Misinterpretation

The science of analysis of language is dying. Over the last few weeks, what I write has been misinterpreted by otherwise intelligent people not a few times. That seems to be because they interpolate and extrapolate without sufficient justification.

I do try very hard to be careful with my words. However, in the past this has led to accusations of deviousness.

This is how it happens: I say or write something. Somebody else interprets it wrongly, looks stupid. Blames me for what I didn't say. Is shocked when I defend myself and then accuses me of being devious by laying a trap in my words for people to fall into...

Sigh. There is almost always a very good reason for putting my thoughts in such a form — I deliberately avoid saying things I don't mean or which I cannot verify; I use phrases like 'seems to be' or 'might imply that' when the degree of certainty is not as firm as I would prefer it to be.

Why I Am Not An Atheist

As Trivandrum proposes, I should set forth Terms and Definitions, and Argument related thereto, and thus develop a Position on which I take my Stand. So here is that Stand, and may You who read enjoy It.

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Terms and Definitions

• A God is a Thing which exercises Powers which are beyond Human Analysis, practically, theoretically, or rationally, with respect to the Limits of those Powers in Terms of Origin, Manifestation, Aspect, Occasion, Quantity, Quality or Perceptibility, and with no Likelihood or Chance of Human Analysis.
  
• An Atheist, in simple Form, is One who does not believe in Gods, in any Kind, Quantity, or Equivalent.
  
• An Atheist, in active Form, is One who explicitly rejects the Belief that there are Gods, in any Kind, Quantity or Equivalent.
  

I am not an Atheist in either simple or active Sense. If the Reader wishes to take Issue with any other Term defined in this Section or other Sections in this Post, please do so Elsewhere.

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Argument

• Let Us assume that Humans are Moral Animals, which I am personally inclined to believe. If this is a Failing on My Part, so be It.
  
• This Morality has a Nature that is either relative or absolute. If the Nature is relative, It can only be seen to exist if measured by a Yardstick. If It is Absolute, then It has no Exceptions and hence partakes of the Quality of Natural Law.
  
• If the Nature of Morality is relative, the Yardstick (or at least the System of Measurement) must be Absolute if the Analysis of Morality is to have Meaning. Without Yardstick, or Benchmark, or Touchstone, the Idea of Morality is defunct as We cannot then say, "This is a Good Thing," or, "This is a Bad Thing."
  
• If the Nature of Morality is an Absolute, then We need no Yardstick, or Benchmark, or Touchstone, but merely Observation and Hypothesis Testing as is the Way of Natural Law. We need but create a Scale of Units such as proposed in the Philosophy of Utilitarianism.
  
• From Evidence of the Empirical Kind, that is, from History and hence the Observations of Humanity, We can see that the Nature of Morality is not yet to be claimed an Absolute, for It has heretofore not been resolved by any Human Agency into a System adherent to a Scale of Units.
  
• Hence Morality is likely relative and requires a Yardstick.
  
• The Yardstick cannot be Human, for this is an Empirical Finding that Humans disagree on Morality.
  
• The Yardstick cannot be a Natural Law or Anything that proceeds from Natural Law, as this is Our Observation as well.
  
• Hence the Yardstick must be beyond Human Analysis.
  
• Hence It is a God (at least one). (Alternatively, Humans are not Moral Animals.)
  
• In Fact, the Only Plausible Alternative to the Existence of Godhood is to apply This Reasoning to all such Qualities. Then the Universe must be purely quantitative and subject to Rational Laws alone.
  
• If the Universe is so, then It is a Deterministic Universe.
  
• Hence all Human Actions have no Attached Moral Responsibility or Choice or any Such.
  
• Hence it is a Meaningless Thing for Me to have done This Post. (Or for You to be reading It.)
  

And yet, to paraphrase Galileo Galilei, still I have posted.

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Conclusion

• This Post has Meaning, or It has not. (Unless Meaning has no Meaning.)
  
• If It has Meaning, then at least one God exists.
  
• If It has no Meaning, then We do not know from It whether God exists or not.
  
• But We do know that if It has no Meaning, and You have been reading It, then You have either been conned, or there is no God and the Act of Reading does not matter.
  
• Regardless then, it leads Us to conclude that reading Richard Dawkins (or any Explicitly Atheist Statement of Unbelief in Gods) is meaningless.
  

I would rather believe that this Post has Meaning. If You disagree, then for Your Disagreement to be meaningful, at least one God must also exist.

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I rest my Case. And drink my Coffee.

Incredible

The word 'incredible' means 'unbelievable'; credo means 'I believe' in Latin. I report today that I do not believe in the spiritual realm.

At this point, I suppose some of you will give up on me in horrid (from Latin horribilis, 'bristling with fear') indignation. I can imagine the cries of, "Yes we knew you were a heretic all along!"

But I sincerely do not believe that there is a spiritual realm as distinct from a material, secular, or temporal realm (a caveat follows later). I do not think that any of the world's great religions, let alone mine, have ever made the distinction in the way post-Enlightenment so-called Christians sometimes do.

In the Good Book, which is where many of my readers of all credulities and dispositions orient from, the secular is seen as that which exists in the present age, in a fixed time, in that slice of eternity which is sequential and bound. The temporal is much the same. And the material is just the physical manifestation of the immaterial. To think that you can separate them from the spiritual is like saying that my body does not include my kidneys or my liver. Or like saying that my mind exists outside and apart from my body.

I believe, however, in the material, secular and temporal realms as plausibly and possibly distinct among themselves. One age succeeds another, one nation is not another, one substance is distinct from another. But to me, they are all part of the 'spiritual realm'. And if that realm is everything, then it is not a realm (from Old French reaume, 'kingdom, political unit'), but the cosmos, the university of all.

Atomic Thought (Part 4)

This follows on from the previous post and its antecedents.

I suppose that in line with Wittgenstein, we should limit the context for every discipline if we are to find any useful atomic concepts at all. There are some pretty good ones which are near-universal, but the purists will probably say that since they aren't universal, they are not atomic.

But why have this discussion at all? How is it useful in a practical sense?

I think the main point is that in a discourse within a discipline, we pretty much have to be able to use a vocabulary with some basic building blocks or concepts. To describe every outcome in its own terms means that you are actually creating a situation in which there is no basis for comparison.

For example, if you compare a poem by Wilfred Owen (e.g. Strange Meeting) and a poem by Robert Frost (e.g. Mending Wall), you must have some basis in the first place for identifying them as poems. Then you must have some specific things to look at within the structure of each poem. And lastly, you need to look at the language used and its effects. If you use a different set of criteria for each poem, then you have created two sub-disciplines which you might as well call Wilfredowenology and Robertfrostology. So some criteria or critical principles should remain constant. This is the idea behind traditional literary criticism. Postmodern literary criticism has attempted to bypass this, but has ended up merely creating a different basis.

The same argument applies to establishing meaning in music, dance or art. Somehow, we need to use a language with enough common descriptive basis to show points of similarity or difference. Sure, we can describe each individual performance or piece, but without a comparison to something else, that description is probably not meaningful (or not as usefully meaningful as it should be).

Discursive

Everything is a discourse, the relentless flow of words leading to the sea. Who will find a lost molecule of water in that torrent? Today I watched the a-ha! moment that came when my students realised that words carry their own meaning.