The Divided House of Faith and Reason

[Weir]

Words have hypostatizing effects that can subsume layers of hidden meaning. We tend to emotionally identify with left brain language to the detriment of right brain intuitive insight. All cultures use words to identify things like trees and rocks and then intuitively perceive certain causal connections that become expressed in language about how things work. World views develop as belief systems about how things have come to be as they are. We all need a Theory of Everything to meaningfully integrate experience. We need to make some holistic sense of phenomena in order to care for our person and also to cope collectively for our needs in a social context. Every culture has had a Theory of Everything from Grandfather Fire and the Garden of Eden to the Big Bang. Even if we believe that everything has come into being from absolutely nothing in a Big Bang, and that life is an accidental development without plan or purpose, we believe that this is so for all people for all time everywhere in this vast universe. Death brings utter psychic annihilation to us all. There is no reality that transcends our birth and death. This requires that there is no transcending basis to universal truth beyond this collection of molecules that we happen to walk around in. This belief system is as closed as the biblical story of creation.

We are back to the divided house of faith and reason that has plagued the history of civilization.

Reason and logic are founded on belief, on axioms, syllogism, categories and the like, according to how our diverse languages have evolved. Left to its own devices reason leads to closed belief systems formulated in language. On the other hand, faith is rooted in question and open wonder with faith that there must be such a thing as universal truth unless we are all lost forever. The former is a left brain linguistic endeavor. The latter is a right brain intuitive quest into the nature of truth. It brings realization that can inspire thought and behavior. It is logic and reason that manipulates language in both science and traditional religion and this can erode at the foundations of faith. Faith that there is a transcending basis to truth that can be directly accessed in experience should inform logic and reason, not vice versa.

In faith we seek insight into the structural dynamics of the cosmic order, whether our pursuit is scientifically or spiritually oriented or both. We seek an insight into how it all works together. Science has accumulated a great many empirical pieces of the jigsaw puzzle but it is inept at fitting them into a coherently working whole. We need the dynamic picture on the cover of the puzzle box to intuitively guide their meaningful assembly.

Is it possible to accurately delineate how the cosmic order works in a way that facilitates direct intuitive insight into the roots of meaning? Is it possible to do this in a way that is not dependent upon language but from which the meaning in language derives?

There is a new methodology introduced at www.cosmic-mindreach.com that complements traditional approaches to the sciences. It embraces all possible structural varieties of phenomenal experience. It can find direct pragmatic application to the sciences consistent with the empirical evidence. It requires direct confirmation in phenomenal experience. It can emotionally balance the left and right brains.

It is perhaps surprising that the most important contributors to physics have been profoundly spiritual men, although not always in a traditional sense. As Max Planck once put it:

"Anyone who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' It is a quality which scientists cannot dispense with. ... The pure rationalist has no place here." (From "Where is Science Going," Norton, NY 1932)

[SB_UK]

The Divided House of Faith and Reason

As Max Planck once put it:
"Anyone who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' It is a quality which scientists cannot dispense with. ... The pure rationalist has no place here." (From "Where is Science Going," Norton, NY 1932)

Nice quote.

We need highly and reasonably informed faith.

What is highly informed faith ?
That innate sense that if we look under this rather than that stone -
- that we'll find something.

What is reasonably informed faith ?
That innate sense that when we've found all the stones to be found, that we'll be able to either make something real nice -
- and/or be transported to some field where the search for stones will be even more rewarding.

And these processes represent (respectively)?
[1] Optimizing our current abstraction layer emergent property.
[2] Evolving to a higher abstraction layer (and hence higher emergent property)

~*~

Two definitions of faith are built into any emergent structure under process of evolution -
- where all structures are under process of evolution

Maybe, a question which might arise might be?
And are we about to make something real nice to enjoy
- AND - then
move to fields afresh -
- OR -
simply destined to play with something real nice for the rest of eternity (eternity - through the eyes of man - till our Kingdom undone (Universal eversion)).

