Between Science and Spirituality

Thank you so much for your post!

All of your questions are why I prefaced my explanation with this statement: I doubt that I can "define" this term to anyone else's satisfaction - but I can describe for you what I know to be true from my personal experience.

What I said is this: My spirit is who I am. It exists apart from, but is associated with, my body. It is not bound by the laws of physics, e.g. it exists outside of space and time. In between the two is my soul, which is my ego, my mind, sense of humor, etc.

Back to your questions:

How do you know it exists apart from your body? When I'm "in" the spirit, in deep worship, I can see my body.

Is this any different than your mind? Yes, my mind is part of my soul; that's where my ego, sense of humor, concerns, etc. exist

How do you know it [spirit] is separate from your mind? Because when I'm thinking about temporal matters, I cannot get "into" the spirit. I'm distracted. To get "into" the spirit, I lay everything aside and concentrate on who the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are and love them with all my power. That love is rapturous per se and elevates my spirit so that I can have an even greater appreciation and love of God.

How do you know there is anything not bound by the laws of physics, outside time and space, unless you can perceive outside time and space? When I'm "in" the spirit, I control my viewpoint for better appreciation - location, time and proportion - through very gentle nudges of thought. In one instance, I may be on the petal of an Iris, in the next, touching a ring of Saturn, in the next, at the sepulcher. It is worship and the feelings (joy, celebration, awe) are what energize it and what I treasure when I stop.

How do you know your soul is between the two? Process of elimination. When I'm thinking about this physical life, I cannot get "into" the spirit.

How do you know what it is you are experiencing? I initiate it, I remember it and I've been doing it a lot this past year.

Maybe it is all of one piece. Nah, for reasons explained above. The ego is like a heavy weight that grounds us from worship.

It is difficult to explain these personal experiences to people who are preoccupied with this physical life and it is impossible to explain to those who do not believe.

Your comment struck me as self-absorbed, so I cracked wise. I don't know one way or the other about you as an individual.

Then I appreciate your humor. I can see why you said what you said.

So many people say so many things here that it is almost a requirement that one pins things down. I've found myself defending against shadows before.

It was an inside joke that probably didn't deserve to be mentioned on this thread. I get all mixed up sometimes.

Maybe poetry is preferable to logic anyway. Who knows anything anyway?

It is difficult to explain these personal experiences to people who are preoccupied with this physical life

Don't make assumptions about me. I can question anybody on anything, but don't make assumptions about me.

I could just as easily argue the other side, and have. If we can't ask questions, then how are we to know? But don't make assumptions.

The ego is like a heavy weight that grounds us from worship.

The ego is the only reason you do worship, to save it. (uncbuck)

I'm sorry I misunderstood you, if this is the case. This is exactly correct. We reason from ignorance to knowledge. So long as you do not take the position that reason begins with nothing.

Fair enough.

Sorry, I do not see what you disagree with here. First there are no concepts, then the first concepts are formed as simple identifications of percepts. What's the problem?

One problem was, you weren't saying that earlier.
Another is that you claimed repeatedly there is no self-evident knowledge, yet your posts are strewn with assertions that proclaim self-evidence of some knowledge, but couched in other words.

Suppose there is something that you will never know in any way whatsoever, directly or indirectly. It never has any affect on any aspect of your life or concsoiusness (if it did, you would at least have indirect knowledge of it). What I mean by the word "matter," is that a thing must have some kind of effect on one's life. There is nothing to figure out here: what you cannot know you cannot know because it has no effect on you life in any way. Only that which has some effect is some way on your life matters. Therefore: what you cannot know cannot matter, by definition.

You're shading definitions now. Doesn't matter.
Way back at #4, you said:

All that matters is what you can see and what you can know. There is nothing else. It is exactly that, nothing, and to the extent one wastes their minds on what is not, they waste their lives.

While knowing involves concepts based on percepts, it doesn't necessarily follow that something imperceptible and unknowable can't affect you, nor that if it did affect you would you necessarily know it.
If you wanted to say, "That which doesn't have an effect on you doesn't have an effect on you," that would be true, but not especially useful.
What you said was that which cannot be perceived does not exist and cannot matter.
This is the same baldly superstitious (by your definition) assertion without rational foundation as when you first posted it.

You are mistaken here.

tautology -- Logical truth. A statement which is necessarily true because, by virtue of its logical form, it cannot be used to make a false assertion.

