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/lit/ - Literature


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14130020 No.14130020 [Reply] [Original]

By properly I mean properly understanding the argument i.e. that it is happening in the present and not the typical 'who moved the first mover lel'

>> No.14130032

i could

>> No.14130034

Ideas need to be falsifiable in order to be refuted. Aquinas' ideas fall in the category of "not even wrong"

>> No.14130044

Spinoza cleaned it up and made it better by focusing on becoming instead of being in all cases instead of just excluding certain present cases as being “actual” (e.g. that “actual ice” is also always “potentially water”)

>> No.14130063
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14130063

Taleb BTFO Aquinas


https://medium.com/incerto/we-dont-know-what-we-are-talking-about-when-we-talk-about-religion-3e65e6a3c44e
https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-be-rational-about-rationality-432e96dd4d1a
https://medium.com/incerto/no-worship-without-skin-in-the-game-70b4aa341092
https://youtu.be/VuJD5Zfqti8
https://youtu.be/XAbSmTGJhEA
https://unherd.com/2019/03/why-god-needs-skin-in-the-game/

>> No.14131498

>>14130020
No.
See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx9gLvLYF5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_FEDEBbZT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhR77luOETU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMV9QU-XzLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVaNS4muh4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bevBRz5Dpn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft7J1Mv-0fI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDYPZYMt0Q

>> No.14131581

this essentially boils down to "something cannot come from nothing, and the resulting causal chain is finite," which is a pretty strong argument on its own, so instead of directly falsifying it, I'm going to look at another possible interpretation of it
consciousness is a state that must have a source. this source is the brain (not the soul, if it exists; the soul is the identity, while the brain is what gives that identity a physical reality). the brain is made up of tissue, which are made up of cells, molecules, atoms, particles, et cetera. this has to eventually end; somewhere down the line, there is a fundamental particle that makes up every other particle above it in this chain and provides the brain with its ability to experience reality. if there are multiple fundamental particles, then Aquinas is incorrect, which we have already assumed is not the case for the sake of this argument
this particle makes up everything that the brain is made of, and the brain is made of inorganic materials as well as organic materials, therefore other things that aren't brains are made up of them and therefore can experience reality
oh wow, look at that, panpsychism, lovely

>> No.14131667

The ontology of states and events is an anthropic fiction, more reflective of our psychology (and the way that perception turns into theory) than anything "real" about the dynamics of the world. In this sense, any "unmoved mover" argument is begging the question: Aristotle and Aquinas set out an obviously incomplete ontology, then conclude that God must be there to fill in the gaps. This flies under the radar, since states and events is what most people instinctively believe the world is like, but then most people instinctively believe in God.

>> No.14131706
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14131706

Verificationism vs Falsification

I'm not seeing how Falsification is intact yet verificationism is dead. Anyone enlighten me?

>> No.14131719

>>14131667
>This flies under the radar, since states and events is what most people instinctively believe the world is like, but then most people instinctively believe in God.
Questionable—socialisation seems to be in the main responsible, given the multiplicity of religious forms (though this religious behaviour may be “instinctive” but at the root it is difficult to separate from other kinds of mythmaking like the political and the moral). Also of interest to note is that Aquinas considered the existence of God to be a non-self-evident thing.

>> No.14131744

>infinity does not exist
>but god is omnipotent even though that means he has infinite power dude trust me

>> No.14131759

>>14131719
People seem to have an instinct toward religious feeling, that is, toward "universalization" and "idealization." God (or "the Divine" if you prefer) is just the last station on the universalization line, and ultimately it's where you have to get off if you're going to believe in idealization (including mathematical idealization) and you're willing to think about it at all. And once you realize that the worship of math is also the worship of God, you find that there are very few atheists in the world. And then it's not so surprising that people will strut out the "prime mover" like it's anything more than begging the question.

>> No.14131780

>>14131744
This. If the universe has existed for an infinitely long period of time, then it requires no prime mover or first cause.

