I alluded to this earlier…
Walking is a static platonic ideal or form, from which we can notice the act of walking. The platonic ideal or form is not affectance. I will assert without any reservation, affectance is not the defining characteristic of existence.
Does the ground of being have an an affect on the things grounded in it?
In terms of ideal platonic forms… “the ground of being”, they don’t need to act of them to be, the platonic ideal of walking, in the eternal, needs no act of walking to assert itself on this plane, it exists regardless. This is where James is wrong
If it is the changing itself, yes - Affect upon Affect.
Affect upon affect is stasis …James. Tsk, tsk
Not even close.
Makes sense to me. 
Without qualification it is nonsense to me.
In the above case where A caused effect B, both A and B are empirical entities and the whole process in accordance to Hume is basically a psychological process.
In the case ‘God cause effect B’, there are various philosophical issues;
Therefore ‘God cause effect B’ makes no sense, i.e. it is non-sense in terms of empirical-rational reality.
The only sense ‘God cause effect B’ has is in the psychological sense since it is the psychological sense [re Hume] that trigger it.
As I had always stated, the only real basis of ‘God exists’ is merely psychological and has nothing to do directly within an empirical-rational reality.
Oh really.
[b]Can you name something known to exist yet has no affect upon anything at all?
Can you name anything that has affect upon something yet is known to not exist?[/b]
Who is actually the shallow one here.
It’s amusing that you revere Hume and Kant so much. Neither were the greatest philosophers in the world. But then for those of you who cannot think for yourselves, I guess you have to turn to someone. The sad thing is that you can’t seem to understand any of them, yet still preach their names from your little soapbox, hoping to leech an ounce of respect.
But since logic is new to you, let me remind you of a common logic fallacy which you tend to ignore:
“It’s true cuz my smart man said it’s true”.
And since you spout Science as the new savior of humanity, let me remind you:
The foundation of Science and the motto of the Royal Science of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, the oldest such society still in existence.
Nullius in Verba
“Take No one’s Word”
If you can’t figure it out for yourself, who are you but someone else’s preacher?
It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullius_in_verba
That last part is important James.
Quite true.
Did you do any of the experiments?
Did Prism?
Or have you both merely taken their word for it?
Hundreds of people saw Jesus walk on the water.
Millions prayed and got their wish.
So do you believe them?
And btw since you have tossed your hat in,
[b]Can you name something known to exist yet has no affect upon anything at all?
Can you name anything that has affect upon something yet is known to not exist?[/b]
Me too. I’ve always had an aversion to authority.
Still, in the broadest sense, any ontological assessment must eventually come around to the part where any actual God and any actual human interactions are probed and understood.
And then judged?
The part that you speak of here, while important technically of course, is of less interest to me.
My “thing” here is more to explore the extent which the technical arguments make contact with conflicting human behaviors that [on threads like this one] are interwined in turn in conjectures about God and religion.
Again, there’s what any particular individual thinks is real “in her head”, and her capacity to demonstrate that it is in fact real for all other rational human beings.
Really, when you think about it, what else do we have?
It still seems to me that Kant “analyzed” a transcending font into existence, because without one there would be no actual foundation for his deontological morality. Which particular behaviors could be demonstrated categorically and imperatively to be the right ones without an omniscient and omnipotent frame of mind able to resolve any conflicting assessments among mere mortals?
To me this basically revolves around either agreeing or not agreeing with the definition and the meaning that Kant gave to the words in his argument. What’s crucial is that there is nothing “out in the world” that he was able to attach this analysis to. What actual evidence can be tested? What actual experiments can be performed and then replicated by others? What actual predictions can be made regarding human interactions?
The difficulty I have with this is that I find it hard to understand what it means as it is applicable to an actual existing existential crisis. From my frame of mind, the “angst” that permeates a crisis embedded in an issue like abortion revolves around conflicting goods. Reasonable arguments can be made for bringing the baby to term. Reasonable arguments can be made for granting women the right to terminate the life of the baby.
