So your claim is that 'thoughts' do not have material substance or are not part of some material process that is part of the physical universe? Interesting, tell me more about what you know about thoughts?


You're misunderstanding what I said. A paradigm determines what questions are relevant, and what answers are meaningful. In the scientific paradigm the question "Can immaterial interact with material?" is not a relevant question because science doesn't agree that there is such a thing as immaterial. When I said that a truth claim has been made, I was referring to the concepts of Philosophical Naturalism to explain in what way it differs from the label 'Methodological Naturalism'. So, I was explaining the scientific paradigm, and what PN is.

So, no contradictions, you've simply misunderstood what was happening. Do you have anything else?

There are nuances here that you're failing to acknowledge, perhaps disingenuously? First, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't deliberately dishonest in your representation of the numbers from that poll and just failed to understand that the 51% is not made up of scientists that 'believe in God.' but of those who either believe in 'some form of deity or higher power', and that those who professed a belief in god are actually in the minority at 33% when compared to the 48% that claim no religious affiliation at all, which is itself a much higher number than found in the general public, so generally, scientists tend to be less likely to be religious than the general public.

Second, within that 33%, religious views tend to vary by age and by field of study. One explanation for how scientists can work with a method that doesn't accept the supernatural whilst holding beliefs about the supernatural is that they work in fields where the conflict is minimized or not even present. Notice how the number of theists is lowest in fields like Physics and Astronomy, Biology and the Geosciences, where you would expect there to be more obvious conflicts. And since it's younger scientists that are more likely to believe, it's also plausible to believe that as scientists progress through their careers, they're more likely to abandon a belief in the supernatural because of their work. Unless you have some other explanation for that stat?

Third, evangelical types, i.e. those much more likely to find some conflict between MN and their personal religious views make up only 4% of the scientific community. These are the scientists that clearly reject MN rather than trying to apply it, because of their personal views, so the conflict you would expect to see, can in fact be observed in this part of the community. Perhaps these are the scientists offering up very non-scientific hypotheses like ID, but that's speculation on my part.

So why do those that believe in god still work with MN? If you're a theist who believes that everything was created by god, you may (as you seem to) believe that the distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' is a false distinction, but that we live in a physical universe and the scientific concepts that I've listed work as a method of acquiring knowledge about that universe, and don't rule out the possibility of gods. In the meantime, my claim that science applied through MN restricts itself entirely to the natural and does not accept that the immaterial, non-physical exists, is still true.


My reaction wasn't 'defensive', it was disbelieving, that at this point you still don't understand my point of view, where I understand yours very well.

To avoid more of this though since it's not progressing the conversation at all, I'll define it again for you; "The natural world, that which is physical, i.e that can be detected using the senses".


I care about my confidence in you Aaron, it's the only reason that I took you off my ignore list, but after your apparent inability to have at the very least, achieved an understanding of my viewpoint by this stage, and your misrepresentation of the stats in that poll, I'm starting to doubt that you're useful to me.

Let's suppose that you are right and I don't understand the difference between a philosophy and the application of that philosophy through a practical methodology, what impact does that have on my OP and understanding of what science is?

So plausibility is both a property of the thinking behind a belief, and of the belief itself? You don't distinguish between those two things? Suppose that I believe the earth to be an oblate spheroid, which it is, but I believe this because the only information available to me is a book explaining how a giant sat on the earth and squashed it not long after it was formed.

How does 'plausible' help in the assessment of both the truth value of my belief and the thinking behind it? In my view, the thinking behind the belief is rational because it's based on the evidence available to me. The belief itself is justified.

This I would agree with, in fact taken alone, it's what I'm saying to you, but by going further than this definition and making rational a property of the belief too, you've muddied the water. A belief can be held for rational reasons, but the belief itself isn't rational, it's justified.


Yes, those concepts form part of the 'evidence available to us' that our thinking is based on, but you're still not addressing the flaw itself. Since I've explained it three times already, I'm not going to do it again.