>> No.14131795

>>14130020
Aquinas himself did when he tried to burn the manuscript of the Summa

>> No.14131815

>>14131744
an infinite causal chain does not exist

>> No.14131823

>>14131744
>>14131780
>>14131815
Aquinas doesn't rule out an infinite regress and indeed says that it is possible or at least conceivable/not disproven. The infinite regress that Aquinas thinks is untenable isn't an infinite series of causes stretching back into the past, but an infinite hierarchy of causes in the present. The point being that every thing that exists is dependent, here and now, on something else for its continued existence and motion. Once a mother gives birth to her son, that son is no longer dependent on the mother (his efficient cause) for his continued existence, and can continue to exist after she dies, but he is dependent on other causes for his continued existence, like the air he breathes or the energy he absorbs by consuming food etc. Aquinas thinks that at some point there must be a cause which isn't here and now contingent on another cause, otherwise there would be no source providing for the motion we observe at the "bottom"--like a paintbrush which, at its tip, is applying paint to a canvas, but whose body stretches back infinitely with no thing moving it at the other end (not a perfect analogy but hopefully a demonstrative one). The argument isn't addressing a temporal succession of moments but causality/contingency in the present.

Aquinas would also say that the universe created by God didn't need to have a beginning and could have existed "forever". An entity's place in the hierarchy of causes doesn't necessarily affect where it exists in time when we are dealing with a creator which is itself infinite, since God, being outside of time, creates and is creating everything "at once". That the universe "began to exist" (that at some point it didn't, that it has a "first moment") is just something disclosed by revelation and/or scientific investigation, but not a self-evident or necessary fact about reality.

>> No.14131841

>>14131759
Instinct towards idealisation is just the simpler-than-reality system of modelling the world that is our mind. Because our internal models have limited resources and need to give us something practical to work with, they are always idealis/universalis/simplifications. This is in large part why mathematics/science/philosophy/religion be like it is.

There's no reason to think the logic and reason derived from a mind developed within a fairly limited scope for animal purposes has bearing on reality.

>> No.14131852

>>14131841
>There's no reason to think the logic and reason derived from a mind developed within a fairly limited scope for animal purposes has bearing on reality.
Indeed, but this is exactly why mathematicians and scientists are fundamentally religious: because "scientism" (or scientific realism) is this very leap of faith. If you think mathematicians and scientists actually respect the huge epistemic rift we're talking about here, then you've never met any mathematicians or scientists.

>> No.14131872

Isn't claiming that God be the one cause without source a form of special pleading?

>> No.14132462

>>14130020
Maybe

>> No.14132511

Properly understood, there's no refutation. The only option atheists have is to do something silly like say motion doesn't exist.

>> No.14132625

Maybe this proves that there is a creator, but it in no way proves that humanity has any knowledge or indication as to who this creator is.

>> No.14132633

>>14132625
I'm so tired of hearing this line repeated. The argument gives us all of the divine attributes. Omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, oneness, and so on. It also shows us that this god is in constant interaction with the universe since it is the ultimate source of all movement. It is sustaining existence therefore theism is true.

Nobody claims this argument proves Christianity or Islam true. We clams this proves theism true and that it proves atheism false.

>> No.14132636

>>14132625
Indeed, Aquinas recognises this and says that we can only know God by saying what he isn't.

>> No.14132664

>>14132636
So I can know God by knowing he is not a cheeseburger or milkshake?

>> No.14132672

>>14132636
We know god isn't omnibenevolent.

>> No.14132692

>>14132664
Yes, actually. If we consider just one part of the cheeseburger, the meat patty, we can come to learn god exists and that he must have certain attributes just by thinking of what it takes to for meat to go from a state of raw to the state of cooked. We know from Aristotle that matter can't actualize itself, that it can't move itself. He uses the example of bronze not being able to turn itself into a statue and wood not being able to turn itself into a bed. These examples of matter require a human to give them shape, the matter receives or derives its power of movement from the human. The problem is humans can't explain their own motion since they go in and out of existence so there must some higher source. Eventually we come to something that is pure actual and when we consider what it means for pure actual to be pure actual we get certain attributes like being all-powerful or eternal.

>> No.14132702

>>14132664
You may have to add to that list, but yes, its a start. Now think about what about those things makes them unsuitable for being God, and apply those same standards to other objects. I know you were trying to be a snarky memer, you saucy boy, but you're actually closer than you might like.

>> No.14132714

>>14130020

Leave it to Catholics to sully Philosophy, Theology, AND Phenomenology in one argument.

>> No.14132724

>>14132714
This is the historical response to Aquinas. No refutation, just a dismissal. Then eventually people came to assume he was actually refuted.

