I have no problem with playful ‘what if’… It can be the basis for all that we call creative. At the same time, we can take imagination to the dark side and cripple and kill ourselves and others. So talking to the brick is perfectly “reasonable” from a creative perspective. But at this very moment, children in Africa are being accused of witchcraft and maimed or killed in the name of superstition - and this is in so-called christian churches. Discovery and Invention can create or destroy, so I’m biased against metaphysical pronouncements of one or the other. Even with both in play, I want to see a more reasoned approach to our wool gathering.
FWIW, as someone who plays with wood, I often ask what it wants to be. It’s part of the process. But this is playing with things, not living organisms. Moreover, the asking is based on an almost scientific understanding of the properties of the material and not some conjured pronouncement of good or evil. One must be careful when prying off the lid of our imagination.
Is there a separate reality? That is a trip into the hall of mirrors where truth becomes the victim of the reflections and the progenitor of unsupported faith.
But what is the nature of this “dark side”? Is it lack of correspondence with a supposed “reality” that makes it dark? Let’s say someone believes in Platonic forms. Does that have a dark side? Or is it somehow wrong or bad or something, just because it doesn’t match someone else’s idea of what is real and what isn’t?
Metaphysical speculation can enhance our lives - especially absent the need to answer the question of whether such speculations correspond to reality or not. In fact, absent that question, isn’t this kind of speculation simply creativity? Perhaps the problem with metaphysics isn’t with anything other than the question of realness itself.
Given the invention/discovery distinction (a bit of realism, since we’re all realists more or less anyhow), let’s call metaphysical speculation a form of invention, which is connected to the possibility of discovery. Inventions like Platonic forms, gods, God, spirits, etc. lead people to relate to things in a certain way, and in relating to things in such a way, life may be enhanced, as the discovery of something about how life works has been made possible by some metaphysical invention. Nietzsche’s eternal return fits this bill perfectly, for instance. You seem to be equating this “la la land” with degraded behavior, but I don’t see how this is necessarily so. Inventions are tools. They are morally no different than garden tools, or weapons. They may be designed for good, or for evil (or for either, or both), but ultimately they are morally neutral. How they are used depends on how the user uses them.
Bingo. Imagine anything you like, but connect it to on-the-ground reality. The imagination is probably our greatest asset as humans. It is when we get the ‘god said so’ that metaphysical evil becomes possible. That is the dark side of our imagination. If someone says they have ‘discovered’ god, where are you supposed to go with that? God says, “Kill all the unbelievers.” How would you find ‘realness’ in that?
I’ve been surprised each time the God issue came up in the thread. I thought this was about invention and discovery in general. That said, I am a theist, but my answer is both. I think some people imagine and some people discover - or even ‘continue to be aware’. The former often stress faith, a concept I find pretty useless.
Agreed, and few either notice the problem and none would actually assert that it is some supernatural process. Interestingly scientific research seems to indicate that belief in God is natural - iow that children actually have a tendency towards theism, regardless of culture. This doesn’t mean the belief is correct, of course.
I find coming up with thread titles to be difficult. The topic is not God. The topic is realism versus anti-realism. The entry into the topic is the examination of what is an invention versus what is a discovery. But if enough people want to, the thread can go wherever it goes. I don’t own it.
I suppose God is a more interesting example to me (and I think to others) than microscopes. I also brought up numbers and mathematics. Nominalism is a related topic. So yes, this is about invention and discovery in general. If you prefer to discuss decorticators or the wheel or the discovery of Pluto, please feel free. Really. I discussed microscopes with you, and it wasn’t a waste of my time at all. I thought it was an interesting conversation.
God is an interesting example to me because given a realist framework, and I think most theists and atheists are realists, the distinction between invention and discovery is very important. If it makes sense to say that the invention of God allows for the discovery of something real, then it is important to distinguish between the invention and the discovery. But in my experience not many people seem to take much notice of the distinction. The God invented by people is assumed to be the real God. Their God is a surprisingly conceptual one. And it is this same God that atheists reject as “not real”, as if inventions are outlawed by reality.
Does that mean that such people are anti-realists? I don’t think so. If asked whether God exists or not, theists and atheists are quite opinionated about the subject. And agnostics, though they don’t assert a position on the topic, nonetheless think the question of whether God is real or not is a valid one. But I’m not convinced the question is valid at all.
Again, feel free to move the conversation away from a discussion of God. I’ll follow…
I know what you are getting at, but I’m saying there is no way to get there from here. You’re talking about a construct, and the construct itself has to be based on something beyond pure imagination unless you wish to remain suspended in mid-air. Is realness necessary? It is in my world. Why? Because I choose to not enter the hall of mirrors, where invention and discovery are the phantoms of conjecture. So again, imagine anything you like, but until you declare something real, it’s all mind candy.
