Biologically it seems that there is a statistical tendency to prefer the pleasure that can be had now, rather than the greater pleasure that can be had in the long-run. And one may be aware of this - and yet still do evil, because it is the will that is corrupted, which also corrupts the mind. And thus, the punishment of sin ultimately again is death and suffering (the loss of happiness). Thus immorality does lead to destruction, and virtue is its own reward. — Agustino
Evil is self or other destructive behavior. It has to do with short-term pleasure because to have short term pleasure (in this context) means to sacrifice long term pleasure. By definition in this case. Whatsoever pleasure you can imagine which does not sacrifice future pleasure is by this definition a long-term pleasure.What is evil and how does it have to do with short-term pleasure? — schopenhauer1
According to the definitions above it does, since what qualifies as short term pleasure is precisely that which prevents one from enjoying a greater good in the future. Thus it is evil because it does harm to one's own soul.Most would say murder, genocide, rape, purposely hurting people, and such is evil, but that does not necessarily correlate with indulging in short-term pleasure. — schopenhauer1
Sex in the wrong circumstances (outside of a committed relationship) is evil as it harms the one who engages in it as it leads to them to: 1. sacrifice their capacity for developing intimacy with someone in the future, 2. fail to achieve the natural purpose of sex (intimacy and/or reproduction), 3. treat another human being as a means to an end, and thus objectify them, taking the dignity they rightfully deserve away.If you allude to sex (with self or others), which almost all Church Fathers and "Saint" Paul were fixated on and essentially "alluding" to with sin it seems, then besides STDs, this does not seem in the evil category or even a short-term loss unless it is accompanied by feelings of remorse or shame which may be a cultural, personal psychological, or personal biological thing- again both not equating to what is normally deemed "evil". — schopenhauer1
Addiction is harmful to the flourishing of the organism, and is therefore evil. Addiction does not promote flourishing.However, the personal consumption of drugs, starts out with the general human tendency towards boredom, and the pleasurable or altered state of the drug becomes an addiction. Addiction could be said to be an "evil" because it can consume a life and cause it to think of nothing else. However, a condition like addiction does not seem to fall under evil in the conventional sense of the word either. — schopenhauer1
At no point. Indulgence is always bad. What is good is skillful (as Buddhists would say) living. This whole idea of cashing in is part of the problem. There is no cashing in. The focus is on living a good life, which means growing and developing one's self and doing good for self and others. You're cashing in at all times. Going for short-term pleasures is being short-sighted and creating future trouble for yourself, thus, paradoxically, not cashing in. The virtuous man is the only one who cashes in, and he cashes in every moment.Also, a bigger point, at what time is it good then to indulge? The short term is forfeited to the long term, but usually with the goal to eventually cash in on all those original forfeits. You invest and wait to see it grow and reap the rewards. The emphasis being that you will eventually reap the rewards. — schopenhauer1
Sure. Paradoxically, the only man who ever gets real, lasting pleasure is the virtuous man, and this is the ultimate Socratic irony."Virtue is its own reward" does not seem to be saying much to me. Pleasure seems to be the reward of "virtues". If you want to get good at something, patience, fortitude and such may be the way to get there, but the "reward" seems to be the pleasure of mastering something and feeling or seeing the result. — schopenhauer1
The idyllic utopia from which we fell is the atemporal and eternal. The world is fallen only when we compare it to the world sub specie aeternitatis - thus, man's fall into time (and hence into death), is the effect of original sin. But, alas - there is still spirit in man, not only flesh, and thus not everything has fallen into time - something still remains which is eternal - otherwise there would be no truth but Cioran. As Spinoza has said, sometimes we feel that we are eternal; or as Wittgenstein has said, eternity is not to be found in time's infinity, but rather in the eternity of the present moment; life knows no end, the same way our visual field knows no end.Excellent post. However, I think at least in moral matters, human beings have always ever been fallen, for we now know that there never was an idyllic utopia from which to fall. Ancient man's life was just as nasty, brutish, and short as modern man's. And speaking of the world, ever since the Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago, it has been awash in a staggering, seemingly endless amount of violence and death. I greatly value the doctrine of original sin for its explanatory power, but it is crucially deficient in the above respects. — Thorongil
Where do I say this. Please quote instead of assuming some notions that I have never stated nor agreed with. I don't understand why you like to imagine things about what I'm saying instead of actually look at what I've written. You say I have a trouble with accepting the finite nature of man, and I say you have a trouble with accepting what I wrote, and prefer instead to create an imagination of it...the notion the world (including human life) is inherently worthless because it is not perfect — TheWillowOfDarkness