>> No.14132732
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14132732

>>14132724
Read the God Delusion. Dawkins refuted Aquinas

>> No.14132762

>>14132724

It's unclear what he makes of Time, if anything at all. It's just a hodgepodge of conjectures that have little in common besides the bestial obedience of Phenomenal observation as Dogma. Ironically, the conjectures are far more "shameless", for their intellectual disgrace alone, than merely questioning the truth and appearance of Time.

>> No.14132775

>>14130063
>medium

>> No.14132779
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14132779

>>14132775
They're excerpts from Dr. Taleb's books (which have been peer reviewed).

>> No.14132780

>>14132762
Well he wrote a couple hundred pages on time in his commentary on the Physics. You're just making another dismissal, claiming it's all incoherent conjectures. I'm not impressed by it.

>> No.14132782

>>14132779
>which have been peer reviewed
Oh well since you say that I'll just blindly accept it.

>> No.14132789
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14132789

>>14132782
I can assure Dr. Taleb is 100% correct about everything. He doesn't directly attack Aquinas, but he attacks "rational" justification of faith.

>> No.14132791

>>14130020
Sure, I’ll do so right now.

Causality isn’t real:
>Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together; they are all one cat.
>The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.

>> No.14132793

>>14132732
>Aquinas
>Natural law
>refuted
GAHAHAHAAHHAHAH, nice joke.

>> No.14132796

>>14132780

I still see nothing in his "firs way" that goes beyond opinion of his superficial observation of Time.

>> No.14132803
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14132803

>>14132791
>Causality isn't real

>> No.14132804

>>14132796
If you think time is necessarily relevant to the first way then you haven't understood it. It's concerned with motion of all sorts and it's valid no matter what your views of time.

>> No.14132811

>>14132796
Read >>14131823

>> No.14132819

>>14131581
>consciousness is a state that must have a source. this source is the brain
Citation needed.

>> No.14132834

>>14131823
>Aquinas doesn't rule out an infinite regress
Yes he does, by equating it to non-existence, which is exactly what ruling out means.

>> No.14132840

>>14131841
>There's no reason to think the logic and reason derived from a mind developed within a fairly limited scope for animal purposes has bearing on reality.
Very false. If it had no bearing on reality, it would have been evolutionarily disadvantageous, and it would be eliminated. We see the exact opposite of that.

>> No.14132851

>>14132834
Did you read more than one line?

>> No.14132854

>>14132762
>It's unclear what he makes of Time
Bald faced lie

>> No.14132860
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14132860

Cause and effect does not exist in the world for there are no objects in the world. Object is an immanent phenomenon produced by the mind in its projected recognition of the eternal forms in formless matter.
The world is a confused fade, pure becoming, non-being.

>> No.14132862

>>14132804
>>14132811
>The argument isn't addressing a temporal succession of moments but causality/contingency in the present.

Foreshortening, as it were, the scope of Temporal observations so much so that "cause" and "effect" coexist in the "present" is still just the mundane observation of Time, merely condensed. Whereas something like Occasionalism, for example, and the relation between Monads is not.

>> No.14132868
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14132868

>>14132803
show me where the delineating border is between what you call an object a moment or an event and "this other" moment, object, or previous event.
It is not real.

>> No.14132875

I'm guilty of anachronism, but Aquinas' theory goes nowhere if you consider time dilation due to gravitational effects. Movement and change are themselves »changed« in relation to a non-dilated notion of change and movement due to movement and change itself; time and gravity. Not necessarily in that order, or even that time and gravity may not be movement and change in the traditional sense.

>> No.14132882
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14132882

>>14132860
Sounds an awful lot like Aztec philosophy.

>> No.14132883
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14132883

>>14132868
>>14132803
You can die, and we can admit the existence of mind, but we can't admit the existence of any particular that 'caused' your death. For all we can say, your whole life and all eternity before your existence could be said to be the cause of your death. There are no natural perimeters.

