Arches

A Critical Quantum Gn¤stic Review

of

David Hume's

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Part II

Does Humankind Have Qua to Describe God Using Astronomy?

by

Doug Renselle

Doug's Prereview Comments

Parts I through XII titles are contrivances of Paul Douglas Renselle, April-May, 2006.

Pamphilus To Hermippus

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

Part X

Part XI

Part XII

 

Move to any Part of David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,
or to beginning of its review via this set of links
(
says, "You are here!")


 
Part II...............Does Humankind Have Qua to Describe God Using Astronomy?


 

PAGE

QUOTEs
(Verbatim David Hume. Mostly following Hafner Library of Classics, 1948.)

COMMENTs
(Relevant to Pirsig, Quantum Gn¤stic Jesuitism, and Quantonics Thinking Modes.)
 15

I must own, Cleanthes, said Demea, that nothing can more surprise me, than the light in which you have all along put this argument. By the whole tenor of your discourse, one would imagine that you were maintaining the Being of a God, against the cavils of atheists and infidels, and were necessitated to become a champion for that fundamental principle of all religion. But this, I hope, is not by any means a question among us. No man, no man at least of common sense [see Quantonics' QELR of consensus], I am persuaded, ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to a truth so certain and self-evident. The question is not concerning the being but the nature of God. This, I affirm, from the infirmities of human understanding, to be altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us. The essence of that supreme Mind, his attributes, the manner of his existence, the very nature of his duration these and every particular which regards so divine a Being, are mysterious to men. Finite, weak, and blind creatures, we ought to humble ourselves in his august presence, and, conscious of our frailties, adore in silence his infinite perfections, which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. They are covered in a deep cloud from human curiosity, it is profaneness to attempt penetrating through these sacred obscurities, and, next to the impiety of denying his existence, is the temerity of prying into his nature and essence, decrees and attributes.

But lest you should think that my piety has here got the better of my philosophy, I shall support my opinion, if it needs any support, by a very great authority. I might cite all the divines, almost, from the foundation of Christianity, who have ever treated of this or any other theological subject, but I shall confine myself, at present, to one equally celebrated for piety and philosophy. It is Father Malebranche, who, I remember, thus expresses himself.1 'One ought not so much,' says he, 'to call God a spirit, in order to express positively what he is, as in order to signify that he is not matter. He is a Being infinitely perfect of this we cannot doubt. But in the same manner as we ought not to imagine, even supposing him corporeal, that he is clothed with a human body, as the anthropomorphites asserted, under colour that that figure was the most perfect of any, so neither ought we to imagine that the spirit of God has human ideas, or bears any resemblance to our spirit, under colour that we know nothing more perfect than a human mind. We ought rather to believe that as he comprehends the perfections of matter without being material . . . he comprehends also the perfections of created spirits without being spirit, in the manner we conceive spirit: that his true name is He that is, or, in other words, Being without restriction, All Being, the Being infinite and universal.'"

1 Recherche de la Verite, liv. 3, cap. 9.

Our bold and color highlights follow a code:

  • black-bold - important to read if you are just scanning our review
  • orange-bold - text ref'd by index pages
  • green-bold - we see Hume proffering quantumesque memes
  • violet-bold - an apparent classical problematic
    In Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we mark most 'classical English language problematics' using bold violet. It seems fair to mark our own uses too. As you read do some substitutions on your own: di to omni, con to com, not to n¤t, in to ihn, discard wasted the and when discard is impossible use possessives, etc. See our QELR. See our QELP.
  • blue-bold - we disagree with this text segment while disregarding context of Hume's overall text
  • gray-bold - quotable text
  • red-bold - our direct commentary
  • [] - our intra text commentary


Just for review, let's reacquaint Doug's quantum assessment of Philo, Cleanthes, and Demea:

  1. Philo - Careless sceptic, pluralist, somewhat a subjectivist (In Greek, philo is 'love.')
  2. Demea - SOMite par excellence, pure ratiocination is mechanical, formal, ideally objective (We found no Greek for demea - delta epsilon micron etc., etc. was closest we could get, something about strings and packets. We found Latin demens which is roughly 'insane.')
  3. Cleanthes - Ænlihghtænæd gn¤stic (Couldn't find a Greek match, but phonetically it is something like "to clean and wash a broken flower." Do you believe it accidental Hume named he-r 'clean the s?')

Demea holds true to his SOMiticisms. He accepts truth, certainty, ideal objective negation, and dialectical either-or as logical bases of classical thought.

Demea assumes God's being while worrying about humankind's qua to assess God's nature. What do classicists assume about God and nature? What do quantumists assume about G¤d and naturæ? Let's show them compared directly:

  • Classicists - dichon(God, nature), and
  • Quantumists - quanton(G¤d,naturæ).

Which of those most closely describes Demea's views expressed in Hume's classical English? (Possibly translator's classical English; we do not know what language Hume used when he originally wrote his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. We guess he used French. Doug - 23Aug2006.)

A larger query emerges: Is 'God' separate (classically lisr) from humankind and humankind separate from 'God?'

Of course Doug's quantum answer is that G¤d issi ihn us and wæ aræ ihn G¤d. Further, G¤d issi nature and nature issi G¤d. Further, we are nature, at least quantum~l¤cally. None of us is universal, rather each of us is islandically representative of (an active sui generis agent of) nature. Each of us l¤cally describes nature.

