QuakerInfo.com Forum

[DavidT]

I'm not sure that anyone will be interested in discussing this topic here. I am interested in getting feedback from the religious community on it though. First I'll pose a fundamental question, here: Is infinity a description or is it an expression? Read the below and see if your answer conflicts with the paradox....

According to the Paradox of Grelling-Nelson the bible can't be read as descriptive but only can be understood as expressive. The existence of the paradox nullifies description as being either foundational to language, nor anything but a form of expression. One could say description is poetry in a particular form. The bible plays with this and mixes literal and metaphor back and forth treating both literal and metaphor as a singular concept. That is a rather different way of understanding the world than we do today in modernity.

This paradox is a rather interesting but since we don't discuss what is language and tend to simply use language with no real thought put into that we end up with 38,000 denominations. I find that number both troubling and rather revealing about how we understand language itself. I'm not knocking Christians, I would say that atheists are even worse since they read the bible in even more literalistic terms than even fundamentalist Christians as ironic as that is. This also bodes as a problem as we become ever more secularized as well. We tend to Backward project modernity onto antiquity, that is a real problem in context to the bible. Any thoughts are welcome...

Here's a link to the Grelling-nelson paradox on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grelling%E2%80%93Nelson_paradox

In context to language development and the dangers of projecting backwards onto antiquity in regards to language is an individual who wrote on this and his name is Owen Barfield. He was an inkling and a good friend to CS LEWIS and to JRR TOLKIEN.

[Anthony]

[DavidT]

[Anthony]

[DavidT]

[Kiahanie]

The question makes no sense to me.

First, I seriously doubt the actual existence of "paradox." Contradictions seem to be largely an artifact of language and human-created systems of thinking.

Second, it is doubtful that the Grelling-Nelson Paradox requires that "the bible can't be read as descriptive but only can be understood as expressive." Semantic games rarely shed much light on literature.

Third, most dichotomies (e.g., expression / description) arise not from the realities of experience (which is not at all binary) but from excessive mentation that removes us from the roots of existence.

Concerning the bible, the writers did not subscribe to the modern literal / metaphor dichotomy. Their accounts are seamless, recording their experience with the divine. If scripture is best understood from within the Light in which it was written, dissection (or vivisection, according to many) is unlikely to get us closer to what the storytellers were seeing as they told their stories.

Concerning the word "infinity," the categories "expression / description" are artificial, membership in either category probably depends on how the word is being used (mathematics has very specific usages), and why climb voluntarily up on the horns of a dilemma?
_________________
"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[Anthony]

[DavidT]

Kiahanie,

Concerning the bible, the writers did not subscribe to the modern literal / metaphor dichotomy

I used the Grelling-Nelson as a way of alluding to exactly this. I had assumed that it was explicit that paradoxes are due to how we conceptualize which you pointed out earlier. I am sorry I didn't make that clear.

I had listed Owen Barfield at the bottom of the posting and you really did articulate nicely a lot of what Barfield has already said. I think the modern literal/ metaphor dichotomy has been simply our development up because of being an alphabetized civilization. Aboriginals do not generally have such strongly articulated conceptual splits as we do in modernity. There is some danger in reading but that generally is ignored, and that may be a more serious problem than we fully realize.

[DavidT]

Anthony, see that is where we split!!! I literally can't do what you just said is true. i can't split the concept of nature and infinity out from each other and have that make any sense to me. It starts to come down to language again and what words mean to each of us and how those mean different things to different people depending on how they conceptualize. I do have a sense that genetics/life experiences, culture, and self concepts, plays a key roll in all of this. Interesting and thank you for your thoughtful posts.

As far as experiencing infinity, well as I understand it, I can experience it like a descriptive term such as rock or shoe and apply it in math, or I can experience it a very general religious way as well. Nature triggers it really easy for me, 10 minutes alone hiking or sitting on a cliff over looking the ocean can trigger that kind of experience for me. Church service, Can also trigger it as well depending on the kind of service silent Beanite services are more to my liking.. For me it's neurology, just like everything is to me including science, so I probably understand it slightly differently.

[Anthony]

[DavidT]

John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Logos".


Everything starts with Heraclitus, the word nature falls back into the above term. When that happens we are back to a singular notion. I wish I was taught the difference between left-and-right which is a a three part term, vs leftright which is a singular term. The trinity would have made sense to me then. .. life-and-death, vs. lifedeath. which is true, which is false. Is nature a finite, or is it an infinite? finite-and-infinite, or finiteinfinite singular which is true which is false? Obtuse I know, but depending on your perception determines how you understand that.

I think John 1:1 should be taught as foundational in religion, but what do i know I tend to think being logical is important and that puts me in the minority.

[james]

You speak my mind, Kiahanie, and not for the first time. I don't know anything about this paradox other than what I read on the Wikipedia page, but from that alone it seems flawed, because of these false binaries. It says "each adjective either describes itself, or it doesn't," but that's not true. Even the simple examples given, for instance that the word "short" is short and the word "long" is not long, is true only in a relative sense, not a binary sense.

One can interpret that to mean language cannot describe things, but that's a stretch. Certainly, there are many things one cannot describe with precision, but that's a much more modest and defensible statement than, say, "language itself [can] not be understood as descriptive in a literal fashion", as you have written, David. It's descriptive powers are limited, yes, but if it it could not be literally descriptive at all, we couldn't tell someone how to make a wheel, much less cure polio or fly to the moon.

