Steven Colborne's Blog, page 78

Do Ideas Exist in Reality?

In the last few Friday Philosophy posts we’ve been looking at the presocratics (that is, ancient Greek philosophers who lived and taught prior to Socrates). This week we’re moving on to a new category: the Eleatics. These philosophers are also presocratic, but are often grouped together separately as they all lived in the ancient town of Elea (present-day southern Italy). The first philosopher in this new mini-series is Parmenides.

Who Was He?

Very little is known about the life and background of Parmenides. He lived around 510-440 BC and the only surviving fragments of his work that we have are from a poem entitled On Nature. It is thought that he was a pupil of Xenophanes, who we looked at in this post, and was influenced by that philosopher’s thought.

What’s the Big Idea?

Parmenides is known for being the first philosopher to use deductive reasoning, a type of logic, in order to reach certain truth claims about the nature of things. His most famous argument is that it is impossible to know what is not. His reasoning behind this is that whenever you think of something, even something very abstract (like a flying spaghetti monster) the sheer fact that you have imagined it means it exists.

My Reflections

Thinking about the connection between thoughts, words, and things, is fascinating, so all credit to Parmenides for being a pioneer is this respect. Thinking abstractly about the connection between what is, and what is not, would later become a common activity of many well-known philosophers through the ages, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein.

However, it seems to me there is an important (and quite obvious) distinction between something existing as an idea, and existing in reality. To imply that everything we think of exists, is a somewhat misleading and erroneous concept. Thoughts have a type of reality, and then physical things have a different type of reality. Of course, it’s difficult to be 100% clear about what Parmenides meant from the few fragments we have, so I wouldn’t want to be too critical of his position.

Next Friday we’ll continue with the Eleatic thinkers and look at a big idea by Zeno of Elea. To ensure you never miss a post, please consider subscribing. Thank you for reading!

The Cosmic Animator

Wherever there is activity in the universe, there must be a power that is causing that activity. Even scientists, who are very successful in describing how things happen, generally agree they cannot say why things happen. This is because there is an all-powerful cause of everything that happens. This cause is not a scientific law or set of laws, but is the cause of the activity that allows scientific laws to be formulated. The existence of this power cannot be proven with equations but is knowable by intuition if one rationally considers the nature of activity in the cosmos.

Because one of the attributes of God is infinite correlation (God can do an infinite number of things simultaneously), God can coordinate activity in the microcosm and the macrocosm. He can make all the hairs on your head grow at the same time, and can move your arms around at the same time as He pumps blood through those arms. God can make your heart beat while you walk along the road and hold a conversation. On a larger scale, God can create communities, ecosystems, and the movement of celestial bodies. All of these occurrences happen in harmony, and I believe they can only be understood in terms of the coordinating power of God, who is actively controlling the existence of all things.

The above article is an extract from my book entitled ‘Ultimate Truth: God Beyond Religion’. For more info or to buy the book, click here.

Changes are Coming to WordPress

If you’re as passionate about blogging as I am, you’ll be curious and concerned about the fact that WordPress are working on a “revolutionary” new editor. In the coming months, the way in which you compose your blog posts on WordPress.com is going to change quite considerably.

With a lot going on behind the scenes, the tech community and developers behind WordPress.com and WordPress.org are working hard to prepare the new editor, which will be named ‘Gutenberg’ (after Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the printing press back in 1439). The printing press was of course revolutionary, so the fact that WordPress are using that moniker for their new editor should tell us something about their ambitions and the scope of the changes we are likely to see.

But don’t panic – from the research I’ve done it appears that the coming changes will make the editing process simpler and more intuitive, rather than being a brain-ache for bloggers with very little coding knowledge such as myself.

At the heart of the Gutenberg editor will be the introduction of ‘blocks’. A block is a kind of organisational unit for different categories of content, like images, headings, text, or widgets. There will be drop-down menus from which you can choose the type of block content you want and incorporate it into a particular part of a post. Those of you who use MailChimp to run your mailing lists will probably have come across blocks before.

At present, a Google search doesn’t show up many results for ‘Gutenberg and WordPress.com’, but with a new version of WordPress core likely to be released as early as next month (April 2018), it’s likely that we’ll begin to see changes to the editor on WordPress.com later this year. What this will mean for your particular blog may be something that you want to investigate if you’re at all concerned about compatibility issues with your theme, for instance.

Here’s a helpful article with some more info on Gutenberg:

https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/

And if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare (don’t we all?), I recommend watching this video which features WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg talking about the new editor and answering some questions on the subject.

