Religion III

[hcap]

Originally Posted by boxcar

I would prefer something less esoteric and more practical such as how my wife and I imagined AND coherently conceived the outcome (effect) of our new kitchen in our minds before she even expressed our ideas in computerized drawings, let alone before visiting a professional kitchen designer or having the kitchen project finished, manifesting the end product (effect) in all its glory.

The difficulty with what you suggest is there are many causes and effects involved in remodeling and interior design. To intelligently discuss your experience we must consider a complex mix of factors that exist in the physical world. All the nitty-gritty details..... down in the dirt realities.....in the actual doing you did not mention, and you glossed over.

On the other hand developing a spot play for handicapping is hardly "esoteric" for the majority of the people on this board. in fact the art of kitchen design may be. The advantage of analyzing a spot play.... is it is more direct in terms of a possible clearly defined casual chain that can be tested and verified. Kitchen design includes taste and opinion not so clearly defined in terms of cause and effect.

It is safe ton assume you have more of a background in handicapping, whereas kitchen remodeling you only did once, and from my point of view to be hones, your approach was kinda amateurish. Although I congratulate you for going thru it.

I got heavily into working with architects and interior designers sub contracting all sorts of interior upgrades installing custom furniture, cabinet and counter work. One architect/int/designer I worked with specialized in totally new revolutionary style kitchen cabinets. Did that for years. Helped to introduce solid surface counter tops....such as Corian, Fountainhead, Surell, Avonite and Gibraltar, back in the 80's. But mot my favorite materials to work with. Acrylics were.

Did a lot for Elton John down in Atlanta Ga. Including a custom plexiglass winding handrail and a $100,000 3" thick plexiglass dinning table.

Before we can delve into you and your wife's efforts I will make a few assumptions.

1) You did none of the skilled physical work.(other than some minor "grunt" and shlepping work)
2) You both used your prior knowledge of kitchens
3) You never did this before.

[boxcar]

I have found the passage in Feser's The Last Superstition wherein he addresses the very important distinction between imagination and coherently conceived ideas in intellect. There area few of us here who will understand the distinction and when you do you will also understand why Hcap and Halv have consistently downplayed the prominent role mind plays in coherently and intelligently conceiving desired ends long before those ends (effects) exist in the physical world. But before jumping in, it's prudent that I provide a little context for Feser's argument, which is actually a rebuttal to another lame David Hume idea, otherwise I will be accused of quoting Feser out of context.

To paraphrase, Feser argues, among things in this chapter, that existence and essence are distinct from one another -- the former dealing with a thing that is and the latter entailing what that thing is. All things of our everyday experiences such as people, dogs, cats, trees, flowers, etc. are composites of form and matter, where the form is the essence or nature of the thing, and matter is what has taken on that form, essence or nature.

Feser continues by arguing that there is nothing in form, essence or nature per se that guarantees a thing's existence. Form or essence, therefore, is only "potential" with regards to existence or being. Existence or being is what "actualizes" a form or essence.

Since essence and existence are distinct in this way, there is nothing in the former that entails the latter. And since this is the case, this means something is needed to put the two together. That thing, obviously, cannot be itself, for to give itself existence it must first exist, which of course is logically absurd. Therefore, whatever comes into existence, or must have existence added to its essence in order for it to be real, must be caused by another -- by something external to itself. And this is precisely the Law of Causality. In other words, what does not have existence intrinsically must have a cause.

Now, David Hume balked at this argument, famously (or better yet, infamously) claiming that we can easily conceive a thing coming into existence without a cause. And this is what the good doctor addresses next, and I'll take that up in my next installment, quoting him verbatim.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

The difficulty with what you suggest is there are many causes and effects involved in remodeling and interior design. To intelligently discuss your experience we must consider a complex mix of factors that exist in the physical world. All the nitty-gritty details..... down in the dirt realities.....in the actual doing you did not mention, and you glossed over.

On the other hand developing a spot play for handicapping is hardly "esoteric" for the majority of the people on this board. in fact the art of kitchen design may be. The advantage of analyzing a spot play.... is it is more direct in terms of a possible clearly defined casual chain that can be tested and verified. Kitchen design includes taste and opinion not so clearly defined in terms of cause and effect.

