(Part 2) Best metaphysics books according to redditors
We found 242 Reddit comments discussing the best metaphysics books. We ranked the 95 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
It's not so much a return to religion as it is the evolution and adaptation of Marx and Feuerbach to today's left. Additional analysis and review is always beneficial, though it's clearly not the religious analysis of its forefathers. In my mind, religion in communist thought can be broken into three basic streams:
> Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
AND
> My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man,
> believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work,
> candidates for the hereafter into students of the world, Christians
> who, by their own procession and admission, are "half animal, half
> angel" into persons, into whole persons.
Basically what I'm saying is that the new analyses of religion in communist thought exist to add more options so as not to exclude the religious and agnostic.
NOTE -- I don't know why I wrote anything after this point. It's basically a book/theme review. I spent time on it, so I left it here. Maybe someone will enjoy it.
Eagleton's flops around quite a bit. Literary Theory spends the majority of its time bashing postmodernism but his later After Theory narrows the argument to defining absolutes (the human body) and a need for an objective morality that sounds an awful lot like humanism. As far as contributing to communist studies, I don't consider Eagleton an authority on the subject. For example, Why Marx was Right makes no rational or coherent economic arguments for communism. His communism is a result of his faith, not the other way around. Obviously there's a strong moral argument to be made for communism but if that argument is to be made from any other standpoint than humanism I would count it as counterproductive.
As for Zizek, he's clearly not religious and enjoys adapting the Marx/Feuerbach analyses to (post)modern thought. He's sort of the anti-Eagleton in that regard. His work on religion in particular ranges from interesting to absolutely fantastic.
From The Puppet and the Dwarf:
> It is possible today to redeem this core of Christianity only in the
> gesture of abandoning the shell of its institutional organization (and
> even more so, of its specific religious experience). The gap here is
> irreducible: either one drops the religious form, or one maintains the
> form but lose the essence. This is the ultimate heroic gesture that
> awaits Christianity: in order to save its treasure, it has to sacrifice
> itself -- like Christ, who had to die so that Christianity could emerge.
Zizek's analysis of religion isn't always directly from a communist standpoint, though Freud/Lacan are acceptable substitutes in a pinch.
As for Vattimo, I've yet to read Hermeneutic Communism even though I've had it sitting around for a while. His previous work on religion has been very solid. That being said, if you're not one for postmodernism it really isn't something you'll enjoy.
BONUS: If you're interested in reading any of the material listed by these authors, please PM me. I have PDF/MOBI copies available. If I don't have it, I'll help you find it.
I'll post a comment in reply to this one with links to all the files I upload as not to have duplicates.
The reasons are based on reciprocal altruism. Essentially it turns out that in biological evolution, the best strategy is to help others, unless they do not help you. As the link says, this is similar to the game theory concept of tit for tat.
It is more complex than that of course, if you are interested in a more in depth analysis of the biological basis for morality, I suggest Lyall Watson's "Dark Nature".
Thanks for the response. I'll give a sparce reading list, as I find it pretty extensive.
Zizek:
Zizek has plenty of essays and talks floating around as well, but these books are probably the best--the first and second are the most sustained, the third is a lengthy essay making use of theological resources. The fourth contains essays by Eagleton, Vattimo, and Badiou. The fifth is one where he dialogues with theologians about St. Paul. The sixth is a debate with a theologian about theology. The final is a great collection of people all across the board, mostly Marxists, dealing with theology.
Vattimo:
Eagleton:
Eagleton also specializes in short and helpful articles.
Badiou:
Misc. Authors too extensive to list:
Secondary Literature:
Hopefully someone comes by and expands this list. I've gotta get back to work.
> religious people now decide that the Bible is still true, it just not literal.
Well, evolution could be God's method of creating humans. There is more potential for nuance here than most believers would admit. Nicolas of Cusa and others claimed that God's creation was complete, meaning he created everything that could logically exist. This entails an infinite creation that exhausts the extent of possibility. Transitioning our language to modern science, that is compatible (I did not say it predicted) an inflationary multiverse in which every possible world, and every possible version of life, is created, over and over.
I'm not arguing that we have reason to believe in God. I'm an atheist. I'm merely arguing that some variants of theology are compatible with modern cosmology and evolutionary theory. I'm basically attempting to build a bridge from Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno to modern inflationary cosmology. The bridge is for those who see the world through theology, not for the atheists to come over to the dark side. I started fiddling with this idea while reading the fascinating book The Great Chain of Being.
