The Problem of Evil

[Baruch]

One thing I want to say about "evil", evil is a description of something...like when we say the rose is "red" or the weather is "cold"...evil is just another way we describe something. Just because "evil", "red" or "cold" are just descriptions does that mean that they do not exist?

Philosophers call things like "color" ... secondary qualities.  They aren't primary ... because color is the result of colorless light interacting with your eyes, that then ascribe them color.  This has been verified ... the color I see as "red" isn't the color anyone else sees as "red".  Of course many animals only see in black and white (gray).  The usual picture of the visible spectrum is a teaching device ... all there is, is a photon with a particular frequency and matching energy (primary qualities).  That has no color.  Perception is so realistic ... that we ascribe reality to it.  Reality as such, has no secondary qualities.  It is like the illusion of the bending of a stick in water ... the actual stick is straight, but to a person from the right perspective, it seems bent at an angle as it enters the water from the air.

On the other hand, I don't agree with the philosophers.  I think the exact opposite ... it is the color I see, subjectively, that is primary ... the frequency that can be measured, objectively, that is secondary.  Both are real, but real doesn't equal just one or the other.

[jonb]

On the other hand, I don't agree with the philosophers.  I think the exact opposite ... it is the color I see, subjectively, that is primary ... the frequency that can be measured, objectively, that is secondary.  Both are real, but real doesn't equal just one or the other.

If the colour is primary how can it be affected by the colour of surrounding areas?

[CrucifyCindy]

So if we were Klingons we would be on the same side!

In one episode of Star trek it is mentioned that the Klingons got rid of the gods as they were a distraction.

If I believed there was a creator god I don't see how I could come to a different conclusion than that you are pointing to.

I keep on telling my fellow Trekkers that Klingons are the ultimate Buddhists is the Star Trek Universe but they still won't believe me

[Baruch]

CrucifyCindy ... so the Buddha died from eating fresh goch?

jonb ... so how can one electron influence another, to form an interference pattern, but only if someone isn't looking too close?  Technically it is something called entanglement.  Ultimately the whole universe is involved ... one giant plate of spaghetti ... so The Flying Spaghetti Monster ... is the Deity ;-)

[Munch]

[jonb]

How many electrons are there? the answer I am told could be one.
Though having said that I am out of my depth with physics, but I do know a little about perception and how easy it is to control it.

https://youtu.be/fyJ_04BWPbA

[Baruch]

Munch - That is what happens when the head of an unripe sunflower falls into a black hole ;-)

Jonb - so if you can control perception, that is magic, and you are deified.

[CrucifyCindy]

CrucifyCindy ... so the Buddha died from eating fresh goch?

He died from eating bad pork and you know it.

[Mike Cl]

Goddammit Munch--now that is evil!  Looking at too many of those can cause me to go blind--or wish I was.

[Baruch]

One pharmacologist decided that Mozart died from a poorly cooked pork chop.  If that connects Mozart to Buddha ... that would explain Mozart ;-)  It would also explain that neither were Jewish.

[jonb]

Jonb - so if you can control perception, that is magic, and you are deified.

Because a rabbit can be pulled from a hat, or a fish from a picnic hamper and some call it a miracle or magic, when you have been taught how to make the illusion you know it is a trick. Further more when you see others claiming it is divine that is as strong a proof as is needed that there is no divine there, because the divine would not need to resort to tricks.

[Baruch]

Reality is a trick ... why discount it as "mere"?  Reality is an illusion by G-d ... and we are the sorcerer's apprentice ... your typing changes my perception ... but in communication, the meaning isn't in the message, it is external to it.  The message only servers as a trigger to change the perception of the receiver.  This is known as an incantation.  My hearty abracadabra back at you ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ait_Fs6UQhQ

Look around at the human world ... this is an exact metaphor by Mickey Mouse.  A perfect description of management-labor relations and automation and austerity.  But that requires thinking analogically, not logically ... symbolically not literally.

[jonb]

On the other hand, I don't agree with the philosophers.  I think the exact opposite ... it is the color I see, subjectively, that is primary ... the frequency that can be measured, objectively, that is secondary.  Both are real, but real doesn't equal just one or the other.

It is back to this though how can colour be primary if I can produce colour in your vision when there is none?


Look at the centre point see the yellow spot spinning round? Well there is no yellow there.

The yellow is created by our minds over reacting to the absence of blue.

It has been said that about 10% of what we see is though our eyes the rest is put together in our minds, I really don't think that estimate is far off. There might be primary movers out there but our sensory systems and the codifying systems in our brains are just not reliable enough in my view to state colour for instance is primary. 

[Mike Cl]

Reality is a trick ... why discount it as "mere"?  Reality is an illusion by G-d ... and we are the sorcerer's apprentice ... your typing changes my perception ... but in communication, the meaning isn't in the message, it is external to it.  The message only servers as a trigger to change the perception of the receiver.  This is known as an incantation.  My hearty abracadabra back at you ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ait_Fs6UQhQ

Look around at the human world ... this is an exact metaphor by Mickey Mouse.  A perfect description of management-labor relations and automation and austerity.  But that requires thinking analogically, not logically ... symbolically not literally.

From my point of view, reality is not a trick, but a product of, as you say, our human world.  It is created by biology.  Every creature, big and small experiences their world, their reality, in a way that enhances its survival as a species.  Plus, for us humans, we may be developed as a species to survive, each of use filters the reality of the world thru our own ego filter, and therefore experiences our own 'reality'.

[Baruch]

Philosopher John Locke was an Englishman ... and a pretty good one at that.  But there are things outside of his view ... I take his contemporary, George Berkeley as my witness ;-)  Two poles (but neither Polish).

Here is the common sense epistemology.  What happens outside me is real, because two people can agree in principle to what happens outside of themselves both.  Thus objectivity is possible.  Outside-us reality is an observable (so called in QM).  We will ignore what happens inside me or inside you (subjectivity), because in most cases two people can't agree in principle to what that is ... in QM that would be called an un-observable.  But in Schroedinger's Equation, we have an unobservable quantum wave determining (probable-isticly) the observables.  Over repeated measurement, we get within some error (not all avoidable) a consistent outcome.  But the cause is that unobservable.  Of course John Locke couldn't have imagined this.  But then back then, the common sense of an Englishman, to a Frenchman, was Merde!