hi mate! This reply also pertains to your last blog
i found this quote in wikipedia, its by Schopenhauer and its pretty well written:

Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and
thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life. ... But a posteriori,
through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to
necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns...."

i agree, free will is a non sequitur, but mainly because it uses the concept of freedom in a
sophist and skewed way. we can dispose of free will, but perhaps this does not stop humankind in its 'quest' for improving its existence, to fight injustice and to seek the 'truth' wherever it may find it. for who else will help man/woman if not him/herself? if it lies on someone, it is surely within us to change these aspects of existence.

Once again, we could refute the above statement by questioning the ability for human beings to change the course of their life, one might be inclined to say; surely it is those mighty uncontrollable ‘determining’ factors – those of ‘natural laws’ – that truly control the outcome of our life?
I would answer: Yes, but this would be only in part of the answer. Why? because no matter how much we seem to know and figure out (even through scientific theory, it is practically impossible to predict the future of our race. A grand theory which will predict and fulfill every scenario (perhaps there isn’t such fulfillment when confronted with human desire). So, we are unable to say what the outcome of a given occurrence will be; we cannot know (we are left with what it aught to be, what it might be etc..). so we can be held responsible for our actions (given the indeterminacy of our own capabilities) but not be blamed for our failures (given the lack of necessary conditions for success). Despite this, we are still given the task of choosing the future of the society that we live in). it is in our hands to ‘choose’ the future of ‘civilization’

what could i possibly mean "to choose" if we are not 'free willed' one might ask. this question would be a mistake, firstly because 'free will' makes no sense, and secondly because we can change the way we see things given the uncertainty of the future and our ability to modify our environment. we are bestowed with intellect and praxis, the capacity to transform ourselves and certain aspects of life which depends on us. we must learn to use language with care when dealing with what aspirations and possibilities we human beings can aim for without deluding ourselves. i will try to clarify this second point below:

the reason free will's 'apparent' (but mistakenly so) and seemingly truth is because we are capable of choosing to behave in a myriad of ways around given facts (of course because we always deal with 'facts' that are 'out there' it would be wrong to call this choice 'free willed'). what i roughly refer to as facts can be categorized into two groups:
1) to are those which can be improved or at least have the ability to change, namely changes in society, morality, technology, the future of our society... (this is further explained below “fact 2”)

2) as for those aspects or facts we cannot modify (like your example of feeling pain or gravity) these do not represent the totality of experience and it is almost irrelevant to discuss them if we cannot do something about them (absurd eg: like talking about what should we do with the orbit of pluto) unless of course, if it is to demonstrate their independence from human action, their effect upon us and the determining limits and defining factors of our choices on facts 1 (and to push 'free will' a bit further back I suppose). i mean to say, whatever we choose to do about a particular changeable fact (like changing a constitutional law or whatever) will be limited by these unchangeable aspects (aspects that the particular constitutional law is limited by, for the general human inability to do something about them).

because in the great majority of cases (of facts 1) these issues cannot be resolved by reductionist approaches (eg capitalism, compassion, justice, sociology etc cannot be reduced to natural laws) it is the human intellect's responsibility to resolve them and not reducible or dependant on anything else!. For our decisions cannot be justified by the current or past situation of facts 1 (because they can always be changed), but rather on the concerns of human endeavors and our aims.. and well, im sure a moral philosopher or a lawyer could give a better description of these than I could.
now, of course it still does not secure our endeavor to be successful (human intellect might not be enough), that is ultimately beyond our control (i do not necessarily mean that the final outcome was always determined, it is important to notice that not 'free will' does not imply determinism)so basically: in no case the lack of 'free will' deters us from carry on struggling to achieve goals of those aspects of life that we are capable of modifying.

i disagree on the assertion that free will and consciousness have a direct relation. they can
be understood separate from each other and still be consistent. so it is not a requirement for consciousness to be free willed, nor is the illusion of free will brought about by consciousness (once again, i believe). i do believe in consciousness, although it would be very difficult to define it, for it is through it that we are aware of the world, consciousness is not an object but it is the means by which we are in relationship with the world. to be conscious is to be 'conscious of' something. heiddeger puts it something like this: being-in-the-world is like water to the fish, they dwell in it and it is so ubiquitous for them that it would be very difficult for them to define it, they cannot pinpoint water.

consciousness is as you have rightly put it, an interesting one. on your last blog you wrote : "Surely it is not a complete argument to say that we exist for the purpose of procreation? That just reduces the question to ‘what is the purpose of procreation?’" as a rebuke to what I wrote. (this was not my opinion by the way, but the strong evolutionary view)

i agree, this strikes me as a thorn in what otherwise be a round explanation for our purpose of being here. but the problem lies on what we refer to when we say "purpose". for in the discourse of biology, conceptual objects have purpose in so far as they follow a lawfully determined action. on the other hand, at the human level purpose is not seen in this manner in all circumstances, as in the case of aesthetics (i will discuss this below).

it is a remarkable, curious and mysterious way in which nature seems to work when it comes to building these enormous and complex edifices we call animals (especially humans). it is said that evolution always seeks the simplest path (prefers simplicity over complexity, although it may seem complex enough to our poor intellect), so we should conclude that the brain with all its complexity is close to being the most efficient manner for nature to form beings like ourselves and to sustain them in time and this particular space. but this acknowledgement carries with it a couple of noticeable remarks: that the simplest mode of creating a human necessitates the recreation of its surroundings via a conscious and 'experiencing' model ‘within the brain’ (donno what other words to use).
what i mean is, couldnt nature have done something like ourselves without the need of
experience? (im sure in the future we will be able do create machines that can imitate human beings, but by the way in which these are constructed, could we say that they feel or experience like ourselves? most likely not. if you are interested to know why i think like this, look up "the chinese room" by john searl, kurt godel's "incompleteness theorem" or "the emperors new mind" by roger penrose).

not only has nature constructed experience, but we dasseins seem to give it great importance, if consciousness was a mere illusion (or a froth in the edifice of life) then why would our being be so interested in art, in beauty (could include mathematical beauty?), music, aesthetics, meditation etc... all of these pertain exclusively to the conscious part of being. many human beings spend their entire lives in search for beauty, that is to say: the whole of the human organism seeks this. by this light, how do we explain in evolutionary terms that the human may seek something that does not necessarily help its survival or its procreation. clearly, evolution as we know it cannot reduce or explain our behavior in its entirety (im not suggesting that evolution is wrong, it just cannot, like all other discourses, embrace all of experience fully).

there is the evolutionary argument that suggests that the fine arts are an expression that arose from the need of our species to attract the opposite sex, but this view, perhaps might explain the origins of such a desire. but to reduce art to its 'origins' is a very simplistic and incomplete approach to what they mean to us nowadays.

of course, there might be evolutionary advantages in many cases (for the behaviors listed
above), also i don not imply that all humans seek these things. but that some do is already
admitting that the 'experiencing being' is not just about being controlled by his body and
unconscious, but also the experience controls the body and the unconscious. so basically: human beings, regardless of how we have come about evolutionarily, cannot/donnot reduce all our principles or desires to those of an organism who seeks explicit evolutionary goals, nor should it deter us from making decisions that go against these (so morality cannot justified by “nature” or evolution). for facts of the past dont determine one POSSIBLE course of action, when it comes to taking decisions that pertain to our desire to further our society (once again, lets not confuse our possibilities with 'free will').

of course, to feel conscious pleasure can be reduced to neural firing and shit like that, but would be missing my first point, that neural firing are produced in the brain, formed by nature, to have as its 'purpose' the experience of pain in the model produced by the brain (by nature), in order for the model to serve as the means of behaving in the world ( and as i said above, this behavior may be such that its goal lies in its experience and 'consciousness' of itself in the world).

i dont know if atoms exist or not, there is probably some corpuscular something out there... i like what you say about how things only exist in relationship to other things, i know little about quantum physics, but doesnt dirac famous equation suggest the existence of an antiparticle for each particle? its a sweet way of looking at the cosmos...(this whole issue of "relationships" is dealt very nicely in "the tao of physics" by franz capra)
as for god...yeah, it is very difficult to defend this position, but i sympathies with it...not
with dogma though. after all, i like to think that there is something in ourselves that
transcends experience and is eternal..whatever we may call it, might happen to be
or wherever "ourselves" might happen to mean (perhaps foolish hope?). if god is everything though...then science is in the business of sucking gods titties and we are most interested in having a relationship with him, and even though god is just a word…there is still the question of the meaning of life to be answered hehe. can there be spirituality? why not? i think so. But the question is, what kind of spirituality?

so what if we have managed to describe the subatomic world, describing its behavior (and calling it "atom") does not signify we know what it is in itself (if there is such a thing) and why it is as it is. why is it that people have this impression that by reducing everything to law's and 'fundamental particles' explains everything in the first place? can we not say that these particles are "spiritual particles"? after all, these are words.
i looked at some feynam videos as you suggested and i liked the part where feynamn asks his father about why things carry on with their motion, his father replied: "nobody know's, its an enormous mystery. but we call it inertia". i think that is the best spirit one can take when confronted with the world, one of admitting one's own limitations of knowledge.

I wouldn’t think we are just a bunch of science…and it is an interesting question weather we should care if others are conscious or not, for otherwise we sould start treating AI with respect. : P
anyway! that is enough crap! by the way, thank you mum for replying to me! and i apologies for all the crap i wrote about christianity, her reply was lovely. but i still disagree that the fruits of joy, compassion and etc.. are only found in Christians. So why confuse people by calling them such?
shitttt, i really have written shitloads this time, i will give myself some kudos for this one.
cris
 

Thanks for your long reply, it was very interesting. My mind is all over the place at the moment, but I will try to forge a reply.

If we were to, at some arbitrary point in the future, completely understand every law and behaviour and emergent phenomena pertaining to consciousness and free will, then you might say that you could completely understand or predict someone’s behaviour, and conclude that they were not free willed. The problem is that if you were to somehow understand your own decisions at this level at some point, then that knowledge would alter your behaviour, as you could choose to go against it. Therefore it is impossible to understand your decisions and make them simultaneously, and in this way we will always be free willed to the extent that our ignorance allows.

I think this is a very important point, as it leads to the conclusion that we are free willed for all practical purposes up to the point of being omniscient in our understanding of that will. And once you reach a omniscient state (which is impossible in practice anyway, because we are limited by our intellect) then you are talking of infinities where you cannot speak of any concept without contradiction or meaninglessness in some way. It is similar to the common statement that an intellect of a higher order is necessary to understand a lower intellect, and so no intellect can ever understand itself.

As for facts or issues that are beyond a reductionist approach. I don’t think that it can easily be said that there is such a fact. Compassion and justice, for example, may well reduce to physical law in much the same way as ‘apple’ or ‘gravity’ do. We just don’t understand the reductionist argument yet, and maybe never will. Also I think it is wrong to assume that evolutionary arguments will never be able to explain the origin of interest in aesthetics and meditation. As for experience, I agree with you that no robot we ever create will actually experience. It might be indistinguishable from a human, but that doesn’t mean it experiences unless you change the definition of experience to something really stupid, in which case it could be said that a tamagotchi (the electronic pet) experiences at some level (an absurdity that some twat in my physics class responded to me with). I agree with you on this point. To say that one day a computer will experience means that you are basically denying your own experience, which is a contradiction. I suspect that people that argue the tamagotchi point are just a bit daft, and do not understand what they are talking about. (although they might say the same to me..).

The point I was trying to make with this blog, although I did want to kind of nestle it into people’s subconscious rather than outwardly state it as I am doing here, is that reductionist arguments can lead to absurdity. I suspect that kurt godel's “incompleteness theorem" is to do with this, although I’m not familiar with it really. The tamagotchi having experience is one such example of an absurdity. Another example which comes out of quantum mechanics (QM), is that nothing actually exists in any concrete sense, or that things do exist, but every possibility exists simultaneously (called the many-worlds interpretation of QM). The absurdity I wanted to point out was that you can use reductionist arguments to say that we aren’t conscious, or don’t have free will, or that you or I doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t effect the reality that you live your life in the understanding that these things do exist and you still form relationships with people and to speak of that being non-existent is absurdity. And in the same way, you can talk of god in terms of psychology and feed-back loops towards changing peoples lives and atoms and biology and philosophy or any other reductionist science, or alternatively in terms of the relationship people can and do have with that God, and people that have that relationship would say that saying he doesn’t exist based on reductionist arguments is absurd. It’s reductionist to say that everything has a mechanism behind it (and to reduce this to ‘nothing exists’), but that isn’t an explanation of why everything exists in practice.

Free will to me seems to be this choice. To accept or not accept a relationship with God. I think as you rightly point out, we are not really free in any other sense. In fact we are chained to the situation we are in. To reiterate your quote:

Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life. ... But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns...."

The freedom of the choice of a relationship is a truly free one, because we are truly free to see a Godless world in front of us, or put our reductionist understanding of the world aside and trust in our relationships. As I say in my blog, it’s not ‘God’ who changes people, it’s themselves, even their subconscious selves. But what is it to say that we have control of our subconscious? We don’t by definition have instantaneous control of our subconscious. So a relationship with God really is the cause of the change, no matter how you conceive the existence or non-existence of that God.

Science indeed is uncovering slowly the mechanisms behind what God is, as you rightly put. But as could be concluded from the argument in the first paragraph, God will always transcend our understanding, and so for all practical purposes he is a transcendent being.

We could ask, to borrow Feynman, “what is this thing that seems to change people’s lives?” and reply “we are slowly beginning to understand what mixture of reductionist laws allow for this change, although we never will fully understand it. Collectively we call it God.”

