Meaning and Existence

[_Gazelam]

D&C 93:29

Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

God has always existed, as have we. The Father is trying to share what hes learned.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Coggins,

Your critique of the critics was that they can't handle extended philosophical debate. Logic is an important part of extended philosophical debate. Breaking everything down into logical premises, inferences, and conclusions enables us to see precisely what your thought process is, why we differ, and where (if anywhere) your reasoning has gone wrong. Analytics' summary of your arguments was very similar to my understanding of what you have been arguing on this thread. Yet you say it is not what you have been arguing. If you had stated your argument as a set of premises and conclusions from the beginning, we wouldn't be engaged in a running polemical battle about what you did or didn't say. So I challenge you: if you can handle extended philosophical discussion, then lay your argument out for us point-by-point so we can discuss clearly and concisely the soundness of your premises and inferences.

-CK

[_Coggins7]

Coggins,

Your critique of the critics was that they can't handle extended philosophical debate. Logic is an important part of extended philosophical debate. Breaking everything down into logical premises, inferences, and conclusions enables us to see precisely what your thought process is, why we differ, and where (if anywhere) your reasoning has gone wrong. Analytics' summary of your arguments was very similar to my understanding of what you have been arguing on this thread. Yet you say it is not what you have been arguing. If you had stated your argument as a set of premises and conclusions from the beginning, we wouldn't be engaged in a running polemical battle about what you did or didn't say. So I challenge you: if you can handle extended philosophical discussion, then lay your argument out for us point-by-point so we can discuss clearly and concisely the soundness of your premises and inferences.

-CK

Why don't you go back to the opening post on this thread if that's what you want? The basic premises are laid out there? Or is it some others that you are looking for?

[_CaliforniaKid]

Hi Coggins,

I'm looking for something more along the lines of a syllogism, a modus tollens, or a modus ponens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_ponens

The Modus ponens is my personal favorite, if only because it's so clear-cut. Modus ponens follows the form of

1. If P then Q
2. P
3. Therefore, Q

So drawing from your original post, we might do something like this:

1. If the universe is the result of purely, random, blind, chance reactions between matter and energy, then the universe [has no inherent meaning].
2. In the atheist system, the universe is the result of purely, random, blind, chance reactions between matter and energy.
3. Therefore, in the atheist system the universe [has no inherent meaning].

(Note that I have altered your original premise to more accurately reflect your distinction between subjective and inherent meaning. Originally, your premise said "is meaningless" where the brackets are above.)

See how naturally 3 follows from 1 and 2? If you can learn to express yourself in this manner, your reasoning will be infinitely clearer not only to others, but even to you. It will help you organize your thoughts more clearly and more persuasively.

By the way, I accept conclusion #3 above. And so do most other people here. It's really fairly obvious. But you seem to be trying to draw some other inference therefrom that you haven't clearly stated. I suggest that you use the Modus Ponens format to get from conclusion #3 above to whatever you are trying to convince us of, as follows:

1. If the universe has no inherent meaning, then [A]
2. In the atheist system the universe has no inherent meaning.
3. Therefore, in the atheist system, [A]

If premise 1 is going to be controversial, you might also want to prove it using a similar format.

I look forward to your demonstration.

-CK

[_beastie]

What say you to those that desperately seek God and still do not feel His presence? I find that you are so flippant when you talk about non-belief. I'm certain I'm not in the minority when I say I WISH there was more. I wish there was God. I wish he was a presence on this earth and in all of our hearts. For you to suggest that the view I hold as being "over the rainbow" thinking is not accurate. I grieve that God is not present. I don't turn God down. If he exists he will not allow me to know Him!

No, you are not alone. I desperately sought out God for years after losing faith in Mormonism. And then, when I realized I no longer believed in a god at all, I wept many times over it. It's particularly painful when a traumatic event happens to a loved one. When I lost a good friend to cancer a couple of years ago, I wished that I could believe I would see her again, in full health. I still dream about her. She's young in my dream, whole, not cancer-ravaged. I touch her face and tell her I love her. But my dreams of her are all I have.

Or when a child is very ill, and you're afraid. How nice it must be to be able to "turn it over to God". Those of us who cannot believe in such a being face these things alone, only with other equally impotent human beings to help.

And, in fact, I think this is a clue as to the power of religion, and why it exists, and persists.