Again, I'm not arguing for God. I'm just trying to persuade some people who do believe in God that there are some variants of theology that are compatible with modern cosmology and evolutionary theory.
Richard Taylor provides an interesting design argument that doesn't have anything to do with the "Intelligent Design movement" or "Paley's Watchmaker" or related arguments concerning complexity.
Representation as Indication of Design
What he argues is that design is indicated if there is some object/structure/symbol that accurately represents something beyond itself. So for example if we see a complex arrangement of rocks on the ground, this by itself is not enough to infer design. Taylor points out that we know of many non-intelligent processes that can produce complexity and symmetry, such as snowflakes (and, presumably, biological organisms).
But consider if these rocks are arranged to say "Beyond that hill is a village called the Shire." And we then walk over the hill and indeed see a village with a sign indicated it is the Shire. In this case, it is not just the complex and symmetrical arrangement of rocks that indicate design, but the fact that they accurately represent something specific beyond themselves (the village). In Carl Sagan's Contact, it was not just a regular blinking of a radio beacon that indicated design (which happens due to non-intelligent processes like quasars), but that the beacon represented prime numbers specifically (something beyond the radio itself) that made the astronomers sit up and take notice.
Mental Events as Representation
So when something represents something beyond itself, we take this to be evidence of design. But what about our thoughts? Doesn't the arrangement of firing neurons in my head represent something beyond itself? Right now I'm thinking about design arguments. The firing neurons in my head are arranged in a complex and particular way which, like the rocks or snowflake, doesn't indicate design. But those activated neurons represent something beyond themselves (design arguments), so this does indicate design. The human mind was designed by something intelligent.
Whether correct or not, I think it certainly presents a more interesting design argument than watchmakers and, perhaps, fine tuning as well.
I'm in a similar boat as you; interested in continental, but surrounded by a lot of analytics.
Hegel is notorious for being dense and difficult to read, and while he was incredibly influential on many later continental thinkers, I don't think anyone who really wanted to help you get into continental philosophy would have you start on Hegel, unless they were committed to reading through it with you.
Heidegger's maybe a bit less obtuse at times, but he can also be confusing if you don't have a professor or more experienced student guiding you along. I asked a professor where I should start, and he recommended his published lecture notes from The History of the Concept of Time, which I admittedly haven't finished yet, but he spends a lot of time in it explaining Husserl's philosophy of phenomenology, which is crucial for understanding Heidegger, as well as a number of other continental thinkers.
As for some easier continental-esque thinkers, there are some that I think are a bit more accessible. Bear in mind that there isn't exactly a group of thinkers who all signed a document saying they were continental philosophers, but there are a number who seem to run in the tradition, and many others who were at the very least related to them.
To begin, I'd recommend some Kierkegaard. He was a Christian philosopher, and is often considered to be one of the earliest existentialist philosopher's. He did a number of works on concepts of faith, anxiety, dread and other elements of the human condition, adding his own angles on them to apply them to Christian philosophy. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms in order to create a number of different perspectives, although underlying all the chaos was a desire to get you to start thinking for yourself. A good place to start with him would be Fear and Trembling. Many of his ideas were influential on continental thinkers such as Heidegger, Jaspers and Sartre.
To go in a very different direction, Nietzsche is another thinker who was very influential on many continental philosophers. The self-declared Anti-Christ, he basically believed that we are about to enter a post-God world, with his writings often either trying to burn our bridges back to the Church or trying to point us in a new direction. Like Kierkegaard, he doesn't always say what he means directly, but much of his philosophy is ultimately aimed at getting you to start thinking for yourself. I'd recommend this anthology, as it contains a number of pretty crucial writings of his.
If after this you're still interested in Heidegger, I don't have as much background there, although I've read a few of his Basic Writings, which is a collection of essays of his. In one of my classes, we also read an essay from his Pathmarks which wasn't terribly dense, so that might be a nice place to start as well. Being and Time is generally considered to be his most important work, but it's renowned for being dense and difficult, although there are a number of commentaries on that book alone that may prove useful.
For one final recommendation, I'll throw in Kaufmann's anothology of existential writings, which has a number of essays on existentialism, which was heavily tied to many core continental thinkers.
And I wouldn't worry about your roommate.
Anyone who specializes in this, please correct me or nuance this out.