It is safe ton assume you have more of a background in handicapping, whereas kitchen remodeling you only did once, and from my point of view to be hones, your approach was kinda amateurish. Although I congratulate you for going thru it.

I got heavily into working with architects and interior designers sub contracting all sorts of interior upgrades installing custom furniture, cabinet and counter work. One architect/int/designer I worked with specialized in totally new revolutionary style kitchen cabinets. Did that for years. Helped to introduce solid surface counter tops....such as Corian, Fountainhead, Surell, Avonite and Gibraltar, back in the 80's. But mot my favorite materials to work with. Acrylics were.

Did a lot for Elton John down in Atlanta Ga. Including a custom plexiglass winding handrail and a $100,000 3" thick plexiglass dinning table.

Before we can delve into you and your wife's efforts I will make a few assumptions.

1) You did none of the skilled physical work.(other than some minor "grunt" and shlepping work)
2) You both used your prior knowledge of kitchens
3) You never did this before.

You don't read too swell, do you? My wife and I didn't have to anything you state in your first paragraph, yet subsequent to the designer studying my wife's drawings and drawing to scale in her drafting program our layout, and [b]after she considered all the obstacles and nitty gritty details, she assured us that we will get the desired end that was earlier expressed in my wife's computerized renderings. And I stated carefully what our expectations were! The effect we wanted from the outset was a brighter environment, with contrasting cabinetry finish and granite color, more workspace (counter top space) and storage space. A whole lot of "nitty gritty, nuts and bolts details in that desired outcome, right?

[boxcar]

Okay...so let's pick up with Feser's refutation of Hume's attack on the Law of Causality.

Now Hume famously attacks this principle, claiming that we can easily "conceive" a thing coming into being without a cause so that the principle is at the very least doubtful. What he has in mind is something like this. Imagine a surface of a table with nothing on it. Now, imagine a bowling ball suddenly appearing- pop! - in the middle of it, out of nowhere, as it were. There, you have just conceived of something coming into being without a cause, right?

Well, no, actually. It really is amazing that this argument has gotten the acclaim and attention it has over the centuries, given how very feeble it is. One problem is that it assumes quite falsely that to imagine something -- to form a certain mental image - is the same as to conceive it, in the sense of forming a coherent intellectual idea of it. But imagining something and conceiving it in the intellect aren't the same thing. You can form no clear mental image of a chiliagon - a thousand-sided figure -- certainly not one that is all distinct from your image of a 997-sided figure or a 1002-sided figure. Still, your intellect can easily grasp the concept of a chiliagon. You can form no mental image of a triangle that is not equilateral, isosceles or scalene. But the concept of triangularity that exists in your intellect , which abstracts away from these features of concrete triangles, applies equally to all of them. And so forth. Like many empiricists, Hume conflates the intellect and imagination, and his argument - indeed, his philosophy in general - sounds plausible only if one follows him in committing this error.

For another thing , as Elizabeth Anscombe has pointed out, to imagine something appearing suddenly is not even to imagine it (let alone conceive it) coming into existence without a cause. Suppose the situation just described really happened to you: a bowling ball suddenly appears on your table. What would be your spontaneous reaction? Would you say, "Wow, Hume was right! Look, a bowling ball came into existence without a cause"? More likely you'd say, "Where the hell did that come from?" - a question that implies there is a source, a cause, from which the bowling ball sprang. Then, you'd look for that cause: a hole in the ceiling maybe, or a magician's trick; if nothing this mundane can be found , you might even consider something exotic like a mad scientist testing a teleportation device, or a bizarre and otherwise astronomically improbable quantum fluctuation of the table. Even if you could somehow rule these explanations out, it is unlikely you'd resign yourself to the world's irrationality and have your valet fetch Hume's Treatise for you from the bookshelf (as Louis XVI had his valet fetch a volume of Hume's History of England, when he learned he was to be executed. You'd probably just think, "I guess I'll never what caused it" - what caused it, not whether it was caused. In any case, there's simply nothing about the situation Hume describes that amounts to imagining something coming into existence with no cause, as opposed to coming into existence with an unknown or unusual cause.

