What Is Man?

Moreover - above any creature known to me, man is willful.

True. But notice how man is a being that willfully seeks to harm or destroy himself.

101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

bttt for a later read.

Yes, Psalm 8. Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.

To me this answers all questions regarding, "what is man".
God came here became one of us, joined us eternally to Himself as part of Himself. As of yet not all things have been put under our feet, as of yet we do not have dominion over all the works of His hands, yet, in His own good time, it would appear that mankind has an astounding future.

“What Is Man?”

Ps 8:3-5 ¶ When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Old Orville defined Man as "A Forked Turnip."

I'm certain Orville had the perfect freedom to do that, Doc.

Still I must add I have frequently, personally observed that people can and often do express and deal with acute existential pain through the outlet of "cathartic" humor. [cf. Aristotle's Poetics.]

But in the end, in the great scale of things, in what way and to what degree does Orville's puny effort actually count in terms of realizing the human project, in justice and freedom?

In other words, why do we have to listen to this guy, why take his message to heart?

Somehow I think human beings by and large can do better than that. By the grace of God.

Thank you so very much for the encouragement and the bump! Hugs!

So true, rdb3! Thank you for the insight!

betty,

I didn't equate Manicheism with Plato or with Platonism, and Platonism is not (in my mind at least) to be equated with what Plato actually wrote or taught. Manicheism posits a cosmic duality; Platonists (as perhaps opposed to Plato) posit a microcosmic one - body and spirit or soul.
Both are wrong, at least in part.

At the same time, I think there are strands of both in Christianity as it is misunderstood by many. I don't blame Plato or Christianity for Christianity misunderstood.

Hank,

what I meant to say (and apparently didn't very well) was that faith is not inherently unreasonable, like some seem to wish, although it may involve more than reason only.
It's hard for me to disagree with most of what you said in post 69. I don't know what other knowledge there is that does not come to us via our senses through which it seems all of our concepts and ideas ultimately originate. Again, I don't see a conflict with Christianity, which teaches that throughout history God has intervened in various ways. One thinks immediately of pillars of fire and cloud, the ark of the covenant, the tablets on which the law was written, etc. in the OT and the physical person of Jesus in the NT and of course, as you pointed out, the Scriptures themselves. In fact, it seems that Christianity is to a great extent the history of God mediating himself to man through physical means.

And I'm sorry I called you a pagan (I assumed you weren't a Christian, and I don't use the term "pagan" perjoratively).

Alamo-girl,

I think anyone who looks will see the cat, just like anyone who looks with care will reach certain conclusions about man, his nature, the way we should behave and other things.
We can also conclude, through reason, that Jesus lived, that he made certain seemingly outlandish claims, that he performed miracles and even that he rose from the dead.
Concluding that one must commit one's self to Jesus fully is a bit different, although the former can play a role in the latter. Hey, I started this thinking we diagreed on something, but I guess we agree after all! It must be getting late.

Thanks.

I have no desire to minimize the importance of [QM] or any other scientific discovery, but this is hardly a means of understanding the ultimate nature of existence, or reality, or, "the totality of what is and what may be."

The so-called, "collapse of a wave function," is nothing more than a mathematical manipulation, akin to finding the derivative of a function in the calculus. It is not a physical event and it does not cause anything. It is only a way of describing what happens, it does not make anything happen.

But something does happen, Hank: the observation ("collapse of the wave function") causes the probability distribution to change. The wave function gets "reset." And the effect propagates non-locally.

Thus the expectation of classical physics that nature is completely deterministic and perfectly random breaks down. There has been an intervention "from outside," as it were.

You may wish to say that state vector collapse is merely a figment of the imagination, a purely subjective mental construct that has no objective realty. To which I would say: In what way does the classical view of rigid determinism differ qualitatively, epistemologically speaking? It is a "construct," too.

Where did I ever say that QM is "the ultimate explanation of everything?" I'm sure it is not. However, whatever QM is, it is causing a whole lot of rethinking in a whole lot of the scientific disciplines (and other knowledge disciplines as well) about methods and the adequacy of existing theories to give good descriptions of nature.

The search continues....

Thank you so much for your reply, bigcat00!

I think anyone who looks will see the cat, just like anyone who looks with care will reach certain conclusions about man, his nature, the way we should behave and other things.
We can also conclude, through reason, that Jesus lived, that he made certain seemingly outlandish claims, that he performed miracles and even that he rose from the dead.

Concluding that one must commit one's self to Jesus fully is a bit different, although the former can play a role in the latter. Hey, I started this thinking we diagreed on something, but I guess we agree after all! It must be getting late.

Actually, we do disagree on this. In my reply at post 71, I said:

With regard to the cat-in-the-cupboard metaphor, from the Spiritual point-of-view, I assert that anyone can look but not everyone can see. Likewise anyone can listen but not everyone can hear.

