I enjoyed the atheist references you posted. Seeing their strongest arguments fall by the wayside, especially when they come from otherwise intelligent or even wise writers, is very reassuring.
Reading Bertrand Russell's essay his arguments simplified are 'Jesus was a meanie' and 'The Catholics were mean to me'. There's also quite a bit of deconstructionism in his critique of first cause, design and nature where he makes some pretty enormous leaps in logic such as, "Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku-Klux-Klan or the Fascists?" He lived to see Stalin's atheist society and still claimed Christian society (which he enjoyed the fruits of even as he criticized them like a petulant child, same as Dawkins) was no better or kinder.
For such a 'analytic philosopher' who even said, "None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error." he didn't apply this to his opinions on religion. There's countless apologia, even commonly known ones, he just ignores and blows past in the essay. It's shockingly ignorant and when he said he became an atheist from ages 15-18, his writing on it truly reflects the mental sophistication of that age.
The point I make is that atheism is an incredibly immature argument, at least the way the New Atheists have presented it. It's lies, appeals to bitterness and general handwaving at big numbers that they hope you'll be awed or confused by.
"Thus we terminate this series of Tree of Woe articles with a happy ending. I apologize for the error and will make up for this momentary lapse into joy with extra woe in future articles."
If it makes you feel any better (worse?), rest assured there's something wrong in their conclusions. I don't know *what*, but given the mankind's progress of towards greater knowledge to date it's a virtual certainty...
Hmm. i have been trying to explain my weird life for ages! vertical potentialities. I called it a layer cake. the past did already happen, so it is fixed. maybe the individua is at the point of a cone that widens in potential?
Fascinating and great list! It strikes me as interesting that my own journey hit some similar stops (Stapp's *Mindful Universe* was one!), but in a different order, and coming from rather different directions. For me, the rigorous "quantum woo" of Stapp and Penrose got smuggled in by Stephenson in *Anathem*, and I was sitting with them for quite some time as still an atheist, and it was John Michael Greer's *A World Full of Gods* that presented the arguments that popped a hole in atheisms's credibility for me. From there, I've been exploring (neo)-Platonic metaphysics via traditional western esotericism.
What's interesting to me is how this has led to a remarkably similar place, based on our previous discussions. Anyhow, thanks for this whole series, I've got even more to add to the reading pile now.
Pater's list is Fantastic! I shall Add the requisite DOOM that Pater erroneously left out in momentary Joy & Jubilation at completion of the Curriculum... to do so, I will recommend some Supplements:
'Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis' By John Vervaeke -> Expands on the Meaning Crisis induced via the unmooring of the Western Mind, & its deep diving into Physicalist architectures & the sundry poisons that come from doing so.
Spheres Trilogy (Bubbles, Globes & Foam) By Peter Sloterdijk -> short descriptor- about 'the human conception of inhabited spaces'... longer description: Basically Sloterdijk's Metaphysics & conception of Dasein... expanded to include everything... 'Being & Space' if you will. You get a 'post-physicalism' that is more melancholy & DOOM-full courtesy of the usage of Continental Phil authors & works.
Philosophy & Non-philosophy, Philosophy of Non-philosophy, Struggle & Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy, Dictionary of Non-Philosophy & A Biography of Ordinary Man... all by Francois Laurelle -> DOOM, Gloom & Despair about how Post-Physicalism, Physicalism & other such pursuits are structured on the A prior philosophical decision & A 'Sufficient Philosophy'... basically Moot (WHY? Well... read them at your peril, Dear Readers!)
Hmmm, I need to read "The Irrational Atheist." I like the God as game designer metaphor. I already wrote an essay with scriptures that back up the metaphor some time ago:
Not an argument, but a suggestion for further inquiry and contemplation:
As is my wont, I find that both your essay (very well written, btw) and the exemplar adversaries you cite are stuck in the nineteenth century on this topic. The discovery of chaos theory, spontaneous order, and mathematical unpredictability that is nonetheless mechanical breaks the entire mechanistic vs. metaphysical paradigm in just about every discipline from evolution to mythopoetics. It has yet to be properly integrated into the general body of scientific or philosophical thinking.
You mentioned "Mind and Cosmos" by Thomas Nagel, and his emphasis on teleology. Nagel also has some worthwhile comments on the inadequacy and even the failure of reductive materialism. He says in the Introduction:
"Physico-chemical reductionism in biology is the orthodox view, and any resistance to it is regarded as not only scientifically but politically incorrect. But for a long time I have found the materialist account of how we and our fellow organisms came to exist hard to believe, including the standard version of how the evolutionary process works. The more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes . . . as it is usually presented, the current orthodoxy about the cosmic order is the product of governing assumptions that are unsupported, and that it flies in the face of common sense."
