[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein on Religious Belief
- From: Sean Wilson <seanwilsonorg@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:50:12 -0800 (PST)
(Stuart)
The piece is atrocious. It doesn't understand Wittgenstein or his views.
Imagine someone saying.. "do you believe in your wife?" The proper way to say
this is do you TRUST her? That is the true grammar. And for one to engage in
the behavior of trust, one has to have formed a particular kind of love (an
affection). And if one WERE to obtain (and undertake in) such an activity, it
would be an affectuous state of affairs, not a set of propositions. It would be
a condition, not a proof.
One would no more say whether they believed in God than to say whether they
were affected by a mechanism of trust. Importantly, the behavior of trusting
and of proving is not the same. All that one who disproves attempts to say is
"I do not trust." There's nothing to disagree about.
Imagine an MRI of a brain in love. You can see certain reactions of
brain-chemicals. Now, this happens in response to a stimuli in the real world
(seeing your loved one). But imagine also that one day science (journalism)
finds that particularly-heartfelt connections with spirituality have a similar
kind of brain chemistry. A kind of neurological effect. The conclusion here
would not be that spirituality was chemically-induced. It would be that the
same sort of behaviors that one has when trusting certain others is of the same
kind of activity one has when trusting other sorts of "things."
And that telling someone they shouldn't trust is only a matter for the subject
of advice, not for science. You say, "you should leave him; he's a terrible
husband." Even if you have factual reasons, these things are only in service of
something else. Indeed, telling the person this is a kind of counselling.
Science is not in the business for marriage counselling. Neither is logic or
mathematics. They are in the business of something else. Were one to base
belief in religion upon science, one would be engaging in a behavior similar to
induction or speculation (or what is behind curtain number 3?). This is not the
proper brain activity. It's not what the thing is for.
Imagine science one day finding God. Let's say they find him with the Hubble
telescope. What in God's name would you do? Begin "trusting?" It would be
pointless. All you would be doing was subjugating or politicking. Or perhaps
you would be going through education. But you would not be being "religious,"
because the grammar of this involves something completely different. The
behavior is different.
Regards.
SW
=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
