If You Were Offered The Opportunity To See Satan Would You?

[devildavid]

From my viewpoint, there's so much that's confused in that simple-seeming proposition that I'm not sure where to begin unravelling it. However, I can recall a time, in the dim past, when I would have agreed without any hesitation. When one engages the techniques of which I speak enough, one discovers the view that informs your claim, and that allows you to make it without any reservation, is simply false.

That does not mean that some people cannot be mistaken or go off half-cocked on some ego trip. That can and does happen. But the results of mystical practice are not imagination in the vulgar sense of the term (that is, the way you use it). Language doesn't have terms for what mystics discover, I'm afraid, since so few people ever become mystics. A vision has almost nothing in common with a daydream.

I don't find imagination vulgar at all. Mysticism is imaginary and discovers nothing but flights of imagination. There are no techniques that can discover things that aren't there. There are no mystics in the sense you think, just people who call themselves mystics, vulgar or not.

 

[ashurbanipal]

I don't find imagination vulgar at all.

I didn't mean vulgar in the sense of "bad" but in the sense of "common." My point is that mysticism, and mystical experience particularly, has basically nothing in common with you imagining yourself, say, on top of a mountain or living some other life or etc. Anyone can do the latter. It takes training and practice to attain the former, and even then, it's far from certain that one will ever get a vision.

Mysticism is imaginary and discovers nothing but flights of imagination.

How do you know? I know from personal experience that your claim is false.

There are no techniques that can discover things that aren't there.

How do you know something is not "there" (wherever there is)?

 

[devildavid]

I didn't mean vulgar in the sense of "bad" but in the sense of "common." My point is that mysticism, and mystical experience particularly, has basically nothing in common with you imagining yourself, say, on top of a mountain or living some other life or etc. Anyone can do the latter. It takes training and practice to attain the former, and even then, it's far from certain that one will ever get a vision.



How do you know? I know from personal experience that your claim is false.



How do you know something is not "there" (wherever there is)?

Mysticism is about achieving a mental state. This takes place in the mind. The mind is dependent on the brain. What you or anyone else experiences solely in their mind is impossible to demonstrate or share. This is the essence of mysticism. Your experience is real to you in your mind only and that is fine. When you make claims beyond that I am skeptical. When you say I need years of training to experience that I am skeptical. Mystical experience is a brain state and anyone can achieve a state that they feel is mystical. Anyone other than the person experiencing this should be skeptical. I don't desire to attain a brain state that you might describe as a mystical state. I am not in any way in my life going to be impacted by anything you describe as mystical. Of that I am certain.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Mysticism is about achieving a mental state. This takes place in the mind. The mind is dependent on the brain. What you or anyone else experiences solely in their mind is impossible to demonstrate or share. This is the essence of mysticism. Your experience is real to you in your mind only and that is fine. When you make claims beyond that I am skeptical.

Well, surely by the same logic, all of that is just in your mind, so I should be skeptical.

 

[devildavid]

Well, surely by the same logic, all of that is just in your mind, so I should be skeptical.

I'm not sure what you are skeptical about. That I am able to formulate ideas and express them? I am not skeptical about your ability to do that. I am only skeptical about your claim that the experience of something you call mystical is more than just an experience in your mind.

 

[ashurbanipal]

I'm not sure what you are skeptical about. That I am able to formulate ideas and express them?

In your argument, you state:

What you or anyone else experiences solely in their mind is impossible to demonstrate or share.

The point being that everything you know is something you experience in your mind; ergo, I should be skeptical of it. Seems to be a consequence of your argument...clearly an undesirable consequence, though.

As for what I personally am skeptical of in your argument, it seems to me that your first three claims are incorrect. Mysticism is not about acheiving a mental state. Mysticism does not "take place" in the mind (though obviously mental states do). The mind is not necessarily dependent on the brain.

 

[_Sal]

Not that I believe in such things, but wasn't he considered the most beautiful of angels? Why do we assume his fall turned him hideous?

bingo...you win :mrgreen:

 

[devildavid]

In your argument, you state:



The point being that everything you know is something you experience in your mind; ergo, I should be skeptical of it. Seems to be a consequence of your argument...clearly an undesirable consequence, though.

As for what I personally am skeptical of in your argument, it seems to me that your first three claims are incorrect. Mysticism is not about acheiving a mental state. Mysticism does not "take place" in the mind (though obviously mental states do). The mind is not necessarily dependent on the brain.

