PeterJ

You seem to confuse two idea, digital vs analogue and simple vs complex. It seems the general view is that Reality is continuous, same as the number line, so legato rather than staccatto. Hence the need for the calculus. As one mathematician conjectures, reality may not be just simpler than we think, it may be simpler than we can think. This would be my view for what it's worth. Of course reality consistent with the principle of least hypothesis. It is human beings who create redundant theoretical entities.

I always like Philo. Seems to have had his head screwed firmly on.

Great. For the first time we completely about something. I would never say anything to suggest any of this was not true. We can agree about all this. 'Eastern' religion, if we must call it that, and a lot of 'western' religion, is about empiricism, not speculation. This is what esotericism, gnosticism, nondualism, mysticism, call it what you will, is all about. BUT, and it is a fantastically important 'but', the doctrine that emerges from this empirical research makes complete sense in philosophy. Most people do not know this, and certainly very few professional scientists and philosophers. Nobody has yet written a book explaining this. although it is there to see for any literature review. It It is not an area of research that many people venture into. Accordingly, most people have no idea that it is possible to demonstrate that this metaphysical doctrine, if we present it as such, as Nagarjuna does, is the only one that cannot be refuted in logic. They assume that Eastern religion is incomprehensible, a bunch of people describing untestable and illogical first-person non-ordinary experiences that are not in any sense scientific, or even of any use in philosophy. In reality this doctrine is the only one that can be defended in philosophy. I do not know why this is not taught in schools. The issues are simple enough. By studying the philosophical scheme of this doctrine we are able to deduce in logic that Aurobindo is correct in what he says here. For any true doctrine or 'theory fo everything' logic and empricism would fit together as hand and glove, and for this doctrine they do. I don't think we should undersell it by suggesting that there is no point in thinking about it, that there is nothing to be learnt from thinking. It is perfectly possible to become completely convinced that Sri Arobindo's cosmological doctrine and that of the Upanishads must be true by only thinking about it, with nothing but 'everyday' experiences (as if) to go on. I know this from experience. It was all quite surprising. I also know from experience that logic must be abandoned for true knowledge. Aristotle himself teaches us this. But the intellect may step in later to debrief oneself, as it were, such that 'what they thus experienced, they understood by the instrumentality of the intuitive reason.' So we can agree about most of this. But we must note that for Aurobindo the experience is not the understanding. He does not suggest that we should misutrust our reason or that there is no point in using it. There is nothing to prevent reason and experience from preceeding hand in hand and in perfect harmony, and they are no threat to each other. We might wonder why a scientifically-minded person would ever become interested in the Upanishads if the doctrine it endorses cannot be defended on logical grounds. It would be poor marketing for this worldview to suggest that the only way to understand it is in experience, achieved by years of work and practice. Aurobindo spent a lot of time and effort trying to explain his view and presumably did not think this was a pointless project. If we do the sums and actually calculate which philosophical doctrine comes out best in philosophy then we will be struck by the fact that this is same doctrine on which all the major prophets and sages have converged since time immemorial. We will also see that this cannot be a coincidence. If we do not do the sums, and believe it would be a waste of time, then unless we take up the practice it will alway seem to us as if Aurobindo's view must be a conjecture, not knowledge, and we will not see the rigour of his writings but think he is making it up as he goes along. Philosophical analysis, which is thinking about the issues, allows us to logically deduce that the scriptures must contain a lot of truth, or are at least plausible and unfalsifiable. I would not say such a thing if it could not be demonstrated. I suspect that the only reason why people within religion are so often dismissive of logic, of taking an analytical approach, is that they are not aware of this. It is not a well know fact. It is likely that they will not hold the religious view that logic endorses and this keeps the research field fairly uncrowded, more or less empty in fact, and it's mostly amateurs. Few people would have the time. Also, professional philosophers confuse the issues to such an extent that the discipline is in chaos, beset by problems on all sides, which makes it very difficut for the layman to see that it might be worth doing some, and even for the average physicist. This failure of philosophy is a western phenomenon though, not a global failure of philosophy. Sorry, Too long again.