The Bible is just text to those who read with the eyes, but to those who can and do read in the Spirit, it is alive. To one who cannot see, Jesus was a good man, but to those who can see, He is the Word of God made flesh.

We can use reason to encourage someone else to look or to listen, but the power to see and to hear is a gift of God.

I said these things based on the Word and on personal experience. Here are some relevant passages:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. - John 6:63-64

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. – John 14:16-17

And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

For this people's heart is waxed gross, and [their] ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with [their] eyes, and hear with [their] ears, and should understand with [their] heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

But blessed [are] your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. - Matthew 13:10-16

To sum it up the difference, man can reason (as Plato did) that God must logically exist or that Jesus was not an ordinary human or that the Bible is no ordinary book --- but man cannot know God by his own power.

Thank you so much for the heads up to your discussion with Hank Kerchief on the import of quantum mechanics!

I just wanted to offer an article which may provide some insight on the subject. I know you have read it, but others may not have: Max Tegmark: Parallel Universes

You and I agree with Max Tegmark on the Level IV which is a form of radical Platonism. But the Level III multi-verse discusses superposition - the wave function collapse, decoherence and Everett's theory (the cat is both dead and alive) --- and why the theory is reaching an anti-climactic point.

betty boop, if you haven't re-read this article since you raised the possibility of an extra time dimension - I strongly suggest you give it another look-see. Your speculation directly addresses what is seen as the flaw of the Level III.

I regard truth as entirely epistemological. Truth has no meaning outside the context of conceptual knowledge, and is the quality that differentiates those concepts that correctly describe any aspect of reality from those that do not.

Here we will just have to disagree, Hank. For I do not think "truth has no meaning outside the context of conceptual knowledge."

My understanding of Truth is that it is the Logos of the universe. Logos is one of those packed Greek words that denotes a multiplicity of related meanings. Logos is not only Truth, but also willing mind/intellect; it has further meanings as "word" and "ordering law." It is the foundation both of classical ontology and Christianity. It is the very quality that makes Christian faith "reasonable."

The reason "things are they way they are and not some other way" is because things have an ordering truth, or logos.

You come close to acknowledging this with your observation that truth "is the quality that differentiates those concepts that correctly describe any aspect of reality from those that do not." But I suspect for you reality is only conceptual; you do not penetrate to its ontological status at all. In fact, you seem to suggest it really has no ontological status, being merely some kind of mental dream play going on in our physical brains.

Or have I misinterpreted what you have written, on this thread and elsewhere? If so, I'd welcome being corrected.

I suspect you and I will never be able to agree about what Truth is. But as you note, it would be boring to agree all the time.

You come close to acknowledging this with your observation that truth "is the quality that differentiates those concepts that correctly describe any aspect of reality from those that do not." But I suspect for you reality is only conceptual ...

I'm not the Platonic realist, you are. I know the material existince I perceive is real, indepedent of anyone's consciousness and contingent on no one's whim, will, or action. You are the one who thinks the qualtities of material existence are only manifestation of some Platonic universals.

Reality is that which is, independent of anyone's knowledge of it, or even awareness or consciousness of it. Truth pertains to our knowledge of reality, not reality itself. It is because reality exists independently of our consciousness or knowledge of it, that it is the standard of truth, the ultimate arbiter of what is true or not true, the basis of all objective truth.

But just so you don't misunderstand me, I do not reduce reality to material (physical) existence only, because reality includes life, consciousness, and volition, which are not themselves physical.

I describe all existence as natural, including life, consciousness, and volition, though these three are not themselves physical, and do not "arise" out of the physical by any manipulation or behavior of the physical, as some emergent quality, for example. They are, nevertheless aspects of the same reality as physical existence and cannot exist independently of the physical, for their function (life is self-sustained process of a living physical entity called an organism), awareness, (consciousness is perception of physical existense) and action (all living action, including volitional action, is physical action, whether overt or only an act of consciousness). Others mean by natural, only the physical, in which case they would call life, consciousness, and volition supernatural.

I disagree that the physcial universe (excluding living beings) is not totally determined. It is determined, not by laws, or formulas, or fields, or wave functions, or any of the other things physics uses to describe how the entities of the universe behave, but by nature of the entities themselves, and their relationships to each other. First you have the entities, behaving as they do because they are what they are, then you observe how they behave, then you attempt to find ways to describe that behavior and to measure it. The result of that process is the laws, formulas, fields, and wave functions, of physics. But all the laws and all the wave functions in the world cannot cause anything to exist or to happen.

When physicists make the mistake of reifying their discovered principles, giving them ontological significance, it is precisely the same mistake one would make in assumeing the weatherman's predictions make the weather happen.