As for 'what kind of spirituality'? Well that's another question entirely. Is christianity right? Budhism? Islam? I've thought about that question a shit load, but that's for another time.

Anyway, I should be revising. Thanks for the kudos. I’ll get my mum to read.

BEN
 

Note, actually, I think everyone has a relationship with God. Even if he doesn't exist, the mere understanding that he doesn't is a relationship of sorts.


The real choice is what to submit your life to.

 

Dear Ben and Chris,
It is very late but I decided to reread all the above and respond very briefly.

First to Chris. I am glad you were happy that i wrote at all. it was a mega effort for me but a real privelege. In answer to your question. Of course the "fruit of the Spirit" can be evidenced in lives of people who would not claim to be Christians because, according to the Bible mankind is created in the image of God, and no matter how flawed that image has become, within each human a glimpse of the God character can be seen. A Christian should be evidencing more and more God like characterisics day by day but ultimately a Christian is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread, bread that satisfies and is freely available to anyone who asks.

Second, to Ben, I agree 100% that" free will is to accept or not accept a relationship with God." We really aren't free in any other sense. Once we make that choice we are either under the law or under grace. That is a whole other discussion. Romans 7&8

I'm off to bed now and would love to be in one room with both of you and talk for a long time. lots of love Bens mum.
 

I read romans 7&8. It certainly does echo my conclusion of what free will is. I am not surprised to see it written in the bible, not only because i think it is a truth that anyone could come to independently, but because through one way or another, i expect that i didn't think of it completely independently but gained that insight just through the culture and upbringing that I have grown up with, which is based in a large part on christian philosophy. I think it's wrong to take credit for ideas you have, because whether you understand it or not, they are generally not your own. All words you speak are plagerised from somewhere. True inovation is a rare thing.
BEN
 

Hi. Ben's Dad here. There is as much or more innovation today as there ever has been. Einstein said that' he stood on the shoulders of giants'. And that is the way it has always been. Each innovator spends years learning about his subject and makes some small innovations which add to the total knowledge of the subject. I hope that you and Chris will do the same.
I liked your reducto ad absurdum of reductionism. Did you think of that? Ben's Dad
 

Hi Ben and Chris,
I am wanting to write and share some stuff in my Christian experience which is anecdotal,not philisophical and clever as you guys always are beacause that isn't really me. I want to sort of respond to Chris talking about us not being able to predict the future of the human race, not being able to predict the outcome of any occurance and yet we still have to make choices that affect the future, people, the human race even. Such a big responsibility! I must admit that that sort of dilema is what sent me back to my faith when I was in my early 30's and faced with raising my then 2 little girls and knowing I did not have a clue how to do this without some mega help! So I turned to God who claims to know everything, to be the beginning and the end. So far He has never let me down!

Anyway, here is one story within my relationship with this wonderful God.

It begins within the context of my Japanese interest. A Japanese friend designed a Kanji name for me,ie my name in Chinese charaters. My name-Sylviane comes out as 'Shi ru be an' in Japanese pronunciation because o fthe structure of their alphabet which is made of consonant- vowel combinations. For each syllable of my name my friend found kanji with that sound...there are many but she chose ones which when put together gave a beautiful meaning,"poetry flowing beautifully and peacefully" I was very pleased with this name, to say the least.
A few years later I was feeling really useless,as one does sometimes, that is I was asking myself what I was supposed to be doing on this planet. What use was I? Soon I found myself reading a book called," The Pupose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. I came across Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's masterpiece(work of art,workmanship))......The writer said that "workmanship" in Greek is "poema" from which we get the English word 'poem'. Well, that was awesome to me. I really felt that God was saying that as far as He is concerned I am a poem in the making; my life has meaning and is being woven into a masterpiece of a poem. WOW!

Today I was reading Psalm 100. it is short but powerful. Verse 3 says "Acknowledge that the Lord is God!. He made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Verse 5' For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.' You guys are the next generation! May God richly bless you!
lots of love from Bens mum
 

I like it mum. Keep it coming! It's like extreme non-science in the same conversation with the endeavor of following fundamental logic.

I would like to say that I did come up with the reducto ad absurdim thing, but I don't think I'm the first to have thought it, and I doubt if no one else had thought it I would have. The concept of absurdity coming out of logic is a strange one, although I'm finding that within physics there are plenty of examples. Usually, what at first seems absurd becomes accepted. An example is the discrete nature of quanta which someone once famously said was an 'act of desperation'. Now we deal with quanta all the time, and don't really think about it, we just calculate. But beyond that, I think that accepting that every possibility exists or that nothing exists, although we may come to accept this as logically valid, doesn't really cut the mustard.

BEN
 

Well said. I would submit to you however that the "God" we speak of today may not be the same "God" of old. Obviously not being present two thousand years ago I can only speculate.

regards,

RC
 

Dear RC,
Certainly one should define the "God " we speak of. I personally speak of "The God of Gods, theLord of Lords- the God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob- the Lord and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ- the Alpha and Omega- the beginnig and the end. There are hundreds of names for this Biblical God for He has revealed himself as having many characteristics. For example, "I am the bread of life". "I am the way, the truth and the life', "I am the good shepherd", "I am the door", "I am the resurrection and the life". I presume from your reference to 2000 years ago that you are referring to Jesus Christ. Is that right? regards, Bens mum
 

hello again,
what you said about predicting the future,
ok..hmm...i think if we WERE capable of predicting with absolute precision the results of the future (assuming a strong deterministic stance) we would still do what we were supposed to. this is because any prediction of the future cannot be "foretold" correctly if the variables that affect change in time are incomplete.

ill explain better (once again, assuming a strong determinism): suppose an 'oracle' where to tell you what you would do in 10 seconds time. as you correctly said, you would hear this and start whizzing around the room and doing funny dances in an attempt to prove to the 'mighty oracle' your 'free will' and give her a good kick in the arse. but if the 'oracle' is to be such, it would not predict what you otherwise would have done if it would have not told you what you would do (quite a mouthful, hehe), but it would include itself as part of its prediction (therefore it would 'know' you would start dancing when it told you). of course this is simply impossible, the oracle would need to know what happens 10 light seconds away from the 'system', would need the capabilities of holding stupid amounts of information and to be able to predict every effect of her own 'processing of information' which would take time (hence make it causally impossible). i donno...sorry, this example is somewhat absurd and pathetic (it took me a while to type so im leaving it). but it does suggest series of questions:

would it be possible for a prophet to make the prediction of how the future will be like, including the effects (on the universe) that arise from the workings of his own physical mind whilst 'predicting'?
this is the famous (perhaps infamous) mind body problem. how do we reconcile such concept as 'information' or knowledge with neurobiological processes? what exactly are thoughts reduced to, in physical terms? that must surely be the hardest talk science could every undertake.
is the physical embodiment of 'information' of thought be simpler than what the information entails?
what kind of answer would suffice the one who hears the prophecy?

