room topic changed to Islamic/Traditional Philosophy: or philosophical discussions about religion [islamic-philosophy] [proof] [religion]

@infatuated I don't see how that relates to a way of proving islam true

@G.Bach, like I have already suggested in my past coversations and in my substantial answer to your past question on the main site, truthfulness of general doctrines of religion and that of Islam in particular are two different topics.

obviously

This is based on the ontological distinction between temporal aspects of religions and their shared eternal principles.

On the former, religions are different, but on the latter they are united. But it is the former aspect that masks and obscures their original unity and hence the differences among followers of different religions and their theological interpretations.

i dont see any ontology there, only ethics

the ontological subject here is "psychic qualities" that I argue are immaterial despite their bodily effects and they are a premise from which the existence of immaterial human psych follows.

However, I would prove the thesis by first contemplating the nature of abstract concepts rather than psychic qualities.

sure go ahead

i'll chip in when i think somethings wrong

Alright. The nature of abstract concepts (universals being their primary example) has been controversial in history of philosophy. But I subscribe to the position of Muslim philosophers who argue that abstract concepts are firstly real and secondly immaterial.

And here's the proof:

Given any abstract concept whose meaning is evident to us (e.g. love, great, size, cause and effect, number, etc when specifically conceived abstractly of course), they can proven to be immaterial for they don't possess the traits of material/natural objects such as shape, size and parts.

what do you mean by "real" there

and whats "immaterial" here

"real" means actually existing.

immaterial: a being that does NOT possess the properties of material entities: extension, size, parts.

parts or components such as atoms etcs.

im not sure that love and cause and effect dont have parts

And the proof is arrived at based on analysis of the ontological nature of these concepts through personal introspection.

@G.Bach We are talking about love and cause and effect as concepts regardless of their particular referents or concomitants in the natural world.

yeah, and im saying im not sure theyre not made up of other concepts

cause and effect both involve time, some connection between them, reliability of the connection

Oh! yes! But that question brings us to a very useful consideration.

@G.Bach But this is another question that I have already dealt with when I said the concepts must be perceived independent and striped from conditions and accidents of their referents in the natural world, such as time or temporal precedence etc. Note that we are conceiving cause and effect as two separate concepts.

cause and effect without time make no sense to me

i dont know what they would mean

and i dont know what "cause" would mean if there is not also an "effect"

so theyre not independent

@G.Bach it doesn't have to make sense on that level. That's beyond our question now. We only want to see whether cause and effect (or any other known abstract concept) are meaningful on their own for us. But what you're objecting to is not the meaningfulness of the said concepts themselves but the way they occur in reality.

no, i really dont know what the concept "cause" would be referring to without the concept "effect" being connected to it, and i dont know what "cause" would be referring to if the concept "time" is not thought with it

"cause" without "time", "effect", "connection" and "reliable" means nothing to me

if you want to define them properly, sure, but as is, i cant retain their meanings separately and purely abstractly

@G.Bach You're right but that's on the analytic level. But when you conceive these concepts, you don't proceed from a synthesis of those concomitant concepts. You conceive it instantly as a meaningful concept regardless of how it relates to other concepts or conditions of its occurrence in the outer world.

i dont know what you mean by that and how it shows that the concepts arent made up of parts

@G.Bach I shall explain. My point is that cause and effect as two concepts are readily recognizable for us without the need to any analysis although analysis does reveal their interdependence.

But the point is that regardless of the question of interdependence these concepts are not made of any material parts.

ah, material parts

well sure

but they refer to material relations

and dont mean anything to me without those material relations

They do mean something! Otherwise we could never conceive them without conceiving any material relations.

I don't need to imagine any material relations in order to think cause, effect etc

yeah, if i had never seen some event B always following an event A, i couldnt conceive of cause and effect

I corrected my last message.

youll have to explain how you can conceive of cause and effect without material relations to describe with those words

@G.Bach That's right! But forever since then, you no longer need to imagine any A event and B event.

if thats possible, you should be able to come up with notions that make sense to me without having any experience of something they describe or abstract from

@G.Bach No, I don't need that! Accounting for how concepts emerge from particular objects is separate topic and does not have any bearing on my present thesis.

ok, so what you mean is once those notions to describe material reality have been understood, you develop an intuitive feeling of what they mean without having to remember the material stuff they describe

@G.Bach Exactly! That's it!

itll be easier for me to understand if you can avoid jargon, im not familiar with it

Oh, sure! I'll try!

