[lit-ideas] Electric God or Divinity As Currently Conceived (was: The 'Near-Eastern' influences on the Greek philosophy, sc...)
- From: "Michael Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 15:07:08 -0500
RP wrote:
> In one way electrical impulses are different from human beings, but
> in another way they are not; both exist in the natural world (unlike
numbers),
> and although they are different sorts of things, they causally interact in
a
> (now) fairly non-mysterious way.
I'm not so sure. About any of this. Human beings can be very shocking in
some of the things they believe (hence, are electric like), but I'm not so
sure that electricity really exists in the natural world, whereas numbers
definitely do. If you think numbers don't exist in the natural world, then
you've never been shocked by numbers -- in which case you must have never
seen one of my bank statements. Where the hell did it all go??? Money
doesn't exist in the natural world, I know that, not in my natural world
anyway, but numbers? Oh, yes. there they are right there -- I can see them,
right there -- destroying me. But the question on the table is whether
electricity exists in the natural world. This is a topic on which I have
both first hand and second hand experience. Regarding the first or right
hand experience, I was not so long ago trying to troubleshoot an air
conditioning unit. The power was still on. I told myself, "The power is
still on, don't touch." I immediately touched an electrical connection and
got kicked across the roof. "Whoa," I said. One would assume that this is
proof enough that electricity exists in the natural world. Not so
philosophically fast, say I. It's not the sudden rush of 6 quadrillion
electrons per second per square inch of conductor that smacks you, no it's
the charge. Charge? What the hell is charge? Charge is electrical
potential. Potential? Isn't potential that which is not actual? That
which is not actual isn't that that which doesn't exist? Isn't it?
Ergo.....
So? So electricity is a miracle. You can watch a receptacle all day long
and never see any electricity. You'd think with all that voltage some of it
would occasionally leak out, but no. Water pipes leak all the time. But
you'll never ever see electricity leak out of a receptacle and we're talking
about big holes! So, if electricity is a miracle, well, then it must be
divine. Electricity is God. And if that's true, then it explains why
mankind, made in God's image, is so often shocking in what it believes and
does and doesn't.
Mike Geary
listening to Dylan's new Victoria's Secret song: "Knockers On Heaven's Door"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Paul" <Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 12:44 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The 'Near-Eastern' influences on the Greek
philosophy, sc...
> >[T]he Middle Eastern Monotheists' insistence that the Creator is
> somewhere else than inside His Creation and of a radically different
> nature from His Creation. Assimilating this notion in Western
> philosophy made it possible to envision causes that are fundamentally
> different from their effects and not mere abstractions from the
> "natural" categories perceived by our naive senses.<
>
> I don't know quite how to respond to this because I don't know exactly
what sort
> of thing John is proposing. The sacred writings before the Common Era
suggest
> that God causally intervenes in the world; that he (for so he is
characterized)
> has conversations with humans; and that he has a face, and even a body,
although
> his anatomy is not richly delineated.
>
> God _usually_ is elsewhere, but does his being elsewhere give us a new
notion of
> causation? It isn't clear to me that it does: the phenomena and events God
> brings about (floods, whirlwinds, e.g.) are 'natural' phenomena, and if
the
> _way_ in which God brings them about isn't clear, it is at least as clear
as the
> stories about the causes of such phenomena in the pre-Socratics. How God
brings
> things about in terms of pushes and pulls is never spelled out, that is,
how he
> makes it happen that there is a flood is explained by saying that he makes
it
> rain for an unusually long time--but how he makes it rain is obscure.
Still, one
> can wonder how God makes _anything_ happen if there is no causal nexus
between
> him and the world. And if there is such a nexus, God must establish some
sort of
> causal contact, so to speak, with the world.
>
> The same thing might be asked about Descartes' Evil Genius: how does he
bring it
> about that Descartes is universally deceived unless there is a possible
world to
> which Descartes has no access? Yet, if there is such a possible world, the
Evil
> Genius must somehow bridge the gap between it and our world. This is how
things
> stand with God (on certain views)--there must be a wormhole in Creation
through
> which godly transmissions pass. Of course, on other views (Leibniz's,
> Spinoza's), God does not intervene in the world at all. Spinoza calls an
appeal
> to God's will as the first event in a chain of causes 'the sanctuary of
> ignorance.' [Ethics, I, Appendix] Things happen in the world because of
the
> operation of the laws of nature, and God plays no causal role in
activating this
> law or that. So there is at least one Western philosopher who does not
think God
> acts in mysterious ways.
>
> Still, is it likely that by placing God in a different realm of being
Western
> thought found a new way of conceiving causes such that they were
'fundamentally
> different from their effects'? I take John to be saying that causes could
> afterwards be thought of as different in kind from their effects--as
Leibniz
> might have said, an explanation of why there are catfish can't just invoke
> catfish all the way down--but what it is to be different in the required
sense
> isn't clear. In one way electrical impulses are different from human
beings, but
> in another way they are not; both exist in the natural world (unlike
numbers),
> and although they are different sorts of things, they causally interact in
a
> (now) fairly non-mysterious way. Kant's noumena, again, although
'fundamentally
> different from' phenomena, insofar as they are logically incapable of
being
> perceived directly, bring about phenomena: that is their metaphysical job.
To
> say that there is a world behind appearances meant one thing to Locke, and
> another thing to Kant. Whether either of their views (or Murray
Gell-Mann's)
> comes close to expressing what John has in mind, I do not know. I would,
of
> course, like to find out.
>
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
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