Again, I don't understand how we can be at this point in the conversation and you could think that I could think that "rational can never be wrong". Absolutely nothing I've said even remotely supports that and many things I've said absolutely rule that out. Even the OP, which doesn't go into much detail, makes it clear that I couldn't think that, and I've said ITT that incorrect beliefs can be held rationally (the Wallaby example), so again I'm left wondering how you could be so wrong about what I think


As I've said, we have previous data.... we're not coming at this in a void, And even if we didn't, it's a 50/50 proposition where one possibility is that one of the possibilities is that one of the two options will come up every time rather than the 50/50 distribution that probability suggests will occur (given a fair coin and fair tosses etc etc)... Also, you didn't address the main criticism that by claiming a certain result and ruling out other possibilities, you have done something that isn't rational.

Also, I've asked you questions about empiricism and made criticisms, and then I've reminded you that I've done that and even asked why you won't respond to them, and you've repeatedly ignored all that. Here they are again:

Questions:

What do you understand empiricism to be?

Do you reject rationalism?

Are you aware that the Empirical Ideal cannot actually be achieved in reality?

Criticism:

Empiricism holds that beliefs are justified when they are connected by reasoning to evidence obtained through perception. And since our perception can be easily demonstrated to be unreliable, and since one of the major problems with Empiricism is that in order to form beliefs about the evidence that we're obtaining using perception, we must rely on beliefs that we already hold, and on beliefs that in turn support those beliefs, you won't find anyone capable of living up to the truly Empirical Ideal.

So, we can see whether you understand what empiricism is and perhaps have an enjoyable conversation, or you can just blank me again..... I was looking for substantive conversation and I'm not getting it from you on this subject, so if you really believe that I'm not worth talking to, then please stop replying. Or, reply with something that's actually on topic and not just your personal assessment of me. I'm not here for that, utterly not interested.

Thoughts are not measurable, nor ponderable ; this should be apparent via an inner insight without preconditions. You and I are both able to "perceive" a thought but, at least up to this point searchers have not been able to seek the source of that perception which might be called the "sensory apparatus" of the thought.

I say, at least up to this point, I am sure that the man who lives entirely within the material will someday 'point" to something material and say "there is the material sensory source of the thought". Its already been stated as the "brain" but it is still wanting for we get back to the measureability and ponderability of the thought for if we then have the brain producing unmeasurable and unpondrable entities which are, get ready for it, the "spiritual" or the world of the supersensible.

One may not have clarity as to the working of this realm but it stands tall as a beacon for further study and the works of philosophers and religious are rife with this proper approach to the world which does not present itself to the material senses.

Plato is a start, even the forerunner of modern science, Aristotle, was aware, in fact the entire miasma of western thinkers prior to the 15th century were well aware of this realm. We've crashed to an earthly materiality but are again rising to an appreciation of that realm without any loss of logic and reason.

You are using thoughts and thinking to deny itself which makes it the ultimate illusion, but still able to be remedied by a inner twist of comprehension. Man, in his thinking, is within the spiritual world and of course, its his work to make comprehension of that world either through his work, partially, of course, and through he works of others.

Also, to add a concept which can make sense in the light of the above; materiality can be appreciated as the condensation of the material much like a glacier, a "seen", as the projection of the water below .

the ancient Indian, of pre historic times (10000 years ago) called our sensory bound activities "maya" for they were immersed, at least partially, within the water ; no need for religion here for they could "see" the "real" and therefore denied the importance of the senses.

Man has progressed since those times to the effect that the ancient Greek could say "better a beggar on earth than king in the realm of the shades". this meaning that there was some understanding of this higher realm (shades) but the ancient Greek was losing or had lost perception of that realm .

As man progressed away from his original "home" mystery centers arose who could through training of a powerful and strict nature , had "initiates" who entered that realm and presented his findings to his fellow man.

"Religion" is a continuation of this "return" and in our present times, with even the religious centers having become materialistic( not all of course), all of mankind is "returning" as individuals and this is the role of the Christ Being who brings man to that world, piecemeal, of course, to each in his own way and not through force but in freedom.