Each_of_us quanton(naturæ,l¤cally_each_of_us), and

Each_of_us quanton(G¤d,l¤cally_each_of_us).

Behold! We see quantum l¤cal assessments of nature...ihn each of us. Each of us b¤th c¤¤bsfæcts amd exhibits, at least l¤cally (partially; we abhor classical notions of 'part,' 'particle,' 'particularity,' etc.; why? quantum reality is n¤t a particulate, ideally objective reality), nature. As Earth's ultimate sophist said, paraphrased, "Look within yourself and you will find 'the nature of God.'" Actually, quantum~gn¤stic Jesus said, "You will find G¤d." That is what it means to be quantum gn¤stic!

But listen to what Demea is saying. God is separate from us, and therefore we cannot even partially (i.e., l¤cally) understand what 'the nature of God' is. Dogmatic dialectic! Either-or. SOM's wall. Ultimate classical ugly. (Doug does n¤t view partial understanding of G¤d's nature somehow providing an inside track to "what G¤d wants." 23Aug2006.)

Pirsig said it better, "Each of and all of us are nature's judgment." We would say "judgmentings." Those judgmentings emerge via a quantum miracle of creatio ex nihilo aperio.

Only human arrogance assumes hegemony above nature and tries to control he-r. Catholics and Muslims try to control he-r religiously. Science tries to control he-r ratiocinationally.

By observation nature is radically animate, spontaneously emergent, holographically self~other co~volitional, everywhere~included~middle~associative, and massively heterolithic, but...

Demea holds to one God as "universal." Pure catholicism!

Underlying all this is an apparent assumption by Demea that all sentients perceive reality alike. Hume's trialogue, though, shows otherwise, does it n¤t? Experience of Earth's religions shows us how God is quantum~hermeneutic. Each of us views God, individually, in our own way. But social organization AKA 'Demos state,' demands a "tragedy of common sense," doesn't it? "Our organization has the correct view of God: our God is the God." When we apply either-or dialectic to that social belief, what do we get? War. Conflict. "Dialectic is war."

Quantum~hermeneuticism shows us that God is unique to each of us. Quantum~gn¤sticism teaches us to learn and understand that. Quantum~hermeneuticism gravidates theory (comprendre) and emotive~practice (pragma) of Philip R. Wallace's "Interpretation involves according primacy to subjectivity over objectivity." (paraphrased)

Our view is that reality is much like a huge Bohmian holomovement. It may be apparent to you that a holomovement is quantum~hermeneutic, and thus interpretively uncertain, subjective at all scales. In dialectical contrast, classical reality is a huge determinate (certain) machine.

See certainty, uncertainty, common sense, subject, etc. See Bohm's The Qualitative Infinity of Nature, his Physics and Perception, his Enfolding-Unfolding Universe and Consciousness, and his Super Implicate Order Dialogue with Reneé Weber (latter review is "in progress;" Doug is using it to innovate Quantonics' own comprehensive memeos of quantum phasicityings; may take better part of a year during 2006-2007, perhaps into 2008-9).

Doug - 9-26Aug2006.

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16

After so great an authority, Demea, replied Philo, as that which you have produced, and a thousand more which you might produce, it would appear ridiculous in me to add my sentiment, or express my approbation of your doctrine. But surely, where reasonable men treat these subjects, the question can never be concerning the being, but only the nature, of the Deity. The former truth, as you well observe, is unquestionable and self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause, and the original cause of this universe (whatever it be) we call God, and piously ascribe to him every species of perfection. Whoever scruples this fundamental truth, deserves every punishment which can be inflicted among philosophers, to wit, the greatest ridicule, contempt, and disapprobation. But as all perfection is entirely relative, we ought never to imagine that we comprehend the attributes of this divine Being, or to suppose that his perfections have any analogy or likeness to the perfections of a human creature. Wisdom, thought, design, knowledge these we justly ascribe to him because these words are honourable among men, and we have no other language or other conceptions by which we can express our adoration of him. But let us beware, lest we think that our ideas anywise correspond to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these qualities among men. He is infinitely superior to our limited view and comprehension, and is more the object of worship in the temple, than of disputation in the schools.

In reality, Cleanthes, continued he, there is no need of having recourse to that affected scepticism so displeasing to you, in order to come at this determination. Our ideas reach no further than our experience. We have no experience of divine attributes and operations. I need not conclude my syllogism. You can draw the inference yourself. And it is a pleasure to me (and I hope to you, too) that just reasoning and sound piety here concur in the same conclusion, and both of them establish the adorably mysterious and incomprehensible nature of the Supreme Being.

Philo appears to 'buy-in' to Demea's classicisms.

And he makes this trialogue even more classical by proffering bogus notions of cause.

What does Philo mean by 'exists?' Classical existence is material, objective, immutable, EEMD state. Quantum 'existence' is quantal, holographic, flux essential, EIMA emergence. We might show it like this for better analogy:

quantum_existence classical_unstate

and

"classically absurd" ideal_absence_of_state absolute_quantum_fluxings.

Pirsig might say it like this:

MoQ_existence ideal_classical_absence_of_ESQ (which is "classically absurd")

in all Patterns of Value, both known and unknown.

Doug - 25Aug2006.

More worrisome than any sentence on this page is Philo's "Whoever scruples [i.e., doubts] this fundamental truth, deserves every punishment which can be inflicted among philosophers, to wit, the greatest ridicule, contempt, and disapprobation." This is warlike dialectic at its finest. This is what Clifford Geertz means by "absolutism removes judgment from history." We see its innate classical certainty. Its classical stupidity. Its catholic dogma.