Since the process of evolution appears to be concerned with generating concentric loops :

awareness
(affect -> effect -> affect) <- a closed loop
()

consciousness
the ability to observe (affect -> effect -> affect)
(())

I can't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to crank the handle on this pattern
quite
some
more -

- however, if we couldn't
it wouldn't matter -

- because the drive to continue our pattern of evolution wouldn't be there -
- meaning that we'd be happy in that 'whichever' place at which we'd just arrived.

(The Tree of Life
(metaphor == Boards of Canada, In a beautiful place in out in the country)
- was forbidden to man -
until Tree of Knowledge scaled)

Happiness arises if there's no place else we'd rather be
- Unhappiness requires a happier place to exist (one which the unhappiness drives us towards
- as our intended future reality).

The meaning underlying 'Linkin Park,Somewhere I belong' and the Boards of Canada title above -
- simply we're approaching that place -
the basis to {Joni Mitchell,'Back to the garden'} -
Note
colour coded to green -

that place -> resonant structures
- explaining away the rise of the (political) green movement (in recent time
- belied by the metaphor of Lovelace's 'gaia'
- our own evolutionary process towards (and understanding of our own evolutionary process towards)
- of our own evolutionary process towards because of our own understanding of our evolutionary process towards)
resonation between our 8Hz internal dopaminergic circuit and the principle node of the planetary geophysical Schumann resonance.

~*~

So
- absolutely 'yes'
- regarding our need for faith.

However with the important additional note that we should steer clear of the idea of blind faith -
- although the term may be twisted to mean pretty much the same as reasonably informed faith
(from above)
- because when we evolve, we will evolve to a structure which we cannot imagine
from cumulative experience gatherered to date
(~that is~ from previous levels)

[Simple Explanation of this idea
- The monkey could not have offered any view on the benefits of mind to man.]

However with the important additional note that we should steer clear of the idea of blind faith -
- particularly when some bloke dressed in white claims to be the only individual to have access to absolute truth -
and where it's yours for the u$ual fee.

The truth which we seek is innately present within all of us - experts (now exposed as people who (perhaps though perhaps not inadvertently)
- attempt to shroud you from an understanding of your reality) -
are snake oil salesmen

yours for the u$ual fee.

- working only for their gain

- grant proposal successful

- for your net detriment
- the perverting influence (of course) desire for money

It might be for one's research -
- but as long as it's -> one's <-
- the perverting influence of desire for money applies.

ToE is simple -
- man makes it hard -

to be fair -
there needed to be multiple paths to the top of a tree -
- however, once there, the same perspective to all people (once scaled)
helps to resolve all of the confusion.

Human evolution - sequential deliverables

physical -> mental -> spiritual
reference
- the frequency of firing with evolution of the geometrically central dopaminergic circuit in man.

~*~

From other threads on site (MJA,Melanie,Drifter)-
why do current spiritual leaders draw upon all previous schools of religion, faith, spirituality ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle
He said the first texts with which he came in contact after the awakening and in which he found deep understanding were:
the New Testament
the Bhagavad Gita
the Tao Te Ching
and teachings of The Buddha
Advaita Vedanta
A Course in Miracles
the Bible
mystical Islam
Sufism
Rumi's poetry
Zen Buddhism's Lin-chi (Linji in pinyin ) (Rinzai) schoolJ Krishnamurti
Ramana Maharshi

wipeout???

~*~

There's no other explanation for the capacity to draw upon (generate unification from) all of these (supposedly diversely arrayed) schools of faith unless they're (through metaphor)
stating
exactly the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakri...ool_of_thought

Ramakrishna also experimented with other [than Hinduism] religions, notably Islam and Christianity, and said that they all lead to the same God.[

~*~

Note
- that Tolle and Ramakrishna both reached their states of enlightenment by avoiding the educational systems of their times.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Note
that conventional education leads to the 'common sense' at which Einstein is aiming his derision.

So if all of these schools of thought (including all other schools of thought (eg science (the evolution of understanding), literature (the evolution of art))) are stating the (underlying) exact same 'thing' -
- then what're all of these many, many, many schools of esoteric jargon trying to describe.

-> In one (medium sized) sentence <-
A mechanism for evolution which applies to all aspects of our Universe (to all aspects of our Universe which we are aware) -
and which can (naturally) be
reflected upon our very selves -
- to explain our development to date -
to explain the pattern which will characterize our development into the future.

