Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 36.05/15/2018continued . . .
The G*D Concept
Greek "Logos", not the Christian "Word"
As implied by the asterisk in the spelling, this G*D model is not a traditional religious deity, created in the image of his worshippers. It won't be found in any ancient religious texts. However, it has much in common with many philosophical and scientific models of ultimate reality. Plato & Aristotle argued their theories from the assumption of Logos as the creator of Cosmos from Chaos. The Hindu Vedas gave the masses dramatic stories of heroic human-form gods. But among the thinkers themselves they referred to undefined ultimate reality as Brahman, with no human characteristics. The Buddha told his disciples not to worry about any of those fictional devas, but his worldview seemed to tacitly assume an Impersonal Absolute equivalent to Brahman, as an explanation for existence.
Until the 20th century most philosophers expressed some belief in a supreme being, if only as a thought-stopper when their musings strayed into eternity or infinity. Some based their god-models on Christian or Muslim scriptures, but typically ignored the anthro-morphic features & miraculous tricks, focusing instead on the abstract reason & logic we find in the natural creation. The rise of scientific & rational methods in the Enlightenment allowed philosophical thinkers to give up their dependence on ancient writings, and to imagine a deity more aligned to the modern understanding of the world. Spinoza rejected his Jewish Monotheism and proposed a form of Pan-theism. And forward-thinking Deists spurned their Catholic roots, along with its polytheistic pantheon, in favor of an abstract but logical First Cause to explain how & why the world is what it is. Even Einstein admitted to a vague form of Pan-theism to explain existence.
Science has no need for the god hypothesis, since its interest is in the "hows" of the material world. But Philosophy, in its quest for "whys", has always gone to the edge of reality, and looked out into the eternity before time began3. Now though, the interests of both disciplines are beginning to intersect again, after a long trial separation. In the 21st century, Science & Philosophy have been deeply influenced by three modern revelations : 1. the Evolution of living & thinking creatures, 2. the creation & expansion of our universe from a Singular point in space-time, and 3. the holistic & non-local foundations of Quantum reality. Those counter-intuitive concepts have trans-formed our collective worldview, and made ancient legends & myths seem either childishly naive or hopelessly romantic.
But Religion & Politics rely much more on intuition than reason. So, they have rejected or re-interpreted the modern synthesis of knowledge, in order to preserve their quaint antique traditions, and their power over the minds of the ignorant masses. However, as exquisitely summarized by Steven Pinker4, the evolution of culture & morality continues to progress despite the internal friction of un-reason. Yet, the next step in this trend toward consilience, as proposed in the Enformationism thesis, will not be the final stage of our pursuit of knowledge & wisdom. For now, the G*D model should serve as a koan : a paradox or riddle without a rational solution, serving instead as a challenge to intuition and insight. Reason serves us well in the realm of space-time, matter-energy, but it is stumped by the absurd quirks of the Quantum foundation of reality. G*D is not something to worship, but to ponder. End of Post 35
LOGOS Word Law Order Cosmos Form Logic Meaning Reason Principle Providence Universe Nature Number Source Soul Will God Tao Brahman Enformation
Evolution of God by Robert Wright "The deity (if there is one–and I’m agnostic on that point) would be realizing moral progress through evolution’s creation of the human moral sense (and through the subsequent development of that moral sense via cultural evolution, particularly technological evolution)." Wade replied that "evolution seems to me a sufficient explanation for the moral progress that Mr. Wright correctly discerns in the human condition, so there seemed no compelling need to invoke a deity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_God
There is no rational need to invoke a deity. But there are emotional needs, including the curiosity of rational minds about what happens next, and what happened before. Enformationism has a theory about the latter, but projecting into the past is much easier than toward the future. Regarding an afterlife, I’ll just wait and see.
3. Transcending the veil Philosophers attempt to look beyond the edge of reality. They use imagination & intuition to see the hidden truths that reason only hints at. What they “see” is not real, and not practical. But it serves as a guiding star for our voyage on terra incognita. Click here for image.
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