The religious experience vs. the experience of reality

[Rikiti]

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[_honorentheos]

It really does not make any point against the OP. I was simply describing the difference between objective and subjective. If our pink elephants are not observable by anyone else, we can still be certain we saw them, and be correct.

It is this difference between the subjective and the objective that speaks directly to the OP, and serves as a point against it.

While you can be correct that you "saw" a "pink elephant", until you can validate that this subjective experience is related to external data that can be ruled objectively "real", this has no bearing on the existence of pink elephants as objects. And if they are not observable to anyone else, then the meaningfulness of experiencing of pink elephants is limited to you alone.

In this case, the existence of pink elephants as something you experience subjectively may not contradict the lack of these subjective pink elephant experiences in other's lives. But neither have bearing on the objective state of pink elephants.

[Rikiti]

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[_honorentheos]

The point is that there is "no-thing" outside of human experience. It is either subjective, objective, certain or uncertain.

There is a reason that most here who have philosophy backgrounds and degrees collect their paychecks from more "substantial" sources.

I think that Goethe's Mephistopheles in Der Faustus said it best, while working to convince a young would-be scholar why he should add philosophy to his studies -

Mephistopheles:
Use well the precious time, it flips away so,
Yet method gains you time, if I may say so.
I counsel you therefore, my worthy friend,
The logical leisures first to attend.
Then is your mind well trained and cased
In Spanish boots all snugly laced,
So that henceforth it can creep ahead
On the road of thought with a cautious tread.
And not at random shoot and strike,
Zig-zagging Jack-o'-lanthorn-like.

Then will you many a day be taught
That what you once to do had thought
Like eating and drinking, extempore,
Requires the rule of one, two, three.
It is, to be sure, with the fabric of thought,
As with the chef d'œuvre by weavers wrought,
Where a thousand threads one treadle plies,
Backward and forward the shuttles keep going,
Invisibly the threads keep flowing,
One stroke a thousand fastenings ties:
Comes the philosopher and cries:
I'll show you, it could not be otherwise:
The first being so, the second so,
The third and fourth must of course be so;
And were not the first and second, you see,
The third and fourth could never be.
The scholars everywhere call this clever,
But none have yet become weavers ever.

The scholars everywhere call this clever,
But none have yet become weavers ever.

Whether it is true that there is "no-thing" without human interpretation, or that we are just a blip of one strain of consciousness in the course of the ongoing creation event of this particular big bang makes little difference when something needs "woven".

Or, as to reimagine these famous lines as a clarification of Berkley's view that you share so often:

There was a young man who said, "God,
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Continues to be,
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."

While the physical, and thus limited God of Mormonism continues to have problems with your view (though we have had plenty of discussions on that), the fact that there was, and continues to be, some sort of creative force that IS the universe (Nature with a capital "N") or is beyond the universe in some position prevents your solipsistic conclusion and dwarfs the concept that the individual human's subjective experience has definitive properties outside of that one mind.

[_EAllusion]

Going without food and water alters consciousness, much like LSD. The difference is, when one is on acid and they have a revelation, it is easy to say "oh, that was just the acid" but after fasting and praying and having a spiritual experience result, one is less likely to say "it was the malnutrition" they are more likely to say it was a true revelation.

Yeah, that's true. People who encourage traditional methods of producing altered states of consciousness for religious experiences, such as chanting, methodical dancing, fasting, whipping oneself with cords, going without sleep, etc. but look down upon drugs are confused. It seems they dismiss the drugs because it alters brain chemistry while being oblivious to the fact that those traditional methods do the same thing. If it's the religious experience is unreal because it is just the brain chemistry change caused by the drug, why isn't it unreal in the case of sleep deprivation?

[_mfbukowski]

Fortunately, for those whose knowledge of philosophy extends beyond hitting a bong, we probably do have tools to think some ostensible interpretations of experiences are veridical while others are illusions, misperceptions, hallucinations, and so on. I'm personally fond of a version of coherentism that involves "cross-checking" perceptions against one another, but there are a variety of approaches and few if anyone thinks we are hopeless to think some perceptions aren't veridical.

Sounds like an interesting approach I'd like to hear more about.

[_mfbukowski]

I was reading about Buddhism last night and found that the Buddha taught that Ultimate Reality is the other side of the river, the river being full of rapids and danger. The doctrine or teachings are like a raft, that one uses to cross the river successfully. Once the destination (enlightenment) is reached, the doctrines have no use any more, like the raft. Also, it is said that once the destination is reached, it is realized that there was no river to begin with.

That is one the reasons I used the analogy.

[_mfbukowski]

mfb -

Part of the problem with your argument is that Mormonism claims that its version of religious experiences is intersubjective. That is to say, I'm supposed to use my spiritual senses like I do my normal ones and be able to "see" God, the truth of Mormonism, etc just the same as I can use my senses to gather evidence of Antarctica. Indeed, you can't build up a religion, with a whole enormous network of beliefs built upon shared experience, without being able to communicate your experiences and provide some roadmap to others obtaining them. This is no more a private affair than me telling you there is a cactus over there is. And if I say there is a cactus over there and cannot obtain some intersubjective verifiability to it, that calls into question my perception of that cactus. People should be able to see it, because it's supposed to be a mutually accessible thing.

Well I think there is something to this, but on the other hand you have the simple fact that it is not perfectly communicable. And I think that making the argument that Mormonism "claims" that it is to be perfectly intersubjective is a strawman. The reality is that all Mormon missionaries tell people to "pray about it" and some get answers and some - quite a bit more in fact- do NOT get the predicted response. Perhaps it used to be that those would be rationalized away, but more and more I see the notion of "the elect" being used to explain why some do not get the desired response. I repeatedly hear the missionaries say they are out to find "the elect". If they don't "get it"- on to the next

I disagree that anyone supposes this experience is to be anywhere near as objective "telling you there is a cactus over there"- clearly they do not. Even a mere "burning in the bosom" is no where near like the objectivity of a "cactus over there". No one would ask you to "try again" to find the "cactus over there"- either it's there or it isn't.

The image of missionaries encouraging someone to stumble through the desert at night, blindfolded, waiting for a burning bosom before walking into an unseen cactus clearly illustrates how poor an analogy this is.

The missionaries don't exactly require that one for baptism.

You might try to counter that it is a mutually accessible thing, but others can't see it because they are blinded for some reason. The most popular argument to this end is that "sin" corrupts your spiritual faculties. I think this is laughably ad hoc when you think about the distribution of sin relative to who's having mystical experiences, of what, and why, but I'm all ears if you want to try that.

I agree that that is a bad argument about getting a testimony but perhaps more valid in the discussion of other questions.

I am a convert you know, and would never pretend to state under any circumstances that I am not a sinner. But there is no question that one's spiritual acumen can be developed through righteous living.

[Rikiti]

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[_mfbukowski]

Whether it is true that there is "no-thing" without human interpretation, or that we are just a blip of one strain of consciousness in the course of the ongoing creation event of this particular big bang makes little difference when something needs "woven".

You continually get this wrong, and somehow make me a solipsist about this.

The fact is, that if it is possible to conceive of what the universe would be "like" outside of human experience, which it is not, it would not be expressible any way.

It would not be a "thing" because "thing" is a human word in human language created by a human mind.

This blatant fact in no way entails solipsism. Humans can only know what humans can know.

We will never know what it is like to "see" radio waves and "hear" the solar wind unless we create electronic analogs which might approximate the experience.

You will never ever understand that point.