Yes. We really have no choice but to think about these things, and when we do so its philosophy we're doing. I can agree with Immortal, however, if he means that the only sure way to understand God is in our own experience, by gaining immediate knowledge, or maybe what Kant call 'non-intuitive immediate knowledge'. By identity in other words. But failing that we must use our brains. Otherwise we might as well pick our religious beliefs by personal preference and temperament. It cannot be unreasonable to suppose that the most plausible religious cosmology is the one that works best according to our reason. Sorry we keep wandering away from your topic but it is not all irrelevant. I think that to have a sound theory of ethics we must have a sound theory of the universe from which we can derive our ethical system. Even if, as you suggested earlier, it is God who gives us morality, this does not explain why anyone should or does behave morally. Maybe I don't care what God wants from me. Schopenhauer explains Aurobindo's view of ethics briefly and well at one point, so I'll look for a passage to quote. In essence I think the main difference of opinion here is between those who think that God is a phenomenon 'out there' somewhere', and thus unknowable to us, but nevertheless having an existence we must take on trust, and those who think 'God', (as a useful word to describe the phenomenon), is just as much 'in here', and thus knowable to us, and as transcending the distinction between existence and non-existence, 'beyond the coincidence of contradictories' in the words of one Christian mystic. Aurobindo quotes the Upanishads when he states 'The Unknown is not the Unknowable', and this would be my view, partly because it would follow naturally from the structure of Aurobindo's universe. That is, I do not think we have to guess at the truth of God's existence or otherwise.

Hi Immortal - You say that it's very clear that Aurobindo is criticizing the metaphysicians for applying logic and reasoning to the study of the Vedas and the Upanishads. It is not clear to me. Indeeded, I would say he is criticicising them for not doing this. It is true that western philosophy in general, despite exceptions, has almost no understanding of this doctrine, but it is not going to reach one unless by the application of logic and reason to it, unless it is by taking up the practice and trusting to empiricism. The idea that religion requires us to abandon logic and reason is a most pernicious and dangerous one. It would render any analysis pointless, and would mean that there is no point in using our god-given brains as a guide to truth. Anything at all might then be true. Until we know that it is pointless I would suggest that we must use logic and reason as a guide to the plausibility of a cosmological doctrine just as we would for a scientific theory. And they are not unconnected areas of work. One advantage of Aurobindo's view is that it makes some sense of nonlocal effects, for example, while theism sheds no light at all on them. It also survives philsophical analysis, which monotheism does not. The trouble with theism is that it is nonreductive. In his Enneads Plotinus advises us that when we read the literature of the more profound views of religion we should always preface statements about reality with the words 'It is as if'. This saves us from taking talk of God too literally, and reminds us of the contraints placed on us by language and conceptual thinking. In this respect Kabbalism is an interesting example, since here the idea that God is not fundamental is made clear and explicit. However, just to be conciliatory, I would be happy to concede that God is an important and useful phenomenon, even if an ultimate ontology would leave him out, since His existence would be a close approximation to the truth. If we lived as if the literalist Christian God existed then we could not go far wrong. But I'm with the Buddhists, who explain God as misinterpreted meditative experience. Not a false experience, but the anthropomorphisation of a deeper truth. This is the orthodox view in the wisdom traditions, and the reason why it has for so long been dangerous to belong to one. I know you will disagree, but I see no way to solve this disagreement. I believe totally in logic and reason, at least up to the point where they must give way to empiricism. so can only keep appealing to them.