And Philo goes on to say, "...all perfection is entirely relative..." About that kind of classical thought Geertz said, "relativism disables judgment." Did Philo fathom his own words? Their deep philosophical problematics?

Philo, though, approaches quantum memeos of n¤nactuality in his "...let us beware, lest we think that our ideas anywise correspond to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these qualities among men. He is infinitely superior to our limited view and comprehension..." We like that.

Quantumly, we substitute bettership for wors[e]hip.

If reason is dialectical, we have to disagree with Philo here. We agree that "mysterious incomprehensibility" is reality's quintessence and we like to believe it is quantum~quintessence.

 See see cause, design, grammar, holograph, object, quanta, etc.

Doug - 9Aug2006.

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17

Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said Cleanthes, addressing himself to Demea, much less in replying to the pious declamations of Philo, I shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance, of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble, and that the author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

I shall be so free, Cleanthes, said Demea, as to tell you, that from the beginning, I could not approve of your conclusion concerning the similarity of the Deity to men, still less can I approve of the mediums by which you endeavour to establish it. What! No demonstration of the Being of God! No abstract arguments! No proofs a priori! Are these, which have hitherto been so much insisted on by philosophers, all fallacy, all sophism? Can we reach no further in this subject than experience and probability? I will not say that this is betraying the cause of a Deity: but surely, by this affected candour, you give advantages to atheists, which they never could obtain by the mere dint of argument and reasoning.

Sadly, Cleanthes, appears here too (like Demea and Philo) as a classicist believing in classical: mechanism, localability, isolation, separation, reduction, particularity, cause and proof. For us, personally, at this early stage of our review of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, this is a huge disappointment. This is just too sad...

Newton and Einstein and countless of their predecessors bought into this classical funda mental bilge.

Newton and Einstein both saw reality as a classical clockwork mechanism.

But reality is quantum~emergent~process, n¤t classical clockwork mechanism.

Mechanism is how primitive man thought, n¤t G¤d's methodologies of evolutionary creation.

Will you allow Doug to share an recent (August, 2006) anecdotal experience?

Last week we, Beth and Doug, had a tiny dinner party at our place with Steve and Jessica. Both are very bright folk, and Steve is exceptional in his repertoire of technical skills.

Midway dinner Doug had an opening to ask this simple question:

"What is our universe's principal 'feature?' "

Pause...paws...

Steve had just started to emit some complex rhetoric when both ladies simultaneously said, "change!"

Steve sat there, apparently one word, single semantic, flummoxed.

Doug raised both arms above his head and said, "Yes!" (Haven't felt that much social aritos in a couple of moons. Nonpareil delight!)

Most of us still intuit (maltuit) reality as a mechanical system. Why? We have been carefully taught by academe to believe it. But it is wrong! Academe is wrong.

How did Beth and Jessica intuit "change?" Beth lives with Doug. Jessica possesses intuitively Women's Ways of Knowing.

Ever wonder why there aren't any women priests? Women's Ways of Knowing are anti-catholic: instinctively quantum!

(Most) Men's ways of thing-king are objective, mechanistic, catholic!

By-'d-way...Does our anecdote exhibit macroscopic uncertainty ad oculos?

Aside:

Several of you have been searching Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. for ad oculos' semantic.

Doug is somewhat, has evolved to become somewhat, quantum~gn¤stic.

You may n¤t always take Doug's words classically, literally. Just as with some women, "no" may mean, sort of, "yes." A quantum tell of almost implicit feminine gn¤stic pneumatics. If 'no' is quantum subjective, and of course we believe it is, those women are dead-reckonings on a path of quantum~prescience.

In Latin, literally 'occulo' means 'hidden' much as and similar to French couvert. Doug has bastardized occulo to oculos (sometimes occulos) and quantumly perverted its sensibility as quanton(Hyde,Jekyll) and quanton(hidden,ostensibly_obviously_apparent). To Doug, ad oculos means by observation, fully apparent, but with BAWAM tongue in cheeque, and a quantum wink. Essene~ce of quanton(wave,particle).

Doug's first encounter, on 21Jun2003, occurred with a 'scientific' "use" by Max Jammer of ad oculos, while quoting Niels Bohr on page 93 of Jammer's The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. Jammer wrote there, "The association of a particle with a wave packet, Bohr pointed out, demonstrates the complementarity character of the description almost ad oculos; for 'the use of wave groups is necessarily accompanied by a lack of sharpness in the definition of period and wave-length, and hence also in the definition of the corresponding energy and momentum...' "

Doug - 5Sep2006.

End aside.

Doug - 9,23Aug2006.

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18

What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is not so much that all religious arguments are by Cleanthes reduced to experience, as that they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable of that inferior kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a thousand times, and when any new instance of this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference. The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event, and a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after. But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence, and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced the circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it takes place in Titius and Maevius. But from its circulation in frogs and fishes, it is only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that it takes place in men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much weaker, when we infer the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our experience that the blood circulates in animals, and those, who hastily followed that imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experiments, to have been mistaken.

If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder, because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause, and how that pretension will be received in the world, I leave you to consider.