this same problem of mind body is slightly analogous to that of free will (not necessarily connected i believe). as john serle puts it:
The problem about freedom of the willis not about whether or not there are inner psychological causes and innercompulsions. Rather, it is about whether or not the causes of our behavior,whatever they are, are sufficient to determine the behavior so that things have to happen the way they do.”

given that we cannot find a specific cause (a necessary and sufficient condition for one event to proceed from another, all other things being equal) for our behavior, are we justified in believing that things had to happen the way they did? (i think probably no, but of course..its just an opinion, but im not admiting to free will either.)

i enjoyed your blog "the meaning of life part 1", but i have a couple of criticism's (constructive of course)
why does consciousness and science have to be intrinsically logical?
i dont think science is merely about applying logic in order to uncover 'truth', its also about intuition, imagination, falsifiability (testing), initial assumptions and hard facts, there is also a somewhat flavor of indoctrination.

logical positivism failed to explicitly describe the scientific method by means of logical hierarchies based on empirical observaion, without leaving outiside good science, or admiting bad science. science historians love to pretend their heroes were hard headed logicians and objective machines. they never account for the amount of non-logical related discoveries and insights of these...before the invention of the microscope (an accidental , for lens started off as toys) the micro world was a mystery, could 'we' have been able to bring about discourse (using simply logic) of that world without having looked first? it all looks so logical after it has been discovered. i will quote Carl popper:

no kind of determinism, weather it be expressed as the principle of uniformity of nature or as the law of universal causation, can be considered any longer necessary assumption of scientific method; for physics, the most advanced of all sciences, has shown not only that it can do without such assumptions, but also that to some extent it contradicts them. determinism is not a necessary prerequisite of a science which can make predictions. scientific method cannot, therefore, be said to favor the adoption of strict determinism.

if you wish to take logic to the extreme you end up with shit like string theory, that suggests 21 different dimensions without being able to prove anything....
science is like drawing maps. we can make a very precise map of some terrain, but no matter how precise, it is most certainly not the terrain itself, the map is not the Truth. we can nevertheless use the map to walk and discover lands far away. :p

also, i did not intend to mean that computers will never be capable of having experience, and i disagree when you say that admitting a computer that mimics human behavior and can have experience would hence logically deny ours. what i tried to say is that whatever is the source ofconsciousness, it is more likely to be an effect produced by the PHYSICAL properties of the brain, rather than from mere algorithmic procedures, for if the latter were the case, then we could in principle create a conciouss being made out of wood and streams of water, so long as it obeys logical procedures. computers dont have a function other than what the human being gives it...just like a really complex dust pan & brush, hehe

still, i disagree that compassion and justice could be reduced to physical terms, without totally missing the point. they are notions that are not physically embodied. you might argue that in principle, one could create a scientific 'law' that describe what human emotions refer to as pain, and the physical effects of the human brain when he decides that pain is bad, and to make someone else suffer is 'bad', in other words, to describe the physical aspects of what we regard as justice and compassion. but that would be a mistake, for what would the point be in that? what have you gained in saying such things? it would not be answering the main problem, namely: what are we to choose justice to be? it would merely be describing what justice ends up being.
what can science say about how we are going act, or how we should act, on those aspects of life we can modify? what i believe is: nothing.
for 'facts 2' about the world donnot determine why a human beings act about things the way they do. (its not about having free will)
what is the point in using physics jargon to talk about the beauty of a rose? (why use physics to talk about why physics is beautiful?)
are all answers satisfied by such reductions? physics only serves one kind of answer, to start talking about atoms and probabilities does not always cut the mustard. another example, how do you reduce a concept such as money to physical terms?

why is it that philosophy is restless in its search for some form of centre, of truth that will answer for all motives and events? we are thirsty for some insight that will bring us closer to the beyond, that will enlighten us so we may never fear again...

in my last post, i was not arguing about evolution being wrong, i was merely saying that evolution's discourse simply does not concern itself with the rituals, those cultural and spiritual aspects of human behavior. will it ever manage to do such a thing? well..it would have to do a better job than what it is today, reducing existance to sexual reproduction, natural selection and random mutation is not quite what i would like for a theory of why we are here...maybe im asking for something that doesent exist... :(

about the freedom to choose or not 'accept' god and its weight on life. i think its irrelevant to say such things (im sorry, i dont mean to offend), if god really is good, he will allow even those who never knew him into the kingdom. or are all those who live in the darkness, beyond the light of the lord, truly evil? my father has helped me and been there all my life, yet he doesent believe in Christ (he might believe there is something 'out there'), am i mistaken in calling my father a good person (generally, im not saying he is a saint :p, hehe)? does he really deserve hell? if he does, then i will welcome hell too, for there seem to be quite a good amount of ok people down there.

and to believe that god needed to bring his son to earth to save our sinful souls just doesent make any sense! is he not omnipotent already? or did god made a stone he could not lift?

christianity has, in parts of the bible, many good teachings which have helped humanity become more unified, more forgiving, more compassionate and altruistic (in many moments of history, obviously not in all. also, weather these are actually 'good' things or just a social beliefs that change in time is not my concern here).
but to go on and believe that this book comes from an infinitely good and infinitely wise god (or written by prophets inspired by him) is almost a hilarious statement. i have read parallels between hitler's "mein kampf" and the old testament, good examples are: deuteronomy 21:21, 20:13 15:17, leviticus 20:13 and samuel 24:25. how do we reconcile our modern morality with those?
why are we so keen in believing in hell? is that really justice? an eye for an eye? didnt jesus say: if someone hits you, show them you other cheek? (or something like that..hehe) so what is god playing at?
revenge or forgiveness? we know full well the reasons to believe in hell, yet we fear to admit them, for than would make us not very christian...hehe
quoting Woody allen: "if there really is a god out there, i can only say he is an underachiever"

i hope i have annoyed people ( :p, just kiddin) , i will be happy to hear some good replies!

anyway, ive been all over the place in this reply...im sorry about that, im running out of steam and crappy ideas that can fit into a reasonable sized replies.

BYE!
cris!
 

