Messages

?All humans who have lived in the past or recent days, with their differences in age, color, and cultures, like to feel good (comfortable) and dislike to feel bad (Stressed).?

"In other words, humans have two drives, one they try to maximize?good emotions, and the other theas2y try to minimize?bad emotions.  With such a hypothesis, my theory has reached a true foundation."

This theory, and its varied forms, are called "Utilitarianism". It is not new (Bentham, Mill).

Das Wesen ist in der Grammatik ausgesprochen.

"Did He create us because he got bored?''


Maybe.

The first (western) ontological argument was created by St Anselm (although he is not the only philosopher to have offered such a argument, and some earlier Muslim philosophers formulated similar arguments), who is also considered the father of the Scholastic tradition. Anselm's argument is the most famous of the ontological arguments (although it has its problems). Kurt G?del offered something like Anselm's argument, and his version is very interesting. His version is created on the firm ground of modal-logic. But in order to avoid confusion, I will deal only with Anselm's argument (which was the first western presentation of the argument, and is the argument mostly in mind when the ontological argument is made reference to). First let me state a basic family resemblance (to use Wittgenstein's words) between all ontological arguments. These arguments try to prove God's existence by purely a priori means. In other words, these arguments utilize only reason. In explaining Anselm's argument I will ignore the debate surrounding what the argument was really meant to do. Many think that the account givin of Anselm's argument in traditional books on the history of philosophy are wrong. I will not discuss these unconventional views of what Anselm meant (again) to avoid confusion, not because the traditional account of what Anselm meant is right. Now to the ontological argument. Here is the argument of Anselm.

"Thus even the fool is convinced that something than which nothing greater can be conceived is in the understanding, since when he hears this, he understands it; and whatever is understood is in the understanding. And certainly that than which a greater cannot be conceived cannot be in the understanding alone. For if it is even in the understanding alone, it can be conceived to exist in reality also, which is greater. Thus if that than which a greater cannot be conceived is in the understanding alone, then that than which a greater cannot be conceived is itself that than which a greater can be conceived. But surely this cannot be. Thus without doubt something than which a greater cannot be conceived exists, both in the understanding and in reality."

The argument is ingenious. But there is something wrong about it. And opinon is very divided on what exactly is wrong. Kant criticised the argument with his notion of existence as a "linguistic predicate" not a "real predicate". Anyway one chooses to attack (or defend) Anselm's version of the ontological argument, something is wrong with it. But a stronger version of Anselm's argument can be found. The philosopher Norman Malcom has pointed out that in the Proslagion Anselm argued that if a necessary being could exist, then it must exist, because it is a contradiction to assert that a necessary being does not exist. This variant of Anselm's version of the ontological argument (although still fishy) escapes many of the attacks that the more well known version has recieved. I have presented the oldest ontological argument (even though it is one of the weakest) to (another "again") avoid confusion. Much more convincing ontological arguments are out there like the modern ones formulated by G?del, Alvin Plantinga, Norman Malcom, Oppenheimer and Zalta, Hawthorne and a few others. But these arguments are still problematic.

"A metaphysical question: Does consciousness (or the soul) depend on the body?"

Yes. Consciousness is incarnate. No body, no mind. I do not believe in a "soul" independent of the body. Consciousness arises in the body, is a part of the body, and ends with the body. Sometimes I doubt the existence of consciousness. I express sympathy for behaviorism. Read Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomology of Perception".

"The best picture of man is his body" Ludwig Wittgenstein

Peace nsws

It's not wrong to ask questions. A couple of months ago i reflected upon this question myself. Because atheist bring it up a lot when they are trying to disprove God's existence. But through logic, rationality and reason i found out that this question is a logical fallacy. And there exist solid arguments that demolish this claim. And i will go through some of the arguments below.

I think nobody created god, and that god has always existed. My first argument is that through logic and reason we will come to the conclusion that there must always be an ultimate first cause to everything. And the first cause everything is God.

As i mentioned in the beginning of my post the argument which you brought up atheist use a lot. they say if god exist, then who created god. Well, nobody have created god. And do we have any more arguments that can back up the claim that nobody has created god and that god always has existed? In my science class we learned that energy can never be created or disapear, it can only be transformed into other forms. that means that energy has existed from almost the beginning of time. And this is a solid argument to back up the claim that God has always existed. Because if energy have existed from the beginning of time (billions of billions of years), then God can also have existed from the beginning of time. God have existed even before energy because god created energy and everything else in the universe.

Did you know that Time and clock is man-made concepts. The clock and time was created by man. And today through modern science we now know that time is relative. And that the universal clock is wrong. For instance if you live in another planet you will get older faster or more slow because time is different there. you will for instance become an old lady in only the age of 30. Time goes faster or slower in that planet. It may go faster or slower than the planet earth. God is not bound by time. he can exist outside of time since he created day and night etc. If a human being create a computer he can exist oustide that computer. God can exist outside of time since he created time, which means that since he is not controlled by the laws of time, he is therefore eternal.

And since there is only one God and everything else exept God has been created, then God must have been the first cause. he is not bound by the same laws like us since he created the laws. He must have always existed. Just like humans that created the computer. Humans have existed before the computer. God existed before mankind. God is therefore eternal. And the Quran tells us that some beings will enter an eternal dimension:

72:23 It is but an announcement from God, and His messages. And whosoever disobeys God and His messenger, then he will have the fire of Hell to dwell eternally therein.

