Posted on 10/07/2005 7:48:04 PM PDT by Heartlander
But as to stories, of which there are many, there is only one Truth. And I assert that objective truth cannot be discerned by any existent "in" space/time because of the observer problem.
That doesn't mean that Truth cannot be known, but rather that it must be revealed by God Who cannot suffer the observer problem since He is "beyond" both space and time.
Then come all the learned men declaring "I alone have the 'truth" ... but there is only one Way, one Truth, one Life: Jesus Christ (John 14:6) which is also a revealed Truth, but a living one and not merely words.
So then, you mean the sophomoric concept, "You have you're truth, I have mine", is really talking about opinion(s).?. and is not truth at all.. and that truth supercedes the space time continuum.?. Sounds like mankind really made a mistake with that old metaphorical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. Mankind; then, wouldn't know good OR evil or truth if it jumped up and bit him on the arse.. They would have to go to another source for it.. That is, go for what a fully orbed view what either good or evil was..
Good case you have there.. I tend to agree.. been bitten by the truth many times you know where and rejected all but one of them.. I'm really not too smart, but very "lucky"..
Of course you are right, cornelis: Plato’s “Beyond” is beyond Being itself. And this is how we know it: Plato’s “Beyond” is beyond human conceptualization. And Being is a concept.
I think the “beyondness” of God may be what St. Anselm of Canterbury had in mind when he said: “O Lord, you are not only that than which a greater cannot be conceived, but you are also greater than what can be conceived.”
And yet Plato as well as Anselm both “felt” the drawing of the divine.
Classical Greek metaphysics approaches “theology”— I understand this word is of Platonic coinage — via nous, i.e., via the mind, intellect. And perhaps that’s why “the god” was not much described by the likes of Plato. For a god of Spirit cannot really be wholly contacted or engaged by means of nous. It seems the great Greeks could recognize intelligence when they saw it, but still did not recognize that intelligence is a quality of personhood. And personhood is the privilege of a soul, which is “a spiritual entity.”
The Israelites had an “unknown god” too. Until Abraham, and the Bush that Burned at Mount Sinai. And Christianity made the “unknown god” perfectly explicit and Personal with the incarnation of the Logos, the Son of God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
I think the Greeks took metaphysical problems just as far as they could rationally go. But it took Christian theology to fulfill their great insights, and to carry them further, into the realm of the soul, and the mediating Spirit that puts the human soul in direct relation with God Who is Person.
Thank you so much for your astute observations, cornelis.
My dear Ms. Boop;
Quite a deep statement I would say.. I love it when reams can be transcribed with few words.. Especially when it is simple to understand in tone, yet not simplistic in demeanor.. Only one word comes to mind about this statement, beautiful.. Says more about you than it does about what was said....... almost..
Thanks.. Pipe..
Generally, the failure to communicate boils down to the terms being used. "Dimension" has a specific meaning to many of us when talking about space/time. Relativity clearly indicates that time is one of the four dimensions we perceive: x, y, z and t for time.
When you pitch time altogether and refer to the physical realm as 3 dimensional and the spiritual realm as the fourth, it frankly throws us. If you used the term “order” to separate the physical from the spiritual, as cornelis did, it would not be as difficult to understand what you are saying. Or if you used the construction betty boop did, 4D plus a fifth time-like dimension which has a spiritual element it would also not be difficult.
On the technical side, time is not a “commodity” – it is geometry. Time is relative between observers “in” space/time. The only observer who has no sense of time passing is the one who is traveling at the speed of light (null path). To the other observers, the sense of time is relative to their different worldlines and velocity (or gravity under the equivalence principle) of the observers.
Energy and matter occur “in” space/time and seem to be “substantive” like a commodity or corporeal thing (though matter has not been strictly made or observed in the lab) – nevertheless, neither time nor space are corporeal.
The bottom line in special relativity is that there is no absolute frame of reference in space/time. It is all relative. For a wonderful animated introduction to the concepts: Special Relativity.
Basically there are two different worldviews of energy/matter on the one hand and space/time on the other. One says that energy/matter creates space/time and thus the universe expands. The other view (the one I hold) is that the expansion of space/time creates energy/matter.