>> No.14132902
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14132902

>>14132882
it's basic platonism
>We hold that the ordered universe, in its material mass, has existed for ever and will for ever endure: but simply to refer this perdurance to the Will of God, however true an explanation, is utterly inadequate.
>The elements of this sphere change; the living beings of earth pass away; only the Ideal-form [the species] persists: possibly a similar process obtains in the All.
The Will of God is able to cope with the ceaseless flux and escape of body stuff by ceaselessly reintroducing the known forms in new substances, thus ensuring perpetuity not to the particular item but to the unity of idea: now, seeing that objects of this realm possess no more than duration of form, why should celestial objects, and the celestial system itself, be distinguished by duration of the particular entity?
>Let us suppose this persistence to be the result of the all-inclusiveness of the celestial and universal- with its consequence, the absence of any outlying matter into which change could take place or which could break in and destroy.
>This explanation would, no doubt, safeguard the integrity of the Whole, of the All; but our sun and the individual being of the other heavenly bodies would not on these terms be secured in perpetuity: they are parts; no one of them is in itself the whole, the all; it would still be probable that theirs is no more than that duration in form which belongs to fire and such entities.
This would apply even to the entire ordered universe itself. For it is very possible that this too, though not in process of destruction from outside, might have only formal duration; its parts may be so wearing each other down as to keep it in a continuous decay while, amid the ceaseless flux of the Kind constituting its base, an outside power ceaselessly restores the form: in this way the living All may lie under the same conditions as man and horse and the rest man and horse persisting but not the individual of the type.
>With this, we would have no longer the distinction of one order, the heavenly system, stable for ever, and another, the earthly, in process of decay: all would be alike except in the point of time; the celestial would merely be longer lasting. If, then, we accepted this duration of type alone as a true account of the All equally with its partial members, our difficulties would be eased- or indeed we should have no further problem- once the Will of God were shown to be capable, under these conditions and by such communication, of sustaining the Universe.
>But if we are obliged to allow individual persistence to any definite entity within the Kosmos then, firstly, we must show that the Divine Will is adequate to make it so; secondly, we have to face the question, What accounts for some things having individual persistence and others only the persistence of type? and, thirdly, we ask how the partial entities of the celestial system hold a real duration which would thus appear possible to all partial things

>> No.14132905
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14132905

>>14132902
>2. Supposing we accept this view and hold that, while things below the moon's orb have merely type-persistence, the celestial realm and all its several members possess individual eternity; it remains to show how this strict permanence of the individual identity- the actual item eternally unchangeable- can belong to what is certainly corporeal, seeing that bodily substance is characteristically a thing of flux.
>The theory of bodily flux is held by Plato no less than by the other philosophers who have dealt with physical matters, and is applied not only to ordinary bodies but to those, also, of the heavenly sphere. . .

>3. We have to ask, that is, how Matter, this entity of ceaseless flux constituting the physical mass of the universe, could serve towards the immortality of the Kosmos.
>And our answer is "Because the flux is not outgoing": where there is motion within but not outwards and the total remains unchanged, there is neither growth nor decline, and thus the Kosmos never ages.

>> No.14132971
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14132971

>>14130020
Advaita Vedanta agrees that we can infer there is a eternal, immutable, omniscient entity viz. God who is responsible for the universe but they say that when you pay close attention and analyze the metaphysics of how creation happened that it's too paradoxical and contradictory, and hence that creation can only be an illusion and really that there is no creation but only God. God cannot create something out of any desire because desire arises from a lack of satisfaction and a perfect and complete God should not be lacking in anything or have needs. Creation presupposes an infinite regress which only ends (or can be initiated) with that X emerging from something else or from nothing, both of which upon further analysis are inherently self-contradictory and illogical. X cannot ever 'emerge from nothing', nothingness begets nothingness, add 0 an infinite number of times and you get 0. X cannot really 'emerge from something else' either as this creates an infinite regress that only can be begun or initiated by that X emerging from some base X existing eternally, but to claim that some eternal X existing forever as the uncaused eternal X suddenly gives rise to a series of emergences is really to say that the eternal becomes non-eternal, which is a contradiction in terms as the eternal can never become not-eternal because then it wasn't truly eternal to begin with.

An immutable God is unchanging and cannot suddenly create something because this would constitute an act violating the immutableness of God's nature via it being a sudden change that didn't exist before. Any real creation existing as something separate from God as not-God would compromise God's infinity as true infinity precludes anything from being excluded from belonging to that infinite thing. There are just too many holes in the notion of God suddenly creating the universe as a real thing. To fully accept that God has the attributes of eternity, immutability, divine simplicity etc without reservation makes creation in a real sense impossible.

