Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

The Rational Proof of God's Existence

Status
Not open for further replies.
phildwyer said:
Now I must take exception to this, Panda. I've never claimed that any of the ideas I discuss on this thread are my own. But the point of this thread is to prove God's existence *without* just referring to authorities. I even debated whether or not to respond to Slaar's reference above on these grounds: eventually I decided to cut him some slack, but it would have been better if he'd tried to prove neoclassical value theory in his own words.

Anyway, the source for the argument that the Levellers were the first political party is, of course, Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down.

More generally, I must say that I've been amused at the incredulity expressed by Gurrier and other self-proclaimed Leftists with regard to the ideas I've discussed here. As some have been smart enough to notice, these ideas are hardly new, and large parts of my proof so far have been little more than a summary of the first chapter of Capital. That most basic principle of socialism, the Labour Theory of Value, has been greeted with hoots of derision by several people who describe themselves as socialists. We can only conclude that Gurrier and others have simply never read the basic texts of their movements. No surprises there, I know, but it rare that they reveal their ignorance so publically.
Click to expand...


No, but it isn't as though you cite any sources. You leave most of those reading this thread thinking that these words and ideas are your own when, in fact, they are not.
 
nino_savatte said:
No, but it isn't as though you cite any sources. You leave most of those reading this thread thinking that these words and ideas are your own when, in fact, they are not.
Click to expand...

Nino, I started this thread because I got fed up with people--you among them--complaining when I cited sources to back up difficult ideas, instead of doing it myself. Actually, I do take credit for arranging the ideas in the way I have here, and for drawing out some original conclusions from them, but only a complete ignoramus would have failed to notice that I am using Marx, Simmel, Lukacs and Kant, among others. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ignorami about.
 
phildwyer said:
Nino, I started this thread because I got fed up with people--you among them--complaining when I cited sources to back up difficult ideas, instead of doing it myself. Actually, I do take credit for arranging the ideas in the way I have here, and for drawing out some original conclusions from them, but only a complete ignoramus would have failed to notice that I am using Marx, Simmel, Lukacs and Kant, among others. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ignorami about.
Click to expand...

You're still playing games phil. It is only you who seems to think that you aren't. But then you are somewhat deluded, aren't you? Not only are you deluded but you are a terrible liar.

Your ego is so large it deserves a congressman of its own (you said you lived in the States - right?).
 
phildwyer said:
Nino, I started this thread because I got fed up with people--you among them--complaining when I cited sources to back up difficult ideas, instead of doing it myself. Actually, I do take credit for arranging the ideas in the way I have here, and for drawing out some original conclusions from them, but only a complete ignoramus would have failed to notice that I am using Marx, Simmel, Lukacs and Kant, among others. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ignorami about.
Click to expand...

Am i one of the ignorami, and if so perhaps you would like to tell me where my interpretation of Marx and Lukacs are flawed?
 
Phil...what's the SP?

I don't need proof I need answers.

(and did you know if you highlight a word an click the tilting I above it can save on the *s )

ATBUTC
 
phildwyer said:
Now I must take exception to this, Panda. I've never claimed that any of the ideas I discuss on this thread are my own. But the point of this thread is to prove God's existence *without* just referring to authorities.
Click to expand...

No-one is asking you to make your argument through "just referring to authorities", but if you're attempting to present what you believe is an educated discourse on your particular subject it is usual practice to at least passingly reference source(s) with a "...argued that..." or the like. You construct and place your argument through deploying references that your readers can "bounce" off of (unless you're French, of course), thus giving your readership "signposts" from which to ascertain your position, and thence be able to more accurately rebut your points. What you've done is to mostly eschew references, and so we've had people constantly having to ask you whether you're referencing a particular point before the argument can proceed.

It''s about academic courtesy as much as anything (unless, of course, you are actually aiming at the pretentious/abstruse market).
 
phildwyer said:
Well Gurrier, this suprises me more than somewhat. Most Lefties, and all Marxists, accept the Labour Theory of Value. I take it you don't?
Click to expand...
I was smirking at your claim to have proven that the LTV is 'true'.

There are two main reasons why the claim was worth a smirk.

