Why are atheist stuck in Plato's Cave?

ITT: Philosophy meets physics to illustrate the arrogance of atheism. Then... Jesus. Because another generic religion that (VERY BLATANTLY) picked and chose bits and pieces of at least a dozen earlier religions is the ONE REAL religion is always the endpoint of these threads.

I'm not even an atheist (agnostic... the kind that's open to whatever but knows bs when they hear it) and these kinds of threads are tiring at best. No one's mind is going to be changed. I think people of any religion don't have what it takes to be decent, independent humans without an an invisible imaginary friend-crutch. They think I'm an asshole and need to get on board with their 1900 year old moneymaking scheme or my everlasting soul is doomed. And so it goes...

a reply to: neoholographic

Plato says in one of his works that there were gods just about all over the world. These gods degenerated by mixing with terrestrial inhabitants. Then came the great flood (Atlantis) which swept the gods from the globe. A few survived the disaster and started a new civilization (the resurrection). We are the new gods. Which btw are well on their way to repeating history and causing another global disaster. Also btw: just like our ancestors, we only have theories about the real God...
Long ago I wrote a book about a lot of things I believe in ... But I don't think it was a big succes www.evawaseerst.be...

a reply to: neoholographic


Ummm...I've often pondered that much like you stated "time is always out there"...that every instance is and will always be...concurrent...

In order to experience concurrence in a linear representational format...as consciousness does...that consciousness merely moves along the linear representation...creating the illusion of progression in a given direction...

I also wonder if each moment of conscious consideration or observation of the illusion of existence is more akin to a slide show...each slide a separate and distinct universe and consciousness picks and chooses which among an infinite set to include in it's "daisy chain" of events/moments or possibilities to represent as linear progressive entanglement...

Perhaps that's why thoughts unrelated to experiential observation or progression arise and dissipate as consciousness momentarily considers which direction or finite set of moment slides/universes to stitch together to form a common thread that creates this illusion of realism that consciousness experiences and considers as experience...


At least that seams to me to be a valid consideration of this illusion we all experience together...or that my conscious consideration placates it's several selves with inclusion of...

Meaning none of you actually exist...and are only sims...or avatars...or NPC's written into the story/program that I am for some strange reason choosing to experience...


If such is the case...then...begone Satan...






YouSir

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

The truly intelligent person can accept that they don't know what they don't know.

Just because you personally have not experienced God doesn't mean He isn't there.

It's as I said, I have experienced Him, but I accept my experience was personal, and not a tangible proof I can use to prove His existence to others. This is the very realm and meaning of faith. I accept it. I know what I know and don't and cannot prove.

On the other hand, your lack of knowledge is something you impose on the world around you. Because you have not met or experienced God, you seem to be saying that He is not there for anyone because He is not there for you even though you have no real way of knowing if that's the case or not because your true knowledge is as limited as any other human's. We do not and cannot truly know for sure. We know but the tiniest bit of everything there is to know. We are in the philosophical cave.

a reply to: YouSir

Yes! rational thought progresses in a daisy chain fashion with prior dependencies.
These days we have less shared paradigm because of the assault by MSM and internet sources.

SYD Barrett lyrics didn't exist for me in the 1960's, not really a bridge too far, just the case where something extremely esoteric was hidden in our history books that Syd should not have taken responsibility for.

You can file an FOIA request with people that are likely to share the same intended interpretation.

That is a rare church though..

a reply to: ketsuko

What if Christianity is the confirmation bias to your experience?

Would you come to the same conclusions without any knowledge of Christianity? Because that's something I would call truly divine.

You say God is a him, did he express masculinity traits in your experience?

I'm definitely not saying disregard the 1000's of years behind any long standing religion but if you did I suspect the conclusions would be vastly different.

The man who grows in a dark cave has terrible eyesight usually, chances are if he looked at the sun or a fire too long he'd have done some serious damage, they're all looking at reflections yet it would appear only one group would have been dogmatic about the interpretations right?

I call it bias and for me it's the equivalent of being tied back up in the cave. So many religions and faith systems of the past that are wildly different from each other yet human civilization and existence has been predominantly the same throughout them all. They may have interpreted the reflections differently but the images were all the same being human eyes of varying quality... God is now here God is nowhere.

I'll look with my eyes thanks. To add: hope that doesn't come across as snotty just trying to drive home that others can and will see things differently. Hostility to the disagreeable can be framed by any side wishing to score points.

a reply to: RAY1990

In my experience? Yes. But according to tradition, He has also appeared as a burning bush too. God is what He is, neither male nor female, but I'm not calling Him xer, either. That's a stupidity created by idiots for their own selfish need to control and impose on others.

