As good a proof of God as you will see this side of the ‘other side.’
Written by David McMullan
Exercise 1. The idea of the MetaSchema and its universality.
As the old saying goes ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ and to the greater part of my knowledge there’s only one ‘who’ that is known by every person of every culture in the world: God. But before I clarify this statement with regards to arguments of the diversity of belief/non belief it would be remiss not to first clarify my statement that ‘every person’ knows (at least as an idea) God; and as I will start from the basic premise that God(s) is/are first and foremost an ‘idea’, I will call this idea the MetaSchema (henceforth MS) for reasons that will be later revealed.
The MS is a universal cognition. There is not a single post-nursery (or equivalent) human being that is not aware of the idea of the MS either as an adherent of religion, an agnostic, atheist or someone who just plain ‘believes.’ It can be argued that certain religions/cultures do not appeal to higher powers to affect their systems of value, ethics etc. It can also be argued that historical missionary work has done much to influence the beliefs/non beliefs of the world’s populace. This is true. Our historical knowledge can only be trully justified if it has been presented to us as documented, validated, literal evidence contemporary to the era studied, and it is to this that I must first appeal.
Historical evidence for the universality and history of divine belief is found in the study of early burial mounds and other related sites. Burial finds have constantly given clues to the theological beliefs of early humans. Important early religious finds include those at La Ferrassie and La Chapelle aux saints in France, Teshik-Tash in the USSR and Monte Circeo in Italy. The human skeletons found there and elsewhere often have their legs flexed or in crouched position, the head is usually to the east, the body often lying on the right side, and tools and animal bones are often found in a place close by, possibly as burial gifts. Theories abound about the meaning of these finds, but the basic question is that of why human beings should bury their dead. It is clear that Neanderthal humans did bury corpses and that they had some comprehension of death and how to deal with it, namely through burial customs. Whether they had any comprehension of life in another world is not clear. There have also been other burial finds of bear sculls and animal bones in isolation from human remains; these may signify early animal sacrifices or hunting rituals. The earliest burial finds date back to the middle Palaeolithic period around 75000BC; this is particularly interesting considering that archaeologists tell us that civilisation really began about 10000BC and indicates that religious worship was prevalent several thousand years before the accepted date for civilisation and the empirical thinking that is connected with it.
The earliest surviving written work, the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ makes reference to the MS. To go back a further few dozen thousand years the very first artistic, semiotic images applied by humans for posterity, the cave paintings at Lauxanne, make reference to what seems to be, even to the non-theological eye, the MS.
This is as far back as we can go, and as far as we can know. The fact of the matter is that when we look into the prehistoric semiotics of any race and culture we find their earliest symbolism strewn with images that are MetaSchematic. Of course this only serves to convince us that humans during this early stage of art and literature (and therefore symbiotically and philologically readable) had cognitions of the MS and that that which came before must always remain a subject for conjecture and contention. While this argument from historicity may be far from the conclusive evidence that’s required to truly universalise the schema it does attribute greatly to the overall theory. It must also be stated that there is evidence for the existence of a part of the human brain which primarily processes thoughts of a spiritual or metaphysical nature. If this is indeed the case it offers further argument for the catholicity of the MS.
A most modern comment on the universality of the belief of a divine creator comes from 2006 Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist (and atheist) George Smoot, who advanced
“Every tribe has its own story of creation”
It can be touted as a counter argument that certain ‘religious’ societies do not appeal to a MS. The followers of Jainism, Confucianism, Australian Aboriginal belief systems, Marxist doctrines and Buddhism, are oft said to be adherents of religions that do not appeal directly to the MS. Although these contentions do not directly effect my position (that the MS is a universal notion) I will deal with it, albeit briefly and succinctly. Jainism is a direct off-shoot of Hinduism which appeals to a pantheon on gods, Confucianism is a philosophy which did (and still does) exist along side ancestor worship and Daoism, Australian Aboriginal belief systems invariably invite the metaphysical or supernatural, Marxist doctrine is an economic/political structure and although appeals to the ‘dialectic,’ which for Hegel was metaphysical, is based on materialism and has no place in this list; but what of Buddhism?
