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Not limited to language, I think any kind of subjective interpretation. I think this is why the arguments that we need an entirely Objective Morality drive me up the wall. Take a concept as simple as a cup, a table, or a chair. The only thing that “makes” them a cup, table, and chair is our intersubjective agreement and my past experience with them, based on growing up in a world where that agreement exists. I could just as easily say the world is under a horrible delusion and they are actually flowerpots, portable dancing units, and decorative wall art, respectively, and there’s no objective way to show me I’m wrong. Yet no one insists we can’t have tables without an omniscience God.
Good points. When I use the term ‘the language’ or ‘The Word’ or ‘the narrative’ or ‘Logos’ I sort of mean them all at the same time as if reason/intellect were contained within any one of those terms.
I’ve said it somewhere before on the forum, but my feeling is that ‘intersubjectivity’ is really an objective human accomplishment. For me, intersubjectivity is not about two or more subjects reaching some sort of “mind-meld” or “communal consciousness” but rather it is about how our individual sensorial bodies/brains experience the phenomenal world in generally the same meaningful way. Our phenomenal experiences, even before the narrative or the language comes into play, are the same or shared because our bodies/senseorgans/brains are basically constructed in the same way. Our identical neurophysiological structures (objective material components) are the same from one individual to another and it is in this primal shared experience that intersubjectivity arrives . . . let’s even say, in pure perception?
We can agree, perhaps objectively, that unnecessary pain is to be avoided and that additional pleasures are to be welcomed.
Common sense should invite the question of what the “word of God” is if it existed before humanity and language. But normally the atheist is fixated on attacking the Bible rather than opening to the question. This is the power of emotional denial.
There is no such thing as the “word of God” - in essence, god cannot say anything, only men speaking for god say things, but of course they must use god (the Word) in order to express these things. I was quoting from the Gospel of John that “the Word is god.” Before the Word (before humanity and language existed) there was no such thing as god, the idea of god was created with the advent of lingusitic homo sapiens or perhaps homo neanderthalis, or whatever version of the evolutionary line of primates who eventually learned to speak.
If you can reflect adequately on the power of language it might become obvious to you that god has nothing to say, god just is “the act of saying” itself. Language is the one thing in our world that can appropriately be “thought of” as supernatural. It originates in the natural, but it can never fully merge with the natural because it is essentially a reflection, if it could merge with the natural then it would no longer exist, as such.
Isn’t it that “the Word” is our translation of “Logos” which, in the ancient world, carried far more meaning than “the Word” does today?
I agree. The idea is argued superficially which only denies appreciation, As I understand it the essence of logos (truth) is vibrational relationships. Of course Pythagoras understood vibrations as octaves. Gurdjieff elaborated on it. The Word God is the essential vibration from which the universe involves.
The ancient Hebrew alphabet that I haven’t studied is said to be an expression of vibration. The primal vibration of the universe is symbolized by the letter Yod for example.
It is more fun to curse out the Bible rather than contemplating its meaning. Such is life.
We can agree, perhaps objectively, that unnecessary pain is to be avoided and that additional pleasures are to be welcomed.
You and I could probably agree, but good luck on getting 7,000,000,000 to agree on your definition of “unnecessary” or what pleasures are welcomed. There are plenty of folks out there who would find it pleasurable to inflict some “unnecessary pain” on both of us.
I can agree that there are objective components to whatever morality we choose, but the vast differences in cultural mores show that those objective components can lead to greatly differing outcomes. Literally everything that we consider “bad” in this society is considered “good” in some other society, even killing people under certain circumstances. We all have objective components, but they can be programed to pretty much accept anything.
What we have done is start to come to an international consensus based on what most of us consider to bring the best possible life for as many as possible, which is a form of utilitarianism. But to pretend that this “objective” in the sense that we all “ought” to do it is just an exercise in futility. Once you remove a creator God who has set the rules according to his essential nature, there’s just no basis for arguing a true objective morality.
You and I could probably agree, but good luck on getting 7,000,000,000 to agree on your definition of “unnecessary” or what pleasures are welcomed. There are plenty of folks out there who would find it pleasurable to inflict some “unnecessary pain” on both of us.
Again Bruce, you are basically correct. However in the case of those who would want to inflict unnecessary pain on both of us with pleasure, they do understand that we don’t want that unnecessary pain so there is underlying agreement of an objective nature there, although their subjective interest in making us squirm obviously has some heavy immoral quality to it, and maybe that’s the knowledge that ultimately gives them their sadistic pleasure? So let’s get them before they get us!!