Nope, original sin states that that is precisely what will happen.It the failure to accept that we are human, that we live in a finite world, that we will die, that we live in the swirling chaos of the world sub specie durationis. — TheWillowOfDarkness
That's not part of the doctrine of original sin - quite the contrary, as I have stated very clearly, the punishment for sin is death, and this is inescapable as I have illustrated. Therefore there is no delusion that we can ever escape from it. Original sin states quite the contrary.Here the problem is not the identification of the world as full of evil (it is), but rather the delusion that we can ever escape it. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Nope, we run to something other merely because it exists - it is real, and it is a part of ourselves. If we neglected that part, then that would be the equivalent of neglecting part of our being. Kierkegaard wrote extensively on this - on the need for man to balance the finite and the infinite within him, on the fact that man is a contradiction, holding both finite and infinite within him, yadda yadda yadda...So distraught at the failures of the finite, we run to the lie that our lives are something other, that there is somehow a place, a state, a life, sub specie aeternitatis. — TheWillowOfDarkness
No the spirit never escapes from the world sub specie durationis because it simply never is part of the world sub specie durationis. I don't know what happens after death - I can't imagine either that there is feeling or that there isn't feeling. Those categories, as far as I'm concerned, no longer apply, except perhaps metaphorically.Not even the spirit of man escapes of the world sub specie durationis. When man dies and his feelings leave the world, there is no more feeling eternal. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Part of ourselves - namely our bodies - are outside of the infinite. But our souls and minds never are.It's the fear of the finite, the fear of death, the inability to accept life is sub specie durationis and that we, as existing states, are outside the infinite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Re-read Book V of the Ethics. Spinoza is clear about this: "V.P23: The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal". It's ironic that YOU are the one talking about mocking Spinoza's insights...t's a mockery of Spinoza's insight into sub specie durationis and sub specie aeternitatis, a confusing of the latter for the former because one cannot accept the finite nature of life. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It doesn't point out the wrongness of finite life.Orignal sin doesn't merely point out the wrongness of finite life. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Neither does it state this.It mistakenly proposes we are worthless because of it, that it means we must be something other than ourselves, something other than finite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
"In Him we move and have our being"God ceases to be the immanent expression of the world (i.e. the infinite) and is mistaken for a life, a utopia, which has never existed and never will. It forms a delusion about our life (that be can be infinite) and worth (that the world is worthless, without the expression of God) with which we try to fill the whole in our heart. — TheWillowOfDarkness
This assumption is wrong. You have just not discovered the infinite part of man. We are BOTH finite and infinite.But it never really works because we are finite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Spinoza's words :) . Spinoza stated that "we feel and know that we are eternal" in the note to proposition 23 quoted earlier.FEEL like they will be infinite — TheWillowOfDarkness
In logical expression, yes (though our bodies are infinite there too). Not in life. Our minds aren't distinct form our bodies in the sense that former is finite and the latter infinite (you are regressing into the mind-body dualism Spinoza dispels here). This is an outright textual example of your refusal to accept the finite. You speak of if the indestructible nature of logical expression were the existing mind of a person. As if the feeling one was infinite actually qualified as part of a person existing for eternity.Part of ourselves - namely our bodies - are outside of the infinite. But our souls and minds never are.
Re-read Book V of the Ethics. Spinoza is clear about this: "V.P23: The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal". It's ironic that YOU are the one talking about mocking Spinoza's insights... — Agustino
Another example of not accepting the finite nature of man. Here you propose there is an infinite part of man such that it produces a contradiction. This is not true. Such a contradiction is impossible. No state of man is infinite.Nope, we run to something other merely because it exists - it is real, and it is a part of ourselves. If we neglected that part, then that would be the equivalent of neglecting part of our being. Kierkegaard wrote extensively on this - on the need for man to balance the finite and the infinite within him, on the fact that man is a contradiction, holding both finite and infinite within him, yadda yadda yadda... — Agustino
No the spirit never escapes from the world sub specie durationis because it simply never is part of the world sub specie durationis. I don't know what happens after death - I can't imagine either that there is feeling or that there isn't feeling. Those categories, as far as I'm concerned, no longer apply, except perhaps metaphorically. — Agustino
Nope, original sin states that that is precisely what will happen.
