Religion: Just a Form of Brain Washing?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
541

ha, well, thats a good point… anyway… here’s the pm i sent. you can see, i disagree with the addition/subtraction thing.

… the philosophical stuff is at the bottom, the mathematical stuff at the top.

[quote]I’m an engineer when I’m not pretending to be a philosopher on the internet :slight_smile: As such, I have more of a math background than most, but I’m far from an expert. I’ll agree that mathematicians do see their work as more akin to discovery than creation. Still, that and the fact that all math systems are compatible may be because there is only one way to truly represent the world around us.

I wouldn’t say this makes numbers any more real than other concepts like love or happy. I hesitate to answer your second question at all because I feel like I’m somewhat missing the boat, but I think the nature of all mathematics, is just addition and subtraction. Division, multi-variable calculus, and differential equations and all the other maths I have been exposed to, can all be reduced to addition and subtraction.[/quote]

in an empty sense, you might say that all math deduces to addition (subtraction being addition of negative numbers). This though isn’t really correct, because you can’t explain algebra without a basic notion such as “equals added to equals are equals”–ie, without some more advanced set theoretic properties of equivalence relations (transitivity, reflexivity, and symmetry of equality). Further, algebra requires the notion of a variable, or a type of meta-symbol in mathematics. so really, everything after arithmetic requires these more advanced set-theoretic concepts. calculus is a whole different game, because somehow you must define the operations of integration and differentiation. this is pretty complicated once you get past the hand-waving done in normal calc classes about limits and reamen sums. i don’t really understand it all myself. Finally, geometry is a whole different ball game. I don’t know how much pure geometry you’ve done, but, systems of geometry can be constructed without any numbers at all. the definitions and proofs will look a little weird to someone accustomed to seeing metrical geometry, but they nevertheless work. so in this case, not only can geometry not be reduced to addition, it has no numbers at all.

anyway, all of this leads into a good point on the foundations of mathematics. That is, (1) numbers themselves cannot be defined purely in terms of addition, and (2) the set-theoretic functions that are the basis of algebra cannot be reduced to an addition function, and (3) axiomatics play a key role in the development of higher math (such as calculus and geometry).

Really, i suppose answering the question about whether or not math is about real things comes down to the question of whether or not numbers are real. But, defining just what a number is, is very difficult. the reason i mention all of the functions and axiomatics is that often these things themselves are used to try and define “number” contextually. i’m also trying to be fair here, and give you the stuff mathematicians care about when they discuss this stuff. (unlike what some people think, i really do try to be fair and complete when i talk about things)

pure philosophers, as you can imagine, generally only care about what “numbers” are, and whether numbers really exist. this is probably the part you really want to hear about anyway, so i’ll try to overview a little.

Numbers are generally considered to be abstract entities, or “universals”. that is, the number 2 is merely abstracted away from many particular instances of 2 (like seeing 2 sheep, hearing 2 sounds, seeing 2 colors, etc…). The question of whether universals really exist or not (or, in Plato’s terms, the question of whether Forms exist, though i hesitate to make anymore then a casual link here, because plato would reject the above account of number for many reasons) is huge. while you might deny that the universal form of “2”, the number itself, exists, and claim that only particular instances of 2 exist (and further that the universal 2 is merely a product of human imagination, just like unicorns), you run into some problems with such a claim. this is a complicated subject that i’m not really prepared to discuss in detail (i don’t want to say misleading things).

the general problem though is that rejecting the universal form requires showing how the particulars can perform the same theoretical functions as the universals. in simpler terms, rejecting the existence of universal numbers requires explaining mathematics in terms of only particular instances of the numbers.

anyway, i’m sorry for not having more time, i love math. ha. anyway… given your background you should be able to handle any of the stuff i suggested.

also, i forgot about this site when i typed my first response. you might find these two articles interesting:

http://plato.stanford.edu/...sm-metaphysics/

http://plato.stanford.edu/...hy-mathematics/

hope you find those helpful.

