Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 6

Is the primary authority of the Fourth Gospel "just" a matter of my personal preference?

My according the Fourth Gospel primary authority is indeed a matter of my personal preference, since even before I was a Christian it always seemed that it was the most beautiful book of the Bible. 

But is it just that - merely personal?

No - there is something more to it than taste, and something that may be generally true.  

For many years I interpreted the IV Gospel in the mainstream orthodox way, as a kind of "mystical appendix" to the Synoptics and Paul's letters, or else part of a mosaic of Biblical evidence but without special eminence. 

This framework meant that the meanings of the IV-G could-not and did-not change anything substantive - it merely provided a kind of "radiant glow" around the main stuff, which was elsewhere. 

It was only after I had decided to read and re-read the IV Gospel as the primary authority - on the basis of what the book said about itself confirmed by my deepest intuitions, and that it really did feel deeply like a near contemporary eye-witness account by an intimate of Jesus...

Only after doing this multiple re-read; did I realize - and with considerable shock - that instead of being mystical, abstract and vague - the IV-G was actually highly coherent and clear...  

But about what? There I was shocked to find that what it was so clear about was that the essence of Jesus's teaching was that of resurrected eternal life, possible for all those who recognized and "followed" Jesus. 

This was shocking because it was so plain; and because I had a kind of inner snobbery against a religion which was based-upon promising its adherents eternal and fulfilling life after death... 

This offer of better times to come later seemed like a simple-minded basis for a religion, designed to appeal mainly to selfish and simple-minded people...

Almost like the nasty caricature of Christianity by its enemies - a controlling socio-political scheme offering "pie in the sky" for those who do what we say, and think what we tell them to think. 

A classic bit of priestly manipulation...

Except that in the actual IV Gospel, when read as a coherent whole; the offer of resurrected life was not conditional upon obedience to an external authority or adherence to complex laws and rules. 

Indeed, there wasn't anything in the valid parts of the Gospel* about setting-up a priesthood or church. 

The Gospel is about an un-socio-political, as non-institutional, as could be imagined; it is all about loving familial and marriage relationships.  

IV-G was about our attitude-to and relationship-with Jesus primarily, and his Father secondarily yet necessarily. 

So that when I then went back to re-read the other books of the New Testament in light of the IV, I often seemed to be reading about another Jesus; a Jesus whose focus was very different from IV-G, and who was (as his priority) proposing primarily to set-up a new priesthood and a new church - with all that entailed in terms of laws and practices**. 

Therefore to read the IV Gospel as the primary authority of Jesus Christ that the Gospel itself tells us that it is; seems to entail a very profound reshaping of what has become the mainstream orthodox understanding of "what Christianity is" - its nature, aims, mechanisms.

If the IV-Gospel is accepted and embraced as true and valid in its own right; then the rest of the Bible needs to be approached with a great deal of selectivity; and a good deal of it needs to be discarded.

Small wonder - it seems to me - that the IV Gospel has, and apparently since very early after the ascension of Jesus; been accorded only a minor, subordinate, supplementary role in defining the teaching of Jesus and the true nature of substantive Christianity.   

*The process of reading and re-reading, spontaneously led to the rejection of a few parts of the Gospel being recognized as - to me - obviously alien and from another source, with a contradictory implication from the unity of the whole. For instance, Chapter 21 comes after the Gospel - pretty clearly - has ended with a recapitulation. 

**. More exactly, "Christianity"/ following Jesus is presented an inner desire and attitude, that can (when necessary) be practiced in the context of any religion, or none. 

The biggest Christianity problem of our times

A few observations... 

Lack of Christianity is killing people, and the world. 

In that sense any kind of Christianity - of desiring salvation by Jesus Christ - is better than nothing. 

I believe that the decision concerning salvation comes after death of the body. Which is just as well; because it means that the very large majority who are not Christian and have little prospect of becoming so, still have the chance to choose.

Nonetheless, it is still "our-selves" that makes the choice after death: the eternal spiritual self that we carry over through death... 