Personally, I don't care what you need to do for yourself. You either have faith or you don't. Agnostics don't. They simply admit they don't know and move on. Only people who believe in a faith tradition or some version thereof or atheists who believe they know better have some form of faith where they believe in absence of truly knowing.

a reply to: ketsuko

On the other hand, your lack of knowledge is something you impose on the world around you.

How so?

"Atheist" is a construct of the mind to refer to an absence; "atheist" is a label. One might say the imposition here is classifying someone as "atheist".

Because you have not met or experienced God, you seem to be saying that He is not there for anyone because He is not there for you even though you have no real way of knowing if that's the case or not because your true knowledge is as limited as any other human's.

The context was: So why should I have humility in this case?

However, Later in my post I mentioned Alice taking me to the gates of her christian heaven. One might presume that in that christian heaven may be found a christian god.

So it follows that I am not saying the christian god is not there for christians.

a reply to: ketsuko

I'd probably fit the agnostic criteria.

Personally, I don't care what you need to do for yourself. You either have faith or you don't.

Which is awesome except there's many practicing religious people who practically condemn alternative thinking whilst claiming absolute exclusively on divinity.

Having a religion might make you special in the afterlife but it clearly doesn't make you special here down on earth, unless they're all going to start policing their own? Which is actually against the doctrine of a lot of religions so you're stuck with the nutter Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc etc.

a reply to: neoholographic

I often wonder what's the knowledge base of an atheist to say God doesn't exist or that there isn't any life after death.

Here is the thing, I don't tell anyone that gods don't exist. I tell them I don't believe in gods and then they get all worked up and tell me that I am wrong.

That used to devolve into squabbling that boiled down to "prove it" which really didn't improve either of our demeanors towards one another. I would remain unconvinced and they would remain convinced.

There is no point in it IMO. Everything has been said on the subject many times over in different forms so unless there is some new discovery on the matter providing evidence supporting a position one way or another I don't think your approach is useful for anything more than stroking one's ego and finding reinforcement from those already in your camp. The euphemism "preaching to the choir" is apt. Maybe I should say you are preaching for the choir.

a reply to: neoholographic

I've read the wikipedia synopsis of 'Plato's cave'.

The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, is an allegory presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic to compare "the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature".

If we are to say:

Why are atheist stuck in Plato's Cave?

To my mind, from that simple statement, the implication is that the atheist has a lack of education or is mis-educated.

If we take it that the atheist is the viewer of the shadows and yet to find the (christian) god outside, would that be the premise?

If so, then one should perhaps entertain the notion it may be the educated person is the one who is seeing the shadows on the wall.

The shadows = education.

Education = dogma.

Dogma being the bane of the natural philosopher . . .

Neither the believer nor the atheist has a leg to stand on. There's ZERO proof on either side. It's mere speculation supported by a lot of garbage people believe in without any proof.

Using analogies like Plato's cave is just snobbery on an enormous scale. No one gives a flying crap about Plato's cave.

originally posted by: Romeopsi
a reply to: neoholographic

Great post. Starred & Flagged.

I always liked Plato’s Cave and thanks for explaining that Einstein quote. I’m also going to read more of Donald Hoffman’s work. I agree, some people can’t see beyond what’s in front of them.

Exactly!

Einstein's quote is profound. If the distinction between past, present and future is a persistent illusion, then how can anything we perceive as the "real world" be objectively real? Everything depends on the distinction between past, present and future being real.

Like I said, Hoffman's work is fascinating.

Also look at Kurt Godel. Einstein said one of the highlights of his day was his walks with Godel. There's actually a book out called "When Einstein Walked with Godel."

Godel was a Logician and Mathematician. He alse was a Platonist.

Godel shocked the world of mathematics with his Incompleteness Theorem. Mathemeticians though they were on the cusp of proving their theorems when the unknown at the time Godel said you can't. He showed that any system described by mathematics can't prove itself. There has to be a truth outside of it to explain it's existence.

Mathematicians of the era sought a solid foundation for mathematics: a set of basic mathematical facts, or axioms, that was both consistent — never leading to contradictions — and complete, serving as the building blocks of all mathematical truths.

But Gödel’s shocking incompleteness theorems, published when he was just 25, crushed that dream. He proved that any set of axioms you could posit as a possible foundation for math will inevitably be incomplete; there will always be true facts about numbers that cannot be proved by those axioms. He also showed that no candidate set of axioms can ever prove its own consistency.