Focus Hocus Pocus

Let’s have a bit of fun (because we all need that on a Monday morning!). For this week’s music post I thought I would share a song that is timeless, unique, and highly energetic, and that had a big impact on my development as a guitarist and musician.

Focus were a Dutch rock band hailing from Amsterdam who made their mark on the global music scene in the 1970’s. If you haven’t heard their biggest hit ‘Hocus Pocus’ before, well, now’s your chance. Believe me – this is essential viewing!

Enjoy the song and let me know what you think in the comments

Ill-Advised Late-Night Post

It was another busy week on Perfect Chaos. As well as my scheduled posts I managed to squeeze in a couple of extra bits of meat along with my regular blogging veg. (Don’t ask where that analogy came from, it’s 3.30am and I need my beauty sleep!)

Let’s take a look at what you could have won…

The Week in Review

We kicked off the week with a different kind of Monday Music post. I felt compelled to share an immensely creative promo video for Apple’s new music device, the HomePod, and I’m not even getting affiliate income! You can thank me later, Apple. Check out the article here.

On Tuesday I got a bit emotional and shared a lament about my predicament concerning the Christian faith and how it doesn’t quite square with my beliefs concerning free will. It’s the first time I’ve ever turned off comments for a post, because it was super-personal. Thank you so much to everyone who emailed me with feedback, I’m very grateful. You can read the post here.

Wednesday was Blog Spotlight day. I do these once a month as a way of giving a shout-out to some of you who have contributed to my Promote Your Blog page. This month the focus was on two bloggers who write about their experience of abuse. You can check out the post here.

For my Thursday Theology post I picked up where I left off last week (when we discussed different types of determinism) by honing in on the free will problem. After defining a few different types of free will, I offered some deep reflections on why I believe none of them make sense, and what I believe to be the truth of the matter. Read the article here and see whether or not you agree.

To round off the week we had a dose of Friday Philosophy, and honed in another of the presocratics, Heraclitus, and his famous saying about rivers. Not sure what I’m on about? Check out the post here!

Some Random Thoughts to Round Off the Week

I’m considering introducing a ‘Question of the Day’ post once a week, if I can find a free slot in the schedule for it. It would be an opportunity for more reader-engagement which would be really cool! Thank you so much to SaraInLaLaLand for the great idea.
My cup of tea is stone cold so hold tight while I pop it in the microwave for thirty seconds… … Ping! Ahhh…
Next week I won’t be blogging as much as I need to focus on recording a new song for my music project. But I’ll endeavour to keep up my scheduled posts.
I bought a map of the world! It’s huge! And it’s adorning the wall of my hallway. I’m actually among the tiny minority of Brits who aren’t obsessed with traveling – the purpose of said item is purely to improve my appalling geography!

As usual on a Sunday I will be spending some quality time in prayer later today and I will be lifting up all of my readers to God and asking for His blessing and favour over your lives in the coming week. Thank you so much for following and have a terrific week!

Rivers of Change

Welcome to this week’s Friday Philosophy post. Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at some of the most famous presocratic philosophers (that is, ancient Greek philosophers who lived prior to Socrates), and we will finish this mini-series of presocratic thinkers with Heraclitus, who lived between approximately 600-540 BC.

Who Was He?

Heraclitus was a controversial and antagonistic citizen of Ephesus, who sharply criticised the ideas of many of his contemporaries, including Xenophanes and Pythagoras, who we looked at last week and the week before respectively. Little is known about his background and upbringing, although he is believed to have been born to distinguished parentage, and was an aristocrat of sorts.

What’s the Big Idea?

Heraclitus spent a lot of time pondering the nature of change and is most famous for his saying “you could not step into the same river twice”. This rather beautiful idea encapsulates the fact that while there is always something that can be referred to as ‘a river’, the water that constitutes the river is constantly changing. This example compels us to think deeply about the nature of objects, and how their form or structure is distinct from their material existence.

As a brief ‘aside’, some of you will know that my blogging email address is ‘riversofchange@gmail.com’, but what you probably didn’t know is that this is inspired by the famous saying of Heraclitus, quoted above.

My Reflections

It seems to me that we form ideas about things that in reality don’t exist. For instance, we draw distinctions concerning where one object ends and another begins, or where one event ends and another begins, or where one moment ends and another begins. While these distinctions can be helpful in disciplines such as mathematics and science, it’s important to remember that in reality such divisions don’t exist; they are purely conceptual. Existence is really a single entity, and if we consider this notion deeply it will give us some powerful insights into the nature of God, His omnipresence, and the panentheistic nature of reality.

