11thMarch 1999 : Albert Dean
COMMENTS AND RESPONSES OF THE VARIOUS KIND
First off, C96 - 22/23, to Theo and Graham. Oooops ! Sorry. Entirely fair complaint from Theo on page 23. When I used "Graham Dare & Theo" on page 22 as a subheading I had no intention it suggest you held common ground. I meant only to draw the attention of both of you to my query.
Further to the above though, and not so as to water down my apology. Whilst certainly accepting that science has influenced religion, I think my query still remains. Graham's opening in C95/35 reads to me as saying that over the centuries science, and only science, pruned religion back, and pruned it back to a stump. I do not know that is true. My reasons for doubting it are, building a little on what I said in C96/22, that:
Surely I do not need to work through it all in any greater detail to show that what Graham begins on is probably not a firm base, and what he calls for is probably not the best thing to call for. So, how should it be done. Well f (^&@M > $£$£ ) & = Gott im Himmel! + !!! Yes. The sting in the tail. For what purpose is information on the basis of life and spirit required. What will you gain my friends, when someone finds the way to switch you off at a distance, when someone sets a fallen angel in the tip of a cruise. How tempting it is, the richest harvest of terror one could wish for. It is irresistible.
Alan Edmonds / Theo - C96/5-6: Theo mentioned Individual Worth v Individual Ability. It is probably too late to be of much interest, but.... Proposition: All of life is the application and to it of equal worth are all information processing capabilities. The same with manual dexterity capabilities. And, if one special case requirement happens to cause down-rating of someone in one respect, then, that is exactly balanced by some other special case requirement up-rating them in some other respect. It is only a suggestion.
Graham Dare - C96/6: We exist to create universes. We do it with our heads and with our hands. We do it from the cradle to the grave.
Michael Nisbet / Theo - C96/9 - 13: Computer Do [??, Ed] "believe cats are dogs until told cats might not be dogs" then "believe cats might not be dogs until told cats are not dogs" then "believe cats are not dogs until told cats might be dogs" then "believe cats might be dogs until told cats are dogs" Loop. And truth rests in five or ten slashes across the cheeks and some missing bits of arm or leg. So, whilst soft skinners like us are obliged to rapidly establish for the duration what is cat and what is dog, the hard skinned rhinoceros may chose and re-choose as it likes. Meaning that, for any given memory, generally,
Mark Griffin - C96/16: "Can God commit murder?". In our world the answer is no. As King Canute demonstrated: Our legislation must always give way before what is inevitable.
Self / Theo - C96/22: I was only suggesting contradiction of Göring's claim that the extinguishments had been a political matter and not a criminal matter might be found in argument structured something like "The proper role of A (politics) is to cause B (accord), the proper role of C (crime) is to cause not B (discord), hence, as the result of what was done was a not B, what was done does not relate to A but does relate to C". And I agree completely that my "the proper role of crime ..." is, in a world without a "force of evil", far from a good way of putting things. But I couldn't, and still can't, think of anything better. Perhaps someone else can. However, I still think some construction like this might be the approach. Focusing on what politics should do rather than what Göring said it could do, and then using some bridging negation to show accord relates to politics and discord to crime. Perhaps part of the reason it is so tricky is that maybe there are two issues to be addressed; (i) that politics excludes extinguishments, (ii) that extinguishments are crimes. But have I made errors in assuming politics is exclusive of badness and dark and crime is exclusive of goodness and light. More likely I am going down the same road as just about everyone else that has tried the Göring problem and have not yet realised it runs in a circle. But, meanwhile, as well as noticing its "tempting symmetry" as you very correctly put it, did you also notice the even more tempting double symmetry ? That, if it should prove a valid approach, it is near certain it would be possible to simply flip it around to show it was not necessary to put the Allies in the dock because the result of what they did was a B. That in fact brings me to another point. Looking at it all again, I now wonder if looking at Nuremberg might be to look the wrong way. If we look instead at the Allies, then what we find is something like "the proper role of politics is to establish separate law that applies equally to all and then to seek to subject itself to that same law". It all hinges in the word "seek", permitting the prosecuting branch reasonable choice in who to prosecute. We do not punish one trying to be good, we punish one trying to be bad. I am not quite sure this could have been used at the time though, most of the Allies would probably have just scraped through on it, they had at least been trying to be right, but Russia under Stalin would have been too great a problem, can we say Stalin tried to be good. Might we say he, at the time, was beyond legislation, one of the inevitables King Canute illustrated. However, today it might hold, Stalin was denied by Russia in the end. But there would be a greater problem. It would mean the charges were false. The legal crime was not what was done under the law, the legal crime of the Nazi politicians was that they established punitive partial law and did not subject themselves to it. Was that actually charged ? Interestingly, and perhaps not entirely by coincidence, that seems in line with Simon Wiesenthal's view on how it all came about: That the great mistake was that Germany simply inherited and continued what had been practised in the old German states, the manufacturing of specific law for specific governments. A system where some one makes law for some one.