542

i just saw that those links don’t work, try these:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/

if these don’t work, just type in “Nominalism in Metaphysics” and “Philosophy of Mathematics” into the search for the articles (those are the titles). this is just stanford’s online encyclopedia of philosophy.

the bibliography in the philosophy of math article is quite good.

543

[quote]stokedporcupine wrote:
i just saw that those links don’t work, try these:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/

if these don’t work, just type in “Nominalism in Metaphysics” and “Philosophy of Mathematics” into the search for the articles (those are the titles). this is just stanford’s online encyclopedia of philosophy.

the bibliography in the philosophy of math article is quite good. [/quote]

Nice, I had totally forgot Stanfords philosophy pages. I used them a couple of years ago when I was interested in set theory and logic. I see they have changed the layout.

I really must do some reading before I can utter a meaningful opinion on the subject. My gut feeling tells me that numbers are just a form of abstract entities, as you wrote, but then again numbers are precise. You can argue what love is but it is difficult to question the meaning of 2.

544

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:

There are gaps, that’s the problem…You start getting into “probably” and “likely”, vs. a strait line deduction. However, there are certain properties an uncaused-cause must have to fit the definition. Those properties, such as eternal existance, are “God” like. From there, you would go to stuff like, “if the uncaused-cause is eternal and caused all “things” to exist, then it is certainly plausible that “it” is also all powerful”. Also, for something to initially cause, without being subject to cause or effect itself, “IT” must have had to to will things into existance…From here, having a will has huge connotations. For something to be a deliberate act, something like a “mind” has to be involved…
If you follow along, you can see that once you accept the uncaused-cause argument for existance. What an uncaused-cause has to be to fit the definition has “God-like” properties.

Now what that doesn’t mean is that one religion is right and others are wrong, that religion is even necessary…It doesn’t mean that we can communicate with Him or sin exists or does not exist…Those things are very much a matter of faith. Faith is not fact.

I’d hesitate to confer eternal existence on the uncaused event without great evidence. I just don’t see the connection. The same for ‘will’. It could have just been doing the only thing it could do.

Surely an event or being that is already an exception to the normal rule of things (existing without a cause) could defy the normal rules in other ways as well. In my eyes though, each exception you add exponentially decreases the odds of existence. By the time you got through adding omnipotence, will, and eternal existence, the odds would be so low that they are functionally zero.
[/quote]

The properties that an uncaused-cause has to have is a probability of 100%, by definition alone. It has to be eternal and has to sit outside the causal chain, etc. That is why athiests in the past have taken to attacking the premises of the argument. Such as Hume’s in depth look at causation itself. In more modern times people are questioning the illegitimacy of infinite regress, though I don’t know how successful they are with that, in the end the reasoning is still circular.

545

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:

In addition to the fact that a thought, memory, idea, etc. in there own rights are not chemicals. They are in fact forms…They are metaphysical objects of our own creation and interaction. No scientist would ever be able to take the sum of all the chemicals in my brain and it electrostatic status and tell me what I am thinking. Two people could have the same chemicals and and electronics going on and be thinking completely different things.

I have to disagree with this. I do not believe forms exist. I think humans (and possibly other animals) have ‘software’ that is able to categorize objects. An external mystic form is not required here and unnecessarily complicates the issue. Whatever it is that gives a table its ‘tableness’ is just part of our biological makeup which may be modified by experience.

I also think that if you took two peoples brains, and rebuilt them, quark by quark (or whatever the smallest existing unit of matter is these days) and ensured they had identical electrical activity going on, right down to the spin of the electrons, they would be thinking the same thing. This is impossible to prove of course. We don’t have the technology to do it, and even if we did, we probably wouldn’t have a way around Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Still, the evidence in my opinion points towards a deterministic universe with people as little more than bio-mechanical automatons along for the ride.
[/quote]

First point…Forms don’t exist. Another way of saying “forms” is design. For people to “make” anything they first have an idea of what it is your trying to make. Try to make anything with out a design. If I sent you a bunch of motor cycle parts, with no instructions, and you’ve never seen one and don’t even know what a motor cycle is, could you build it?

