The Rational Proof of God's Existence

[Poi E]

Damn his words still resonate so well.

 

[phildwyer]

"Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."

I thank you. This thread would have gone a good deal more quickly if everyone was as well read as you. But maybe its just as well they're not: educating the ignorant, infuriating the half-wits and baffling the buffoons is half the fun.

 

[Loki]

I love it! I'd love to include this whole thread as an appendix, but I don't think I'm allowed to

All my words are under strict copyright and you'll be hearing from my solicitors, Messrs Sue Grabbit and Runne if a single word is reproduced.

 

[Fruitloop]

But Butchers is basically right--I'd only qualify this by saying that "fictitious capital" is actually a misnomer. *All* capital, *all* financial value, is fictitious.

If all capital is fictitious then this undermines the capital/fictitious capital distinction that butchers is alluding to. You can't have it both ways.

 

[phildwyer]

If all capital is fictitious then this undermines the capital/fictitious capital distinction that butchers is alluding to. You can't have it both ways.

Fictitious capital is *openly* fictitious; earlier forms of capital are *covertly* fictitious. Capital gradually reveals its true nature in the course of its history.

 

[phildwyer]

All my words are under strict copyright and you'll be hearing from my solicitors, Messrs Sue Grabbit and Runne if a single word is reproduced.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. This is true of everything on this site, right?

 

[Fruitloop]

Fictitious capital is *openly* fictitious; earlier forms of capital are *covertly* fictitious. Capital gradually reveals its true nature in the course of its history.

Fictitious capital is the proportion of capital which cannot be simultaneously converted into existing use-values. For all capital to be fictitious it would imply that no capital could be exchanged for use-values, which is manifestly not the case.

 

[nino_savatte]

Fictitious capital is the proportion of capital which cannot be simultaneously converted into existing use-values. For all capital to be fictitious it would imply that no capital could be exchanged for use-values, which is manifestly not the case.

Exactly. Well, phil?

 

[Loki]

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. This is true of everything on this site, right?

I really don't give a flying fart if you quote me But you may want to PM editor if there are any copyright issues. Alternatively laptop

 

[Crispy]

http://www.urban75.org/info/copyright.html

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In the past, large chunks of the site have been used by newspapers without permission. In future, we will use our rights to protect urban75 content from commercial exploitation without permission and we encourage posters to use theirs.

Briefly:

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Looks like the book'll have to be a bit slimmer...

 

[Wee Beastie]

Yep, just ignore all that horrible "logic" nonsense and maybe it'll just go away.

When it comes to God (whatever God is) logic surely is nonsense.

 

[phildwyer]

Fictitious capital is the proportion of capital which cannot be simultaneously converted into existing use-values. For all capital to be fictitious it would imply that no capital could be exchanged for use-values, which is manifestly not the case.

Good, now we're coming up against the very tricky notion of "reality" when dealing with things like value or spirits. Once again, let me remind you that I am arguing that "value" and "spirit" are ontologically *identical,* and that to believe in the first is also to believe in the second. Having established this point, we will move on to consider what *kind* of spirit value is. So, is financial value "real?" Certainly not in the sense that it is physical: no-one can touch, taste, smell it and so on. It can, however, be represented in physical form, but as we have already shown, that form bears no relation to its true essence, and in fact *disguises* it. If we think that value *is* gold, or bank-notes, we are distracted from the fact that it is ourselves in alien form.

Now, as Fruitloop says here, value can be *exchanged* for real things. Does this mean that it is itself real? It certainly means that value is *efficacious,* that it has real effects, and that these effects are independent of any human actors. Value is an autonomous power, which has many characteristics of a living thing, including the power to *reproduce.* It cannot be said to exist only "in the mind." But does this make it "real?" Or have we now reached the boundaries of petty materialism, where the simplistic opposition between "real" and "unreal" will serve us no further? Do we not need here a new category--"hyper-real" is the one favoured by postmodernists, though not by me--in order to comprehend what financial value is?

I will pause here to finish last night's pizza. I may be some time, so just chat among yourselves if you like.

 

[phildwyer]

I really don't give a flying fart if you quote me But you may want to PM editor if there are any copyright issues. Alternatively laptop

Nah, much as I'd like to, the book's already 20,000 words too long. The days of such authorial indulgences are long gone, I fear.

 

[Fruitloop]

Now, as Fruitloop says here, value can be *exchanged* for real things.

No he doesn't. He says money can be exchanged for goods.

So, is financial value "real?" Certainly not in the sense that it is physical: no-one can touch, taste, smell it and so on. It can, however, be represented in physical form, but as we have already shown, that form bears no relation to its true essence, and in fact *disguises* it.

The same could still be said of length or colour.

It certainly means that value is *efficacious,* that it has real effects, and that these effects are independent of any human actors.

Value couldn't conceivably have any effect in the absence of human actors.

 

[Loki]

Nah, much as I'd like to, the book's already 20,000 words too long. The days of such authorial indulgences are long gone, I fear.

So you won't be quoting me? But I had so much to say

 

[sleaterkinney]

It just seems to me like you've found some things that financial value and god have in common then extrapolated that to mean that god is financial value, it might be a good subject for a philosophy essay, but as for proof, you have to come up with something stronger than that....

I have one question, aplogies if it's been asked already. Financial value doesn't exist outside Human thought, does that mean that God doesn't either?