Nigel Perks - C96/23: If you wish to resolve your dilemma in regard to the rights and wrongs of taxation you have no choice but to do the following: First, you must choose what you believe will not otherwise be funded but wish to be funded. Second, you must choose who else's views on that to incorporate or reject. Third, you must choose representatives willing to action what you desire. Fourth, you must allow those representatives to seize all who oppose you gently by the scruff of the neck, and wobble them a little until their contribution to the requisite funding for what you wish falls out of their pockets, and they come to appreciate it really is all in their best interests. Because, left to themselves, the little dears will squander everything on sweeties, and I assume you prefer civilisation.
Roger Farnworth - C96/25: "Can philosophy be used to ascribe a meaning to life which is not derived from a system of beliefs?". I think it has already been attempted. Bertrand Russell said the time one enjoys wasting is not wasted. There seems an essential truth in that and perhaps something which is fairly free standing. It suggests that providing the subject is not aware of Russell's Rule, which would link them to the greater system, they can have a full life in a closed system of meaningless meanings and purposeless purposes. But, perhaps a surfing analogy denies that. Most surfers like to know where the reefs are so they don't get killed, etc.
Fred Hobson - C96/32 - 34: A case which comes to mind is that of Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. I have no idea at all as to what actually went on his mind, but suppose: Paulus is ordered to have his army capture Stalingrad. He and his troops are surrounded by the Russian Army. Göring says the Luftwaffe will supply his army. Paulus believes this but it proves untrue, eventually. He is told the rest of the German Army is coming to his aid. He also believes this and it proves untrue, eventually. He is promoted and ordered to have his army fight to the last man. The promotion is to appeal to his vanity and show his family will be looked after. He actually had his army fight only to the last bullet. There is a considerable difference between the two. And he finally orders his army, and, in a sense, himself, to surrender. Hitler condemns him for not going down with his ship, but does nothing more. Now. Consider: Paulus receives a legitimate German order from a legitimate German command to cause many German citizens to commit violence on many Russian citizens at Stalingrad. To complicate the matter he knows this order is military nonsense, he should bypass Stalingrad. And, if the order is military nonsense, is it a legitimate order ? He also knows his command has only passed this order to him because it came from Hitler, and that his command are far too afraid of Hitler to tear it up, as is Paulus. And that is because Hitler also controls other forces who would certainly do to the relatives of Paulus and his command whatever Hitler might want done to them if his Stalingrad order is not obeyed. Then there is the matter of the men under the command of Paulus. In their regard he has two responsibilities to them, one is to require them to die while he thinks, the other is to require them to live while he thinks. What can Paulus do but accept what comes until in his mind he can balance the actual slaughter of his men against the possible slaughter of his relatives, neither of which groups are of any great concern at all to all the rest of the world. What begins with resolution of forces, turns into the pros and cons of logistics, and ends waiting for one probability line going down the graph to cross one real line going up the graph. And by then the original dilemma, what to do in regard to his improper proper orders to do an improper proper thing in Russia, is no longer even on the chart. You might also care to consider the case of Marshall Petain and Vichy France, particularly in regard to shattered trust in the Maginot Line, trust in a shattered France, a future of German domination, what he might say before colleagues and enemies any or all of whom might be liars, a future of Allied domination, the accusing finger, and what he might say before his judges at his trial where at least some of the witnesses on both sides were liars. I choose these two because Paulus was guilty but is considered innocent, and old Petain was innocent but is considered guilty.