What leads you to this conclusion? The passages quoted? I agree with every word Aurobindo writes, and have just finished writing a review by request for a new book on Aurobindo's psychology. I'd suggest reading Professor Radhakrishnan's Philosophy of the Upanishads, which is a very clear and authoritative exposition of this worldview. If you disagree with Aurobindo or Radhakrishnan then you disagree with me. But if you're going to quote either at me then we'll have nothing to disagree about. Do you really think that the Upanishad's endorse thirty-three gods? If so then Aurobindo's point is made. Really it is ridiculous that a person can quote Aurobindo and verify his criticism at the same time. Do you not see that saying someone's understanding of the vedas and upanishads sucks is enough by itself to demonstrate the thoughtlessness of your view? It's a childish remark where there needs to be a valid objection. Is this how you talk about science? Or do you save the wild stuff for religion? Or, I suppose we could say that if you believe that the upanishads endorse theism, other than as a linguistic tool for the description of natural forces and phenomena, then we belong to different religions.

Athena - Have some sympathy. All these quotes are meaningless without some context. Like throwing confetti at the bride. There is a great deal of confusion and lack of rigour. For example, you challenge Moontanman to say how, if God is not integral to the universe, he would explain a long list of statements. I could explain them all given time, for not one of them supports the idea that there is a God. For the writers of some of these quotes it would even be unrigorous to speak of 'One', since this concept would depend on Two or Many as a complement and is thus partial, not whole. Thus we have the word advaita to describe the worldview of the Upanishads from which you quote, meaning 'not-two' but not meaning 'one', and certainly not implying God. The Upanishad doctrine has no God and has instead a system of ethics and behaviour based on the nature of reality itself, 'ethical' behaviour occuring naturally for anyone able to see the truth of our common identity. No Gods required or even a rulebook. We just try, as sentient beings, to avoid self-harm. People who know about gravity don't jump off cliffs. This juist happens naturally as a result of knowledge. This is what compassion is all about in Buddhism, learning to behave as we would behave if we knew the truth, assuming we don't know it already as a living reality from our practice, and thus do it spontaneously.

Sorry Athena, I have to agree with Moontanman on this. There is no evidence that God gives us moral principles, nor that animals do not use language. It does seem true that many people believe that without God there can be no moral principles, but it is not a necessary view. Hobbes' Leviathon and all that. I missed your bit about how to have morals without God but would agree that this is no problem. It may even be a lot easier.

Did you really mean to say it is our capacity for math that really makes us divine? This is a very odd idea. Logic would say that either we share an identity with the Divine or we are not divine. I understand that you meant this to be more than entertainment, and I'm all for talking about these issues. Just not in such an unscientific and endlessly inconclusive way. I think a discussion on a science forum should be more concerned with facts and data. Maybe it's just me though.

I see no point in discussing religion, God, morals and so forth in these terms, other than for entertainment.

