Good Reads

Shrew as Serpents, Guileless as Doves

"Abel-dominant types see themselves as high-minded idealists, mystics, artists, and see the Cain types as crass, materialist philistines, as clever manipulators and game players who care nothing for truth and beauty, but only for a thing's cash value. The Cain types, who see themselves as worldly wise and sophisticated, see the Abel types as life's losers, naive hippies, rigid ideologues, easily manipulable fools with their heads in the clouds. William James in The Will to Believe talks about the same split in personality types in his description  as "hard-headed" realists and "soft-hearted" idealist psychological types. And so, Steinbeck suggests, the ideal is to be both--hard-headed serpents and soft-hearted doves."  

"The task for Cain types is to integrate the recessive part of them that is dove-like, and for Abel types to integrate the recessive part of them that is serpent like. Steinbeck's narrative suggests that the degree of our success or failure as moral beings depends on the degree to which each of us effects this integration...The fundamental moral task is not to surrender to one or the other side, but the struggle to live in the tension between them, and in doing so to effect their marriage."

Interesting reflection on the duality that exists within our own personas. Much of this rang true for me, being by nature more of an "Abel" type myself. Definitely worth a read.

Reflection

Upon returning to his senses and going home, the prodigal son asks to be treated as one of his father’s hired hands, effectively saying that he is no longer worthy to be called a “son.” The Father tells him that this is nonsense. He wants his son restored to “sonship,” with all the concomitant freedom, responsibility and dignity that comes with that office.

Do we not, even in returning to God, still seek to shirk the responsibility and weight of truly being “sons” or (daughters)? We want to be close, but not too close. We want goodness, but not transformation. The Father will have none of it. Returning home means reclaiming our place as sons - nothing less.

Be aware of that strong temptation to settle for too little. It masks itself in a false humility. True humility does not say “I am low,” but rather “Your Will be done.”

The Capital Vice

A recurring division makes itself apparent throughout the gospels. Humanity seems to be divided into those who recognize their guilt, and those who do not. The humble vs. the proud. This contrasts the vision we tend to have where humanity is divided into the learned and the stupid, the haves and the have-nots, or the blessed and the cursed. Christ turns many of our ideas (or maybe our illusions) on their heads, and this is one case.

Philosophers and seekers of religious truth often come upon great insights in their pursuit of the nobler things in life. They become wise – and they know it. There is a clear division between the learned and the ignorant. There is a distinction between the Pharisee and the lowly layman. The men who rise to these heights know they are in a certain sense better than the average person. They have achieved a position that most people do not ever achieve. They are right to pursue those noble truths and to spend their energy seeking God, but they make a critical error that blinds them to the most important truth of all.

It is possible to become intoxicated on a sense of superiority. Not only possible, but tremendously easy. We spend our lives making comparisons, ranking, judging. When we start to make real progress toward our goals, it does not take long before we subconsciously move ourselves up in rank against other men and women. When we make progress in the most important areas of life – the pursuit of wisdom, truth, and God – we rank ourselves highest of all. We know ourselves to be wise. Wiser than most men whom we think are simply too lazy, stupid or weak to achieve what we have.

Pride - the primordial sin. Evil seeps into even the greatest of our pursuits. According to the legend, pride is what caused us to fall. Pride keeps us fallen. Men who know themselves to be wise are above council. Men who are certain that they are better than most are not readily inclined to hear criticism. Their sense of self worth becomes tied up in their apparent moral perfection. The irony is that this mindset itself is an immense moral failing.

The proud man views humanity as being divided into the learned/wise/righteous on the one hand, and the ignorant/stupid/base on the other. He is isolated from common men. Not only this, but he disdains them. To hell with the mob, he thinks. They have created their own little hells - let them rot in them. I am above such a wasteful life as that, he thinks. Surely I will be rewarded for my greatness when all is said and done, even if the masses do not recognize it.

Yet Christ shatters this mindset to a thousand pieces. The most righteous man to ever walk this Earth - the Divine Himself – over an over again shows incredible mercy to lowly sinners. He dines with them, offers them forgiveness, and lays down his life for them. And the people who recognize his divinity and greatness are typically the common men and women despite their sinful lives and apparent ignorance. It is often the simple fisherman, the lowly harlot, and the hated tax collector who recognize Christ’s goodness first, and not the magistrates, religious authorities, and other powerful men of his day.

Humility is the common thread we see running through the character of each individual who accepts Christ. Pride is the common vice that keeps even the highly educated and the very wise from seeing the Truth they seek. Through Christ we are taught that the true dividing line between wisdom and righteousness on the one hand, and evil and vice on the other is not simply a matter of learning and religious observance (though these are an important part of a fully developed moral life) but more importantly the division between pride and humility.

Humility allows a man to see himself as a brother to those who are not as fortunate as he is. It allows him to feel pity and love for those who have not yet learned as much as he has, or who have not yet achieved the moral strength he has. More importantly, is allows him to see his own faults. No man is perfect, and no one achieves perfection in this life. We are forbidden to condemn any man as being beyond saving, because we do not know his heart, and we are not privy to his inner life. The only struggles we truly know are our own. Yet, while we may each struggle in our own way, we are all seeking the same goal. Every man labors in the pursuit of fulfillment. Every man hopes to someday find real happiness. Humility allows us to see others as partners in this pursuit, and not opponents. Through Christ, humanity becomes more like an extended family. Human brotherhood only truly exists under Divine Fatherhood.