The actual experience of what happens in our minds can't be shared with another mind. It can only be described in words. We can't all come together and share the exact same mind experience.

What is the mind if not a manifestation of brain activity?

 

[ashurbanipal]

The actual experience of what happens in our minds can't be shared with another mind. It can only be described in words. We can't all come together and share the exact same mind experience.

Let's say I agree (I don't actually, but agree it's not in common experience). That doesn't make minds or mental states somehow unreal.

What is the mind if not a manifestation of brain activity?

I suspect it's a primitive, the way matter is supposed to be. Let me say a couple of things about this point.

I suspect, despite all the denigration he gets in some circles in philosophy and other areas, Descartes is going to have the last laugh when it comes to how we analyze mind and matter. The problem he noticed is that mental objects (thoughts, images, feelings, motivations, judgments, etc.) have basically no properties in common with physical objects. So we should recognize right off the bat that it's going to be difficult to figure out how to build mental objects from physical objects. It would be like trying to get a non-empty conjunction set from two sets that share no members in common. Logically speaking, that's impossible, unless you can show that at least one of the members of one of the sets isn't what it appears to be, and is actually equivalent to a member of the other set.

That summarizes, in a nutshell, the entire 20th century in philosophy of mind. The result seems to be this: the two sets really do share no members in common. Attempts to give a reductionist account of mental states in terms of brain states are all fatally flawed, and after a century of a bunch of really smart people trying a great many possible solutions, none of them work. A consensus in growing that reductionist programs fail--mind, and mental states generally, cannot be reduced to brain states. A non-technical way to explain this same point is that it's impossible to build a mental object from physical objects. But if that is correct (and there are good positive arguments that it is), it directly implies that materialism is false. As much as some folks like to think it's possible to have "non-reductive" materialism, such an account is technically not materialism.

The most straightforward way to resolve the problem is to suppose that mind is a primitive in the same way matter is a primitive. That is, we may be able to divided it, and divide it again, and again, but eventually, we end up with something that cannot be analyzed. We might be able to say something interesting about it, but in the end, it's a brute fact that it exists, and it's useless to try to reduce it to something else.

 

[devildavid]

Let's say I agree (I don't actually, but agree it's not in common experience). That doesn't make minds or mental states somehow unreal.



I suspect it's a primitive, the way matter is supposed to be. Let me say a couple of things about this point.

I suspect, despite all the denigration he gets in some circles in philosophy and other areas, Descartes is going to have the last laugh when it comes to how we analyze mind and matter. The problem he noticed is that mental objects (thoughts, images, feelings, motivations, judgments, etc.) have basically no properties in common with physical objects. So we should recognize right off the bat that it's going to be difficult to figure out how to build mental objects from physical objects. It would be like trying to get a non-empty conjunction set from two sets that share no members in common. Logically speaking, that's impossible, unless you can show that at least one of the members of one of the sets isn't what it appears to be, and is actually equivalent to a member of the other set.

That summarizes, in a nutshell, the entire 20th century in philosophy of mind. The result seems to be this: the two sets really do share no members in common. Attempts to give a reductionist account of mental states in terms of brain states are all fatally flawed, and after a century of a bunch of really smart people trying a great many possible solutions, none of them work. A consensus in growing that reductionist programs fail--mind, and mental states generally, cannot be reduced to brain states. A non-technical way to explain this same point is that it's impossible to build a mental object from physical objects. But if that is correct (and there are good positive arguments that it is), it directly implies that materialism is false. As much as some folks like to think it's possible to have "non-reductive" materialism, such an account is technically not materialism.

The most straightforward way to resolve the problem is to suppose that mind is a primitive in the same way matter is a primitive. That is, we may be able to divided it, and divide it again, and again, but eventually, we end up with something that cannot be analyzed. We might be able to say something interesting about it, but in the end, it's a brute fact that it exists, and it's useless to try to reduce it to something else.

I have no idea what you mean by calling something a "primitive".

Mind experiences are real inasmuch as something is taking place in our mind. My hallucinations when I had a fever are real hallucinations. My dreams are real dreams.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Assuming we are talking about its only me who gets this offer then I would be honor bound to go, to become a journalist.

Good question.

:thumbs:

 

[ashurbanipal]

I have no idea what you mean by calling something a "primitive".

A primitive is just a basic unit within some domain, not susceptible to analysis. For example, if we ever find a particle of matter that can no longer be subdivided, so that it's impossible to say what it's made of, that particle would be a primitive. Primitives are just taken to exist as brute facts.

