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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Religious Language and Science
Message-ID: <572@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 11:47:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.572
Posted: Thu Jun  6 11:47:21 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Jun-85 00:11:31 EDT
References: <6261@umcp-cs.UUCP> <568@cybvax0.UUCP> <6319@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 72
Xref: linus net.philosophy:1662 net.religion:6674

In article <6319@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
> In article <568@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
> 
> >> There would be no need for religious language if the things could be
> >> talked about directly...
> 
> >"There would be no need for jabberwocky if Wonderland could be talked
> >about directly."
> >
> >In other words (less sarcasm) you still retain the problem of whether
> >the language conceals that its subject is nonexistent.  You still have no
> >non-circular reason for assuming the things exist and that the language
> >is necessary.
> 
> Turn the problem around.  If the things do exist and the direct language is
> inadequate, then insistence upon direct language will necessarily lead to
> the conclusion that the things cannot be sufficiently demonstrated to exist.

You assume a possibly null set of things for which direct language is
inadequate.  However, religious language is inadequate nor  the only
possible route for demonstration of a non-nuill set.

> People do have "mystical experiences". (I use quotes because I don't mean to
> imply anything about the "true nature" of them; there is, however, a class of
> experiences which can be directly characterized.)  Uniformly it is insisted
> that the experience cannot be related in words, and I can attest to this
> through personal witness, having had (in a limited fashion) this sort of
> experience myself.

I've had experiences I'd characterize as mystical.  However I think the
experiences are just as relatable in words as "love" or "seeing a tree".
The question is whether your communicant can remember comparable
experiences well enough that you can communicate the analogy by words.

> Now, to the best of my knowledge, no one has come up
> with an explanation of this events which appeals to purely natural causes
> AND which has been subjected to experimental verification.  These phenomena
> represent (if the claims of the mystics are true) our most direct contact
> with the supernatural, as we all seem to agree that miracles, which are the
> next most direct testimony, are necessarily weak as testimony.  Central to
> the claims of the mystics is ineffability, that the phenomena are not
> expressible in language.  I first must point out that this is not
> necessarily in and of itself a claim to a supernatural experience, since
> (conceivably) some mental processes have the same property.  Likewise, it is
> possible that the person is mistaken, that the experience could be described
> in words adequately.  It seems to me therefore that the questions of
> existence and language are separate.

That last sentence explicitly cedes my point.

> Given that people in general are cut
> off from sharing the mystic's experience, it seems to me that from a
> practical point of view, we have to assume that whatever language the mystic
> IS using is inadequate;

Or that the listener or reader hasn't an experiential reference, or doesn't
recognize that he had an experience just like it, or....

> but this does not cut us off from an examination of
> the possible sources of the experience.  It may be demonstrable that the
> experience has certain physical causes, at which point it may be possible to
> evaluate the effectiveness of the language.  But I think that demanding
> direct language is fruitless, if only because it eliminates the possibility
> of determining that direct language is not adequate.

Specialized language is needed for specialized subjects: but unless the
subject can be shown to exist, the language is unnecessary and should be
discarded as obfuscatory.  The scientific literature is full of discarded
nomenclatures.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh