An imagined world--it's own thread

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Res Ipsa
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by Res Ipsa »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:19 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:06 am


I think that's a really interesting point. Your term avoids the implied stigma of irrational. I like how you think through these issues.
It's fun to do! Kishkumen has that effect on me... :D
Me too. :D
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by Gadianton »

Stem wrote:Is there any reason to think the concept of a spirit world is anything more than a person's claim that they have a dragon in their garage? If so, is it not worthless to think there is a spirit world? It seems to be nothing more than an imagined non-place that suffers every ad hoc explanation, or excuse, possible which in the end only explains the place into non existence.
I broadly agree, but Pinker's example while it shows the problem taken to the logical extreme, doesn't explain what most people are likely to do. More realistic would be, the person has a sudden flash of insight, finds the keys, and then remembers themselves saying a quick prayer just a moment before the insight came. Many variations of this theme. Pinker's example conflicts with Sagan's dragon, because the person who believes their keys are in a drawer in Tennessee is really putting it on the line and making a falsifiable claim. Sure, if the keys don't turn up in that drawer, they'll make an excuse, but those kinds of claims are in line with what James Randi somewhat respects -- putting it out there in a way that can be tested and falsified. Please, find a Mormon leader who would ever do such a thing. The dragon example is a person being flippant or at least, with very little investment in their presumed belief. Going to the garage and making things up from there doesn't take much.
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by Marcus »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:17 am
Wonderful! I don't think any theology led me to what I did either, it was my desire and imagination based on a "mere myth" which ended up being so powerful my entire life has changed because of it. Learning how to appreciate the world IS spirituality. At least for me.
This is a great way to talk about spirituality. It really appeals to me, especially the bolded part. As a very small example, we have had an explosion of birds this year in our yard and in the areas where we hike and bird, and experiencing this amazing array of colors and details and sounds is bringing tremendous joy. My spouse recognizes birds by their song, which only adds to the experience. I can’t even express how miraculous i find this small part of our world, and yes, I would define it as an aspect of spirituality.
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by Philo Sofee »

Marcus wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 3:00 am
Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:17 am
Wonderful! I don't think any theology led me to what I did either, it was my desire and imagination based on a "mere myth" which ended up being so powerful my entire life has changed because of it. Learning how to appreciate the world IS spirituality. At least for me.
This is a great way to talk about spirituality. It really appeals to me, especially the bolded part. As a very small example, we have had an explosion of birds this year in our yard and in the areas where we hike and bird, and experiencing this amazing array of colors and details and sounds is bringing tremendous joy. My spouse recognizes birds by their song, which only adds to the experience. I can’t even express how miraculous i find this small part of our world, and yes, I would define it as an aspect of spirituality.
I'm jumping into a book again because of this and other threads. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat - Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life. It's a large book! I rather am enjoying it. I will share ideas as I find them, there's at least one per page. :D
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

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Gadianton wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:44 am
I broadly agree, but Pinker's example while it shows the problem taken to the logical extreme, doesn't explain what most people are likely to do. More realistic would be, the person has a sudden flash of insight, finds the keys, and then remembers themselves saying a quick prayer just a moment before the insight came. Many variations of this theme.


Here is another variation on the theme that I find more believable, and it is also one that requires no belief in the dreaded "supernatural."

A person by praying gets into a frame of mind that allows them to have a sudden insight.

The end.
Pinker's example conflicts with Sagan's dragon, because the person who believes their keys are in a drawer in Tennessee is really putting it on the line and making a falsifiable claim.
Well, and that person is, of course, Pinker, who made up the scenario to rig the failure. In other words, this is not a hypothetical that reflects the experience of most people who do follow these intuitions. It is an ideological statement masked as a hypothetical. Its motivation is very clear.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by dastardly stem »

huckelberry wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 12:55 am

I think Msnobody make a good point. Her experience should not be lightly dismissed.

