St. Paul's Bones

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Therizza wrote:
SteelyDan,

I coulda swore there was some deposits from the ‘first’ iteration of the Atlantic still stuck to the East coast, really fucking deep, as in about to drop into the mantle. And by ‘about to drop’ I mean in geologic time, lol. WTB the east coast as an active margin!

Wow-- you’re making me dig deep into the granite which is my head… The east coast of the US is relatively young compared to say, the “Precambrian Shield” of Canada and the northern Mid-west US (michigan, etc). There are no huge mountain ranges there because of glaciation, but those glaciers exposed the older basement rocks underneath.
[/quote]

It always amazes me that there are people that think geology is boring.

The shit is interesting as hell… trying to wrap your head around some of the timespans used is incredibly difficult though, holding a rock that you know is 3 [i]billion[i] years old. Insane.

42

I like geology, sorry. Your avatar is made of win btw. (Zakk and Arturo are/were epic)

43

[quote]forlife wrote:
What is the fascination Catholics seem to have with making relics out of body parts? Seriously. I’ve been researching places to visit in my trip to Italy this Fall, and it is amazing how many cathedrals have these relics, which they claim are original body parts of various saints (The Incorrupt Jaw and Tongue of Saint Anthony of Padua, etc.). [/quote]

What’s with the fascination Michael Jackson lovers have with the deceased king of pop’s personal items? I’m sure any real MJ artifacts auctioned from his house will go for millions. If it were legal, I’m sure there are many people who would love to have MJ bones sitting in their living room.

My point just being that historical Catholic fascination with relics is little different then our modern day fascination with entertainment stars. In some ways though the religious fascination is a bit more noble, no? At least St. Paul gave his life for the work of God and was responsible for the first major expansion of the church. Michael Jackson? He gave his life to his own person fame and wealth and was responsible for ushering in a new age of pop music.

Personally, I’m not a christian but I would love to see the real bones of st. Paul, if those are indeed his bones. I would find that completely fascinating and quite the experience. Of course, I can say the same about many other historical figures. I’d love to see relics associated with various historical events that I take an interest in. I’ll even endulging in MJ style hero-worship sometimes too, with my own heros of course. Wittgenstein’s home in Austria? You bet your ass I’d love to it one day.

44

[quote]Therizza wrote:
Perhaps it is because religion deals with faith and the ‘divine’ and science deals with the physical world around us?[/quote]

I can speak directly to the science of Geology. It is a super science. In order to understand ‘the story of the Earth’ you must be competent in: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics.

In order to defend my thesis (in Structural Geology/Geophysics), I had elements of engineering mechanics, physics of minerals, fluid and thermo dynamics, as well as good old fashioned ‘field mapping’.

I can tell you this: Geology is above all else an art open to interpretaion. All the natural laws do is supply data. I’ve seen arguments break out at conferences over interpretations of geophysical data. But how could that be? It’s math! It’s concrete! No-- it’s still open to interpretation and many ‘answers’ can still be ‘right’.

The ‘art’ and ‘interpretation’ then, DEFINITELY falls over into Archeology and Archeo-Socio Anthropology, which is magnitudes more ‘fuzzy’ than pure geologic interpretations could be.

When I was teaching geo 101/102, I once had a student who was the wife of a Southern Baptist minister in town. I had to teach her geologic time and fossil evolution (that’s what Geo102 is “historical geology”).

She told me she really didn’t believe in it all. I told her that “God did it” is an acceptable answer, but I want her to try to figure out ‘how’ he did it based on the evidence He gave us to look at. I told her she didn’t have to accept the details like ages of things and such at face value because they weren’t necessarily important.

What was important was that she accept the basic principles (like superposition, ie things on top of each other in order) to make the interpretations. A folded rock is a folded rock. It has to BE THERE before it can be folded, for example.

She accepted that and ended up being the top student in the class.

The truth of the “Bishop Usher” history (ie 6000y.o. earth) is really not even known by many folks except those who wish to argue against it.

The truth is that few really even care about it. The irony is that the ‘anti-religion’ faction is the one who keeps it alive… Methinks they doth protest too much…

45

[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
What’s with the fascination Michael Jackson lovers have with the deceased king of pop’s personal items? I’m sure any real MJ artifacts auctioned from his house will go for millions. If it were legal, I’m sure there are many people who would love to have MJ bones sitting in their living room.