So we can be grateful to Heraclitus for his picture of the ever-flowing river, which in a fascinating way highlights the peculiar distinction between form and content.

Next week we will stay with the ancient Greeks and look at a big idea by Parmenides, who is part of a school of philosophers known as the Eleatics (as they were from the ancient town of Elea). Be sure to subscribe so you never miss a post!

The Free Will Problem

In last week’s Thursday Theology post (here) we looked at different theories of determinism. We saw that determinism is the idea that the past determines the future in a literal ’cause and effect’ way, so that theoretically, given the entirety of history and all the laws of physics, there is only one possible future in any given situation.

Determinism raises a number of questions concerning free will, and so it’s logical that following on from last week’s post we should look at different types of free will this week. I will try to condense a complex subject into a few simple definitions, and then offer my own reflections and conclusions concerning the free will problem.

Compatibilism

Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Philosophers who believe in this thesis disagree about what exactly free will means, because they acknowledge there are constraints due to circumstances (both in a person’s life and in the world at large) that can impact our choices and decisions.

In practical terms, compatibilism is often relevant to issues of moral responsibility. We might imagine, for instance, a court situation where a jury is trying to discern whether an individual is responsible for a crime, or whether outside factors coerced him or her to commit a crime. The judge might consider how a mental illness led to an illegal act, or that a person was acting under duress, or on the other hand they might argue that the individual on trial was motivated by their own free intentions.

Contemporary compatibilists like Daniel Dennett argue that a certain definition of free will holds true if a coerced agent’s actions coincide with the agent’s personal desires and intentions.

Incompatibilism

Incompatibilists quite simply deny the compatibility of free will and determinism. They argue that if the world is deterministic then our feeling that we are able to make free choices is simply an illusion. I will have more to say about this in my conclusion, below.

Some contemporary incompatibilist philosophers, like Sam Harris, argue that our thoughts are the product of a lengthy evolutionary process, coupled with our life circumstances, so we are not free at all (to read my post entitled ‘Sam Harris and Free Will’ go here).

Libertarianism

Some incompatibilists are libertarians, which is the strongest position in favour of the freedom or ‘liberty’ of the individual. Libertarians argue that because at least some actions of some agents are free, determinism is necessarily false.

One definition of libertarianism is the thesis that an agent is able to take more than one course of action in a given set of circumstances. Some who hold to this view believe that events are influenced by the ‘non-physical’, whether it be a mind, will, or soul.

Assessment and Conclusion

As I concluded last week’s post on determinism, I argued that of crucial importance to the free will debate is the way in which we understand the nature of God. God is often left out of these discussions about determinism and free will, because we live in an age where scientism has led to a proliferation of atheism and great scepticism about God’s existence.

This scenario is unfortunate, as the solution to the problem of free will lies in correctly understanding the nature of God. Without such an understanding, there will always be confusion on this subject.

Theists generally agree that there are certain attributes that are definitional of God; attributes such as omnipotence (God is all-powerful), omniscience (God is all-knowing), and omnipresence (God is everywhere). These attributes are very relevant to the free will debate. If we believe God exists and literally possesses these attributes, then it’s quite obvious there is no room for free will at all.

Let us focus on the attribute of omnipresence. Please consider that this means that every cell of your body, and every particle in the universe, is a part of God. To deny this would be to limit God’s presence in such a way as to deny His omnipresence. This view of God naturally leads us to a panentheistic understanding of existence; panentheism being the idea that all that exists, exists within God.

In practical terms, this makes sense, as theists will happily attribute to God the ability to impact any part of His creation at any time. This would not be the case if there were distance between creator and creation. If God is truly omnipresent, and a living God, then we can rightly surmise that God is unfolding the universe by His omnipotent power in this very moment – this moment being all that actually exists (the past and the future exist only as ideas; not in reality).

It is not the case that the past necessarily leads to the future. This will only happen if God wills a particular succession of events. Being in control of existence, as He is, God is above the laws of nature, and can at any time change those laws if He wishes (which is what is happening when we observe miracles).

Ideas such as cause and effect, past and future, are simply that – ideas. Because events flow into one another, in reality there are no separate events. Similarly, because the past flows into the future without any interruption, we can see that time is illusory – it’s a way of segmenting a single eternal ‘now’ into divisions that don’t exist in reality.