There is a lot of argument about the status of general Buddhism as a religion. It is a religion. Adherents of Buddhism appeal to a transcendental entity; this ‘transcendental’ schema is an attribute of the MS and it is with this in mind that I will attempt to clarify the common aspects shared by the world’s worshipped deities and affective transcendental powers.
In their famous BBC radio debate on the existence/non-existence of God, Bishop F.C. Copleston asks Bertrand Russell to accept the following definition of God-
“…a supreme personal being- distinct from the world and creator of the world.”
Russell accepts and so this transcendental definition was accepted by a Bishop and an agnostic. Another more common term for the universal phenomenon that has been cognised since ancient times is ‘religious experience’. These religious experiences can be defined in a narrow way as inward spiritual experiences, or in a wider way as experience of all the elements common in religious faith. The term ‘religious experience’ was popularised in the West by William James in his Varieties or religious experience (1902), where he defines religion as the
‘feelings, acts and experiences of men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine’.
The individual experience, James implies, is difficult to describe because it has to be put into words, and what we read about are not religious experiences as such, but expressions of religious experience. Hence, all religious ‘schemas’ in this mystical sense are the same but we have to describe it using our own languages and so they seem to be different. This suggests a ‘holistic’ ideal which has been subjected to differences because of the phenomenon of language, semiotics and culture; however, the result remains the same and that result is a schema which has attributes that transcend empirical senses: a MS.
The word ‘transcendental’ is rather ambiguous and I use it here to denote something above or beyond the laws of nature and physics, something ‘immeasurable.’ I will define it further below with reference to the MS.
The MS is ontologically transcendent. This means that it is a self-contained reality that is not dependent on anything else for its existence. Ontological transcendence also describes the nature of the MS’s being, which unlike that of its creation is immeasurable. Secondly the MS is epistemologically transcendent. That is, its essential nature remains incomprehensible to mankind. Our minds are simply incapable of grasping the Divine Essence. Epistemological transcendence is expressed theologically in terms of holiness, mystery and incomprehensibility.
The importance of the ‘immeasurability’ of the MS will surface later when discussing the non-empirical. Here I will document the universal aspects of the MS (which would hold true for the concept of ‘God’ for the monotheistic religions and ‘chief’ or ‘creator’ god for the polytheistic. It applies equally well to notions such as ‘Gaia’ and other monist/pantheist schemas).
As I have mentioned previously the MS is transcendental, but it is also imminent. This imminence is suggested by the effectiveness of the MS as the MS can have an effect outside of the transcendental; the idea of the effective MS is suggested by the fact that it can be appealed to. The MS is superhuman, it has powers superior to humans. The MS is supernatural, it has powers superior to nature. The MS is self-creating/sustaining; it has no creator but is a prime-mover and creator of all else. In summary, the universal aspects of the MS include- transcendentalism and imminence, effectiveness, immeasurability, appeal, super humanity, super naturality, creativity and autonomy.
Please notice that I do not assign omnipotence, omniscience or any kind of benevolence/malignity to the MS as these are not the ‘universal’ aspects of the schema. I have also importantly refrained from describing the schema as ‘infinite.’ The MS is transcendental and as a transcendental entity transcends space and time and therefore cannot be described as infinite, as infinity is the result of the findings of a measurement of things in space/extension or time and is as such, an empirical concept.
It should be noted that the cognition of a schema which exists ‘outside’ of space/extension and time is in itself a notably ‘unusual’ idea for a human (relying on empirical sense-data) to have. If -as some empiricists contend- the mind is naught but a tabula rasa at birth, what kind of sense data could possibly imprint such schemas?
In light of some of the common attributes I will surmise that the MS is non-empirical in that none of these attributes can be cognised as a direct result of sense-perception. I will qualify this beneath.
Exercise 2. The MS is non-empirical.
