TPF : World Fair & Just

[Gnomon]

Anyway, IMO Spinoza's philosophy is unaffected by the beginning of our universe. In fact, maybe Spinoza would said that our 'universe' is merely a mode and therefore it can have a beginning. — boundless

I agree that Spinoza's notion of "Eternity" is not to be interpreted in a space-time sense. But modern interpreters might conclude that a transcendent or supramundane God (beyond space-time) could only be known/imagined via speculation or Faith : like the infinite-eternal Multiverse hypothesis.

What does Spinoza mean by eternity?
For as I have noted, Spinoza there defines eternity as existence conceived “to follow necessarily from the definition alone of the eternal thing” (E1d8), and he adds the explication that eternal existence “cannot be explained by duration or time, even if the duration is conceived to be without beginning or end.”
https://academic.oup.com/book/2287/chap ... m=fulltext

The modes are not parts of the substance! If they were, the Substance would not be an absolute. As 180 Proof correctly said 'our physical universe' itself is merely a mode of the substance. Modes are just 'aspects' of the natura naturata which from our 'point of view' seem discrete objects or 'parts'.
Regarding the 'actualization'... maybe the whole 'natura naturata' can be thought to be an actualization of 'natura naturans'. There is absolutely nothing outside God in his metaphysics. So IMO saying that God is a 'Potential' misses this. — boundless

As I mentioned before, I'm not an erudite Spinoza scholar --- unlike ↪180 Proof , who haughtily agreed with my deplorable ignorance. But, since my amateur philosophical perspective is similar in some ways to Spinoza's, I'm still trying to learn where his 17th century model and my 21st century worldview differ.

Regarding my use of the term "Potential", it's a generalization & abstraction of the concept of causal Power ; not necessarily a god. Yet, if Spinoza's all-encompassing "God" has creative power*1 , then it is also the boundless Pool-of-Potential from which all space-time material things and immaterial statistical Modes are manifested. That doesn't mean the Eternal Substance is diminished in any way by the distinction between temporary & local Modes (attributes) and eternal & infinite Essence. The particular Modes are contained within the holistic Substance, not separate things. Hence, my notion of Creative Holism. Which is generally compatible with Bergson's Creative Evolution*2. If Spinoza's Nature is neither creative nor intentional, I don't understand why he would call it a "god".

But, is Evolution creative? I suppose that depends on your definition of "creativity". Some say it's only an aimless Algorithm ; but cosmic history certainly seems to reveal the emergence of features like Life & Mind that are not explainable by a simple explosion & expansion of space-time. Evolution from simple to complex goes against Entropy, and seems more like a purposeful program. Whether Natura is intentional or not is also debatable, and a topic for a different thread. But, according to the link below*3, Spinoza's Deus is more like a blind erratic force of Nature than a traditional creative God. Which may be why ↪180 Proof likes that literally absurd lawless worldview. But my worldview attempts to explain the apparent --- dare I say "obvious"? --- creativity of nature in philosophical terms that go back to Plato. So, it seems that my Panendeistic Nature God*4 explains the progressive "arrow of time", while Spinoza's might better define the orderless background of Chaos from which Plato's orderly Cosmos, including Life & Mind, emerges. Am I missing something here?

Back to the holistic nature of Spinoza's Natura, I tend to think of the Modes, not as parts of a multi-part assembly, but as various expressions of boundless Power/Potential. In that dynamic definition, a changeable mode is like a temporary State*5 of an eternal Substance. By analogy with the hypothetical universal Quantum energy Field, any Particle is merely a local disturbance or manifestation or mode or actualization of the general creative causal power of the continuous energetic system. Is Spinoza's "God" an eternal-infinite-universal energy field from which all Modes emerge?


*1. Mode vs Substance :
'That which is in itself,' i.e. that, the reality of which is self-dependent, is what Spinoza calls 'Substance': 'that, which is in something else,' i.e., that whose reality is dependent, is called a 'mode,' or state of substance.
https://academic.oup.com/book/32374/cha ... m=fulltext
Note --- Does "God" divide Modes from Substance, or do the modes-we-call-human create such distinctions? If the latter, whence the human ability to create that-which-is-not-given?