Many years ago I spent some time working as an aid in a nursing home. There was a woman of faith who spread a caring spirit. I was in her room late in the night when she died. I heard the angels come to get her.
Hey Huckelberry. I didn't intend to dismiss it. I meant to try and glean more from it by my questions. On that, I don't know what you mean by you heard angels come to get her. Anyone could hear anything at night, seemingly creeping around, but each time I've experienced it, I realize it's nothing supernatural. And if angels came to get a kind old lady, why doesn't that happen for others? Why can't such a thing ever be demonstrated? I was with my mom when she passed. She was a kind old lady too who spread caring. When she died, I sat and cried by her bed side, yelling how much I loved her. She heard me. But no angels came and took her. But again, I don't know what that is. Perhaps I wasn't spiritual enough to hear the angels? You see, the big problem I have here, is we hear angels only if we first assume angels. And if no one else hears angels, why is that hearing nothing more than us thinking we're hearing?

This is not meant as an attempt to dismiss it's meant as an attempt to explore the claims. If angels can be heard, what does that mean? How does immaterial make noise that can be heard by the material? Or if their noise was only in a spirit realm and only those in or close to that spirit realm can hear, how is that any more real than someone who claims an invisible dragon is in the garage?
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by dastardly stem »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:03 am


And I gotta admit, this topic and thread is a whole lot more interesting than talking about Daniel C. Peterson! :lol:
That is forever my goal on this board. I'd love to get away from that. I'm also feeling partial to getting off the Book of Abraham stuff, but too many find that way more fascinating than I do, so I live with those threads that seemingly all too often drown the good on this board.
Perhaps spirituality and the spirit world is our imagination... spirituality is an attitude, not something physical. Attitudes aren't physical things... they have no shape, no color, no actual properties we can touch, experience in the physical world like we can the smells of pine trees and color of rocks and flowers. I like to think I am pragmatic as well as spiritual. Let me give you an for instance...
As I've asked Kish and others, I don't know what is meant by spiritual in these contexts. When you say "perhaps spirituality and the spirit world is our imagination..." I'm like "perhaps?" How can we plausibly see it as somethign else at this point? It is our imagination, it seems to me.
When I got to the house I live in right now almost 35 years ago there was nothing but a house and grass with a row of lilacs across the back. It was all just flat lawn, and not at all taken care of either. Nothing wrong with that.

But in my imagination I wanted to live in a forest, with animals, beautiful birds, plants of all kinds, flowers, so, I began to plant. I planted everything man! Trees, shrubs, flowers, I gathered rocks of all kinds and colors from the mountains, the deserts, etc. And I watered and planted year after year. I imagined living in my own Garden of Eden. I mean like the paintings! Now, the Garden of Eden is a myth it isn't real. But that has nothing to do with its actual power. Eden may be purely unreal myth, but its influence is absolutely substantial. Like the myth Star Wars. That has changed the entire world, financially, physically, imaginatively, artistically, even with furniture, lights, weapons, clothes, public gatherings celebrating it, hair styles, expressions, meanings, our very language, etc. Our physical reality has literally been changed by the myth and imagination of a fiction movie that has no possible change of being "real", yet its power is undeniable.

The same thing with my own Garden of Eden in my own midst I enjoy every day. When visitors come over and have a dinner with us they bask in the astonishing peaceful beauty, the birds are chirping, squirrels running around, bees buzzing around traveling from flower to flower, the praying mantis, beetles, butterflies, yes even rabbits amaze them. The shapes and smells of the trees, their colors, their height, everything is just gorgeous! The hawks, eagles (yes, eagles at times!), sparrows, magpies, wrens, chickadees, robins, doves, pigeons, wood peckers, all visit us. The weird shapes of the rocks among the ferns peeking through the undergrowth on the ground gives their eyes beauty to enjoy, the wind through the trees, the scattered sunlight and shadows, all interplaying. I have heard many expression such as "this is heaven!" "Oh I would die for this place!" "I don't want to leave" and on and on it goes.