But it's worse for Hume even than that. Anscombe also asks us to consider how we'd go about determining whether the sort of scenario we've been describing really is a case of something coming into existence in the first place, as opposed, say, to merely reappearing from somewhere else where it had already existed. And the answer is that the only way we could do so is by making reference to some cause , specifically, rather than a transporting one. Thus, the only way we can ultimately make sense of something coming into being is by reference to a cause. What Hume says we can easily conceive not only hasn't been conceived by him, it seems likely impossible to conceive.

So, the principle of causality seems secure...(pp 105-106, emphases author's)

[hcap]

Originally Posted by totyally-bollixesd-uip-car

I have found the passage in Feser's The Last Superstition wherein he addresses the very important distinction between imagination and coherently conceived ideas in intellect. There area few of us here who will understand the distinction and when you do you will also understand why Hcap and Halv have consistently downplayed the prominent role mind plays in coherently and intelligently conceiving desired ends long before those ends (effects) exist in the physical world. But before jumping in, it's prudent that I provide a little context for Feser's argument, which is actually a rebuttal to another lame David Hume idea, otherwise I will be accused of quoting Feser out of context.

None of this, or your lengthy except from Dr.Feser later on, refutes my observation that you have confused actual cause and effect existing in the physical world with your mind numbing (pick one).....conception, projection, cognition of, visualizing, or yes imagining...... FACSIMILE of real world cause and effect.

Dr Feser once again, never states conceiving of, or thinking of physical real world cause(s) and effect(s) mentally, is in actuality the same as it's source in the physical world.

You are the one making that mistake over and over again. Just like when you interpret biblical passages, you confuse the literal for what the literal represents metaphorically. Your idiotic acceptance, and never-ending pages of nonsense just to "prove" your map of reality is the reality itself.

Your abstractions are not what the abstractions represent.
Would you like me to repeat that bunky?

If you did the nity gritty physical work, raised a hammer, drilled a hole....got off your lazy ass.......you would stop talking and do. Doing, sweating some and working with other do-ers in an tactile sense, and not a pseudo-intellectual sense might be what you need to shut up.

Not only do you talk religion to death, you talk LIFE to death

[hcap]

Hey box, since you get real life confused with facsimiles of real life and Time itself, I just had a wonderful idea. Pick one of these 10, make sure you sit in the first row of the movie theater,....mouth agape.....and just let your silly versions of time, and reality swallow Hollywood's take.

Remember, pretend time is real time if you imagine enough.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

None of this, or your lengthy except from Dr.Feser later on, refutes my observation that you have confused actual cause and effect existing in the physical world with your mind numbing (pick one).....conception, projection, cognition of, visualizing, or yes imagining...... FACSIMILE of real world cause and effect.

Dr Feser once again, never states conceiving of, or thinking of physical real world cause(s) and effect(s) mentally, is in actuality the same as it's source in the physical world.

(emphasis mine)

You need to pay attention! Feser did. Read my 695 again. Our thoughts,conceptions and ideas are real, so in that sense themental activity is even more important than subsequent physical activity because without the former, no rational, purposeful, useful work could be done.

Feser:
A builder builds a house; he is a cause that generates a specific kind of effect. But THE REASON he is able to do this is that THE EFFECT, the house, exists as an idea in his intellect before it exists in reality. (emphasis mine for thick-headed, obstinate, stiff-necked, obtuse meatheads)

What part of this don't you get? In other words, if it weren't for "conception, projection, cognition of, visualizing, or yes imagining...", the effect (the house) would never come into existence in the physical realm in the first place! Really tough for you to wrap your mind around this "heady" stuff, heh? It's all above your IQ level, is it?

You are the one making that mistake over and over again. Just like when you interpret biblical passages, you confuse the literal for what the literal represents metaphorically. Your idiotic acceptance, and never-ending pages of nonsense just to "prove" your map of reality is the reality itself.

Your abstractions are not what the abstractions represent.
Would you like me to repeat that bunky?

If you did the nity gritty physical work, raised a hammer, drilled a hole....got off your lazy ass.......you would stop talking and do. Doing, sweating some and working with other do-ers in an tactile sense, and not a pseudo-intellectual sense might be what you need to shut up.

Not only do you talk religion to death, you talk LIFE to death

(emphasis mine)

So...you saying, I should start working first, then think about it later?