>>14132803
Creation and causality are unreal. Relation is neither internal nor external. If it inheres in one of the two terms, it would not relate it with the other term; the same relation cannot inhere in both the terms as it is indivisible; and if it falls outside both the terms, it becomes a third term which requires another relation to relate it with the first two terms and so on ad infinitum. And without a real relation there is no causation and hence no creation.

>> No.14133069

>>14132971
How does Advaita prove things like karma, their own specific God, etc.?

>> No.14133125
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14133125

>>14130063
>why-god-needs-skin-in-the-game/

>> No.14133139

Why is that everything that Christian apologetics say just sounds like cope?

>> No.14133152

>>14133139

Catholics deliberately make bad arguments in order to destroy Christianity because they are Atheists.

>> No.14133223

>>14131823
Please read my post the anon below, which I ask to you as well.

>>14132692
>humans go into and out of existence
If you posit consciousness to be the eternal and necessary ground of reality in the non-dualistic sense, then could we not ourselves be unmoved movers, and therefore the source of motion as regards our own actions? The hierarchy of motion beginning in us as the source, and ending in our outputted action? While incarnate in physical bodies, we do need material sustenance like food and air to continue these carbon suits - but if you can believe in an existence continuing beyond this lifetime, then would that not solve the problem? We ourselves, as consciousness, are eternal. We have the ability to "will" an action, to at least some degree, in an "uncaused" manner. And we are presently indwelling in a material plane of existence which operates according to a chain of causes, which we as spirits incarnated into. Only by viewing ourselves as material in nature does the notion of us coming into and out existence apply.

>>14132633
It's a very different model of theism, given the fact that no connection to prayer was argued for, the necessity to worship it, or the anthromorphic traits of judging, forgiving, and intervening in people's lives to help them overcome struggles. It's essentially "impersonal theism", which doesn't connect itself to any religious context as you said. Someone could believe in Aquinas's idea of theism, and reject that of Christ's. Pure Actuality is not a Heavenly Father.

>> No.14133226

>>14133069
They accept that karma and Brahman exist on the authority of scripture, as their writings are aimed at fellow Hindus who already accept but who just want to learn the full truth of the Hindu scriptures, any and all logical arguments in support of these truths (of which they offer a wide repertoire) are considered to be ultimately secondary and dispensable in relation to the spiritual path.

In the Mandukya Karika of Gaudapada that Adi Shankara agreed with and wrote a commentary on is offered an ontological argument for Advaita solely using logic, this is the closed Advaita comes to offer a positive proof but again it's only to back up what they already accept via scripture. In the text all the positive explanations for how the universe could come about are examined and dismissed as untenable because of the paradoxes involved. The ultimate conclusion in the argument reached is that the Supreme Being, or the One, is completely unchanging, doesn't produce anything, never enters into creation, etc and that through It's own power of maya (which it always effortlessly wields without acting similar to the sun always emits light) It appears to create the illusion of manifestation and multiplicity, all the while remaining unaffected by said illusion; and that this is really the only explanation for how an eternal, infinite, immutable, divinely simple God can be responsible for "creating" the world without actually compromising those attributes in doing so. The effect is only an appearance of the unchanging cause. Any other sort of explanation for creation involving a necessity for it, God having an objective, an overflowing of God etc all presuppose either a limitation or a modification of God which are seen as untenable.

https://archive.org/details/MandukyaUpanishadKarikaWithShankaraBhashya-SwamiNikhilananda

>> No.14133234

>>14132840
While our logic & reason does have some bearing on the real world, by your evolutionary argument and common experience (science does produce results, after all), it is not necessarily perfectly accurate. It is conceivable that our logic & reason is merely an approximation of the truth, practical for much, but ultimately hindering us from finding the truth.

Not saying that it is so, or what would be more accurate than our logic and reason, but it is conceivable.

>> No.14133237

>>14132791
Does converge into Parmenides philosophy? That the senses are illusory, and bring the appearance of differentiation which is not there? Such that something singular is viewed in terms of parts? But really, there is only that undivided unity?