Then what:
Then you concoct a frame of mind to make this angst go away: objectivism.
You convince yourself that there are no conflicting goods. Instead, if you embrace the right philosophy or the right God or the right political ideology or the right description of nature, then you can truly know what you are obligated to do.
From my frame of mind, this frame of mind is just a way to avoid bringing God down out of the clouds of abstraction. Whereas in the context above, you either lie or you do not lie to the murderer. And God then either figures into your choice or He doesn’t.
Technically, this is either true or it is not true. But it does not alter the fate of the woman if you tell the murderer where she is hiding. Instead, it seems to take the gut-wrenching agony of that choice up into the stratosphere of abstraction. All these technical points are batted back and forth…but the woman is either dead or she is not.
Whereas from my frame of mind, you will choose a behavior here predicated largely on the accumulation of experiences in your life that predispose you to go in one rather than another direction. It will all revolve around your own understanding of the situation. Who is this woman? Do you know her? Do you love her? Do you care if she is murdered? Has the murderer threatened to kill you if you don’t talk? What are the actual perceived consequences of going one way or the other?
In other words, a profoundly problematic existential contraption.
Yet you are assuming that intellectual integrity here revolves around the assumption that you have in fact proven your point. But your point is [from my frame of mind] just another intellectual contraption that in no way is able to grasp the totality of existence itself. And God is certainly one possible explanation for existence.
How on earth then have you demonstrated that in fact God is not the explanation?
Again: the staggering gap that almost certainly exists between what you construe “empirical rational reality” to be [here and now] on a cosmological scale and what any particular mere mortal must know to make that gap go away.
In other words:
To the extent that you do not construe this is be just an “intellectual contraption” vis a vis the “rational empirical reality” one would need to know in order to encompass an ontological – teleological? – understanding of Existence, is the extent to which you fail to grasp my own point here.
In other words, not acknowledging this crucial gap does not make it go away.
Okay, but what then is the original basis of human psychology? Again, we don’t even know definitively if it is not just embedded autonomically in the immutable laws of matter that encompass the human brain.
Let alone where the debate regarding God/No God fits into it.
Explain to me then how the Eastern philosophies are any less ignorant of whatever the explanation is for Existence rather than No Existence. For this Existence rather than some other.
And benign in what particular context regarding what particular behaviors that come into conflict over what particular assumptions regarding what particular God/No God.
How does this not come down to making an existential/political distinction between “one of us” [who are benign] and “one of them” [who are malignant]?
Again though:
Beyond the intellectual assumptions that you make in your argument/analysis, how have you demonstrated that rational men and women are obligated to believe you?
And if the psychology here is a compulsion then how would it not become the explanation for why folks seem compelled to embody it? Then it just comes down to the extent to which this compulsion is a manifestation of a wholly determined universe.
Either created or not created by a God, the God. A God, the God either compelled to create it as it is or not.
That is the bottom line. You can leave out all of your dasein crap.
My own reaction to this sort of deistic/spinozan narrative is always the same:
What “on earth” are we to make of it?!
“For all practical purposes”, as it relates to the behaviors that we choose on this side of the grave and our imagined fate on the other side of it, what’s the point?
From my frame of mind, it’s a “general description” of human interactions on steroids.
Instead, it seems by and large to be a psychological contraption that aims to comfort and console some by intertwining “I” in some cosmological entity. We are somehow “at one with the universe”. And somehow that makes the idea of an essentially absurd and meaningless existence that ends for all time to come in oblivion a little less daunting.
But, hey, if someone is able to actually think themselves into believing it — if it actually works for them — who am I to disillusion them.
If, in fact, it is a delusion at all.
For me though this has to be brought down to earth. It has to be intertwined/implicated in particular contexts in which those who embrace Eastern traditions are able to note how it is superior to a Western frame of mind. Knowing that those who embrace Western narratives are going to have their own set of assumptions. And then both perspectives have to be fitted into the nature of political economy; and into the manner in which I construe human interactions as the embodiment of dasein and conflicting goods.