All of these observations beg the question: What is real? And we can observe that there is an ‘unfolding’ happening. Wherever there is activity in existence, there must be a cause of that activity. Considering this deeply should lead us to conclude that there is an all-powerful, omnipresent, God – a ‘cosmic animator’, as I like to call Him.

There are many repercussions of this view for the determinism / free will debate. If God is in control of all things, then obviously we don’t have free will. If we apply this understanding to the situation of a jury assessing the crimes of a perpetrator, it would appear to be the case that ‘anything goes’ – they cannot be found guilty because they were simply a puppet in the hands of God. While there is logic to this, I believe it’s important to point out that in reality it’s not actually the case that ‘anything goes’ – only God’s will goes.

Many theists are uncomfortable with a worldview that sees God as the author of everything that we describe as ‘sin’ and ‘evil’. But I believe in the domain of ultimate truth, we must accept that God is indeed in control of everything that happens. This may cause us to see the world a little differently, but it’s actually an immensely liberating idea, knowing that whatever you’ve been through, and whatever you’ve done, represents God’s will for your life. Also, your future is in His hands.

My conclusion is that none of the views of free will presented in the first part of this article are accurate, for they fail to take into account the divine attributes that demonstrate God is unfolding all events in accordance with His sovereign will. There is no free will, only one Almighty will; a will so powerful it can create a universe, billions of planets and billions of people, unfathomable complexity and diversity, and a historical process that lasts thousands or even millions of years.

I’m aware that the view of God presented in this article presents a challenge to many of the key doctrines and tenets of Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions. For a more in-depth look at the issues, I invite you to read my essay entitled An Almighty Predicament, which you can find as a downloadable PDF at the top of the Essays page.

Blog Spotlight (Mar 2018)

Greetings, and welcome to this month’s Blog Spotlight. There is a page on my blog where anyone can submit some info about their blog, and every month I write a spotlight post highlighting a few of your contributions. To see previous Blog Spotlight posts, go here.

This month I will be sharing two blogs which share in common that the authors are survivors of abuse, and write blogs about their journey of recovery. My hope is that this post, and these blogs, will be helpful to someone who is going through a tough time.

Putting Hope to Work

My name is Jenny and my blog is entitled “PuttingHopeToWork – a journey to better understand the intertwining of Faith and Hope”. While Faith and Hope are a favorite topic, I also share a lot of my own personal story in overcoming the wounds of an abused and dysfunctional childhood, and deliverance from a pattern of abusive and controlling relationships.

The world will tell you that once broken, always broken. But that is a lie! Jesus is BIGGER and He is more than able (and more than willing) to walk anyone out of their past and into the spacious and blessed life He has purposed for them. This is my story of putting my hope-filled faith in the promises and character of God to work.

http://www.puttinghopetowork.com

Gritty Momma

Thank you for providing this opportunity! As a survivor of mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse, I write about the importance of mental and emotional health, abuse awareness, and how to cultivate a culture of compassion, respect, and understanding. Life is full of grit, and it takes a lot of grit to get through it! Hence the blog name:

http://grittymomma.com

I also write about cooking and baking, homeschooling (I’m a homeschool grad and plan to homeschool our kids), and parenting topics in general. I am a wife to a loving husband and mom of two rambunctious toddlers, so life is often topsy-turvy. I am a Jesus follower because I’ve experienced his deep love for me, and he’s where I find the grit to carry through. 

I hope you enjoy checking out these blogs. If you would like your blog to be considered for a future Blog Spotlight, you are welcome to submit your blog to my Promote Your Blog page. I can’t guarantee that I will feature every blog, but even if you’re not featured, hopefully you’ll get a bit of extra traffic from people reading through the posts.

Wishing you all a peaceful and blessed day, and thank you so much for following Perfect Chaos!

Steven

From My Heart, to God

In all honesty, Lord, my main desire in life is to limit suffering as much as possible. I am most concerned with limiting my personal suffering, but I also care for all other sentient beings and don’t want them to suffer either. You have given me a taste of suffering through mental breakdown, torture, depression, pain, and hopelessness. I am desperate not to experience terrible suffering in the future.

I believe You are in control of all suffering, and that any solution to the problem of suffering lies exclusively within Your power. You are clearly unfolding a plan for creation, and have shown me beyond any doubt that You are completely sovereign over my life, and all our lives.

