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samwik Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: samwik
Could I get your take on the two sides: [...is "Spirit"] Physically tangible, derived from G0d (religious); or an illusion or artifact of evolved mental consciousness development (secular)? -[my original question on myspace]


Just to clarify:
The above question (in red), from the previous post, is about "spirit," and it's nature.
*_*

My goal was to point out that there are words used that have wildly varying definitions on a personal basis, yet these words still are functional in language because we focus on the consequence or manifestation of the word (not it's definition) in our daily lives.

In addition to words such as spirit, joy would also be an example.

Each person might have a different definition of what brings them joy, but when a person is joyful or enjoying something, that manifestation is universally understood.

Perhaps usage of these words could benefit from a different kind of definition (a meta-definition) that focused on consequences of a word/concept, rather than particulars of a subjective experience.

As an example, one might define "Creation" by what it motivates people to be interested in, rather than the details of how or when Creation happened.

Meta-definitions? Well, as I said, that was my goal; but I sure liked the logic behind the integration of those two aspects of "spirit" in that last paragraph quoted in the previous post.

smile

~SA


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Thanks Samwik. I've often wondered what people mean when they refer to someone as being "spiritual". I now see it means they believe in "an illusion created by an illusion from reality, going back to spiritual composition as opposed to physical composition'. It's now as clear as mud.

And if it's "Not the anthropomorphic God" then what the heck is it? What does the word "God" mean? Does it all mean that chimpanzees, for example, believe in their own sort of God?

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Terry: "And if it's "Not the anthropomorphic God" then what the heck is it?"

42 ? frown


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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Of course. Silly me.

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samwik Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: samwik
LANGUAGE:

What does it mean?
How is it used?
Where did a word come from?

How is language used to conflate unrelated issues?
How does language become "...a distortion of facts and riddled with 'half truths'." -RicS
How is language used "manipulatively, or... [as] a very handy hook to divert the debate...?" -Ellis

A gaggle of geese; a clutch of eggs; a lock of hair; a retort of reports; a pod of peas; a month of Sundays....

There's a book, An Exhaltation of Larks, that even goes into the history of this curious behaviour of language (or its speakers).


What are your insights?
Add comments, or develop into new Topics/threads.

~ smile


The more I think about whether Economics is a science or not, the more I think that what we need is a...
Science of Civilization. ...Civinomics?

A Topic, may have started out with a discussion about the origins of the words economy and ecology.

Economy: Latin, oeconomia = household management: => from the Greek, oikonomia => from oikonomos = a steward (oikos = house + nemein = to manage).

Economic: Latin, oeconimicus = orderly, methodical: => from the Greek, oikonomikos = economical (oikos = house + nomikos = ?).

Ecology: from the Greek (oikos = house + ology = science of).

~just fyi


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Writing the supreme name: Theists write, God; Orthodox Jews write G-d; as a unitheist/panentheist, I write GØD. To make themselves better understood I suggest agnostics could write, G???d; atheists write, Gawd?; the rich and powerful write, G$d; the profane write Gawd!!!, and dyslectics, write doG. smile

In the http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18351&hl= where there is lots of room for a signature, I use the following, currently:

GØD is the one with all that is;
the one with cosmos, earth, sky, sea;
GØD's one with time, the eternal now,
And all pervasive gravity.

Last edited by Revlgking; 01/23/08 04:27 AM.

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samwik Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
Writing the supreme name: Theists write, God; Orthodox Jews write G-d; as a unitheist/panentheist, I write GØD. To make themselves better understood I suggest agnostics could write, G???d; atheists write, Gawd?; the rich and powerful write, G$d; the profane write Gawd!!!, and dyslectics, write doG.
Nice G0dPuns....

...meanwhile, Webster says....

nihilism: (Latin, nihil; nothing)
1.Philos.
a.) A doctrine which denies any objective or real ground of truth.
b.) The doctrine which denies any objective ground or moral principles; -called also 'ethical nihilism.'
2.Secular.
a.) The doctrine that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake, independent of any constructive program....
b.) In loose usage, revolutionary propaganda; terrorism.

...be careful how (and where, or around whom) you use this word... these days.
smile


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samwik Offline OP
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faith: (Old French, feid, feit; Latin, fides)
1.) Belief in God; revelation, or the like; as soundness of faith; esp., orthodoxy in theology; in a practical religious sense, trust in God.
2.) Fidelity to one's promises, or allegiance to duty, or to a person; loyalty.
3.) That which is believed; esp., a system of religious beliefs.
4.) Complete confidence, esp. in someone or something open to question or suspicion.