Hi Chris,
Just a quick response to one point at the mo. The" eye for an eye" thing makes sense in that it was intended to limit the response to an offence to a punishment that fitted the crime. Once the punishment was meted out that was the end of the matter. Justice was seen to be done. When you think of the revenge attacks that go on generation after generation in Mafia type gangs, grudges that are held for years where friends or family members don't talk for years because of some insult or offence, the idea of dealing with an issue then and there and getting over it makes sense to me. Jesus brought justice to a whole new level in that said that we are to remember that "vengance is mine says the Lord", we are to forgive, to turn the other cheek, to bless those who curse us etc. this is not easy of course but it can work. Consider the reconcilliation courts in post apartheid South Africa..they avoided a lot of blood shed. Also Martin Luther King and the Peaceful marches in USA which changed the way the blacks are treated in the USA.
I will respond to other stuff another time. BYE for now, Ben's mum
 

hello syl,
i apologise for what i wrote on my last response concerning christianity. as ben noted, they are mostly shallow criticisms. some however, specially the references i gave to the bible , are very difficult to interpret without feeling uncomftable.
I agree, we are to forgive. but as we forgive our sins, why can god not forgive ours? of course one might be inclined to believe; because justice has to be served in order for god to be just and good. if he does not punish, he is being unjust towards those who did follow him.

a quick glance and this argument and it seems sound and consistent. nevertheless, i am inclined to ask? what is justice? if someone robs you of your dignity, should we believe just to rob them theirs? this cannot be so, for we are doing precicely the act that we condemn in the first place!

i agree with you again, that "eye for an eye" served to limit the vengefull attitude of tibal social groups, but i can only see it as a lesser of two evils; that of hurting more, or hurting equally.

but what kind of justice then, is god offering to us? free ticket to ride (full forgiveness)? eye for an eye? perhaps even worse: "vengance is mine says the Lord"

if god does not forgive all its sheep, how is he better than us?
people must forgive, for in the hope of helping the other, he (the other) might one day ask forgiveness and love you back with true honesty. shouldnt god do the same?

sorry again, for what i wrote on my last response...it was not constructive and at times quite insulting.

cris!
 

Now you're being too soft!

I think the way justice and forgiveness works in Christianity is not how you understand it. The central idea is one of asking forgiveness to God, with sincerity. So it's not really a free ticket to ride (if by that you mean just get on with your life in the way you have been) in the sense that in order to ask for forgiveness sincerely, you must also be sincere in your will to change. God can only forgive one who asks, but will forgive all who ask. I find it curious that the only unforgivable sin is that of not asking for forgiveness. I would say that in this idea is the key to the beyond that Christians put faith in, that you rightly say philosophy and science has been trying to reach from a reductionist approach. Are there many other religions with forgiveness as a central key-point?

I'm not sure about the eye for an eye thing. It sounds stupid to me at the moment. I think the idea of 'vengeance is mine' is kind of practical. If you are to leave vengeful and hateful thoughts out of your head, then they aren't going to manifest in your attitude, words, or actions, and I can only imagine that this would benefit you and the people around you.

BEN
 

You are right to point out that science and the scientific method are more than just logic. My blog oversimplified the situation, although I think the main point was still valid to a certain degree, although also in a simplified form.

It’s interesting that you mention determinism. Determinism is not a prerequisite for science, although it is kind of an assumption in scientific method, and if it is not so then scientific discovery will cease at the limit at which things stop seeming to flow from cause to effect in a causal deterministic way (probably). Your assumption that only the terrain is the truth, and that if you want the whole truth you must look at the terrain, not the map, is an interesting one. Indeed, it is very cutting edge research into computer science and algorithms and the philosophy of it which has led to the understanding and application of this field into the physical sciences. Is the universe like an algorithm, simple yet producing complex behaviour, analogous to an algorithm that produces the number pi, or is it like the terrain you mention, whereby we can approximate with algorithms, but the shortest algorithm that encodes the entire truth of the universe has no less information than the universe itself?

The physical properties of the brain produce consciousness? If you assume that physics is not completely algorithmic? Does that mean that, because we only use algorithmic arguments to understand physics we will never be able to reproduce consciousness in machines? Is this what you are getting at?

As for the choice of God thing. I think a lot of the things you mention do honestly seem silly. I think that concepts people generally hold of heaven and hell are ridiculous, but it’s interesting to think about how they may manifest. They say hell is eternal. What does eternal even mean? It’s infinity. When we reach infinities in mathematics, we find ways of dealing with it, and infinities go away. I think there are ways of understanding eternity without bringing up pictures of hell fire and brimstone. There are other ways to understand the meaning of the word hell as used in the Christian sense that get’s rid of the silliness without losing it’s potent and eternal meaning. They are just harder to understand, but result in the same.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m beginning to think about what I’m gonna write in the next blog. Not thought enough yet. My mind has been on exams!

BEN
 

Hey Ben! I’ve been traveling for I don’t know how long now, but here you go! I finished it. Its about three replies in one, I never got the chance to post them so I decided to merge them into a single ..coherent ..reply. Take your time bastard!

Hmmm, as you know, there isn’t a way in which Christianity is, just how people interpret it through/with history. The reformation, papal schism, Catholics, Calvinism, protestants, orthodox, Mormons, apocryphal gospels...all of these are expressions of what people refer to Christianity (or ‘base’ their life according to the bible). therefore, I wish to begin by stating that my criticism will undoubtedly be an interpretation on some of the central ideas of Christianity; on being, justice, responsibility and shit (ill skip Jesus). I will be as thorough as I can thorough, otherwise it could be in vain to talk about this topic; there is always space for misinterpretation of words, always a way to evade problems by jumping into other ones…you know, shit like that.

First, a quick GENERAL definition of what people understand by the application of justice: action taken by the authority of a region towards individual actions of its inhabitants, in order to impart fair treatment based in a moral demand.
I wanted to give this brief definition because later I wish to make notice of how, given this definition, we can arrive to very different interpretations, on different contexts, namely: who is the authority? Where are the effects justice observed? What is the fair treatment? What is the goal of the judgment? Etc… so such a dictionary definition would not suffice.
You said that Christianity is ultimately about asking (with sincerity) god for forgiveness. What happens if we don’t ask forgiveness?

The desire to ask forgiveness is undoubtedly a sign of the admission of one’s own limitations and faults. But what is wrong with not asking forgiveness from HIM, what makes this the biggest of sins? (I don’t wish to debate this question in this response though)
What I wish to point out is that, Implicitly, you are assuming that there must be some kind of ‘punishment’, in order to serve some held sense of ‘justice’, given the assumption that ‘god is all good’ and the finitude of our deeds (and time) in order to redeem ourselves. All of this combined give us an interpretation of punishment, not as a tool to deter but as the end in itself. In my opinion, justice is not necessarily equated with this form of punishment, at least in this world; I see no reason why it should. Ill try to explain better

Accepting the general Christian interpretation of justice, which is (I believe, but I would be surprised to be mistaken) to be understood as transcendental (not formally decided by people, but by god), means that justice is to be imparted AFTER this life so that its execution (non-psychological) only pertain to the other-world. In other words; if justice is served after this life, the application of justice (in this sense) has no repercussions whilst in this world. we can try and guess what the verdict might be (heaven or hell), we must admit though, that we are incapable of knowing god’s will, therefore justice (Christian interpretation) can not be imparted by ANY authority in this world. This is a pretty obvious statement, what is shocking is how difficult we find to reason its consequences.
No true sane Christian could ever claim to act as the just hand of Christ, in this world, without loosing the humility that characterize them (the inquisition was such an example).in other words, we can try and interpret what god wills, but no one can assure that they have got it right. (Even if we were sure of what gods just resolution was, what right do we have to take action whilst in this earth? Are not all sins paid, or merits claimed, to god and god only?).
Regardless of what god..s judgment turns out to be, it is understood that this life is a ‘test’, the canvas that god will judge after the painting is finished. This interpretation of justice leads people to the conclusion that “finitude necessitates punishment” because “we had our chance and we took our choice” and “If justice is not related to punishment, then why should reward be related to deeds?" Which temptingly leads to the conclusion that "punishment and rewards are a part of justice" (of course, not all Christians think like this, but I think most of them do). This suggests that punishment and reward are an end in them selves, the function justice plays here is one of mere deciding what the fate of people will be (you cant leave hell promising to be good next time).

