Best of the Fray

yes.

Isonomist — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:11:44 GMT

like crossing from thinking to being.

Thanks once more.

um, no.

Isonomist — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:56:40 GMT

It's out there but you can't get to it, so it's not really there at all.

That's demonstrably untrue. There are any number of true but inaccessible things that affect us in profound ways, which means, they are really there.

Life impervious to logic.

Camille Claudel — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:53:36 GMT

I don't know what you mean, and you don't know what you mean either. Godel gave us nothing on Bush, and he'd be surely offended that you think there was some relevance.

Still shows the limits of rationalism.

Fritz Gerlich — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:12:25 GMT

Unboundedness (=undefined) is inherently non-rational. Not necessarily irrational, but it still doesn't fit within any classical rational system. You may walk purposefully in a straight line forever, but if you're walking on a treadmill you won't get anywhere.

I'm not sure how to say this, but

Fritz Gerlich — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:05:27 GMT

perhaps 20 years ago all those books would have meant something to me. Now, I would read any of them out of idle curiosity at best. Somewhere I crossed an inner Great Divide: It's not about proving anything to anybody. Even me. It's quite difficult to put the feeling into words. I sometimes say it was like crossing from thinking to being. There was no longer anything to search for, discover, formulate, or argue about. I had something . . . but what it was, I didn't know, would never know, would never be able to say; and that was quite all right.

I can try to share this with other people (I do so very sparingly), but that usually isn't successful, because I know they can't understand what I'm talking about and I have no way to make it clear to them. I don't even care about making it clear. There is nothing to explain. It's as if you could stare at a flame and see every individual molecular transaction at its core. You wouldn't care about anything else. You would be hypnotized. That's how I feel.

This consciousness is not unbroken, but I have learned that I can return to it whenever I choose. It wants nothing from me, nor do I want anything from it. It implies no doctrine--certainly, it has nothing to do with any religion as a social or cultural phenomenon. It doesn't, God knows, make me a better person. It doesn't even have a name, or need one. The single thing I can do is accept its purity. That's what it's all about: purity. Purity is the great unmet need of the human soul.

Forget the books for a while. Blackburn, Armstrong and all the others are merely players on a stage. You will find no answers in them, because the only question that matters is not in your head. It's in your heart. It's in your guts. And the only answer you will find will be like mine: singular, inexplicable, incommunicable, radiant, and infinitely precious.

It's called the apophatic tradition.

Zeus-Boy — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:20:13 GMT

Must be something in the Zeitgeist because reviewed in today's Guardian are three books on the topic of this discussion: Simon Blackburn reviews Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, and Jonathan Bartley reviews God is Back, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, and Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, by Terry Eagleton.

Blackburn's essay is very good. He says Armstrong's answer to questions such as mine [after writing 15 books] is silence. She argues to try to define God or Faith is a mistake. "God is a symbol, not a name, and any word falls short of describing what it symbolizes, and will always be inadequate, contradictory, metaphorical or allegorical." She goes on to write that "God is an understanding without any describable content," and she quotes Wittgenstein on Faith, it is "an inner process that stands in need of outward criteria."

The Eagleton book is a response to the Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris and basically argues that religion should not be viewed as offering a rival view of the universe to science.

squares work for me

Days — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:10:03 GMT

there's a difference between perfection and completion. If you can't complete the division, and if pi is defined by that division (instead of a fraction), then circles are not complete.... they will forever dangle in limbo, waiting for a better way to define their area; tsk, tsk. I was also taught that pi varies with the size of the circle, that we just use 3.1416 as a standard but it isn't the truth for every size circle. So circles have this skeleton in their closet, you just can't trust 'em.

the human mind is even more faulty, as you pointed out, it runs in circles and if not tamed, tends to explode. The big problem there is all the skeletons in our collective closet, if our leaders would stop running us in circles and give us a square deal.... like, honest money.... but that will never happen.

The best we can hope for is an honest boss and fair treatment. I square up with my boss each week. Even if I am short on hours and worried about holding the family budget together, at least I know that I am paid a fair amount for the work I did perform. Fair as square.

A long time ago, I explained to Geoff that his reasoning was circular, but he never got it, or, at least, he never changed his process. His work on these boards, which was far greater than my own contributions, were still incomplete... he left us with a feeling, like, "wait, there's more to come, right? This can't be the full explanation." That was the effect of his circular reasoning.

My posts always square up with the reader. I might make a mistake here or there, but you know what the post is saying. There is a solid feeling, actual substance, because they say things in straight lines. I get strong rebuttals because that's what happens when you make a strong point.

squares work for me

p.s. love the nic

It was a trick question

ducadmo — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:27:23 GMT

Münchhausen says yes, but he had a hair-raising time of it. But the Omega Man says no, in fact, he says some truth is purely random.

Add this to those antinomies and paradoxes:

Fritz Gerlich — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:24:33 GMT

those who say do not know and those who know do not say. I'm going back to my Alp now. Never should have come down in the first place.

Re: circles are also geometric constructs

Teayser — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:15:23 GMT

But we're not working in the au naturale, we're in the abstract, where you think, you think some more, you think until it hurts and when it feels like the thinking is going to explode your brain you push to break through the wall.

Is it your contention that something that 'goes on forever' cannot be complete? If it is I might argue that something that 'goes on forever' is in fact, perfect. And if something is perfect, then certainly it has to be complete.

Or maybe squares.

Re: Are there

Acrophony — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:28:05 GMT

Yes.

Are there

ducadmo — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:23:57 GMT

an infinite number of rule based systems?

Bad inference

Acrophony — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:33:56 GMT

You can't get from Godel's proof to the following:

"We can see the limits of rationalism - there are truths that we can know, but never prove and there are truths that we can never know."

Godel showed that any particular axiomatic system can't prove certain truths WITHIN THAT SYSTEM. We could, if we wanted, switch to another axiomatic system to prove that truth. So basically you're over generalizing by dropping out the qualification on Godel's assertion. There are things we can know and never prove - WITHIN ONE PARTICULAR SYSTEM OF RULES. If you want to prove it, then switch to another system of rules. There's no rule (hahaha) against doing so. Since there are an infinite number of rule based systems there is no problem proving anything we'd like to prove.

Re: Let me ask you a few direct questions.

firstphone — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:43:25 GMT

Ducadmo is to be commended for taking on the unbeliever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temptation_of_Christ

Silly answer.

Zeus-Boy — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:41:03 GMT

From a guy who knows everything.