It would surely be very ill received, replied Cleanthes, and I should be deservedly blamed and detested, did I allow, that the proofs of a Deity amounted to no more than a guess or conjecture. [However, that is all we can, all we have qua to, do! God simply isn't reducible to logic, classical and otherwise. Doug -23Aug2006. Our quantum~phasement is intrinsic in real Quality! Real Quality is indefinable. We cann¤t put real quality in a thing-king box, a classical detention center of reason. Real Quality con(m)flates and subqsumes reason.] But is the whole adjustment of means to ends in a house and in the universe so slight a resemblance? The economy of final causes? The order, proportion, and arrangement of every part? Steps of a stair are plainly contrived, that human legs may use them in mounting, and this inference is certain and infallible. Human legs are also contrived for walking and mounting, and this inference, I allow, is not altogether so certain, because of the dissimilarity which you remark, but does it, therefore, deserve the name only of presumption or conjecture? [If macroscopic quantum~uncertainty reigns, we have to... Doug - 23Aug2006. Is Earth a similitudinous model for Venus? Jupiter for Uranus? Our Sun for Capella? Our moon for Titan? In general, n¤.]

Our bold, color, brackets, subscripts, links.

Philo appears to believe that experience is an inferior means of, basis of argument.

Fire won't burn on our moon, and in space. A stone at gravitational libration will n¤t 'fall.' Earth's solidity is a mechanical apparition. Earth, and all 'solids,' are almost entirely vacuum energy 'space.'

Philo vivifies our earlier comments re: consensus with his, "the accustomed inference."

And, isn't it entirely apparent to our quantonics students that Philo's "exact similarity" is an oxymoron?

Doesn't Philo's "perfect assurance" reek of classical certainty.

Another anecdote:

We need to paraphrase liberally here Paul Pietsch from his Shufflebrain...

"What is individual human intellect's principal 'feature?' " (A huge quantum tell!)

Pause...paws...clause...claws...flause...flaws...

And O'gadon said, "uncertainty." (We can omnistinguish fools via their classical DIQheaded 'certainty.')

Bravo!

Doug's meme here is that, in general, classical certainty isn't. Quantum uncertainty is. Quantum reality's nature is ubiquitous compenetrating uncertainty due absolute change borne of absolute flux:

  • absolute flux is con(m)sistent: it always changes, and
  • absolute flux is complete: it changes all.

Predicable certainty, on all scales of reality, is just and simply bilge. At best, it is only apparent due viscosity of some classes of change. See quantum variable persistence, QVP.

Notice how this entire page's trialogue harbors implicit classical notions of stoppability and immutability. With cause thence effect as bogus inductive credo of determinism and classical 'certainty,' both borne of those deluded implicits of stoppability and immutability: classical concrete. Funda mental cement. ESQ.

On their cause and effect and our last paragraph's first sentence's memetic potential, allow us to quote PAM Dirac:

"...we must revise our ideas of causality. Causality applies only to a system which is left undisturbed." Page 4, Dirac's The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. See our Recommended Reading: Dirac. See cause.

Then Philo suddenly sounds like a quantum~hermeneuticist with his, "...that the utmost you can here pretend to is a guess...," and "...how that pretension will be received in the world, I leave you to consider." Those words show why classicists call quantum thinking "equivocal," "prevaricative," "perverse," "absurd," etc. To classical minds quantum reality is "nonsense."

Heraclitus hinted that these tiny minds are but toddlers twaddling in their "toy boxes" of mechanical rules is tules for fules. Said toddlers shall become extinct during Millennium III's first few centuries.

Doug - 23Aug2006.

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19

Good God! cried Demea, interrupting him, where are we? Zealous defenders of religion allow, that the proofs of a Deity fall short of perfect evidence! And you, Philo, on whose assistance I depended in proving the adorable mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, do you assent to all these extravagant opinions of Cleanthes? For what other name can I give them? or, why spare my censure, when such principles are advanced, supported by such an authority, before so young a man as Pamphilus?

You seem not to apprehend, replied Philo, that I argue with Cleanthes in his own way, and, by shewing him the dangerous consequences of his tenets, hope at last to reduce him to our opinion. But what sticks most with you, I observe, is the representation which Cleanthes has made of the argument a posteriori; and finding that that argument is likely to escape your hold and vanish into air, you think it so disguised, that you can scarcely believe it to be set in its true light. Now, however much I may dissent, in other respects, from the dangerous principles of Cleanthes, I must allow that he has fairly represented that argument, and I shall endeavour so to state the matter to you, that you will entertain no further scruples with regard to it.

Were a man to abstract from every thing which he knows or has seen, he would be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to determine what kind of scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to one state or situation of things above another. [Notice here that Philo emits a very quantum essential. We should watch to see if he arrives where one finds that is about all we can (have qua to) do. Quantum reality is, from any classical conspective, "subjective."] For as nothing which he clearly conceives could be esteemed impossible or implying a contradiction, every chimera of his fancy would be upon an equal footing, nor could he assign any just reason why he adheres to one idea or system, and rejects the others which are equally possible. [Clearly, again in our view, Philo's last sentence assesses Cleanthes as an intuitive quantum~hermeneuticist, far ahead of Balmer, Bohr, Schrödinger, et al. Powerful stuff here! Doug - 23Aug2006. See our What are Sophisms? page.]

Again, after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the world as it really is [i.e., as classicists, SOMites see it...], it would be impossible for him at first to assign the cause of any one event, much less of the whole of things, or of the universe. He might set his fancy a rambling, and she might bring him in an infinite variety of reports and representations. These would all be possible, but being all equally possible, he would never of himself give a satisfactory account for his preferring one of them to the rest. Experience alone can point out to him the true cause of any phenomenon.