"In Christo Morimur" ," in Christ we die" as He is the carrier of the individual man through the spiritual realm with a clarity of consciousness. For want of a better word, He is the template to which man proceeds in his improvement or schooling through recurrent births and deaths. Christ is the "Lord of Karma"; previous to this it was Moses.

They are running to the bushes awaiting for something to happen but it has already happened. and lol

Nope. I'm saying that numbers aren't part of the physical universe. Not the process of thinking about numbers. I'm saying that numbers themselves are immaterial.

No. You're not. And no, you didn't. I'm not going to play this game with you. If you literally cannot be trusted with your own words, then there's little hope for you.

If this is the definition you've chosen (by the way, how do you feel about ultraviolet light?), then what is a "natural explanation" vis-a-vis the floating ball example. In what sense is anything "explained" in that example?

I know for certain that you're useless to me, if that makes you feel any better. I know what you're saying, and it's full of things that are wrong. You're not misunderstood. You're wrong. You say things that are wrong, and then defend them. And then when you're really in a bind, you don't change your views and instead try to find ways to justify yourself.

If you can't handle thinking about two things simultaneously, that's not really my problem. I know it flies in the face of your black-and-white thinking, but that's a constraint that I literally don't need to care about.

Your mind may be blown by this, but it's possible for something to be rational or plausible to you without being rational or plausible to me.

I still don't see anywhere that I've said anything that corresponds to what you keep saying. How much more explicit do I need to be than "I don't see anywhere that I've done this"?

Good. I'm tired of listening to you repeat nonsense at me. What you think of as a "flaw" isn't. That you don't even seem to want to accept the existence of primitive concepts and primitive notions just highlights how poor your philosophical perspective is.

Simple: You keep raising the issue of the fact that they might be wrong. Here are the examples:

* Coin flip problem: "It's irrational to go beyond that and claim with certainty that a specific pattern will emerge, and you would be ruling out possibilities not closed out by the evidence e.g. that a million tails could come up." -- I *don't care* that it's logically possible that one millions tails could come up. It's perfectly rational to claim that after a million coin flips there will be at least one head. The structure of your complaint is that I might be wrong about it ("going beyond the evidence"). I'm saying that the standard isn't good enough.

* Goodman's problem: "Inductive reasoning can be irrational too, and it's not always easy to tell the difference (Goodman's problem) you can't claim that "Inductive reasoning is perfectly rational". That's trivially wrong." -- At no point have I claimed that any time someone invokes inductive reasoning that it's necessarily rational. And Goodman's problem doesn't even claim that there are problems with induction. Your underlying fear here seems to be that induction could be wrong. It could go beyond the evidence and conclude something that's ultimately false. I'm saying that it doesn't matter.

Your concept of irrationality is so narrow as to make your definition of rationality broad enough that it's never wrong. I've tried explaining to you the problem you're facing by defining "irrational" first and then attempting to define rationality as "not that."

I can understand why you're not seeing it because you don't even see your struggles with the two clauses in your definition of irrational. (Are they redundant or not?)

You struggles are in your own head. You don't understand things as well as you think you do, and until you're willing to relinquish that intellectual perspective, you're not going to learn anything new.

You need to wipe away a lot of things you believe and start over again. I don't know how else you're going to advance in your understanding if you don't do that.

It could be the case that there is too much going on for you in this conversation. I think it's over your head at this point. It's quite clear now that you can't even let go of your assumptions enough to understand the criticism being raised against your definition.

True or false: "Science rejects the existence of the supernatural and god"

If you think this is true, then you clearly have a flaw in your understanding of what science is because you're making a claim that science doesn't actually make.

If you think this is false, then your OP is premised on a false claim.

Correction, materiality can be appreciated as the condensation of the spiritual, or supersensible......