My point just being that historical Catholic fascination with relics is little different then our modern day fascination with entertainment stars. In some ways though the religious fascination is a bit more noble, no? At least St. Paul gave his life for the work of God and was responsible for the first major expansion of the church. Michael Jackson? He gave his life to his own person fame and wealth and was responsible for ushering in a new age of pop music.

Personally, I’m not a christian but I would love to see the real bones of st. Paul, if those are indeed his bones. I would find that completely fascinating and quite the experience. Of course, I can say the same about many other historical figures. I’d love to see relics associated with various historical events that I take an interest in. I’ll even endulging in MJ style hero-worship sometimes too, with my own heros of course. Wittgenstein’s home in Austria? You bet your ass I’d love to it one day. [/quote]

I think our primal origins are manifested through things like this. There is something satisfying about carnal relics, and their ability to ground us and inspire us. Flesh, bone, blood…people use these materials as a bridge to the eternal.

46

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Therizza wrote:
Perhaps it is because religion deals with faith and the ‘divine’ and science deals with the physical world around us?

Unfortunately, religion rarely limits its claims to the divine, without crossing the line into explaining the physical world around us. How many religions try to explain the physical origins of the universe, claim material miracles, etc.?

I can speak directly to the science of Geology. It is a super science. In order to understand ‘the story of the Earth’ you must be competent in: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics.

In order to defend my thesis (in Structural Geology/Geophysics), I had elements of engineering mechanics, physics of minerals, fluid and thermo dynamics, as well as good old fashioned ‘field mapping’.

I can tell you this: Geology is above all else an art open to interpretaion. All the natural laws do is supply data. I’ve seen arguments break out at conferences over interpretations of geophysical data. But how could that be? It’s math! It’s concrete! No-- it’s still open to interpretation and many ‘answers’ can still be ‘right’.

The ‘art’ and ‘interpretation’ then, DEFINITELY falls over into Archeology and Archeo-Socio Anthropology, which is magnitudes more ‘fuzzy’ than pure geologic interpretations could be.

When I was teaching geo 101/102, I once had a student who was the wife of a Southern Baptist minister in town. I had to teach her geologic time and fossil evolution (that’s what Geo102 is “historical geology”).

She told me she really didn’t believe in it all. I told her that “God did it” is an acceptable answer, but I want her to try to figure out ‘how’ he did it based on the evidence He gave us to look at. I told her she didn’t have to accept the details like ages of things and such at face value because they weren’t necessarily important.

What was important was that she accept the basic principles (like superposition, ie things on top of each other in order) to make the interpretations. A folded rock is a folded rock. It has to BE THERE before it can be folded, for example.

She accepted that and ended up being the top student in the class.

The truth of the “Bishop Usher” history (ie 6000y.o. earth) is really not even known by many folks except those who wish to argue against it.

The truth is that few really even care about it. The irony is that the ‘anti-religion’ faction is the one who keeps it alive… Methinks they doth protest too much…[/quote]

Geologists are always finding faults.

47

[quote]limitatinfinity wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
OK you Christians you.

Riddle me this- why do they believe carbon dating when they’re talking about St. Paul’s bones, but not when they’re used on the rocks that say the Earth is millions of years old?

Winner gets the Holy Grail and a cool new hat.

ROME, Italy (CNN) – Scientific tests prove bones housed in the Basilica of St. Paul in Rome are those of the apostle St. Paul himself, according to Pope Benedict XVI.

“Tiny fragments of bone” in the sarcophagus were subjected to carbon dating, showing they “belong to someone who lived in the first or second century,” the pope said in a homily carried on Italian television.

“This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul,” Benedict said in Sunday’s announcement.

The tomb also holds “traces of a precious linen cloth, purple in color and laminated with pure gold, and a blue colored textile with linen filaments,” the pope said.

The tests were carried out by inserting a probe into a small opening in the sarcophagus, “which had not been opened for many centuries,” the pontiff said. The probe “also revealed the presence of grains of red incense and traces of protein and limestone.”

Separately, archaeologists have uncovered an image of St. Paul which could be “could be considered the oldest icon of the apostle known to date,” the Vatican’s official newspaper reported Sunday.

The painting, in the St. Tecla Catacomb, is “among the oldest and best-defined figures from ancient Christianity,” according to the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, L’Osservatore Romano reported.