Its difficult to argue against this, if we try to clarify why it is that not asking for forgiveness (I wont go into the question of why we should ask forgiveness, this reply could go on forever) with sincerity (I have some problems with the word “sincere” and how is it that one goes about reaching “sincerity” when talking to god) is the ultimate sin, we arrive to the conclusion that the manner of reasoning mentioned above is an inevitable result of this line of though. And it well should be, for in this belief (asking god for forgiveness, being “newborn”) lies all the weight that Christianity exerts in this world. Without it, Christianity would not longer have a significance, we would not be affected by it and change our behavior, if it was not for this tilting point. What is important to notice is that the psychological weight of judgment lies on the individual IN this world, so the individual (the Christian) is influenced by acknowledgement of such an allegedly inevitable end, I quote Margo Wilson:

The enormous volume of mystic-religious bafflegab about atonement and penance and divine justice and the like is the attribution to higher, detached authority of what is actually a mundane pragmatic matter: discouraging self-interested competitive acts by reducing their profitability to nil.

This doctrine of justice has served humanity well… at times. The psychological impact of Christianity cannot be overestimated (What I mean by “psychological impact” is the effect of this line of thinking in people when they act independently, not socially nor institutionally constrained). For it is evident that most of them are meek and highly moral individuals. I would argue that, in its practical core, Christianity is about the brotherhood of all men, about doing good deeds without expecting rewards (in this world) and about forgiving trespasses of our fellow human beings ("So then, whatever you wish that others would do to you, even so do you also to them." Mathew 7:12). These are amazing teachings and they demand a high moral standard from their followers.

But, were we to loose our heaven, would we descend to amoral behavior? Is this really the reason why we are good to one another? What exact connection is there between loving thy neighbor and justice as described in the bible? Is there such? Do we really need a transcendental reason to love thy neighbor? If not, what does justice in another world offer us other than a way of conceiving life and being?

Given the nature of this judgment (otherworldly), which is to say, this line of thought, leads some individuals to approach justice in this world in a way which conserves the notions of punishment and reward, and applies them here. Nevertheless, we have seen that the resulting interpretation of justice (in Christian light) should have no effect or reflection in this life (other than a psychological one). So there is no reason to conserve such notions! The concepts used in that interpretation of justice don’t affect the notions that we choose to use in this world to apply justice.
I argue that such an interpretation of justice has no necessary application of this world and questioned weather its psychological repercussion to instill an egalitarian morality, effective as it has been at times, could be mimicked without such a need to place human beings in such framings; those of bad or good, in or out, reward or punishment, which has caused discord through the ages, and which are born from an interpretation of human beings that pictures them as conserving their identity; their ideas, their desires, their understanding of themselves etc… (the “soul” of the individual). Can we have a moral demand which does not depend on a metaphysical necessity to justify it? I think we can.

This kind interpretation of being, choice and responsibility is related to the Christian belief on the actualization of a will that has no constrains impressed by its situation; the freedom of the will. It suggests that human beings are uniquely and independently responsible for of their actions and we should not seek reasons in society, psychology, biology or history to understand why people are the way they are. Free will is, once again, a necessary concept in order for Christianity to have any effect, and it is bound to the belief in a transcendental interpretation of justice. The meaning of responsibility and punishment, in this sense, is related precisely to the belief in human identity and freedom of will.
In my opinion, this way of conceiving justice, has (regrettably), over the millennia, contaminated language and people, for it turns it, not into a means of reasonable communication, but as a tool to attack, deceive and control. One that provokes many men to perceive fellow human beings in ridiculously simple categorization and dichotomies (such as “you are either in or out of gods shade”, “if you don’t believe and you don’t ask you are going to hell”). Misinterprets and bypasses the problems and reasons that make up human suffering and how to resolve them by blaming individuals for their being without a consideration of the factors that provoke their actions. Such way of thinking incites insoluble conflicts. So, is there a way to keep the great moral standard of Christianity without having to also conserve notions of punishment and reward, heaven and hell? I believe so.
I have tried to describe as honestly as I can how I perceive the Christian interpretation of justice. I didn’t question whether or not there is any truth to justice applied in this way (for I cannot relate to this belief in this interpretation of god in the first place) but I have attacked the use of Christian discourse on justice as a means to deal with worldly problems.
Given that I deny that justice should be equated with punishment or reward (in this world), how can we interpret justice? I wish to interpret justice by another light, one that does not lead us to believe in justice as transcendental (and the responsibility that entails it), and need not to conserve the notions of punishment and reward: as a social product. First I want to make some of my ideas about justice a bit clearer:
I acknowledge that justice, has no intrinsic meaning (in my opinion, if you are a Platonist, a religious moralist or moral realist you might disagree), no objective ‘idea’ or an appeal to ‘Truth’ that we must reach by means of logic or intuition. That is, to defend one..s belief of justice as if we were attempting to answer the question; what is justice? (To discover the origin or essence of ‘justice’) when what we really are (or should be) after is the question; what do we desire justice to be?

Justice is a word that has already been used to convey lots of different opinions, littered with them. In other words, justice, in a sense, is in the eye of the beholder. So then, why talk about justice? What good can it do to use such a word? My answer is this: it may be that it intrinsically means nothing; nevertheless we can still use the word to convey an opinion, so long as one makes sufficiently clear of what is meant when using the word; the function that it plays within a particular discourse. In general, a requirement for the proper development of ideas is that they must be consistent within their own discourse. So, for the development of a coherent interpretation of justice, it is necessary (and desired) that our starting ideas and presumptions don’t lead us to contradictions or inevitable conclusions that we don’t desire in the first place (or leave us with no conclusions at all). These ..starting ideas and presumptions.. take the form of moral choice, axioms if you like. It is not possible to defend one’s moral stance by means of logic or as an appeal to evident truth (So there is no constructive communication, no common language, between individuals who hold different ‘moral principles’ or ‘axioms’).