 

[devildavid]

A primitive is just a basic unit within some domain, not susceptible to analysis. For example, if we ever find a particle of matter that can no longer be subdivided, so that it's impossible to say what it's made of, that particle would be a primitive. Primitives are just taken to exist as brute facts.

I still have no idea what you are talking about. It makes no rational sense. Facts are facts. Not sure what a brute fact is. Everything can be analysed. What is a domain?

 

[ashurbanipal]

I still have no idea what you are talking about. It makes no rational sense.

I think it does. Most professional philosophers think it does.

Facts are facts.

Yes, correct.

Not sure what a brute fact is.

Bertrand Russell is the one who coined the phrase (I think). The way he used it, a brute fact is one that you cannot query--it's simply a fact you have to accept, one which it makes no sense to ask why it is a fact--what caused it, why it is the way it is, etc. etc. just cannot be sensibly asked of brute facts, at least with respect to our current epistemic status. Certain results of quantum mechanics are often given as examples of brute facts. Why did the electron tunnel now as opposed to five seconds from now? According to QM, for literally no reason.

Primitives are a special kind of brute fact, in that they provide the basis for analyzing other things. But like other brute facts, they just are, and there's no way to sensibly analyze them.

Everything can be analysed.

Obviously false. Don't confuse being able to predicate true statements of something for being able to analyze it.

What is a domain?

A logical construct that restricts discourse relevant to some set of objects. For example, I might specify that my domain is, say, 17th century Africa for the purpose of a book I've just written. In the book, if I write "No one knew how long the erruption would last" I mean "No one in 17th century Africa knew how long the erruption would last"--not that no one anywhere, anytime knew how long the erruption would last. Similarly, if the domain in a conversation is Euclidean Geometry, and I say "straight lines continue forever," I mean "straight lines as conceived in Euclidean Geometry continue forever"--not that straight lines in any geometry, or as instantiated in the world, continue forever.

We use domains all the time usually without explicit recognition. If I ask "did you pay all the bills?" I don't mean "Did you pay literally every bill in the whole world," but rather "did you pay all your bills," or something like that.

Something can be primitive with respect to a domain, but analyzable in some other domain. Molecules are probably primitive with respect to biology, but analyzable in physics. I think that mind is primitive tout court--primitive in the universal domain (i.e. the domain of everything).

 

[Northern Light]

Satan isn't the same thing as Lucifer.

Satan resides in the minds and hearts of all people. It's what tempts you to fall from grace, to give into your inner temptations and abandon your path in life. Satan is part of all of us. It wants us to give in and live a life that isn't true to ourselves but may be gratifying in the short term. It is sin to operate against the way that God made you, to go against your true self. Satan tries to make you do just that.

It's frustrating to see people constantly get this wrong. They think Satan is some thing outside of themselves, and if they live a "good Christian life" then they will be safe from damnation. The thing is, you can put on the show of "goodness" all you want and look perfect to the world, but if you are lying to yourself or afraid to face your own shadow, you will still be a slave to Satan. You've just put up some fancy window dressing to tell yourself otherwise.

One the reasons why I abandoned Catholicism in my 20's is because the Priesthood has everyone convinced that if you do your due diligence by going to Church and taking confession that you'll be spared Satan's influence. What a crock. There is no shortcut to doing your inner work in this life. If you want to experience paradise then you have to face your own inner evil and overcome it with love. Evil isn't "out there", it's right in here. You resolve it and integrate it by truly knowing it, and choosing not to let it blindside you in a moment to moment way.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Satan isn't the same thing as Lucifer.

Satan resides in the minds and hearts of all people. It's what tempts you to fall from grace, to give into your inner temptations and abandon your path in life. Satan is part of all of us. It wants us to give in and live a life that isn't true to ourselves but may be gratifying in the short term. It is sin to operate against the way that God made you, to go against your true self. Satan tries to make you do just that.

It's frustrating to see people constantly get this wrong. They think Satan is some thing outside of themselves, and if they live a "good Christian life" then they will be safe from damnation. The thing is, you can put on the show of "goodness" all you want and look perfect to the world, but if you are lying to yourself or afraid to face your own shadow, you will still be a slave to Satan. You've just put up some fancy window dressing to tell yourself otherwise.