This means that any of the majority (it seems) who were born with good souls, souls capable of love and valuing love, and who are genuinely ignorant or innocent in mortal life; will have a good chance of choosing rightly after death...

When they have discovered that the offer of resurrected, eternal Heavenly life is real and possible; their loving nature and desires will make them want what Jesus offers.  

Yet, even among those born with good souls; how few adolescents and adults - especially in The West - are genuinely ignorant or innocent! 

And it is exactly their desires that are disordered - that are too-often (at least, so far as one can judge) actively turned-against salvation. 

And even among self-identified Christians, there seem extremely few who seem to have salvation as their positive priority...

And it seems that the Churches are so confused or corrupted in their priorities that they seldom seem to help and very often strongly hinder clarity on this crucial point. 

Because negative desires - such as fear of death or misery or hell - do not suffice; and indeed (given the many alternative possibilities to salvation) hardly assist at all in making the right choice.  

This is perhaps the biggest "Christianity problem" of our times. 

 

Discussing free will: A problem with arguing about Christianity, is that most people most of the time don't understand what they are arguing-for

I'm a bit obsessed with this business of "understanding" as a pre-requisite!

As a spontaneous "philosopher"; I am naturally an argumentative person, who has striven for the past couple of decades to suppress this trait because it was (mostly) a pointless waste of my life... More exactly, it was pointless in terms of trying to change other-people and the-world (which is what I was trying to do)... 
Actually, the arguing was sometimes useful to me, in clarifying my own understanding; especially when I became aware that I did not really understand what I was arguing-for. 
This was also something that sometimes happened when I was teaching... I'd be standing writing something on the board and expounding it; when I realized that it didn't make sense or I was just putting-out a black box assertion. 
These were significant moments of learning. 

It has happened on this blog too. Early on in its history; I was trying to explain to William James Tychonievich what was "free will" and how it worked - because he did not seem to be able to grasp what I was saying and kept on questioning me...
When I realized I myself did not understand what I was saying about free will. 
Ultimately, I was parroting forms of words that I had heard or read elsewhere, and they really didn't make sense. I was repeating the classical theological arguments about free will, that I had come across in Boethius, CS Lewis, and scholarly accounts of Aquinas - and I recognized that I could not understand them, not really.

Further thought led to a recognition that my personal inability to understand was not (in this case) from inadequate intelligence or insufficient thought; but that the arguments were intrinsically un-understandable because they contained abstractions that served the role of a black box; a logical package the role of whose content was asserted but could never be grasped. 
The classic theological argument I was defending was that God was assumed to be omniscient, omnipotent (an "Omni-God" and created everything from nothing including me; and that free will was then gifted to me by God. 
The particular incomprehensible abstraction was that God could and did give free will - which is the agency of an individual to act from-himself and independently of God. 
This is incomprehensible because if literally everything - including everything about me and my environment is made by God; then it makes no sense that God could "give" something that was independent-of and autonomous-from God. 
In other words: The assumptions excluded the answer; the assumption was that absolutely every-thing came from God, was contradicted by the assertion that God could make something independent-of-God, and then give it to me.     How is it that such a stark contradiction became Christian dogma - how is it that so many very intelligent and thoughtful people have ignored (or not seen) it? 
One answer is that such people were not really interested either in understanding or in explaining free will, but were instead absolutely committed to the assumption that the Christian God was an Omni-God. 
So the fact that they personally did not really grasp what is is free will or how free will worked; did not really matter to them.
Another reason that the contradiction is ignored; is that the contradiction was re-named a "mystery"; and thereby safeguarded from critique.  

What they were (evidently) most focused on was winning any possible argument directed against the idea of the Christian God being an Omni-God - and the statement that an Omni-God could and did create autonomous beings by an act of gift did not really need to be understood. 
How such a gift actually made sense was of secondary importance to them. 
Also, having made this assertion of gifting free will; the incomprehension was sustained by the fact that their definition, their understanding, of free will was negative - free will was defined in terms of independence-from God. 
Significantly, the scientific assertions about free will have a closely analogous negativity - being defined in terms of something that is not caused. 