Another quote, also from the introduction:
"If physics and chemistry cannot fully account for life and consciousness, how will their immense body of truth be combined in an expanded conception of the natural order that can accommodate those things?"
In other words, current conceptions of the cosmos and of the origins of life on earth are inadequate. They cannot explain life as we know it. He does not take the obvious step of wondering if there might perhaps be a God after all. Maybe later . . .
Physicalist orthodoxy falls apart upon any consideration of the mind itself. Any physicalist theory of mind needs must be mechanical and deterministic, a priori, axiomatically. The problem, of course, is that we do not experience life as if our minds are deterministic. And if the physicalists are correct, they are not, in fact, rational actors making reasoned arguments, but meat robots making meaningless noises according to their programming. All it takes to refute those noises is to take them at their word.
But this still leaves us with the mystery. What is mind? Why?
I'm sorry I laughed reading this post. It won't happen again. Well, who am I kidding, of course it will, for I'm a laugher.
I like the genre of metaphysics.
It allows for historical contrasts. For example, I regard Kant as a closet atheist who had to pretended to be a theist. He shows some despair sometimes. But, these days, we see quite a few closet theists who live in perpetual anxiety, pretending to not believe in God. I find it funny.
It's fun also that since Descartes until Schopenhauer, many philosophers really tried to have a decent style, but others like Spinoza clearly hated readers, the perspective of being read, and reading in general. But today, philosophy is so "technical" and marxistic in style that it's just not fun to read. Essays on logic are dreadful these days.
As everyone knows, tradition divides philosophy in three branches: metaphysics or ontology, logic, and ethics or moral thought. But this division is misleading. All writings about metaphysics use and abuse logic, and it's almost impossible to talk about metaphysics without talking about ethics. On the other hand, I curse every time I read ethical texts that eschew metaphysics. Logic is the most "standalone" genre, but it gets boring after a while.
Ever since WWII, metaphysics has this air of contempt for life. I think this is a contamination from the physicists. It used to be more balanced. The "optimist" writers tend to focus on politics, and use it as a subterfuge to talk about metaphysics. How low can we go, that political philosophy is where the best writers are!
As a recommendation for fans of woefulness, I mention the doctrine of vitalism. It's completely outmoded. It's a doctrine or tradition common among Spanish philosophers.
Life in Spain is pretty nice, most of the time. Like California, but with fewer religions and fewer Germans, except in the summer. Good weather, except in the interior, where it's a bit more continental. This has a strong influence on thought, which I'll describe now.
Spanish thinkers go through this winding path: first, they glorify and worship life, beauty, justice and liberty. Then, they get a bit mature and tend to focus on depressive themes: betrayal, disease, political corruption, lack of progress, illiteracy, fraud, intergenerational abuse, and pathetically low interest rates.
After they give themselves a depression worthy of Don Quixote, they live a few years in the doldrums, wishing to be Germans or English or French and lamenting Spain (the land of Cain, country of sorrow and pettiness,) and after complaining about Protestantism, they spend this period writing about politics or economics without any originality, showing insane levels of envy for the sciences, and rejecting their poetic inclination, their true nature.
Then they slowly become in love with life again. And this last turn usually leads to some form of religious thought, walking off politics. Wine also helps.
Vitalist philosophy explains all this, but the reader does not have to actually go through all the pain of living like a Spanish thinker.
In a way, vitalism is the most human of all metaphysics. Rationalism looks anti-human by comparison. And I guess vitalism sounds very exotic for people used to Anglo-American philosophy, which is always under the influence of a great contradiction: the restoration of Rome and the undying desire to escape from the idea of Rome.
There is not one good encyclopedic article on the internet about this philosophy.
Vitalism is more like "let's enjoy our senses while we still have the privilege of inhabiting a body, for the mystery of incarnation deserves pious contemplation." Anglo-American philosophy is like "What body? What pleasure? We are only numbers and shapes. Heaven is a square, Hell is a compass. Why are you not working today either?"
Many thanks for this article. I'd again cite Professor Iain McGilchrist's "The Matter With Things" as an excellent tome (no other word) that touches again and again on the "debate" as to whether consciousness can arise from matter (can I sell you a bridge?).
Went to read your linked article "Why has everything gone crazy?" but I need to scan a QR code into an app and ... I don't (won't, to be precise), have a Smartphone. Believing them to be a absolute disaster for humanity.