I think we're all making some good points here. but coming at things from very different angles. I apologise if I have been a bit aggressive. I've been hoping to be challenged. No luck so far, but Athena points out rightly imho that we need to be more clear about metaphysics, so I'll say a bit. For me this is all about cold logic and empirical evidence, and requires no references to the scriptures or any 'unscientific' beliefs in anything in particular. I'm all for science and for taking a scientific approach, and consider metaphysics to be a science of logic. First off, I believe that the universe is reasonable. This is a necessary belief for any sensible science. That is, I believe that metaphysics is a trustworthy guide to what is true. 'Metaphysics' here would be simply human reason applied to the questions of absolutes and first principles, specifically via the dialectic process as defined by Aristotle. Physics has not yet shown that there is even a single fault with the conclusions of metaphysical analysis so there is no reason not to trust them. These are not just 'after' physics'. This idea is a quirk of history, the way Aristotle's works were classified. Physics stops before it can become fundamental and then metaphysics starts. But if we start from fundamentals and work back then metaphysics comes before physics. The point is only that it is outside of physics, because that is how we define physics. Theoretical physics cannot be done withour also doing metaphysics, since it is the search for a funamental theory. Any fundamental theory will be metaphysical. This is why there is not one fundamental theory in physics. It is easy to forget that Materialism and Idealism, for example, are metaphysical positions, untestable in physics and nothing to do with any scientific evidence. Anyone who concludes that Materialism or Idealism is true is doing metaphysics, not physics. The reasonableness of the universe would be my first axiom for any argument about science or religion. If it is not reasonable, as e.g. Melhuish and Priest propose, then all bets are off. An argument for religion may be made in four statements, where the reasonableness of the universe would be the first. This has to be an axiom because logic cannot prove anything about reality, but there seems no reason to suppose it is not true. The second statement, which is a demonstrable and well-known fact, would be, in Kant's words, that 'all selective conclusions about the world as a whole are undecidable'. A 'selective conclusion' here would be a positive or partial metaphysical position. For example, the idea that the universe 'begins' with Something or Nothing can be refuted in the dialectic (ie in metaphysics), and so neither idea will ever work in physics, and there will never be any empirical evidence to the contrary unless the universe is paradoxical, ie. unless it disobeys the 'laws of thought' (as per Melhuish's 'Paradoxical Universe'). Likewise, if it turns out that Mind or Matter is fundamental then the universe will be paradoxical, since both idea can be refuted. Hence the 'problem of consciousness', which is really the Mind-Matter dilemma dressed up to look less like metaphysics. These two statements are not even slightly contentious in philosophy or physics so should not cause a problem here. But I'll save the next two statements and see if anyone wants to hear them. I'm certain that nobody can falsify either of these first two statements, despite their simplicity. Yet they take us within two steps of a formal proof that religion makes a great deal of sense. But it would be religion of a very specific kind, the kind favoured by Einstein and Schrodinger, not just any old religion. Briefly then, my argument would begin... The universe is reasonable. All selective metaphysical positions are logically absurd. I see no possible objections, but maybe I'm being unimaginative. If this seems off topic don't worry, we come back to God with the fourth statement, and can then tease out some testable predictions for physics.

Sorry but I can't demonstrate any God to be real. Don't believe in gods. Nor do I know that Zeus in not a God. I don't know that there's no teapot in orbit around Mars either.

It may be a majority. I do wonder though how you know which is which. Metaphysics, physics, biology, psychology, phenomenology, I'll take it where you like. It is not necessary to have such narrow tastes as yours. The idea that one can do physics without metaphysics is beyond my comprehension. I wonder why you insist that there is no empirical evidence. It is not an assumption. This is clear from what you say. Well, we'll see. I still don't think much good will come of it. We've crossed paths before and the result has never been a sensible disussion. Where is the argument? I can't see one, just the expression of opinions. Do you not feel inclined to challenge what I say? I write it to be challenging, but it doesn't seem to work. By a number of means. Mainly its a question of consistency. Also, it is to do with whether a religious claim is consistent with reason. Only one metaphysical position is systematic and reasonable, and this serves as a good yardstick for judging the initial plausibility religious (and scientific) theories. I could talk about empriricism also, because this is the only certain way to decide, but this won't carry much weight around here. Maybe we could talk about cases and examples.

Hey. This is not your usual style. Or perhaps I misremembered. I'm happy to chat about this with you if we can do it like this. So far I agree with all of this. I just don't include all religious beliefs in the list of fairy tales. There no 'absent foundation', I would not post as I do if I couldn't put my money where my mouth is. And I do not see any criticisms, only the claim that my view is wrong. Yet I'd be amazed if you understood what my view actually is. In a everyday sense I can accept that your view is reasonable and thoughtful. Probably more so than many. But in metaphysics it is not. In metaphysics we find that my view is the only reasonable one. This does not make it true, but it makes it the most constistent with reason. This I can demonstrate. Because of this I find your attitude to religion patronising. Like, okay, it's jolly good for consolation and promoting social harmony etc., but has nothing to do with science or the facts. This can only mean that you have not delved far into religion. No offence meant, not many people do. However, it is not enough to just take Dawkins approach and say that a lot of it is rubbish. Of course a lot of it is rubbish. This is not news. A large part of the secret of understanding what religion really claims about the universe is being able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. This takes scholarship and/or practice. We shouldn't hijack the thread though. I'd be happy to delve deeper but probably not a good idea on a God thread. I'd rather do it in a science thread. Anytime you want to get to the bottom of our disagreement I'm up for it, but not to simply trade opinions. It would be interesting to attempt to sort our our differences even if we fail. Athena - Did you know Churchill called democracy 'the least worst form of government'. I don't understand the religious fervour of the Americans for it. It's pretty good, but it is not approariate for all situations. The thing is, it's perfect for global capitalism. Maybe this is partly because people have become fixated on the work ethic and forgotten the lilies of the fields.