Something I have learned is that when something is negatively-defined, it becomes ungraspable in itself, of itself. 
So, the mainstream orthodox statements about free will have the effect of making it mysterious at best and ineradicably incomprehensible at worst... 
...As anyone knows who has tried to discuss free will in the public forum. Argument devolves to assertions that some-thing was done by free will, versus assertions that it was instead the inevitable outcome of preceding causes - whether scientific causes, or caused by God. 

Free will is a particularly stark example of the problems of un-comprehended "abstraction", and definition by negation. It results in making mysterious, and indeed unreal, something that is one of the primary spontaneous experiences of every human being! 
Arguments against those whose assumptions make free will incomprehensible (whether orthodox traditional Christians, or mainstream secular people) is futile - since these people do not really understand what they are asserting - and do not see any need why they should understand it!
Indeed, such people often have a fixed and committed belief that personally genuinely-understanding what they affirm is not necessary! 
(As indeed, it would not be necessary if free will had indeed the negative, abstract, subordinate role they assert for it.) 

The general lesson I draw from this is related to the importance of really understanding - and of not being satisfied by black box abstractions, or parroting stuff taken from other people... 
This is true, no matter how prestigious is the source of the black box argument. 
And further; if we are to avoid intractable error, our personal understanding needs to be in positive terms. 

It might be objected that this cannot possibly happen in practice; given the sheer number of things that must be taken on trust in any complex civilization. 
This is true in a quantitative sense, about most matters of assertion; but is false when it comes to those matters which are of core significance to our-selves. 
And there we come to the crux, for a Christian at any rate. What really is most important for us to understand - what, indeed is it vital for us personally to grasp? 

In the past, Christians regarded belief in the Omni-God as vital and necessary; and understanding free will as merely optional, to the point that it was not understood, and indeed not understandable. 
Here and now, for myself and probably for most people; it is vital to understand - that is really to grasp in positive terms - free will, agency, the basis of individuality. yet this is something made impossible to those who accept either mainstream orthodox Christian (and indeed other religious) theologies; or for the much larger numbers of people who regard "science" as the basic assumption behind all explanations. 
As so often, the individual cannot look to any of the most powerful influential, prestigious external sources for an understanding of something that he may regard as a matter of prime importance. 

As so often, the individual must either do it for himself - i.e. discover by his own efforts a genuine understanding of the reality of free will; or else must take the consequences of assimilating, living-by, and thinking in-accordance-with - the socio-cultural insignificance of his own agency.     

Civil War and/or World War may not be socio-politically stoppable - but Must spiritually be understood, before taking sides

Lots of (very belated) media-chat at present about the strategically engineered conditions for within-nations Civil War/ Genocide in Western countries; alongside the ongoing Western escalation towards all-out inter-national World War. 

It is very late in the day to be noticing this, and it is probably many, many years too late for these possibilities to be prevented by normal, public socio-political action. 

Indeed, it seems to me that the only reasons such wars or genocides haven't already happened; is that the totalitarian Establishment cannot decide what is most wants to inflict on the masses, in the choice between Global and Civil wars - since it is probably not viable for both to happen simultaneously. 

But people need to recognize that this much-too-late awakening to the dangers or inevitability of "Civil War") is itself the product of a top-down Establishment initiative - the subject is belatedly being discussed, and socio-political resistance encouraged, only and exactly because it is by-now too late for social-political action to have any prospect of doing good. 

People are being encouraged, implicitly and explicitly, to take sides; when the sides they are supposed to choose-between have been created and sustained by totalitarian action; and for evil purposes. 

In fact, the masses - having been divided and set-against each other - are being led into a mutually destructive trap. 

The real challenge is to understand what is going-on the spiritual war of this world. 

Understand who are the sources of purposive evil that have engineered the present situation - and what is their underlying agenda. 

And any positive and good societal outcomes can only come after each person has chosen sides in the spiritual war: choosing not between the sides offered by officialdom, corporations and the mass media...

But instead choosing between the side that is God, divine creation, and personal salvation; or else choosing one of the many sides that are ranged against these. 

