American issues of Christianity, cosmology, politics, ecosphere, philosophy, contemporary history etc
1/19/25
Necessary Being in relation to Contingent Being
1/17/25
Can Humans Know What's Really Real?
The blind man and the elephant seems an apt comparison. Humans can only know what is given, and that given is reality for humans. When other humans have similar experiences and when mathematics provides information concerning the structure of reality as knowable there is knowledge of the reality that humans encounter being formalized. That is pragmatic and useful.
Explorers could ever only discover phenomena and not noumena. They may use an associahedrons to find the scattering patterns and models of new particles yet not see with their own eyes the quantum realm of fermions. https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2024/10/associahedra_in_quantum_field.html
The Universe itself may be ungrounded; suspended in nothingness without boundaries, rhyme or reason for being except the will of God; or for unbelievers postulating a Cod of the Gaps to escape quantum fields perhaps expanding while dispersing with entropy and salvation.
Uncertainty and gaps; spacing intervals, being and non being, form and substance plus colors in some light allow the common experience for humanity. Human reality could be inside a kachinka doll or recursive puzzle box with greater and lesser realities.
People need understand first what is given and proximal and perhaps non-local too sometime and speculate with metaphysics from the known; like Plato’s troglodyte prisoners, with logical inference, science and with whatever revealed knowledge from a superior being may be provided.
A question; how is an 'absolute' truth different from a truth? Kierkegaard hated Hegel's use of the word absolute. He thought it wasn't meaningful. Maybe he would have used Hume's metaphysical non-sense shears on it.
What I know of the Higgs field, massless particles beyond it, a pluralized unified field with finite content and non- locality brings me to a point of reserve and a little optimism about increasing understanding of the evident. If mind interacts with shaping experience there might be an order to.that as well. Standard forms seem like an ordinary presentation of the known.
I like some of the explanations for how optical organs developed finding light. So for whatever reason bodies that are entanglements of fermions configured themselves within overlapping fields derived from a unified field and sought energy. Sentients in time thought about the quanta that comprise substance then became skeptical about what reality is.
Entangled in the Higgs field like the goat in the bush that substituted for Isaac as a sacrifice, the question arises of the extent that observation collapses the wave function of elements comprising the observed since non- locality was confirmed. Can one have an organic naive reality simultaneously with one viewed more from a quantum relativity paradigm in which mind is determining much of what it observes simply because it observed. Can that be consistent with organisms just inputting energy in a natural order. Do fire ants eating meat stop biting if one sleeps?
Bishop Berkeley's ideaism criterion remains possible even within a concurrent natural order. The Higgs field phenomena may be contingent to an unknown extent. Ideaism on a quantum, non-local form is ponderable.
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Cod of the Gaps Theories
God may have created an evolving Universe in an instant or billions of years. Consider this however,; time and space are of a unified field processing entropy like a drop of oil in water breaking up into smaller drops. Time has no reality beyond the field.
1/15/25
Unscientific Generalities on the Etiology of Religion
I am very cool on archetypes of collective subconsciousness such as Jung developed as a theory. The concept of projections is equally dubious today. As applied to God it conflates history at a massive scale positing a common cause for events and ideas that are mostly lost from history. One tribe may have had a different reason for beginning an idea than another. In the case of Abraham, that wasn't a collective experience. It was an individual, personal encounter. David Rosenberg wrote a biography for Abraham that is a very interesting read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/502016.Abraham
The Tower was one of Jung’s archetypes as well as a novel by Stephen King. People today ought to be able to sort out their ideas about reality and know what they think about particular aspects of it. There is a tendency toward postulating a common explanation without much basis for a panoply of events that are selected and lumped together. Conscious ideas about reality differ from those of the subconscious and tend to arise from experience and education. There is a field of study called the history of ideas. Generally they require pretty good support for the origin of ideas in order not to be myths themselves.