1) No human has been witness to a self-creating autonomous entity, even at quantum level.Written by David McMullan
Exercise 1. The idea of the MetaSchema and its universality.
As the old saying goes ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ and to the greater part of my knowledge there’s only one ‘who’ that is known by every person of every culture in the world: God. But before I clarify this statement with regards to arguments of the diversity of belief/non belief it would be remiss not to first clarify my statement that ‘every person’ knows (at least as an idea) God; and as I will start from the basic premise that God(s) is/are first and foremost an ‘idea’, I will call this idea the MetaSchema (henceforth MS) for reasons that will be later revealed.
The MS is a universal cognition. There is not a single post-nursery (or equivalent) human being that is not aware of the idea of the MS either as an adherent of religion, an agnostic, atheist or someone who just plain ‘believes.’ It can be argued that certain religions/cultures do not appeal to higher powers to affect their systems of value, ethics etc. It can also be argued that historical missionary work has done much to influence the beliefs/non beliefs of the world’s populace. This is true. Our historical knowledge can only be trully justified if it has been presented to us as documented, validated, literal evidence contemporary to the era studied, and it is to this that I must first appeal.
Historical evidence for the universality and history of divine belief is found in the study of early burial mounds and other related sites. Burial finds have constantly given clues to the theological beliefs of early humans. Important early religious finds include those at La Ferrassie and La Chapelle aux saints in France, Teshik-Tash in the USSR and Monte Circeo in Italy. The human skeletons found there and elsewhere often have their legs flexed or in crouched position, the head is usually to the east, the body often lying on the right side, and tools and animal bones are often found in a place close by, possibly as burial gifts. Theories abound about the meaning of these finds, but the basic question is that of why human beings should bury their dead. It is clear that Neanderthal humans did bury corpses and that they had some comprehension of death and how to deal with it, namely through burial customs. Whether they had any comprehension of life in another world is not clear. There have also been other burial finds of bear sculls and animal bones in isolation from human remains; these may signify early animal sacrifices or hunting rituals. The earliest burial finds date back to the middle Palaeolithic period around 75000BC; this is particularly interesting considering that archaeologists tell us that civilisation really began about 10000BC and indicates that religious worship was prevalent several thousand years before the accepted date for civilisation and the empirical thinking that is connected with it.
The earliest surviving written work, the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ makes reference to the MS. To go back a further few dozen thousand years the very first artistic, semiotic images applied by humans for posterity, the cave paintings at Lauxanne, make reference to what seems to be, even to the non-theological eye, the MS.
This is as far back as we can go, and as far as we can know. The fact of the matter is that when we look into the prehistoric semiotics of any race and culture we find their earliest symbolism strewn with images that are MetaSchematic. Of course this only serves to convince us that humans during this early stage of art and literature (and therefore symbiotically and philologically readable) had cognitions of the MS and that that which came before must always remain a subject for conjecture and contention. While this argument from historicity may be far from the conclusive evidence that’s required to truly universalise the schema it does attribute greatly to the overall theory. It must also be stated that there is evidence for the existence of a part of the human brain which primarily processes thoughts of a spiritual or metaphysical nature. If this is indeed the case it offers further argument for the catholicity of the MS.
A most modern comment on the universality of the belief of a divine creator comes from 2006 Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist (and atheist) George Smoot, who advanced
“Every tribe has its own story of creation”
It can be touted as a counter argument that certain ‘religious’ societies do not appeal to a MS. The followers of Jainism, Confucianism, Australian Aboriginal belief systems, Marxist doctrines and Buddhism, are oft said to be adherents of religions that do not appeal directly to the MS. Although these contentions do not directly effect my position (that the MS is a universal notion) I will deal with it, albeit briefly and succinctly. Jainism is a direct off-shoot of Hinduism which appeals to a pantheon on gods, Confucianism is a philosophy which did (and still does) exist along side ancestor worship and Daoism, Australian Aboriginal belief systems invariably invite the metaphysical or supernatural, Marxist doctrine is an economic/political structure and although appeals to the ‘dialectic,’ which for Hegel was metaphysical, is based on materialism and has no place in this list; but what of Buddhism?