His incompleteness theorems meant there can be no mathematical theory of everything, no unification of what’s provable and what’s true. What mathematicians can prove depends on their starting assumptions, not on any fundamental ground truth from which all answers spring.

www.quantamagazine.org...

This has HUGE implications and also points to an uncreated and necessary cause.

Here's an example of what Godel was saying.

If you draw a circle around anything, it can't explain itself within itself. It needs some truth outside of the circle to explain it's existence. So draw a circle around a house and in order to explain it's existence you need to know who designed the house, how the materials for the house were made, how did the materials for the house get to the site of the house and so on and so forth.

Godel's incompleteness is still seen today. Scientist are now going outside of the universe to try and explain the existence of the universe. So you have string theory, quantum fluctuations, inflation or extra dimensions to try an explain the universe. Hawking gave up on his theory of everything because of Godel.

Gödel and the End of Physics -Stephen Hawking
yclept.ucdavis.edu...

This points to God and uncreated cause because you can't have things that are contingent as the cause of itself. You will have an infinite regress of contingent things. You need an uncaused cause that's necessary. Something you can't draw a circle around and can't be described by mathematics.

Here's an article on this:

There has to be something outside that circle. Something which we have to assume but cannot prove
The universe as we know it is finite – finite matter, finite energy, finite space and 13.7 billion years time
The universe is mathematical. Any physical system subjected to measurement performs arithmetic. (You don’t need to know math to do addition – you can use an abacus instead and it will give you the right answer every time.)
The universe (all matter, energy, space and time) cannot explain itself
Whatever is outside the biggest circle is boundless. By definition it is not possible to draw a circle around it.
If we draw a circle around all matter, energy, space and time and apply Gödel’s theorem, then we know what is outside that circle is not matter, is not energy, is not space and is not time. It’s immaterial.
Whatever is outside the biggest circle is not a system – i.e. is not an assemblage of parts. Otherwise we could draw a circle around them. The thing outside the biggest circle is indivisible.
Whatever is outside the biggest circle is an uncaused cause, because you can always draw a circle around an effect.

www.perrymarshall.com...

So the shadow(materialism) isn't supported by science. Idealism says there's a reality outside of the material and science is showing us our material objective universe is more perception than objective reality. The Bible says:

Hebrews 1:3 “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”

You would need to prove or show the source of the shadows on the wall to convince the other prisoners.

Obviously your pov is Christian, so to convince non believers, you’d have to turn water into wine or have large amounts of bread pop into existence in empty baskets. While explaining in technical detail how you do while volunteering yourself under a micro scope to say your the real deal, or Living God. Btw, non believer applies to anyone who is not of said faith in a god or gods, while, Atheists just don’t believe in one.

Most Gods tend to be imagined as living immortal or near invulnerable powerhouses capable of causing mass catastrophies out of sheer glee or duty. The God of O.T or all three Abrahamic faiths would amount to a giant all powerful an knowing disembodied head an hands, holding an moulding the whole of humanity, and would cause his believers to combust due to impurities if they ever met face to face, while having a huge penchant for irony. Took ten plagues to harden Pharaohs heart, and make him believe.

a reply to: neoholographic

So the shadow(materialism) isn't supported by science. Idealism says there's a reality outside of the material and science is showing us our material objective universe is more perception than objective reality.

When you die, and there's no "you" left to spout pseudo intellectual sci fi, it will be pretty obvious to your grand children you were just coping hard with the physics you resent even as your fingers manipulate the interface to deny the matter comprising both fingers and interface.

The dead don't talk for a reason. I challenge you to summon your ancestors and debate them on the subject.

a reply to: TzarChasm

This creature does not have children. Someone so full of hatred and malice could not be with anyone long enough to reproduce, thankfully.

Intelligent design need not be monotheistic -- with or without the various unproved proprietary doctrine and dogma -- nor contradictory to evolution.

originally posted by: neoholographic
I often wonder what's the knowledge base of an atheist to say God doesn't exist or that there isn't any life after death. We're a type 0 civilization with very limited information on this 3rd rock from the sun yet they know the nature of reality in a universe that some Scientist say is part of infinity or unimaginably large. We haven't even fully explored our own backyard.

What's Plato's Cave?

