A standard Eliezer question: can you imagine the universe exactly the same in all observable aspects, but without anything divine in it? If not, where does your imagination fail?
I have clicked “reply” straight away, but let me ponder the question for five minutes by the clock first.
You question is inherently flawed. It is not a failure of imagination but rather a requirement of imagination that keeps me from imagining the universe exactly the same in all observable aspects, but without anything divine in it.
Funny how we find all kinds of ways to avoid facing uncomfortable questions head on!
Let’s try it differently. I assume you have noticed having been wrong before at times, about this or that. So, imagine two nearly identical worlds: one where you are right about your faith, and one where you are mistaken. There is no issue with internal consistency in either of those, since the difference is your mental processes, and we know that human mental processes are not very unreliable. Notice which of those worlds you instantly flinch away from. Noticed? That is motivated cognition at work. And motivated cognition is a telltale sign of failing in rational thinking.
Funny how we find all kinds of ways to avoid facing uncomfortable questions head on!
Is this prescriptive or descriptive? I did eventually make my way to answer your question head on. You asked me where does your imagination fail and my answer is that my imagination fails on imagining and internally consistent universe that is not internally consistent.
Notice which of those worlds you instantly flinch away from.
I instantly flinch away from neither. I spent approximately fifteen of my first twenty years imagining myself in a world where I was mistaken in my faith. But I did not believe it, no matter how fervently I believed that I believed.
I have no instinctual flinching away from imagining a world in which I do not exist, either. I have imagining a world that is identical to this one (with me in it) in which I do not exist.
I have clicked “reply” straight away, but let me ponder the question for five minutes by the clock first.
You question is inherently flawed. It is not a failure of imagination but rather a requirement of imagination that keeps me from imagining the universe exactly the same in all observable aspects, but without anything divine in it.
Are you familiar with Aquinas’ five proofs, or Descartes ontological argument?
I have an answer for this one, but I don’t know how to phrase it as an answer. So I beg your indulgence to allow me to pose it as a question to you.
Can you imagine a universe exactly the same in all observable aspects, but in which you do not exist?
That is a universe which:
Obeys consistent, rational laws
Is internally consistent with itself
Has you in it
In which you do not exist.
I suppose my imagination fails on imagining an internally consistent universe that is not internally consistent.
Funny how we find all kinds of ways to avoid facing uncomfortable questions head on!
Let’s try it differently. I assume you have noticed having been wrong before at times, about this or that. So, imagine two nearly identical worlds: one where you are right about your faith, and one where you are mistaken. There is no issue with internal consistency in either of those, since the difference is your mental processes, and we know that human mental processes are not very unreliable. Notice which of those worlds you instantly flinch away from. Noticed? That is motivated cognition at work. And motivated cognition is a telltale sign of failing in rational thinking.
Is this prescriptive or descriptive? I did eventually make my way to answer your question head on. You asked me where does your imagination fail and my answer is that my imagination fails on imagining and internally consistent universe that is not internally consistent.
I instantly flinch away from neither. I spent approximately fifteen of my first twenty years imagining myself in a world where I was mistaken in my faith. But I did not believe it, no matter how fervently I believed that I believed.
I have no instinctual flinching away from imagining a world in which I do not exist, either. I have imagining a world that is identical to this one (with me in it) in which I do not exist.