If we oversimply categorize Philo, Demea, and Cleanthes we find Cleanthes as (perhaps) one of 'the elect.' In our opinions, clearly, Demea is one of 'the called.' Philo straddles both, which we see in his admission "...in his own way..."

Philo's "...preferring one of them to the rest." can be viewed both classically and quantumly. Former demands classical logic to decide ideally, bivalently, oppositionally, 'either-or' the best. Latter uses coquecigrue to omnivalently BAWAM select a tentative better.

Classicists believe there is one right, absolutely true, answer to any 'choice.' For that belief to hold, reality would have to be concrete, immutable, stopped. That is why classicists also believe reality is concrete.

Doug - 23Aug2006.

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20

Now, according to this method of reasoning, Demea, it follows, (and is, indeed, tacitly allowed by Cleanthes himself,) that order, arrangement, or the adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any proof of design, but only so far as it has been experienced to proceed from that principle. For ought we can know a priori, matter may contain the source or spring of order originally within itself as well as mind does, and there is no more difficulty in conceiving, that the several elements, from an internal unknown cause, may fall into the most exquisite arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas, in the great universal mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into that arrangement. The equal possibility of both these suppositions is allowed. But, by experience, we find, (according to Cleanthes,) that there is a difference between them. Throw several pieces of steel together, without shape or form, they will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch. Stone, and mortar, and wood, without an architect, never erect a house. But the ideas in a human mind, we see, by an unknown, inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so as to form the plan of a watch or house. Experience, therefore, proves, that there is an original principle of order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means to ends is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resembling.

I was from the beginning scandalized, I must own, with this resemblance, which is asserted, between the Deity and human creatures, and must conceive it to imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being as no sound theist could endure. [Readers with some depth of religious qua may be pleased, and perhaps n¤t, to fathom how Roman 'Catholics,' and their 'Protestant' progeny's wors[e]hip of Christ's antithesis would agree with Philo and denounce, as Philo does, Cleanthes 'reasoning.' Quite phenomenally and heterodoxically according Thomas' Gospel, Stephen Hoeller, and Elaine Pagels, etc., Essene Jesuit Gnosis and quantum~gn¤stics agree with Cleanthes! Anti-Christ OGC SOMitic wors[e]shipers of 'Catholic' and 'Protestant' persuasion believe, as Philo, that "God is separate, objectively separable, from humanity." Quantum gn¤stics will tell you and show you that Essene Jesus taught his disciples bettershipings that "B¤th G¤d issi ihn uhs amd wæ aræ ihn G¤d." Similarity of G¤d and all creation issi intrinsic, quantum~really intrinsic! Doug - 23Jul2007.] With your assistance, therefore, Demea, I shall endeavour to defend what you justly call the adorable mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, and shall refute this reasoning of Cleanthes, provided he allows that I have made a fair representation of it.

If you believe in classical causation, you are lost to any understanding, any comprendre, of quantum reality. If you believe in classical causation, you are wasting your time in Quantonics.

Of course your belief makes us very happy since it assures more rapid extinction of you and folk of your ilk. We shall n¤t have to appease your classically 'logical' sillygisms much longer.

However, those of you who understand why causation is invalid and crippled thing-king can and will benefit from your persistence in Quantonics.

But Doug, "What is your answer to 'why?' "

  1. quantum predication begets quantum~likelihood~omnistributions, QLOs,
  2. QLOs are n¤t single valued, n¤r 'probabilistically' bivalent,
  3. QLOs are animate recursive self~and~other referent ensembles of QLOs,
  4. QLOs are massively, holographically~phasistically~networked pr¤cesses of pr¤cesses,
  5. etc.

Classical cause requires uniparametric, scalarbative, stoppable measurement, which is simply impossible in quantum reality. Much akin how Einstein's desire to measure position and momentum 'simultaneously' and with "probability one" is impossible in quantum reality. Much akin how eigenstates may not have classical ideal probabilities of 'zero' and 'one.' Zero and one do n¤t 'exist scalarbatively, stoppably in quantum reality.

Doug.

We also find these phrases potentially problematic and sometimes oxymoronic:

  • unknown cause (doesn't 'cause' imply 1-1 correspondence, so classically, if that is so, all causes are classically discoverable),
  • equal possibility (when, where, how, why, what, who? equality and identity are essentially impossible in quantum reality),
  • original principle (issues of classical notions of radical beginism and finalism; principle as 'law' is clearly a bogus notion in any reality which is absolutely changing),
  • From similar effects we infer similar causes. (Doesn't classical 'similarity' break a classical notion of 1-1 correspondence; one cause one effect? Is Philo saying causes and effects are heterogeneous? Pluralism breaks classical logic...! How can we classically find best if there are many bests? Can we conclude, classically from an assumption of similars that a Christian God is omniffering a Muslim God is omniffering a Gn¤stic God is omniffering...? Do similars permit assessment of which one is 'true,' and 'best?' Are you certain?)