Now with respect to the said intuitive feeling it represents a meaning in our mind. This meaning is real because we can sense it. But this meaning is not a material thing for lacking any of the said properties.

like i said, i dont believe that those intuitions arent made up of other intuitions

@G.Bach They do emerge from other experiences and intuitions. But like I said, ever then they are invoked in our mind independent of others.

cause as a concept is not independent of effect as a concept in my mind

youll have to explain what you mean by "independent" i think

We're talking about their sense not how they logically relate to one another.

i have no intuition for what a "cause" is on its own

Yes. I'm talking about that intuitive feeling to use your own words.

they only make sense when taken together

What a cause is sounds like a philosophical question not one that undermines its meaningfulness. We're not talking about the nature of cause or what it refers to in the external world. Only and only its general meaning is in question here.

yes, and im telling you i cant think of a "cause by itself"

if you know mathematics, that would be like saying there is a "preimage by itself"

it only makes sense together with a function and an image

neither an instantiation of any of the concepts by itself, nor the concepts themselves

make sense on their own

@G.Bach I think you're still confusing conception with analysis.

alright, i'll shut up for a moment and see whether you can illuminate what you mean

Here's the difference: when you invoke the known concept of cause in your mind, you don't proceed from any logical sequence of thought: it is not like you have to first contemplate "effect" to then arrive at "cause" as a result or conclusion. What cause is is instantly clear to you. But sure you can proceed to analyzing the concept and see how it relates to its opposite i.e effect or how it accompanies time and space in the natural world.

I hope it is now clear.

yeah what "cause" is is clear to me without having to think, but the feeling is immediately connected to that for "effect" and "time"

those connections come together with the feeling for "cause" without having to think

But are they a necessary concomitant. Or is it that your mind relates to them via a habitual association.

whats the distinction

oh

they necessarily come alongside

They shouldn't. Unless our minds is accustomed to slide into analytic mode on its own.

why do you think that they shouldnt

and "analytic mode" as opposed to what

Because we need no thought process (i.e. moving from concept to another) to realize them.

as opposed to "intuitive" mode.

i only have an intution for the relation between "cause" and "effect"

i dont have a separate intuition for "cause"

Fine, but how can you have an intuition of a relation without first conceiving the sides of the relation?

i cant, but separate from each other the sides of the relation are meaningless

Yes, and there you're analyzing! :)

yeah i can look at my intuition and see how it fits together

but that doesnt change the fact that my intuition is about the relation, not about the sides

We may continue our discussion later on if it's been prolonged for you already.

I also need to have my dinner. But contemplating the distinction between the intuition and the analysis can help you overcome the problem.

"cause" and "effect" are just the words used to describe the parts of my intuition, but what my intuition is about is "causation"

alright, enjoy

but i thought you were presenting a proof, so communicating it clearly would be your pedagogical task

@G.Bach Oh, so have we been just arguing over the right word which may be "causation"! I thought cause can have the same significance!

no, the cause is the event that precedes the effect

@G.Bach My proof emerges from contemplation!

causation is the relation between cause and effect

are you saying your proof cant be communicated?

@G.Bach But you're still analyzing your intuition my friend! :)

@G.Bach After adequate contemplation yes!

contemplating what

The nature of abstract concepts.

the nature of abstract concept is pretty clear to me

i dont see how it relates to religious claims

but you can talk about that some other time maybe

Well, if I establish that abstract concepts are existing immaterial beings, I'm just about proving the immaterial nature of human psych from which I can proceed to proving higher immaterial beings leading us to God!

Yes, let's continue this another time! It's been a productive exchange already!

yeah youll have to explicitly say what you mean by most of those words, but for now lets leave it there

Alright! See you!