And no, I cannot CHOOSE to believe, the way some claim is possible.

[_Tarski]

Hi Coggins,

3. Therefore, in the atheist system the universe [has no inherent meaning].

(Note that I have altered your original premise to more accurately reflect your distinction between subjective and inherent meaning. Originally, your premise said "is meaningless" where the brackets are above.)
By the way, I accept conclusion #3 above. And so do most other people here.
-CK

I don't. Why is it obvious and what exactly is the atheist "system"?

Meaning is always meaning to someone (or some creature or community of creatures). The universe has meaning to me.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Hi Coggins,

3. Therefore, in the atheist system the universe [has no inherent meaning].

(Note that I have altered your original premise to more accurately reflect your distinction between subjective and inherent meaning. Originally, your premise said "is meaningless" where the brackets are above.)
By the way, I accept conclusion #3 above. And so do most other people here.
-CK

I don't. Why is it obvious and what exactly is the atheist "system"?

Meaning is always meaning to someone (or some creature or community of creatures). The universe has meaning to me.

Tarski,

Note that the OP distinguishes between "inherent meaning" (defined as meaning given by a creator) and "subjective meaning" (defined as meaning imposed upon the world by human beings). I have conceded that since atheism does not believe in a creator, it prima facie denies the existence of inherent meaning. Of course, there's still plenty of room for constructed, subjective meaning of the sort you claim to find in the universe. That's why, while I concede conclusion #3 (which seems to be Coggins' main point in this thread), I keep asking him "so what?" The non-existence of inherent meaning hardly falsifies atheism.

-CK

[_Tal Bachman]

[code]Tal Bachman wrote:
Coggins7

May I suggest for your consideration that your thinking, though it seems perfectly sound to you, has been distorted in some important ways?

Your position, as I see it, boils down to this:

If Mormonism is false, nothing has meaning.

Is that not something of a psychological warning flag for you?

Listen kid, why don't you, in a calm and rational manner, analyze the propositions above and then delineate, in a reasoned, lucid, and philosophically serious manner, what it is about any of them you disagree with?[/

code]

Because, Grampa, you have given every impression that any attempt to do so, whilst you are in your current psychological state, will be completely useless. Thus, I raised the question of your current psychological state. Once you have seen that for what I believe it is (having been just where you are myself not so long ago, judging by the things you write), then "lucid reasoning" would actually hold out some promise of mutual enlightenment.

Then, a few "philosophically serious", albeit preparatory, questions for you, Coggins7:

1.) Do you think it is possible - not likely, just possible - that Joseph Smith might not always have told the truth about his experiences?

2.) If, by some unfathomable chance, that were the case, how do you think you could know that? What, hypothetically, would cause you to say to yourself, "I guess I was wrong about Mormonism, even though I was as certain as I thought I could have been"?

3.) If you reply, "God would have to tell me it's not what it claims", what made you believe this in the first place? What made you believe that your feelings, evidently enlightened understanding, etc., was actually the creator of the universe communicating directly to you - or that you could only know of Mormon fraud through revelation, when you would not say the same thing about detecting fraud in Moonie-ism, Catholicism, or Scientology?

4.) You sound like a man of some "chronological maturity". So I ask: even if Joseph Smith didn't tell the truth about his experiences, why should you care now? Doesn't "everyone have to believe in something"? And if you like Mormonism, does it really matter in the end whether it is all it claims to be, or not? Tell me - wouldn't it be the worst thing ever to find out now that you'd been wrong about everything most important to you in life? And for what? To be "right"? What if "right" means the worst emotional pain ever, at least for a year or two?

[_Coggins7]

Note that the OP distinguishes between "inherent meaning" (defined as meaning given by a creator) and "subjective meaning" (defined as meaning imposed upon the world by human beings). I have conceded that since atheism does not believe in a creator, it prima facie denies the existence of inherent meaning. Of course, there's still plenty of room for constructed, subjective meaning of the sort you claim to find in the universe. That's why, while I concede conclusion #3 (which seems to be Coggins' main point in this thread), I keep asking him "so what?" The non-existence of inherent meaning hardly falsifies atheism.