Regarding the Bible, I'm bothered by any attempt to separate it from all our other stories, to classify it as this or that singular sort of creation, when in fact it is a massive and terribly uneven anthology that does all sorts of different things with poetry, history, anthropology, religion, etc. The God of Genesis, the God of Leviticus, the God of Job, the God of Ecclesiastes, and the God of the Gospels are very different imaginative creations, written by very differents sorts of human beings and societies. In Psalms, God changes from verse to verse. As a poetry writing teacher once told me, "we must be various as the world is various."

I also have a problem with your assumptions about atheists, David--you paint with much too broad a brush. I know many such, myself among them, who engage with the Bible as a terribly uneven but unquestionably powerful work of human imagination. An atheist doesn't necessarily deny the power of the idea/s of God, but only its existence as an entity.
_________________
James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

[DavidT]

James I thought I was clear on this but apparently I'm not. The paradox obviously reveals problems with a dichotomous understanding of language itself as it breaks out into description-and-expression. One could say it's the problem in current thinking of the gap between religion and science where science owns description, or objectivity and religion is only subjective or expression.

Language itself is extremely difficult to talk about. It becomes ridiculous to talk about it independent from neurology and neurology becomes ridiculous to talk about independent from neurology itself. Lakoff Johnson's philosophy in the flesh is a break from our tendency towards speaking as if we are independent from neurology at all. Neurology is a broad term I use here, to say the least.

So the basic point I was attempting to make, does the primate homo sapien neurologically function any differently than primate Gorilla, NO, only more complexly is all and that is it. Does a gorilla describe the world around it independently of expression of the world around it NO it does not. It has no formalized structure such as writing to formalize a distinction. Kiananie alludes to this himself, Grelling-nelson alludes to this as well. I could say Barfield alludes to this as well, and the problems in language in how we understand it.

I may have misspoken and I have to think about it. Where description-and-expression are really a singular term descriptionexpression. In a sense one does not exist without the other. When a baby cries at first slap on but as it enters the world is it describing or is it expressing or is it both at the same time. I have to ponder that for a bit.

As far as atheism, I am an atheist by Other peoples description I would never describe myself as an atheist. That would require me to not believe in a that which does not exist. Since I already know that which does not exist, does not exist, I don't need to not believe in it for that to be true. Ones belief or non belief in that which does not exist neither makes it true or makes it not true.

I'm a naturalist, I use nature as my point of reference, in how I see the world. I reference to others who see nature the same. That has led me to Heraclitus who is an atheist by modern terms back into here. "In the beginning was the Logos....In antiquity Heraclitus was considered a Christian 500 years after his death, today he'd be an atheist so exactly what does the term "Atheist" mean. That seems to change over time for some very interesting reasons.

[DavidT]

James I thought I was clear on this but apparently I'm not. The paradox obviously reveals problems with a dichotomous understanding of language itself as it breaks out into description-and-expression. One could say it's the problem in current thinking of the gap between religion and science where science owns description, or objectivity and religion is only subjective or expression.

Language itself is extremely difficult to talk about. It becomes ridiculous to talk about it independent from neurology and neurology becomes ridiculous to talk about independent from neurology itself. Lakoff Johnson's philosophy in the flesh is a break from our tendency towards speaking as if we are independent from neurology at all. Neurology is a broad term I use here, to say the least.

So the basic point I was attempting to make, does the primate homo sapien neurologically function any differently than primate Gorilla, NO, only more complexly is all and that is it. Does a gorilla describe the world around it independently of expression of the world around it NO it does not. It has no formalized structure such as writing to formalize a distinction. Kiananie alludes to this himself, Grelling-nelson alludes to this as well. I could say Barfield alludes to this as well, and the problems in language in how we understand it.

I may have misspoken and I have to think about it. Where description-and-expression are really a singular term descriptionexpression. In a sense one does not exist without the other. When a baby cries at first slap on butt as it enters the world is it describing or is it expressing or is it both at the same time. I have to ponder that for a bit.

As far as atheism, I am an atheist by Other peoples description I would never describe myself as an atheist. That would require me to not believe in a that which does not exist. Since I already know that which does not exist, does not exist, I don't need to not believe in it for that to be true. Ones belief or non belief in that which does not exist neither makes it true or makes it not true.

I'm a naturalist, I use nature as my point of reference, in how I see the world. I reference to others who see nature the same. That has led me to Heraclitus who is an atheist by modern terms back into here. "In the beginning was the Logos....In antiquity Heraclitus was considered a Christian 500 years after his death, today he'd be an atheist so exactly what does the term "Atheist" mean? That seems to change over time for some very interesting reasons. Heck Jesus himself could be understood as being an atheist since HE did NOT believe in God, if atheism is defined by NOT believing in God. He also was not a "Christian" nor did he "Believe" In God. Belief as it's used in religion is weird to me to say the least. So until the term is clear, I'll paint with a brush width to match the modern usage of the term.

[DavidT]

James and other's. I have an extremely disabled daughter who makes me very sensitive to how neurology and language works. I call her "my little gorilla baby," that phrase, if it's understood as insulting, or insightful is instantly determined ones conceptual predisposition. It's not my daughter who has any problems, she is perfect in who she is and complete. When I read Jesus saying "see the world through the eyes of a child", I understand that in terms of my daughter. She sees the world perfectly she does not have the neurological and developmental complexity to see it as imperfectly as we tend to. Neurons are way way over rated.... Trees are much smarter as well..LOL.