You know Aaron, I wrestled with a decision about you, whether or not to persevere with you in the face of your increasing nastiness because you're an intelligent guy who might know these subjects better than me and be useful in my efforts, but I've been very disappointed with the standard of your posting ITT. Some of your arguments and points have been embarrassingly awful, and hundreds of posts into the thread you still don't seem to understand my viewpoint such that you're asking questions to which the answer should be obvious given the information already available to you. You've been involved since the beginning, you have no excuses, it must be deliberate and I have no time for disingenuous people.

The final straw was what I now also believe to be a deliberate misrepresentation of the stats in that poll, which I pointed out to you and which you simply ignored, not even trying to explain yourself. You being nasty is something I can and have easily been ignoring, but you being of a lower standard than I remember, coupled with the fact that I can't actually trust that you're being honest, is getting you put back on my ignore list. You're simply not useful to me. I'm genuinely disappointed.

So, I'll know you've seen this when I get a reply into which you'll have no doubt poured your most scathing criticisms and as many nasty rebukes as possible (hard to imagine worse than I've had already but I'm sure on that score you won't disappoint), and then, goodbye Aaron.

If we can say nothing else about thoughts, we can say that they exist as something in our minds, all thoughts exist in someone's mind, and that we are aware of them being something internal to us, and god, or the supernatural, if they exist, are things that are external to us, i.e. separate from us in how they're classified and described.

So, can we extrapolate from something that even if immaterial and that definitely exists, is internal to us, to something immaterial that is separate and external to us? Would the existence of anything immaterial support the idea of all types of immaterial?

Yes, thoughts and thinking are appreciated by the human being "within" but you must consider that all that you do in this logic or perception comes from "within" . You can't make a statement without coming from "within".

Now, you've hit on an important point in that modern science, not all of course, will only deal with the "without" and give no credence to the human being himself. Yet the modern scientist "thinks" and therefore brings "within" to his findings and in fact, contrary to some beliefs, the complete comprehension of his studies includes the "within" and "without".

One realm cannot be separated from the other; to chip the bark of a tree and "see" the particles is not complete without the "within" or thinking coming to the rescue and then we have the completion of a scientific finding; this of course includes the use of microscopes, telescopes, ohmmeters, etc...

Those who say, its "subjective", and therefore not allowed have completely eliminated the human being from the playing field; this cannot be done is reality or even in practicum. the human being may be incorrect in his thinking but in no way does that call for the elimination of thoughts and thinking in any realm of endeavor.

Now, the religious, if I may. Look around you, all of it, including yourself and all that is perceptible and I say again, including yourself and you are ;perceiving the 'Father God" , the same that is spoken to in the Lord's Prayer and spoken and worshiped in the Old Testament, the God, the Father.

The Christian "Son" is not seen but appreciated "within" as the second Being of the Trinity as He leads mankind into the future and into death; "In Christo Morimur".

the Third Being of the Trinity is the "Holy Spirit" or the realm of the supersensible to which a man returns at death. As you might be able to glean by the name; when a man "thinks" he is in the realm of the "Spirit" as thinking is a spiritual activity.

And so, if a man only gives credence to that which is "without " him then he only sees the ever real, "Father God". No problem here, but man can do better, in the sense of his studies, and in this the man himself has to be included in his approach to science. One cannot say it's subjective; to use the trivial as an example.

It is complicated and calls for study for it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that there are other" spirit beings" who are involved with the evolution and caring for, mankind. Its another story but you might try Dionysus the Aeropagite for the delineation of these non material or spirit filled beings.

The telling question is: what about the "One G", for there is only "One" and the individual man can glean and appreciate this "One" in his sojourn after death between lives. Then one knows there is only "One" but this in no way obviates the Trinity for within our perspective the Trinity is real and can be spoken to. the "Trinity' can be seen as the threefold aspect of the "One".

In the far future, science and religion (to reunite into the spirit) will merge and in this we are in the process of manifesting this promise within grace.

Yes, I had anticipated that this would come but didn't want to try to deal with until I'd seen how you structured it. My view is that although, technically, everything is in our minds, somethings that we have thoughts about in our minds we think are only in our minds (thoughts), and some other things that we have thoughts about in our minds we think are outside of us in the external world. Now, does the idea that something immaterial that can exist in our minds prove that there can be something immaterial that can exist externally to our minds?