    Classical determinism requires unvarying specificity (analytic formal, measurable 'properties' are specifically 'state' ic) declared as genericity, e.g., "f = m·a." If we classically observe products of masses and accelerations as similar "causes" of "effects'" "forces," then we can say classically that "similar specificities" are in general "general." But are they? No 'mass' in quantum reality is or can be at rest! All accelerations in quantum reality are absolutely varying. In quantum reality we may not assume any classical notions of inertial reference frames "at rest," having classically "zero momentum." Ihn quantum ræhlihty genærihcihty issi abs¤lutæ changæ which ¤mnisahll¤ws, precludæs any classical notions of specificity as concrete immutability of objective measurement. See Zeno of Elea's first paradox. See measurement.

    Doug - 26,28Aug2006.

Philo's last paragraph notably elicits a classical notion that God is not in us and we are not in God.

Doug - 23Aug2006.

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21

When Cleanthes had assented, Philo, after a short pause, proceeded in the following manner.

That all inferences, Cleanthes, concerning fact, are founded on experience, and that all experimental reasonings are founded on the supposition that similar causes prove similar effects, and similar effects similar causes, I shall not at present much dispute with you. But observe, I entreat you, with what extreme caution all just reasoners proceed in the transferring of experiments to similar cases. Unless the cases be exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence in applying their past observation to any particular phenomenon. Every alteration of circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the event, and it requires new experiments to prove certainly, that the new circumstances are of no moment or importance. A change in bulk, situation, arrangement, age, disposition of the air, or surrounding bodies — any of these particulars may be attended with the most unexpected consequences: and unless the objects be quite familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect with assurance, after any of these changes, an event similar to that which before fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate steps of philosophers here, if any where, are distinguished from the precipitate march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the smallest similitude, are incapable of all discernment or consideration.

But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual phlegm and philosophy have been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to the universe houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred others, which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause, by which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn any thing concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree? [In a SOrON quantum~holographic reality, indeed, yæs! In a quantum SOrON holographic reality said leaf is sææn by and sææs all of its actual l¤cal quantum c¤mplæmænt! Doug - 2Aug2007.]

On fact, see our QELR of fact.

Philo, justly and righteously, warns on issues of classically apparent similarity.

Again, due absolute change and intrinsic EIMA, exact similarity, in quantum reality, is impossible: an oxymoron.

Too, notice that classical induction, rests on similar notions of similarity, e.g., Peano's counting axiom.

Classical similarity excuses and abdicates classically-certain identity 'perfection.' Thus protoclassical admission of notions of similarity are actually, though ubiquitously unrecognized as such, quantum tells. Manifestly, admission of similarity begs admission of macroscopic uncertainty which has just become embarrassingly lucid, do you agree?

Philo's quantum genius erupts here, in that long bold green paragraph, excepting his violet classicisms. What Philo may be missing here is that events themselves and all reality are ensemble stochastic processes. We'll see. Anyway, it appears to us that Philo expected quantum reality, perhaps only dimly, but genuinely so many years ago. Like so many others, though, he appears incapable of using his intuitions to tear down SOM's wall. We adore how he compares philosophers as 'the elect' and scientists as only 'the called,' "vulgar." Scientific 'sense' is common sense AKA vulgar sense. Quantum Philo sophic sense is extraordinary sense, aritos, martus aritos.

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"Applied to the world as representative of all the world, become superstitions."

by Julian Jaynes,
The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind ,
p. 443, 1976, HMCO
(paperback, total 493 pages including 'The Drawings')

Doug's pulldown on 'facts' added - 2Aug2007.

Doug - 24Aug2006.

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22

But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature upon another, for the foundation of our judgment concerning the origin of the whole, (which never can be admitted,) yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions, but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

So far from admitting, continued Philo, that the operations of a part can afford us any just conclusion concerning the origin of the whole, I will not allow any one part to form a rule for another part, if the latter be very remote from the former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude, that the inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence, reason, or any thing similar to these faculties in men? When nature has so extremely diversified her manner of operation in this small globe, can we imagine that she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense a universe? And if thought, as we may well suppose, be confined merely to this narrow corner, and has even there so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety can we assign it for the original cause of all things? The narrow views of a peasant, who makes his domestic economy the rule for the government of kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable sophism.

But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason, resembling the human, were to be found throughout the whole universe, and were its activity elsewhere vastly greater and more commanding than it appears in this globe, yet I cannot see, why the operations of a world constituted, arranged, adjusted, can with any propriety be extended to a world which is in its embryo state, and is advancing towards that constitution and arrangement. By observation, we know somewhat of the economy, action, and nourishment of a finished animal, but we must transfer with great caution that observation to the growth of a foetus in the womb, and still more in the formation of an animalcule in the loins of its male parent. Nature, we find, even from our limited experience, possesses an infinite number of springs and principles, which incessantly discover themselves on every change of her position and situation. And what new and unknown principles would actuate her in so new and unknown a situation as that of the formation of a universe, we cannot, without the utmost temerity, pretend to determine.

Why does a classical notion of similarity bear such weight on our psyches as natural, even real?

Nature's evolutionary processings appear to use both self-reference, other-reference and fractal recursion to emerse nextings' betterings.

If that phasement may be used as at least partial guidance in our quantum~think~king, we can see how similarity appears real. And for us, in Quantonics, that brand of quantum~similarity issi nowings, provisionally, tentatively, real.

However, objective, immutable, static, holds-still, EEMD classical reality by canon 'law' cannot formally self-refer while adaptively (n¤n mechanically) self-other recursing.

Our last few paragraphs narrate why, in Quantonics, we believe QTMs are vastly superior to CTMs.