St. Paul is one of the most significant figures in Christianity. Originally a persecutor of early Christians, he became a follower of Jesus after seeing a vision on the road to Damascus, according to Christian tradition.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” the vision of Jesus asks Paul, using the apostle’s birth name, in the Acts of the Apostles.

Saul then took the name Paul and became a missionary. His letters, or epistles, to early Christian communities around the Mediterranean form a significant portion of the New Testament.

Paul was beheaded by Roman authorities some time between 65 and 67 A.D., according to the Catholic Church.

He was buried a few miles away, and when the Roman Empire stopped persecuting Christians some 250 years later, the Emperor Constantine had a basilica built over his grave.

It currently lies under a marble tombstone bearing the Latin inscription PAULO APOSTOLO MART (Apostle Paul, martyr), according to the Web site of the basilica. A papal altar stands over the tombstone, which is visible through a window-like opening, the Web site says.

Monday marks the end of a year of celebration in honor of the 2,000th anniversary of St. Paul’s birth. It also happens to be the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul

You don’t use carbon dating for “rocks that say the Earth is millions of years old.”

Christian or non-Christian you have little understanding of radioisotope dating, so I would slowly back away from this thread if I were you.

[/quote]

Meh, his degree is in English.

Only formerly living things can be tested with C-14 dating, as I’m sure someone will point out. And then the amount becomes so tiny after a while that accuracy plummets; if memory serves, its only good for 60,000 years or something like that.

48

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The shit is interesting as hell… trying to wrap your head around some of the timespans used is incredibly difficult though, holding a rock that you know is 3 billion years old. Insane.
[/quote]

Time.

Like I said, Geology is really a ‘super-science’ that comprises all the other ‘natural’ sciences. The difference is one must wrap their head around ‘geologic time’. It’s harder for some than you think. It’s like being able to think spatially, or mathmatically, or in 3-D. It’s a skill.

We think of physical and chemical processes as being ‘instananeous’-- even if they take hundreds of years. When you extrapolate over millions, billions of years, it changes perspective.

There are still some folks mired in dogma that refute Tectonic theory, even though we understand the mechanism at a high level. They argue minute details that prove the exception not the rule.

We now have instrumentation to measure plate movement for example. What a leap of faith it was 50 years ago when the theory was just starting to take hold-- this was big stuff in the 50’s and 60’s and is still being argued.

So, say the continents move 1cm per year. When you start multiplying that movement over millions and hundreds of millions of years, then a continent trucking 2000 miles doesn’t seem so crazy.

You can only make that leap when you wrap your head around HUGE numbers.

IMHO, (to put a political perspective on things) this is the problem with budget deficits. We talk routinely about millions, billions, trillions of dollars. People do not fundamentally understand those magnitudes of numbers. This is true in other regards as well (distances, time, etc).

49

[quote]Scottish-G wrote:
Something I also see a lot is religious people constantly pushing religion on others based on no facts or proof other than faith.

On the above comment…I say ‘I feel that’ or ‘in my opinion’ because I speak for me. Others may disagree, they can speak for themselves.

To the religious out there:

  1. Prove god exists and if you cannot, please explain why. Don’t hit me with a counter question politician style.

  2. Please explain the dinosaurs and where they come into the bible’s explanation of creation.

  3. Please explain how the earth was formed, the sun, the moon and where, say, meteors come from.

  4. For the people who selectively agree with parts of the bible and not others, is it not the whole point that you are supposed to believe the whole book? For example, when science explains something conclusively and a story in the bible is shown to be just a story(and even christians admit maybe Adam and Eve wasn’t the way it went, maybe noah’s ark didn’t happen), do you dismiss this and believe the rest of the book or what?

  5. If a kind athiest does good all his life, saves lives, is generous and makes the world a better place, not fearing god, simply because he’s a good guy does that mean that a christian ‘god fearing’ person who goes to church but isn’t a very good person is any better?
    If god existed would he reject the athiest good man for being a non believer and accept the flawed christian who is a believer.

  6. I agree that pure faith could affect a person in a positive way. Simply believing in something can change you for the better but that doesn’t mean that the thing you believe in exists.
    [/quote]

Human knowledge is founded in similarity and difference. Objects very similar are usually given one name-tag, such as ‘chair’. Since God is one being, knowledge of God using the same comparative process is not possible.

Knowledge of God is purely subjective and therefore belief should never be based upon someone else’s (non-falsifiable) experience.