How do future expectations (doctor, husband and father, resurrected Man) affect present behaviour?

Possible future expectations need to be confident in order to be effective in shaping present life. 

At least, "confident" to the degree that we can be sure of anything in this mortal life of change and uncertainty.

When I was a medical student I was confident of becoming a doctor; therefore that expectation shaped my present behaviour so that I did far more than the minimum necessary to pass qualifying exams. I looked ahead to being a doctor - and wanted to equip myself for that situation - so I did extra classes, sought ought extra teaching - made more effort to prepare myself. 

In other words, as a medical student I was willing, able, indeed keen to forgo present gratifications (to the extent of which I was capable); when this seemed likely to contribute to my future state as a doctor.

In contrast; as an adolescent and young adult I did not expect to become a husband and father - and did nothing strenuous to prepare for that eventuality - made no serious or significant sacrifices of pleasure, or creation, or career to that end. 

The vague possibility that I might become a husband, a father; was insufficiently motivating to shape my life. 

If I had been confident that was what I wanted and would likely happen - things would, presumably, have been different.  

What about the possible future state of salvation - the possibility of resurrection to eternal Heavenly life?

The lesson of the doctor and husband examples, is that we need to want and be confident of a future state, in order that it shall shape our present life. 

Therefore; if it is desired that Christians' present behaviour be shaped by resurrection; then our understanding of salvation will need to be one that could instil confidence that we could get it if we want it! 

(This understanding of salvation as something anyone can have if he wants it and will follow Jesus; is set out in The Fourth Gospel... Assuming this book can be read and understood as an autonomous text.) 

By contrast; the traditional mainstream Church understandings of salvation that render it not just uncertain, but unlikely. 

e.g. Because these Churches regard salvation as requiring a wide range of particular and mandatory behaviours, knowledge and judgment of which is administered by A (particular) Church

And because damnation is regarded as the natural default state - render our hope of salvation something about which it is impossible (and indeed counter-productive) to be confident...

Which understanding thereby renders our expectation of salvation so feebly motivating as to be incapable of shaping our present life. 

"AI" (so-called) and the "wisdom of crowds" delusion - what is the motivation?

Back in the middle noughties I was a New Agey atheist; keen on modernity, globalization, economic growth, democracy - a sort of libertarian; and saw many applications of evolutionary theory to human life... that kind of person.

(See, for instance, this - written at the time; which tried to provide a coherent underlying mechanism for WoC phenomena; derived from complex systems theory.) 

And I was much taken by the general idea of the "wisdom of crowds" (WoC) that was prevalent at the time and much discussed (and advocated) on the blogosphere. 

This argued (and purported to prove inductively, by empirical examples) the generalizable principle that there was a collective wisdom that transcended the individual's knowledge, ability - and judgment. 

To a considerable extent, the WoC theory was merely making explicit our civilization's existing and pervasive implicit faith in the authority of groups, committees, voting, mass opinion... 

What I then had was a progressivist expectation that things are self-correcting over time; and will spontaneously tend to sort-themselves-out (if left to themselves, and not interfered-with by individual humans or interest groups)...

An expectation that human affairs are actually much better than commonly acknowledged; and are naturally and impersonally trended on an upward and positive trajectory - over a sufficiently long span.

In contrast, was the (correct) recognition that individual humans would often be dominated by short-termism and selfishness, were lazy, could easily be misled, and in general nearly always were misguided in their aims and actions... 

Where I strayed from reality was in sharing the common, hopeful, delusional inference that, because individuals were imperfect therefore, the mass of people, the "system" of people and technologies was preferable - because the mass had an organic tendency towards self-optimization, self-preservation and improvement.

In sum, I believed (and wanted it to be true) that "crowds" reliably exhibited an innate wisdom and virtue which was absent from individuals.  

Such wishful-magical views are actually much more prevalent and dominant than most people would admit - indeed, however vehemently denied when made explicit such assumptions are almost universal. 

For instance, almost everybody implicitly believes - and acts on this belief - that a committee, a vote, is more authoritative than an individual human; that elections are the only morally valid way of choosing a government; that consensus is superior to personal judgment; that (proper) processes and procedures are the best way of conducting important functions such as government, the law, medicine, science, mass media... 