And you're saying that my wife's drawings of our desired end are not really representative -- are not true reflections of the finished product (effect) that existed in her mind initially? If not, of what value are the drawings --which by the way the designer found to be of great value and very helpful. I wonder why????

[hcap]

Originally Posted by boxcar

I have found the passage in Feser's The Last Superstition wherein he addresses the very important distinction between imagination and coherently conceived ideas in intellect. There area few of us here who will understand the distinction and when you do you will also understand why Hcap and Halv have consistently downplayed the prominent role mind plays in coherently and intelligently conceiving desired ends long before those ends (effects) exist in the physical world. But before jumping in, it's prudent that I provide a little context for Feser's argument, which is actually a rebuttal to another lame David Hume idea, otherwise I will be accused of quoting Feser out of context.

You did quote him out of context. And a rebuttal of Hume has zero to do with anything.

After much searching I found more of Feser's discussion....The Last Superstition (St. Augustine's Press, 2008), by Dr. Edward Feser, pp. 102-110.
https://insightscoop.typepad.com/200...ntingency.html

A discussion not applicable at all to your absurd premise of effect before cause, and now that I read more of Feser, I do not find his concepts like......

This distinction between essence and existence — between what a thing is and that it is — is famously central to Aquinas’s philosophy, and it relates to Aristotle’s distinction between actuality and potentiality.

.....decipherable

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

Hey box, since you get real life confused with facsimiles of real life and Time itself, I just had a wonderful idea. Pick one of these 10, make sure you sit in the first row of the movie theater,....mouth agape.....and just let your silly versions of time, and reality swallow Hollywood's take.

Remember, pretend time is real time if you imagine enough.

Same ol', same ol' Mr. Empty Suit. You post all this nonsense thinking you will fool people into believing that you actually know something. But what we all know is that you can't refute my Fishing in the Stream time analogy, which proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that your head is like a loud, annoying empty drum.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

You did quote him out of context. And a rebuttal of Hume has zero to do with anything.

After much searching I found more of Feser's discussion....The Last Superstition (St. Augustine's Press, 2008), by Dr. Edward Feser, pp. 102-110.
https://insightscoop.typepad.com/200...ntingency.html

A discussion not applicable at all to your absurd premise of effect before cause, and now that I read more of Feser, I do not find his concepts like......
.....decipherable

You're deranged. I never said that passage I quoted had anything to do with "your absurd premise of effect before cause[/b]. Another straw man. This is what I wrote in Part 1 in 842:

I have found the passage in Feser's The Last Superstition wherein he addresses the very important distinction between imagination and coherently conceived ideas in intellect. There area few of us here who will understand the distinction and when you do you will also understand why Hcap and Halv have consistently downplayed the prominent role mind plays in coherently and intelligently conceiving desired ends long before those ends (effects) exist in the physical world. But before jumping in, it's prudent that I provide a little context for Feser's, which is actually a rebuttal to another lame David Hume idea, otherwise I will be accused of quoting Feser out of context.

You're really quite pathetic. Just can't quit with lies,can you?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

You did quote him out of context. And a rebuttal of Hume has zero to do with anything.

After much searching I found more of Feser's discussion....The Last Superstition (St. Augustine's Press, 2008), by Dr. Edward Feser, pp. 102-110.
https://insightscoop.typepad.com/200...ntingency.html

A discussion not applicable at all to your absurd premise of effect before cause, and now that I read more of Feser, I do not find his concepts like......
.....decipherable

Yes, you're hopelessly confused. Pages 102-110 in his book are not 102-110 that you cite. I have the actual book, what is your excuse?

[hcap]

Ok, But I could not find that in your current excerpt. And the distinction between imagination and conception is feeble.

From your 695, 150 posts back.

A builder builds a house; he is a cause that generates a specific kind of effect. But the reason he is able to do this is that the effect, the house, exists as an idea in his intellect before it exists in reality.

Eh bunky.....The idea of a house is not the house itself. Nor is the conceived of, thought of,...... (or whatever floats your boat),..... "mentally constructed" effect........the same as the actual completed physically built built house itself.

Not only that but how do you and Feser know, the builder did not conceive of the house BEFORE HE conceived of it's completion, Thomas Edison started his light bulb with only a goal not an effect. Not knowing the specific of the filament or or if a vacuum was needed......before those specifics Ediison eventually settle on.