Firstly you did no such thing. You bastardised a bit of Marx and others and tacked on a few 'spirits' of your own. You presented no evidence, merely regurgitated simplified versions of a few theories with a few extra completely unsubstantiated assertions of your own. You were completely incapable of defending any of your assertions when they were challenged (eg the uniquely human ability to 'conceptualise' - which is wrong, the validity of inventing a third category of value 'financial value', the validity of modelling this concept as an autonomous agent - which is also plainly wrong). In short, not only did you fail to 'prove' anything, you were not even capable of presenting any evidence to support any of your unsubstantiated claims.

The second reason for smirking is that you appear to believe it is possible to prove a model to be 'true'. The labour theory of value and neo-classical theory of value are theoretical models of human economies. They are both, as are all models, simplifications of reality. As such they don't even aspire to 'truth' but to 'utility' - they aim to be useful ways of describing our society and this utility is a function firstly of how well they fit the observed facts and secondly on the intent of those who are using them. Thus LTV is fairly useful (but increasingly less so) as a way of looking at human economic life from a socialist point of view and NCTV is useful from the point of view of a manager or capitalist.

I realise that Marx was almost certainly aspiring to truth in his exposition of LTV, but Marx lived in a world where there was an almost universal assumption that things could be analysed in deterministic ways. The idea that you can work out deterministic rules to describe the operation of complex systems has long been abandoned along with the idea that something like LTV can ever be 'true'. Phil, you're living in the 19th century.
 
gurrier said:
I was smirking at your claim to have proven that the LTV is 'true'.

There are two main reasons why the claim was worth a smirk.

Firstly you did no such thing. You bastardised a bit of Marx and others and tacked on a few 'spirits' of your own. You presented no evidence, merely regurgitated simplified versions of a few theories with a few extra completely unsubstantiated assertions of your own. You were completely incapable of defending any of your assertions when they were challenged (eg the uniquely human ability to 'conceptualise' - which is wrong, the validity of inventing a third category of value 'financial value', the validity of modelling this concept as an autonomous agent - which is also plainly wrong). In short, not only did you fail to 'prove' anything, you were not even capable of presenting any evidence to support any of your unsubstantiated claims.

The second reason for smirking is that you appear to believe it is possible to prove a model to be 'true'. The labour theory of value and neo-classical theory of value are theoretical models of human economies. They are both, as are all models, simplifications of reality. As such they don't even aspire to 'truth' but to 'utility' - they aim to be useful ways of describing our society and this utility is a function firstly of how well they fit the observed facts and secondly on the intent of those who are using them. Thus LTV is fairly useful (but increasingly less so) as a way of looking at human economic life from a socialist point of view and NCTV is useful from the point of view of a manager or capitalist.

I realise that Marx was almost certainly aspiring to truth in his exposition of LTV, but Marx lived in a world where there was an almost universal assumption that things could be analysed in deterministic ways. The idea that you can work out deterministic rules to describe the operation of complex systems has long been abandoned along with the idea that something like LTV can ever be 'true'. Phil, you're living in the 19th century.
Click to expand...
Thanks gurrier. The second part of my disproof of the proof of the existence of god was going to revolve around the difference between non-falsifiablity of a model, and 'truth'. You've done it instead.

Now as for that irrational proof...
 
OK it appears proof does exist ...

Christiananswers.net, for example, is currently displaying a series of critiques of the movie. Its helpful categorisation of the film's qualities include: "PROFANITY: None. SEX/NUDITY: Penguins mate during the film, but it is understood, not shown. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: One year in the life of an emperor penguin is a great indication of the existence and character of God."
Click to expand...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article313794.ece
 
gurrier said:
They are both, as are all models, simplifications of reality. As such they don't even aspire to 'truth' but to 'utility' - they aim to be useful ways of describing our society and this utility is a function firstly of how well they fit the observed facts and secondly on the intent of those who are using them.
Click to expand...
According to what i've been taught, good scientific theories have visimilitude: approximate truth, as complete truth is considered too difficult, scientific humility.

The belief that theories need to be falsifiable is just a product of philosophers thus far being unable to justify induction. But we make generalizations from the observed to the unobserved (what happens when we confirm something, and we can still confirm non-falsifiable theories) all the time in real life, and we don't doubt that our theories/conclusions may be true (the phrase all bachelors are not married is un-falsifiable, but is clearly true), or that the inductive stages in our reasoning are rational. So even if when applying LTV we rely on induction, it may be rational to do so, and the products/postualtes may be true.