Good Reads: January 22/2016

Alexander Pruss on Perdition
Interesting reflection. Very much paralleling my own (admittedly a bit inchoate) thoughts on the issue.


Mike Flynn on:
The Rise of Science
Whether the Scientific Revolution was Uniquely Western
Modern misleading narratives be damned. Real history is often much more complex than most people realize. And sometimes the facts are outright contrary to the simplistic myths we've been taught. 
Bonus points because the posts are presented in true Scholastic fashion.


Ask the Aged
In the quest for answers about the purpose of life, Karl Pillemer asks: "Why not begin with an activity as old as the human race: asking the advice of the oldest people you know? Because older people have one thing that the rest of us do not: they have lived their lives." Good piece. Check it out.

Intentionality and Materialism

“Tree.”

A word we use to describe a certain set of living organisms with similar qualities. The word “tree” is not itself a tree, obviously – it is merely a bunch of lines organized in a specific way - but it means the concept of “tree” to us (literate users of English). Those lines have no inherent meaning in and of themselves, they only gain this meaning when imbued with it by language users. That particular set of lines, organized in that particular way, comes to “point beyond” itself and to represent a concept. Philosophers call this “pointing beyond” intentionality.

“Δ”

Triangle? Or Delta connected electrical system? A letter in the Greek alphabet? A symbol representing change? This symbol can have any one of those meanings. Once again the fact of the matter is that it has absolutely no meaning in and of itself. just like the word “tree,” or any other physical symbol for that matter, it is not until a language user gives the symbol meaning that it comes to possess meaning, and it only possesses meaning insofar as it is given it by a language user. If every single human being on earth were to die in an orgy of nuclear warfare, symbols like “tree”, “Δ”, “+”, “=”, etc., would be nothing more than meaningless marks or patterns. They would not point beyond themselves toward anything else, because there would be no one doing the “pointing.”

So what? Mildly interesting (maybe) but what difference does this esoteric reflection make? Let’s take it a little further in order to find out.

How is it that a piece of matter (the symbol “tree” on your screen, say) which has no physical connection at all to the reality it points toward (an actual tree) comes to somehow be connected to it? We agree to use that symbol to represent trees, you might say. We have minds, and it is our minds that connect the symbol with the reality, thereby creating meaning where there was none. While true, this only pushes the problem back a stage and relocates it in the mind instead of the physical objects themselves. If, as many modern types would argue, our minds are nothing more than our brains (and therefore nothing more than the electrochemically charged meat inhabiting our skull cavities), then our thoughts must also be part of our brains and therefore be comprised of physical symbols and patterns inhering in a purely material system. Our thoughts would be of a higher-yet “language” or system of symbols. Rather than the electrical patterns that cause the symbols on your computer screen, they would be electrochemical patterns firing in the neural network in your brain. The problem, however, is that these are still physical symbols regardless of where they are located. Whether the pulses and patterns are displayed on a computer monitor, pass through copper wire, or express themselves in a neural network, they are still alike in being material patterns inhering in a physical system. Being physical symbols, they are utterly devoid of meaning until given it by an agent with intentionality. If our minds are purely physical, then they are inherently meaningless – any meaning that we think we create or experience must either be an illusion or it must come from some immaterial source. Those are our two options to end the explanatory regress.

Let’s recap:

1. Physical symbols have no meaning inherent to them.
2. A mind is required to give meaning to otherwise meaningless symbols.
3. The mind is nothing more than a purely material system (the brain) and as a result our thoughts can be nothing more than physical patterns in that purely material system.
4. If our minds and thoughts are purely physical patterns, then they have no meaning in and of themselves.
5. A mind is required to give those physical patterns meaning.
6. Therefore the mind must somehow exist over and above the physical brain, or any purely material system for that matter.

We cannot give a purely material explanation for intentionality, since no material symbol can have a definite meaning in and of itself. We cannot locate meaning in the mind, and then propose that the mind can be explained on purely material terms, without eliminating meaning (and while we are at it, the mind as well. Intentionality is only one example of this problem. Our ability to perform determinate functions is another, and our ability to grasp universals yet another. All of these are crucial aspects of what we call “the mind.”)

As a result some philosophers argue that the mind must be something more than mere matter. I say something more, because the material part of us obviously plays a crucial role. Brain damaged persons display this. The point to emphasize, however, is simply that matter cannot explain the mind by itself. Whatever our understanding of the brain ends up being in the long run, it cannot be identical with the mind as the mind cannot be purely material.

Accepting that the mind is more than just matter is not the only option, as noted above. Some opt to argue instead that meaning is an illusion, and therefore poses no problem for a materialist worldview. Minds are nothing more than matter, they argue, and therefore it is intentionality and meaning that must give way to the truth of materialism. Intentionality (along with grasping universals and performing determinate functions) is eliminated, and therefore so is the mind. In the clash between two incompatibles – materialism and intentionality – it is intentionality that must be jettisoned, not materialism. This is, however (as far as I can tell) a self destructive and mad position. Intentionality is indispensable in any attempt to even formulate the eliminativist position. Eliminating the mind rather than attempting to explain it leaves us without the capacity to reason your way to and formulate your position in the first place.