50

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

Human knowledge is founded in similarity and difference. Objects very similar are usually given one name-tag, such as ‘chair’. Since God is one being, knowledge of God using the same comparative process is not possible.

Knowledge of God is purely subjective and therefore belief should never be based upon someone else’s (non-falsifiable) experience.

[/quote]

Umm… that was one of the shittiest lines of reasoning I’ve seen on this forum to date. I really hope you didn’t type that in seriousness. I’d elaborate, but I await your response.

51

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
The shit is interesting as hell… trying to wrap your head around some of the timespans used is incredibly difficult though, holding a rock that you know is 3 billion years old. Insane.

Time.

Like I said, Geology is really a ‘super-science’ that comprises all the other ‘natural’ sciences. The difference is one must wrap their head around ‘geologic time’. It’s harder for some than you think. It’s like being able to think spatially, or mathmatically, or in 3-D. It’s a skill.

We think of physical and chemical processes as being ‘instananeous’-- even if they take hundreds of years. When you extrapolate over millions, billions of years, it changes perspective.

There are still some folks mired in dogma that refute Tectonic theory, even though we understand the mechanism at a high level. They argue minute details that prove the exception not the rule.

We now have instrumentation to measure plate movement for example. What a leap of faith it was 50 years ago when the theory was just starting to take hold-- this was big stuff in the 50’s and 60’s and is still being argued.

So, say the continents move 1cm per year. When you start multiplying that movement over millions and hundreds of millions of years, then a continent trucking 2000 miles doesn’t seem so crazy.

You can only make that leap when you wrap your head around HUGE numbers.

IMHO, (to put a political perspective on things) this is the problem with budget deficits. We talk routinely about millions, billions, trillions of dollars. People do not fundamentally understand those magnitudes of numbers. This is true in other regards as well (distances, time, etc).[/quote]

This is really being nit-picky and egotistical about semantics, but I think the only people who call geology a “super-science” are geologists. Normally people would reserve titles like “super-science” for disciplines that are more fundamental, not disciplines that merely employ lots of other areas. Your definition of “super-science” would make more applied subjects that require understanding lots of more fundamental disciplines super-sciences.

Anyway… as a former physics/math guy turned logician, I gotta defend the turf. You understand, right? My science is better then your science kinda stuff? ha! :stuck_out_tongue:

52

[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:

Human knowledge is founded in similarity and difference. Objects very similar are usually given one name-tag, such as ‘chair’. Since God is one being, knowledge of God using the same comparative process is not possible.

Knowledge of God is purely subjective and therefore belief should never be based upon someone else’s (non-falsifiable) experience.

Umm… that was one of the shittiest lines of reasoning I’ve seen on this forum to date. I really hope you didn’t type that in seriousness. I’d elaborate, but I await your response. [/quote]

Then you obviously have no understanding of epistemeology. Humans form concepts by abstracting from percepts. If percepts have sufficient similarity, we lump them together under one concept. This concept then gets ‘tagged’ with a word or phrase.

What is sufficient similarity? If the DEFINING characteristic of percepts match, we then form the concept. For ex, color is not a defining charactersitic for ‘human being’. Nor is sexual orientation and many others. The defining characteristic is Rational Animal (Aristotle).

It therefore follows that the concept ‘God’ is not valid in the same sense that we formed concepts like tree, horse, and so on. Singularities must remain nameless, which is why the Bible often refers to God as ‘nameless’ or ‘He whom know one can know’. And that’s why I say that only when God speaks to you can you know the existence of God.

53

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

Then you obviously have no understanding of epistemeology. Humans form concepts by abstracting from percepts. If percepts have sufficient similarity, we lump them together under one concept. This concept then gets ‘tagged’ with a word or phrase.

What is sufficient similarity? If the DEFINING characteristic of percepts match, we then form the concept. For ex, color is not a defining charactersitic for ‘human being’. Nor is sexual orientation and many others. The defining characteristic is Rational Animal (Aristotle).

It therefore follows that the concept ‘God’ is not valid in the same sense that we formed concepts like tree, horse, and so on. Singularities must remain nameless, which is why the Bible often refers to God as ‘nameless’ or ‘He whom know one can know’. And that’s why I say that only when God speaks to you can you know the existence of God.

[/quote]

On the contrary, I understand very well modern research in epistemology. I am a philosophy student after all. Basically what you said amounts to a confused jumble of (outdated) ideas in epistemology, and you’re application of these ideas to God is confused as well. Even your basic assumption that concept formation is synonymous with knowledge is dubious at best. I’ll try to elaborate.