 

[phildwyer]

It just seems to me like you've found some things that financial value and god have in common then extrapolated that to mean that god is financial value, it might be a good subject for a philosophy essay, but as for proof, you have to come up with something stronger than that....

I have one question, aplogies if it's been asked already. Financial value doesn't exist outside Human thought, does that mean that God doesn't either?

I'm *not* comparing financial value to God, I'm comparing it to *Satan.* I am going to argue that both of them exist "outside human thought" as you put it. The proof (and it *is* a proof) of God's existence will arise out of the relation between God and Satan. But that is still a few steps down the road.

 

[nino_savatte]

This gets even funnier. Keep it up phil.

 

[118118]

Certainly not in the sense that it is physical: no-one can touch, taste, smell it and so on.

I am making the same point every single day.
1. No-one can touch taste smell atoms but they are considered physical, explicable by the laws of physics.
2. And I don't see reason or argument that on virtue of being an alienation or a representation, alienated labor power would necesarily not be physical.
Are these questions just incoherant nonsense?

 

[phildwyer]

I am making the same point every single day.
1. No-one can touch taste smell atoms but they are considered physical, explicable by the laws of physics.
2. And I don't see reason or argument that on virtue of being an alienation or a representation, alienated labor power would necesarily not be physical.
Are these questions just incoherant nonsense?

No, sorry, they're good questions, I was distracted (again) by the babblings of the Babylonians. Atoms aren't physical. They are ideas. They are not accessible to the senses, they are perceptible only to the reason. Alienated labour-power can take physical *form,* which is one of the things that differentiates it from a mere "idea," but it is not itself physical. Does that help?

 

[phildwyer]

This gets even funnier. Keep it up phil.

Stop stalking me Nino. No-one wants you here, and there is no place for you on this thread. For a while you provided light relief and your presence was just about tolerable, but you have now outlived your usefulness here. I suggest that you mooch off to another corner of the boards, where you can sit and grumble to yourself without annoying others too much. Here you are merely a pest. As you say yourself, you're only hoping that, somehow, you will be able to prevent God's existence being proven, and it seems that you are willing to go to any lenghts to achieve your aim. I can tell you right now that you will certainly fail. This matter is too vital to allow your buffoonery to get in the way. I am sorry, but you must leave now. Goodbye.

 

[Crispy]

No, sorry, they're good questions, I was distracted (again) by the babblings of the Babylonians. Atoms aren't physical. They are ideas. They are not accessible to the senses, they are perceptible only to the reason. Alienated labour-power can take physical *form,* which is one of the things that differentiates it from a mere "idea," but it is not itself physical. Does that help?

I once saw gigantic pinwheels of neon colour race across the sky in a synchronised dance. With My Own Eyes. However, the scientist beside me saw nothing through his telescope.

Another time, I accidentaly got lithium (the metallic element) in my eye and it stung like fuck. The scientist in the room with me explained how the arrangement of electrons in lithium and water caused them to react violently.

So what is real here? I hope there's not a sliding scale - that would make things very messy.

I'm still not seeing any evidence that financial value is anything but a product of human activity, by the way. Sure, it dilutes and muddies intention, but without human intent it would cease to exist. Calling such a thing independant (which you are, right?) is a pretty big mistake to make right at the beginning.

(C) Crispy 2005

 

[Jo/Joe]

Atoms are hardly just ideas are they?

And value, even if it is alienated labour, is still a product of the human mind, an estimation of worth made by the individual.

 

[118118]

One of your reasons for assuming that fv is a spirit was that it has real effects. Atoms (as ideas or physical things) explain an awful lot of events, does this not imply that they have real effects?

 

[axon]

Atoms aren't physical. They are ideas. They are not accessible to the senses, they are perceptible only to the reason.

So, in the same way, if an object is beyond my senses it isn't physical? I'm thinking of a blind man watching TV. He can hear the sound of the TV but one has only to mute the TV and the TV has ceased to be physical !

 

[angry bob]

So, in the same way, if an object is beyond my senses it isn't physical? I'm thinking of a blind man watching TV. He can hear the sound of the TV but one has only to mute the TV and the TV has ceased to be physical !

If he can't touch it either then for him, the tv is not physical.

 

[axon]

For the blind man the TV is not physical, but this is different to proclaiming that the TV in itself is not physical.
Enter someone who isn't blind into the room and the TV suddenly becomes physical again. The TV is undergoing all these transformations between physical and not physical without anything actually happening to it.

 

[angry bob]

For the blind man the TV is not physical, but this is different to proclaiming that the TV in itself is not physical.
Enter someone who isn't blind into the room and the TV suddenly becomes physical again. The TV is undergoing all these transformations between physical and not physical without anything actually happening to it.

Right ... but the original point was that an atom isn't physical because no one can sense it.

So for your analogy of the tv ... everyone must be blind with no sense of touch for the tv to not be physical.

 

[Jo/Joe]

The bahaviour of atoms can be sensed though. If you saw animal tracks in the snow you wouldn't say nothing physically existed to create them.

 

[angry bob]

The bahaviour of atoms can be sensed though. If you saw animal tracks in the snow you wouldn't say nothing physically existed to create them.

Quite so.

But could you say, with absolute certainty (i.e. could you prove), that they were made by an antelope (or whatever) and not some guy with a set of cardboard cut out paws and a weird sense of humour?