god an anti concept?

[QuidProQuo]

Just going through ITOE and noting the importance of similarity in terms of CCD. This aspect is strikingly necessary to developing a concept. 

When thinking about how a person could develop the concept of "god" it does not seem like this could ever be formed because the would be no way to place god on a CCD since there is no similarity or commensurable characteristic. Since concepts can't be formed randomly and similarity is a vital aspect of the formation, wouldn't this preclude god as a valid concept?

 

 

[Boydstun]

Welcome to Objectivism Online, QpQ!

What about limit concepts such as a frictionless plane? The common denominator is friction of physical plane surfaces, but they come in different degrees of friction, which we can imagine extending on down to zero, and that could be useful in our thinking. Although, we would not ascribe concrete existence to such a plane surface.

Similarly, one might predicate of the concept God the feature of being all-knowing. That feature could be a limit concept having common denominator with how much the deer know, how much I know, how much people a century from now will know, and on up to being all knowing. Offhand, I don't see "a being who is all-knowing" as failing to have a CCD, which would be degree of knowing. Of course, it would be a further step, one needing argument, to proclaim the existence of such a conceived being. Additionally, there might be thermodynamical and information-theoretic reasons and limitative theorems of logic (I'd have to research it) that might bear against the validity of the concept all-knowing.

[DavidOdden]

If you are a Hindu, there is a CCD for god (देव). If you are a Muslim or follower of the other monotheistic religions, you are in a difficult epistemological position because your faith is grounded in a polytheistic context, and one of your essential beliefs is that these other faiths are false (I don’t actually understand how Jews, Muslims and Christians understand their god compared to the other guys’ version of god).

You may be aware that the Christian God’s actual name is Howard. Christians don’t form such a concept, not do they form a concept Barak Obama. Proper names are not concepts, they are the labels for individuals. Howard⛪  is similarly a proper name referring to a unique individual. If you want to understand the CCD for “god”, you shuld study a polytheistic religion, so learn about the concept देव and now Brahman, Indra, Śiva, Viṣṇu, Ganeśa etc are unified into one concept. (Warning: Hinduism was long ago infected by a low-grade case of monotheism, the result being that classical polytheistic Hinduism may be on its last legs).

I think the problem is that you are not properly distinguishing “multiple instances” from “irreality”. Unicorns do not exist, yet there is clearly a concept “unicorn” (likewise “gremlin”). It’s not there is no CCD for “god”, it’s that there is no actual referent. For an under-educated Christian who believes in Howard⛪, "God" is indeed not a concept, it is a proper name.

[Doug Morris]

14 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Additionally, there might be thermodynamical and information-theoretic reasons and limitative theorems of logic (I'd have to research it) that might bear against the validity of the concept all-knowing.

How about the argument that knowledge is gained by a process, and no one can process everything?

 

[tadmjones]

I think his statement subsumes the process argument re thermodynamical and information-theoretic reasons.

As concept it seems 'all-knowing' would be akin to 'unicorn' , eg the concept is valid as its referent is 'knowingly' not really real.

I don't know anything about limitative theorems of logic , but intuitively it may point to the idea that a theorem or other could posit that a complete set of 'all the facts in existence ' could not be determined to be logically consistent in 'itself' based on some rational that determination of logical consistency requires some interaction with null sets and or the possibilities of unknown unknowns.

I think there is also a need to distinguish between information and knowledge.

It may be tangentially related that one of the ways 'they got' the chatbots to 'produce' more intelligible responses was to tweak 'up' the randomness of the relevance weights(?) , not sure what they did algorithmically/software wise but there seems to be a sweet spot for randomness at least for the results to appear more 'inline' with natural language comprehension.

Edited September 17, 2023 by tadmjones

[QuidProQuo]

21 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

If you are a Hindu, there is a CCD for god (देव). If you are a Muslim or follower of the other monotheistic religions, you are in a difficult epistemological position because your faith is grounded in a polytheistic context, and one of your essential beliefs is that these other faiths are false (I don’t actually understand how Jews, Muslims and Christians understand their god compared to the other guys’ version of god).

You may be aware that the Christian God’s actual name is Howard. Christians don’t form such a concept, not do they form a concept Barak Obama. Proper names are not concepts, they are the labels for individuals. Howard⛪  is similarly a proper name referring to a unique individual. If you want to understand the CCD for “god”, you shuld study a polytheistic religion, so learn about the concept देव and now Brahman, Indra, Śiva, Viṣṇu, Ganeśa etc are unified into one concept. (Warning: Hinduism was long ago infected by a low-grade case of monotheism, the result being that classical polytheistic Hinduism may be on its last legs).