There you go. This suggests that my fears have a solid foundation. I'm sorry, inow, that you cannot see more in religion than this, but I don't think much good would come of discussing it with you. I suppose it must be difficult to take an interest in the face of the dogmaticism and fanaticism that surrounds the discussion in the US. Can you not see past these superficial issues? Please don't be offended if I don't reply to such posts in future. No good can come of it.

Thanks Athena. Still I cannot quite agree with what you say here. My view would be that we cannot conceive of the ultimate phenomenon, but that we can know of it by identity. That is, we can know of it because we are it. So I'd agree with your nephew, if he means 'know' in the same way. To keep this vaguely scientific, I'll mention that this was the view of Erwin Schrodinger. One of his books was refused by his regular publisher for disseminating the heresy that he was God. Luck for him. Quite a few mystics have died horrible deaths for saying the same in earlier times. But perhaps this ultimate phenomena cannot be properly called God, as is the case according to the wisdom traditions, who say that 'it' cannot properly be called anything. I'd say that the more nearly God is equated with an ultimate phenomenon then the more necessary it would be to concede that the word is a mere placeholder, standing for something we we can neither conceive nor describe, but which we can only know or not know. If we have a clear idea of God in our heads, that can be conceived and described, then this is not an ultimate phenomen but a concept. It may be a very important and useful concept for all sorts of reasons, as an approximation to the truth, and I believe that it is, but it is a concept, not a thing. . Yes. Mind is defined as not body, and clearly they are either connected or the same thing. The interesting question is whether they are directly connected or co-dependent phenomenon whose relationship is mediated by a third phenomenon, as I would suggest is the case. I would say that it is the failure to give this idea credence that causes the failure of western metaphysics. Yes. Weird isn't it. It really is an extraordinary fact, and not an easy one to explain the sciences. Here's an experiment. Lift one of your arm to shoulder height and then take it down again. Done that? How did that happen? How did my words cause your arm to move? It's very difficult to follow the chain of cause and effect without just guessing at certain parts of it, and very difficult to keep it entirely in the physical realm. Ha. I expect most atheists worry that they cannot go far enough. But I do agree. Atheism is not the same thing as Materialism. If it were then Buddhism would be Materialism. The thing is, if there is a 'spiritual' reality, or if reality is 'spiritual', then they can never go far enough in denying it, so there;s no need to worry. Besides, even in the natural sciences simple Materialism is a pretty much dead idea. With people like Guth and Stenger exploring ex nihilo creation things are actually looking up/ Yes, but thinking cosmically is even more fun, and certainly more godlike. Thinking globally must look like a serious lack of ambition from His point of view. Fascism here we come. If science would take the trouble to investigate the worldview of the Upanishads then it might all end up quite well, in a happy marriage of science and religion that transcends the theism/atheism argument. If science goes on thinking that religion is a waste of time then I share your concerns. Terrors would be a better word. Society places a lot of faith in scientists, and what they think about religion will do much to shape the future of our cultures. I fear that the second scenario may be the one that continues to be played out.

No, sorry, but I do not understand even what is for you very simple mathematics. Ridiculous I know, but there it is. I think on the whole I should keep quiet and let other people chat about this while I watch and try to keep up. Thanks for the address. I will email you at some time soon to see if our ideas about RH really do have some similarity. Mine are childlike, but I enjoy exploring them. I suppose I could risk asking here about the meaning of the complex numbers in real life. Could you say more on this?