If we classify Philo's thinking here, it appears that it is more CTMethodic than QTModal. When he, Cleanthes and Demea broach QTModalities we show their words in bold green.

Allow us to QELR our bold green here: "I lack qua to allow any [] quanton to emerq a [classical] 'rule' for another quanton ..." Emerq is QELR for classical 'form.'

Are you amazed that classical scientists have so ignored Philo's queries in that large bold green paragraph? This demonstrates for us why Philo refers scientists as vulgar.

Then Philo, as so many others, uses 'sophism' in a denigrating manner. Oh well! Would that he somehow intuited quantum reality is sophisms.

Quantum reality, at its most primitive levels and scaling from there, appears to have quantum~awareness~co~awareness "built-in." It takes awhile to get to grasping these exemplars, but photons and detectors make primitive "choices." Isoflux and Higgs bosons make primitive "choices." They do n¤t exhibit formal, determinate, mechanical interactions.

Yet Philo, in our view, is correct that similarity itself is indeterminate and thus n¤n global, n¤n universal.

A Dugger Aside on Similarity:

Doug has recently come to enjoy work of two famous actors, one with hugely more experience and four years age advantage, other apparently getting a late start, but both outstanding actors, in Doug's view.

To look at these two, you would say, at any outset, "... they are wholly dissimilar."

Which actors? Philip Seymour Hoffmann (former) and Michael C. Hall.

Both of these men, in Doug's opine, are simply fab at their chosen art. Recently Beth and Doug have become enamored of Michael Hall in Dexter. This young man can send chills to neverlands and warm one's heart as a miraculous subsetting, subcon(m)texting both~and which we seldom see. (Doug admits this happens routinely with gestures, but not in more detailed con(m)sequences we both experienced here. This felt more like simile~synaesthesia of sorts. It startled Doug, literally, emotionally, and physically. Maybe this happens with most people and they seldom mention it?)

Of course Hoffmann has "covered the waterfront so to speak," in definite cliché.

Tammy Jenkins (Doug used to know a Tammy Page Jenkins long ago.) wrote and directed her The Savages. Excellent! Excellence! Hoffmann and his sister are Savages (last name) who go through trials of a dysfunctional family and eventual loss of a parent who doesn't and didn't care.

Doug was amazed in a scene in The Savages where Hoffmann is entering a car. For a moment ( a millisecond, perhaps less ) Doug saw, in just a portion of Hoffmann's left jaw, extreme similarity to Hall as Dexter. It was so powerful that Doug's quantum~stage momentarily changed Hoffmann into Hall, and only as he turned his head back in acknowledgement was that brief 'spell' broken.

I turned to Beth and said, "Did you see that?" She responded, "Yes!" I said, "You mean Dexter?" She said, "Yes!"

These two men look nothing, even remotely, alike, yet Beth and I both saw it!

Notice how this kind of quantum~similarity is partial, and yet we as quantum~beings are capable of detecting that similarity in only a few Planck moments (It is important to grasp here, as Mae wan Ho did regarding arm muscle flexure, that light doesn't travel fast enough to mechanically explain what happened!). For Doug, this provides an exemplar of how humans routinely recognize genuinely quantum~coherent ...while quasi~superluminal ... quantum~partial~similarities, and routinely use them without grasping their underlying qua essences to 'di' scriminate (classically) and omniscriminate (learn and interpret quantumly) their surroundings. Compare Doug's experience with one where some classical scientists insist moon is only 'there' when we look at it. How could Dexter be left jaw facially cowithin Hoffmann? Fascinating! What about legal issues in any court of dialectical 'law?' Can acting be so good that you see someone else? Is what happened important? Is what we think happened important? Who decides? Is it better Value to experience this quasi quantum~synaesthesia?

For Doug it was a one of many "firsts." And for Doug, "It was and still is exciting." A wow!

This anecdotal evidence supports what Doug has been writing lately about quantum~awareness, about systemic occurrences as processings which are includings occurrencings of peaQLO Value cognition, re cognition and pattern omniscrimination. Further it helps Doug see how only flux and fractal interrelationshipings of flux in real h¤l¤grams can do (pragma) this.

It is further evidence that reality issi quantum and all processings in quantum~reality at all scalings of quantum~reality are holographic, from nearly n¤ flux to Planck's rate, all is holographic, even quantum~realities' apparent hidings in quantum~isoflux.

Thank you for reading.

Doug - 22Dec2008

End Dugger Aside on Similarity.

Doug - 24Aug2006.

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23

A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us, and do we then pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?

Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at this time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without human art and contrivance, therefore the universe could not originally attain its order and arrangement, without something similar to human art. But is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former? Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a rule for the universe? Is nature in one situation, a certain rule for nature in another situation vastly different from the former?

And can you blame me, Cleanthes, if I here imitate the prudent reserve of Simonides, who, according to the noted story, being asked by Hiero, What God was? desired a day to think of it, and then two days more, and after that manner continually prolonged the term, without ever bringing in his definition or description? Could you even blame me, if I answered at first, that I did not know, and was sensible that this subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties? You might cry out sceptic and rallier, as much as you pleased: but having found, in so many other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections and even contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from the sphere of our observation. When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other, and this I call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it? [Classically,]To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds, and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance. Doug's brackets, bold, and color.

Bravo! Even more important as qualifiers, our very small 'part' is absolutely changing and all its 'parts' middlings are includings. From that we infer 'parts' aren't classical in any objective 'common sense' of separability and state.