Eden is very actually real, I LIVE IN IT. I HAVE MY OWN PIECE OF IT. I ***KNOW*** it's REAL, I CREATED IT, first in my IMAGINATION, then in my GOALS, then ACTION, and now FULFILLMENT. That to me is what being spiritual is. Is this THE actual Eden? No. Is this actually Eden? Oh heavens yes, like I say, I own it, I get to enjoy it, thrive in it, live, laugh, eat, relax, and work, and sleep in it every single day. You can't possibly tell me Eden isn't real, I will simply laugh at you. I am being literal here. Eden is VERY real. Is it the objective Eden though? Why on earth would that even possibly matter to me at all in any way? Of course it is subjective to me. It's also physically very real to me, I get to climb its trees, weed its weeds, water its plants, feed its animals, listen to the insects, birds, and wind, paint the trees, and enjoy the clouds floating over it as I live in it. My real Eden has been called "Heaven" by many people who have been here. Is heaven real? Sure it is! I made a piece of that in my life also. It was deliberate, it is PHYSICAL, yet it is entirely 100% subjective to my own experience. That doesn't make it fake, or an illusion however. It is spiritual all the while being physical. The physical is the spiritual in this sense, at least to me.
If this is what is meant by spiritual, I have no issue at all. Of course when many speak of spiritual, they aren't speaking only of personal feelings of joy, peace, love, harmony, purpose and all of that. They are suggesting they know there is another world better than ours because they imagine it is so. Earlier in the thread Kish got after me because I misunderstood him. I don't know what I misunderstood, but it happens. I thought he suggested my little analogy of losing keys and rational steps we ought to consider in finding them was a good one. To claim the story you told or anyone else tells is best explained by an imagined world seems unreasonable. For any given explanation for any phenomena in order to be rational agents, we ought to at least have reason for the explanation otherwise we're being irrational. The proposed spirit world is not reason. It is a jump in logic, at least as ludicrous as someone thinking their keys were mailed away when they are lost. A possible explanation isn't a plausible explanation. And a plausible explanation is not a probable one all simply because that's what we want.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by dastardly stem »

Gadianton wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:44 am
Stem wrote:Is there any reason to think the concept of a spirit world is anything more than a person's claim that they have a dragon in their garage? If so, is it not worthless to think there is a spirit world? It seems to be nothing more than an imagined non-place that suffers every ad hoc explanation, or excuse, possible which in the end only explains the place into non existence.
I broadly agree, but Pinker's example while it shows the problem taken to the logical extreme, doesn't explain what most people are likely to do. More realistic would be, the person has a sudden flash of insight, finds the keys, and then remembers themselves saying a quick prayer just a moment before the insight came. Many variations of this theme. Pinker's example conflicts with Sagan's dragon, because the person who believes their keys are in a drawer in Tennessee is really putting it on the line and making a falsifiable claim. Sure, if the keys don't turn up in that drawer, they'll make an excuse, but those kinds of claims are in line with what James Randi somewhat respects -- putting it out there in a way that can be tested and falsified. Please, find a Mormon leader who would ever do such a thing. The dragon example is a person being flippant or at least, with very little investment in their presumed belief. Going to the garage and making things up from there doesn't take much.
Excellent point. I'd suggest unfalsifiable claims are so implausible they essentially disprove themselves as explanations and arguments run around in circles. Many who are wishing to make room for a spirit world, in this discussion, seem to also suggest it's possible there is not, and all phenomena most associate with a spirit world could simply be brain activity, or something. I say, great. But why are we somehow thinking these explanations are on the same level of probability? The possibility for a spirit world seems below the level of plausible, and is only possible because we seemingly have to think everything is possible. On the other hand brain activity explanations are most probable. This hardly seems 50/50, and yet many seem intent to say it is.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by dastardly stem »

Rivendale wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:55 am
Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:03 am
Perhaps spirituality and the spirit world is our imagination... spirituality is an attitude, not something physical. Attitudes aren't physical things... they have no shape, no color, no actual properties we can touch, experience in the physical world like we can the smells of pine trees and color of rocks and flowers. I like to think I am pragmatic as well as spiritual. Let me give you an for instance...

When I got to the house I live in right now almost 35 years ago there was nothing but a house and grass with a row of lilacs across the back. It was all just flat lawn, and not at all taken care of either. Nothing wrong with that.

But in my imagination I wanted to live in a forest, with animals, beautiful birds, plants of all kinds, flowers, so, I began to plant. I planted everything man! Trees, shrubs, flowers, I gathered rocks of all kinds and colors from the mountains, the deserts, etc. And I watered and planted year after year. I imagined living in my own Garden of Eden. I mean like the paintings! Now, the Garden of Eden is a myth it isn't real. But that has nothing to do with its actual power. Eden may be purely unreal myth, but its influence is absolutely substantial. Like the myth Star Wars. That has changed the entire world, financially, physically, imaginatively, artistically, even with furniture, lights, weapons, clothes, public gatherings celebrating it, hair styles, expressions, meanings, our very language, etc. Our physical reality has literally been changed by the myth and imagination of a fiction movie that has no possible change of being "real", yet its power is undeniable.