Would love to read the full article, to note all he references - as I am doing with this one
Theory is important when it comes to producing a model that can be communicated and replicated, yet theory itself forever remains an abstraction, a distilation, perhaps at best an explanation.
The moment of standing within eternity, where eternity is oneself, and oneself is eternity, without one reflecting the other cannot truly be described in this modern language. Is it material? Is it non-material? Perhaps a burning question after the abandonment of that moment, yet at the time the furthest thing from the mind.
Even the quantum does not reach into eternity.
As brilliant as von Neuman was, he was working with phenomena.
From the practical level, there is a great gift to humanity that derives from an experience of eternity, and that gift includes the wonder of it all.
I've never read any of this material, but for anyone who's read my posts here knows that I couldn't be a materialist even if I *wanted* to. I've had too many direct confrontations with the unseen and -haven't put enough Skill Points into 'Delusional' to permit it.
Oh, and funny you should use that Picture of Yoda. Though I admit this is isn't directly related, I wanted to ask briefly if any fellow fans of 'Star Wars' here, wanted to join my little rebellion against the Disney Empire. I've created a petition on Change.org to do exactly that- have us fans unofficially, but practically, Re-Canonize the Extended Universe. https://chng.it/BwdT8RkgxS
I don't meant buy out the IP, I just mean that if Disney can dump 35 years of Lore & use their hatred of it to empower their Marxist garbage, we Fans can do the same, by publicly 'Turning our backs' on their nonsense.
Traditional metaphysics as a system of thought is at least 2500 years old, and its principles are likely much, much older than that.
Modern science is about 400 years old.
I think it’s reasonable that the burden of proof ought to be on the junior, not the senior, fellow. Science: spend more time reconciling itself vis-a-vis Plotinus than modern theologians desperately trying to reconcile quantum physics as if there was something at stake. It’s all a waste of time. Brahmins had that stuff sussed out millennia ago.
I enjoyed the atheist references you posted. Seeing their strongest arguments fall by the wayside, especially when they come from otherwise intelligent or even wise writers, is very reassuring.
Reading Bertrand Russell's essay his arguments simplified are 'Jesus was a meanie' and 'The Catholics were mean to me'. There's also quite a bit of deconstructionism in his critique of first cause, design and nature where he makes some pretty enormous leaps in logic such as, "Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku-Klux-Klan or the Fascists?" He lived to see Stalin's atheist society and still claimed Christian society (which he enjoyed the fruits of even as he criticized them like a petulant child, same as Dawkins) was no better or kinder.
For such a 'analytic philosopher' who even said, "None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error." he didn't apply this to his opinions on religion. There's countless apologia, even commonly known ones, he just ignores and blows past in the essay. It's shockingly ignorant and when he said he became an atheist from ages 15-18, his writing on it truly reflects the mental sophistication of that age.
The point I make is that atheism is an incredibly immature argument, at least the way the New Atheists have presented it. It's lies, appeals to bitterness and general handwaving at big numbers that they hope you'll be awed or confused by.
"Thus we terminate this series of Tree of Woe articles with a happy ending. I apologize for the error and will make up for this momentary lapse into joy with extra woe in future articles."
If it makes you feel any better (worse?), rest assured there's something wrong in their conclusions. I don't know *what*, but given the mankind's progress of towards greater knowledge to date it's a virtual certainty...
Hmm. i have been trying to explain my weird life for ages! vertical potentialities. I called it a layer cake. the past did already happen, so it is fixed. maybe the individua is at the point of a cone that widens in potential?
Fascinating and great list! It strikes me as interesting that my own journey hit some similar stops (Stapp's *Mindful Universe* was one!), but in a different order, and coming from rather different directions. For me, the rigorous "quantum woo" of Stapp and Penrose got smuggled in by Stephenson in *Anathem*, and I was sitting with them for quite some time as still an atheist, and it was John Michael Greer's *A World Full of Gods* that presented the arguments that popped a hole in atheisms's credibility for me. From there, I've been exploring (neo)-Platonic metaphysics via traditional western esotericism.
What's interesting to me is how this has led to a remarkably similar place, based on our previous discussions. Anyhow, thanks for this whole series, I've got even more to add to the reading pile now.
Pater's list is Fantastic! I shall Add the requisite DOOM that Pater erroneously left out in momentary Joy & Jubilation at completion of the Curriculum... to do so, I will recommend some Supplements:
'Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis' By John Vervaeke -> Expands on the Meaning Crisis induced via the unmooring of the Western Mind, & its deep diving into Physicalist architectures & the sundry poisons that come from doing so.