I think the problem is that you are not properly distinguishing “multiple instances” from “irreality”. Unicorns do not exist, yet there is clearly a concept “unicorn” (likewise “gremlin”). It’s not there is no CCD for “god”, it’s that there is no actual referent. For an under-educated Christian who believes in Howard⛪, "God" is indeed not a concept, it is a proper name.

Is that the ole "Howard be they name..." ? 🙂

I am specifically referring to the christian idea of god, which would be a supernatural being with no other equal either in nature or in status. 

Since there is no referent wouldn't it follow then that there would be no way to create a CCD to develop a concept. I think Ayn Rand would call this an anti concept right?

[QuidProQuo]

 

 

On 9/16/2023 at 10:28 PM, Boydstun said:

Similarly, one might predicate of the concept God the feature of being all-knowing. That feature could be a limit concept having common denominator with how much the deer know, how much I know, how much people a century from now will know, and on up to being all knowing.

But, that wouldn't get one to a supernatural being. That would only get one to the concept of omniscience.

 

[Boydstun]

21 minutes ago, QuidProQuo said:

But, that wouldn't get one to a supernatural being. That would only get one to the concept of omniscience.

Correct. Only an entertained concept and not any existential instantiation of it.

[DavidOdden]

My main point is that “God”, in the Christian sense, is not a concept, it is a proper name, like Barak Obama. Proper names don’t have CCDs. However, “unicorn” is a concept, and it has a CCD, even though there are no actual unicorns which you can touch. Mathematical concepts are all completely abstract and untouchable, but they are concepts. If we talk of “god” in the anthropological sense, i.e. supernatural personified beings across cultures as we might discuss in an Anthro class, then there would be a CCD, even though the term refers to an idea and not a tangible entity. “God” and “god” are both labels for existents, but they are not entities.

[Boydstun]

 

Proper Names in Early Word Learning

[Eiuol]

An anti-concept is specifically one that by its very nature obliterates another concept. That's not what the idea of God is meant to accomplish. All anti-concepts are invalid, but not all invalid concepts are anti-concepts.

God is basically a proper noun, because the Christian idea of God is that God is a being. But like with any being that is supernatural, it's about what reason you have to say that it exists. The issue is that God is arbitrary, not that it's a broken concept or something like that.

[Boydstun]

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

An anti-concept is specifically one that by its very nature obliterates another concept. That's not what the idea of God is meant to accomplish. All anti-concepts are invalid, but not all invalid concepts are anti-concepts.

God is basically a proper noun, because the Christian idea of God is that God is a being. But like with any being that is supernatural, it's about what reason you have to say that it exists. The issue is that God is arbitrary, not that it's a broken concept or something like that.

Eiuol, do you mean claim of the existence of God is arbitrary or that coming up with the idea of such a thing is arbitrary or both? I think you mean the first. Although, I'm pretty sure that a Scholastic philosopher, say, who thinks they have a good proof for the existence of such a being and its principal characteristics like and unlike ours doesn't think anything at all is arbitrary about it. My first philosophy professor, as you know, was a Thomist. He began his proof for the existence of (and some character of) God by holding up his hand and having us observe him crooking his little finger. He would then trace back causes from that alteration, invoking various philosophical concepts and propositions along the way, and though I did not know of any an the class who were persuaded by the elaborate argument, I doubt the professor could see anything wrong at any step of the argument, and surely not anything arbitrary. 

Eiuol, we can go further. ". . . idea of God is that God is a somewhat human-like being, a personage." Rather than this God making humans in his image, as the Genesis account had it, Rand had it (in AS) that humans made up God in their image. I think she is right. Believers refer to it as a him, indeed as a father or a son. For a great many, it is a constant human-like companion, just like say an absent loved one present in all one's moments of consciousness. Popular songs say "God is watching us"* as a person-like intelligence and "he walks with me and he talks with me and tells me I am his own."* Much human.

We do not capitalize God out of reverence or out of respect for someone else's reverence. We capitalize it in general secular culture as a proper noun, as David has mentioned. From the Chicago Manuel of Style: 

"Like all proper nouns the names of the one supreme God (as Allah, El, God, Jehovah, Yahweh) as well as the names of other deities (Astarte, Dagon, Diana, Pan, Shiva) are capitalized.

"The one God. Other references to deity as the one supreme God, including references to the persons of the Christian Trinity, are capitalized. . . ."  

[DavidOdden]

16 hours ago, Eiuol said:

An anti-concept is specifically one that by its very nature obliterates another concept. That's not what the idea of God is meant to accomplish.

We can even say that the associated existential proposition – that God (who has certain properties) exists – is an “anti-proposition”, the affirmation of a contradiction and the denial of logic. Although the idea of God was intended to account for things that actually exist, the ultimate product of that thinking is indeed the obliteration of reason.