Alfredo wrote:You're not working with me, subgenius. You're quibbling over ideas which are easy to figure out.
Subgenius, you said...
subgenius wrote:your idea is rather simple, but its foundations are flawed...
...again, alleging a Moroni challenge paradox that must inherently mean flaw?
I am not sure you understand the paradigm of religion. You are using a yard stick to measure weight.
You're still quibbling. You haven't acknowledge that it's the foundation of religious experience I am asking for. You can state the foundation, but you still have to explain it.
I think I know exactly what you fear about my argument. The power isn't in questioning the foundation of the Mormon paradigm, but in the failure to support any foundation for Mormon thought without its explanatory power embarrassingly within perspective. I'm not proposing any measurement, I'm claiming that no reliable measurement can be made when we limit ourselves to this set of experiences, and only religious interpretations of those experiences. It's putting religious interpretations on the spot. They're claimed to give any necessary explanation required for completing this life, so do they?
I'll get right to the point. It doesn't seem like you need color coding to grab your attention, so I'll explain it clearly. This next part is most important. Try to stay on point and address the structure of my question. Exactly what about it's content is disagreeable? Is it formed improperly?
If the qualia of consciousness is a single type of qualia which can be considered self-evident, by what standard do we determine what other types of qualia which exist can be considered preferable as being self-evident?
I'm asking you to pave the way within the paradigm of religious experience for this strange concept of self-evidentness. How should we think about the relationship between the concept of self-evidentness and religious qualia? Suspiciously, you've yet to provide any conditions for the application of the concept to any religious qualia. How do we know it applies? We still don't know what types of qualia are reality "without inspection, without interpretation, and without dissection."
I don't blame you because it's a damned difficult question!
I, personally, don't know where to start... It seems that when considering the relevant type of religious qualia which fit the conditions for being self-evident, you realize that you're simply defending which Mormon believer can distinguish experience of their particular model of reality against the widest possible scope of relevant experiences.
My "prism" is actually the necessary perspective, you just don't happen to like the fact that contrary experiences are undeniably included in the scope of the question, evidently because it's completely unclear which qualia receive the "self-evident" label and which don't.
It's an unbridgeable and suspect disagreement between which religion can prove it does what religions do best, be experientially convinced by their own stinky crap!
A substantive disagreement between the accounts of experience shows that these experiences require comparison if we are to choose between them as we undeniably do.
And even worse, if any comparison can be made at all, the best defenses of the incompatible self-evident qualia are predicated upon experiences which the religious have already defined as having no comprehensible limit or explanation!
After you admission there can be no comparison, the problem is shown to still be unsolved even if you allow comparison. If religious qualia can be claimed to push the limits of the soul past some comprehensible point, in turn this negates any possible comprehensible comparison between them. Comparison is an integral requirement to the defend the religious qualia which are claimed to be incomprehensibly incomparable.
What makes the qualia of bringing the soul to the limit of conviction any more preferable as self-evident than the next?
What makes the qualia of bringing the soul to the limit of love any more preferable?
What makes the qualia of bringing the soul to the limit of comfort any more preferable?
What makes the qualia of bringing the soul to the limit of joy any more preferable?
The question exposes the precarious elements of Mormonism which are indistinguishable from the reports of believers of entirely incompatible, but delicious flavors! Everyone experiences their lottery ticket in the same way, but everyone claims their investment has some exclusive value above the other tickets. It makes no sense.
We recognize too often that Mormonism is exceptionally unique in the sorts of black and white statements it offers about existence--in how it divides up the world... and we forget that when considering the most integral and foundational aspects of the Mormon model of reality, their claims blend seamlessly into that same world. The whole set of religious qualia which serve as the foundation for the Mormon paradigm are suspiciously and remarkably indistinguishable to those qualia which "deny" the Mormon model of reality.
That's the point I'm trying to isolate. I'll deal with the contingencies below.
i disagree with this conclusion. There may be Mormons who say one way or another, but Mormonism itself does not speak to "compatibility" in the manner you devise here.
Absolutely, it does. The concepts implicit and explicit in the Standard Works of a division between things which are "of God" and "of Satan" could not be any more black and white about compatibility. Do I really have to accept that the word "deny" dropped in explicit contexts with maximum significance throughout the Southwest is used in a conditional manner which allows for compatibility??!?
I don't see how the profuse amount of extremely precise statements concerning the incompatibility of these God/Satan categories couldn't be just as extremely relevant to the analysis of religious qualia.
Scripture necessarily divides the religious qualia up into two categories, "of God" and "of Satan".
no, i have stated that religious experiences are akin to self-evident experiences.
Certain experiences must be self-evident if they are to serve as the foundation for circular logic.
The religious experience may very well be dependent on the individual's ability to discern it, by which case there is no distinction or "quality" of experience (as you say above actual versus convincing).
...but you're ignoring the clear contradictions which have already been established. If the distinctions made about the quality of experience, then what explains the incompatibility in the models of reality the experiences are offered to defend?
You see, i kinda agree with Nietzsche whereas qualia are un-observable in others and unquantifiable in us...a notion i consider in harmony with what is being put forth in Mormonism.
Again, you're missing the point.
If religious qualia are unobservable and unquantifiable, then what explains the observation that the religious who defend these experiences can't agree on which qualia should receive unquestionable acceptance or firm denial?
Is it not strikingly suspicious the only defense given for one incompatible religious models against another is by appealing to qualia which are defined as impossible to compare?
Do you see the profound clash between the existence of incompatible models and the lack of any foundations for these models which are comparable?
If we can't compare their prime foundations, what possible explanation could be given for why we accept some models but not others that doesn't implicitly compare their foundations?