Plato's allegory of the cave is about prisoners in a cave who think the shadows on the cave wall are real. They think the shadows are objective reality. One of the prisoners escapes and when he leaves the cave he sees that there's so much more to reality than the shadows on the cave wall. He goes back into the cave to tell the other prisoners but they get mad at him because they believe the shadows are all that there is. They will kill anyone that tries to free them from the cave.

The story illustrates how people can be tied to perceptions of reality and they can't see outside of these perceptions. Plato believed in a world of ideal forms and the material world was a shadow of these ideal forms. So the ideal form of goodness is eternal and unchanging but you can have degrees of goodness on earth which is temporary and it changes and decays.

Kurt Godel was a Platonist and I think Plato had it right in this regard. Werner Heisenberg said this:

“I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.” ― Werner Heisenberg

Let's look at what science shows.

Einstein sent a letter to Michele Besso's wife when he died that said this:

"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

This is such a profound quote and illustrates the shadow on the wall.

Einstein treated time like space. So if all of space is out there then all of time is out there. So 1970 exist in 4D spacetime today and it's just as real as 2022.

Think about it. Our whole lives are built around the distinction betwen past, present and future being objectively real. When we're born, when we die, when we go to work or when we go on vacation are all built around the distinctions between past, present and future being real. Notice, he didn't say time wasn't real, he's saying are perceptions(shadow) of time is an illusion.

The reason this has to be given weight is because so many of Einstein's predictions have been observed. In fact, the recently discovered time crystals are due to Einstein's view of spactime.

The Nobel Prize­-winning physicist Frank Wilczek conceived the idea in 2012, while teaching a class about ordinary (spatial) crystals. “If you think about crystals in space, it’s very natural also to think about the classification of crystalline behavior in time,” he told this magazine not long after.
www.quantamagazine.org...

So because crystalline structures formed in space he thought they should also form in time.

Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real
www.quantamagazine.org...

Time Crystals Made of Light Could Soon Escape the Lab
www.scientificamerican.com...

Physicists link two time crystals in seemingly impossible experiment
www.livescience.com...

'Time crystals' work around laws of physics to offer new era of quantum computing
www.space.com...

So there's 4D spacetime and then our perceptions of time or the shadow on the wall, that can change relative to our motion in space. So you have time dilation and the twin paradox. Our perception of time is just more personal and that's why it's hard to let go of the shadow. "I will meet you at 3 P.M." "Tell her to call me at 7 in the morning to wake me up." So it's easier to see space differently and as out there because most people don't talk in terms of longitude and latitude but time is personal and prevelant in our everyday lives. So it's harder to let go of our perception of time.

Recent work from Cognitive Scientists Donald Hoffman says this also:

The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality

The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions.
www.quantamagazine.org...

Hoffman wrote a book called The Case Against Reality and his work is amazing. He's basically saying what we see as the physical universe is really like icons on a desktop. They're an interface that helps you navigate the computer easily. If you had to know the whole truth behind the icon which would be computer code and how the computer works, you can never simply open a document folder.

Hoffman is saying spacetime is like the desktop and the "physical" universe are just icons of our perception that we use as an interface to navigate our universe but there's a deeper more complex reality behing our perceptions.

This is also what the Bible says. Paul went up to the third Heaven and saw unspeakable things.

So science supports idealism but most atheist can't see outside of the shadow(materialism). They take the knowledge accumulated over a short life span to draw conclusions about the nature of reality. Think about that. You live for 60 years and you say based on your 60 years on this 3rd rock from the sun and the physics of a type 0 civilization, you're going to draw definite conclusions about what could be an infinite cosmos.

I will end with another Heisenberg quote:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” ― Werner Heisenberg

Ive read all the people you hsve mentioned in this OP
Heisenburg’s War & Godel Escher & Bach are two cherished books in my collection.
Just remember that a 14th Century scientist would see our modern world as being filled with abstract objects .
Imagine putting a VR helmet on Asclepius’s head ?

In 1000 years from now , if humans still exist as carbon based natural body beings , there will be amazing things, and.. just imagine the abstract objects we would perceive in that future ?
All things exist within the impossible & only what we know has been solved at a minimum of it’s existence .

originally posted by: Plunkenstein
Intelligent design need not be monotheistic -- with or without the various unproved proprietary doctrine and dogma -- nor contradictory to evolution.

That is a very important point.

I dont believe in inteligent design mainly because I don't think it actually answers any questions but it isn't completely impossible

However when most people support intelligent design what they actually mean is intelligent design that confirms to their personal religious view point.

There are thousands of gods that are or where worshiped. Believing in one (or even a few) makes someone only a tiny % less atheist than I am.