We are changing before our very own collective mind's eye.

'and the dreamers are a...waking'

No big deal -
- as long as we're aware of all of the mechanisms which science has revealed into the functioning of all (physics -> IT) emergent structures within our 'all of' reality.

The electron transport chain within our cellular mitochondria - and the relationship between this aspect of physics in biology
to the Force embued to Jedi Knights by Midi-chlorian count
- for instance
(Note
cellular mitochondria count is similarly variable)
- an example of our innate sense for reality and the collective mind
outing themselves in art.

real-izing the whispers

[Weir]

With respect, SB_UK, there are a few contradictions implicit in your comments. They tend to high-jack faith back into reason's half of the house. Faith involves a right brain intuitive quest that is not preconditioned by reason. It is not dependent on language and intuitive insights are generally holistic or archetypal in character, not reductionist as in looking under this or that stone. Intuitive insight informs reason not vice versa. We seek in the dark with faith that there is a transcending basis to truth that is beyond our powers of reason. Then insight comes.

Einstein had an inspirational insight when a man fell from a garage roof and remarked that he did not feel gravity. That momentary insight was not preconditioned. It was spontaneous. It related to the entire universe. It was archetypal in character. It took him considerable time to reason it out.

De Broglie had an inspirational insight that led to his derivation of his famous wave equation of matter. He suddenly thought of a moving particle as "a little clock in motion." The intuitive idea is archetypal and applies to the whole universe.

It is an established fact that the right hemisphere of the brain in left handed people is intuitive and holistic in character and excells at aesthetics, spatio-temporal organization, the spiritual sense and the like. It can structurally comprehend language conceptually but it can not formulate language in speech. In contrast the left hemisphere is dominated by language and consequently by logic and reason. This allows us to formulate the specifics of behavior and thought as a left brain exercise that complements right brain intuitively perceived archetypal patterns.

The follwing quote by Einstein is relevant:
“I see on the one hand the totality of sense-experiences, and, on the other, the totality of the concepts and propositions which are laid down in books. The relations between concepts and propositions among themselves and each other are of a logical nature, and the business of logical thinking is strictly limited to the achievement of the connection between concepts and propositions among each other according to firmly laid down rules, which are the concern of logic. The concepts and propositions get “meaning,” viz., “content,” only through their connection with sense-experiences. The connection of the latter with the former is purely intuitive, not itself of a logical nature. The degree of certainty with which this relation, viz., intuitive connection, can be undertaken, and nothing else, differentiates empty fantasy from scientific “truth.”(From "Autobiographical Notes," written at age 67.) (Einstein knew what later became established as scientific fact by Sperry's experiments on split brain patients that the intuitive and language hemispheres of the brain function independently and that it is the intuitive hemisphere that integrates experience holistically.)


None of this has anything to do with money. Please have a look at the website article Inside Our Three Brains at www.cosmic-mindreach.com.

[SB_UK]

I'm going to try and limit the replies to few sentences so that the point is not lost under words.

differentiates empty fantasy from scientific “truth.”

That's a perfect description of the first of those definitions pf faith -
- a highly informed faith which feeds upon itself.
The mind started 30,000 or so years ago -
- from which point it grew from nothing to give us the knowledge set we have now.
Faith (here) represents a logical pull into the unknown.
When we arrive at 'mind' (soon)
- courtesy of ToE -
- then we might consider the pull of faith towards completion of mind to have been realised.

They tend to high-jack faith back into reason's half of the house.

So real-izing what previously one had faith in,
real-izing through experiencing the benefits of achieving the goal which faith had pulled us in.

The important point here though being that faith evolves alongside of us -
- and so the pull which dissipates to build mind (as mind completes its build) -
gives way to a larger pull -
- a larger pull which draws us to build yet another structure -
- a larger pull to build yet another structure
- which itself will dissipate in time

... ... ... to give way to .. ... ...

One sentence summary
Faith evolves alongside actual evolution of the subject; one might call 'faith' the pull of the wild as a metaphor for the Second Law of Thermodynamics
- the 'Second Law' which all energetic structures such as (of course) mankind must feel.