Consider the Japanese Shinto religion for example. Where did the idea of Tori-spirit gates arise? I don’t know. Here is a good mythical account though that differs from some sort of common human projection…
A warlord made an heroic last stand in the gate of a wooden fortress on fire. His clan saw his dedication to defeating the overwhelming power of the enemy, yet at last, overcome by wounds he fell to his knees and was then beheaded. His forces were being driven back at the sight of their fallen leader. Just then a great eagle descended from the sky amidst the battle landing atop the gate and the warriors of the fallen hero knew the spirit of the warlord had returned. They rallied and drove back the enemy to the sea. Thereafter the spirit gate was recognized as a place where the spirits of the dead returned to help those still living in the world.
Pagan religion may have each had a different origin. In some cases kings simply declared themselves to be a god. Jews, Christians and Muslims share a common origin of their faith through Abraham and successors that wasn’t a projection of consciousness comparable to the origin of polytheists and numerous other belief systems. It is easy to construct a generality as an explanation for the unknown, yet unscientific.
1/13/25
The Universe Isn't Made of Algorithms
Algorithms occur in an incomplete paradigm where a sum or answer is wanted. Much of the Universe may be in a Algorithms are structures; structures used to process information or data points presented within someone’s lexicon universe. Like D9 caterpillars AI can push a lot of stuff. Is the Universe made of algorithms? No.
Algorithms exists in the universe though, in some way.
I like the new structure associahedrons used for calculating particle interaction. Quantum entanglement that occurs possibly even at billions of light years distance isn’t likely to perform algorithms, unless a designer made it so, instead there should a direct relationship. rather than a calculating continuum although change seems perpetual from a human perspective.
There are responsive structures in the Universe at some scale greater than the four dimensions of space-time. I don’t believe that is machine learning or deep learning or neural network algorithmic structures.
https://youtu.be/UhG56kltfP4?feature=shared
1/12/25
Fate or Joss
I tend to think of fate as joss. That is whatever occurs happens. My regard is to consider it a post hoc description of what happened.
The Chinese derived joss from a Portuguese term for God. In the Chinese culture it can mean fate or luck.
So I regard fate as a kind of gestalt or complete complex of compresence. A scene such as that in 1812 where Napoleon views a corpse resplendent in an officers uniform on a battlefield and declares “voila, a splendid death!”. That is joss or fate.
Yet as a Christian I believe God has an intention for the world. Details are beyond my pay grade.
On the Kingdom of God
There won’t be a perfect world political order until the Second Coming. Worldly systems are made by sinful humans and they eventually fail.
I like to write on a variety of philosophical issues yet sometimes feel a response to attacks on Christians is warranted, especially since they usually aren’t erudite or scholarly in nature and can use a modicum of edification.
Pragmatist Truth Parameters
A Pragmatist Truth paradigm seems to be somewhat of a verficationist paradigm. Socrates said that true belief and knowledge are equivalent. Truth values are found with verification and usefulness of something asserted as fact. That is not the same as saying that such a thing as truth-in-itself exists as a realist entity. Instead it is a neo-realist description.
If one says that AX is Z, and then tests the proposition finding that AX necessitates Z commutatively, and Z works in algorithms just like AX then it is true to say that AX and Z are equivalent.
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1/10/25
Nature Gets Rid of "Things That Do Not Work"?
1/2/25
Why Pantheism is an Incorrect Assumption
12/31/24
Faith vs Original Sin/Matthew 18:2-3
Sin means to miss the mark of.
The famous analogy is that of an archer missing the bullseye.
Humanity is in a containment facility for the sin of the first people. They came to reach self awareness and were as little Gods. That is the learned the difference between good and evil unlike animals that simply kill and eat without sin. Humans were given a temporal existence with brief life spans. God did not want people to live forever with their willful disobedience.
Children are born with original sin and are in the thermodynamic field inputting energy to exist. Most perped sins besides the original are related to that.