There is a lot of argument about the status of general Buddhism as a religion. It is a religion. Adherents of Buddhism appeal to a transcendental entity; this ‘transcendental’ schema is an attribute of the MS and it is with this in mind that I will attempt to clarify the common aspects shared by the world’s worshipped deities and affective transcendental powers.
In their famous BBC radio debate on the existence/non-existence of God, Bishop F.C. Copleston asks Bertrand Russell to accept the following definition of God-
“…a supreme personal being- distinct from the world and creator of the world.”
Russell accepts and so this transcendental definition was accepted by a Bishop and an agnostic. Another more common term for the universal phenomenon that has been cognised since ancient times is ‘religious experience’. These religious experiences can be defined in a narrow way as inward spiritual experiences, or in a wider way as experience of all the elements common in religious faith. The term ‘religious experience’ was popularised in the West by William James in his Varieties or religious experience (1902), where he defines religion as the
‘feelings, acts and experiences of men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine’.
The individual experience, James implies, is difficult to describe because it has to be put into words, and what we read about are not religious experiences as such, but expressions of religious experience. Hence, all religious ‘schemas’ in this mystical sense are the same but we have to describe it using our own languages and so they seem to be different. This suggests a ‘holistic’ ideal which has been subjected to differences because of the phenomenon of language, semiotics and culture; however, the result remains the same and that result is a schema which has attributes that transcend empirical senses: a MS.
The word ‘transcendental’ is rather ambiguous and I use it here to denote something above or beyond the laws of nature and physics, something ‘immeasurable.’ I will define it further below with reference to the MS.
The MS is ontologically transcendent. This means that it is a self-contained reality that is not dependent on anything else for its existence. Ontological transcendence also describes the nature of the MS’s being, which unlike that of its creation is immeasurable. Secondly the MS is epistemologically transcendent. That is, its essential nature remains incomprehensible to mankind. Our minds are simply incapable of grasping the Divine Essence. Epistemological transcendence is expressed theologically in terms of holiness, mystery and incomprehensibility.
The importance of the ‘immeasurability’ of the MS will surface later when discussing the non-empirical. Here I will document the universal aspects of the MS (which would hold true for the concept of ‘God’ for the monotheistic religions and ‘chief’ or ‘creator’ god for the polytheistic. It applies equally well to notions such as ‘Gaia’ and other monist/pantheist schemas).
As I have mentioned previously the MS is transcendental, but it is also imminent. This imminence is suggested by the effectiveness of the MS as the MS can have an effect outside of the transcendental; the idea of the effective MS is suggested by the fact that it can be appealed to. The MS is superhuman, it has powers superior to humans. The MS is supernatural, it has powers superior to nature. The MS is self-creating/sustaining; it has no creator but is a prime-mover and creator of all else. In summary, the universal aspects of the MS include- transcendentalism and imminence, effectiveness, immeasurability, appeal, super humanity, super naturality, creativity and autonomy.
Please notice that I do not assign omnipotence, omniscience or any kind of benevolence/malignity to the MS as these are not the ‘universal’ aspects of the schema. I have also importantly refrained from describing the schema as ‘infinite.’ The MS is transcendental and as a transcendental entity transcends space and time and therefore cannot be described as infinite, as infinity is the result of the findings of a measurement of things in space/extension or time and is as such, an empirical concept.
It should be noted that the cognition of a schema which exists ‘outside’ of space/extension and time is in itself a notably ‘unusual’ idea for a human (relying on empirical sense-data) to have. If -as some empiricists contend- the mind is naught but a tabula rasa at birth, what kind of sense data could possibly imprint such schemas?
In light of some of the common attributes I will surmise that the MS is non-empirical in that none of these attributes can be cognised as a direct result of sense-perception. I will qualify this beneath.
Exercise 2. The MS is non-empirical.