I was using "tautology" in the not unknown sense of a circular argument. It's a common fallacy. You've no doubt heard of it, and my usage was certainly clear from the context of my comments.
But just in case…
Unacceptable or Insufficient Premises.
(1) Begging the Question (Circular Reasoning; Argumentum in Circulo; Fallacy of Redundancy; Tautology).
An argument that uses its conclusion as one of its premises is most often called begging the question or circular reasoning.
Sophistry: Logical and Rhetorical Fallacies; Faulty Reasoning.
TAUTOLOGY:
(a sub-category of circular argument) defining terms or qualifying an argument in such a way that it would be impossible to disprove the argument. Often, the rationale for the argument is merely a restatement of the conclusion in different words.
COMMON FALLACIES IN REASONING
Tautology
A tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such.
Logical Fallacies
Logical fallacies:
Begging the question / tautology using the argument itself to prove its truth.
Rhetorical Fallacies
Circular reasoning
Also called "begging the question" or a tautology. Occurs when your conclusion is just a restatement of one of your assumptions.
Baloney Detection Kit

Your example, by the way is not a tautology.

Guess again.
"Joe is smart because he eats macaroni, and he eats macaroni because he is smart."
Circular all the way.

Now that you understand what a tautology is, and not what you supposed it was, you understand that my argument was correct and that there is no claim for self evidence, only the evidence of logical deduction.

Now that this has conceit has been dispensed with, let's be crystal clear:
you were using circular reasoning as evidence, so those fallacious arguments don't support your claim.

I was mistaken in assuming you understood the definition of the most basic words describing consciousnees in philophy. Percepts are elements of direct consciousness, all conscious creatures have them. They are non-cognative (not knowledge). "Concepts" is the term for those conscious elements knowledge is comprised of. A concept is also called an idea. I was simply referring to these definitions which are commonly known to those with a minimum exposure to philosophical terms.

First, I didn't misunderstand the distinction, and I posted accordingly. Second, the mention of the distinction is impertinent here, so much so, that I'm not sure you could have posted it in error. It looks like just a dodge.
"Consciousnees in philophy?" Teacher, teach thyself.

This is what I mean about not being entirely sincere. You did not quote all I said. The very next paragraph said:

I didn't quote all that you said because you were trying to have it both ways. You asserted a view and then claimed that anyone in disagreement was obligated to supply evidence to the contrary. Shifting the burden of proof is not emblematic of sincerity.
In your subsequent paragraph, you quibbled a bit as though you weren't really making an assertion, as cover for shifting the burden. I did quote the last sentence elsewhere in my post, however, your autobiographical one:
"The other name for beliefs without a rational basis is superstition."

I have nothing to prove. I'm not trying to prove others do not have some other way to the truth than reason. I only stated that I do not know and cannot imagine what it is. If anyone wants to convince me they can know something without reason, I believe I have a responsibility to ask, how?

This is disingenuous special pleading. You made an assertion not borne out by your arguments, then suggested that others are obliged to show differently.
Ask what you like, but your responsibility is to support your assertions.

If you want to believe things on any other basis than reason, that is your perogative. I'm not trying to dissuade you.

If you want to continue with backhanded straw man insinuations, you'll just make yourself look sillier.
Where have I made such an assertion?
Aren't you the guy that thought he had a "gotcha" earlier, because I was focusing on reason as a means of acquiring knowledge?

Until someone wishes to provide an answer to the question of how one acquires knowledge without reason, I will continue to call all claims to knowledge derived in any way other than by using the reational faculty (reason), irrational.

Call it Cap'n Crunch if you like, your nomenclature has never been the issue, its the presumption that you have any logically compelling basis for your assertions that ain't flying.
In fact, your presumption is irrational.

During recent research I have come to realize how damaged I have been by Logical Positivism, but be that as it may, this definition is self contradictory and has no meaning.

Maybe your 6th sense is not fully developed.

You posted to Alamo Girl ... and, on this open thread, to the entire reading audience: How do you know it exists apart from your body? Is this any different than your mind? How do you know it is separate from your mind? How do you know there is anything not bound by the laws of physics, outside time and space, unless you can perceive outside time and space? How do you know your soul is between the two? How do you know what it is you are experiencing? Do you mind if I offer something here?

The notion of something being beyond physics, being 'meta-physics' has been raised. To delve into this a bit more, let's use the well worn analogy of Flatland, the 'realm' bounded by two dimensions of space, length and width, with no height, thus flat (I prefer to call length, width, and height variables of the dimension space). The science in Flatland would be limited to length and width measurements such that any 'things' having a third variable of space, height, would be unknowable in their entirety. But this would not preclude gathering at least some evidence of such three-variable things if discovered to intersect flatland at some location, some where/when. We are in a similar situation with our spacetime universe, able to measure and quantify those things having three-variable spatial and 'one' variable temporal (again, I like to express this as dimension time having three variable expressions but our sensing being limited to only the present variable, but that's for another discussion, perhaps).