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"I answered at first, that I did not know..."

"Uncertainty is the principal feature of intelligence." Paraphrased. Paul Pietsch in his Shufflebrain.

That humans learn and think similarly as we observe our surroundings does not boot: "human like intelligence designed our universe."

Doug - 24Aug2006.

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24

Philo was proceeding in this vehement manner, somewhat between jest and earnest, as it appeared to me, when he observed some signs of impatience in Cleanthes, and then immediately stopped short. What I had to suggest, said Cleanthes, is only that you would not abuse terms, or make use of popular expressions to subvert philosophical reasonings. You know, that the vulgar often distinguish reason from experience, even where the question relates only to matter of fact and existence, though it is found, where that reason is properly analyzed, that it is nothing but a species of [quantum~]experience. To prove by experience the origin of the universe from mind, is not more contrary to common speech, than to prove the motion of the earth from the same principle. And a caviller might raise all the same objections to the Copernican system, which you have urged against my reasonings. Have you other earths, might he say, which you have seen to move? Have . . . . . .

Yes! cried Philo, interrupting him, we have other earths. Is not the moon another earth, which we see to turn round its centre? Is not Venus another earth, where we observe the same phenomenon? Are not the revolutions of the sun also a confirmation, from analogy, of the same theory? All the planets, are they not earths, which revolve about the sun? Are not the satellites moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn, and along with these primary planets round the sun? These analogies and resemblances, with others which I have not mentioned, are the sole proofs of the Copernican system, and to you it belongs to consider, whether you have any analogies of the same kind to support your theory.

In reality, Cleanthes, continued he, the modern system of astronomy is now so much received by all enquirers, and has become so essential a part even of our earliest education, that we are not commonly very scrupulous in examining the reasons upon which it is founded. It is now become a matter of mere curiosity to study the first writers on that subject, who had the full force of prejudice to encounter, and were obliged to turn their arguments on every side in order to render them popular and convincing. But if we peruse Galilæo's famous Dialogues2 concerning the system of the world, we shall find, that that great genius, one of the sublimest that ever existed, first bent all his endeavours to prove, that there was no foundation for the distinction commonly made between elementary and celestial substances. The schools, proceeding from the illusions of sense, had carried this distinction very far, and had established the latter substances to be ingenerable, incorruptible, unalterable, impassible, and had assigned all the opposite qualities to the former. But Galilæo, beginning with the moon, proved its similarity in every particular to the earth, its convex figure, its natural darkness when not illuminated, its density, its distinction into solid and liquid, the variations of its phases, the mutual illuminations of the earth and moon, their mutual eclipses, the inequalities of the lunar surface, etc. After many instances of this kind, with regard to all the planets, men plainly saw that these bodies became proper objects of experience, and that the similarity of their nature enabled us to extend the same arguments and phenomena from one to the other.

[Dialogo dei due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo (1632).]
Hafner Library footnote.

[Doug note 9Aug2006: This reference is to Galileo's Dialogue of the Two Principle Systems of the World. He published it just prior to being accused by 'catholic' church's Inquisition which labeled him, "vehemently suspected of heresy." Be careful here. Galileo also published Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences, in 1638. Galileo recanted to idiot Aristotelian-Ptolemaic(Claudius) earth-centric-rope-a-dope-war-mongering Urban VIII 'catholics' rather than being tortured and possibly killed (burned at stake) like Giordano Bruno by Clement VIII in 1600. We do not know much about Galileo, but being accused of "heresy" essentially labels him as a "gnostic."]

Cleanthes' argument on behalf of experience works well in quantum~actuality, however, quantum~n¤nactuality is vaster than actuality and currently and for any foreseeable futurings outside of human sensibility other than indirection and inference.

Therefore, quantum~reason must be omnistinguished from actual experience.

Do you see where Pirsig may have desnoured his, paraphrased and inferred, "...truth is a subspecies of Quality," from Hume here and James' "Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and coordinate with it?" Also James said, "The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief." You may find James' quotes in Pirsig's Lila on page 363 of its first edition. Similar quotes appear here.

Doug - 24Aug2006.

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25 In this cautious proceeding of the astronomers, you may read your own condemnation, Cleanthes, or rather may see, that the subject in which you are engaged exceeds all human reason and enquiry. Can you pretend to shew any such similarity between the fabric of a house, and the generation of a universe? Have you ever seen nature in any such situation as resembles the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under your eye, and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomenon, from the first appearance of order to its final consummation? If you have, then cite your experience, and deliver your theory.

Does Humankind Have Qua to Describe God Using Astronomy?

Doug is wholly confident of his own uncertainty on this one.

Doug - 24Aug2006.

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index

To contact Quantonics write to or call:

Doug Renselle
Quantonics, Inc.
Suite 18 #368 1950 East Greyhound Pass
Carmel, INdiana 46033-7730
USA
1-317-THOUGHT

©Quantonics, Inc., 2006-2029 — Rev. 28Nov2015  PDR — Created 26Apr2006  PDR
(25-26,28Aug2006 rev - Add p. 15 text 'duration' link and update p. 16 comments with red text; extend p. 18 comments slightly. Add more red and pink-boxed text comments. Typo.)
(5-6Sep2006 rev - Repair minor typos. Repair a sentence reference affected by subsequent red text additions. Add anchors to our 'ad oculos' aside.)
(24Oct2006 rev - Repair p. 16 comments misspelling of 'dialectical.')
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