Given a set of axioms, there are specific directions that the interpretation will take. So we can’t expect all ideas or interpretations to be as good as each other, “good” referring to the successful accomplishment of a desired objective, in this case a moral choice. The demands will be different for a given society, why such a society would have such a moral choice is a difficult question to answer. Moral choices arise from physical human interaction and confrontation, struggle in society, intuition, empathy, the body, emotion, a human nature, history etc...Why do I give so much attention to moral axioms or moral choice? Because in general:

Interpretations serve to give a perception to facts. No facts by themselves are a justification to take a course of action. When Referring to facts that human being are morally responsible for (those we can modify), no discourse (interpretation) truly justifies a given course of action (or proves a necessary course of action) about those facts. It is precisely the moral axiom or position of the individual (or society) which determines what will follow (and a method of resolving these facts).

(Crappy example: we discover the fact that a murderer has a mental problem and is unable to appreciate the suffering he causes on his victims. Should we be more lenient because of his diminished thinking capabilities? Or should we punish him even more harshly with violence, the only language he seems to understand?)

Regardless, It is my belief that given a set of axioms (moral choices), certain logical conclusions follow which cannot be avoided unless we allow contradictions into our discourse, of the kind that would go against our moral principles (e.g.: Can the Christian interpretation of justice be harmonize with an interpretation of human beings as biological clockwork? Perhaps one interpretation can; that of Calvinism). If we do allow contradictions then there is no basis to believe that we may resolve any disputes by means of reasonable dialogue. That is something I am not willing to admit, for then this whole reply would lack any meaning.
One can object to what I’m stating by saying: But who makes the rules for this discourse? Surely if there are rules manmade, they are not made consciously anyway, I don’t think we can understand them. The rules themselves are interpretations.

For this I reply; they might be man made, but not all can be broken, so long as we don’t admit contradictions into them. To say that there are contradictions in a discourse brings into question the nature of language and its projection onto the world. So I will describe how I perceive it (see the very bottom of the reply).

Anyway, now I will turn to the interpretation of justice that I will ..defend’ in this response; as a social product:
To the extent I can understand how we can apply reason (ill explain later on what I mean by reason) to give sense to social justice, when an individual commits a ‘crime’, the institutions responsible for the implementation of justice should have moral duties:

A) To acknowledge the rights of the individual who committed the crime: equality before the law, freedom of expression, right to education, work, food etc..
B) To interpret how and why the crime took place.
C) To protect the community from further criminal acts of this kind, and prevent their continuation by the criminal at hand.

There are probably shitloads more, but these are the ones I want to highlight in particular. For no where in these principles (which I made up, I’m not sure if they are actually ‘“principles’”) do we find that punishing another individual is the right response to a criminal act, for that would be breaching A). To demand a moral standard is the only approach that we can use that does not waver with facts about the world and with the contemporary fluctuating metaphysical queries. This is possible and desired, given the reasons I gave about ‘moral axioms’ earlier on this reply (why do we need a justification?). This does not mean that the law rests upon a dictator or philosopher king who will tell us what is the best way top live our lives. This is a job we must all undertake, with the use of reason above all else (I will describe my interpretation of “reason” a bit later on)
in order to hold B) it is essential to make sure that the crime at hand is clarified and explained through an interpretation of the situation that prompted the crime, in order to avoid further analogous cases (i.e. "learn"). An interpretation once again, built by reason (see later on).

It is generally admitted that individuals who commit crimes are not "pure evil" (which undoubtedly requires the belief in free will and an immaterial soul), and that their actions are in relation to social, psychological, historical, biological etc conditions, to be construed as a biological system with certain cognitive and reasoning faculties (a proof that the human moral virtue, altruism or empathy can be linked to neural processes in the brain can be seen in the “Phineas Gage” case).

I am not suggesting though, that we cannot be held responsible. I have written in previous responses about my belief that we cannot escape the responsibility of our actions. It may be true that we are indeed determined or just chaotic, but this line of thought (this manner of conceiving the meaning of choice, way of using language) is not an argument against the fact that we are the ones who take the choice. On those aspects of the world which we have the capacity to modify, at no point can we free ourselves from “responsibility” as an appeal to exterior (or interior) forces (even though we might be determined by them). In fact, responsibility expects that we take actions determinately (otherwise how can we pardon or condemn someone who is not determined by a feeling of guilt or temptation?).
We must be careful when we interpret the meaning of “responsibility”, for in this sense it refers to a social contract; the individual is given the trust and the appeal to understand and to help the social structure of its society, so long as he is willing to give equal trust to his fellow citizens. If he fails to reach up to challenge it does not imply he must be punished (as an end in itself), rather it implies that next time the freedom that comes with such a responsibility is restricted. The limit of our freedom is where other’s freedom start, if we expect to go beyond this, then a democracy has the duty to alter our freedom in order to avoid affecting others. In other words, if a murderer refuses to stop killing, then his freedom will be further limited by his refusal to walk among fellow individuals without threatening their freedom to do the same. Society assumes a priori that all individuals posses a ..standard level.. of skills and reasoning abilities, supplied by our evolutionary past. It is an impossible task of allocating each citizen a weight of responsibility they could bare, so a social generalization of our faculties is applied. However, this does not mean all individuals are capable of acting in a socially admissible way; some may have pathological reasons behind their behavior (being psychopath is the extreme example). I won’t deny that there exists those who enjoy the suffering of others, but what kind of action should we take towards these irrational people? (Unwilling to withhold the social contract) An equally irrational response? Shall we reap what we sow?

Even when the impulse that guided a criminal act was a psychological influence rather than pathological one (the ‘nurtured’ side of an individual), it does not mean the individual is “evil”, the appropriate response is not punishment for the sake of it. It means that individual disagrees with (or has not understood) the principles of democracy and reason. Don’t refer to reason as a form of platonic virtue in order to reach the so called metaphysical "Truth" or Idea (which raises individuals to new “heights” above people), but rather, to the MORAL position by which we acknowledge (the obligation to listen to) the beliefs of all individuals and the admittance that we are not the bearers & holders of truth. That only through the interplay between the subjective opinions of individuals we may reach agreements (perhaps “true” statements about the world) by means of words and not violence, that is, to be reasonable (of course, I am not suggesting real democratic countries work like this). Also, no individual can claim authority over another, for he is bound by reason, and reason is bound to society (the scientific method does precisely this). Most of the time, being reasonable, listening to people and dialogue, gives way to a comprehensible compromise. For all its flaws (admittedly has millions), it is still the SINGLE solution to problems, which does not lead to the repression or maltreatment of many as a form of a solution.

So going back to my first point, the ‘criminal’ is to be respected and to be made to understand the principles of the democratic position on justice. Change the criminal’s attitude towards the committed ‘crime’, in a sense, to "reform" the individual (thus accomplishing “principle” C). Such is, in principle, the duty of "jails”. Even though the results of putting someone in jail to “limit their freedom” turns out to be equal to “punishing”, the principles by which we arrive to these conclusions are considerably different, and in my opinion the reasons of why we have chosen to take this course of action (how we perceive the result) should not be taken lightly, since there will be cases where the difference is observed (in British jails ..criminals.. are allowed phone calls and constant visits, where as in other countries it would be interpreted as a relief of the punishment).
Again, this may not be the case in all democracies, in fact, probably in none, for people tend to relate jail with punishment and revenge. Also, the institutions of justice usually turn out to be the worst, placing themselves above justice. But this is not a description of what IS, rather it is an opinion of what should be. Do we not agree that blame only works, in so far as it is meant to study and to improve where things go wrong? Do we not agree that by this interpretation, punishment works only insofar as it is meant to teach or to deter and not where punishment is an end in itself?