Even if you were able to build two brains identically there is still one big difference. They occupy different spaces, and one would see the other from a different spatial perspective. Hence, they’d very well could be similar, but they could think the same thing because they cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

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[quote]pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:

In addition to the fact that a thought, memory, idea, etc. in there own rights are not chemicals. They are in fact forms…They are metaphysical objects of our own creation and interaction. No scientist would ever be able to take the sum of all the chemicals in my brain and it electrostatic status and tell me what I am thinking. Two people could have the same chemicals and and electronics going on and be thinking completely different things.

I have to disagree with this. I do not believe forms exist. I think humans (and possibly other animals) have ‘software’ that is able to categorize objects. An external mystic form is not required here and unnecessarily complicates the issue. Whatever it is that gives a table its ‘tableness’ is just part of our biological makeup which may be modified by experience.

I also think that if you took two peoples brains, and rebuilt them, quark by quark (or whatever the smallest existing unit of matter is these days) and ensured they had identical electrical activity going on, right down to the spin of the electrons, they would be thinking the same thing. This is impossible to prove of course. We don’t have the technology to do it, and even if we did, we probably wouldn’t have a way around Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Still, the evidence in my opinion points towards a deterministic universe with people as little more than bio-mechanical automatons along for the ride.

First point…Forms don’t exist. Another way of saying “forms” is design. For people to “make” anything they first have an idea of what it is your trying to make. Try to make anything with out a design. If I sent you a bunch of motor cycle parts, with no instructions, and you’ve never seen one and don’t even know what a motor cycle is, could you build it?

Even if you were able to build two brains identically there is still one big difference. They occupy different spaces, and one would see the other from a different spatial perspective. Hence, they’d very well could be similar, but they could think the same thing because they cannot occupy the same space at the same time.[/quote]

To address the first point, a design is nothing until it comes to fruition.

As to the second point, it’s all hypothetical anyway. Hypotheticals are great as mental gymnastics, but they don’t really get at the root of what reality is.

547

[quote]wirewound wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:

In addition to the fact that a thought, memory, idea, etc. in there own rights are not chemicals. They are in fact forms…They are metaphysical objects of our own creation and interaction. No scientist would ever be able to take the sum of all the chemicals in my brain and it electrostatic status and tell me what I am thinking. Two people could have the same chemicals and and electronics going on and be thinking completely different things.

I have to disagree with this. I do not believe forms exist. I think humans (and possibly other animals) have ‘software’ that is able to categorize objects. An external mystic form is not required here and unnecessarily complicates the issue. Whatever it is that gives a table its ‘tableness’ is just part of our biological makeup which may be modified by experience.

I also think that if you took two peoples brains, and rebuilt them, quark by quark (or whatever the smallest existing unit of matter is these days) and ensured they had identical electrical activity going on, right down to the spin of the electrons, they would be thinking the same thing. This is impossible to prove of course. We don’t have the technology to do it, and even if we did, we probably wouldn’t have a way around Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Still, the evidence in my opinion points towards a deterministic universe with people as little more than bio-mechanical automatons along for the ride.

First point…Forms don’t exist. Another way of saying “forms” is design. For people to “make” anything they first have an idea of what it is your trying to make. Try to make anything with out a design. If I sent you a bunch of motor cycle parts, with no instructions, and you’ve never seen one and don’t even know what a motor cycle is, could you build it?

Even if you were able to build two brains identically there is still one big difference. They occupy different spaces, and one would see the other from a different spatial perspective. Hence, they’d very well could be similar, but they could think the same thing because they cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

To address the first point, a design is nothing until it comes to fruition.

As to the second point, it’s all hypothetical anyway. Hypotheticals are great as mental gymnastics, but they don’t really get at the root of what reality is.[/quote]

Nothing can come to fruition with out design. To make something you need to things, design and raw materials. You will accomplish nothing with out both. Design is something, it is concepts, ideas. Are you claiming ideas do not exist with out physical material?