Sws5000 - I am very enthusiastic, but I'm not going to say too much more here until the mathematicians have decided that you are not a crazy person. I'm too close to being thought one already to risk it. I would love to hear your explanation of RH if it's as simple as you say it is. If not here maybe we could swap emails?

Yes that would be exactly it, as far as I can understand the article. I might call it music but it's all physics. It doesn't seem to make a difference whether we are studying the mathematics of a quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator or a piano. The evolution of the number line would be a model of the evolution of the universe in a very non-trivial sense. Mathematics would be rigidly coupled to physics and to metaphysics also, and from there even to religion and mysticism. It's all about physical vibrations. This is what G. S. Brown's famous 1967 book Laws of Form is all about, in which he quotes from the Tao Teh Ching and then neatly solves Russell's paradox. Russell prominently praises Brown's calculus on the cover, but he never saw it's implications for metaphysics. He never saw that the calculus does actually describe the laws of form. This is why I get into trouble when I start trying to explain why I think I know (if I can put it like this) that there are infinitely many twin primes. It's just how the music goes. It even follows from what Lao Tsu says about the number line. I think. The RH is a very fuzzy object to me. I've tried for years to understand it and failed miserably. But I'm excited to meet someone who seems to be thinking about this problem in a similar way, as being possibly a much simpler problem in mechanics than it is in mathematics. I believe this is also true for the Twin Primes Conjecture. The problem is, how to convert these insights into mathematical proofs. I do not dare not suggest a specific physical model since I don't understand the Zeta function or any physical system well enough. The details of these things defeat me. I'm not even sure that I'd risk saying that R's function or the behaviour of his zero's 'describes' a physical process. The numbers and the physical systems would obey the same natural laws, and the laws of number theory would be laws of Nature. But I really cannot make head nor tail of the non-trivial zeros of this incomprhensible function and it is very annoying. Sws500 - I'd love to talk metaphysics but this is not the place.

I'm probably the worst mathematician that has ever spent any time on this site. I'm a musician and so come at the primes from that angle. I also write about metaphysics, and this is why I'm not completely surprised by your talk of of cosmogenesis in this context. I have the same suspicion, and I've heard others say it, but the difficulty of understanding the mathematics puts this particular problem well beyond my comprehension.

I'll almost certainly not be able to understand your work, but I'm extremely intrigued. I hope you'll be able to summarise it here sometime.

I like this discussion but don't understand yet what it's about. Agree with a lot of the education stuff though. For many religions, and for important divisions and sects of most religions, 'God' is explicity a placeholder and should not be thought of as any more than this. Even for classical Christianity it is would not be quite correct to say 'God' exists. It is inevitable that whatever we think of as 'God' is our own invention. To a lesser extent the same seems to go for 'tree' or 'electron', it is just that the contraints on the idea are much tighter. Concepts are all we've got in the end. Anything that isn't a concept cannot be the subject for intentional consciousness.

It seems quite plausible to me that a proof could come from electrical engineering, since to me it seems to be a wave-mechanical problem. But I cannot for the life of me believe that anyone intelligent enough to have found a proof of any kind, or even to understand the problem in the first place, would post a request like this all in lower-case.

Kant and Hegel use logic to show that the universe (or 'existence') must 'begin' or emerge from a phenomenon that is not an instance of a category, and in philosophy nobody has improved on this idea yet. Science may or may not go for it but it is the only idea that works in logic. For a mathematical approach to this idea try exploring Geroge Spence Brown. Here's a starting point... http://www.lawsofform.org/lof.html A phenomenon that is not an instance of a category is inevitably beyond any observation by the senses or conception by the intellect, of course, and this makes it a rather odd topic of study. Well worth it though, if we are interested in the origin of existence. It'll do your head in, but it does work. One thing at least we know for sure, after all this time, and this is that the idea that it all began with Nothing or Something does not work. Otherwise ontology would be easy.

Oh good grief. I forgot you'd be here to ruin the discussion. You are wrong. Please cite texts and authors, and do not just state your own interpretation as if it is bound to be correct. .