~*~

... a transcending basis to truth that is beyond our powers of reason

fits the second of those definitions of faith.
In a sentence
The unidirectional law of evolution to complexity as an alternative description of the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that we've a pattern to increased complexity, increased energetic content of the evolving structure -
does not mean that we know exactly which form the evolved structure will evolve into -
is simply a pattern which evolution will take.

Does definition of the scope (as opposed to the actual deliverables of faith) represent the act of sequestering faith into the realms of reason.
I can answer this question as follows (to illustrate the problem here)
- YES - it represents a solid definition of the word faith -
which people can take away for themselves and think about.
- NO - it represents a solid definition of the word faith and not of faith ??as a force??

... ... and as the confusion is described -
yet more room for confusion rests in the idea that words occupy the domain of reason -
and so
- YES - a definition of the word faith which occupies the domain of reason (the mind)
- as yet another possible solution.

~*~

Throw out all of this confusion and concentrate on the evolutionary process.

Species 1 -> Species 2 -> Species 3

Each species has a property which when optimized leads to evolution.
Evolution occurs to a fixed trajectory -
where the pull of evolution is faith.

The optimization on any level and continuation of evolution towards ever higher levels is being guided by the two types of 'faith' described in the post above.

~*~

None of this has anything to do with money.

(i) ToE is a Theory of Everything.
(ii) Money appears to be our Everything (taking a look at the day to day worries of all people)
(iii) We are products of evolution
(iv) One might consider the real world (as opposed to the cerebral world) term faith to represent the pull of man (with money) every upwards
(v) Where the pull of faith is being disrupted by the existence of inequality in money
meaning that any meaningful consideration of faith (at least from the perspective of man) is ENTIRELY about money.

It's important to consider the interconnectedness of all structures within our reality -
- and then to try and determine the major factors which limit structural freedom -
where in the case of man
- we're left considering primarily MONEY.

No worries if you consider MONEY to be of no importance to the study of faith -
your argument holds if you'd like to study the term or word faith
or
the nature of faith as force -

- I (however) am looking most specifically at the need for faith to our species at this point in time -
and the problems which people encounter when attempting to characterize their faith.

To re-iterate -
You could be right or wrong.
I could be right or wrong.

Most people (I genuinely believe) would like to be happy.
The angle which I am using to stufy faith is to define a species level characterization of faith which all people can take away -
to help all people realize happiness.

To re-iterate then -
faith (faith as word) as the term which we use to describe the pull (faith as force) of structures towards increased mathematical complexity (greater information content)
- a geometric progression which permits us to generate superstructures from the same basic substrate
- superstructures which one may describe as being greater than the sum of their substructural components -
greater than the sum of its parts.

Faith as force (not word) guiding this process.

[SB_UK]

Evolution to complexity
== the

GUIDE TO COSMIC ORDER

The cosmic order is structured by hierarchy -
our sole question becomes
how does the hierarchy form?
- from which one geometric process which scales by order will suffice ->-

COSMIC ORDER

Faith works to that defined pattern.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The hierarchy had to end at the causeless bottom of no design, no order.

[SteveA]

The hierarchy had to end at the causeless bottom of no design, no order.

There can be a flip side to this one. You're connecting the origin at the chaotic side on this one, but we can slide along a timeline of accumulated knowledge to the other extreme and find a complimentary view.

There can be an order that has no need for a cause because it's perfectly designed (it encompasses all possible designs and orders, and hence it can also be perceived as perfectly random and chaotic in its specifics because it denies nothing within it and there is no resistance) and so similarly we could derive that it could have been no other way - there would be nothing to change (always true and eternal no matter what specifics you select from within it).

[austintorn@aol.com]

It is not designed, of course, as there was nothing prior, but it would be the brute force 'trying' of all possible paths [universes], the natural extension of dimension beyond our 3. We are on one of its arbitrary but workable paths that began either as real or in superposition [that later became real upon the formation of consciousness to collapse the wave function].

[SteveA]

It is not designed, of course, as there was nothing prior, but it would be the brute force 'trying' of all possible paths [universes], the natural extension of dimension beyond our 3. We are on one of its arbitrary but workable paths that began either as real or in superposition [that later became real upon the formation of consciousness to collapse the wave function].