One the reasons why I abandoned Catholicism in my 20's is because the Priesthood has everyone convinced that if you do your due diligence by going to Church and taking confession that you'll be spared Satan's influence. What a crock. There is no shortcut to doing your inner work in this life. If you want to experience paradise then you have to face your own inner evil and overcome it with love. Evil isn't "out there", it's right in here. You resolve it and integrate it by truly knowing it, and choosing not to let it blindside you in a moment to moment way.

Well Put

 

[Mr Person]

Lucifer, 'Light-giver' was the favourite of the angels. He refused to accept God's dominion because God didn't create the angels, they and God were equally eternal, so he and his followers were cast out of heaven. He became Satan, but I don't know of any story that says he became hideous. Faust wasn't terrified by him, anyway.
It's all a good story, like a Nordic epic.

I have to wonder how theologians grapple with that. Then who created "angels"? Could the creator of "angels" also have created God?

No one can say what Satan is or what it looks like so if you were afford a chance to view it would you? For me if it does exit I don't want to ever see it.

Sure. I'd want to see anything that would turn my seemingly objective approach to reality on its head. That includes ghosts.


Hey....I can afford a new pair of pants...

 

[devildavid]

I think it does. Most professional philosophers think it does.



Yes, correct.



Bertrand Russell is the one who coined the phrase (I think). The way he used it, a brute fact is one that you cannot query--it's simply a fact you have to accept, one which it makes no sense to ask why it is a fact--what caused it, why it is the way it is, etc. etc. just cannot be sensibly asked of brute facts, at least with respect to our current epistemic status. Certain results of quantum mechanics are often given as examples of brute facts. Why did the electron tunnel now as opposed to five seconds from now? According to QM, for literally no reason.

Primitives are a special kind of brute fact, in that they provide the basis for analyzing other things. But like other brute facts, they just are, and there's no way to sensibly analyze them.



Obviously false. Don't confuse being able to predicate true statements of something for being able to analyze it.



A logical construct that restricts discourse relevant to some set of objects. For example, I might specify that my domain is, say, 17th century Africa for the purpose of a book I've just written. In the book, if I write "No one knew how long the erruption would last" I mean "No one in 17th century Africa knew how long the erruption would last"--not that no one anywhere, anytime knew how long the erruption would last. Similarly, if the domain in a conversation is Euclidean Geometry, and I say "straight lines continue forever," I mean "straight lines as conceived in Euclidean Geometry continue forever"--not that straight lines in any geometry, or as instantiated in the world, continue forever.

We use domains all the time usually without explicit recognition. If I ask "did you pay all the bills?" I don't mean "Did you pay literally every bill in the whole world," but rather "did you pay all your bills," or something like that.

Something can be primitive with respect to a domain, but analyzable in some other domain. Molecules are probably primitive with respect to biology, but analyzable in physics. I think that mind is primitive tout court--primitive in the universal domain (i.e. the domain of everything).

Mind can be analyzed by analyzing how the brain works. Mind is dependent on brain. Mind is dependent on being alive and having a functioning brain. Otherwise we couldn't even discuss the concept of mind.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Mind can be analyzed by analyzing how the brain works. Mind is dependent on brain. Mind is dependent on being alive and having a functioning brain. Otherwise we couldn't even discuss the concept of mind.

I think all of that is false. Even if the brain creates the mind, or the mind is otherwise dependent on the brain, it doesn't follow that we could analyze the mind. But in fact, we have no grounds to say that the brain creates the mind, and at least some grounds to consider mind a distinct entity.

 

[devildavid]

I think all of that is false. Even if the brain creates the mind, or the mind is otherwise dependent on the brain, it doesn't follow that we could analyze the mind. But in fact, we have no grounds to say that the brain creates the mind, and at least some grounds to consider mind a distinct entity.

I don't know about you, but I communicate with other physical beings using physical means which includes the use of my brain. I have never communicated with a mind separate from a physical person with a physical brain. In fact, I have never experienced anything as a mind separate from my physical experience..

 

[ashurbanipal]

I don't know about you, but I communicate with other physical beings using physical means which includes the use of my brain. I have never communicated with a mind separate from a physical person with a physical brain.

All of this could be true, and everything I believe also be true.

In fact, I have never experienced anything as a mind separate from my physical experience..

Depending on how you mean this, it's either false or trivially true.

 

[devildavid]

All of this could be true, and everything I believe also be true.



Depending on how you mean this, it's either false or trivially true.

