The all-purpose Snarf thread

[homeschoolmom]

Yes, I see....

[Snarf]

I think it's funny that you mention me "misrepresenting" scientific consensus when it turns out that less than 50% of scientific academicians believe in God, and far less regularly attend services. So, yeah, I agree to some extent, but not in your favor.

Sorry it's been a while since I've been here, but I'm trying to be more involved with school and less with the internets.

And yes, I do acknowledge more than once that it is not a closed book on the subject of determinism. However, factoring in reductionism (which more or less IS a closed book) makes this a small detail. I honestly think that a non-deterministic world would work much easier for my theory.

To demonstrate, to posit the ability of souls to determine the course of action on an ad hoc basis at the quantum level, you must assign to them some prescience of the outcome. That's no big deal when dealing with the human brain, as it's not unreasonable to suppose that the soul could figure out what thoughts will be instigated by firing this or that synapse. But there's too much more than that to reasonably grant the soul ALL (or at least consensus amount) of power over the mind, there are far too many factors involved. Environmental exposure forges far too much to our decisions for the soul to be the sole agent, and that's to say nothing of incidental factors such as ambience, chemicals to which a person is exposed, and that little thing known as GENETICS.

As for my definition that a soul in heaven pertains to a life marked foremost by caritas, versus the repentant thief on the cross, I said GENERALLY. I actually happen to agree with the Church in that one's eternal destiny is cast by their state of Grace at death. However, I will not define rigid rules of who does and does not go to heaven or hell because I AM NOT GOD, and NOR ARE YOU. The rules of ratios of caritas/cupiditas are dogmatically-sound general guidelines, but obviously God reserves the right to deal with whomever however He wishes.

Anything I've forgotten? I don't really have time to fish the thread right now. My book is now for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online, but you can get it a little cheaper if you order it off my website. I have a set price listed on my website, but since I'm interested in hearing what other well-read Catholics have to say about it I'll accept any reasonable offer from you guys.

In other news, I'm taking a a class on Anselm right now. It's fun, but tends to focus on him more as a logician over a theologian.

[Cow of Shame]

Good to see you back on the boards....although, it's even better to hear you've been focusing on real life

[Snarf]

Thank you, Cow.

I went to confession today, and I discussed my feelings about the theory and how it truly troubles me that I could be bordering on heresy. He told me that theology is dynamic and constantly evolving, that the Church is an institution of humans (I know that it's divinely-ordinated), et cetera und so weiter. He told me that as long as I accept the fundamental statements of the Credo, I should not feel like less of a Catholic as long as I do not place my authority as being higher than that of the Church. He said that he did not see why my idea would be deemed heretical, so I reminded him of the anathemization of Origen (which I feel does not apply to me, but it's frequently been flung at me). He said he'd have to think about that for a while.

What I tried to explain to him is that I'm not guided by anything except my lust for the truth, and I would love to point to Coeternalism as simply a stage in my development. He didn't really reply to that, just reiterating what had been said before.

As evidenced elsewhere, my faith in God is rock-solid. However, my faith in the soul has long been faltering. If it's not eternal, it's simply superfluous. That's my connundrum.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Snarf, I really do understand how you feel. I know what it is like to struggle with certain aspects of the Faith, and I know how difficult it can be when struggling through this kind of thing to be constantly told that you are wrong. For my part, I would much rather you consider me a friend and a helper in this intellectual struggle than an adversary or opponent.

Hard Determinism is not personally one of my convictions or something that I find convincing, but if it is something that you are simply not willing to give up, then perhaps you might find Kant's Third (I think) Antimony helpful. Just as Kant argues that we [i]must[/i] be able to speak of the world as determined [i]and[/i] speak of humans as totally free, perhaps you might widen that line of thought to say that we [i]must[/i] think of ourselves as physical and temporal [i]and[/i] spiritual and temporal.

In this way, there would be no claim that the soul is co-eternal with God, but rather that it is temporal just as the body is temporal. Moreover, the apparent contradiction between a physical body and a spiritual soul both being the "cause" of action would be explained away by pointing to the problem as something beyond the limits of pure reason. Thus, it is concluded that we must necessarily be able to claim that we are both physical and spiritual in a wholly temporal sense.

If, on the other hand, you do not hold strict determinism in a clenched fist, then I would be glad to talk with you more about other viable alternatives.

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[Cow of Shame]

[quote name='Snarf' date='Jan 28 2006, 09:29 PM']As evidenced elsewhere, my faith in God is rock-solid.  However, [i]my faith in the soul has long been faltering[/i].  [b]If it's not eternal[/b], it's simply superfluous.  That's my connundrum.
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Ah, is that what you've been going on about? You need to be able to boil your theories down to bite-sized pieces if you're going to be any fun at cocktail parties. Your physics learnin' is leading you to believe that the soul does not exist for eternity?

Edited January 30, 2006 by Cow of Shame

[Desert Walker]

[quote]"Most of these comments were made to be as vague as possible..."

                                                                         -- Snarf[/quote]

[quote]"...[T]he modern mind is as averse to precision in ideas as it is enamored of precison in measurement."

                                                                     -- Hilaire Belloc[/quote]

Edited January 30, 2006 by Desert Walker

[Snarf]

Yeah, well, try to cogitate on the Schödinger equation as concretely as possible and you might see why.

[Desert Walker]

[quote name='Snarf' date='Jan 31 2006, 07:14 AM']Yeah, well, try to cogitate on the Schödinger equation as concretely as possible and you might see why.
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Well, I'm sure the guy was able to state the primary CONCLUSION to his equation. What is it btw? I'm curious.

Wasn't he the one who determined that one or the other the fundamental descriptions "particle" and "wave" of the known "elementary constituents" of physical reality (like electrons) was not ALWAYS displayed by those constituents?

[Snarf]

That's right, the SE describes how a particle can be defined as a wave. You can observe an electron or other elementary particle as a wave, or a particle, but never both at the same time. That's where it gets [i]weird[/i].

[Desert Walker]

Have you read this book?

[i]Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking the Barrier of Scientistic Belief[/i]

The author is a mathematician and philosopher by the name of Wolfgang Smith. He helped figure out the re-entry problem for space capsules.

Edited January 31, 2006 by Desert Walker