As for the first paragraph, whether or not the process of abstraction that you describe is the “foundation” of Human understanding or the only means of acquiring concepts would be hotly contested by most working epistemologists or cognitive science people. It would be hotly contested on the first account because a more plausible and generally accepted approach is that concept formation is integrally involved with linguistic conventions in some way (say alla Wittgenstein). It would be hotly contested on the second account because there are seemingly many different ways Humans can form concepts. For example, a still well-headed approach is given by Russell in his distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. That is, some concepts we acquire through some means by direct acquaintance with the object, but other concepts we acquire because someone describes them to us using other concepts we already have. As one quick objection to your theory, if what you’re saying is true about concept formation, then how can we form concepts of things we have no precepts of? There are many examples of things that we have no precepts of but yet surely we have a perfectly good conception of. Example abound. Unicorns and Higgs bosons will do, but you can think of many more. Really there are lots of problems with the sort of view you’re putting forward, but I leave you to the literature to look at them.

As for the second paragraph, I hope you realize epistemology has progressed far beyond Aristotle. Virtually no one thinks the notion of essential vs. accidental predicates that you describe as any merit at all, when applied to most objects. For example, if you want to talk about concepts that correspond to objects that we think really exist in the world, as with your example of ‘man’, then no one is going to stand up for Aristotle and say that these sorts of concepts have essential predicates relating to them that in some sense define the concept. On the other hand if you are just talking about concepts that we have chosen to define, then of course there are “essential” or defining predicates in a trivial sense–the very ones we used to define the concept.

This leads to a good point, which is that you’re also using the word “concept” ambiguously. As I hinted at above, some concepts seemingly correspond to objects that actually exist in the world–people, dirt, the sun, etc.–while others are “defined”, say like circles, colors, etc. The idea is that the defined concepts are defined via a process of selective attention–abstraction–whereby one focuses on certain properties of objects and then considers those properties in isolation (or more aptly, in abstraction). The former concepts, the objects, seem to lack essential predicates or properties, while the latter ones have trivial essential predicates or properties.

Now you may object that you meant by “concept” something more basic then this, and that your account of abstraction was meant to describe how we come about our concepts of what we take as objects–people, dirt, the sun, etc… This though merely brings me back to my original point, which was if you want to try and give this sort of account of how we come to form concepts about objects you are not going to find much support in modern epistemology. I can’t think of anyone who would put forward seriously what you’re saying.

Hence why I said you are confused. You are talking about a process-abstraction–that while is a credible and important epistemological process does not really apply as you think it does.

Anyway, on to your application of all this to our ability to know about God. Since we most likely don’t form concepts such as ‘horse’, ‘true’, etc. in the way you describe anyway, who cares whether or not we can form a concept of God via this way? Most likely our concepts of ‘horse’, ‘tree’, etc. are actually formed through linguistic conventions in a more Wittgenstinian sort of way , while more complicated concepts like ‘atom’, ‘god’, etc. are formed largely through a sort of Russellian description. But in any case our ability to know things about objects has little to do with how we initially formed the concept anyway. For example, a scientists might have initially gotten the concept of ‘atom’ through a description in a class, but later through empirical observation learn new things about the object associated with that concept. So even if the concept of God is formed on the most dubious of grounds, there is still nothing stopping us from learning more about the object that we assume to be associated with that concept.

As for your comments about singularities remaining nameless and some seeming connection of this with the Biblical tendency to leave God nameless, that’s silly. First if “singularities” must remain “nameless”, then we could have no knowledge of things we have only seen one of. That’s silly.

Anyway…

54

[quote]forlife wrote:
What is the fascination Catholics seem to have with making relics out of body parts? Seriously. I’ve been researching places to visit in my trip to Italy this Fall, and it is amazing how many cathedrals have these relics, which they claim are original body parts of various saints (The Incorrupt Jaw and Tongue of Saint Anthony of Padua, etc.). [/quote]

A bit of an aside here but it has been a Catholic tradition through the ages and continues to this day to keep bodies and body parts of those considered holy or saintly and seek their intercession, many cures and favours have been attributed to the use of saintly relics.

There is usually a pius tradition associated, St Anthony was known as the honey mouthed preacher who converted and inspired many with his words hence the significance of his jaw and tongue remaining incorrupt.

