of why the universe is the way it is. To an Aristotelian, this is a meaningless question: The universe just is. But a Platonist cannot help but wonder why it could not have been different. If the universe is inherently mathematical, then why was only one of the many mathematical structures singled out to describe a universe? A fundamental asymmetry appears to be built into the very heart of reality