"Faith," comes after "fairy tale" in Mr. Webster's book.
smile
Faith comes after nihilism (see previous post) ...IMHO


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Sam,
The interesting thing about scientific principles is that being subject to them is not related to your faith in them, or even your awareness of them. Balls, the moon, the Earth itself, and Sol, planes, birds - all are susceptible to gravity.

The effects are direct, quantifiable, and falsifiable.

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samwik Offline OP
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belief: (Anglo-Saxon, geleafa, or unknown; -[believe] -belefan, belifan)
1.) The state or habit of mind of one who believes; faith; confidence; trust... as belief in God.
2.) A conviction or persuasion of truth; intellectual assent... as claims unworthy of belief.
3.) The thing believed; specif., a tenet, or the body of tenets; doctrine; creed....
4.) Ecclesiastical creed....

Belief comes after belie (another Anglo-Saxon word; hmmm... re: origins?)....
Belief comes before belittle... in Webster's.... smile

Faith (#4) and Belief (#2) seem linked by the see-saw of "evidence vs. lack of evidence."
Faith is like belief, but without the need for evidence.
Belief is like faith, but with the need for evidence.


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samwik Offline OP
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TFF,

Yep... and susceptible to the laws of heat transfer, albedo, ice dynamics, absorption spectra of CO2, etc.

Even for "Laws" yet to be elucidated, the physical mechanisms still operate.


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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away." - Philip K. Dick.

Some people think that belief = reality. I guess it's arrogant for us to feel pity or revulsion at the Heaven's Gate incident, or even for us to refer to it as a tragedy.



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Originally Posted By: TheFallibleFiend
Some people think that belief = reality. I guess it's arrogant for us to feel pity or revulsion at the Heaven's Gate incident, or even for us to refer to it as a tragedy.

I don't think pity, revulsion or a sense of tragedy would necessarily be an indication of arrogance. We can see such events from perspectives based only on our own understanding of reality, even though we may be aware that others may have a different understanding. Depending upon our own 'reality', their understanding may, logically, be regarded as a pitiable and tragic misunderstanding.

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samwik Offline OP
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Quote:
It is shown that the resulting three dimensionality rests on two factors which have been hitherto ignored, viz., a Machian or holistic property and the stochastic underpinning of the universe itself.
However the dimensionality is scale dependent in the sense that at very large scales, or at very small scales, we encounter a different dimensionality, as indeed is borne out by observation and experiment. ....Finally it is shown how fractal dimensions can emerge....

A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic... (Think also: Free Will, Newtonian, Quantized, prehension & concrescence).

Stochastics is one of the main research areas at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Helsinki. The areas studied are Markov processes, Gaussian processes (especially fractional Brownian motion), self-similar processes, martingales, stochastic analysis, large deviations, dynamical systems and mathematical statistics. Stochastic models are studied in connection to economics, actuarial and financial mathematics, queueing and telecommunications theory.
"...self-similar processes" (fractal) (...translate 'in G0d's image')?

Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic
Stochastic, from the Greek "Στόχος" which means "aim, guess", means of, relating to, or characterized by conjecture and randomness.
A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic in that a state does not fully determine its next state. Stochastic crafts are complex systems whose practitioners, even if complete experts, cannot guarantee success. Classical examples of this are medicine: a doctor can administer the same treatment to multiple patients suffering from the same symptoms, however, the patients may not all react to the treatment the same way. This makes medicine a stochastic process.
Additional examples are warfare and rhetoric, where the successes and failures cannot be certainly predicted.
Mathematical theory
In mathematics, specifically in probability theory, the field of stochastic processes has for some decades been a major area of research.
A stochastic matrix is a matrix that has non-negative real entries that sum to 1 in each column.
Artificial intelligence
In artificial intelligence stochastic programs work by using probabilistic methods to solve problems, as in simulated annealing, stochastic neural networks, stochastic optimization, and genetic algorithms. A problem itself may be stochastic as well, as in planning under uncertainty. A deterministic environment is much simpler for an agent to deal with.
Natural science
An example of a stochastic process in the natural world is pressure in a gas as modeled by the Wiener process. Even though (classically speaking) each molecule is moving in a deterministic path, the motion of a collection of them is computationally and practically unpredictable. A large enough set of molecules will exhibit stochastic characteristics, such as filling the container, exerting equal pressure, diffusing along concentration gradients, etc. These are emergent properties of the system.
Biology
Stochastic resonance (see oscillators)
In biological systems, introducing stochastic 'noise' has been found to help improve the signal strength of the internal feedback loops for balance and other vestibular communication. It has been found to help diabetic and stroke patients with balance control.