55

[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:

Then you obviously have no understanding of epistemeology. Humans form concepts by abstracting from percepts. If percepts have sufficient similarity, we lump them together under one concept. This concept then gets ‘tagged’ with a word or phrase.

What is sufficient similarity? If the DEFINING characteristic of percepts match, we then form the concept. For ex, color is not a defining charactersitic for ‘human being’. Nor is sexual orientation and many others. The defining characteristic is Rational Animal (Aristotle).

It therefore follows that the concept ‘God’ is not valid in the same sense that we formed concepts like tree, horse, and so on. Singularities must remain nameless, which is why the Bible often refers to God as ‘nameless’ or ‘He whom know one can know’. And that’s why I say that only when God speaks to you can you know the existence of God.

On the contrary, I understand very well modern research in epistemology. I am a philosophy student after all. Basically what you said amounts to a confused jumble of (outdated) ideas in epistemology, and you’re application of these ideas to God is confused as well. Even your basic assumption that concept formation is synonymous with knowledge is dubious at best. I’ll try to elaborate.

As for the first paragraph, whether or not the process of abstraction that you describe is the “foundation” of Human understanding or the only means of acquiring concepts would be hotly contested by most working epistemologists or cognitive science people. It would be hotly contested on the first account because a more plausible and generally accepted approach is that concept formation is integrally involved with linguistic conventions in some way (say alla Wittgenstein). It would be hotly contested on the second account because there are seemingly many different ways Humans can form concepts. For example, a still well-headed approach is given by Russell in his distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. That is, some concepts we acquire through some means by direct acquaintance with the object, but other concepts we acquire because someone describes them to us using other concepts we already have. As one quick objection to your theory, if what you’re saying is true about concept formation, then how can we form concepts of things we have no precepts of? There are many examples of things that we have no precepts of but yet surely we have a perfectly good conception of. Example abound. Unicorns and Higgs bosons will do, but you can think of many more. Really there are lots of problems with the sort of view you’re putting forward, but I leave you to the literature to look at them.

As for the second paragraph, I hope you realize epistemology has progressed far beyond Aristotle. Virtually no one thinks the notion of essential vs. accidental predicates that you describe as any merit at all, when applied to most objects. For example, if you want to talk about concepts that correspond to objects that we think really exist in the world, as with your example of ‘man’, then no one is going to stand up for Aristotle and say that these sorts of concepts have essential predicates relating to them that in some sense define the concept. On the other hand if you are just talking about concepts that we have chosen to define, then of course there are “essential” or defining predicates in a trivial sense–the very ones we used to define the concept.

This leads to a good point, which is that you’re also using the word “concept” ambiguously. As I hinted at above, some concepts seemingly correspond to objects that actually exist in the world–people, dirt, the sun, etc.–while others are “defined”, say like circles, colors, etc. The idea is that the defined concepts are defined via a process of selective attention–abstraction–whereby one focuses on certain properties of objects and then considers those properties in isolation (or more aptly, in abstraction). The former concepts, the objects, seem to lack essential predicates or properties, while the latter ones have trivial essential predicates or properties.

Now you may object that you meant by “concept” something more basic then this, and that your account of abstraction was meant to describe how we come about our concepts of what we take as objects–people, dirt, the sun, etc… This though merely brings me back to my original point, which was if you want to try and give this sort of account of how we come to form concepts about objects you are not going to find much support in modern epistemology. I can’t think of anyone who would put forward seriously what you’re saying.

Hence why I said you are confused. You are talking about a process-abstraction–that while is a credible and important epistemological process does not really apply as you think it does.

Anyway, on to your application of all this to our ability to know about God. Since we most likely don’t form concepts such as ‘horse’, ‘true’, etc. in the way you describe anyway, who cares whether or not we can form a concept of God via this way? Most likely our concepts of ‘horse’, ‘tree’, etc. are actually formed through linguistic conventions in a more Wittgenstinian sort of way , while more complicated concepts like ‘atom’, ‘god’, etc. are formed largely through a sort of Russellian description. But in any case our ability to know things about objects has little to do with how we initially formed the concept anyway. For example, a scientists might have initially gotten the concept of ‘atom’ through a description in a class, but later through empirical observation learn new things about the object associated with that concept. So even if the concept of God is formed on the most dubious of grounds, there is still nothing stopping us from learning more about the object that we assume to be associated with that concept.