Spheres Trilogy (Bubbles, Globes & Foam) By Peter Sloterdijk -> short descriptor- about 'the human conception of inhabited spaces'... longer description: Basically Sloterdijk's Metaphysics & conception of Dasein... expanded to include everything... 'Being & Space' if you will. You get a 'post-physicalism' that is more melancholy & DOOM-full courtesy of the usage of Continental Phil authors & works.
Philosophy & Non-philosophy, Philosophy of Non-philosophy, Struggle & Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy, Dictionary of Non-Philosophy & A Biography of Ordinary Man... all by Francois Laurelle -> DOOM, Gloom & Despair about how Post-Physicalism, Physicalism & other such pursuits are structured on the A prior philosophical decision & A 'Sufficient Philosophy'... basically Moot (WHY? Well... read them at your peril, Dear Readers!)
... Hmm, that should suffice for now 😋
Hmmm, I need to read "The Irrational Atheist." I like the God as game designer metaphor. I already wrote an essay with scriptures that back up the metaphor some time ago:
https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/an-afterlife-a-nerd-can-believe-in
>If we are AIs in God’s laboratory, then we cannot expect to have any more understanding of His ultimate purpose for us than the AIs…
*If* we posit the Biblical proposition that God created Man in His image we should be seeking understanding God through introspection
Not an argument, but a suggestion for further inquiry and contemplation:
As is my wont, I find that both your essay (very well written, btw) and the exemplar adversaries you cite are stuck in the nineteenth century on this topic. The discovery of chaos theory, spontaneous order, and mathematical unpredictability that is nonetheless mechanical breaks the entire mechanistic vs. metaphysical paradigm in just about every discipline from evolution to mythopoetics. It has yet to be properly integrated into the general body of scientific or philosophical thinking.
You mentioned "Mind and Cosmos" by Thomas Nagel, and his emphasis on teleology. Nagel also has some worthwhile comments on the inadequacy and even the failure of reductive materialism. He says in the Introduction:
"Physico-chemical reductionism in biology is the orthodox view, and any resistance to it is regarded as not only scientifically but politically incorrect. But for a long time I have found the materialist account of how we and our fellow organisms came to exist hard to believe, including the standard version of how the evolutionary process works. The more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes . . . as it is usually presented, the current orthodoxy about the cosmic order is the product of governing assumptions that are unsupported, and that it flies in the face of common sense."
Another quote, also from the introduction:
"If physics and chemistry cannot fully account for life and consciousness, how will their immense body of truth be combined in an expanded conception of the natural order that can accommodate those things?"
In other words, current conceptions of the cosmos and of the origins of life on earth are inadequate. They cannot explain life as we know it. He does not take the obvious step of wondering if there might perhaps be a God after all. Maybe later . . .
Physicalist orthodoxy falls apart upon any consideration of the mind itself. Any physicalist theory of mind needs must be mechanical and deterministic, a priori, axiomatically. The problem, of course, is that we do not experience life as if our minds are deterministic. And if the physicalists are correct, they are not, in fact, rational actors making reasoned arguments, but meat robots making meaningless noises according to their programming. All it takes to refute those noises is to take them at their word.
But this still leaves us with the mystery. What is mind? Why?
I'm sorry I laughed reading this post. It won't happen again. Well, who am I kidding, of course it will, for I'm a laugher.
I like the genre of metaphysics.
It allows for historical contrasts. For example, I regard Kant as a closet atheist who had to pretended to be a theist. He shows some despair sometimes. But, these days, we see quite a few closet theists who live in perpetual anxiety, pretending to not believe in God. I find it funny.
It's fun also that since Descartes until Schopenhauer, many philosophers really tried to have a decent style, but others like Spinoza clearly hated readers, the perspective of being read, and reading in general. But today, philosophy is so "technical" and marxistic in style that it's just not fun to read. Essays on logic are dreadful these days.
As everyone knows, tradition divides philosophy in three branches: metaphysics or ontology, logic, and ethics or moral thought. But this division is misleading. All writings about metaphysics use and abuse logic, and it's almost impossible to talk about metaphysics without talking about ethics. On the other hand, I curse every time I read ethical texts that eschew metaphysics. Logic is the most "standalone" genre, but it gets boring after a while.
Ever since WWII, metaphysics has this air of contempt for life. I think this is a contamination from the physicists. It used to be more balanced. The "optimist" writers tend to focus on politics, and use it as a subterfuge to talk about metaphysics. How low can we go, that political philosophy is where the best writers are!
As a recommendation for fans of woefulness, I mention the doctrine of vitalism. It's completely outmoded. It's a doctrine or tradition common among Spanish philosophers.