Einstein always dreamed of transmuting the base wood of matter into the pure marble of geometry. That hasn’t happened yet – though the quest for a “grand unification theory” continues. Even so, those quests tend to involve geometric physics (string theory, etc.) and not particle physics.
Damn you're good.. You even got through to me kinda.. thats saying something.. Yeah I know, my world is fictious and boxy , but it's good.. i.e. ref:Crazy people.. the movie..
Semantics always was and still is mans weakest point.. i.e What you're saying is not what I'm thinking or receiving, or vice versa. Even if we had one language worldwide the problem would be the same.. There are so many levels to most any statement.. levels of delivery and levels of recieving..
Grunting Analysis(semantics) fails to notice the spirit as the Evos do with the DNA'osaur.. And mathematics (another corporeal 3rd dimensional invention) fails to notice it is a 3rd dimensional invention and true cyphering lays in the hands of the owner of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. You know the Spirit, the big guy..
How does this relate.. to relativity.?. Glad you asked..d;-'
Over the years of considering life on this planet, my life specifically but life in general.. its all about good and evil.. right or wrong.. accuracy or inaccuracy.. fact or fiction.. truth versus the lie.. all iterations of the same thing as I can determine.. And mathematics(of all kinds) is used as a tool to delineate fact from fiction.. i.e. good from evil.. Mathematics has ended up (in my life) bringing me back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. where the bible says mankind started on his journey to "hell" or "heaven".. many metaphors try to explain them.. NOW THERE are some dimensions I can deal with.. Spiritual dimensions.. Ooops, Sorry, I snuck up on ya.. forgive me..
Not that a metaphor is an inferior thing.. perish the thought, but rather an excellent way of communicating ideas.. "its raining cats and dogs" speaks reams to one open to the metaphor.. others will run to the window to observe pets falling to their death.. Not all but most metaphors in the bible are observed at the window.. as I've noticed.. I know this speaks to you, but then I am speaking to you..
This all relates to this conversation in this way.. How could a spiritual fact be measured.?.. What is its width, length and depth.?.. What is its timing.?. is the light that we see and know about all the light there is.?.. and more, is this universe a spiritual "thing" and not a corporeal thing at all.?.. What do you know for sure.?(rhetorical?)., like that.. Thats where I'm going..
Getting out the box is not easy for some.. but its harder when you love the box.. Why then get out.?. Spent years studying manuals(of various kinds) on how things worked.. thats what I did.. I'm bored with the box.. It drove me to the "spirit".. What spirit?.. I didn't know.. But there had to be something better than knowing how things worked, I surmised.. Knowing how to operate 3rd dimensional "furniture" on this planet got boring.. Wasn't originally boring but anything repetitive can get boring.. The only thing I didn't have the capacity to operate was my "spirit".. The concept passed by me that there was such a thing as a spirit.. "God" who was reported to be a spirit was one thing but me being a spirit was entirely another... To this day I don't know completely about either of them.. and thats a comfort.. The history of mankind has shown me man is not very smart. including myself.. How does this all interface with cosmology and physics and several other icxex's..
Gee, I don't know, but somehow I feel better for saying(posting) it.. I am a sinner you know.. Must be a spiritual thing.. Even crazy people have spirits evidentially.. WOO-HOO..
GOSH, I love metaphors.. Theres so, so, so.. descriptive..
I readily agree that language is a giant problem – concepts are encoded into words and phrases which may not be decoded in the appropriate manner on the receiving end. A worst case example would be the sender speaking only French and the receiver only speaking Spanish.
But there’s much more to it than that because the sender has a presumption of knowledge on the part of the receiver(s) before he even speaks. Some cultures do not have an appreciation of the concept of "lie" and thus a lot of language goes over their heads like geese.
Imagery is similar – but there the message being conveyed may not be as exacting – perhaps more of an impression than data. Mathematics, IMHO, is much better because the meanings of the terms are precise.
Metaphors accrue to the language/imagery mix. Only the receiver with the proper decoding ability will be able to understand the metaphor.
And then my personal favorite: qualia.