That's not part of the doctrine of original sin - quite the contrary, as I have stated very clearly, the punishment for sin is death, and this is inescapable as I have illustrated. Therefore there is no delusion that we can ever escape from it. Original sin states quite the contrary. — Agustino
"In Him we move and have our being" — Agustino
Good to know haha!I do that all the time, I might go as far to say in every moment. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It is impossible that this is Spinoza's meaning for the following reason. If it was his meaning, then he would not state "the mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body", which implies that the body CAN BE and IS absolutely destroyed.In logical expression, yes (though our bodies are infinite there too) — TheWillowOfDarkness
You are misunderstanding. Is Aristotle's hylomorphism dualistic? Absolutely not. The soul is the form of the body. The soul does not exist physically without the body. And yet, the soul is eternal and lives after death. Not because of a dualistic break between the two, but rather because the soul is an activity, which still remains as an activity even after death when it isn't instantiated in the physical realm anymore. Spinoza is similar.Our minds aren't distinct form our bodies in the sense that former is finite and the latter infinite (you are regressing into the mind-body dualism Spinoza dispels here) — TheWillowOfDarkness
"We feel AND KNOW that we are eternal"You speak of if the indestructible nature of logical expression were the existing mind of a person. As if the feeling one was infinite actually qualified as part of a person existing for eternity. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Proof?Another example of not accepting the finite nature of man. Here you propose there is an infinite part of man such that it produces a contradiction. This is not true. Such a contradiction is impossible. No state of man is infinite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
How come?My point is it considered the world worthless because of that. It is the fear of existing in world in which there is at least some evil that cannot be escaped. Worthlessness is part of the doctrine of original sin. — TheWillowOfDarkness
No, it merely states that it is the infinite which ultimately gives value to this world - in fact this world (the finite) cannot exist without the infinite, which must always be presupposed. It's strange you say this when the Christian position is clearly that this world is good - that God's creation is good, despite its fallenness.Rather than noting the presence of inescapable evil (sin) and the stating that such a world is nevertheless worthwhile, it proclaims the world with evil is completely worthless, such that things need to be infinite to matter. — TheWillowOfDarkness
But God is in this case logically prior to the world. The world can't exist without God, but God could (logically) exist without the world. Sub specie aeternitatis, even according to Spinoza, is the ONLY reality, and sub specie durationis is the illusion (in accordance to Hegel's acosmistic reading of Spinoza at least).More like: "With the being of the world (including us), He moves (i.e. the infinite expressed by the finite, " if we are being careful in our language to avoid the equivocation of the finite with the infinite. The world is not a subset of the infinite as your quote might imply if read the wrong way. — TheWillowOfDarkness
But God is in this case logically prior to the world. The world can't exist without God, but God could (logically) exist without the world. Sub specie aeternitatis, even according to Spinoza, is the ONLY reality, and sub specie durationis is the illusion (in accordance to Hegel's acosmistic reading of Spinoza at least). — Agustino
It's strange you say this when the Christian position is clearly that this world is good - that God's creation is good, despite its fallenness. — Agustino
"We feel AND KNOW that we are eternal" — Agustino
Because it doesn't accept the fallen world (in Christian terms, "the Godless" ) as good. It posits it must be destroyed, that it needs the being of God to save it, because it supposes the world doesn't matter without the divine (and the stuff which usually goes along with that, such as afterlife, judgement, retribution, etc., etc. ).How come? — Agustino
Logical expression works as a "soul"; it something the world (including bodies) do, but it doesn't exist. It not the existing body. Since it is infinite (logical) rather than finite (existing) it does remain after death, but that's because it was never in instantiated in the physical realm at all. The activity was always logical, even when is person was living.You are misunderstanding. Is Aristotle's hylomorphism dualistic? Absolutely not. The soul is the form of the body. The soul does not exist physically without the body. And yet, the soul is eternal and lives after death. Not because of a dualistic break between the two, but rather because the soul is an activity, which still remains as an activity even after death when it isn't instantiated in the physical realm anymore. Spinoza is similar. — Agustino
I said the infinite is logically prior. The infinite isn't logic btw - logic is merely a tool of the understanding.That's nonsensical. God is timeless. The infinite cannot be prior or afterwards. It only IS. God doesn't exist, as God is not finite. Logic is not a presupposition that enables existence. It's always true (the infinite) and runs concurrently with world the exists on its own terms (the finite). — TheWillowOfDarkness
You cannot take away God under the Christian view. It's simply a logical contradiction to think a world without God given the Christian system. So your point is moot.Yeah... only because of the divine. Take away God and it's all worthless, despite the fact it changes not one thing occurs in the finite world. For the Christian, the world is worthless because it is fallen. God then rescues it. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It's what Spinoza thinks :) He wrote it. So it seems that you are the one mocking his insight. I think that in a certain sense, we have always been.No, that's just what many people think, confusing the logical expression they sense fort her own existence. It's false. We aren't eternal. As existing state we have not always been. We start and end. — TheWillowOfDarkness
These terms are incoherent under the Christian worldview. A world without a God is like a triangle without sides!Because it doesn't accept the fallen world (in Christian terms, "the Godless" ) as good. It posits it must be destroyed, that it needs the being of God to save it, because it supposes the world doesn't matter without the divine (and the stuff which usually goes along with that, such as afterlife, judgement, retribution, etc., etc. ). — TheWillowOfDarkness