Life in Spain is pretty nice, most of the time. Like California, but with fewer religions and fewer Germans, except in the summer. Good weather, except in the interior, where it's a bit more continental. This has a strong influence on thought, which I'll describe now.
Spanish thinkers go through this winding path: first, they glorify and worship life, beauty, justice and liberty. Then, they get a bit mature and tend to focus on depressive themes: betrayal, disease, political corruption, lack of progress, illiteracy, fraud, intergenerational abuse, and pathetically low interest rates.
After they give themselves a depression worthy of Don Quixote, they live a few years in the doldrums, wishing to be Germans or English or French and lamenting Spain (the land of Cain, country of sorrow and pettiness,) and after complaining about Protestantism, they spend this period writing about politics or economics without any originality, showing insane levels of envy for the sciences, and rejecting their poetic inclination, their true nature.
Then they slowly become in love with life again. And this last turn usually leads to some form of religious thought, walking off politics. Wine also helps.
Vitalist philosophy explains all this, but the reader does not have to actually go through all the pain of living like a Spanish thinker.
In a way, vitalism is the most human of all metaphysics. Rationalism looks anti-human by comparison. And I guess vitalism sounds very exotic for people used to Anglo-American philosophy, which is always under the influence of a great contradiction: the restoration of Rome and the undying desire to escape from the idea of Rome.
There is not one good encyclopedic article on the internet about this philosophy.
Vitalism is more like "let's enjoy our senses while we still have the privilege of inhabiting a body, for the mystery of incarnation deserves pious contemplation." Anglo-American philosophy is like "What body? What pleasure? We are only numbers and shapes. Heaven is a square, Hell is a compass. Why are you not working today either?"
Thank you for this series, T.O.W.
I'll add another to the list of recommended authors: John Gray. An atheist British philosopher who delves deeply into either pessimism or realism.
Particularly, "Seven Types of Atheism" on his critiques of various forms of atheism. He has no love for the New Atheists, for a start.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Types-Atheism-John-Gray/dp/0241199417
"Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals" takes several looks at aspects of the human condition.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Straw-Dogs-Thoughts-Humans-Animals/dp/1862075964
His work also appears in online interviews and essays.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/john-gray-on-the-dusk-of-western
https://showcase.newstatesman.com/author/john-gray
https://unherd.com/author/john-gray/
Many thanks for this article. I'd again cite Professor Iain McGilchrist's "The Matter With Things" as an excellent tome (no other word) that touches again and again on the "debate" as to whether consciousness can arise from matter (can I sell you a bridge?).
Went to read your linked article "Why has everything gone crazy?" but I need to scan a QR code into an app and ... I don't (won't, to be precise), have a Smartphone. Believing them to be a absolute disaster for humanity.
Would love to read the full article, to note all he references - as I am doing with this one
Thanks
Theory is important when it comes to producing a model that can be communicated and replicated, yet theory itself forever remains an abstraction, a distilation, perhaps at best an explanation.
The moment of standing within eternity, where eternity is oneself, and oneself is eternity, without one reflecting the other cannot truly be described in this modern language. Is it material? Is it non-material? Perhaps a burning question after the abandonment of that moment, yet at the time the furthest thing from the mind.
Even the quantum does not reach into eternity.
As brilliant as von Neuman was, he was working with phenomena.
From the practical level, there is a great gift to humanity that derives from an experience of eternity, and that gift includes the wonder of it all.
I've never read any of this material, but for anyone who's read my posts here knows that I couldn't be a materialist even if I *wanted* to. I've had too many direct confrontations with the unseen and -haven't put enough Skill Points into 'Delusional' to permit it.
Oh, and funny you should use that Picture of Yoda. Though I admit this is isn't directly related, I wanted to ask briefly if any fellow fans of 'Star Wars' here, wanted to join my little rebellion against the Disney Empire. I've created a petition on Change.org to do exactly that- have us fans unofficially, but practically, Re-Canonize the Extended Universe. https://chng.it/BwdT8RkgxS
I don't meant buy out the IP, I just mean that if Disney can dump 35 years of Lore & use their hatred of it to empower their Marxist garbage, we Fans can do the same, by publicly 'Turning our backs' on their nonsense.
Traditional metaphysics as a system of thought is at least 2500 years old, and its principles are likely much, much older than that.
Modern science is about 400 years old.
I think it’s reasonable that the burden of proof ought to be on the junior, not the senior, fellow. Science: spend more time reconciling itself vis-a-vis Plotinus than modern theologians desperately trying to reconcile quantum physics as if there was something at stake. It’s all a waste of time. Brahmins had that stuff sussed out millennia ago.