A poster recently used a dramatized metaphor to teach this kind of knowledge to his Sunday School class of teenagers. They envisioned the person entering the room to be an aborigine who speaks perfect English and is curious about this thing called “chocolate” . The students all try to convey “chocolate” to the aborigine and naturally, all fail to communicate. The teacher then hands the aborigine a Hershey bar, whereupon he takes a bite and – voila – he has an understanding of chocolate. Still, even his newly discovered understanding of chocolate may not be exactly the same as yours or mine or the students who tried to describe it.
Chocolate must be experienced and cannot be conveyed by verbal language, math, imagery or metaphor. Pain, pleasure, likes, dislikes are all qualia.
Spiritual Truth is like the qualia in that it must be experienced and cannot be fully conveyed. It may be received and/or conveyed as a metaphor, image or verbally. Here’s a personal example.
Several years back I prayed and meditated, asking God for a deeper understanding of Christ’s propitiation on the Cross. What I received was an image/metaphor of the moment He released His Spirit on the Cross. There was an unspeakably brilliant Light which went up out of the darkness and transcended all of time and space and there were bubbles, tiny bubbles, more than I could count – rising up from the darkness, disappearing into the Light. I am one of those tiny bubbles.
Anything that I do to add to that image/metaphor would diminish it. And though I have conveyed it several times, I cannot know who has received what understanding of it.
On your other point, there are parallels between the spiritual and the physical which allow for such understanding of metaphors. Light v darkness is prime example. God is Light. And there is also physical light. God said “let there be light” – which has at least two meanings – and as if to underscore it, the cosmic microwave background has captured sound waves at the moment photons decoupled from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way
The Scriptures confirm that the heavens declare Him (Psalms 19) – and we’ll be held accountable if we fail to notice it (Romans 1:20)
You ask if physical reality is an illusion. You are not alone. Einstein once remarked “reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”. He was of course speaking to local realism, but then Wesson’s five dimension and two time model also raises the point that massive particles in 4D may actually be the manifestation of as little as a single particle in a time-like fifth dimension, multiply imaged 1080 times.
The concept of mass in 4D actually being the shadow of massless particle trajectories in a 5th dimension has become quite mainstream in physics.
The notion that I may be a figment of your imagination is also not a new one – nor can it be strictly disproven. The closest one can get is Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”.
Boy you've touched several issues in that post I can't get into now.. for unobvious reasons.. but it does remind of a song..
"To do is to be."<-- Nietzsche
"To be is to do."<-- Sartre
"Do be do be do."<-- Sinatra
I know, I know, I'm a bad man..
Thank you for always being gracious and understanding to all sides of this issue.
Yes it would be relatively easy, Heartlander! But to be fair, we have to recognize that not all Darwinists are atheists.
I stated this out of frustration Betty… We see posts that state; ID = creationism, ID only wants to create a theocratic country, ID wants to destroy the integrity of science and take us back to the medieval inquisitions, etc… Surely I am not the only person who sees the ironic hypocrisy in these blatantly false statements. We both understand that it is a political game on both fronts and obviously a case could be made against the purely naturalistic philosophy that states; Neo-darwinism = atheism, neo-darwinism only wants to create a purely atheistic country, neo-darwinism has destroyed the integrity of science and has taken us back to the medieval inquisitions, etc…
"Since Darwinian evolution seeks to promote 'no-design' as a scientific concept, and since all scientific concepts are tentative and refutable, then the disagreement with the hypothesis of no design is scientific. It simply reflects the alternative. In other words, if it is scientific to argue against design, it necessarily is scientific to disagree and argue for it."I didn't realize that neo-Darwinists had dissociated themselves from the "soft science" of sociobiology.
- John H. Calvert
I am referring to the scientific answer to the morality question in the form of a ‘meme’ from Dawkins, Skinners conditioning, Blank Slate, Singer, et al… The whole Nature vs. nurture philosophy with Nature being the nurture giver to mankind according to the neo-darwinian paradigm.
But if we took this darwinistic ‘philosophy’ to the Nth degree in physics, we would find ourselves as merely chemical factories achieving equilibrium within our planet’s thermodynamic energy.
Indeed, it has become a political game. And here we are just wanting science to be done without unnecessary presuppositions. Sigh...
;-)
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