Did you notice I said declare something real? Even ‘real’ is a construct. Having acknowledged that reality may or may not match with my definitions, I define them anyway. This is fairly easy with physical realities and less so with the meanderings of mind. It is all “through the looking glass darkly”. But this has to stop somewhere or one becomes paralyzed in an endless loop of conjecture. The subtle difference between invention and discovery has little meaning in getting through the day and since there is no way we can prove one or the other, has no impact on our thoughts and actions - if we’re being honest with ourselves. We cannot stand outside ourselves, looking back in, and say with any certainty that we have either invented or discovered.
That’s a reasonable sentiment, but it sounds so… arbitrary? “This has to stop somewhere.” Ok, but where? If it makes sense to talk about reality as opposed to things that are imaginary, then what makes something real is its imposition on you. You really don’t have to worry about whether reality will impose on you or not - you can count on it.
So I think there are places where conjecture or imagination stops. But I think those places are often perfectly natural and don’t require the command “this has to stop somewhere”, as if reality is a lover who demands your fidelity. For instance, if you are Sir William Herschel looking for signs of intelligent life on the moon, there is probably a natural point where you simply abandon taking the theory seriously. You become interested in other things instead. Things that are more interesting, because there is actually something there to investigate.
You can dream your life away, but you will probably decide to get something to eat at regular intervals. If not, you will starve to death. You can believe in a God that answers all your prayers if you have enough faith, and throughout your entire life you might continue to believe that you just don’t have enough faith. Or, you might modify your belief. But I don’t think you can say that dreaming is unreal, has no effect, or whatever else qualifies it as fundamentally unworthy in some way. And I don’t think you can say that God is unreal, has no effect, etc. As far as I can tell, God - whether construct or not - has effect. The idea of God, ideas about God, have effect. Even if the question of the reality of God is important to the theist, the atheist, and even the agnostic, I’m not sure how important it is to me. What matters to me is what effect belief in God has, and whether that effect is desirable or not. And if the effects aren’t necessarily tied to the belief, then further analysis is required in order to distinguish beneficial beliefs from harmful beliefs.
Why must the dreamer stop dreaming? Why must his dreaming stop somewhere? I think perhaps the only guide is consequences. If you don’t want to die within a couple weeks, it makes sense to eat. If you want to separate cotton fibers from their seeds more easily, you invent the cotton gin. If you want to provide a simple explanation for the existence of the universe you invent God. And if you think the consequences that have followed from these inventions are undesirable, you invent something better. You can talk about “reality”, for instance, and re-invent what that means to suit your purposes. You can say reality is what is physical. You can say reality is the sum of things that exhibit causal efficacy. You can say reality is the innermost depths of your mind. You can say the only true reality is death. But whatever you say about reality, this reality is an invention. If there is a reality that transcends invention, there is no need to worry about it.
I’m just experimenting, by the way. It’s unclear to me how much I believe in what I’m saying I believe in. Maybe there really is a reality that is fundamentally independent of my beliefs about it, and knowing this reality, and stating truths that correspond to this reality is in fact our highest calling and we’ll all go to heaven if we get it right. Or at least I will, if I get it right.
Anon, I sense a desire to know, and I gave that up a long time ago. Use any method of inquiry you like, and what we can say we know is a pittance compared to what we don’t know. I’m all for playing what if. Sometimes, something good comes of it. But as an every-day pragmatist, I try to see if my version of reality stands the test of what is actually happening around me. If it does, then my experience says I might actually know a little. To put it another way, I like to test my delusions. The metaphysical issues are without the sort of test that I find reliable. In that sense, I’m thoroughly agnostic. I’m not stupid or arrogant enough to say I know anything about any metaphysical possibility. That is my statement that you have to stop somewhere. I still dream, and I count on my muse to be with me once in awhile when I’m indulging in my creative efforts, but for the most part, the metaphysical questions hold no interest for me. I’m just one of those dull boys who values plausible answers instead of the endless litany of unanswerable questions.
[edit] I’m not interested in going to heaven. Such a lonely place! I’d rather be in hell with all my friends…
This is getting into the area I was thinking of when I said God is both invented and discovered. And I would extend this to say…sometimes both by the same person. Since I believe there is a God, to say that this entity was invented cannot be a full answer. However I think some people do invent a God of their own liking or one that fits their assumptions (or the assumptions of their authority figures). On the other hand I believe that God can be discovered - not that this is the best word for it, since we often think of discovery as finding something that had not been found before in general. You could argue that religious practices are inventions that help one discover God. And that the reason many mystics - who tend to work harder on the process than others - discover a similar God, regardless of religion, is that they get past the invented facets of God.
I don’t think so. I think they consider God a real existing something, generally out there, though sometimes also immanent. That is a realist position. God exists, I experience him during prayer. Just as someone saying they spoke to their dad on the phone is making a realist claim.