>The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express -- that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false. If, on the other hand, the putative proposition is of such a character that the assumption of its truth, or falsehood, is consistent with any assumption whatsoever concerning the nature of his future experience, then, as far as he is concerned, it is, if not a tautology, a mere pseudo-proposition. The sentence expressing it may be emotionally significant to him; but it is not literally significant. (Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, p. 16)
So important here is that:
He also later goes on to distinguish between "practical verifiability" (p. 16), which is more direct verification by experience; we could take steps to verify the proposition in relation to experience, and "verifiability in principle" (p. 16) says that there would be some sort of empirical experience that could be relevant to the proposition (even if we can't take steps to verify it now). He gives the example of mountains being on the far side of the moon. Back then they didn't have rockets to get there, or satellite telescopes, etc. But you can see how the matter of "There are mountains on the far side of the moon" could be decided by experience.
He also distinguishes between strong verifiability (p is strongly verifiable if and only if we can decide its truth based on experience) and weak verifiability (p is weakly verifiable if and only if we can decide its probability based on experience) (Ayer, LTL, p. 18). And it is this weak sense of verification that he takes as most important because it seems to him more usable (p. 147; see also Appendix The Principle of Verification, p. 171 ff).
This quote, though, probably gets to the heart of your question:
>Thus, while I wish the principle of verification itself be regarded, not as an empirical hypothesis, but as a definition, it is not supposed to be entirely arbitrary. It is indeed open to anyone to adopt a different criterion of meaning and so to produce an alternative definition which may very well correspond to one of the ways in which the word 'meaning' is commonly used. And if a statement satisfied such a criterion, there is, no doubt, some proper use of the word 'understanding' in which it would be capable of being understood. Nevertheless, I think that, unless it satisfied the principle of verification, it would not be capable of being understood in the sense which either scientific hypotheses or common-sense statements are habitually understood. I confess, however, that it now seems to me unlikely that any metaphysician would yield to a claim of this kind; and although I should still defend the use of the criterion of verifiability as a methodological principle, I realize that for the effective elimination of metaphysics it needs to be supported by detailed analyses of particular metaphysical arguments. (Ayer, LTL, Appendix, pp. 184-5)
So when we look at the principle of verification itself, it seems like it's not under the domain of itself. He was applying the principle of verification to statements. And the principle of verification is a criterion of meaning. It's because of Ayer's empirical commitments elsewhere that he adopts the principle of verification. I also think he sees verification as importantly allowing one to correctly predict future events or expectations (see p. 23).
TL;DR: Verifiability is a criterion and not a statement, so it doesn't need to pass the test. Moreover, it's through predictive success and methodological rigor (through empiricism) that the criterion can be justified.
Also, I think he might have later modified his stance on these issues very heavily. For more on this approach, see something like C.J. Misak's Verificationism.
If you're more comfortable with analytic philosophy, I have a few recommendations.
For Hegel, Brandom's still unpublished book is pretty much the best thing ever. He has drafts of it here. It's not the most impartial reading of Hegel (Brandom construes Hegel as to basically agree with him on everything), but it might be the most clear and charitable reading of Hegel.
For Heidegger, John Haugeland's book Dasein Disclosed is fantastic, and it also includes all of his papers on Heidegger as well.
What if...Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy
BlackdogLao's suggestion is excellent. I can't express how enthusiastically I'd like to suggest that course of action to you. However, you're going to have to broach the subject of philosophy, logic, or critical thinking, with a lot of rhetorical delicacy as well; these can be a charged terms in some circles, regarded as code-words for atheism indoctrination. You might want to try saying you want to teach her the trivium, which has positive associations in lots of Christian home-school circles. That said, here's a few things you may find useful in perusing this path:
Google search for the trivium (if you don't know about it, also proof for my claim about Christian-associations:)
http://tinyurl.com/7s9wj2w
Set of critical thinking books for Middle-school/High-school students. There's also, in the bookstore, books for younger and older learners:
http://www.criticalthinking.org/store/products/junior-highhigh-school-teacher-thinkeraeurotrades-guide-set/317
A history of philosophy in the form of a novel. Very readable.
http://www.amazon.com/Sophies-World-Novel-History-Philosophy/dp/1574530011
Collected thought experiments, which can be quite fun to puzzle over for an evening, and are great as paper-subjects.
http://www.amazon.com/What-If-Collected-Thought-Experiments-Philosophy/dp/0321202783/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342456932&sr=1-2&keywords=thought+experiments
Also, here's my favorite aggregator of online educational resources, Open Culture. Make sure to check out itunes u as well. It'll be awhile before she can use the university level material below, but there's a ton of stuff you can use to educate yourself so you can educate her, and also a lot of videos and stuff that might be appropriate.