>> No.14133279

>>14133226
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't Brahman supposed to be the innermost level of Consciousness within ourselves? That is to say, why does the existence of Brahman require faith in scripture, if it is merely a term used to describe the deepest level of the consciousness we ourselves presently are, which cannot be denied to exist? Are they not simply conceptualizing/objectifying what is already a reality prior to it, and remains regardless of their formally naming it?

>> No.14133320

>>14133223
Aquinas' argument of course does not imply Christ or Muhammed. But since their teachings are a priori madness if the unmoving mover does in fact not exist, it is constructive to show its existence separate from scripture.

>> No.14133338

>>14133279
>why does the existence of Brahman require faith in scripture, if it is merely a term used to describe the deepest level of the consciousness we ourselves presently are, which cannot be denied to exist?
Because it's not normally available to us as something that we can perceive. The existence of the Atman is hidden to us because it is obscured by five sheathes (Panchakoshas) described in the Taittiriya Upanishad. This causes us to falsely identify the self with the intellect/mind like how one might wrongly consider one's reflection in a mirror to be one's true self. This is why the Katha Upanishad talks about separating the Self from the sheaths like the stalk of a gain from the surrounding husk. Until someone does this the Self remains hidden (aside from possible brief glimpses at the early stages of spiritual progress/standing) and until fully realized it has to be accepted on faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchakosha

>Are they not simply conceptualizing/objectifying what is already a reality prior to it, and remains regardless of their formally naming it?
Yes but if you want to engage in positive metaphysics of any sort instead of pure apophatism than you have to accept this as a given and engage in some sort of conceptual framework. Shankara's writings abound with reminders about not taking the symbol for the thing signified, nevertheless symbols can be helpful pointers towards the realization of truth especially if they emanate like breath from the very entity being symbolized as the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says the Upanishads do.

>> No.14133411

>>14133223
To be unmoved by anything else is to be pure act, but there can only one pure act. Another problem with supposing human consciousness to be the principle cause of movement is that the the human intellect is constantly changing, at least while it's inhabiting a body. To formulate an argument or learn a fact requires the mind to actualize a potential so the human mind itself can't be pure act. Pure act is necessarily eternal, while at best we can only be contingently eternal since we're not the unmoved source of our movement.

>> No.14133435

>>14133338
>Because it's not normally available to us as something that we can perceive. The existence of the Atman is hidden to us because it is obscured by five sheathes (Panchakoshas) described in the Taittiriya Upanishad. This causes us to falsely identify the self with the intellect/mind like how one might wrongly consider one's reflection in a mirror to be one's true self.
While I personally agree with you here, is it not also evident at a basic level that our changing experiences are occurring within an unchanging unity? And therefore Brahman is merely describing the culmination of that entity, the fundamental level which no additional contents can reach?

>> No.14133496

>>14133411
I see what you mean by the pure act to be singular as opposed to a many, but I'd argue that reality itself consists simply of one infinite consciousness, and therefore that a multiplicity of acts (by humans and any other creatures) are born from a singular source. And so I'd say that any motion arises within consciousness, which is the purely actual and necessarily eternal ground, and passes through to the mind and eventually the body, which outputs our physical actions.

>> No.14133505

>>14133435
>, is it not also evident at a basic level that our changing experiences are occurring within an unchanging unity?
Yes, but that can also be accepted as proof of an individual soul, or of the brain producing awareness. The fact of our every conscious moment occurring within an unchanging unity of continuous awareness is in itself not the Atma, and being aware of this is not the same as knowing the Atma. Such a way of considering awareness only takes into account the conscious presence in the waking state, the Mandukya Upanishad says that Turiya, the transcendental fourth state equated with the Atma, is different from the three stages of waking awareness, dream and deep sleep, all the three being contained within It. Advaita is ontological non-dualism and not epistemic non-dualism like Madhyamaka where nirvana is the same as samsara but without ignorance and false objectification. In Advaita there is an actual transcendental reality that's different from normal experience and which remains just out of reach despite it illuminating each moment which you cannot fully grasp until It dawns in the heart.