"Prove", not in the way you've stated it. What you've said , by the nature of the statement causes the separation; there is obviously a earthly or material aspect of life to which you are pointing to with your senses.

You have also perhaps seen the non material aspect which is your thinking. Yet, in self observation, you know yourself as material which has immaterial thoughts . You can deny this and state that the thoughts have ponderability and therefore are physical.

I believe its been said that you are also part of the "external" thereby obviating one's belief that one is separate from the outside. You are living in a physical body that is a part of "nature"; this body just happens to walk and run the earth. You may not have the mechanization to bring a type of comprehension to you but an inner cognition will tell you that the concept of "man is contained within nature " is true.

The last statement or concept is brought forth through thinking and as I noted earlier the completion of the science is displayed through the merging of perception and percept or senses and thought.

Now, you have man within nature who cannot measure thoughts or weigh thoughts and would have to come to some type of inner comprehension as to the non measurability of thoughts and thinking and at the very least realize that his preferred tools do not reach that realm; the world of "SUPER-SENSIBILITY" .

Just as an aside, because the yada,yada,yada,.. takes effect the ancient and modern initiate , through their training, develops "new senses(non material)" in order to observe the spiritual or supersensible realm. to make it even more difficult you will find that each and every material or physical aspect of the human being is a projection of a supersensible reality , ala ice and water.

To make it clearer the human being displays a "part of", not the total of higher worlds.

If you choose to separate yourself from nature and not seek the connection except by measurement, that's your affair for that is modern science, but not all. This separation , turned into an abstract meters and pounds, is really meant to strengthen the observer so that predispositions, feelings and all that which can cloud a persons mental status are kept at bay while one sees the world or nature as to what it is as it speaks to man himself.

Nature speaks and the scientist strengthens his character in order not let the impediments to clear thought tinge his experience of this realm we call nature .

You mention "irrational'" to which you associate with "truth" in the negative but the classical view of "rational' is for the individual man to hold at bay the fears, temptations, evil feelings and thoughts, all that contained within Pandora's Box which can lessen the man and cause him to enter into an abject decadence. Perhaps someone in your family counseled you to be a "reasonable man" or a "man of reason".

This "reason" is a guide and barrier to the untoward in man's life not exclusively to "prove" the truth, though it is certainly in an inner aspect of the search for "truth".

I'm fine with this.

Given that you've been entirely inaccurate from the beginning (starting from saying that science makes claims that it literally does not), I have plenty of reason to doubt the veracity of your assessment of my understanding.

I've made no excuses. Your inability to recognize the wrongness is what has gotten you in trouble in the past, and it seems that you still struggle with opening your mind to knowledge.

That was the final straw? Among all the things, that's the one you want to point to? The one where you were *STILL* claiming that there's an inherent conflict between science and methodological naturalism (ie, your fundamental error of not understanding the distinction between a method and a philosophical interpretation of data)? I'm fine with this, too.

Your memory isn't that great. There were times when you actually argued that asking the question "What does a Christian do?" was tantamount to religious indoctrination. So for whatever you think intellectual honesty is, you're wrong.

I'm not sure why you're disappointed. That's like saying Trump voters being disappointed that the President they elected never made the pivot that they hoped for.

But what you should really strive for is to get beyond where you're at. You come across as more ego-hurt than anything here. Multiple people have tried to correct your errors, but you have shown little capacity to learn. (You even outlasted tame_deuces' attempts to correct your errors.)

And if you really want to learn, that's the place you should go. You need to not come to the table the way you have (as the one with knowledge) and instead come to the table the way you are (lacking knowledge). I hope you review your understanding of science some day (today would be great) and realize how poorly constructed your concept is.

Bye. I'll leave you with your own word salad to chew on:

I've recently clarified my thinking on this topic, so I'm going to give it another attempt..