I have yet to see evidence of a mind existing separately from a physical person with a brain. There is no viable explanation of how this could occur. There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates how changes to the brain can impact the mind, but none in the opposite direction. I am going by facts of physical evidence. Since we are both now depending on our physical bodies and brains to communicate ideas, there is no evidence to suggest that either of us has something that is totally separate from this called a mind. Mind is just a word used to describe the apparent effect of using our brains. Our ability to think and self-reflect may give us the impression that thinking is more than physical activity in the brain. But without the basis of our physical existence and our brain we would be unable to even think about the concept of mind as a separate thing.

 

[ashurbanipal]

I have yet to see evidence of a mind existing separately from a physical person with a brain. There is no viable explanation of how this could occur.

There's no viable explanation for a lot of things we know are true. But not only is there no viable explanation for how the brain could produce the mind, there are some good reasons to think it does not.

There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates how changes to the brain can impact the mind

Sure. There is plenty of evidence that changes in the weather can impact the economies of nations, the rates of piracy, and incidence of depression. But the weather doesn't generate any of those, and it's certainly not identical with any of them.

but none in the opposite direction.

1. Not surprising, since we haven't been looking for any.

2. Depends on whether you think the world should be intelligible. We have no idea how patterns associated with mental processes initiate in the brain. So long as you're fine with saying that nothing physical causes the patterns associated with mental processes, then sure, I agree

I am going by facts of physical evidence.

Well, that may be a problem. If you start out with a perspective that entails that everything is physical, it becomes awfully easy to conclude that everything is physical.

 

[devildavid]

There's no viable explanation for a lot of things we know are true. But not only is there no viable explanation for how the brain could produce the mind, there are some good reasons to think it does not.



Sure. There is plenty of evidence that changes in the weather can impact the economies of nations, the rates of piracy, and incidence of depression. But the weather doesn't generate any of those, and it's certainly not identical with any of them.



1. Not surprising, since we haven't been looking for any.

2. Depends on whether you think the world should be intelligible. We have no idea how patterns associated with mental processes initiate in the brain. So long as you're fine with saying that nothing physical causes the patterns associated with mental processes, then sure, I agree



Well, that may be a problem. If you start out with a perspective that entails that everything is physical, it becomes awfully easy to conclude that everything is physical.

No, I don't have a perspective that everything is physical. The fact that I am physical in a physical universe is something I have no control over. Our minds do not control the world around us. Our minds are contained within us, specifically in our brains. I can fantasize that reality is not really real but this has zero impact on physical reality. The rain falls on all of us, regardless of our perspective. We all get hungry and thirsty and need to maintain our physical bodies to be able to continue existing. No amount of philosophical theories change these basic facts. Imagining souls, or minds, or gods takes place solely in the imagination. There is only one perspective for all living creatures; being alive in the physical world. It is not a chosen perspective, but a reality.

 

[ashurbanipal]

No, I don't have a perspective that everything is physical.

Then why would you insist on physical evidence? If something is non-physical, there would be (by definition) no physical evidence for it. What there would be is (possibly) some conceptual lack or gap in the physical world, which is what I think we do observe.

Look: suppose that God intervenes in every physical motion in the universe, but He does so in perfectly consistent ways for every such motion. What we would observe is no different than what we would observe if all motion were governed by consistent natural laws. The only difference between the two situations (i.e. God intervenes consistently/no intervention plus consistent natural laws) would be that in the case when God intervenes, we wouldn't be able to conceptualize how physical stuff alone does everything we observe. Now, I would agree that, in the absence of any reason to think God might so intervene, we may as well just go with the natural laws picture. But there may be reasons to not go with that picture, and those reasons have to be dealt with on their own terms.

Now as it happens, there seems to be some pretty good evidence that in fact the universe is not consistent, so I can't really think of a reason to be a materialist in the first place. It seems to be part of the definition of material substance that it is subject to consistent mathematically rigorous laws, and the evidence we have is that no such stuff exists.

The fact that I am physical in a physical universe is something I have no control over.

Well, I think I agree there are aspects of reality over which we have no control. But I am not attempting to push a skewed "version" of reality. I'm attempting to arrive at the correct view of reality, using what I take to be the best epistemic standards and practices that we have.

Imagining souls, or minds, or gods takes place solely in the imagination.

I know, from personal experience, that this is false.

There is only one perspective for all living creatures; being alive in the physical world. It is not a chosen perspective, but a reality.

We can choose our perspectives, but I agree we should not do so according to our whims or desires. Rather, we should do so according to our evidence and our reasoning about that evidence.