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
The best online math education website. Try to show her math's fun, and it'll do wonders for her thinking and her grades later on.
http://www.khanacademy.org/
You also need to pay very close attention to her history education. Your ex-wife may destroy her understanding of early american history if she's a bad fundie.
Lastly, TRY as hard as you can not to counter-indoctrinate. You don't want a mom-vs-dad dynamic set up. This might sneak in, due to the emotionally charged nature of the situation. Be alert about your feelings while you educate! Try frank but delicate about the differences in your opinion, and, when possible, encourage her to weigh the sides herself and make her decision. There is a sense that all education before a certain point is indoctrination, however. If your ex-wife is straight up mis-representing the facts, there's going to be a degree of "well, Daddy thinks Mommy's wrong..." but that should be qualified by "but Daddy wants you to choose for yourself, and he loves you no matter what."
I don't want to seem patronizing - I'm sorry if I do. I'm just moved by the difficulty of your circumstances.
No problem!
Philosophy of time is an enormous area!
Not only are there many distinct positions that attempt to address the scientific and philosophical questions in different ways, there are different positions regarding the very method by which we should attempt to answer these questions! Some of these certainly overlap.
What do I mean by this?
Putting it roughly:
There are those who tend to think that we should use science to answer these questions about time. All we should care about is what observations are made; we should only care about the empirical data. These people might point to the great success of our best scientific theories that refer to 'time', such as those in physics, including; Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Entropy (The Arrow of Time), and even Quantum Theory, but also those in neuroscience and psychology, where our perception of time becomes relevant (such as the Inference Model of Time and the Strength Model of Time). So we have notions of physical/objective time, and subjective/mental time. We may talk about time slowing down around a massive body such as a black hole, or time slowing down when a work-shift is boring or when we're experiencing a traumatic event.
But there are also those who tend to think that we should use not just science, but also uniquely philosophical methods as well. Conceptual analysis is one such method; one that involves thinking very carefully about our concepts. This method is a distinctically a priori method (A priori is just philosophical jargon meaning; "Can be known without experience," for example, the statement "All triangles have three sides"). These people think we can learn a great deal about time by reflecting on our concepts about time, our intuitions about time, and the laws of thought (or logic) and how they relate to time. This philosophical approach to answering questions about time is distinctively metaphysical opposed to the former physical and cognitive theories about time.
Of course there are many who may see the use in all of these different approaches!
Recommendations:
Physics:
Hawking, S 1988, A Brief History of Time: From The Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam Books, Toronto; New York. [Chapters 2, 9 & 10. Absolute Classic, little dated but still great read]
Gardner, M 1988, Time Travel and Other Mathematical Bewilderments, W.H. Freeman, UK. [Chapter 1]
Greene, B 2010, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, W. W. Norton, New York. [Chapter 2 is a great introduction for Special Relativity]
Physics and Metaphysics:
Dainton, B 2010, Time and Space, 2nd edn, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal; Ithaca N.Y. [Chapters 1-8, 18, 19 & 21. This book is incredible in scope, it even has a chapter on String Theory, and it really acknowledges the intimate connection between space and time given to us by physics]
Metaphyics:
Hawley, K 2015, Temporal Parts, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/temporal-parts/&gt;. [Discussion of Perdurantism, the view that objects last over time without being wholly present at every time at which they exist.]
Markosian, N 2014, Time, The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/time/&gt;.
Hunter, J 2016, Time Travel, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
<http://www.iep.utm.edu/timetrav/&gt;.
Callender, C & Edney, R 2014, Introducing Time: A Graphic Guide, Icon Books Limited, UK. [Great book if you want something a bit less wordy and fun, but still very informative, having comprehensive coverage. It also has many nice illustrations and is cheap!]
Curtis, B & Robson, J 2016, A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Time, Bloomsbury Publishing, UK. [Very good recent publication that comes from a great series of books in metaphysics]
Ney, A 2014, Metaphysics: An Introduction, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London; New York. [Chapters 5 & 6 (Chapter 4 looks at critiques of Metaphysics in general as a way of answer questions and Chapter 9 looks at Free-will/Determinism/Compatiblism)]
More advanced temporal Metaphysics:
Sider, T 2001, Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time, Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, Oxford New York. [Great book defending what Sider calls "Four-Dimensionalism" (this is confusing given how others have used the same term differently) but by it he means Perdurantism, the view that objects last over time without being wholly present at every time at which they exist.]