Children though have naive trust in their parents and faith in them (unless the parents are wicked, abusive or neglectful). Becoming as little children probably means having true faith in Christ-regardless of what sophists and scoffers say.
Matthew 18:2-3, which says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.
12/30/24
Metaphysics
12/28/24
Some Want Scientific Proof of God
Free Will in Relation to Consciousness and Subconsciousness
Will is contingent upon consciousness. If one has consciousness one may choose to act or not. Some say conscious decisions to act are not made by consciousness, instead they believe conditioning subconsciously determines conscious decisions.
The will exists in the sub conscious and it is free. Otherwise there would be a lower level, more primary set of instructions controlling the sub conscious and a superfluous deceived consciousness.
Consciousness exists supported by the subconscious. It is not possible for human consciousness to keep all of their experience, memories, judgments and history active in conscious thoughts. Instead there is an innate middle ground of intellect that retrieves data from the subconscious in accord with conscious thought and the lesser intelligent yet active and closer related to emotion will.
Will exist as a modified reflection of conscious thought that needn’t be mentally, internally expressed in order to be present and act. It can retrieve subconscious information for consciousness and may also join with conscious thought and be directed by it. An aware mind freely chooses to act. Thought is in harmony with the will and subconscious usually, yet on some occasions they may not. An example may be a conscious choice to act peacefully while the will is to punch an offender as memory informs the mind of dire consequences of taking the latter course
I have heard a song or thought of something I can’t recall like the title of that song, and directed my subconscious to find it. Some time later the right idea appears in my conscious thought.
A human mind is a continuum of conscious, will and sub-consciousness that each have intelligence. Will and subconscious work for the conscious mind. It is a trinity that works.
https://www.udio.com/songs/u9qu6CYDEWTyZih3sjGd1P
12/27/24
Humans May Have Evolved From Rats; Adam and Eve Were Spliced In
Humans May Have Evolved From Rats Named Purgatoriuos 65 Million Years BC
I had a concentration in history in college and learned a lot from the past. I wouldn’t suggest people can’t learn from the past-
Agriculture developed when hunting and gathering couldn’t sustain concentrated populations in towns. The transition period was 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Hunter-gathering was the way of economics before that going back to when people started eating meat as the human line may have evolved from rodents circa 65 million years BC (Adam and Eve were spliced in to an existing human line).
https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/our-earliest-primate-ancestors-rapidly-spread-after-dinosaur-extinction
When people sustained with agriculture could sustain civil organizations with rulers organized wars began. Raiders had something established to attack and civil wars could occur as well for regime change. Organized wars started during the late Neolithic Age too.
https://www.history.com/news/when-did-humans-start-waging-wars
An excavation of Cohokia in St. Louis showed that the preceding ruling dynasty members were ceremonially killed when a new ruling family took over. So it’s an American tradition too.
Metaphysics; What It Is
Metaphysics is an activity. It can use many kinds of tools. It is bigger and smaller, simultaneously, than a bread box while being for-itself.
Free Will; A Binary Question
To be or not to be; that is an example of a binary absolute.In logic and programming there are disjuncts. A logic gate tests for a condition to be on or off. Schrodinger’s cat could live in a state compatible with life and death simultaneously, in theory, until collapse of the wave-function, however that super-position status doesn’t work for all mortal philosophical questions. Either/Or, Neither,/Nor are disjuncts of a sort. One shouldn’t expect philosophy to invariably provide weak, vague, uncertain answers and represent them as Truth because political correctness suggests that constructing ideas that will appeal somewhat to everyone returns the most demographic support.
Free will seems to be a question that cannot support affirmative and negative conditions on the same level, or on all possible dimensions.
It is also the case that people want to defend what they believe and sometimes strongly when they don’t realize they are wrong and are duty bound by themselves to defend their wrong, godless atheist opinions.