And so forth. 

In sum; there is in Western Civilization an extremely strong and widespread aversion-to and prejudice-against individual persons; and instead a solid faith in the groupish, systemic, and abstract*. 

What this amounts to is a metaphysical assumption concerning the nature of reality. 

People have a solid faith-in and commitment-to the group (no matter how vaguely that group is defined) and to (some kind of) process - as intrinsically superior to any and all individuals.  

I say "people" and I mean... nearly everybody; if you dig-down and are honest about what you find. 

In ancient societies this belief was unconscious and immersive; in modern societies it is conscious - but mediated-by (embedded-in) ideologies and religions. 

The problem is that we are, each and individually, trapped and disempowered by such assumptions - and at the level of thinking.

(ie. Before any question of action can arise we are already blocked by our thinking.) 

We feel (deeply) that we personally cannot and should-not think any thing; unless and until the after relevant group has endorsed it. 

But in a totalitarian world inhabited by people who just-are cut-off spiritually from any group, and self-aware to an unprecedented degree; such an assumption is a prison: a thought prison. 

It is, in effect, a demand that we ourselves must and ought-to inhabit a societal prison; and all our hopes then become fixed upon that prison becoming as kind and efficient as possible; perhaps (the common "therapeutic" value-stance) functioning more like a hospital than a prison... 

But (we believe, because of our assumptions) it is a thought prison society that inevitably must and shall remain.   

+++

How does this related to so-called "AI"?

I think it helps understand the otherwise extraordinary degree of optimism, and indeed existential hope; that so many people place in these new technologies: technologies which operate by rapidly and simply "pooling" and processing vast quantities of anonymous data, under the ruling (but implicit) assumption that this group-process is superior to any individual.

"AI", in other words, is a variant of the "wisdom of crowds" assumption: 

AI = WoC On Steroids. 

"AI" seems - to such people, with such "wisdom of crowds" assumptions - to offer a permanent way out from the inevitable evil and partiality of individuals - a way forward towards a world of universally accessible knowledge, ability, and objective virtue. 

My point here is that - to my judgment anyway - the actual nature of what happens with "AI" systems is - by its nature - obviously not knowledgeable, not competent, and cannot-be wise. 

And the same applies to the (various) systems of democracy, the processes of bureaucracy, the work of voting committees... 

Once you become aware of, and explicitly consider, what actually happens inside these "black boxes" then it is obvious that they cannot be good. 

For exactly analogous reasons; "AI" cannot be good. 

But people have the metaphysical assumptions that they have; and these are often buried deep, and are typically regarded as facts. 

Most people evidently do not want to become aware of their fundamental convictions; nor to acknowledge that they are indeed assumptions - therefore not the consequence of evidence and logic. 

Yet it is these assumptions concerning what is effective, true and good; that lead to the absurd conviction and hope that "AI" is (whether actually already, or potentially) wise, competent, and will be beneficial overall and in the long term. 

Until these ridiculous, but pervasive, "wisdom of crowds" assumptions are exposed and acknowledged**; then many or most people will remain spiritually help-less and resistant to help; emotionally and intellectually in thrall to those who designed, created, implemented, and administer the "AI" systems.  

+++

* Another version of this - although rare nowadays, especially in practice, is faith in the truth and rightness of "tradition" - belief in "the wisdom of the crowds of the past", perhaps. 

But due to modern self-awareness, it has become impossible to establish unambiguously what is tradition. Tradition itself becomes contested; and then the problem reverts to the modern one of who-or-what entity has the authority to declare what is the real and true tradition. 

That tradition is a variant of the wisdom of crowds delusion; is evident in the way that so many self-identified traditionalists have embraced and become advocates of "AI". They apparently believe (or hope) that "AI" (properly designed and used...) will become a (generally-accessible and easily-usable) supreme source and repository of the wisdom of the crowds of the past.