Gwen Jones / Theo - C96/34: You're quite right to query the wording of my challenge: "Show that it would be possible for a human being to make a perfect God angry". Trouble was I fiddled about with it so much it came to seem quite precise and elegant. But, in fact, it is a bit vague and rather cumbersome. And it also contains a distinct fault. First the fault: "a perfect God" is not intended to mean any one of many perfect Gods amongst many imperfect Gods. It is meant only to mean suppose there is one God, and that that God is perfect. And now I have a double "that" which is awful, but so be that. Then the words: Perfect means; terrific, wonderful, flawless, all powerful, tremendous, supreme, ultimate, infinite, and whatever else is necessary to mean can do everything all at once and never makes a mistake, ever, sort of God. And. Anger means, annoyed, peeved, irritated, etc., and possibly wrathful but only in the sense of becoming wrathful and not in the sense of sitting there looking for an excuse to be even more wrathful. One does not feel that God actually sits there in a constant fume from high spirit pressure.
Having said all that, as far as I can see you have both anyway got a fair sense of what I was addressing in the challenge. Basically; the inconsistencies between the likely capabilities of the God usually declared and many of the attitudes, and sometimes actions, that God is said to take in response to human thoughts and deeds. I can perhaps best express my own view by analogy. We know that sometimes a piece of equipment might only work after it is given a moderate knock or kick. From that one might try to argue God gives us a tap on the shoulder now and then to try and keep us on the right path. But, surely that is a false argument. We only use the tap it approach to get a machine going for two reasons. One is that we don't know where the fault is, and the other is that though we know where the fault is, for some reason or other we choose not to fix it properly. Now, are we seriously to suppose the technician in charge of the universe is unable to work out where our faults lay and fix them, or that for some reason that technician chooses not to intervene that way but chooses instead to intervene another way, by giving us quick prods in the rear. It is all too unlikely, it is not what duty of care means.
But there is another side to this. Gwen is quite right to ask me if I see anger as inconsistent with a perfect God or emotion in general. It is the latter. Suppose, to complete the evolution of God, the New Testament God is developed into a more technically minded dispassionate God, one that is just interested. Such a God would still imply we asked to be here and asked for no interventions. Little in any religion need be abandoned, far more it would just be a case of re-examining the way whatever it was works, prayer, for example. If there were any major changes then perhaps they would only be that we abandon the notion of a forgiving God, because no one is ever accused, and get a God who can indeed sit back and watch us run ourselves into the ground, but as part of our experiment and not as part of God's. And the suggested God would not worry about any of that because it is implied we would all come out alright in the end. The master technician having assured we are in a fail safe universe in which nothing truly vital can be damaged beyond eventual repair.
Which leads to part two of the challenge: Show that it would it be possible for a human being to make a perfect God love.
In direct response to Gwen's two main points. In 1. It is very curious, but substituting love for anger in Gwen's queries seems to create almost a Mediaeval feel to the whole thing. So, is it possible I am going backwards? Whatever. The usual advice from all advisors in all fields is to keep calm when making any decision and not to let one's emotions lead one astray. Presumably this means emotions are not to be trusted. So, would a perfect God have any? And if that God has emotions then would that mean they are so perfectly tuned they are in fact no longer emotions. In 2. It is entirely up to you. Choose the God and show the evidence or choose the evidence and show the God. In theory the same God should appear either way.
Albert Dean
Albert : I know you always give me the option to cut your offerings, but that makes me feel like a censor. Please - only your "best two sides" next time. Apologies, no time to address your thoughts this outing. The same goes for almost everyone else from now on this issue ....
Theo