2) The idea of the transcendental or metaphysical- by its very definition- is non-empirical.
3) Our ideas of the MS contradict Wittgenstein’s ‘private language’ theory.
4) To be immeasurable is to be non-empirical.
No human has been witness to a self-creating autonomous entity, even at quantum level.
To be self-creating is certainly not a natural ability; it is quite clear empirically that nihili ex nihil fit. One criticism that could be levelled at my assertion is that although we cannot have sense evidence of a self-creating entity, we can schematise the construct of ‘self’ and ‘creating’ in a Humean fashion, much in the same way as we can construct a unicorn from horse and horn. The essential difference here is that a unicorn is a purely empirical construct in the sense that I can easily envisage the amalgam of the two (or more) entities required to give us the schema. The same cannot be said of the MetaSchema, I cannot conceive (empirically or otherwise) of ‘nothing.’ It is simply impossible, try it. Any empirical schematic designed to explain the MS would have to combine- nothing + self + creation; it simply falls down at the first hurdle.
The MS could also be described as the ‘first cause.’Sense-data has never witnessed or recorded an example of a first cause. Of course this would be impossible unless the perceiver itself was, in fact, the first cause; therefore the only empirical data for the first cause must and can only be recorded by the first cause itself. In the BBC radio debate with Bertrand Russell, Bishop Copleston forwards this description of a self causing entity utilising Leibniz’s ‘argument from contingency’.
‘First of all, I should say that there are at least some beings in the world which do not contain in themselves the reasons for their existence. For example, I depend on my parents, and now on the air, and on food, and so on. Now, secondly, the world is simply the real or imagined totality or aggregate of individual objects, none of which contain in themselves alone the reason for their existence. There isn’t any world distinct from the objects which form it, any more than the human race is something apart from its members. Therefore, I should say, since objects of experience contains within itself the reason of its existence, this reason, the totality of objects, must have a reason external to itself. That reason must be an existent being. Well, this being is either itself the reason for its own existence or it is not. If it is, well and good. If it is not, then we must proceed further. But if we proceed to infinity in that sense, then there’s no explanation of existence at all. So, I should say, in order to explain existence, we must come to a being which contains within itself the reason for its own existence, that is to say, which cannot not-exist.’
The idea of the transcendental or metaphysical- by its very definition- is non-empirical.
To preempt a criticism of my second contention I will suggest that the concepts of transcendental or metaphysical are naught but a negation of the concept of empirical. This is true but unfortunately for the antagonist doesn’t render the concepts any more empirical. This negation, by definition, confirms for us that the concepts are non-empirical; apply to this the law of non-contradiction and no amount of logical or semantic trickery will suffice to refute it.
Our ideas of the MS contradict Wittgenstein’s ‘private language’ theory.
There are times when ideas of the MS are just simply incommunicable although present in the mind. Most deep thinkers will admit to schemas that are beyond language but still exert certain knowledge, the knowledge of their existence for one. These inexplicable cognitions of the MS are certainly non-empirical.
To be immeasurable is to be non-empirical.
The concept of infinity could well be used to refute the last of these contentions. I posit that it is essential for infinity to be measurable in the sense that without being susceptible to measurability we could have no concept of the ‘infinite.’ To be infinite is to be measurable and to be measurable is to be empirical therefore this simple syllogism confirms that infinity is empirical, but is the concept of empiricism synonymous with measurement? I state my case thus:-
To be empirical is to be measurable either by vision judgement (our day to day survival relies on this ability), sound (high to low frequency, Pythagoras theorised that sound was mathematical and therefore measurable), touch, (texture, temperature and distance) smell, (the intensity of odours) and taste (the measurement from salty to sweet, much in the same way as litmus paper measures the acidity/alkalinity of a substance). For an object to be empirically sensed relies on the ability to have its spectrum measured by one of the sense organs and for the place on the spectrum to be located at a definite point. Even the much celebrated ‘uncertainty principle’ cannot overcome this natural rule as to have knowledge of the movement of a particle (even if you can’t ascertain it’s position and velocity at the same time) naturally suggests that you that you must have first located it. Maybe I am misunderstanding the law here, or maybe the law is just a paradox. I am inclined to believe the latter.