Is this just a mistake of ancient fools deprived of a Harvard education or the expression of something easily overlooked when we are locked into preconceptions?
If I could hazard a guess I’d go for “the expression of something easily overlooked when we are locked into preconceptions.” No one is actually quite sure of what John meant in that opening statement and only later when he claims that “Jesus was the Word made flesh” does he echo something made with the same connotations.
If I could have things my way I’d add one word to the statements, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. No, the Word was God.”
Do your emotions live in language? Is the meaning of “FU” defined by language for you or is it a conceptual expression of denial? Is “hope” defined by language or can there be several qualities of hope suggesting everything between pure fantasy and conscious awareness?
You appear to be “going down” in order to save yourself here Nick . . . where’s god when you need him?
Hope springs eternal, in the general way you seem to be referring to it here, this is an emotional need, not really a conceptual thought? There’s a lot in our communicative practices that is “below” and before language, but that’s where we might have to go in order to understand ourselves in a mutual perspective? And when we do that Nick, then we will finally understand how we created the word/god. (Although I like Dennis’s story about Org, reminded me a lot of Mohammed.)
Do your emotions live in language? Is the meaning of “FU” defined by language for you or is it a conceptual expression of denial? Is “hope” defined by language or can there be several qualities of hope suggesting everything between pure fantasy and conscious awareness?
You appear to be “going down” in order to save yourself here Nick . . . where’s god when you need him?
Hope springs eternal, in the general way you seem to be referring to it here, this is an emotional need, not really a conceptual thought? There’s a lot in our communicative practices that is “below” and before language, but that’s where we might have to go in order to understand ourselves in a mutual perspective? And when we do that Nick, then we will finally understand how we created the word/god. (Although I like Dennis’s story about Org, reminded me a lot of Mohammed.)
Are you saying if an asteroid destroyed the earth and mankind as well that there would be no vibrational relationships? Would a fundtioning universe exist regardless if there is no man to interpret it?
Is this just a mistake of ancient fools deprived of a Harvard education or the expression of something easily overlooked when we are locked into preconceptions?
If I could hazard a guess I’d go for “the expression of something easily overlooked when we are locked into preconceptions.” No one is actually quite sure of what John meant in that opening statement and only later when he claims that “Jesus was the Word made flesh” does he echo something made with the same connotations.
If I could have things my way I’d add one word to the statements, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. No, the Word was God.”
You should have left well enough alone. The Godhead outside time and space and God within these limitations are not the same.
What theologians are saying, you unlearned people posing as “knowledgeable thinkers” because you write opinionated ideas in sentences and paragraphs, is not that “we can’t have tables without an omniscien[t] God”, but that WE CAN’T HAVE THE POSSIBILITY THAT LIVING TISSUE EVOLVED INTO THOUGHTS ABOUT A TABLE WITHOUT AN OMNISCIENT GOD.
Hold up a piece of meat in the air. Now keep it there until it starts to think about itself being held up in the air.
This scenario is exactly how idiotic the atheist position is.
Yet you think yourselves to be in possession of the greatest thoughts.
You’re not.
You’re ignorant of much.
Your atheism makes you illogical to the extreme
Have a good time holding up the piece of meat in the air.
What theologians are saying, you unlearned people posing as “knowledgeable thinkers” because you write opinionated ideas in sentences and paragraphs, is not that “we can’t have tables without an omniscien[t] God”, but that WE CAN’T HAVE THE POSSIBILITY THAT LIVING TISSUE EVOLVED INTO THOUGHTS ABOUT A TABLE WITHOUT AN OMNISCIENT GOD.
I’ll take it as a compliment that you think I’m posing as a “knowledgeable thinker”. I make no such claims about myself. Anyways, it’s not as if I’m saying tables have anything to do with the existence of God, just making the point that “table” is a subjective label, yet we’re all ok with that. We don’t claim that we can’t have tables in the world or that it’s elitist to tell someone from another culture “Hey, that’s a table” because it doesn’t line up with some Universal Standard of Tableness. Sometimes you just have to learn to live with that fact, but that’s just my POV.
It sounds like this board is making you very angry. Why not seek out an environment that maximizes the traits you value most?
Hold up a piece of meat in the air. Now keep it there until it starts to think about itself being held up in the air.
This scenario is exactly how idiotic the atheist position is.
If this is how you view the atheist position on life and conscious activity, then you need a whole lot of educating. Your flair for trying to make us look stupid just shows the depths of your complete lack of understanding. You can’t be that idiotic really? Can you?