The mental “gymnastics” serve a purpose. It is how we learn. Mathematics is also mental gymnastics, so is scientific theory. We have to push the boundaries of what is known to discover something new.

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[quote]pat wrote:

Nothing can come to fruition with out design. To make something you need to things, design and raw materials. You will accomplish nothing with out both. Design is something, it is concepts, ideas. Are you claiming ideas do not exist with out physical material?[/quote]

I’m saying that designs COME TO NOTHING without physical material.

True, but don’t mistake what you have at the end of the mental gymnastics as real knowledge. Concepts are an abstraction of reality - don’t be confused and think that these concepts ARE reality.

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[quote]wirewound wrote:
pat wrote:

Nothing can come to fruition with out design. To make something you need to things, design and raw materials. You will accomplish nothing with out both. Design is something, it is concepts, ideas. Are you claiming ideas do not exist with out physical material?

I’m saying that designs COME TO NOTHING without physical material.
[/quote]

Ideas, dreams, thoughts, love, etc. Are they nothing? None of them are made out of physical material.

Learning that two things can be identical in every way, but cannot occupy the same space is not reality?

550

This “very creepy, disturbing ‘children’s’ cartoon” seems oddly appropriate:

551

[quote]pat wrote:
Ideas, dreams, thoughts, love, etc. Are they nothing? None of them are made out of physical material.
[/quote]

Synapses that fire together, wire together.

…

You may continue…

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[quote]mbm693 wrote:
stokedporcupine wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

I’m saying a being with those properties is unlikely to exist. The bottom line is, you don’t really KNOW what created this universe. This is an excellent time to apply Occam’s Razor and go with the simplest explanation that fits the available evidence. That is the big bang, not and all powerful, all knowing god.

this is not what occam’s razor is.

Wikipedia quote, so take it for what it’s worth.

This is often paraphrased as “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam’s razor is usually understood.

This is exactly why I’m arguing that the big bang makes more sense than god. A lot less goes into creating the big bang, than creating an omnipotent being.

[/quote]

I disagree. The same assumptions are present for big bang as for creation of matter by a higher power. However, big bang does not even address the origin of the matter to go bang, and as such is a theory based on no hypothesis at all.

So I think both ideas are equal in terms of assumptions, one assumption is just more developed than the other.

553

[quote]pat wrote:

Ideas, dreams, thoughts, love, etc. Are they nothing? None of them are made out of physical material.[/quote]

They are the descriptions of subjective experiences. A dream is real, but it’s only a dream. Mistaking it for real experience is problematic.

‘Identical in every way’ has no meaning. A thing is itself not even identical to what it was a moment ago. Everything is flux, straight through.

554

[quote]pat wrote:
The properties that an uncaused-cause has to have is a probability of 100%, by definition alone. It has to be eternal and has to sit outside the causal chain, etc. That is why athiests in the past have taken to attacking the premises of the argument. Such as Hume’s in depth look at causation itself. In more modern times people are questioning the illegitimacy of infinite regress, though I don’t know how successful they are with that, in the end the reasoning is still circular.[/quote]

Can you point me to a proof somewhere for this? I just don’t see it. Being uncaused and continuing on outside the causal chain are very separate in my mind.

Also, even if these qualities were necessary, they are only god like if you limit the list of things that can have them to god. Take existence in the here and now for example. I exist. If god were to also exist it wouldn’t make existing god like, it would still be pretty run of the mill.

555

[quote]Lorisco wrote:

I disagree. The same assumptions are present for big bang as for creation of matter by a higher power. However, big bang does not even address the origin of the matter to go bang, and as such is a theory based on no hypothesis at all.

So I think both ideas are equal in terms of assumptions, one assumption is just more developed than the other.

[/quote]

I don’t think so. A god would have presumably limitless power, where as the big bang would only a finite amount of energy and matter. I think to get the assumptions in the same ball park, you’d have to put limits on god, or prove that the only possible uncaused event is god.