>> No.14133528
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14133528

The whole thing just falls apart here.
>Perfect
Let's start here. Perfection is subjective. One man's "I think this is good enough" is 4chan's "This is shit and you should die" and vice versa.
>Omnipotent
If god is perfect and has the ability to do absolutely everything, then that means he has the ability to be imperfect. However, if he cannot be imperfect, he cannot be omnipotent
>Omniscient
If god is omniscient, then that means he knows absolutely everything that's going to happen from start to finish of all of existence. If he's omnipotent, then that means he can change things different than what he sees in the future. If he's omniscient, he can't really change things and therefore not omnipotent. Furthermore, if he has the ability to change things, then he cannot be perfect as existence's start to finish would also be not perfect. If he changes an action he does in the future, he basically changes all of existence.
>Eternal, immutable
If god is eternal and omnipotent, he has the ability to not be eternal. But existence says he's eternal, so therefore, he cannot be omnipotent. If god is omniscient, he knows eternal knowledge, but that also cannot be true, since if he has the omniscient ability to know what would happen to everything else if he made himself unexist, then he'd actually be mutable, as he'd have the power to change. But he cannot change as he's immutable.

You can basically see the amount of logical paradoxes coming from this bullshit that would cause christians to cover their ears and go LALALALA NOT LISTENING TO YOU LALALALA

>> No.14133538

>>14133496
When you say consciousness are you referring to a specifically human consciousness or is it more of a Hindu concept? If it's the latter I'm not sure there's any real friction with Aristotelianism. We can be of the same or participating in the same consciousness which can also be called pure act. I'm not sure I understand it properly.

>> No.14133595

>>14133505
What differs the Turiya-state from the other three states of awareness? That is, what differentiates the Atma from the consciousness witnessing the previous three states, which I previously mistook the Atma to be equal to?

>> No.14133624

>>14133538
I'm referring to the most general and unitary sense of awareness or experience imaginable, rather than specifically human experiences like anger or pain. That general sense of experience, in which all specific forms of experience occur, is what I personally consider reality to be made of - an infinite version of that, manifesting across the totality of everything referenceable. Particles, plants, people, planets and beyond are all made of that, and each have varying levels of additional attributes such as "volition". I hope that helps in understanding my perspective.

>> No.14133654

>>14133528
I'm very torn what to make of this, because you seemed to type quite a bit, but everything you wrote is just Reddit-tier atheism 101 which hasn't been a live topic of debate since the Middle Ages. I think you might be serious, but this reads like a pasta, even down to the "logical paradoxes" in the end. Its too perfect, its too on the nose, which is setting off my bait alarms.

>> No.14133684

>>14133595
>What differs the Turiya-state from the other three states of awareness?
Because it's equally present in all three states as the witness of each one. The awareness that we can point to and identity while awake is gone in deep sleep. All three states are part of a steam which is observed by an unchanging witness separate from them. If you want to understand the concept in depth than read Shankara's commentary on Gaudapada's Karika which was already posted in this thread and which discusses this in detail.
>That is, what differentiates the Atma from the consciousness witnessing the previous three states, which I previously mistook the Atma to be equal to?
It is the consciousness who witnesses the previous three states, but you can't think about your own immediate conscious experience in waking life and accept that to be the Atma/Turiya as it really is because when you normally do that you are really just examining awareness through what Shankara refers to as one of the 'limiting adjuncts', the mind. The only way to grasp the Atma is to intuitively reach It through immediate spiritual realization which occurs after a careful following of the steps prescribed by Vedanta involving spiritual disciplines, studying of the scripture and direct oral instruction by an accomplished master, and contemplating/meditating on the teachings. Until one does this any sort of attempt to separate the stalk from the grain will fail because you won't fully know how. If you self-study a huge amount of traditional Vedanta texts you can still get glimpses of It and have life-changing spiritual experiences, but this is still short of completely reaching the Atma, which is synonymous with moksha and can only be reached through renunciation and personal instruction under a realized teacher. Some people cite Ramana Maharshi as an exception but he studied the Upanishads under a teacher in his youth before he reached moksha.

>> No.14133718

>>14133528
That isn't the definition of omnipotence. It doesn't mean the capacity to do whatever X thing, disregarding all rules and laws of logic, that you can think of; a random string of words doesn't just become possible.

>> No.14133723

>>14133718
"A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity's nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie)."

>> No.14133735
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14133735

>>14133654
>I'm not allowed to make OC copypastas

>> No.14133842

reading all the posts from such different schools of philosophy and time periods makes one thing obvious— all of you are unknowingly scholastics

>> No.14133848

>>14130020
has anyone made an image explaining the other 4 ways like this?