It could be further added that to be empirical is to be replicable, and vice versa. This (arguably) can not be said of the MS. Although it is well known that several religions revere statues, totems and pictures of their gods, and that their gods appear in their schemas as empirical entities or avatars; this does not detract from the god’s cognised non-empirical attributes; it is simply a case of anthropomorphism.
Is the metaphysical, non-empirical, monads etc
Having stated my case for the non-empiricality of the MS I am now compelled to explain the importance of this phenomenon.
Exercise 3 The MetaSchema that is a Unique Cognition.
It is evident that, as to be empirical is to be measurable (and vice versa) the MS cannot be empirical; as the MS transcends even infinity and eternity it is impossible to measure. In this sense the MS is a unique cognition as it is the only cognitive schema that a human can have outside of empirical data; all other schemas are either realised empirically or are a version of the MS. To continue this study the contention that the MS is a Unique Cognition will have to be scrutinised, attacked and defended in order to move on.
It could be claimed that there are scientific phenomenon that could be considered non-empirical but cognised and therefore defeat the contention that the Meta Schema is unique in its non-empiricality; the main contender for this consideration (and one that could represent many others) is gravity.
Outside of the scientific realm several cognitions seem to carry the label non-empirical. Not least Spiritualism, Magic and telepathy.
Gravity, as most famously propounded by Isaac Newton in Philosophiae Naturalis Principa Mathematica is a theory of how bodies move in space and time. Newton postulated the law of universal gravitation according to which each body in the universe was attracted toward every other body by a force that was stronger the more massive the bodies and the closer they were to each other It is this ‘gravity’ that causes the moon to move in an elliptical orbit around the earth and causes the earth and the planets to follow elliptical paths around the sun. Then it would seem that gravity mounts a sufficient challenge to the contention that the MS is the only non-empirical cognition that we can have.
It is not possible to defeat a claim that gravity is non-empirical by suggesting that its effects are constantly evident in our lives, as the same criticism could be levelled at the MS itself. However, contemporary scientific research, especially the branch called particle physics, has thrown a new empirical light on gravity in the shape of the graviton. For these scientists the gravitational force of the Sun on the Earth was pictured in particle theories as being caused by the emission of a graviton by a particle in the Sun and its absorption by a particle in the Earth. As particle physics is a truly empirical study of particles and as the graviton is very much part of this theory, gravity can be very simply be ruled out as a non-empirical phenomenon.
This work has mentioned gravity in particular as it is a concept that is universally known, however the same can be said of any invisible source of power such as magnetism, electricity, electro -magnetism, radiation and any other that can be measured in terms of particles, waves or wave/particle duality.
Spiritualism has become a major trend in modern life. Every year millions of people flock to spiritualists and mediums in the hope of contacting a departed loved one from beyond the grave. Spiritualism is an organised religion which believes that spirits of the deceased survive bodily death and communicate with the living, usually via a medium by means of messages, or apparently paranormal physical effects. While many different cultures past and present believe in spiritualism (the ability of spirits of the deceased to communicate with the living) spiritualism is primarily a Western religion most commonly found in Europe and in North America, from the 1800’s. It attempts to distinguish itself from the other ‘spiritist’ beliefs by taking a ‘scientific’ approach; spiritualists query whether communicating spirits are who they claim to be by posing questions that could only be answered by the spirit of the deceased and by the person asking the question. Spiritualists believe in God, and feel that through communications with the deceased they may come to understand better the laws of God. They welcome members from different religious faiths. Spiritualism is frequently lambasted for having members who use trickery to produce its phenomena and by Christians who liken them to ‘false prophets’.