Or more likely Feser's builder conceived of both the beginning of the house, say the foundation and only bare outlines of it's finish........at the same time?

Once again you can not claim effect before cause using silly word games.
Having a goal does not necessarily require conceiving of the completed goal.
That usually comes sometime along the way.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

Ok, But I could not find that in your current excerpt. And the distinction between imagination and conception is feeble.

From your 695, 150 posts back.

A builder builds a house; he is a cause that generates a specific kind of effect. But the reason he is able to do this is that the effect, the house, exists as an idea in his intellect before it exists in reality.

Eh bunky.....The idea of a house is not the house itself. Nor is the conceived of, thought of,...... (or whatever floats your boat),..... "mentally constructed" effect........the same as the actual completed physically built built house itself.

Another straw man. Never said idea of house = physical house. But I have said that apart from the antecedent idea of house, the house would never come into existence in the physical realm.

Not only that but how do you and Feser know, the builder did not conceive of the house BEFORE HE conceived of it's completion, Thomas Edison started his light bulb with only a goal not an effect. Not knowing the specific of the filament or or if a vacuum was needed......before those specifics Ediison eventually settle on.

Well, unless people are l like God and can call things into existence in this physical world, I think it's pretty safe to say that the builder conceived the idea before he conceived of its completion. However, if his idea gave birth to an actual goal of building, then the effect (end) MUST have been in intellect first in order to direct his physical effort.

Regarding Edison's goal for the zillionith time, a goal presupposes a specific end (outcome, end, effect) in intellect toward which an effort can be directed. There is no goal that doesn't have ends, outcomes, end products, effects) in mind.

Or more likely Feser's builder conceived of both the beginning of the house, say the foundation and only bare outlines of it's finish........at the same time?

That's not the way humans work. Our minds are aim or goal-directed, which means we hold specific ends in mind first, then commit those ends to paper (blueprints, computer drawings, etc.), which reflect those ends (effects) and we then start building the house. You're suggesting the builder lay a foundation (how big) for what specific size home, for how many bedrooms, how many baths, etc.?

Once again you can not claim effect before cause using silly word games.
Having a goal does not necessarily require conceiving of the completed goal.
That usually comes sometime along the way.

Look up the definition of goal:

2 : the end toward which effort is directed : AIM (M-W Collegiate)

But I'm the one playing "silly word games", huh? What part of "the end" don't you get?

[hcap]

No more rabbit holes. I refuse to read any more of your absurd drivel.

Listen Mr.FACSIMILE man. One more time. You are misconstruing Feser. He is not saying the actual effect of the house yet to be constructed exists before the builder builds the house. Only the thought of it does.

But the reason he is able to do this is that the effect, the house, exists as an idea in his intellect before it exists in reality.

He is really saying the idea of both the beginning and the end of the house's construction..... as an idea .....comes before it's actual construction..... at both the beginning and end of the entire project.

So what?
Fido drop your bone.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

No more rabbit holes. I refuse to read any more of your absurd drivel.

Listen Mr.FACSIMILE man. One more time. You are misconstruing Feser. He is not saying the actual effect of the house yet to be constructed exists before the builder builds the house. Only the thought of it does.

He is really saying the idea of both the beginning and the end of the house's construction..... as an idea .....comes before it's actual construction..... at both the beginning and end of the entire project.

So what?
Fido drop your bone.

AGAIN Feser:
Well, consider those cases where goal-directedness is associated with consciousness, viz. in us. A builder builds a house; he is a cause that generates a specific kind of effect. But THE REASON he is able to do this is that the effect, the house, exists as an idea in his intellect before it exists in reality. That is precisely how the not-yet existent house can serve as a final cause - by means of its form or essence existing in someone's intellect , if not (yet) in reality. And that seems clearly to be the only way something not yet existent in reality can exist in any other sense at all, and thus have any effects at all; that is, if it exists in intellect.

But he is saying the house (effect) does exist AS AN IDEA BEFORE it exists in the physical world. I'm not misconstruing, anything. I kinda understand that the house (effect) did not physically exist in the builder's mind. But the house did really and truly exist in the builder's mind in another form!