But, of course, that is precisely not the point, if by "falsify atheism? you mean "falsify the holding of whatever philosophy one wishes to hold". Are you not arguing tautologically here? If the universe has no inherent meaning, then atheism has no inherent meaning, and is falsified by definition in an inherent manner. None of this precludes one from continuing to hold to atheism in a meaningless universe in a subjective sense, as long as one understands that believing there is no God has no more inherent value than believing that there is.

Atheism then, as a set of values or statements about the universe, has no intrinsic meaning, even though, if it is true, it makes valid statements about that same universe.

[_Coggins7]

May I suggest for your consideration that your thinking, though it seems perfectly sound to you, has been distorted in some important ways?

Yes, you may.

Your position, as I see it, boils down to this:

If Mormonism is false, nothing has meaning.

I've never made this assertion. Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, or Vedic religion could be true and the universe could still have meaning, although it would, to different degrees, be a different meaning than as that proposed in the Restored Gospel.

Because, Grampa, you have given every impression that any attempt to do so, whilst you are in your current psychological state, will be completely useless. Thus, I raised the question of your current psychological state. Once you have seen that for what I believe it is (having been just where you are myself not so long ago, judging by the things you write), then "lucid reasoning" would actually hold out some promise of mutual enlightenment.

While I don't mind anyone commenting on the kind of psychology that may animate what I accept and do not accept philosophically (as I do this to others), the way you are doing this here smacks of attitudes prevalent in much of higher education where a student publically expressing support for conservative social principles or Austrian economics can be summarily sent to a college psychologist for counseling. Your attitude is reminiscent of the attitude of the Soviets to dissidents whom Marxist ideologues believed, to be actually opposed to socialist principles, must be mentally disturbed in some manner. This partakes precisely of the hysterical, paranoid style of exmormons.org and related websites with which I am well acquainted.

Then, a few "philosophically serious", albeit preparatory, questions for you, Coggins7:

1.) Do you think it is possible - not likely, just possible - that Joseph Smith might not always have told the truth about his experiences?

Your premise assumes the nonexistence of the phenomena of testimony, or confirmatory revelation. You beg the question.

3.) If you reply, "God would have to tell me it's not what it claims", what made you believe this in the first place? What made you believe that your feelings, evidently enlightened understanding, etc., was actually the creator of the universe communicating directly to you - or that you could only know of Mormon fraud through revelation, when you would not say the same thing about detecting fraud in Moonie-ism, Catholicism, or Scientology?

This is far to easy a trap to avoid Tal. Beastie is a far more challenging interlocutor than you. He's at least researched and thought through his arguments and worked them out in some detail (weak as I think they are, overall, he's done some substantial intellectual work on them).

I have the direct and sure knowledge within myself that Joseph did not lie about his persona experiences regarding the origins of the Church. Your own psychological problem here, Tal, is that your questions above do not apply to me, but to you.

You are asking the wrong person these kinds of questions.

4.) You sound like a man of some "chronological maturity". So I ask: even if Joseph Smith didn't tell the truth about his experiences, why should you care now? Doesn't "everyone have to believe in something"? And if you like Mormonism, does it really matter in the end whether it is all it claims to be, or not? Tell me - wouldn't it be the worst thing ever to find out now that you'd been wrong about everything most important to you in life? And for what? To be "right"? What if "right" means the worst emotional pain ever, at least for a year or two?

If the Church were not true, then yes, my entire world view would collapse. But this is also true of Richard Dawkins, Stephan Hawking, Hugh Hefner, Sean Penn, Felix the Cat, Beastie, Dude, Tarski, and any number of others who hold alternative views. The collapse would be in a different direction and along a different dimension, but the collapse would occur nonetheless. So this does not bother me in the least.

What interests me are what Nibley called "the terrible questions"; the nature of the human condition and the meaning of the existence of that condition. Therefore, I am concerned with the truth. If the Gospel wasn't true, then the entire meaning of my life both as a temporal creature here and as a potential divine being of vast intelligence, light, and knowledge, ceases as a going concern beyond this temporal world.

These hopes, promises, and faith (what Vedic follower John McLaughlin termed, as the title to one of his old albums, My Goals Beyond) are at the core of my personality and being.

But for me, you see, your questions are purely rhetorical, as my testimony obviates this being anything other than philosophical play. Of course, my testimony is not complete. I don't have a testimony regarding every gospel doctrine or point. For some, I do not need such. For others, I am not prepared as yet to receive such. Line upon line...