Marxism; Good Revolution Organizer for a Bad Economic System
Marxism is a practical idea for organizing revolutionaries that are from underdeveloped countries with concentrated wealth. The masses are led to class consciousness as oppressed, exploited people and brought to revolution with the belief they will share equally the wealth of the ruling class when they are deposed. That idea of upward mobility supports the revolutionary esprit. With victory the economic revolution following becomes a challenge to make productive. Alec Nove wrote a book named ‘An Economic History of the Soviet Union’ decades ago that examines some of the problems for Lenin and Stalin.
Marx had good sociological understanding of wealth in England that was his model. He had poor development of post-revolutionary economic models that would work. That sort of economic theory development has always been troublesome. China for instance is a work in progress that has used much of the economic structure of the West retrofitted onto Maoist socialism.
Sports as War Training and Gambling are Still Socially Ubiquitous
Gambling seems to be taking over sports. Betting on events on-line at a profusion of new sites is all over the internet People need on-line electronic gambling machines from international sites. Competition is part of the human condition from wars to martial arts. If WW 3 occurs soon because of competition to own Ukraine and for economic hegemony over the world, that’s because competition is more highly regarded than pragmatism, realism and cooperation.
Sports were developed as training for war. Competition among men to see who could throw a rock or spear farther, and the prestige of skill in hunting and self defense were important to tribes. Warrior and hunter were the original male occupations globally.
I had a concentration in history in college and learned a lot from the past. I wouldn't suggest people can't learn from the past- that's silly.
Agriculture developed when hunting and gathering couldn't sustain concentrated populations in towns. The transition period was 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Hunter-gathering was the way of economics before that going back to when people started eating meat as the human line may have evolved from rodents circa 65 million years BC (Adam and Eve were spliced in to an existing human line).
https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/.../our-earliest-primate...
When people sustained with agriculture could sustain civil organizations with rulers organized wars began. Raiders had something established to attack and civil wars could occur as well for regime change. Organized wars started during the late Neolithic Age too.
https://www.history.com/.../when-did-humans-start-waging...
An excavation of Cohokia in St. Louis showed that the preceding ruling dynasty members were ceremonially killed when a new ruling family took over. So it's an American tradition too.
V Frankl Thought People Seek Pleasure if Life Seems Meaningless
Frankl was profoundly influenced by his time in. Nazi concentration camp. He developed theories about recovery and finding meaning afterward.
Those finding life meaningless may not be able to afford pleasure. Such people may feel that without pleasure, life is meaningless.
This prompts me to mention Huizinga, a ubiquitous citation reference in the field of education who was an historian regarded as a quintessential humanist. I don’t find Huizinga interesting or a meaningful philosopher as others have yet he did rather invent or popularize the notion that play is the creator of culture. It is understandable that teachers regarded Huizinga as the greatest scholar of the last 25 years of the 19th century. I thought Sartre and the Apostle Paul distant runner-ups to what Jesus said.
The death camps were unthinkably bad and existential crisis for sure. Europe has a great history of pathos and stupidity concerning conflict and with President Biden’s help is experiencing a Renaissance of pathos in the Ukraine War.
The meaninglessness of pathos may transform the USA, Europe, Russia and China into Ukraine s in the fires of the future. Pleasure is kinda expensive for many of the poor who need satisfy themselves for meaning with observation of the Democrats leading the charge to apocalypse or large waves of disaster scheduled tentatively for 2025.
What is Meant by 'Atheists Have No Morals'
Divine command moral norms following Moses and Deuteronomy were plain and simple. Alternatively modern godless individuals haven’t anything ...
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Here and there pointillist continua build rowing the skiff clambering over the road staying in shadows until spring insouciant compact snow ...
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Alaskan officials have cut down or banned King Salmon fishing in much of Alaska because so few of the large fish are returning. The Ancho...
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Why do F-22 pilots lose consciousness and let their planes crash and burn? The air superiority fighters are designed to survive oppositio...