As far as I know, the Word, or Logos got it’s start with Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans who asserted that everything had a “rational principle of being” (logos). An example they used was the musical octave which had a logos of 1/2 (i.e., halving the length of the string on a monocord raised the sound one octave) but they asserted that everything had such a rational principle (roughly interpreted as a claim that they believed everything was number). By the time the Stoics came around this had been generalized. Possibly the grand synthesis was carried out by Posidonius, combining Platonic forms, the ancient Astral religion, and Pythagorean logos ideas. In any case, the model consisted of a geocentric cosmology, a strictly material universe (even the soul was material), strict astral determinism, with the Universal Logos in the outer most sphere of the Empyrean. The Stoic idea, then, was that impressions, being material, left material imprints on the material soul. Everything was controlled by emanations from the Logos which projected down through the planetary spheres. Crossing each sphere, they acquired aspects of that sphere. Thus a person had no real freedom, other than that of how they dealt with impressions. They could chose to grant or withhold “assent” to the impact of impressions. By learning how to assent to only certain (catalyptic) impressions a person could develop their soul into an astral body capable of rising through the planetary spheres. Crossing each sphere it would divest itself of the influences of that sphere, hence arriving at the Empyrean in a pristine state (“a virgin”) which could unite with the Logos. Anybody who accomplished this became a Sage, whose every action was correct because it was the Logos acting through them. They were “the Word Made Flesh.” But even advanced Stoics would only say that they were making progress on the path, none that I know of claimed to actually have achieved sagehood. So when the Christians claimed that Jesus was the Word Made Flesh they were saying something very specific (the idea of a virgin being impregnated by the divine and giving birth to the savior should be obvious in this). Thus a philosophical path of knowledge was transformed into a religious path of faith.
Hold up a piece of meat in the air. Now keep it there until it starts to think about itself being held up in the air.
This scenario is exactly how idiotic the atheist position is.
If this is how you view the atheist position on life and conscious activity, then you need a whole lot of educating. Your flair for trying to make us look stupid just shows the depths of your complete lack of understanding. You can’t be that idiotic really? Can you?
Bob, have you noticed how the twisted brother has left out the way his understanding of nature includes the lifeless corpse of Jesus—a grouping of muscle and bone just as Twisted Brother has visualized above for his readers—being vitalized into human/godly movement.
So which is actually more amazing, Mario? To my way of seeing things, miraculous resurrection is more miraculous and thus less credible, than nature having life capabilities.
An interesting comment (from G. Spencer-Brown, p.77, Notes to Chapter 2, Laws of Form) Connects, I think, to the use of philosophical, metaphysical, and religious systems as vehicles.
Where Wittgenstein says [4, proposition 7] “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” he seems to be considering descriptive speech only. He notes elsewhere that the mathematician, descriptively speaking, says nothing. The same may be said of the composer, who, if he were to attempt a description (i.e., a limitation) of the set of ecstasies apparent through (i.e., unlimited by) his composition, would fail miserably and necessarily. But neither the composer nor the mathematician must, for this reason, be silent.
In his introduction to the Tractatus, Russell expresses what thus seems to be a justifiable doubt in respect of the rightness of Wittgenstein’s last proposition where he says “what causes hesitation is the fact that, after all, Mr. Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said, thus suggesting to the sceptical reader that possibly there may be some loophole through a hierarchy of languages, or by some other exit.” The exit, as we have seen it here, is evident in the injunctive faculty of language.
Even natural science appears to be more dependent upon injunction than we are usually prepared to admit. The professional initiation of the man of science consists not so much in reading the proper textbooks, as in obeying injunctions such as “look down that microscope.” But it is not out of order for men of science, having looked down the microscope, now to describe to each other, and to discuss amongst themselves, what they have seen, and to write papers and textbooks describing it. Similarly, it is not out of order for mathematicians, each having obeyed a given set of injunctions, to describe to each other, and to discuss amongst themselves, what they have seen, and to write papers and textbooks describing it. But in each case, the description is dependent upon, and secondary to, the set of injunctions having been obeyed first.
When we attempt to realize a piece of music composed by another person, we do so by illustrating, to ourselves, with a musical instrument of some kind, the composer’s commands. Similarly, if we are to realize a piece of mathematics, we must find a way of illustrating, to ourselves, the commands of the mathematician.
Somehow I’m reminded of the saying: “You will not reach Mecca, Oh Nomad, for the road you are on leads to Samarkand.”