** It was, I think, the fact that I had exposed and made explicit my own atheist, modernizing, groupist, progressivist etc assumptions; that ultimately led to my recognizing their arbitrary incoherence and inadequacy - then abandoning them, and consciously choosing and adopting something better. 

"AI" (so-called") and the "wisdom of crowds" delusion - what is the motivation?

Back in the middle noughties I was a New Agey atheist; keen on modernity, globalization, economic growth, democracy - a sort of libertarian; and saw many applications of evolutionary theory (complex systems theory) to human life... that kind of person.

(See, for instance, this - written at the time; which tried to provide a coherent underlying mechanism for WoC phenomena; derived from complex systems theory.) 

And I was much taken by the general idea of the "wisdom of crowds" (WoC) that was prevalent at the time and much discussed (and advocated) on the blogosphere. 

This argued (and purported to prove inductively, by empirical examples) the generalizable principle that there was a collective wisdom that transcended the individual's knowledge, ability - and judgment. 

To a considerable extent, the WoC theory was merely making explicit, our civilization's existing implicit faith in the authority of groups, committees, voting, mass opinion... 

What I then had was a progressivist expectation that things will spontaneously tend to sort-themselves-out (if left to themselves, and not interfered-with by individual humans or interest groups)... 

That human affairs are actually much better than commonly acknowledged; and are naturally trended on an upward and positive trajectory.

In contrast, was the true recognition that individual humans would often be dominated by short-termism and selfishness, were lazy, could easily be misled, and in general nearly always were misguided in their aims and actions... 

Where I strayed from reality was in sharing the common hopeful delusion that - by contrast - the mass of people, the "system" of people and technologies; had an organic tendency towards self-optimization, self-preservation and improvement.

In sum, I believed (and wanted it to be true) that "crowds" reliably exhibited an innate wisdom and virtue which was absent from to individuals.  

Such views are actually much more prevalent and dominant than most people would admit - indeed, however vehemently denied when made explicit - they are almost universal. 

For instance, almost everybody implicitly believes - and acts on this belief - that a committee, a vote, is more authoritative than an individual human; that elections are the only morally valid way of choosing a government; that consensus is superior to personal judgment; that (proper) processes and procedures are the best way of conducting important functions such as government, the law, medicine, science, mass media... And so forth. 

In sum; there is in Western Civilization an extremely strong and widespread aversion-to and prejudice-against individual persons; and instead a solid faith in the groupish, systemic, and abstract*. 

What this amounts to is a metaphysical assumption concerning the nature of reality. 

People have a solid faith-in and commitment-to the group (no matter how vaguely defined) and (some kind of) process - as intrinsically superior to any and all individuals.  

I say "people" and I mean... nearly everybody, if you dig down and are honest about what you find. 

In ancient societies this belief was unconscious and immersive; in modern societies it is conscious - but mediated-by (embedded-in) ideologies and religions. 

The problem is that we are, each and individually, trapped and disempowered by such assumptions - and at the level of thinking.

(ie. Before any question of action can arise we are already blocked by our thinking.) 

We feel (deeply) that we personally cannot and should not think any thing; unless and until the after relevant group has endorsed it. 

But in a totalitarian world inhabited by people who just-are cut-off spiritually from any group, and self-aware to an unprecedented degree; such an assumption is a prison: a thought prison. 

It is, in effect, a demand that we ourselves must and ought-to inhabit a societal prison; and all our hopes then become fixed upon that prison becoming as kind and efficient as possible; perhaps (the common "therapeutic" value-stance) functioning more like a hospital than a prison... 

But (we believe, because of our assumptions) it is a thought prison society that inevitably must and shall remain.   

+++

How does this related to so-called "AI"?

I think it helps understand the otherwise extraordinary degree of optimism, and indeed existential hope; that so many people place in these new technologies: technologies which operate by rapidly and simply "pooling" and processing vast quantities of anonymous data under the ruling (but implicit) assumption that this is superior to any individual.

"AI", in other words, is a variant of the "wisdom of crowds" assumption: 

AI = WoC on steroids. 