Although it could possibly be argued that Spiritualism could be reduced to a version of the MS this work will argue that it is not, in fact, non-empirical but that its essence is very empirical. The verbal communication of an entity through a medium, from beyond the grave or not, is still communication and is therefore empirical data. The sensation caused by a ghost or a spirit is commonly one of cold chills, moving objects and strange noises. All of these sensations are examples of the receipt of empirical data. Spiritualism in this respect has been used as an example for all kind of necromancy.
Magic in the modern world is evident in many forms. From the ancient power rites of the Shaman and witch doctor to the nature worshipping adherents of Wicca, magic has seen a revival in the 20/21st centuries. It is generally regarded as a ritual activity aimed at producing effects in the world by means of supernatural rather than causal means. It is present in every society, including the West, and ranges from the magic of popular folk-religion to complex magical systems. However, it has not thrown up elaborate theological frameworks to explain its workings, even though it does overlap with religion. It usually deals with concrete problems such as healing, seeking revenge, finding lost valuables, avoiding calamity, and finding out misdoers. It implies that there is a connection between what happens in one realm of life and what happens in another, so that if an action is performed symbolically in one realm it will have consequences in the other realm. Thus, in black magic a pin stuck in an effigy of a person aims to affect the live person the effigy represent. Much academic theory has been applied to magic: did it precede religion? Does it work automatically whereas religion does not? Is it a substitute in primal societies for science? Is it a method of social control? Does it require faith to work? And so on.
It is clear that magic does have links with religion and that it takes seriously the supra-logical elements in the human mind. It remains a factor among primal religions, and since the mid 19th century there has been a small scale revival of magic in the West mainly inspired by English mystic Aleister Crowley.
The supposed power that affects magic can indeed be called non-empirical but this does not necessarily dictate that the MS is not the Unique Cognition that this work is reporting. Magic ‘works’ by appealing to a transcendental, effective, power and in that sense it is in itself a form of the MS or at least the work of the MS.
Telepathy is the supposed ability of humans to communicate with each other using the mind. Controlled experiments have shown that a subject ‘projecting’ a mental image of a picture can ‘install’ the image in the mind of a willing recipient. This kind of communication has long been considered natural by the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and is becoming more and more excepted as an existent phenomenon as a result of scientific research.
This does not necessarily denote that telepathy is non-empirical. The mental receipt of an image or message could be directly comparable to receiving sense data through the eyes or ears. The received message or image is of an empirical nature, the difference being that it has not been received through the traditional sense receptors- maybe there is a case for reviewing the 5th sense theory in favour of the 6th sense theory that has been popular for dozens of years, but either way the existence or non-existence of telepathy mounts no sustainable attack on the theory that the MS is a Unique Cognition. As telepathy is the most accepted form of psychic ability it will serve to represent the many forms of psychic ability that pseudo-science has theorised, such as clairvoyance, telekinesis, prediction and other forms of extra sensory perception.
String theory
The Meta Schema is a Unique Cognition in the sense that it is the only schema/cognition/idea that a human can have without using the faculty of empirical sense experience; as the previous paragraphs have shown there are other contenders that can maybe disprove the uniqueness of the position of the Meta Schema but under close scrutiny they can be shown to be either empirical or a form of the Meta Schema themselves. And so, gravity, electricity, magnetism, electromagnetism, radiation, spiritualism, clairvoyance, necromancy, telepathy, telekinesis and E.S.P have been proved to be empirical schemas whereas Magic has been shown to be a form of the MS.
This leads us to the one million dollar question. If this schema is not empirical, where does it come from?
Exercise 4 The genesis of the MS as a unique cognition.
As this study has shown that the MS is non-empirical it would be remiss not to ask ‘where does the cognition of the MS come from?’ It has long been touted that belief in the existence of the MS is an inherited idea that has been handed down through the generations from our ancestors, and that ideas of transcendental Gods are verbally installed in us at a young age, this is certainly true. The problem with this notion is that it leads to infinite regress; if my father had had this schema given to him by his grandfather, and my grandfather by his father and so on we would be looking at a belief system that had no beginning. This in itself would suggest that the MS is an innate idea, as the foundation of it could not be found empirically; unless it is suggested (as it sometimes is) that time is a circle or that there is an infinite amount of time before any event. This theory, according to Kant, is an ‘antinomy’ (contradiction) and therefore absurd; in any case both ‘circular’ and ‘infinite’ time theories do not allow for the inherited MetaSchema theory.
