Would you like it in mathematics?
Or, since you seem to feel that definitions are unnecessary, is there really any point in defining the terms to you?
No. See, you’ve converted me.
Before, I thought words were just noise. That’s why my sentences made no sense and looked like leet. That’s why I couldn’t formulate a logical argument. Definitions didn’t matter to me, and I thought we could all make up our own.
But now, you’ve made me to see the light. And by light, I do not mean electromagnetic radiation. Nor do I mean a source of the radiation such as a lamp or bulb. And I don’t mean a mechanical beacon or traffic signal. I also don’t mean daybreak. Neither do I mean a window opening that is divided from another by one or more mullions. I don’t mean a source of fire. I don’t mean spiritual illumination. I don’t mean public attention, general knowledge, individual standards, an admired person, a guiding spirit, a Quaker metaphor, or a whitened area in a work of art.
You’ve convinced me of how important it is to deal with shadows rather than objects, with interstices rather than lines, with rhetoric rather than reason. You’ve taught me the valuable lesson that I may avoid the senselessness of debate by the practice of constant distraction. I’ve learned from you that I may render an argument meaningless by drilling for definitions of terms in an endless spiral of recursion.
I am indebted to you. Without your patient guiding hand, I might still be wallowing in the vast ignorance of philosophers from Lao Tzu to Sartre. I wouldn’t know that the Correspondence Theory, the Coherence Theory, the Deflationary Theory, the Identity Theory, the Revision Theory — all the theories of truth studied by alleged sages for centuries was only so much nonsense.
How better to thank you than to emulate you?
Who gets to decide what’s true and what’s not? On what standards? That’s what I don’t get. I’ve read this thread and, granted, I’m not very smart and I didn’t study philosophy or physics (I can barely balance my checkbook). I’m just a historian. But, who has the power and knowledge of how things really are?
I don’t think anyone can say they have that and I don’t think anyone can accurately describe God. I mean, it’s like this thread. Everyone here is asking ‘what do you mean by that,’ ‘where do you get that,’ ‘what does this have to do with that,’ and so on. We can’t understand each other, let alone a concept as far removed from our descriptive experience as eternity, infinity, or God. Everyone arguing over their pet interpretation being ‘the truth’ or ‘close to the truth,’ is forgetting that.
Seriously, how can we as human beings, creatures that still can’t fathom and understand most of the other creatures that are virtually identical to us, how can any one of us even try to explain a phenomenon so far removed and so different from us as God? It’s like trying to get a three year old to understand what a light-year is in their own terms. It just isn’t going to happen.
I gave up trying to explain God and eternity to people when I realized that just trying to comprehend exactly what eternity is was too much for my brain. All we can do is offer analogies and similies and metaphors. None of us know what we’re describing well enough to say that anyone else’s description is wrong or right. We simply can’t comprehend what we’re trying to describe.
I like the idea the Taoists had. ‘The Tao which cannot be spoken is the eternal Tao.’ Maybe that’s how God is.
Phoenix
PS – Lib, as a sister in faith, can I remind you that just because someone does something that annoys you, it doesn’t mean you should do the same annoying thing to them? 
See you at the Pizza Parlor.
Actually, you won’t. But thanks just the same. 
When I stumble upon something that is merely annoying, I’ll remember your advice.
We do not understand what we cannot operationalize. A concept is merely a pattern of linked interactions. In mathematics, everyone understands what is meant by a statement because mathematicians are explicit and precise by what they mean. The same thing can be done with words, but words are frequently used to refer to many different concepts; that is, there are multiple interaction-complexes that are referenced by the same pattern of sounds or symbols.
Until the nature of the concept referenced by a word is understood, no meaningful argument can be made with it.
Lastly, even if the concept is shared and understood, there’s the question of whether the word represents the world accurately. We can construct any conceptual category we like, and use it to refer to anything that we like, but we can’t automatically have that category correspond to any aspect of the object we’re pointing to.
Your knowledge of philosophical positions and their history is quite extensive, Lib, but your ability to understand the arguments of others (by reducing them down to their basic interactions) or explain your own positions (by translating your categories into ones recognized by others) is relatively limited.
For example, I’m sure you have a clear and precise understanding of what you mean when you say “God is love”, but if you can’t explain that understanding to others, you’re not making an argument.
I appreciated your compliment, Vorlon, but I have explained what I mean by “God is love” to a fare-thee-well and forty ways from Sunday. I have defined love as the conduction of goodness. I have given metaphorical analogies, like River of Love and Conduit of Love. I have given examples. I have opened an entire thread dealing with the issue and have explained it to the satisfaction of others, even one who said that he had never understood it before, but does now thanks to the clarity of the explanations I gave.
So can you see how I might be just a bit exasperated when these accusations of obfuscation, deceit, and evasion are suddenly slung at me from left field?
I have yet to see you offer an operationalization of “goodness”; as such, your argument doesn’t mean that much.
For example: we accept your claim that God is love. Without a prior definition of what love is, this argument means only that what God does is loving. God proceeds to smite babies, puppies, kittens, and pretty flowers. By definition, this is an expression of love.