I don't see why fv should be seen as a spirit though. Llabor is physical, and I see no reason why alienated labor is 'a representation' of labor and thus not made of it.
It seems claer that alienated labor is made of labor and alienated conditions together with certain laws.
 
I've been thinking

Phil is a stone dropped into a well that seems to have no bottom

A well that has no bottom is a miracle

A miracle proves the existence of an omnipotent presence

Therefore Phil is God.


I know all in one post, but what do you think?
 
exosculate said:
I've been thinking

Phil is a stone dropped into a well that seems to have no bottom

A well that has no bottom is a miracle

A miracle proves the existence of an omnipotent presence

Therefore Phil is God.


I know all in one post, but what do you think?
Click to expand...
you could have posted that at the start! :mad:
 
Dubversion said:
he claims to have been to offline.. :confused:
Click to expand...

What do you mean "claims?" Are you casting aspersions on my veracity? Actually, it might have been a PROD. At the Windmill anyway. You can ask the Ed if you feel the need, I said hello to him there. I do live in the States, but I visit Britain 4 or 5 times a year, and I spend a lot of time in Brixton, why are these concepts so hard to grasp?
 
ViolentPanda said:
No-one is asking you to make your argument through "just referring to authorities", but if you're attempting to present what you believe is an educated discourse on your particular subject it is usual practice to at least passingly reference source(s) with a "...argued that..." or the like. You construct and place your argument through deploying references that your readers can "bounce" off of (unless you're French, of course), thus giving your readership "signposts" from which to ascertain your position, and thence be able to more accurately rebut your points. What you've done is to mostly eschew references, and so we've had people constantly having to ask you whether you're referencing a particular point before the argument can proceed.

It''s about academic courtesy as much as anything (unless, of course, you are actually aiming at the pretentious/abstruse market).
Click to expand...

If you'll read my OP, you will see that my reason for starting this separate thread was that, in the anti-Darwinist thread, people had been moaning that I was giving *too many* references, and so shirking my duty to argue my case myself. I thought that was a fair point. But now I face accusations of not citing *enough* references. You can't win, it seems. Alright, I'll try to find a balance from now on. As is well known, the proof of the Labour Theory of Value which I have outlined is based on the first chapter of Capital. The stuff about exchange as the fundmental human characteristic is based on Georg Simmel's The Philosophy of Money. The logos references are based on Derrida. The idea that the form of financial value is duplicated in subjective consciousness is from Georg Lukacs's History and Class-consciousness. My understanding of an "idea" is drawn from Plato, and the notion of "spirit" from Luther. Will that do? Anything else you want? Of course, now we'll probably get bogged down in fruitless squabbles about the writers I've mentioned.
 
gurrier said:
I was smirking at your claim to have proven that the LTV is 'true'.

There are two main reasons why the claim was worth a smirk.

Firstly you did no such thing. You bastardised a bit of Marx and others and tacked on a few 'spirits' of your own. You presented no evidence, merely regurgitated simplified versions of a few theories with a few extra completely unsubstantiated assertions of your own. You were completely incapable of defending any of your assertions when they were challenged (eg the uniquely human ability to 'conceptualise' - which is wrong, the validity of inventing a third category of value 'financial value', the validity of modelling this concept as an autonomous agent - which is also plainly wrong). In short, not only did you fail to 'prove' anything, you were not even capable of presenting any evidence to support any of your unsubstantiated claims.

The second reason for smirking is that you appear to believe it is possible to prove a model to be 'true'. The labour theory of value and neo-classical theory of value are theoretical models of human economies. They are both, as are all models, simplifications of reality. As such they don't even aspire to 'truth' but to 'utility' - they aim to be useful ways of describing our society and this utility is a function firstly of how well they fit the observed facts and secondly on the intent of those who are using them. Thus LTV is fairly useful (but increasingly less so) as a way of looking at human economic life from a socialist point of view and NCTV is useful from the point of view of a manager or capitalist.