"AI" seems - to such people with such "wisdom of crowds" assumptions - to offer a permanent way out from the inevitable evil and partiality of individuals - a way forward towards a world of universal knowledge, ability and objective virtue. 

My point here is that - to my judgment anyway - the actual nature of what happens with "AI" systems is - by its nature - obviously not knowledgeable, not competent, and cannot-be wise. 

The same applies to the (various) systems of democracy, the processes of bureaucracy, the work of voting committees... 

Once you become aware of, and explicitly consider, what actually happens inside these "black boxes" then it is obvious that they cannot be good. 

For exactly analogous reasons; "AI" cannot be good. 

But people have the metaphysical assumptions they have, these are often buried deep, and typically regarded as facts. 

Most people evidently do not want to become aware of their fundamental convictions; nor to acknowledge that they are indeed assumptions - therefore not the consequence of evidence and logic. 

Yet it is these assumptions concerning what is effective, true and good; that lead to the absurd conviction and hope that "AI" is wise, competent, and will be beneficial overall and in the long term. 

Until these ridiculous, but pervasive, "wisdom of crowds" assumptions are exposed and acknowledged**; then many or most people will remain spiritually help-less and resistant to help; emotionally and intellectually in thrall to those who designed, created, implemented, and administer the "AI" systems.  

+++

* Another version of this - although rare nowadays, especially in practice, is faith in the truth and rightness of "tradition" - belief in "the wisdom of the crowds of the past", perhaps. But due to modern self-awareness, it has become impossible to establish unambiguously what is tradition. Tradition itself becomes contested; and then the problem reverts to the modern one of who-or-what entity has the authority to declare what is the real and true tradition. That tradition is a variant of the wisdom of crowds delusion; is evident in the way that so many self-identified traditionalists have embraced and become advocates of "AI". They apparently believe (or hope) that "AI" (properly designed and used...) will become a (generally-accessible and easily-usable) supreme source and repository of the wisdom of the past.

** It was, I think, the fact that I had exposed and made explicit my own atheist, modernizing, groupist, progressivist etc assumptions; that ultimately led to my recognizing their arbitrary incoherence and inadequacy - then abandoning them, and consciously choosing and adopting something better. 

"Froth on the surface of life": Our civilization's paralysis by Metaphysical Dissonance

Metaphysical Dissonance is what we experience when our superficial and everyday motivations are contradicted by our metaphysical convictions. 

In other words; when our everyday, on-the-surface specific attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours; are contradicted by our basic understanding of the nature of reality. 

Metaphysical Dissonance is the normal and almost universal state of nearly-everybody in the West today - including the religious, including the Christian. 

It is maybe the single deepest cause of of our civilizational paralysis, of our mass demotivation (hence mass cowardice). Metaphysical Dissonance explains our chronic inability to do anything positive and helpful about the many potentially lethal attitudes and behaviours that beset us. 

Our primary motivation in life comes from our metaphysical convictions - and ultimately everything else is merely froth on the surface. 

Therefore, when metaphysical convictions fail to provide a primary motivation - then we are left with nothing-but froth on the surface... 

Our behaviour becomes merely a froth blown about by the winds of culture and society. We have become the most easily-manipulated society in history - because our everyday attitudes, thoughts, actions are severed from fundamental roots.

Indeed, it is the officially endorsed and taught conviction that there are no fundamental roots. 

It is officially articulated that the ultimate reality began as a dead universe of physical matter, to which life and consciousness were later added by abstract processes, forces, laws. 

The ultimate reality is that we and everything-else is made of dead-stuff; the past just happened to happen the way it did by the operation of causes and chance; and there is no underlying direction, no deep purpose, no meaning, to things-in-general.

And this metaphysics is a matter of conviction - it is not treated as a theory or an assumption, but as a fact; and as such it is the underlying structure of human existence whatever religion is put on top of it: In effect, religion is just aspect of the froth on the surface of life. 

Our cultural paralysis is a consequence of Metaphysical Dissonance; because our underlying metaphysical convictions can have no relation to our surface "beliefs" about values, ethics, virtue, truth, beauty. 