My dilemma in other words.
Still: What on earth does this mean? What does it mean to take Buddhism seriously in a particular context, relating to particular human interactions?
Given a particular religious, moral, political etc., conflict, what does it mean to embody more “plasticity”? What particular “effective principles and practices” relating to what particular set of circumstances?
Down here pertaining to the nitty gritty day to day social, political and economic interactions of actual flesh and blood human beings.
Instead, many seem far more intent on embracing a beatific rendition of the forest, than in confronting “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty” that is often the day to day reality of the trees.
Unless of course they’re an objectivist.
Let’s be clear about one thing though…
We are talking about the philosophical studies of one particular species on one particular planet in one particular solar system in one particular galaxy in one particular sector of a universe that may well be but one particular universe in in a multitude of others.
In that context what does it mean to discuss the possibility or the impossibility of an existing God?!!
Sure, our brains are hard-wired to connect the dots between “in my head” and “out in the world”. And once you start in on asking questions here, it’s inevitable that eventually such a consciousness is going to get around to asking this: Why anything at all?
And: what brought this existence into existence?
And, perhaps, most crucially of all, is there a “reason” for it? Is there a purpose “behind” existence? Where do “I” fit into it?
And how can that not become entangled in the existence of God?
Now, if there is anyone here who is in fact able to provide definitive answers to questions of this sort, by all means, give it a go.
Just don’t expect all of us to accept that the manner in which you define the meaning of the words used in one or another scholastic intellectual contraption – argument, analysis – ends it all.
You know, other than “in your head”.
Exactly what point?
Note to others:
I’m willing to concede that James is making an important point regarding the manner in which our species is able to probe either the possibility or the impossibility of an existing God, and the extent to which our species either can or cannot demonstrate to the species we call cats that the internet is real.
I reacted to that above.
So, what am I missing?
Okay, note a particular context in which human value judgments clearly come into conflict. Note how the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here is no more applicable to human beings than to cats.
Afterwards, we’ll bring the discussion back around to how a technical/existential understanding of this is intertwined in the manner in which you construe the definition/meaning of the Real God:
The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = “The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is”.
What on earth does this mean, James? How is it manifested in your day to day interactions with others? And, in particular, when those interactions precipitate a conflict of some sort.
Why haven’t you asked that of me before now, rather than all of the years of ranting about how foolish I am?
It is because you are both presumptuous and biased.
Your claim is, ‘anything that has effects, exists’ is false.
An illusion [e.g. mirage] has effects on the mind but its referent do not exists as real.
God is an illusion that has effects on the mind but God do not exists within empirical-ration reality.
The point here is you cannot generalize on the issue of existence.
One need to qualify existence to a basis, e.g. empirical-rational reality, moral, psychiatric, etc., then prove it is real on a case to case basis.
So, Who is actually the shallow one here.
You are very ignorant of what is going on within Western Philosophy.
If you review the various polls in google, in the majority of listings, Kant and Hume will appear in their top 10s. E.g.
list25.com/25-greatest-philosoph … ver-lived/
Appeal to authority??
I have never insisted my point is right because Kant or Hume said so.
What I have done is merely used the ideas from Kant and Hume to support various points in addition to the explanations and arguments I have provided together with various other sources.
Note the majority of Philosophical Books made references to various famous philosophers and others, are you accusing them of ‘argumentum ad verecundiam.’
I am not into Scientism, but I had given credit to Science for whatever it [as polished conjectures] is worth. There is no denying Science has a extensive utility for mankind and it is very objective. It is up to the individual and groups to use Science wisely for the progress of humanity.
The illusion of the referents is having affects (not “effects”). The “referents” as entities of their own, are not having affects. Thus the referents do not exist. Dreams exist. The characters within do not (except as dream figures).
[size=85]The exact shallow childlike response I figured you would give.[/size]
So try again.
[b]Can you name something known to exist yet has no affect upon anything at all?
Can you name anything that has affect upon something yet is known to not exist?[/b]