*2. Bergson's Creative Evolution :
The theory presented an evolution in which a free emergence of the individual intelligence could be recognized. It was thus wholly distinct from previous deterministic hypotheses that were either mechanistic or teleological and represented evolution as conditioned either by existing forces or by future aims.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/creati ... philosophy

*3. Spinoza's God : accidental or intentional?
This builds on a point he made earlier when he said that if God were to act with a purpose he would be making decisions based on something outside himself, like a person setting up a target and aiming at it. For Spinoza this is absurd; there is nothing outside of God and nothing that God could lack.
https://matthewzgindin.medium.com/spino ... a9d48cba67
Note --- Is a human's Purpose something outside himself, or an expression of his human nature, and his creative ability? If comprehensive Natura is able to change, the novelty would have to be internal : as a man changes his mind.

*4. God as eternal Potential, Nature as space-time Actual :
Is Space-Time Nature a mode of eternal Potential ; perhaps born about 14 billion years ago, for no apparent reason? "Panendeism" : look it up.

*5. States are not things or objects, but snapshots of continuous processes. Hence, mental or subjective. Only an analytical mind can imagine an ongoing physical process as-if momentarily halted. That talent was codified in the mathematical concepts of Calculus and Differentials, as applied to dynamic systems and non-linear geometric curves. The fundamental idea of calculus is to study change by studying instantaneous bits of change, that only exist in imagination.

[Gnomon]

For as I have noted, Spinoza there defines eternity as existence conceived “to follow necessarily from the definition alone of the eternal thing” (E1d8), and he adds the explication that eternal existence “cannot be explained by duration or time, even if the duration is conceived to be without beginning or end.” — Gnomon
Yes! Spinoza's eternity is timelessness, not infinite duration. — boundless

Yes, but : us space-time creatures can only imagine essential timelessness, by analogy with the contingent & ever-changing world of matter & energy. So, the Necessary Being is a metaphor, logically defined into existence as the exception to the natural rule of Change & Contingent Existence : here today and gone tomorrow. My own analogy is with 1 & 0 (all or nothing) in computer code. which serve as brackets or bookends (beginning & end), yet are not countable numbers themselves, but conceptual placeholders. The static eternal "brackets" stand in contrast to the fleeting events of sensory reports.

So God is a concept to define temporal existence, not a mundane material creature like ourselves. Hence, Materialists deny such Ideal imaginary existence as literally Unreal, Immaterial, and Irrelevant to flesh & blood creatures. Consequently, the only justification for belief in an invisible nothingness is to serve as a logical Background against which to "see" the figures & forms of reality. Reductive scientists, like Laplace, have no need for such superfluous hypothetical notions. But Holistic philosophers find such concepts necessary for their quest to probe the limits of reality : the General, the Principle, the Whole, of which all real things are mere specks of dust.

Do you think Spinoza would agree with the label : "god of the philosophers", as contrasted with the God of theologians, and the godless-but-fecund Material World of scientists?

[Gnomon]

I do see Wayfarer as prosecuting a moral crusade, so yeah, I did introduce the term. It was you that suggested that the whole of philosophy has been a moral crusade and I asked you for examples and to explain why you see the chosen example(s) as constituting a moral crusade. — Janus

No. The term "moral crusade" sounds like a militant Christian concept, not a peaceful Philosophical quest for an ethical society. The bloody medieval crusades were "prosecuted" by physically and legalistically attacking unbelievers, as directed by the crusader's "king" in heaven : "in hoc signo vinces". I doubt that ↪Wayfarer would think in such terms ; I certainly don't. And I don't know of any comparable philosophical "crusades", involving sword-wielding metaphysicians. The idea sounds absurd.