Punishment (the kind I am against), be psychological or physical is, in my opinion, the most brute of all forms of deterrence. I must admit that it works, but it carries with it an inherent illogical attitude, I quote pinker; though the threat of punishment can deter behavior, if the behavior does take place the punishment serves no purpose other than the pure sadism or an illogical desire to make the threat credible retroactively.

Although particular individuals can desire suffering on others, it is imperative for a democracy to avoid taking a side. Only by taking this stance, can we withhold the three principles I mentioned above, without falling into contradictions. It might be that this interpretation of justice unachievable. If it is the case that we cannot resolve conflicts by means of reason (which is, in a sense, the tilting point of the social interpretation), without appealing to leviathan as the judge and knower of truth, I would support Christianity in its interpretation of justice. If reason is no good, the best way to keep peace is by threatening to punish and promising to reward.

Alright, hope I made myself clear, haha… probably not, I kept repeating things over n over again. It’s a good attempt to be reasonable…although im not sure I buy what I say… cris!

Ohh yes, True, hell cannot be made of fire and brimstone (although I don’t think mathematics can help us to understand it either), it certainly represents the place where those who did not ask for forgiveness reside. But most importantly, it is understood as a form of punishment (whatever that might be) and as the solution to the implementation of justice. Or what else could the bible be saying? I think there is little doubt...we can try to appeal to a ‘higher understanding’ of “hell”. However, the problem of whether or not we should take literally the words in the bible has always been a shifty and muddy ground…
Ohh another thing, I agree with you Ben when you say that "eye for an eye" (Exodus. 21:23, 24) is stupid (although I would not use such a term to describe it, for it is a principle that pushed us out of our tribal past), it is a reason why conflicts are self-perpetuating and it is not a good way to do justice, like Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind” As Syl suggested, it is possible to change the world by peaceful means.

Bit about Language: Language is incredibly flexible, but this does not mean that it is pragmatic or utterly relative or that we can make any statement sensible, given the right framing….I believe. it has an underlying structure which depends on the categories of human thought (which Kant began to describe in his critique of pure reason), namely: space, time, intention, agonist, antagonist, substance, causality, morality (random example: “I pushed the boundaries to stop the killing of souls”, this sentence referring to abortion, analyzed, it contains some of the structures mentioned) and laid out in a very specific grammatical, syntactical and syllogistic (if, then, and, not, or) forms. I believe human beings posses a faculty that permits us to find solutions in a universe which undoubtedly has a discernable coherence. In other words, when we seek to define a more complex idea such as justice, the interpretation does not ultimately lie upon the words used (for it is evident that we may use different words to convey the same idea), rather on the capabilities of the human intellect to convey abstract thought (you don’t need to remember the words I used to remember what I meant). This does not mean however, that just because a framing is linguistically correct it is true about what it is referred to, it just means it’s a coherent possibility (quite obviously).

having said that language is flexible, I wish to point out that it is, for the most part, a parody, analogy or metaphor; it is not always true to our behavior and to our experience, what I mean to say is that most of the time it does not map truly the description of our experience (in the case of physics I might be inclined to believe it does, in a quantitative way) but it always bares a big responsibility of how we behave and experience the world; it gives us perspectives on how to perceive a given fact (“liberator of people” or “dictator” can be two perspectives of one fact). but even the perspectives, as rich and innumerable as they are, are still subject to logical and structural forms (laid above..By Kant) which are far from arbitrary or easily malleable.
Also, Language is not limited to objects of direct experience but for metaphysics to have some impact, it obviously requires a ‘return’ or a ‘relation’ to direct objects of experience, and hence subject to structure. But even then, I believe metaphysical concepts (like justice) can be tracked by the human mind and be put to work in a coherent fashion.
Language can serve as a tool to structure society, to implement action within it (to construct social institutions with moral demands) and to communicate our experience and to appeal and persuade our morality to others. By morality I mean a principle that we impose on ourselves when it comes to acting, to making choices. Again, I don’t believe these moral choices part from our free will, but the world (confrontation, struggle, human nature, etc...) and its history.

oih, there where a lot of words that where highlighted in cursive but when i pasted my response they dissapeared...hmm...nevermind
 

Phew! That was a long one Chris. Very interesting though. Justice is an interesting idea, and I think what you have said is very good. Although I think that somewhere you have missed a point that I’d like to keep in mind.

I think the way you think that Christianity conceives justice is quite accurate, and your criticisms are pretty good as well. I especially like the idea that through sending people to hell god is serving no purpose other than the pure sadism or an illogical desire to make the threat credible retroactively! Ha! Good point. It kind of makes the whole thing seem a little stupid when you look at justice from the perspective you hold, which is one of helping society etc. I’m not sure if I’m particularly clear.

I think that much less being punishment in the fire and brimstone sense, it can be seen that in a very much more mystic sort of way.

I’ve been reading, at your recommendation, ‘The Tao of Physics’ and am finding it fascinating. I am reading a little about eastern thought and the various schools of mystics and stuff, and about the central ideas. The idea that human suffering arises out of the imbalance of ying and yang. While it seems to me that this idea has been taken way too far in many religions, for example with homeopathy and other alternative medicines, there is an interesting perspective on reality to be gained through these ideas, and maybe even a perspective on the concepts of heaven and hell, which you could take in a metaphysical sense.

By asking for forgiveness, one is giving a certain balance to things possibly, thereby reducing his own suffering and internal conflict leading to a life that is more inline with the tao. Once one is dead, his whole life has moved from the undecided potentiality of the future to the permanent unchangeable eternal past, and in this sense, the eternity of this life is set in space time. If that eternity is spent in conflict, then this can be seen as hell, whilst if it is with the tao or whatever, then eternity is spent in harmony, and hence the notions of heaven and hell can arise from this bit of useless talk. In this understanding however, we can see that there need be no ‘evil’ god that ‘sends’ you to hell as punishment for sins. You seemingly send yourself. You are simultaneously the player of life, and unwittingly the judger! I don’t know if my speculative philosophical point has been well communicated, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

I leave with on quote which I think I will head my next blog with. It’s from aldous Huxley’s ‘A Brave New World’ which I just read and recommend.

“You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons – that’s philosophy.”

I also want to give a quote which was written on the side of some tent at boom festival in portugal where I was recently.
“We see the world not how it is but how we are.”

It was surrounded by hippy poo.

BEN