I realise that Marx was almost certainly aspiring to truth in his exposition of LTV, but Marx lived in a world where there was an almost universal assumption that things could be analysed in deterministic ways. The idea that you can work out deterministic rules to describe the operation of complex systems has long been abandoned along with the idea that something like LTV can ever be 'true'. Phil, you're living in the 19th century.
Click to expand...

All three of the claims you describe as "wrong" are made by Marx in the first chapter of Capital. Not that this makes them automatically true, of course, which is why I successfully defended each of these claims against all objections, including your own puny efforts. I can easily do so again if necessary. It does not surprise me to learn that you do not believe in truth. The glib pragamtism you spout here is the ideology of a market society, which effaces essence and use-value under the false layer of representation and exchange-value. As I will shortly explain to you. Do you think it is coincidence that pragmatism has become the dominant philosophy in a society based on market exchange? Don't you believe that the history of thought develops in accordance with the economy? And the fact that you believe the LTV is "increasingly less useful" as an analytical tool proves only that you don't understand it. Most probably you still imagine that the LTV suggests value is produced by material production, a confusion that results from your failure to grasp the price/value distinction. I think that you are one still living in the nineteenth century.
 
118118 said:
I don't see why fv should be seen as a spirit though. Llabor is physical, and I see no reason why alienated labor is 'a representation' of labor and thus not made of it.
It seems claer that alienated labor is made of labor and alienated conditions together with certain laws.
Click to expand...

We're not talking about "alienated labour." We're talking about "alienated *labour-power.*" Labour-power refers to the *capacity* to labour for a certain amount of time. It designates a particular portion of the time, which is to say the life, of a human being. Financial value is thus an alienated representation of human life itself. It is the *opposite,* the dialectical antithesis, of human life. The implications of this fact are what will lead me to describe financial value as a "spirit."
 
phildwyer said:
If you'll read my OP, you will see that my reason for starting this separate thread was that, in the anti-Darwinist thread, people had been moaning that I was giving *too many* references, and so shirking my duty to argue my case myself. I thought that was a fair point. But now I face accusations of not citing *enough* references. You can't win, it seems. Alright, I'll try to find a balance from now on.
Click to expand...
If even the deity-forsaken Tony Giddens can find the balance, I'm sure you can.
As is well known, the proof of the Labour Theory of Value which I have outlined is based on the first chapter of Capital. The stuff about exchange as the fundmental human characteristic is based on Georg Simmel's The Philosophy of Money. The logos references are based on Derrida. The idea that the form of financial value is duplicated in subjective consciousness is from Georg Lukacs's History and Class-consciousness. My understanding of an "idea" is drawn from Plato, and the notion of "spirit" from Luther. Will that do? Anything else you want? Of course, now we'll probably get bogged down in fruitless squabbles about the writers I've mentioned.
Click to expand...
Thank you.
As for getting "bogged down", arguing over what a particular author meant by a particular turn of phrase is a wonderful thing, as well as occasionally providing a new "lens" through which to view a theory or concept. It is only "fruitless" when one believes one has nothing more to learn.
 
phildwyer said:
We're not talking about "alienated labour." We're talking about "alienated *labour-power.*" Labour-power refers to the *capacity* to labour for a certain amount of time. It designates a particular portion of the time, which is to say the life, of a human being. Financial value is thus an alienated representation of human life itself. It is the *opposite,* the dialectical antithesis, of human life. The implications of this fact are what will lead me to describe financial value as a "spirit."
Click to expand...
Ok. So human life is not a physical thing? The capacity to work is not physical? And tbh I have no idea what you mean pby 'representation'.
Could not labor power be made of certain conditions of my environment and my physical and mental health. Again physical things.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Gromit
God wanted Trump to be president
Replies
22
Views
1K
petee
petee
Ming
The Random Nature of Existence and How To Emotionally Deal With It.
Replies
14
Views
909
Ming
Ming
W
If god exists, would you worship him?
6 7 8 9 10
Replies
279
Views
13K
mojo pixy
mojo pixy
Gromit
If God exists, how would you worship him?
2 3
Replies
77
Views
4K
articul8
articul8
jcherish
If God created everything, who created God ?
2 3
Replies
64
Views
4K
krink
krink
Back
Top Bottom