Nobody but a Stochastic Wonk (try that one, next time someone cuts you off in traffic) could understand this stuff.
Fortunately we can know there is meaning and significance behind something, even if we don't fully comprehend that something.

Whitehead's Metaphysics can be seen as an attempt to delineate how we (as stochastic beings) interact with a stochastic universe. IMHO


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Quote:
Whitehead's Metaphysics can be seen as an attempt to delineate how we (as stochastic beings) interact with a stochastic universe. IMHO
And a stochastic GØD. You make and excellent point Sam. I also like your acronym, G0d. I see you use '0' zero.

BTW, if people don't like what you see here, I invite anyone to create your own way of naming what the theologian, Paul Tillich called, "the ground of all being". One recent writer, Kauffman, uses Creativity. A poster in BrainMeta uses, Nature. INterestingly, every language has its own name. For example, the French use (Dieu based on the Latin Deus) probably meaning the highest 'idea'; The Poles use, PanBog. I think it means the "all good".

Last edited by Revlgking; 05/21/08 09:25 PM.

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Etymology of 'atheist'
=====================
Quote:
In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless".

The word began to indicate more-intentional, active godlessness in the 5th century BCE, acquiring definitions of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods, ungodly" instead of the earlier meaning of ἀσεβής (asebēs) or "impious".

Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as "atheistic".

As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.


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We need to know about anomie. Questions about it: What is it? What are its physical, mental and spiritual roots? What can and ought we to do about it--individually and collectively?

Here is what it is:

From www.answers.com
Quote:
1. Social instability caused by erosion of standards and values.

2. Alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals: “We must now brace ourselves for disquisitions on peer pressure, adolescent anomie and rage” (Charles Krauthammer).

[French, from Greek anomiā, lawlessness, from anomos, lawless : a-, without; see a–1 + nomos, law.]


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I have two observations.

Is this discussion about language or vocabulary?

Would the meaning be the same in another language?

There are many examples of this last one. eg. The supposedly many names for 'snow' in some languages. The lack of words for quantities past 2 in some Aboriginal Australian languages (hence the repetition of the noun... as in Wagga Wagga, Yarra Yarra meaning a lot of waggas and a lot of yarras). When translating from one language to another it is sometimes difficult to show shades of meaning from one to the other. There are often multiple meanings in a simple sentence, and a lot of misunderstanding can come from this if this fact is unacknowledged.

Sam - I really don't understand what stochastic means, but I have a feeling that language would conform to the definition given as language can be both flexible and rigid at the same time, and the term 'fractal' seems apt too, as the language runs along with a life of its own (thinking out loud here, and brain hurting). To apply 'fractal' or 'stochastic' to god would, on the other hand, perhaps limit the limitless nature usually ascribed to him/her/it I think---maybe---perhaps---?

Actually I'll agree with Rede--42!

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Ellis: "To apply 'fractal' or 'stochastic' to god would, on the other hand, perhaps limit the limitless nature..."

Good point; and since we are discussing the unknowable, it seems that the words 'stochastic' and 'fractal' are simply two more contributions to the sizeable collection of hypotheses and answers regarding the unanswerable. But who knows? ! smile

For those whose indoctrination into an off-the-peg belief system - i.e., ready made formula for answering unanswerable questions - has failed, there is a tendency to look into themselves and out at the world and try to make some alternative sense of it all. Different people favour different answers, usually, it seems, on the basis of what they feel most comfortable with. Some will be admirably honest and state that they simply cannot know the unknowable, concluding that there may be many possibly correct answers. 42, for example! grin

Apologies for deviating somewhat from a discussion of the semantics.

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Ellis comments:
Quote:
To apply 'fractal' or 'stochastic' to god would, on the other hand, perhaps limit the limitless nature usually ascribed to him/her/it I think---maybe---perhaps---?
Panentheism/unitheism does NOT think of the "ground of all being" as a him/her, or as limitless.

The ONE creative power--referred to in my signature--is ever an ever expanding and improving one--not yet complete. As a person, I have the choice of being a part of this, or of rejecting this; but, like Rene Descartes, in no way can I deny that I am, and that I live within Creativity--Nature, Existence, All-that-is, whatever.

Last edited by Revlgking; 05/23/08 06:04 PM.

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