A definition of irrationalism (in epistemology) is that reason is inherently defective and incapable of knowing the universe without distortion. The irrationalist view is that we cannot make sense of or reason accurately about reality so our worldview should be based on revelation, intuition, feeling, etc.

Presupposing that the existence of suffering falsifies our worldview, it is my position that there is no difference in action between the religious theist and the atheist; they are both rationalists. When the theist doubts their worldview, they rationalize or look for new ways to have it make sense, in the same way as the non believer rationalist does. It can be thought of as adding onto or reorganizing rather than questioning the axioms or foundation of belief.

The true irrationalists, when they experience suffering, handcuff themselves or deprive themselves of the ability to reason their way through to a resolution. Their only course of action forward is to attempt to identify the suffering (without using reason) that is at the root of the irrational reasoning. In the midst of suffering, irrationalists look to go deeper or one step prior in the chain of causality to resolve the problem, while rationalists look to stack on or reshuffle their belief structure on the edges.

It is my view and my experience, that the irrational approach is the only way to progress in the pursuit of truth. But it has to be purely an irrational approach and not a mix of the two that results in complacency that is found in organized religion. In practice, it is not possible to consistently adhere to the irrational approach, so stagnation is inevitable at times. Acknowledging the suffering in our lives is what loosens us from this stagnation.

Too much here, but to advocate irrationality is to enter into the animal nature of Man .

Please be specific and state how when you are irrational, at any time in your life, and consider this a "welcomed" state.

Irrationality, by its very nature, can never find truths can only be presented in clarity of thought and thinking.

Reason, by its very nature, is not "inherently defective " but Man is indeed a limited being and therefore in the pursuit of "truth" reason will point to multiple perspectives in order to speak to the world of knowledge.

Reason, thinking, logic are not the ownership of the individual but speaks for itself as man travels thoughts as a thought-sensory being. The world connections are not the "schemes" of the individual but stand on their own and in this "reason' brings these connections to light, each to each man contained within the stream of thought.

Now, there is something here to which you may be speaking; the use of a "trance" state when appreciating knowledge of the world and cosmos. the methodology here is direct experience without "ego" . the old religions depended upon "revelation" , so to speak, but in any case the findings , usually, would be brought to his fellow man in a logical, reasoned manner.

I say usually for there are some mystics such as Jacob Boehme who are difficult, but not impossible to comprehend, for he too was considered an original thinker by his Lutheran contemporaries (direct from Wikipedia).

Its irrational to say all aspects of man are not a part of out animal nature. The good and bad.

In short, the animal has the nature to which he is involved with feelings and is a sentient being. A plant is not sentient nor is the mineral.

But man has a higher nature in which he "thinks", broken record , I know ,but this higher nature is man's alone on the earth.

One could say that man has four(4) bodies, the mineral, that of growth and formation, the sentient, and the thought borne or thinking .

This is not a "scheme" but a truism which each of us can relate to but of course the three higher bodies are not garnered by our material senses.

This doesn't mean that thoughts aren't involved with the other kingdoms of nature, for they are, but in man we have rational and logical thought to which the animal is not privy.

Also in that he enters into this higher realm and in doing so gains an independence from nature, he then become a moral being , Man as a "moral tone poem". The lion or hyena are not morally responsible for their actions as is Man.

All of the animal kingdom is within man as a "rejection" of the animal nature whereas the animal carries his evolution to completion. Look at the cat, or hyena, even the dog and one can see an expression of a feeling or emotion which has completed. Man has stopped short in this evolutionary development and in this he moves on into the future as a future man, an ideal in the making. Man is not complete .

This in no way should be taken to deny the animal kingdom, nor is it a presentation of the superiority of the human being . This idea of superiority is interesting as we look at the plant kingdom which grows within a purity of nature to which man has not attained. there is a certain beauty in the movement from seed to root to stem to flower to to seed ; a perfection to which Man has not attained. Yet man has attained higher capabilities and in this moves on into the future, in hopes of higher perfection, the ideal of the future Man.