Hawley, K 2004, How Things Persist, Clarendon Press, UK. [Another great book: It's extremely similar to the one above in terms of the both content and conclusions reached]
Some good Time travel movies:
Interstellar (2014)
Timecrimes (2007)
Looper (2012)
Primer (2004) [Time Travel on drugs]
12 Monkeys (1995)
Donnie Darko (2001)
The Terminator (1984)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Predestination (2014)
Back To the Future (1-3) (1985-1990)
Source Code (2011)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
As far as secondary lit goes, William Blattner's Reader's Guide to Being and Time is very clear and straightforward. I also think that Steven Mulhall's Routledge Guide is great (though, to my surprise, the amazon reviews weren't that good).
If you want a more exciting and inventive commentary which will tie Heidegger closely to recent analytic philosophy, I cannot recommend John Haugland's Dasein Disclosed enough. Unfortunately it was unfinished (published posthumously) and so the commentary is mostly D1, but it's a fantastic book, and there's essays of his as well in there to fill in the blanks.
As far as understanding terms go this glossary is very thorough. I'm not a huge fan of how it puts things, actually, but I know it was really helpful to a few people in my classes.
Google hasn't been very helpful, but I found a few contradictory answers. Perhaps it wasn't opposed so much as considered theologically unnecessary?
A Reformation500 article on natural beauty says no. Also, Protestantism after 500 Years by Howard & Noll claims that Luther's 2-kingdom theology contradicts it. Meanwhile, The Protestant Temperament says yes, at least for Protestant "moderates". (Though among the "moderates" it quotes Winthrop, who was anything but one.)
Edit: Apparently there's an entire book devoted to the history of the idea. Searching through the Google Books version with terms like "Reformation" doesn't turn up much of anything.
There's two different issues you might be interested in here: (1) whether Kripke's account of Wittgenstein is accurate; (2) whether Kripke's arguments are correct. I can't really help with the former, though I've been told it's not. For the latter, I think Azzouni's recent book---The Rule-Following Paradox and Its Implications for Metaphysics---is exceptional; one could also check out the article that the book is an expansion of, namely "The Rule-Following Paradox and the Impossibility of Private Rule-Following."
I grew up in Poland, and we're far too Catholic in there. My parents were indifferent liberals, but they raised me as a Catholic so I could fit in with the surrounding culture. In a sense we 'played' Catholicism for the benefits of it. I stuck with it until I became a teenager, then I briefly became an atheist only to decide that I'm really a theist - I believe that there are most likely "higher beings" out there that relatively to us are essentially gods, but I don't believe that there have been meaningful interactions between us and them that are being passed down via organized religions' scriptures (duh). If they exist they don't give a shit about us, if they even know about us. In a sense it's a lot like believing that we live in a simulation - whoever's in the control room for the simulation-universe would effectively be a god of that universe.
I rejected atheism because, similarly to you, I found out that I could not reject belief nor that I could come to reject the awe I feel towards all manners of individually practised faith, regardless of religion, even though I am highly critical of most collective religious practice. I picked up the Syntheism book for that very reason (wiki article) and I'm somewhat fond of the idea in itself, but much like, uhhh, with atheism and postmodernism there's a lot of ideological baggage that the syntheists carry around that I want nothing to do with.
I am convinced that Hegel's 'Lectures on Proofs of the Existence of God' offers a definitive demonstration. The only catch is that this work presuppose familiarity with 1) the Ontological Argument (i.e. the concept of God includes its own being), 2) the Teleological Argument (i.e. the specificity of particulars points to a self-specifying universal), and 3) the Cosmological Argument (i.e. the contingency of finite beings presupposes a necessary infinite being); -- not to mention knowledge of Hegel's own peculiar dialectical method of logic and speculative system.
The Alvin Plantiga-inspired book, Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God is highly technical but equally persuasive.
Edward Feser's 'Five Proofs of the Existence of God'is also very well-argued and highly accessible.
Joshua Rasmussen's 'The Bridge of Reason'provides a short step-by-step rationale for God's existence.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Concept-Time-Prolegomena-Phenomenology/dp/0253207177/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1505395687&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=heidegger+history+of+time
Hopefully someone more versed in Sartre will be able to help you out. But based on my studying him at undergrad, the idea is that what's special about the for-itself is that it's able to think of things that don't exist (nothingness), and imagine possibilities for itself that aren't realised. So, I as a conscious human can imagine myself being other than I am, for example, as flying through the air even though I'm sitting. A stone, though, an in-itself, doesn't have this gap between what it is and what it can think itself as being.