>> No.14134204

>>14133842
kiss my ass bitch

>> No.14134346

>>14134204
reality hurts i know

>> No.14134363
File: 152 KB, 560x799, zeus.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14134363

>>14133842
Why would I be a resource deficient scholastic echo, when I could be an originator—personal-library-of-1000-years-of-ancient-priscia-theologia-carrying Platonist?

>> No.14134751

>>14133528
Aquinas believes that God’s omnipotence doesn’t include the ability or will to defy logic (which is not something that exists outside of God but a fundamental emanation of his being).

Also regarding God’s omniscience, he does not see things in “the future” but rather, being eternal and existing outside of time, every moment in the universe occurs “in the present” for him. God does not perform actions in succession separated into distinct moments, rather since he is pure act he does and is doing everything he ever does at once in the same endless timeless “moment” as it were.

>> No.14134770

>>14134363
because plato literally believed in the euclidean reality of the forms. because the platonic religion was founded by plotinus and his syriac succesors, the neoplatonists, complete with numena, councils, scriptures, prophets, martyrs, liturgies, and apocalypses. platonism today is scholastic.

>> No.14134792
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14134792

>>14130020
yeah it's easy
>something can be born nothing
there you go. your religion is wrong. no need to thank me.

>> No.14134808

>>14134770
But the Aristotelians and Thomists deny the existence of the forms.

>> No.14134818

>>14133718
Not him, but he is right. Omnipotence demands boundless power, and when you say that an omnipotent being cannot do anything against its own nature, then you open a can of worms that enable you to say that anyone and anything is omnipotent for the simple fact anyone can do anything that their nature enabled.
For example, my capacity to lift a pencil above my head is part of my nature, yet I can't lift a mountain, but since moving mountains isn't a part of my nature, then it doesn't affect my capacity to claim omnipotence.

>> No.14134832

>>14134751
>God does not perform actions in succession separated into distinct moments, rather since he is pure act he does and is doing everything he ever does at once in the same endless timeless “moment” as it were.
Where Jesus fits into that?

>> No.14134837

>>14130020
For a while, that very image was the subject of back and forth internet debates. Some atheist made a point by point refutation next to the original, some Christian did a point by point refutation of that, and it went on with like 6 or 7 extensions to it

>> No.14134920

>>14134832
Yes well that is one of the difficulties of Thomist philosophy and something I find it hard to wrap my head around—it seems to contradict or complicate our intuitive understanding of the God described in the Gospels. How can God be ‘simple’ and yet also contain three distinct personalities of Father, Son and Holy Spirit? How can God be unchanging and yet also incarnate as Jesus Christ and return to Heaven, with his human body, after death? It also seems odd to suggest that God, eternally, has “always” incarnated as Jesus Christ—does that mean some crucial element of God’s eternal existence was formed purely in reaction to what he had created? Furthermore, how can God be said to be absolutely free while also holding that God, being good and having a perfect reason for all his actions, could not have chosen otherwise? Etc. This could be criticised as one of the paradoxes produced by merging Aristotle’s more abstract prime mover with the personal God disclosed by Christian revelation. I’m sure Aquinas discusses this at length somewhere in the Summa Theologica or in Summa Contra Gentiles but I’m not familiar enough with his writing to reiterate what he has to say about it.

>> No.14135185

>>14134808
the forms you believe in are not platonic, they are not even aristotelian, they are simply scholastic realism. even if you stripped 'platonism' of scholasticism, you would still have to contend with the third man problem described in parmenides

>> No.14135346

>>14130020
just shitty platonism, like all Christian "philosophers". For the 1000th time: the first cause is an impossibility, something out of nothing (even though nothing is non-existent). Eternal reoccurrence solves every problem here.

>> No.14135375

>>14135346
>Aquinas
>Platonist

my nigga you came pretty late to the thread, but I assure you, you have made up for it by being the most retarded

>> No.14135390

>>14135375
>retard christcuck "philosophy" anything but discount platonism ever
you need the eternal forms but your metaphysics are just childish retard bullshit so it's just platonism for retards that want to think they're going to paradise forever

>> No.14135649

>>14135390
You're entirely missing the point, and its somehow even funnier now

>> No.14135711

>>14135346
>just shitty platonism
You've never read Aquinas