The activity (the soul) has effects in the physical world. For example the capacity for thought would be such an effect.Logical expression works as a "soul"; it something the world (including bodies) do, but it doesn't exist. It not the existing body. Since it is infinite (logical) rather than finite (existing) it does remain after death, but that's because it was never in instantiated in the physical realm at all. The activity was always logical, even when is person was living. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I insist that the soul's existence goes on before and after the body. Man is both soul and body. Only a part of man is eternal according to philosophy (according to Christianity, the body will be eternal too).You insist despite the obvious contradiction, that the soul was initially apart of the body, a state of the existing state of the world, a finite thing which passed into existence, which somehow changed and altered with time. Here the problem is not the soul as activity, but that you read it as the existence of man. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I said the infinite is logically prior. The infinite isn't logic btw - logic is merely a tool of the understanding. — Agustino
No, it's your misreading of Spinoza, where you misread the infinite as existence. We are in a certain sense, logical expression, always infinite. We even mean before we exist. Even things which never exist have their meaning (all those possible worlds we might talk about). You are confusing this with existence.It's what Spinoza thinks :) He wrote it. So it seems that you are the one mocking his insight. I think that in a certain sense, we have always been. — Agustino
The activity (the soul) has effects in the physical world. For example thought would be such an activity. — Agustino
These terms are incoherent under the Christian worldview. A world without a God is like a triangle without sides! — Agustino
I'm not saying logic is prior to anything. The infinite however is logically prior to the finite. That's what I've said, which is different.I know that. My point is it an oxymoron. Logic is timeless. To say it is prior or afterwards is incoherent. you are applying finite terms to the infinite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Well what do you think of a triangle if it didn't have any sides? That's exactly what the Christian thinks about the world if it was Godless. Simple. Just because you can list a string of words and put a question mark at the end does not mean that the question makes sense within a certain system of thought.Rather, we are talking about what Christians think about the Godless universe. Whether they believe the Godless universe is true is beside the point. What's important is what they are saying about the world if it was Godless and how that ties worth to the presence of God. — TheWillowOfDarkness
According to you, the body is also eternal. Spinoza clearly shows that only parts of the mind are eternal, and not the body. It's again you who are denying what is written plainly on the paper.No, it's your misreading of Spinoza, where you misread the infinite as existence. We are in a certain sense, logical expression, always infinite. We even mean before we exist. Even things which never exist have their meaning (all those possible worlds we might talk about). You are confusing this with existence. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes our thought - noun. What I'm talking about is the activity of thinking - the process.There's that dualism again. Thought is a existing state. It is finite. Our thought emerge, pass on and result in changes to existing states. It's not the soul. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Well what do you think of a triangle if it didn't have any sides? That's exactly what the Christian thinks about the world if it was Godless. Simple. — Agustino
Yes but not in the temporal sense of before. I can also say that the infinite is bigger than the finite. Bigger is a finite term. Does that mean that my assertion is now false? It's a category error? I don't believe so. It's possibly to compare the infinite with the finite, what is not possible is to compare infinite with infinite, that's when comparison terms break.That's saying the infinite is present before the finite, Agustino. Finite terms. It's nonsense if you are talking about the infinite. — TheWillowOfDarkness
No what you are saying misses the point simply because it is impossible to judge something that is incoherent. It is impossible to judge or say anything about a triangle without sides. Likewise, under the Christian worldview, it is impossible to judge or say anything about a Godless world.For sure... but that's been my point all along: that under original sin our world on it own, without the existing infinite, in-itself, is worthless and doesn't make sense. You've been the one asserting this isn't true. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Why do you think Spinoza means meaning by body, and existence by mind?That's not what I said. The meaning of the body, it logical expression, is eternal. Spinoza shows the difference between meaning and existence, which are, in many cases, is referred to "body" and "mind" historically. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Rather it is that which makes any thought possible in the first place. It is a ground of possibility.In the sense you are talking about, the meaning of "thinking," as opposed to any individuals thoughts, there is no finite state and no casual relationship. — TheWillowOfDarkness
More a literalist interpretation than I prefer, but interesting.I see original sin, and the fall of the human species as quite a beautiful story. We are the only species that are truly culpable. Adam's legacy that we inherit is to lose our innocence, become self aware, feel ashamed, contrite, and cognizant of the moral weight of our actions. We can never be innocent like other animals again. We ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and became truly capable of guilt. — Wosret
Hah this was a funny re-telling!Harvey Cox, an American theologian, writes in his book "On Not Leaving It To The Snake" that Adam and Eve were meant to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but that this would only be a good thing if they made the decision themselves. Instead, they were seduced into eating it by the Serpent. The snack of knowledge therefore had to backfire.