So then I'd want to say 'nonself-identical' just means something like 'has consciousness and thus lacks any defined once for all essence because is able to contemplate alternate possibilities for itself' and 'internal negation' is the distance between oneself considered as in-itself and as for-itself brought about by this ability.
But I'm not a Sartre expert, and also personally I think looking too hard for precision here is a mistake. The textbook we used (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Phenomenology-Dermot-Moran/dp/0415183731) wasn't too complimentary about Sartre's technical ontological skills, and I agreed with it, though you might check out https://www.amazon.com/Sartres-Being-Nothingness-Readers-Guides/dp/0826474691 and https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Jean-Paul-Sartres-Nothingness-Reprint/dp/0226096998/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=JZ8S92AXKWP0FC21AAB7 for more sympathetic readings (I haven't read the former but guess it's good).
> Also I'm writing an examn paper on evil, and would like some more atheistic sources that dont focus on the problem of evil
See if your library has a copy of this book.
[Psychology/Philosophy/Science] | The Existential Files | Episode #47 with Special Guest Arthur Witherall
NSFW (language)
Link to Episode//iTunes//Stitcher
We are joined for this episode by a very special guest, philosopher Arthur Witherall. Arthur has published a book and a number of papers on the fundamental question of why the universe exists and he chats with us about some of the metaphysical and philosophical explanations for why there is something, rather than nothing (a most irksome question, we hope you agree?). This includes a brief discussion of David Pearce's Zero Ontology. You can purchase Arthur’s book The Problem of Existence on Amazon.
“Follow the Rick-and-Morty-esque adventures of Dr Matthew Smith and Dr Louie Savva as they explore the universe. Louie is the Rick-like misanthropic atheist and existential nihilist. Matthew, Morty-esque with his ever so slightly naive take on existence. Together, the two of them delve into parallel dimensions, ask why the universe exists, what the meaning of life is, and generally ask every question under the sun! They are frequently joined on their travels by a host of motley guests, including physicist Taner Edis (answering our questions as to why the universe exists), psychologist Susan Blackmore (talking about memes, tremes and consciousness), psychologist Christopher French (chatting to us about scepticism and the paranormal), philosopher John Marmysz (chatting to us about nihilism and his books on the subject), fantasy author R. Scott Bakker (talking to us about consciousness) and there are many more. Prepare to laugh. Prepare to cry. Prepare to learn something new about your existence! Don’t say you weren’t warned!"
Website//YouTube
> For one, Langan never "comprehensively" defines what perception is. He mentions(hints) that it is "cognitive state acquisition" in his 2002 paper. That definition entails ambiguity, consequently, perception is still not an absolute property of reality...
Perception is self-explanatory.
> Tautologies of logic are required for the intelligibility of written and spoken language due to the necessity of making distinctions in our communications. I do not deny that logic is need for linguistic communication. The question is about perception and how we can know what it is... Perception is more than just written symbols on paper. And it is scientifically observed to be dependent on perspective. Time is relative, space is relative, and Heisenberg uncertainty rules the quantum realm. Quantum effects have been observed in visible objects so your CTMU T/F distinctions are being pushed into ever broader generalizations.
I see that you are having a hard time understanding that infocognition is tautological in nature. Perception is not only 'scientifically observed to be dependent on perspective', but is required for any observation to take place.
> I have also perused that paper. But is reality a continuum or is it discrete? That is still an open question even if science has observed that energy is transferred in discrete packets or bundles called "quanta"... To restate, language also requires discrete aspects in order for it to be intelligible to the human mind.
This post by Langan will answer your question:
" A mathematical space is continuous if it has a metric that withstands infinitesimal subdivision. To understand what this means, one must know what a “metric” is. Simplistically, a metric is just a general “distance” relationship defined on a space as follows: if a and b are two points in a space, and c is an arbitrary third point, then the distance between a and b is always less than or equal to the sum of the distances between a and c, and b and c. That is, where d(x,y) is the distance between two points x and y,
d(a,b) <= d(a,c) + d(b,c).
If this relationship continues to hold no matter how close together the points a, b and c might be, then the space is continuous. On the other hand, where the distance concept is undefined below a certain threshold, metric continuity breaks down on that scale. Since the Planck limit is such a threshold, space is discontinuous below the Planck scale…implying, of course, that it is discontinuous, period. Not only is it “granular” in a slippery kind of way, but the grains in question are effectively without spatial extent.