76:19 And they are encircled with eternal children. If you see them you will think they are pearls which have been scattered about.

98:8 Their reward with their Lord is the gardens of Eden with rivers flowing beneath them, they abide eternally therein....

53:15 Near it is the eternal Paradise.

From the verses above we can see that god can give eternal life to human beings if he wants. And since god can give human beings eternal life, it means that God is eternal. Because you can not give eternal life to someone unless you are eternal yourself. So, maybe the test of this life is that, thos who manage to get further development and reach eternal life, will be with God, and exist in his eternal dimension. And since god exist outside of time, he might exist in an eternal dimension where time does not exist. And if time does not exist in a place, that means that the place or dimension if you will have an eternal system. A system where it has never been a beginning nor it will be and end.

There are more that 40 verses in the Quran that tells us about eternality:

http://free-minds.org/quran/search

And according to the dictionary, eternality means being without beginning or end:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/eternality

Another argument atheists use to try to disprove god's existence, is that they say: Since we can not see god with our eyes, then that means that he cannot exist. Well we can not see aliens with our eyes either, We can not see energy with our eyes. We can not see magnetic fields with our eyes. But it does not matter. Because we know that life on other planets, energy and magnetic fields exist. Even dough we can not see energy with our eyes,  we still know that it exists. Because we can feel the energy. We can feel its presence and existence. We don't have to see anything to know that it exists. We can not see god with our eyes but we can feel his presence.

David_k

I agree that there is a God. But the arguments presented are problematic. The "prime mover" argument presupposes a Judeo-Christian (and Islamic) picture of God, and secondly it presupposes causation. Heraclitus and Henri Bergson challenge the first assumption, and David Hume and Immanuel Kant challenge the second (Kant is also famous for trying to refute the ontological argument for God, but I refer to him now because of his view of causation as a synthetic a priori). Note that language is full of the grammar of cause and effect. Everything I have said is based on a "Cause-Effect" framework. So you could say causation is a illusion constructed by language. I do not believe this, but such a argument can be made. And Hume made such conclusions more reasonable. "Well we can not see aliens with our eyes either, We can not see energy with our eyes. We can not see magnetic fields with our eyes. But it does not matter. Because we know that life on other planets, energy and magnetic fields exist." I will not say anything about aliens, but I will say something concerning energy and magnetic fields. Many philosophers of Science have argued that these concepts of energy and fields and other such notions are pragmatic constructs. In other words they do not exist. They are there for the purpose of explaning phenomena that we can see, smell, hear, and touch. Just words. So one could argue that only what we can see, smell, hear, and touch is real. I am of the opinion that the best argument for God's existence is the "ontological argument". But it presupposes God's perfection. And there is also something very fishy about it (but no one has found out what it is that makes this argument so good yet so fishy).

 Wittgenstein, Russel, Carnap, Neurath, Schlick, G?del, Kant...

Yuck. All logical positivists and logical atomists. Wittgenstein, Godel, and Kant are the only non-positivists in that list. The early Wittgenstein was more of a mystic than a positivist (he thought the Vienna Circle had misunderstood him and had misread the Tractatus), and the later Wittgenstein was a pragmatist and postmodernist. Godel was part of the Vienna Circle (as far as I know). But he was a logical platonist (I added logical because his platonism stemmed from his theorems), not a logical empiricist. So he was not a true positivist. Positivism was unable to understand subjectivity. Also it had a outmoded epistemology. And the verification principle defeated itself. Besides that, the analytic-synthetic distinction was fundamentally wrong headed. But,the Circle's contributions to logic and mathematics is beyond debate. And their influence on modern philosophy is undeniable.

[does not]

Examples of attempts to ground philosophy on some authority that failed are: Rationalism based on reason, Empircism based on what is given in sensory experience, Cartiesionism based on radical doubt, Existentialism based on human life and the every day, Hegel's thought based on history and social reality, and other attempts. All these failed. In the end there is no authority in philosophy. In philosophy nothing is refuted nor is anything proved. You can accept whatever you want to accept. Old ideas can be resurected and new ones born. Arguments are never definitive. Philosophical positions can only be weakened never refuted. Islam as a religion has a very clear source of authority which is God as revaeled in the Quran. In philosophy everything goes. You have the freedom to accept any philosophical position. For a Muslim some ideas are forbidden. Anything that does not contradict the Quran goes.

[Philosophy]

Philosophy: Philosophy has no real definition because nobody agrees on what it is. The most broad definition one can think of is a attempt to understand existence. By existence I mean everything that ever enters the human mind. Mind, body, language, perception, knowledge, sex, rules, consciousness, being, logic, God, knowledge, time, pain, happiness, religion, power, social control, free will, common sense's validity, anything under the sun, by anything I mean anything.

Ontology: What does it mean to be and to be a being?

Metaphysics: What is reality? Does reality have a ultimate nature and if so what? Is reality absolute or not? Does a truth somehow match reality? In the past century this branch of philosophy has been attacked so much that one could say a crusade was being waged against it.

Ethics: What is right? What is wrong? On what basis do we decide what is right or wrong? Are there any eternal moral values?

Epistemology: What is knowledge?

I would say Islam is not a philosophy. Religion bases itself on a unique authority called the divine. In philosophy there is no authority. Not even reason. Many have given philosophy a source of authority but in the end these types of philosophers lose all credence.

Logic, mathematics, reason, and philosophy are all products of language. "Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man. --Martin Heidegger". The world is merely what we think it is.