You know my predicament, Lord. On the one hand, the person of Jesus Christ has had a huge impact on my spiritual journey. You know that I have been in tears of joy declaring Jesus as my Lord and Saviour from a place of complete brokenness and humility. You know the hours I have spent on my knees, writing out passages of Scripture and begging You for mercy. You know that through obedience I have repented and been baptised both in water and in the Holy Spirit. You also know that I have struggled intensely with the contradictions concerning Your sovereignty and ‘free will’ that affect so many central Christian doctrines.

Although I have withdrawn somewhat from the Christian faith, I don’t believe I have done so due to pride, because I am still petrified of Your power and the fact that You could make me suffer endlessly and excruciatingly if that were Your will. My problems with the Christian faith come from a place of earnestly seeking after Truth.

I would much rather sell all my possessions and lead an itinerant life sharing the gospel than end up in hell. Truly! There are no benefits to living outside of the Christian faith, other than a few carnal pleasures that one can enjoy when one is not concerned about sin. But You know, Lord, that I have fasted and continue to fast, and that I strive to live a holy life and flee from sin, and that the pleasures of this world are hardly tempting to me in comparison to paradise after death.

Logically, I should become a Christian. But I don’t know that I can do it. I have been a Christian, and totally immersed in Christian evangelism, serving in church, attending house groups, studying the Bible, being sacrificial, believing in Jesus, praying and worshiping, and loving the peace and joy that come with being His disciple. But every time I have thrown myself wholeheartedly into the Christian life, the contradictions and inconsistencies of Christian thinking have risen to the surface of my mind and taken hold of me with great force, causing me to draw back from the faith.

Surely, Lord, these doubts come from You. Christians will deny that, and this is one of the reasons why I can’t be a Christian, because Christians pick and choose which thoughts and beliefs come from You and which come from our own ‘free will’ or the devil. I know that You are in control of all things, Lord, and I’m grateful that You have given me that understanding. But it is not the Christian understanding!

I know that life is so much more meaningful when living for Jesus. I cannot see any meaning outside of the Christian life. And yet it seems, for whatever reason, that You won’t allow me to fully submit my life in that way. You have made certain aspects of reality plain to me; things that most Christians fail to see, and this is both a blessing and a curse.

The plain truth is that we do not have free will! If any Christian is reading this and wants to tell me that my destiny is up to me and not You… well, You know the truth, Lord. You know that Christians pray to You about their lives; their jobs, their health, their marriages; knowing full well that You are in control of every aspect of their lives. Prayer would make no sense if this were not true.

I beg of You, Lord, don’t send me to hell. It would only demonstrate cruelty. Again, Christians will disagree with this and say You would be perfectly just sending me to hell because I am a sinner. But You know the truth, Lord, that I have never done anything that has not been completely under Your control. It’s so obvious to me that this is true. How would I know how to manufacture thoughts, beat my heart, circulate my blood, digest my food, dream, grow my hair, grow from a baby into an adult, or do anything else? It is absurd to think that I am in control of myself!! And yet Christians cannot see this, and refuse to consider any position that compromises freedom of the human will.

Perhaps I should suppress the truth and become a Christian? Okay, Lord, I will. If that’s what You want. If it will save me from hell. But You are in control, so You have to make it happen. Or do You have other plans for me? Can I not be a Christian and still escape hell somehow? Because You are sovereign, I believe it’s within Your power to do whatever You want with my mind, body, and soul. So would You please, please, be merciful to me, Lord, and not make me suffer torment in hell? Please, Lord?

I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster;

I, the LORD, do all these things.

(Isaiah 45:7)

I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself,

that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

(Jeremiah 10:23)

I have disabled comments for this post owing to the fact that it is very personal and I feel the matter is between me and God. If you would like to discuss anything with me you can always email me via the Contact page. In general I always allow and encourage comments, but that didn’t feel right for this post. I hope you understand and thank you for reading.

Monday Music | FKA Twigs

I hope you’re all well-rested and enjoying a great start to the week. For today’s Monday Music post I’m courting controversy by sharing an advert by Apple! I know this is likely to upset some readers, but I ask you to set aside your PC/Mac loyalties for just a few minutes and enjoy this video purely for its artistic merits.

The video was released less than a week ago but went viral very quickly, which is unsurprising given that it was released by Apple, one of the biggest companies in the world. But credit where credit’s due, this is a truly astonishing piece of art.

The performer in the video is known by the name of ‘FKA twigs’. She’s a dancer who was born in England from English/Jamaican heritage and used to live in South London, which is the part of the world where I live. The director of the video is Spike Jonze, an American filmmaker known for directing Being John Malkovich and Adaptation among many other movies.

Give it a watch and let me know what you think in the comments.