Because space and time are undefined below quantum limits, they no longer have extensionality or directionality. But if we interpret this to mean that anything, including causality, can “flow” in any direction whatsoever, then reverse causality is conceivable on sub-Planck scales. In fact, some theorists conjecture that on these scales, continuous spacetime becomes a chaotic “quantum foam” in which distant parts of the universe are randomly connected by microscopic “wormholes”. That’s pretty much the party line among physicists.
Now let’s bring philosophy to bear on the issue. At one time, space was considered to consist of “ether”, a quasimaterial “substance” through which physical objects were thought to swim like fish through water. But since the introduction of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, nothing material remains of empty space; although it is permeated by fields and “vacuum energy”, these are merely contained by space and are not equivalent to space itself. Space has instead become a mathematical abstraction called a “tensor field” that confers relative attributes like location, direction, orientation, distance, linear and angular velocity, and geometry on physical objects and energy fields. Because empty space, as abstracted from its contents, cannot be observed and has no observable effect on anything, it is not “physical” in the usual sense.
That which is immaterial is abstract, and abstraction is a mental process that “abstracts” or educes general relationships from observations. So from a philosophical viewpoint, saying that space is immaterial and therefore abstract amounts to saying that it is “mental”…that it is to some extent composed of mind rather than matter. Although this runs against the scientific grain, it is consistent with our dominant physical theories of the very large and the very small, namely relativity and quantum mechanics. In relativity, space and time are combined in an abstract manifold called “spacetime” whose “points” are physical events that can be resolved in terms of mutual behavioral transduction of material objects, a process fundamentally similar to mentation. And quantum mechanics characterizes matter in terms of abstract, immaterial wave functions that are physically actualized by interactions of an equally immaterial nature.
What does this mean regarding the continuity of spacetime? Simply that like spacetime itself, continuity and its quantum-scale breakdown are essentially mental rather than material in character. As Berkeley observed centuries ago, reality is ultimately perceptual, and as we know from the subsequent debate between Hume and Kant, perception conforms to mental categories… categories like space and time. So rather than being purely objective and “physical” in a materialistic sense, space has a subjective aspect reflecting the profoundly mental nature of our reality."
&#x200B;
> It is very relevant because Langan is asserting his interpretation of God will perform what is called a "global wipe" if human beings cannot harmonize with the global self selection parameter called the "generalized utility" of reality. Langan proposes that we "put him in charge" so he can institute what he calls a benign form of eugenics in order to "let only the fit breed"...
It is relevant only if you stop denying the necessary existence for Generalized Utility.
> The "Art of Knowing" does have an exhaustive discussion about free will but it is ultimately circular logic.
Tautologies are the most basic form of circular logic. And all mathematical theories depend on this form of circular logic. Deny it, you are denying logic itself.
This book called The Atheist Afterlife might interest you.
http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Afterlife-odds-afterlife-ebook/dp/B002S0OMM2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321316154&amp;sr=8-2
It's more philosophy than science, but it is interesting. I own a copy.
The academic term for the argument we are discussing is the Perverted Faculty argument.
>How, then, do you determine the "teleological ordering" of our bodies?
Are you asking how we know that there are teleological purposes for our bodies, or how do we know what specific faculties different parts of our bodies have?
Both questions are basic questions about the metaphysical worldview of Aristotelian-Thomistic Essentialism. (A primer for the curious: https://www.amazon.com/Essentialism-Routledge-Studies-Contemporary-Philosophy-ebook/dp/B000SII8O4/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&amp;me= )
I have no problem reconciling evolution and the truth of Christianity.
>If so, would an evolutionary advantage to homosexuality make it part of the teleological ordering of our bodies?
No, because essential essences are not determined by "evolutionary advantage".
>You espouse nothing but poor reasoning
You can't espouse poor reasoning. You can however espouse an idea supported by poor reasoning. Assuming this is what you meant, I still haven't done it. You have no examples for how my arguments rely on poor reasoning, you just keep insisting that they do. This is due to your own reliance on specious reasoning.
>You're an apologist. You've chosen that position and it's an ugly one.
Sigh.... You know what an apologist is right? Lets use the term in a sentence... "The christian apologists tried to defend their beliefs using reason, thinking that belief in god could be found through logic." Hmm... Maybe a definition would still be useful.
Ya... I'm not an apologist. I'm not arguing in defense of a belief. I'm arguing against a belief in moral realism. You, my friend, function as the apologist in this debate. Please stop using words without knowing how to use them.
>My morals are quite measured and I do not follow them blindly, with faith. I quoted this because this is all you do. You make stupid and baseless attacks because you have no defense.