However, Way does have an erudite personal worldview, that is much less ambiguous than many that are "prosecuted" on this forum. And he defends that philosophical position astutely, without attacking with swords drawn. But yes, the work of Philosophy is inherently ambiguous, due not to any personal uncertainty, but to the difficulty of postulating metaphysical concepts in a materialistic language.

[Gnomon]

BTW, Spinoza also, if I recall correctly, believed that absolutely everything was inevitable. This is a form of 'determinism' which is stronger than Laplace: Laplace's determinism doesn't fix the initial conditions. In Spinoza's way it is even impossible to think that things could have been different, even in principle. — boundless

Hmmm. That sounds like Fatalism --- or as Spinoza might put it : Necessitarianism. If so, did he also deny that introspective rational philosophical humans have some degree of FreeWill, not completely driven by innate animal urges?

Yes, but note that for Spinoza and for many of the 'holists' the 'Whole' is, in fact, ontologically independent and its existence does not depend on its 'parts'. This is why IMO a fully consistent pantheism might necessarily lead to some kind of acosmism, where the 'parts' are merely illusions. — boundless

There is another version of Cosmic Holism --- PanEnDeism : all in god --- which views what humans call "God" as merely the Whole of which we humans are minuscule moving parts. Unlike Theism, this view does not presume that the parts have any inkling of the mind of God. And it does not imagine that humans are the darlings of the deity. So, any natural injustice or unfairness is not personally directed, but merely the nonpartisan workings of a material physical world, in which some creatures live on the life of other creatures. And some creatures develop moral qualms about killing other living things.

PED does not necessarily "divest itself" of a thinking god --- I suppose that's a Christian put-down --- but merely denies that the Whole reveals its thoughts, if any, to the parts. So the philosophical "parts" can only speculate about knowing the "Mind of God", as Steven Hawking put it. And the Prophets just make-up ideas & opinions that they think God could/should have regarding his Chosen People. As I understand it, PED does not go so far as to assume that finite dependent creatures are mere powerless cogs in the cosmic machine. If you feel & act as-if you are morally free, then you have some degree of FreeWill. But that's a whole n'other thread.

Yes. But note that he viewed his God as a refinement of the 'God' of the philosophers and theologians of his time. Certainly not a 'material source' of everything. — boundless

The philosophers of his time were just beginning to depart from the party line of Catholic theologians. So Spinoza's deistic deity must have seemed radical to many fellow philosophers. Was his causa sui not deemed to be the First Cause of all material things?



Panendeism vs Panentheism :
Panentheism holds that God exerts a controlling effect on the universe; this opposes panendeism, which denies that God is involved . . . Panendeism divests itself from an explicitly thinking God. Panendeism specifically holds that there is an aspect of reality, different from physical reality, extending into a non-thinking formless and changeless, awareness realm.
https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Panendeism

Acosmism, in philosophy, the view that God is the sole and ultimate reality and that finite objects and events have no independent existence. Acosmism has been equated with pantheism, the belief that everything is God.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/acosmism

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
I find some amusement in the length this thread has reached, given what seems so obvious to me, that life is definitely, obviously, overwhelmingly NOT fair and just. Maybe we who are here to comment are the lucky beneficiaries of life's unfairness and injustice? — BC

I too, am surprised at the mississippi river length, and off-topic delta, that the OP's yes or no question has prompted. I suppose its a sign that Fairness & Justice are touchy topics for philosophically and religiously inclined posters. One post above came close to summarizing the contentious issue behind an ancient philosophical conundrum.