As for your comments about singularities remaining nameless and some seeming connection of this with the Biblical tendency to leave God nameless, that’s silly. First if “singularities” must remain “nameless”, then we could have no knowledge of things we have only seen one of. That’s silly.

Anyway… [/quote]

That was a lot of typing. Let me sum it up for you: “Modern philosophers don’t know what words are and have chosen to remain at the intellectual level of a baby, where everything is a mass of swirling colours. Since they don’t know what words are, we’ll say they are arbitrary constructs, because mommie told us so!”

I’m very familiar with logical positivism, Russell’s and Frege’s big bag of crap, and the modern ‘analysts’. Of course, nothing tops Willard Quine.
Pathetic.

56

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

That was a lot of typing. Let me sum it up for you: “Modern philosophers don’t know what words are and have chosen to remain at the intellectual level of a baby, where everything is a mass of swirling colours. Since they don’t know what words are, we’ll say they are arbitrary constructs, because mommie told us so!”

I’m very familiar with logical positivism, Russell’s and Frege’s big bag of crap, and the modern ‘analysts’. Of course, nothing tops Willard Quine.
Pathetic.

[/quote]

That’s nice, now would you mind giving me some substantive arguments for why all that is so? Just why is, say, Russell’s idea that new concepts can be formed via description wrong? It seems completely obvious to me, and Russell took it that way too. Lots of other questions linger too, like just how could your abstraction theory possibly account for our concepts which we have no precepts of, like ‘unicorn’ or ‘Higgs boson’. What of the fact that concept formation has little to do with our ability to learn things about the objects associated with the concepts? How does your theory of concept formation hold up against empirical fact? Your theory would require someone to see many instances of many different tokens of precepts in order to acquire a concept. It is well known that this is not the case, and that Humans, particularly babies, accurately acquire concepts after only being exposed to one or two tokens of a given precept.

Hence not only are there lots of philosophical problems with your account, but the observed phenomenon just don’t back it up either. If you can name one working linguist or cognitive science person who endorses your view, I’ll be surprised.

Now, to toss back some insults and wax philosophical… If you think that the modern “linguistic turn” in philosophy is evidence that modern philosophers don’t know what words are, then you don’t understand the linguistic turn. The fact that words are “arbitrary constructs”, to state the matter all to crudely, does not imply as you seem to think that words cannot denote definite objects that actually exist. The entire point of the linguistic turn is to study formal semantics, ie the way in which these “arbitrary constructs”–words and sentences–actually do denote definite objects. Further, considering that the modern crop of analytic philosophers are only on the 3rd or 4th generation, to imply that they are only following dogma is inaccurate. Today’s working philosophers are generally students of students of guys like Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Reichenbach, Tarski, Church, etc… The first generation of students through out half of what these guys said, and the current crop’s thrown out most of the rest. I can assure you that no one’s running out regurgitating what mommie Wittgenstein said. Hence very few people “listen to mommie”, but still many of the core ideas are still there.

As for Quine, found Word and Object a bit above your reading level, uh? (That was a joke)

57

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

That was a lot of typing. Let me sum it up for you: “Modern philosophers don’t know what words are and have chosen to remain at the intellectual level of a baby, where everything is a mass of swirling colours. Since they don’t know what words are, we’ll say they are arbitrary constructs, because mommie told us so!”

I’m very familiar with logical positivism, Russell’s and Frege’s big bag of crap, and the modern ‘analysts’. Of course, nothing tops Willard Quine.
Pathetic.

[/quote]

PS, Despite my somewhat cynical response I really am hoping for a serious response from you. You do seem to be knowledgeable on the topic and I’m curious why you say this. If nothing else, take my previous post as more regurgitating what mommie said and explain to this young child, ha.

58

[quote]forlife wrote:
What is the fascination Catholics seem to have with making relics out of body parts? Seriously. I’ve been researching places to visit in my trip to Italy this Fall, and it is amazing how many cathedrals have these relics, which they claim are original body parts of various saints (The Incorrupt Jaw and Tongue of Saint Anthony of Padua, etc.). [/quote]

Medieval monasteries fiercely competed to be visited by pilgrims and to have some relics was considered to help attract them.

59

[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:

That was a lot of typing. Let me sum it up for you: “Modern philosophers don’t know what words are and have chosen to remain at the intellectual level of a baby, where everything is a mass of swirling colours. Since they don’t know what words are, we’ll say they are arbitrary constructs, because mommie told us so!”