With the above tedium offered as a base for conceptualization and hopefully discussion, should a flatlander discover some three-variable thing that intersects his two variable space, he might, after extensive experiences with the portion 'in his universe', begin to conjecture over what might be the greater essence of this oddity, and that assumption that it is an oddity might follow from extensive and careful observation and measurement of the intersecting portion conspicuously missing some greater portion not readily observable to the flatlander ... as differing portions of the three-variable thing intersect flatland, the summing of the data might infer a three-variable object, though the flatlander wouldn't likely have a belief system to express this oddity in its fullness. He might then devise one --devise a belief system heavy with conjecture and short on measurements-- and that new way of thinking about the oddity would be a 'meta-physical' conjecture.

Isn't this the sort of thing we have with religious belief systems?... Has humankind, confronted with a series of events where greater realities have intersected our spacetime, devised a way to conceptualize this realm and the beings and forces of this realm?

How do you know there is anything not bound by the laws of physics, outside time and space, unless you can perceive outside time and space? With the above thought line offered, it is unreasonable to infer it is possible to form conjecture regarding that which is not bound by our 'laws of physics' as we presently understand them. A sun centered solar system was meta-physical theory until the minds came to grasp the notion and devised ways to make measurements and observations. Regarding the soul and spirit, such conjectures follow from the summing of events and experience where a greater dimensional being or system has repeatedly intersected our realm of understanding. I would suggest that the life lived on earth by one Jesus of Nazareth, is just such an event, and the entirety of the things people reported of Him and His acts. Such experience and the faith associated to the reporting leads to a meta-physical belief system, but to assume such a system is invalid is a bit dismissive, don't you think?

How do you know your soul is between the two? How do you know what it is you are experiencing? In point of fact, since the experiences and the belief system are not confined to the 'laws of physics', there is no way at present to 'know' in the sense of physical proofs, a massive body of physical data which can be measured and theorized over and experiments devised to 'falsify' for scientific purposes. There are however data to mull over. The placebo effect in medicine may be closely associated to the 'meta-physical' portion of our existence ... inferring, of course, that we have a component of our existence --the soul and spirit-- that is not bound solely by the 'laws of physics' as we understand them, presently. The fact that 'prayer changes things', that miraculous healings can occur would seem to point heavily to reality as yet beyond our 'laws of physics'. I won't argue over miracles, since even medical science is coming to accept that there such healings that remian unexplanable in our current understanding.] And there are other issues which may well point to the intersection of 'greater than our spacetime' realities. [I've cited Angelic visitations as one such body of testimony, and I wouldn't like to go in that tangent as yet.] As long as we dwell in flatland, we cannot dwell in the greater universe where our soul and spirit may already have unmeasured connection.

Ping-a-ling

Originally, I thought you had a sincere question about my meaning in earlier posts. I attempted to make that meaning clear. You evidently have chosen to think I am interested in debating these issues. I am not.

I said: I have nothing to prove. I'm not trying to prove others do not have some other way to the truth than reason. I only stated that I do not know and cannot imagine what it is. If anyone wants to convince me they can know something without reason, I believe I have a responsibility to ask, how?

You said: This is disingenuous special pleading. You made an assertion not borne out by your arguments, then suggested that others are obliged to show differently.

Ask what you like, but your responsibility is to support your assertions.

I am not assserting anything, I am denying. I am denying mysticism. I am denying the existense of that for which there is neither material or logical evidence. I am denying fairies and trolls and goblins have any existense except the imaginary. I am denying that which is asserted by all those who believe there is any kind of knowledge other than what is derived rationally. I am denying what you assert.

But, even if I were asserting anything, I am under no obligation to prove it to anyone else. The pupose of logical proof is to ensure one's own reasoning is correct and to protect against errors, not to prove things to other people. While I am always more than happy to explain why I hold the views I do, I neither demand or expect others to agree, unless their own reasoning leads them to the same conclusions.

Your repeated demands that I defend or prove my, "assertion," are asking me to prove a negative, which you know is not possible. If you know there is some other means to knowledge than reason, you have the advantage of me. If not for any other reason, then out of kindness, why wouldn't you want to at least give me hint of what that source is, or how it works, or at least show me how to discover it?