Who's responsible for fairness & justice, us or god?
"I don't think you have addressed the main line of thought here. That is, that if one thinks the world is just, despite the evidence to the contrary, the result is to excuse oneself from moral responsibility to make the world more just.
That is, it is a theology of moral inaction. As such it is reprehensible." — Banno

[Gnomon]

Anyway, as I said, I was presenting Spinoza's thought (as I understood it). I was actually a Spinozist in 2011-2013, but now my views are quite different. For instance I am neither convinced by his metaphysics (especially I quite disagree with his complete denial of any kind of free will) nor by his convinction that philosophy is 'liberating'. I do find his views fascinating and they did left a strong impression in me. — boundless

That is of interest to me. Especially because, on this forum, the harshest critic of my personal worldview, Enformationism, also claims to be a Spinozist. I wouldn't call myself a Spinozist, since I only know of his ideas via second hand accounts. I told him (the critic) that my philosophical world model is, like Spinoza's, more akin to Science than Religion, but it also assumes that cosmic Evolution is not aimless & accidental, but governed & directed by logical/mathematical internally-coded laws similar to a computer program.

I know nothing of the implicit lawmaker/mathematician/programmer --- or He/r telos --- but I like Plato's notion of Logos as a label for the ordering principle of the universe. Apparently, even such a non-theological notion as Logos or First Cause or Prime Mover is too close to his despised Catholic dogma for his comfort. And any intimation of transcendence (i.e. pre-big-bang) offends his Immanentist beliefs.

Since at least one species of gradually evolved creatures has developed a somewhat objective & rational understanding of world events, I conclude that A> the ability to stand outside our emotion-driven animal nature, and B> the power to generate unique personal ideas (abstract representations, images, models, goals) of our own, allows us to become local centers of Will within the universal "Willpower" (motive force) of the universal thermodynamic system, otherwise dominated by destructive Entropy. Which, in effect, makes us humans the "little gods" of the world. Hence, we have begun to create sub-human creatures of our own, such as complex machines and artificial intelligence, that execute the will of their programmers.

How do you think Spinoza would judge such a 21st century update of his own 17th century worldview?

Enformationism :
A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to the ancient worldviews of Materialism and Idealism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's also a Theory-of-Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Enformy :
In the Enformationism thesis, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress. Physicists inappropriately labeled that positive force as "Negentropy".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

[Gnomon]

Ok, I think that your view shares some similarities with Spinoza's but isn't compatible with it. After all, there is no 'real' cosmic evolution in Spinoza's view. Change is an illusory appearance that we percieve because of our limited perspective. In the highest way of seeing the world, there is no change. — boundless

Yes. I'm aware that Spinoza's 17th century worldview predated both 19th century Darwinian Evolution, and 20th century Big Bang theory. So I have updated my own worldview to include those challenges to the standstill world of Spinoza-God. Perhaps God's omniscient view of the world is like Einstein's Block Time*1, in which all possibilities exist concurrently, yet unchanging. But humans, observing only from inside the world system (limited perspective), can only see one snapshot at a time, then merge those stills into an ever-changing illusory movie. For all practical purposes, I assume the "persistent" illusion of ever-changing Time is true. But for philosophical interests, I can imagine a god's-eye-view of the Cosmos, as illustrated in the image below*2 {note --- Enfernity is my mashup of Eternity and Infinity}. Of course, these imaginary metaphors should not be taken literally.

PS___ The small gray circles represent hypothetical multiverses that only an infinite-eternal God would have "time" to create. Again, not to be taken literally.


*1. Block Time or Eternalism :
In the philosophy of space and time, eternalism is an approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all existence in time is equally real, as opposed to presentism or the growing block universe theory of time, in which at least the future is not the same as any other time. . . . .
It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalis ... y_of_time)

I see your point here. But Spinoza would deny any kind of autonomy for human beings. He would say that if we have free will, we would have some kind of independence from God and, therefore, we would be individual substances — boundless

Again, this is a matter of perspective. From God's perch outside the physical universe, all things, including humans, are totally dependent on the Source, the Potential, the Omnipotent. But, from a human perspective inside our little world bubble, rational creatures have developed some independence from Absolute Determinism. We "little gods" are indeed dependent relative to God/Omniverse, but independent relative to our local environment, as indicated in image *3. That doesn't make us Autonomous substances, but Relative instances. We are Free only relative to other creatures.