It had to backfire, because the story of Adam's and Eve's fall reads like the typical fairy tale: "Here's the deal: You can go everywhere you want in the forest, but you MUST NEVER STEP INTO THE GROVE OF SACRED ASH TREES." So our hapless hero and heroine wander about the forest, and sure enough they come to the grove of sacred ash trees. In the middle of the grove is a fountain of sparkling water (it's naturally carbonated--Perrier--) and the heroine suddenly is terribly thirsty and must MUST have a sip of the water. She carries on hysterically until the hero says, "OK I'll get you a drink of water." What a bitch, he thinks. As soon as he steps into the circle of sacred ash trees he turns into a stag, and runs away.
Maybe, after much folderol, he will be turned back into a hero and maybe they will live happily ever after. Or maybe he decides stags are better company than hysterical maidens.
Adam and eve stay human, but the deal they get in life soon turns shitty after they eat the fruit. God, in place of the witch, says "I told you not to do it, and you did it anyway. Now you have to be punished -- otherwise, what kind of limp-wristed fairy tale would this be? Out, Out, Out. Raus! Raus!
And forever after it's been one damned thing after another for the children of Adam. — Bitter Crank
Ultimately the second law of thermodynamics practically guarantees that the Universe will fizzle out of existence, thereby illustrating that the punishment of sin is death. — Agustino
I still maintain that position. But I did say that it is justified based on custom (and NOT that it is unjustified pure and simple). If we take a larger view of reason, and include custom in it, rather than merely deductive reasoning, then we can say that inductive inferences are also the result of reason (although negatively so - there simply is no reason to question these inductive inferences).This is an inconsistent claim from one who argued so tenaciously against the rational justifiably of any generalized inductive inferences not so long ago! — John
How strange you are, now you're saying exactly what I've been saying. I entirely agree with you, and in fact have told you that it is a mistake to treat God as a possibility (the way you did when you asked me to consider whether a godless world is worthless). -> No doubt that now you'll go on saying that in fact I don't agree with you, and on we'll go :DThe issue runs deeper than merely thinking that the infinite runs prior to the finite. It goes to the how of how much you respect God as real in (acosmist terms). How you speak about God treats God as a as a possibility, such that we might be born into a world in which God (in acosmist terms) might or not be real. You hold our existence to ransom based on the idea of the presence infinite over the absence of infinite, as if it were possible for the infinite to be or not be. You are still running in fear with belief in the godless world. You haven’t realised that God (in acosmist terms) is real and necessary, such there is no possibility of the godless reality, making the supposed issue, whether or not God is true, entirely moot. The very question is nonsensical. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I disagree with your interpretation of the Christian worldview. I think Aquinas would also disagree, as well as a few other theologians.Confusion of the infinite and finite isn’t just a shallow statement that places the infinite in time, it’s one which fundamentally misunderstands the infinite and it relationship to possibility. It creates the illusion of the meaningless (godless) world which then people try to fill in with various imaginings. God gets treated as an action, a state, one possible outcome, which must be inserted into the world for it to mean, for God to be true (i.e. “the saviour”). In the relevant terms, the Christian world is godless, for it denies God is real (in acosmist terms) and suppose God is illusion for God is a possible (finite) outcome of the world which acts, causes and changes finite states. It is the ultimate category error which denies the infinite then tries to use the finite to paper over the nonsensical gap that denial leaves. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I agree with everything, except the second half of the last sentence. The finite is the expression of the infinite and DOES NOT have independence from the infinite.Spinoza's split between thought and extension is not between the existing minds and bodies, but a logical distinction between that which is present to mind (meaning) and that which is existing (states of the world, bodies, existing thoughts). It's the difference that the mind/body split has been trying to grasp and failing for its entire history. The meaning (infinite) which we access every time we think and the various states of the world we observe or know about. It's how Spinoza dispenses with the mind/body problem. The infinities of mind are given with the finites of body, removing any need to give priority to either, and so eliminating the "hard problem" and the question of "where does meaning come from?" Since meaning is infinite and unchanging, it never had a beginning or end, it came from nowhere and can go nowhere. All meaning is necessary. It given by definition, with all the finite states which are given in themselves (as opposed to by the infinite). — TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes it is necessary. That is exactly what a ground of possibility means. The ground of possibility is itself not possible, it is necessary, just the same way that that which makes vision possible (the eye) is necessarily not present in the field of vision (well, except when you look in the mirror, but you get the point).Thus, it makes no sense to claim the infinite as a ground for possibility. It's necessary. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I agree!God is never in doubt such that it makes sense to say: "Well, the presence of the infinite constitutes the ground which allows us to have possible finite states as opposed to not." Any finite state is, by definition, possible. To argue something has to come in (God, the infinite) to insert possibility into a world without it, or which might not have any, is incoherent. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The finite is the expression of the infinite and DOES NOT have independence from the infinite.
Yes it is necessary. That is exactly what a ground of possibility means. The ground of possibility is itself not possible, it is necessary, just the same way that that which makes vision possible (the eye) is necessarily not present in the field of vision (well, except when you look in the mirror, but you get the point). — Agustino
Nope, not must come in. Rather it inevitably and necessarily always is there.The ground of possibility assumes that something must come in an act as the foundation for the emergence of possibility. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It is necessary itself, but only because it emanates from the divine.It takes possibility to be a finite state which must be created out of the infinite, rather than being necessary itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I actually am not sure about this point. Some things may appear logically coherent/possible if we think lightly about them, and don't imagine it clearly and distinctly with the entire surrounding context.The eye is never what makes vision possible. Vision is possible at any point. Logically, any moment might have an experience of seeing. It just takes that state itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Again, I am not sure about this.Eyes are just finite states which are causal of some actual instances of vision. Logically, any other state might play a similar casual role in the emergence of vision. There might even be the presence of experiences of seeing all on their own (i.e. without any specific causal relationship to an information receiver, such as an eye). This remains the case even when its only eyes which are causing experiences of vision. The thing about a possibility is that it doesn't need to actual to be true. — TheWillowOfDarkness
As far as I know, at least in Orthodox Christianity, the fall of man is the fall of creation as well. Remember that in the Garden of Eden, there was no death (hence no thermodynamics). I don't even think the story refers to anything we can conceptualise except negatively (apophatically) compared to this life.Christian doctrine is not univocal, but the way I heard it God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. I assume he was aware of thermodynamics already. The goodness of thermodynamics is the radical freedom it confers on creation.
The Fall is rather more human-specific than this thread allows. — unenlightened
Maybe but I think it's what most forms of Christianity profess.Yeah, thats a bit too literal for my wishy washy blood. — unenlightened
I have a few qualms with this essentially Buddhist/Humean idea. The Orthodox Christian idea is that, after death, ALL souls (even those which go to hell) are re-united with God, wherein they move and have their being. Those who hate God will perceive it as hell, those who love God will perceive it as heaven. The individuality (soul) of each remains. Now of course, ultimately, only God exists. But, we human beings, are not (fully) God. We cannot exist as infinite, and must therefore exist only as finite. In no way do we therefore avoid death by losing our self-identification - it would be like saying one avoids death by committing suicide, or by being already dead. We cannot be held to even exist as human beings without our self identification. What value does any of this have to US? None. How can we even be held to fall, when we don't even exist yet? Not to have self-identification for humans simply means not to exist.there is no death because there is no separation of self — unenlightened
Why is an arrow of time logically necessary for freedom? Freedom could be time-less.I don't think there is a need for some other earth with different physics; indeed I cannot make sense of a fall in a world without the freedom of entropy. — unenlightened
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