I’m very familiar with logical positivism, Russell’s and Frege’s big bag of crap, and the modern ‘analysts’. Of course, nothing tops Willard Quine.
Pathetic.

That’s nice, now would you mind giving me some substantive arguments for why all that is so? Just why is, say, Russell’s idea that new concepts can be formed via description wrong? It seems completely obvious to me, and Russell took it that way too. Lots of other questions linger too, like just how could your abstraction theory possibly account for our concepts which we have no precepts of, like ‘unicorn’ or ‘Higgs boson’. What of the fact that concept formation has little to do with our ability to learn things about the objects associated with the concepts? How does your theory of concept formation hold up against empirical fact? Your theory would require someone to see many instances of many different tokens of precepts in order to acquire a concept. It is well known that this is not the case, and that Humans, particularly babies, accurately acquire concepts after only being exposed to one or two tokens of a given precept.

Hence not only are there lots of philosophical problems with your account, but the observed phenomenon just don’t back it up either. If you can name one working linguist or cognitive science person who endorses your view, I’ll be surprised.

Now, to toss back some insults and wax philosophical… If you think that the modern “linguistic turn” in philosophy is evidence that modern philosophers don’t know what words are, then you don’t understand the linguistic turn. The fact that words are “arbitrary constructs”, to state the matter all to crudely, does not imply as you seem to think that words cannot denote definite objects that actually exist. The entire point of the linguistic turn is to study formal semantics, ie the way in which these “arbitrary constructs”–words and sentences–actually do denote definite objects. Further, considering that the modern crop of analytic philosophers are only on the 3rd or 4th generation, to imply that they are only following dogma is inaccurate. Today’s working philosophers are generally students of students of guys like Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Reichenbach, Tarski, Church, etc… The first generation of students through out half of what these guys said, and the current crop’s thrown out most of the rest. I can assure you that no one’s running out regurgitating what mommie Wittgenstein said. Hence very few people “listen to mommie”, but still many of the core ideas are still there.

As for Quine, found Word and Object a bit above your reading level, uh? (That was a joke)[/quote]

What’d you say? I was looking at the ‘Golden Mountain’.

You know, I present arguments and you name drop. “Well, no one today would agree with Aristotle.” And then, you DO realize that they use Aristotelian logic to attack the arguments…of…Aristotle?

Modern philosophers spend their lives trying to figure what a word is, never realizing that they use Aristotle’s ideas in the process. Kind of ironic in a cosmic sense, isn’t it? They choose to remain like grunting savages, never acknowledging that he did most the work for them. They remind me of Barney Fife, where Andy does 90% of the work and then Barney (who only has to do a touchup here and there) comes in and fucks it all up.

60

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

What’d you say? I was looking at the ‘Golden Mountain’.

You know, I present arguments and you name drop. “Well, no one today would agree with Aristotle.” And then, you DO realize that they use Aristotelian logic to attack the arguments…of…Aristotle?

Modern philosophers spend their lives trying to figure what a word is, never realizing that they use Aristotle’s ideas in the process. Kind of ironic in a cosmic sense, isn’t it? They choose to remain like grunting savages, never acknowledging that he did most the work for them. They remind me of Barney Fife, where Andy does 90% of the work and then Barney (who only has to do a touchup here and there) comes in and fucks it all up.

[/quote]

Please, now you’re acting like hedo and claiming that I’m just name dropping because I reference my arguments. I gave you a set of questions and problems for the theory you’re trying to advocate, and you completely ignored them. I said that today no one would agree with Aristotle ('s particular view on the essential/accidental predicate distinction) only as a prelude to referencing the issues surrounding that distinction.

As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.

As for your other comments on Aristotle, I never said Aristotle never gets anything right. I like Aristotle and think he gets much right. I specially said that Aristotle’s essential/accidental predicate distinction is one thing he is terribly confused on. The fact that most working philosophers today use Aristotle’s ideas without realizing it is trivial, since most working philosophers don’t specialize in Aristotle and hence don’t know his theories well, and since many of Aristotle’s ideas are very basic (although quite important). That’s not to take away from Aristotle, of course.

Anyway, I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions and at least sketch some sort of defense of your position. As of now you’re the one who’s just name dropping (Aristotle) and throwing ad hominem attacks out against modern philosophers who you seem to think are really dumb. So please, give me some sort of substantive response.