Watch this: "My belief in God is quite measured and I do not follow him blindly, with faith." Just because you use reason to justify things after the fact does not make the original assumption true, or any less "faithful."
You seem to have a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to moral theory and what is possible through moral theory. Sam Harris, while an interesting individual, and right about many things, is fundamentally wrong when it comes to what science can do with regard to morals. Not in the sense that his moral system is untenable, but rather in the sense that you can't get his moral system strictly through scientific study—which he claims we can. Assumptions must be made before you can even begin the study of well-being and suffering, and even more must be made in order to say that you should promote one and avoid the other.
A person's insistence on the existence of universal objective morals is best termed as a FAITH. There is no evidence of universal objective morals, and they are fundamentally unscientific entities in the same sense God is—even if we wanted to, we could never find evidence of them. At best they are commonly assumed entities—like God is for most people.
And I repeat, because you seem to think I am some sort of moral heathen, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT MORALS ARE USELESS OR THAT WE SHOULD LET PEOPLE DO WHATEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVE MORALS. Your feelings about me being somehow deficient are the same feelings a religious fundamentalist would have toward both of us due to our lack of belief.
That you think a bit of pop-science is somehow "important" for me to read is laughable. If what you know of morals comes from that book, I feel sorry for you. I understand that many atheists will praise anything that comes from the "canon" writers on atheism like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, however, being a fan of someone does not make all of their work good, or even relevant. At best, Sam Harris is simply endorsing the naturalistic fallacy. At worst, he's willfully ignorant of what the naturalistic fallacy is, and simply wishes to push his view as a "counterpoint" to religious morality.
Since you so kindly left me a link to a book, allow me to do the same, by linking you to the most important books in moral theory for you to read, some of which argue directly against me, but at this point the idea is to get you educated, not to get you to agree with me:
Alisdair MacIntyre — After Virtue
Nietzsche — Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche — The Genealogy of Morals
Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics
G.E. Moore — Principia Ethica
I've done my best to find the best editions of these books available (I myself usually default to the Cambridge editions of works in the history of philosophy). You may also want to check out some Peter Singer, along with Bentham and Mill, if only to know what it means to be a utilitarian. After that, read John Rawls, because he'll tell you one reason why utilitarianism is so controversial in ethical theory.
I hope to hear back from you about the results of your studies. I figure you can easily find pdfs of these books (though perhaps not the same editions I linked) somewhere online. Given about a month or two to read them all (I'm not sure how much free time you have... maybe more like three months) you should be up to speed. Hopefully I'll hear back from you after the new year. At that point, I don't expect you to agree with my view on ethics, but I at least expect you will understand it, and be able to argue your own position somewhat more effectively than you are at the moment. If nothing else, think of this as a way to learn how to "stick it" to people like me.
Maybe by then you'll have gotten beyond the whole "I'm taking my ball and going home" disposition you seem to have when confronted with someone who's better than you at debating ethics. I can only hope.
If you take ethics seriously at all, do this for yourself: study the shit out of ethical theory.
You can get the Gregor translation for about £10. Gregor is widely accepted as one of the top translations.
Edit: Found a better one.
Metaphysics by Richard Taylor.
https://www.amazon.com/Metaphysics-4th-Richard-Taylor/dp/0135678196
https://www.amazon.com/Metaphysics-Introduction-Alyssa-Ney/dp/041564075X
I know alot of undergraduate courses on metaphysics use this text-book. Its really accessible.
Being and Nothingness is very dense but if you read it alongside some commentary it can be a lot of fun. Just don't assume the commentary is the correct interpretation.
Its not metaphysically possible for God's nature to have been different. That's what it means to say that God is unchanging. Also we were talking about God not religion. The existence of God is a separate issue from whether or not any religion's conception of God is correct. And defending those conceptions of God is a whole other ballgame because it requires extensive knowledge of those religions and how one interprets their text and other complicated business.
Also to be fair this topic is very complicated and not something that can summed up on askphilosophy. Reading books is the best way to understand these sorts of things. I can recommend books. Here is a list of books
Aquinas on Being, Goodness, and God by Christopher Hughes
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Being-Goodness-Christopher-Hughes-ebook/dp/B00UASQ34Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1487454732&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=aquinas+and+goodness
The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil by Brian Davies. It talks about the problem of evil, but in order to do that one needs to talk about the relationship between goodness and God.
https://www.amazon.com/Reality-God-Problem-Evil/dp/082649241X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1487454793&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+problem+of+evil+and+the+reality+of+god
Edit: Also I'm still not sure why it is you thinking thinking about something makes something metaphysically possible.