Here we will just have to disagree, Hank. For I do not think "truth has no meaning outside the context of conceptual knowledge."

As I said, it would be mighty dull discussion if we all just agreed on everything.

Hank

LOL, f.Christian! Your posts at #29 and #30 are so amusing!

I describe all existence as natural, including life, consciousness, and volition, though these three are not themselves physical, and do not "arise" out of the physical by any manipulation or behavior of the physical, as some emergent quality, for example.

And yet a whole raft of contemporary scientific thinkers (especially in biology) describe life, consciousness, and volition precisely as "emergent qualities." They may have a basis in the physical; but they are not reducible to the physical. And yes, they are "natural."

I get the sense in reading you, Hank, that you imagine the universe is some kind of "finished product," already complete and thus eminently specifiable to a high degree of certainty. That is, for you, the universe is a steady-state, "closed system," and you are able to observe it in its completeness as if somehow you were standing outside of it, at some Archimedian point outside of universal space and time. And then you've taken a great deal of time and trouble to write out its full specification in doctrinal form, and voila! Now we can know what reality "is," right down to every jot and tittle.

For me -- Platonist realist if you wish to call me such, since you seem to want to classify me -- the universe is evolving; and to the extent that it is comprised of emergent processes occurring in its parts, it ain't finished yet. In that sense, it is not reducible to a simple set of propositional statements. Plus we humans are evolving right along with it, and are the source of at least some of the universe's emergent properties. Further, at no time can we stand outside of the universe of which we are constituting parts, and see the whole thing "finished" in time, complete.

You want to make the finite the measure of a putatively infinite process. In effect, to reduce the universe down to a set of mental propositions that can all live conveniently inside your head. And then you take this description for the reality.

A lot of the "school philosophers" do this sort of thing. But a thinker who is "open" towards being and the truth of reality -- which has not yet been fully manifested -- cannot adopt this strategy. Such a strategy typically results, not in a more complete understanding of the reality we've already got, but in the construction of a Second, or alternative reality.

Which is, in effect, a kind of flight from reality. FWIW.

Thanks for writing, Hank.

I agree with betty boop; and I disagree with Hank Kerchief. Hank says:

First you have the entities, behaving as they do because they are what they are, then you observe how they behave, then you attempt to find ways to describe that behavior and to measure it. The result of that process is the laws, formulas, fields, and wave functions, of physics. But all the laws and all the wave functions in the world cannot cause anything to exist or to happen. When physicists make the mistake of reifying their discovered principles, giving them ontological significance, it is precisely the same mistake one would make in assumeing the weatherman's predictions make the weather happen.

The debate about whether constructs are real has raged from the time of Plato and Aristotle. It was argued by Einstein and Gödel and is being argued today by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. They are two different worldviews which cannot be reconciled.

By extension, the debate goes to the issue of when to stop looking. For instance, Hawking is content when an experiment confirms the theory, but Penrose wants the theory to also make sense.

I am a Platonist - more like Penrose than Hawking. For instance, I perceive that geometry exists in reality and the mathematician comes along and discovers it, e.g. pi, Schwarzschild Geometry, Riemannian Geometry and so on. As a Platonist, I would ask “Why pi? Why not something else?”

Parallel Universes - Max Tegmark

According to the Aristotelian paradigm, physical reality is fundamental and mathematical language is merely a useful approximation. According to the Platonic paradigm, the mathematical structure is the true reality and observers perceive it imperfectly. In other words, the two paradigms disagree on which is more basic, the frog perspective of the observer or the bird perspective of the physical laws. The Aristotelian paradigm prefers the frog perspective, whereas the Platonic paradigm prefers the bird perspective....

A mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. If history were a movie, the structure would correspond not to a single frame of it but to the entire videotape. 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.

What is Mathematics?

The view [Platonism] as pointed out earlier is this: Mathematics exists. It transcends the human creative process, and is out there to be discovered. Pi as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is just as true and real here on Earth as it is on the other side of the galaxy. Hence the book's title Pi in the Sky. This is why it is thought that mathematics is the universal language of intelligent creatures everywhere....