The passions and despairs of everyday life amount just to froth, because they are unrooted, unintegrated, and motivate only feebly and briefly - the oceanic tide of existence is towards dissolution of meaning, paralysis of thought and action. 

And the passivity of despair is alleviated by sporadic frenzies of hedonism, self-gratification, and self-assertion. 

All this derives from the self-contradictions inherent in trying to build a purposive, meaningful, motivated life; upon foundations that deny the reality of such a life.  

Because the consequences of Dissonance are so bad, and seem in-practice unavoidable; there is therefore - I believe - an absolute necessity for each of us to strive to attain Metaphysical Coherence.

In other words we need to build our surface attitudes, thoughts, behaviours upon foundations that are coherent with them - the foundations and and the superstructure need to be mutually consistent. 

Instead of (as at present) being At War; our convictions need to be mutually supportive.  

For Metaphysical Coherence to be possible and effective in supporting our everyday discernments and aspirations; requires that we personally are able to perform this integration between depth and surface. 

This means that our metaphysical convictions must be:

1. Genuinely understood. 

Beliefs cannot be mystical, nor can they be forms of words, nor taken on trust from external authority - we each must personally understand, grasp the meaning of, our fundamental convictions - in order that we can work-with them. 

2. Regarded as really-real.

Our metaphysical convictions need to be such that we regard them as reality - else they will lack power to shape and motivate our lives. 

We see this at present in that people regard the "physics" description of things as deep reality; and we observe that the nihilism (purposelessness, meaninglessness, indifference to the individual person...) of such conviction subverts, weakens, and negates any amount of religious "beliefs".

3. Genuinely endorsed.

So far it seems we must genuinely understand our metaphysical beliefs, and need to regard them as descriptive of reality; and on top of these we must endorse them: we need to desire that they be fulfilled. 

 

The basis for Metaphysical Coherence is therefore to insist upon a full understanding and grasp of fundamental assumptions that we personally regard as real and desirable. 

It may sound as if this is impossible, but we were all incarnated and born with innate but unconscious metaphysical assumptions concerning life.

I personally believe that these innate assumptions are God-given, because needed for anyone to live life as God intends. 

Therefore, the process of achieving Metaphysical Coherence is mostly a matter of becoming-conscious-of, evaluating, and then choosing to endorse; that which already exists within each person...

(Although, in practice, such recovery may need to be achieved by conscious intellectual effort; by searching, analysis, learning from experiences etc; in other words a Spiritual Quest - whose results need to be checked and confirmed by intuition, meditation, prayer and the like.) 

Hawkbit update!

For all you Hawkbit fans, I have an important update...

I took a slight diversion to walk through the 30-40 acre urban field (Little Moor) that forms the densest Hawkbit concentration hereabouts; when I discovered that most of the bright yellow flowers I reported just a fortnight ago; have turned into mini- dandelion-clock-style seed heads (each a little less than half the diameter of a dandelion-clock). 

So, it turns out that not just the flower but the seed-heads resemble their cousins who were thriving about three months ago. It is the smaller size and solid (rather than hollow and white-sappy) stalk of the Hawkbit that seems to provide the simplest differentiation. 

One God or many?

We posit one God because we need to explain the cohesion of reality - why things hang-together and don't fly apart; why there are values; why there is is structure, coordination, predictability etc. 

We posit many gods because we need to explain free-will/ agency, evil, love, creativity, the possibility of change and newness. 

The main religions and philosophies do a very bad job of covering both these requirements, of explaining how we can actually have "all the above".

Either they pick one, or many, God/s and ignore the need for the other...

Or else they "explain" how things work with language of such abstraction and complexity that it does not count as an explanation....

Or they try to stun and deter people from questioning by spouting mystical paradoxes. 

The result? Look around... Nihilism. 

People have no coherent and comprehensible explanation for why and how things are; so they have just given-up on understanding; and instead focus on getting-through each hour/ day/ year - with the maximum of pleasant and minimum of unpleasant experiences.

So; if you want to do better, you won't get off-the-peg help from religions or culture - nobody that you would trust can tell you a valid answer. 

You will have to do it for yourself.