The same thing with my own Garden of Eden in my own midst I enjoy every day. When visitors come over and have a dinner with us they bask in the astonishing peaceful beauty, the birds are chirping, squirrels running around, bees buzzing around traveling from flower to flower, the praying mantis, beetles, butterflies, yes even rabbits amaze them. The shapes and smells of the trees, their colors, their height, everything is just gorgeous! The hawks, eagles (yes, eagles at times!), sparrows, magpies, wrens, chickadees, robins, doves, pigeons, wood peckers, all visit us. The weird shapes of the rocks among the ferns peeking through the undergrowth on the ground gives their eyes beauty to enjoy, the wind through the trees, the scattered sunlight and shadows, all interplaying. I have heard many expression such as "this is heaven!" "Oh I would die for this place!" "I don't want to leave" and on and on it goes.

Eden is very actually real, I LIVE IN IT. I HAVE MY OWN PIECE OF IT. I ***KNOW*** it's REAL, I CREATED IT, first in my IMAGINATION, then in my GOALS, then ACTION, and now FULFILLMENT. That to me is what being spiritual is. Is this THE actual Eden? No. Is this actually Eden? Oh heavens yes, like I say, I own it, I get to enjoy it, thrive in it, live, laugh, eat, relax, and work, and sleep in it every single day. You can't possibly tell me Eden isn't real, I will simply laugh at you. I am being literal here. Eden is VERY real. Is it the objective Eden though? Why on earth would that even possibly matter to me at all in any way? Of course it is subjective to me. It's also physically very real to me, I get to climb its trees, weed its weeds, water its plants, feed its animals, listen to the insects, birds, and wind, paint the trees, and enjoy the clouds floating over it as I live in it. My real Eden has been called "Heaven" by many people who have been here. Is heaven real? Sure it is! I made a piece of that in my life also. It was deliberate, it is PHYSICAL, yet it is entirely 100% subjective to my own experience. That doesn't make it fake, or an illusion however. It is spiritual all the while being physical. The physical is the spiritual in this sense, at least to me.

And I gotta admit, this topic and thread is a whole lot more interesting than talking about Daniel C. Peterson! :lol:
If that is spiritual I am guilty. I bought a piece of sage brush in 1999 and completely changed the landscape as I built the house I now live in . I enjoy https://imgur.com/IaYjhyb my yard and work on it all the time with no spiritual intent at all. I simply laugh at the idea it has to have some link to another realm. It was just me and what I wanted. And yes objective truth is real. I don't think any being sent me instructions to do this. I don't think any theology organized my intentions to do this. I did it because I learned how to understand and appreciate the world around me. I did it because it resonated with me. There were no truths I learned other than my wife and myself creating an atmosphere we both appreciated. But those truths came from real objective facts about the world I live in. That is the entire point.
I'd love to pay you guys money to beautify my place. I've tried and it looks good enough and is enjoyable enough. But I'm sure it pails in comparison. Ah well...I suppose if I cared enough, I'd have already been paying someone.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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Re: An imagined world--it's own thread

Post by dastardly stem »

Kishkumen wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:35 pm


Well, and that person is, of course, Pinker, who made up the scenario to rig the failure. In other words, this is not a hypothetical that reflects the experience of most people who do follow these intuitions. It is an ideological statement masked as a hypothetical. Its motivation is very clear.
I don't really mean to get back into this with you, but of course the motivation is clear. It's an attempt to explain why explanations such as a spirit world are implausible. They are not probable on the data we have. Its a leap in reasoning to think any particular "spiritual experience" (like that described by Philo) means there's a spirit world. We're better off accepting our spiritual experiences are simply our imagination. There's nothing wrong with that. But, I'd say, if people are thinking there's a spirit realm all because they really want it and they live for it rather than for this world...well, I think there is risk there. And that's what I'd like to call out.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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