If you did this, I could no longer say I had no evidence or reason to at least suspect there might be another way to knowledge. Instead I could say, "look here, Sabertooth showed me this, and, by golly, there might actually be something to this mysticism thing after all."

In the meantime, I will go on in my ignorance, "asserting," I do not know of any other means to knowledge than reason, and no one else has ever presented me with any evidence or arguement for any such means. I must presume, until someone does present such evidence, anything anyone claims to believe which they admit is not based on reason, is merely superstition.

I have no interest in convincing you or anyone else to give up their superstitions. Most of the world is steeped in superstiton. If the ruin they make of their own lives and the disasters they make of their nations following their superstitions does not convince them of their folly, no amount of reason or argument is going to convince them. Only fools waste their time trying to change others.

Thanks for the interesting discussion. You have helped me clarify some of my views. I appreciate that.

Hank

I don't understand those that stumble around in darkness rather than hit the light switch on the wall next to them. The bible makes it very clear why the universe is, what's going to happen to it, and what happens to us after death, and after the big crunch.

There is no need for speculation other than for the fun of it I suppose. But it's like having all the answers to a test and then debating why the answers were correct even after you have received your A+. I have never understood this refusing to crack the Book open and read it as reality.

God gave us some of His names, "I Am", a bi"O"nary Yes, as science says, everything breaks down to yes or no. "I Am the Alpha and the Omega, the begining and the end", is this one so very hard to figgure out for the scientific mind? I would hope not.

What about when the sun burns out? Who cares? According to scripture we will no longer need the sun in the future. This and all kinds of questions are answered for those that simply read the truth in the pages of the Bible and realize that this is our reality.

What we term the "miracles" of Jesus, He would most likely term something beyond Quantum Mechanics. He created the universe, and he certainly gave ample evidence that He knows how to manipulate it. The universe has it's physical end, the crunch perhaps, a dimension meld perhaps, and on the other side is "all things new", "world without end", not "all new things" and not one life that ever was is lost, but renewed to be judged and kept or eliminated.

If science can catch up with reality, well and good. But what is recorded in those pages is reality, even more so than the desk holding your monitor up.

I am not assserting anything, I am denying. I am denying mysticism. I am denying the existense of that for which there is neither material or logical evidence. I am denying fairies and trolls and goblins have any existense except the imaginary. I am denying that which is asserted by all those who believe there is any kind of knowledge other than what is derived rationally. I am denying what you assert.
But, even if I were asserting anything, I am under no obligation to prove it to anyone else. The pupose of logical proof is to ensure one's own reasoning is correct and to protect against errors, not to prove things to other people. While I am always more than happy to explain why I hold the views I do, I neither demand or expect others to agree, unless their own reasoning leads them to the same conclusions.

Your repeated demands that I defend or prove my, "assertion," are asking me to prove a negative, which you know is not possible.

Correct. Yet you asserted the negative anyway, and continue to do so.
That you can't prove it doesn't change it's nature; it's an assertion.
How can an unprovable assertion be arrived at through reason alone?

Thanks for the interesting discussion. You have helped me clarify some of my views. I appreciate that.

Likewise. I appreciate your civility even when I've been contentious.

Thank you for your post!

I did not intend either statement in the last paragraph of my post to describe you. I would have no way of knowing.

Thank you so much for the heads up to your analysis! Hugs!

For what it's worth ...

There may well be a component of imagining that is 'meta-physical' in the phenomenon, Hank.

Your point of view is very important to me.

Maybe your 6th sense is not fully developed.

That must be it.

I left something you said untouched, but I'd like to come back to it.

I said: The ego is like a heavy weight that grounds us from worship.

You said: The ego is the only reason you do worship, to save it. (uncbuck)

That is not true in my case. I love Him more than anything, including my own life which I do not value over anyone else's. If His will required my destruction then I would be happier that His will be done than I would be sad over my own fate.

I did not intend either statement in the last paragraph of my post to describe you. I would have no way of knowing.

Ok, since you were posting to me I thought maybe you were referring to me. Sorry if I sounded strident, but I think you know I mean no harm. I just have lots of questions.

I don't understand those that stumble around in darkness rather than hit the light switch on the wall next to them.

How did you come to pick the Bible as your light switch as opposed to the Koran? If an alien from another world visited us, someone who was unfamiliar with any of our planet's "light switches," how would you convince him that your light switch was better than all the others?

I should have checked more wording more carefully before pressing "post." I apologize for the misunderstanding.