*2. GOD EXISTS IN ENFERNITY
Enfernity%20diagram_336x361_09-25-11.jpg
*3. GOD OUTSIDE SPACE-TIME
main-qimg-ca8e3555e3e8c4912a537f529ba0abbe

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
The juxtaposition of the multiverse versus the limited universe of the ancient Near East is amusing. — schopenhauer1

It may be amusing to you because you have seen images of Earth from above the Firmament, and no God in the picture. That's because God was standing behind the camera.

[Gnomon]

Well, that's not Spinozism anymore IMO, lol. But of course, you still have a right to call your philosophy a modification of Spinoza's (there are after all analogies) or even say that it is 'Spinozist'. — boundless

I don't make any claim to be a "Spinozist". That would be absurd, since I have never read any of his work first hand, and I don't regard him as my Guru. I merely identified with his break from traditional religion without rejecting the logical necessity of a non-empirical preternatural First Cause of some kind. Since my "critic" did claim to be a Spinozist, I just noted that my personal worldview seemed to be generally compatible with Spinoza's, yet making allowance for advances in historical and scientific understanding since he wrote his "radical enlightenment" manifesto.

Well, the problem of 'omniscence' is, indeed, a difficult one. If God (whatever S/He or It is) already knows everything, how we can avoid an 'block time' and also the conclusion that free will is a mere illusion? It's indeed a quite difficult question. — boundless

I don't waste much time trying to imagine what Omniscience would be like. Since I have no direct or scriptural "revelation" to go by, I can only guess that Block Time might be something like omniscience.

Regarding Free Will, I can only agree with Einstein's comment on past-present-future Time --- that it's a "stubbornly persistent illusion" --- which 99% of humans accept as a pragmatic assumption.

Einstein maintained that the distinction between past, present and the future is an illusion, albeit a persistent one, but nevertheless considered the 'now' as the main problem of physics. If the passage of time is illusory, why we do have such a 'persistent illusion'? Our immediate experience is a strong argument against the block time, after all. — boundless

Since, unlike Einstein, I am incapable of imagining omniscience, I would say that an ever-changing world is not an illusion but an empirical Fact of human understanding. To deny real world Change might be a sign of dementia, or of extreme Idealism. Why do we persist in such an illusion? Because it makes sense to our senses. Only philosophers waste time trying to imagine non-sense.

So, you seem to agree that free will is an illusion, after all. And also the cosmic evolution is merely pespectival and ultimately illusory. If so, your philosophy is closer to Spinoza's than I thought before.
I thought that you asserted that the cosmic evolution is 'real', not illusory. Apparently, I misinterpreted. — boundless

Evolution and FreeWill are only illusory relative to Omniscience. Relative to mundane human understanding it's an undeniable verity. Since I have almost 8 decades of personal experience, I can't deceive myself that Aging & Death are figments of imagination. From my imaginary personal perspective, Death looks like a skeleton in a black hoodie holding a mean-looking scythe.

main-qimg-7b2622ab0283b9ea2b14dbbfa49827f7-lq

[Gnomon]

Evolution and FreeWill are only illusory relative to Omniscience. ---Gnomon

But note that as I said, something can 'feel' very real but at the same time can be illusory. — boundless

Is there a downside to accepting that "feeling" of change in the objective world and the practical effects of willful behavior? I feel older and wiser than I did at 18. Am I just naive, or deceiving myself that I can be an agent of change in the world? When I imagine that I'm driving my car to the grocery store, was that destination destined by God or Fate 14b years before I was born? If my free agency is a mirage, will I go hungry waiting for the world to bend to my will?

PS___ My personal experience of change is not "dreamlike", but realistic. By contrast, my dreams are dreamlike and unrealistic.


Henri Bergson on Evolution :
Bergson begins with the entity we know best : the Self. “The existence of which we are most assured and which we know best is unquestionably our own”. Then he discusses Evolution : “ Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose. For I speak of each of my states as if it formed a block and were a separate whole”. Yet, “The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change ”.
Creative Evolution from a post I'm currently working on