As to where the mass and energy came from, I’d say they are more likely to spring into existence than an almighty being. Pat and I have both agreed to the idea of an uncaused event (be it god or something else), we’re debating the details now.

556

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
pat wrote:
Ideas, dreams, thoughts, love, etc. Are they nothing? None of them are made out of physical material.

Synapses that fire together, wire together.

…

You may continue…[/quote]

I think that they are made out of physical material. Love is a particular chemical reaction. Hate is another. That’s why drugs like prozac and alcohol can literally change who you are. They cross the blood brain barrier and affect the chemical reaction going on inside.

557

[quote]pat wrote:

First point…Forms don’t exist. Another way of saying “forms” is design. For people to “make” anything they first have an idea of what it is your trying to make. Try to make anything with out a design. If I sent you a bunch of motor cycle parts, with no instructions, and you’ve never seen one and don’t even know what a motor cycle is, could you build it?

Even if you were able to build two brains identically there is still one big difference. They occupy different spaces, and one would see the other from a different spatial perspective. Hence, they’d very well could be similar, but they could think the same thing because they cannot occupy the same space at the same time.[/quote]

I’d say it would be a toss up between a motor cycle and pitching machine with left over parts :). If you reduce forms to designs, then doesn’t that remove any doubt that it’s all man made?

Let’s extend this just for fun. Say you took a person, and made two exact copies of him (copy A and copy B), again right down the quarks and electrical activity. Then you put them in temperature controlled rooms and made sure everything from the humidity to the gravity was exactly the same. Again, nothing would be too small to get exactly right here. I think that if you had video of them for however long you kept them in the room, that no one would be able to tell between the videos of copy A and copy B. More so, I don’t think there would be any difference in the things they were thinking while in the rooms. I think as long as all the conditions were identical, the copies would be identical.

558

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
pat wrote:
Ideas, dreams, thoughts, love, etc. Are they nothing? None of them are made out of physical material.

Synapses that fire together, wire together.

…

You may continue…[/quote]

They are part of the process, but they are not the thought…The thought itself is a separate entity. It is metaphysical. You cannot interact with it with any of your senses yet it is there. I can produce an apple in my head. I can tell you it color, texture, taste, etc. While it may take chemical and electrical activity to make the image, the chemicals and electrical activity are not the same as the image.
Just like paint in a can and paint on a canvas are made of the same stuff, but they produce very different images.

Identical twins can both take the same amount of LSD at the same time and they can arguably have very different experiences even though they are genetically identical.

559

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
pat wrote:
Ideas, dreams, thoughts, love, etc. Are they nothing? None of them are made out of physical material.

Synapses that fire together, wire together.

…

You may continue…

I think that they are made out of physical material. Love is a particular chemical reaction. Hate is another. That’s why drugs like prozac and alcohol can literally change who you are. They cross the blood brain barrier and affect the chemical reaction going on inside.

[/quote]

Experiences, like war can change you, with no additional chemicals introduced.

560

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
The properties that an uncaused-cause has to have is a probability of 100%, by definition alone. It has to be eternal and has to sit outside the causal chain, etc. That is why athiests in the past have taken to attacking the premises of the argument. Such as Hume’s in depth look at causation itself. In more modern times people are questioning the illegitimacy of infinite regress, though I don’t know how successful they are with that, in the end the reasoning is still circular.

Can you point me to a proof somewhere for this? I just don’t see it. Being uncaused and continuing on outside the causal chain are very separate in my mind.

Also, even if these qualities were necessary, they are only god like if you limit the list of things that can have them to god. Take existence in the here and now for example. I exist. If god were to also exist it wouldn’t make existing god like, it would still be pretty run of the mill. [/quote]

The proof or evidence is pure deduction, pure reason…This stuff is a priori not empirical. You can’t put in a beaker and swirl it around.
If you think about what an uncaused-cause is, what does it take to be an uncaused-cause. You deduce, either hypothetically, or literally, that an uncaused-cause exists. You then move on to what an uncaused-cause is. For something to be an uncaused-cause, what kind of properties must it have to be what it is.