01 Apr 2008, 3:48 pm
I think that believing in god is a way for some people, to whom language is very concrete, ( terribly solid, almost opaque, respected as "law", determining/defining "all") , but frighteningly uncertain at the same time, ( so slippery), to get a handle/perspective on the "virtual world" it creates.
If it is "created", then it is both safer, and less serious, ( there is something beyond it).
What is "not language" almost does not exist. I'm a fan of Jung, and very glad of my dreams, but am also very glad to think "god made this" about the "world" that I experience awake, ( the product of the "Word") the world that I am conscious of.
It helps me "see" the "createdness" of the world that I experience through language. And to see through it just enough to feel great relief, because I find the world created by language scary/stressful. It is a permanent violence of dualities, of conflict, oppositions, aswell as internal contradictions and terrible paths which lead to awful ends.
When I believe in god, in god having created "this" world, this "experience" within the language matrix which is the world for me most of my waking life, then it is as if I see past a curtain I hadn't even noticed before, and half hear, half see, life which is unconstrained by language, and this glimpse nourishes/supports me in some way.
28 Apr 2008, 2:51 am
Just discovered/understood in the last few days that free will is a social construct, based on an illusion created probably mostly by language.
That we are in fact fully caused by our genes, environment, nurture, diet, etc, and there is nothing free floating, "independent of everything", inside us to make decisions.
That once upon a time , when human still understood this, that they were fully caused, they experienced each of the "causes" as "agents" speaking/communicating to them.
That when their grandfather's example to them in childhood made them do something they experienced it as their grandfather/ancestor telling them what to do. When it was food that pushed them into a certain state they maybe experienced it as spirits, etc.
They automatically identified each cause as it acted on them;, and therefore maybe even identified certain ones as dangerous/less reliable because of knowing the origin, or previous results of its "intervention", against which the other influences/causes would struggle.
04 Jun 2008, 5:19 pm
Just discovered/understood in the last few days that free will is a social construct, based on an illusion created probably mostly by language. That we are in fact fully caused by our genes, environment, nurture, diet, etc, and there is nothing free floating, "independent of everything", inside us to make decisions.
Wandering into this thread after you mentioned "The Bicameral Mind" in a more recent thread.....
I'm interested to know how you found your discovery on free will. How could people leave the story hanging like that?
Just that very rarely I feel something similar. I think. These experiences are difficult to describe in words. And there is something more subjectively 'real' about these experiences. Only it happens rarely. And for 99.9999% of the time, I behave as if things are not as they 'should be' because I am obviously not using my much lauded 'free will' correctly.
Sometimes think I should read up on the famous philosophers, on the off chance that they could put into my mind something that was naturally lacking