Interestingly enough, a man arrives on this earth having to be totally cared for by his parents whereas one can see instinctual behavior within the animal kingdom to which dams are built by beavers and hives created by bees. Man prides himself on the creation of paper but the wasp has produced paper in his nest for periods of immeasurable evolutionary time.

The yada, yada, yada, ...continues.

Elephant nurse for six years...

That animal nature has direct access to the rational mind. Start walking toward an unknown, attractive female with the intention of hitting on her and then notice how many different reasons are presented for why you should alter your action. Those thoughts emerge involuntarily from the survival impulse. Reason is biased by our unrevealed, evolutionarily adapted nature, especially our survival mechanism which is complex and powerful.

Rationality seeks to keep us in the known, with the perception of safety and security, so the rational mind will tear apart any possible suggestions at its rejection. We cannot reason ourselves out of rationality until we have made the unknown known (I don't agree with that part of the definition I used that states that rationality is inherently defective).

Flabbergasted, how do you do that ?

I suppose if we were in India the question would be moot . LOL

For some reason, I think we might be talking past each other . Clarity of the nature of my presentation of thought might bridge the gap.

The "intellect" or intellectual thinking is the activity of bringing forth a concept to a particular entity or activity. The intellect is divisive in that the whole is approached and the intellect takes a part of the whole, bringing forth a concept.

Examples are the periodic table of the elements, a whole, to which the intellect , in concepts presents sodium, potassium, beryllium , etc..... as such.This is the nature of the intellect, the division of percepts( observed) into conceptual parts.

Reason, correspondingly, brings these percepts into a whole or ties the concepts together into an "idea", a higher concept, which in a sense is a whole put back together . Now man is a limited being as he separates a part of the observable through the intellect and via reason brings that small part of the whole into an idea which lies above the specific.

An example is a ruffle in the bush is noted by an observer and subsequently a partridge arise from the bush and the conclusion made that the ruffle was caused by the partridge. The particular parts are contained within the percept , perceived by the intellect, and reason gallops in , bringing forth the concept of causality which concludes that the partridge is causal. Causality as a higher concept or "idea" within reason.

The question here is ; this bringing together the intellectual concepts, is it individually made by man or , a man made product or exterior to man. Kant saw the connections as man made and therefore we approach the nominalist belief of the nature of reason and the word specifically.

The "nominalist" states that words are "tags" to which we place upon "things" and in this we , perforce, produce man made schemes which are not a part of the cosmic, merely a blather of words, dead upon arrival.

The "realist" states that the "idea" and reason itself , are not man made but experienced by the man himself, through the ego, as he works within the cosmic. Another way of saying this is that "thinking", the abilty to reason and the intellectual itself, are not man made but within the cosmos and each of us travels through the realm of thought as a thought sensory being.


"In thinking we experience ourselves united with the stream of cosmic existence".

The ancient thinkers, our precursors, the Greeks, were on the whole, aware of the "non ownership" nature of thinking which they would consider a cosmic gift of the Divine.

Speaking to the animal nature, within man , in no way is meant to be a egregious debasement of that part of the world and cosmos. It speaks for itself.

In that man and the animal are sentient beings we approach the world of sensation, and connected with these sensations we meet the world of desires and aversion, impulses, instincts, and passions. These impulses speak to the sating of the body nature.

Our culture presently creates such that we can travel around the world, through the sky, send cheques through the electronic waves in order to make payment, and other technological inventions to which we are all aware.

In this we are sating the bodily nature thereby continuing the self centered, or egotistical nature of the individual man. We appease our animal nature, as above .

The nature of thinking, if considered in the previous post, calls for a selfless approach to the search of knowledge. To think properly, one's desires and predilections are not allowed to enter into the ego's activity in the thought realm . In this, the future of man, transformed by this thought enwoven process is brought to higher realms. Man works to a betterment through the food of knowledge, the nourishment of the soul and spirit in action.

The human being as a work in progress, not to be relegated to the self centered egoism ,via a thinking which does have feelings, buoyed by cosmic Love as the creative exploration of Man.