I tend to agree that there doesn't appear to be a reason why it should be considered to be designed, but it may be considered to be true nevertheless, and this not inherently disagree with it also being a brute force computation of all possible pathways - whether or not something was designed, doesn't alter its function but simply adds a context of possible relationship or intent to something else or other things (which I'd agree could be distracting, but then again, I don't like leaving unknowns hanging around as they always appear to remain and come back later, requiring yet another revision to grab yet another layer beneath the previous). It could have been designed to be a brute force search engine or it could have similarly, using brute force, discovered a design (notice that its structures are not particularly simple nor are the properties easy to characterize - it's difficult to say what a brute force search could derive with such a diverse array of properties available to combine). Also, there may be an issue with deciding which pathways to begin searching first, because it would only have a single infinity available to it, which can still be the largest, but if it, for example, immediately began computing all the digits of pi and everything else had to wait until this was completed before it went on to searching something else, we'd likely still be waiting for it to finish.

Anyway, if we assume that such a structure can exist, how can we imagine or have knowledge of such possibilities if all we're given is a specific physical sequence of experiences that should not be capable of representing it?

Notice that thoughts are not constrained to only observing physical events but are capable of extrapolating/reaching beyond them (in time) - we don't have to wait and watch a falling apple to know it will (likely) hit the ground. People could imagine or witness different causes behind events (it rained because the Rain God wanted it to or it rained because the clouds were seeded by an aircraft with dry ice - both could be seen as true and saying that it was caused by an aircraft does not negate the Rain God possibility as any decent Rain God, being a god, could probably have someone schedule a flyby over some particular group of clouds ).

If something exists that includes everything, it includes things that are designed or caused by other things and it should not deny itself being designed or caused, but if we tried to ask specifically what caused everything, if it already includes all things then its cause would appear to be plural and it was caused by both itself as well as all the things within it and any desires motivating those causes were all the desires of the things within it and its desires are theirs etc. Any and all causes of it would also be true (though it might take time to separate paradoxes arising from conflicting causes, if such are ultimately possible).

I know this appears cyclical in that something is required to be its own cause (and I prefer steering away from such structures), but notice that we're neither working with a specific physical object that needs to be something specific and not identical to something else, but instead something that is a superposition of all (possible) states (and maybe even impossible things if we consider that it should include things over all time, in which case we can something existing as more than a single thing at different times - such as a ball that is all colors but with events in time separating the various repaintings of it so that the timeless version of this ball is detached from having any specific color information).

An effect does not need to inherit its cause - for example, the reason behind the existence of something does not alter the fact that it exists - you can place whatever causes you want behind events and they don't change the events, whether an effect was designed or "random" doesn't alter an observed result, except in terms of a subjective context surrounding it - two people can witness the same event and see it as simultaineously random or caused and dependent upon something else - I think ultimately, "randomness" won't be a satisfactory explaination and people will keep searching until things are no longer seen as random - and a thought is that there will then be nothing that needs to be different - it could have been no other way and there was nothing left undone. If it had a beginning, then someone has to witness the void, if it has an end then someone has to witness the last straw placed upon it and in order for the straw to exist it had to be withdrawn from the void etc. (not unlike a number line in which, instead of counting, it's recursively subdivided and events inserted within it) and if all those events are to be witnessable as a single thing, then there would have to be a single perspective that figuratively rotates the plane into a line and rotates the line into a point, which should define an unchanging creative process(es?) that continually iterates to create/discover everything within it).

[austintorn@aol.com]

Also, there may be an issue with deciding which pathways to begin searching first

Not a problem, for all paths happen all at once, superimposed.

The reason it can't be designed is that Alain Aspect proved that there are no local hidden variables within the quantum. Cause had to end somewhere and lucky wee are that it was sooner rather than later..

The Houses of Faith and Reason are divided since, while both claim the causeless, one imagines absolutely perfect order while the other actually sees no order whatsoever.

There is also a feedback theory that suggests everything was created in our own future by some super-evolved universal mind that is our destiny to get to.