Meta Schema and evolution.
Ignoring the absurdity of inheritance and infinite regress it has to be surmised that the Meta Schema was first presented to the mind of humans at a specific time. It has often been proposed that early humans beheld the wonders of nature and were moved to ‘invent’ a transcendental creator to make light of the mystery; this is propounded as a legitimate reason for the invention of a transcendental entity, our necessity to appeal for fortune and then express gratitude for it. But this leads to another problem, what is the reason or event that compelled the early human to look at the marvels of nature and find it necessary to suppose the creation of it by a higher power? Why did early humans not just suppose that things exist and happen because they just do? If humankind is condemned to understand things using only empirical resources how could this transcendental schema occur? To echo Descartes, how can the empirical create the metaphysical? There was no actual necessity for early humans to invent a sacred being as an answer to their creation/life questions, to suggest that they did so is to suggest that the schema (MetaSchema) of such a being already existed in their psyche and was not so much of an invention as a ‘revelation’ or recollection.
One criticism that could be levelled at the ‘revelation’ argument is that human beings have imaginations that are perfectly adept at creating schemas for ideas that have never been perceived through sense-data. However, when imaginary schemas are rigorously scrutinised it is found (correctly recorded by Hume) that any imaginary schema consists of parts of recollected empirical data; such as the dragon (lizard-wings-fire), unicorn (horse-horn) time-travel (time and travel) etc. In addition, any shape or event that can be cognised through imagination is a conglomeration of many other that have been perceived. The MetaSchema, as a non-empirical (non-measurable) idea, cannot be imagined in this way as there is no perceived sense-data, I will therefore rule out imagination as a cause of the MS.
A further criticism of the Meta Schema theory could suggest that the attributes of God (s) are as empirically evident as, for example, a scientific phenomenon such as gravity. Human kind has witnessed creation and the effects of invisible forces that are not attributed to a God since the beginning of time, so what if anything is non empirical about the Meta Schema?
Maybe the most unique ability attributed to the Meta Schema is the concept that it is self-sustaining and not created, that it is the cause of itself (or an un-caused cause) and has no origin in space or time; that it transcends physical and chronological laws of existence and creation, yet is the creator of the universe and therefore has a physical effect on it. There is no empirical example of a self-causing entity/energy/object therefore this particular attribute of the Meta Schema cannot possibly have been cognised empirically. It could be argued that this particular schema is just an opposite of something being ‘not self causing’ a concept that is completely empirical; but even in the grips of this rigorous critique one problem for this criticism remains. ‘Not self causing’ (which is a negation in any case) would have to be a schema in its own right to offer up its opposite ‘self causing’. ‘Self causing’ would remain the only non-empirical schema even though it is only considered as a possible opposite: being an opposite of ‘not self causing’ has not changed the validity of its uniqueness as a non-empirical schema- with one possible exception! The negation (negative opposite) of the concept empirical is ‘non empirical’, this is the only other opposite that suggests a non-empirical schema and it is the notion of the non-empirical itself!
And so, proposing that ‘self causing’ is merely an opposite of ‘not self causing’ and therefore is not a truly non-empirical schema has its problems. Firstly ‘not self causing’ is merely a negation, secondly, proposing ‘self causing’ as a mere opposite does not in any way change the fact that it’s a non-empirical concept. Furthermore, the only cognition which can be proposed as a challenge to ‘self causing’s’ uniqueness is the concept ‘non-empirical’ itself. For obvious reasons ‘non-empirical’ stands as no challenge as a critique as it contains the same non-empirical attribute and must exist as a concept to underpin ‘self-causing.’
Atheism
No comments:
Post a Comment