Since we have a definition of love that’s (presumably) inconsistent with these actions, we have a problem. We can doubt the definition of love, or we can doubt the claim that God is love. The definition of love is primary in general (we constructed the category and applied it to the world before we made the claim about God), so we’d conclude that God isn’t love.
We could also validly ditch the definition of love and change it to be consistent with what God does… but we’d need a new word to describe the category that ‘love’ previously referred to.
But I dealt with all that in the Love thread, Vorlon. Do you remember the “God Glasses”? What God saw when He destroyed Sodom? The things that were still alive? What happened to them? I spent two hours writing about that.
Honestly, I don’t mind a genuine disagreement born of a legitimate concern, but when you keep insisting that I am evasive or failing to address things that, as a matter of record, I have indeed addressed, you are being exceedingly unfair.
What if I ignored your posts and began complaining that you believe I have never read anything on philosophy. Wouldn’t you be irked? Just because you skip the first two pages of a thread and jump in with demands to define and explain this and that does not mean that I have shirked any responsibility.
And as I said, others understood it. Maybe the problem after all is not with me or them. Won’t you even concede that it is possible that you have jumped the gun?
I’ve read your previous posts, and I’ll say it again, Libertarian: you have yet to offer an operationalization of ‘love’ that didn’t take for granted your conclusion.
Operationalization? Okay. Stay calm. Step back. […eyes darting around for exit…] Guard! 
Well? Do you have an operational definition to offer?
Hello? Helloooo?
[silence]
Is anyone there?
[crickets chirping]
I’d still like to hear that definition, Libertarian…
Well, Vorlon, since the thread has been hijacked from the question of God’s interaction with physics, if any, to metaphysical and logical examinations of conceptualization, with an eye to the metaphor that “the map is not the territory” but human concepts are all we have to work with in trying to map out divine things, and you apparently choose to reject metaphor and symbolic language as means of grasping the incomprehensible in some limited way, we do seem to be at an impasse here. No one regrets this more than I.
- No
- No
- Yes
- No. He can’t be limited if he is omnipotent.
Definition of what, Vor?
God: Love.
Love: the conduit of goodness.
Goodness: the most valuable aesthetic.
What do you want me to do, define “the”? Aesthetic? Most? By? What?
Can you see this post? Should I define “see”? How about “post”? There’s nothing defined here that I didn’t already define in the thread you say you read.
Go ahead. Say again that I’ve evaded you. Say again that I haven’t defined the terms. Say again how important it is that I supply definitions while you use terms like “operationalization”.
I don’t know whom you think you’re fooling, but it ain’t anybody here except maybe yourself.
You’ve never heard of operationalization? Didn’t you take any experimental science classes in college?
Operationalization is the process by which a concept or standard is made objectively verifiable or testable. For example, the concept of “overweight” has an implicit meaning, but by itself there’s no way any two people would necessarily agree whether any person was overweight. When the idea is operationalized, an objective standard that can be independently tested is used to define it (the height-and-weight charts are commonly used to determine whether a person is overweight).
If you don’t understand basic concepts of scientific thought, how can you consider yourself a rational and well-educated being?
You have yet to offer any statements that are sufficiently well-defined for any kind of test or independent confirmation of their truth to be made. All you’ve done is create a category and given names to some of its properties… which, by itself, is meaningless unless the you make an assertion linking that category to a well-defined concept or thing.
Ah, while I had the concept, I’d never run into that term used to define it. “If it can’t be expressed in mathematics, it’s not science.”
Okay, so what exactly are you looking for – objective criteria for people’s definitions of “God”? What would be your methodology for testing such definitions against such criteria? What would those criteria be?
In short, you’re looking for us to devise an empirical theology, right?
I don’t object; in fact, I’d suggested doing just this a year or so ago – but I foresee some significant problems in defining criteria and methodology to everyone’s contentment. I welcome your suggestions as to the appropriate first steps – and suggest a new thread might be in order to do so.
I wouldn’t say that “if it can’t be expressed in mathematics, it’s not science”… but then again, I have highly unusual notions of what both mathematics and science are.
Mathematics is “universal” language that describes a tiny subset of the elemental interactions; these interactions make up the entirety of the universe.
There’s no fundamental distinction between ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’, between ‘concept’ and ‘thing’: they’re all different perspectives of the same structure (to use a visual metaphor).
Objective criteria for “god”, “love”, “valued”, etc. would be nice. If there are no such criteria, then those concepts have no part of reality, and I see no reason to be concerned about them.
Ultimately, what we think or believe is irrelevant: the only thing that truly matters is what is. Nevertheless, when we understand the nature of our perceptions, we can partially understand the nature of what we perceive… and the fact that we perceive the universe puts certain limitations on what it can be.
** The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide**
wrote:
That’s like looking out of a telescope and trying to understand my existence based on what I perceive through it.
Although the concept of “turning around” is nonsensical in terms of consciousness, one can consider that what is or our “true nature” resides more in the “awareness” then in the universe . More in the subject then the object, even though the awareness and its object may be two ends of the same stick.