Barrow goes on to discuss Platonic views in detail. The most interesting idea is what Platonist mathematics has to say about Artificial Intelligence (it does not think it is really possible). The final conclusion of Platonism is one of near mysticism. Barrow writes:

We began with a scientific image of the world that was held by many in opposition to a religious view built upon unverifiable beliefs and intuitions about the ultimate nature of things. But we have found that at the roots of the scientific image of the world lies a mathematical foundation that is itself ultimately religious. All our surest statements about the nature of the world are mathematical statements, yet we do not know what mathematics "is" ... and so we find that we have adapted a religion strikingly similar to many traditional faiths. Change "mathematics" to "God" and little else might seem to change. The problem of human contact with some spiritual realm, of timelessness, of our inability to capture all with language and symbol -- all have their counterparts in the quest for the nature of Platonic mathematics. (pg. 296-297)

Ultimately, Platonism also is just as problematic as Formalism, Inventionism and Intuitionism, because of its reliance on the existence of an immaterial world. That math should have a mystical nature is a curiosity we are naturally attracted to, but ultimately does not really matter. Platonism can think of a mathematical world as an actual reality or as a product of our collective imaginations. If it is a reality then our ability to negotiate Platonic realms is limited to what we can know, if it is a product of our collective imaginations then mathematics is back to an invention of sorts. True or not our knowledge of mathematics is still limited by our brains.

Do there exist mathematical theorems that our brains could never comprehend? If so, then Platonic mathematical realms may exist, if not then math is a human invention. We may as well ask, "Is there a God?" The answer for or against does not change our relationship to mathematics. Mathematics is something that we as humans can understand as far as we need.

To sum it up from a Platonist view, whether we like it or not, pi exists, as do many other such mathematical (geometric and information) constructs, physical laws and constants. They were discovered by observation, research and experimentation. They were identified, not reified.

I get the sense in reading you, Hank, that you imagine the universe is some kind of "finished product,"...

I do not regard the universe a product.

And then you've taken a great deal of time and trouble to write out its full specification in doctrinal form, and voila! Now we can know what reality "is," ...

Well yes, exactly. You use the word "reality" all the time. Don't you know what the word means? You must. You wouldn't use a word if you did not know what you meant by it. Now I happen not to agree with what you think it means, in all its fine points, so I take the trouble to make exactly what I mean clear, and suddenly that is some kind of presumptuousness?

In effect, to reduce the universe down to a set of mental propositions that can all live conveniently inside your head. And then you take this description for the reality.

I thought you were the one that claimed the scientist's formulas and "mental propositions" such as fields and "wave functions" were what the universe is reduced to. I don't say that.

You want to make the finite the measure of a putatively infinite process.

No, you are the one that believes the universe can be explained in terms of measurable qualities such as fields and wave functions. I absolutely deny it.

For example, someone said, "from a Platonist view, whether we like it or not, pi exists," but, as a matter of fact there is no such existent. It is only a concept for the relationship of the measurement of the circumference of a circle to its radius, and exists only as a concept. There is no such actual thing, there is not even any actual mathematical value to express it. (If there were, you should have no trouble telling me exactly what it is.)

It is similar to the ratio of the either leg of an isosceles right triangle to the hypotenuse. While we can conceive of such a ratio, there is no such measurable value. There is no mathematical way to represents that ratio. Nevertheless, real isosceles triangles are ubiquitous. (If you would like to see the mathematical proof of this, I would be glad to provide it. It's commonly known.)

I really do appreciate your comments. Your view of things is much more widely held than mine, so I am very interested is seeing how the arguments from you side are actually made.

Hank

It is fair to say that the "collapse of a wave function" is at the heart of physicality. The manner of the collapse is a complete and utter mystery, untouched by science, yet it occurs endlessly. And this is fact, not supposition. We do not understand.

We began with a scientific image of the world that was held by many in opposition to a religious view built upon unverifiable beliefs and intuitions about the ultimate nature of things. But we have found that at the roots of the scientific image of the world lies a mathematical foundation that is itself ultimately religious.

Magnificent, Alamo-Girl. I haven't seen this article before. Thanks for the link!

I took your advice and revisited the excellent Tegmark article on multiverses this afternoon.

Hank, you want to declare that mathematics is unreal, that pi is unreal, yet at the same time declare perfect isosceles triangles are "ubiquitous." I do find this confusing. But as to the point of whether mathematics is real or not, here's Tegmark's view of the matter:

"A hint that a [Level IV] multiverse might not be just some beer-fueled speculation is the tight correspondence between the worlds of abstract reasoning and of observed reality. Equations, and more generally mathematical structures such as numbers, vectors and geometric objects describe the world with remarkable verisimilitude. In a famous 1959 lecture, physicist Eugene Wigner argued that 'the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious.' Conversely, mathematical structures have an eerily real feel to them. They satisfy a central criterion of objective existence: they are the same no matter who studies them. A theorem is true regardless of whether it is proved by a human, a computer or an intelligent dolphin."

I do agree with Tegmark that "a mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time."

Mathematics "lives" in a timeless realm (hello Level IV and #5D!), yet is also "inside" space and time -- because it is the language of intelligent creatures.

We do not understand.

Guess that explains all the endless arguments about what QM "means," Phaedrus! It all ends up being "a battle of the world views" in the end, and then we're still no closer to understanding, still left with the mystery.

Thanks for your most insightful post, P.