Some religious people I have read consider God a kind of relationship, something that arises between subject and object and includes them. That gets really tricky to place in a realist vs. anti-realist category.
It depends on the definition of real, or at least it could depend on it. for many something that is real that cannot be directly contacted is a contradiction in terms - considering something like ‘receiving photons from a distant star’ a form of contact. To anyone considering that they have direct contact with God, the question has meaning.
I’m content to work with the focus that’s here. Though I will add that to speak of God as either discovered or invented is already to take a position on the nature of God - and religion or at least theists and what they are doing. We use both discovery and invention to describe active processes where someone actively does something that makes something new (invention) or finds something we didn’t know was there. This leaves out, for example, God playing an active role: reachign out to a person, yelling at you from a Burning Bush, walking on earth as a man, being immanent in humans also, sending visions or tablets, etc. It would be odd for me to say I discovered my wife, especially if she tapped me on the shoulder in a restaurant and I turned around and was suddenly in love. For example. And then the more Eastern idea of us more or less bathing in God but forgetting this, doesn’t quite fit with discovery, and even less so invention. Especially if the route back to God is one that begins by a vision or by catching the light in the eye of a guru on the street.
If ATHEISM is Discovery , then intellectuality becomes ****invention of view point to look at it. For Intelligence being in
different galaxy though Atheism is acceptable, but UR point of view seems like made up thing to their life existence.
same thing with theism .
BUT, PHILOSOPHY N SPIRITUALITY remains same , no matter where U go.
Again though, I’m not talking about the need to answer unanswerable questions. I’m suggesting the opposite. I’m suggesting that the question, for instance, of the existence of God is misguided. I’m suggesting that God is an invention, and that invention affects how we live. I’m suggesting that it is not necessary to worry over what is real and what isn’t. I think agnostics are realists. They think there is a right answer that they’re not privy to. I’m suggesting that there may be no such thing as a right answer.
I don’t necessarily believe this 100%. But that is what I am suggesting here.
This is kind of what I’m getting at. If something has effect, it is real. At least that’s one way to define “real”. But that doesn’t mean that God, as conceptualized by theists and atheists is real, just because belief in God produces real effects. The atheist might simply say that the belief is real, or that the firing neurons are real - while the conception doesn’t correspond to reality. Would the theist, given this “invention enables discovery” idea, claim that the belief, or the firing neurons, are God? I would think the theist must commit to the veracity of the belief - that the conception “God” corresponds to the reality “God”.
I think this is a form of discovery for the purposes of this subject, even if in your everyday life you wouldn’t use that particular word. “Discovery” here refers to meeting with something that already exists, and exists independently of you. “Invention” here refers to something that wouldn’t exist without you actively and creatively making it exist. It could be something you personally invented, or it could be something that was an invention by someone like you. So the cotton gin is an invention, even if you personally didn’t invent it. So God, in your example, is discoverable - as is your wife. God exists - you discover its existence. Your wife exists - you discover her existence.
Hi Quantum. I apologize, but I’m having a hard time understanding your post. I do find the phrase “invention of view point to look at it” very interesting though. If I understand what you’re saying, I agree that the idea of “objective truth” in science is an invention, as useful in obtaining certain end results as is the invention of “God”. In fact, those two inventions seem to have some strong similarities.
Maybe we need to explore agnosticism a bit more. When I say I don’t know, that’s the end of it. I’m saying that I have no idea of whether there is a ‘right’ answer or whether all our answers are wrong, or both right and wrong. Being a true agnostic means having the ability to live comfortably with ambiguity. Damn few people have that ability, but that is just the way it happens to fall. So yes, I’m a realist - whatever the hell that means. I retain my curiosity about the world, but I don’t go looking for any holy grail. I’m quite comfortable with not knowing invention or discovery. At some point, they blur together and become the interwoven fabric of all our musing and messing about.
But can you see that there is no way for you to not be part of that equation? There is no way to step outside an experience and declare discovery or invention. By your examples, you still can’t show one or the other. As long as you are part of the equation, then everything is an ‘invention’.
Ok. I tend to think of agnosticism as claiming to not know the answer to an answerable question. I think what I’m suggesting here is more of a paradigm shift. Instrumentalism in science is taken seriously, but what about instrumentalism in everything? What I like about an instrumentalist approach is its emphasis on experimentation and actually getting involved. Knowledge is perfectly possible, because knowing is something you do. It is an active process. Too many “agnostics” seem content to sit in a cave, or under a shell, and claim their superiority in “not knowing”.
Of course I can see that. Again, that is what I am suggesting. Those are simply examples of the difference between invention and discovery. We really can’t have this conversation at all, if you don’t use these concepts.
I would assume that most theists would say that there is a real God being perceived. Atheists have a problem if they state that this is merely neurons firing, since we have a history of things being perceived by some, dismissed by others as not being perceptions of external ‘things’, only to find out later that they were.
