Time and the Gospel of Sean

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This is the first of two essays on the philosophy of the atheist cosmologist, Sean Carroll. The main idea carried over to the second essay is the distinction between qualitative time as the condition of mutability and quantitative time as the logical comparison of one local motion with another.

Today, replacement of the lens of the human eye is minor surgery for age related cataracts resulting in excellent vision. Prior to surgery, the patient may not be able to distinguish a sleeping sheep from a snowdrift. Due to current scientific knowledge and the art of surgical technology, the post-operative patient easily perceives the visual distinction.

However, modern science and technology have nothing to do with the intellectual distinction. The identification of a sheep as a self-integrating entity and the snowdrift as an artificial whole is based fundamentally on ordinary experience, not on science or technology. In this lies the beauty of philosophy.

The philosophical realization is that the sheep, aided by its sense knowledge and appetite, is self-moving, not only in local motion, but in assimilation and development. The snowdrift is not self-moving. The distinction is completely independent of scientific information.

The major human questions are philosophical. Their answers are based on common ordinary experience. They do not depend upon the accumulation of information by instrument-dependent measurements. That does not mean each individual has to start from scratch to determine the answers to philosophical questions. It is wise to evaluate the traditional philosophical wisdom of civilization and make it one’s own through corroboration by one’s own personal experience.

In contrast, personal corroboration is impossible in the case of science, which can only be corroborated through instrumental verification of each specific fact, which in turn is dependent upon accumulated information. Corroboration of any experimental fact of physics determined in the past three decades is far beyond the scope of any one person. In acquiring scientific personal experience, an individual would have to rely on access to naturally raw material to construct instrumentation and a library of scientific and technological information, which to the extent used, must itself be experimentally corroborated.

What is Time?

One major philosophical question is: What is time? Surprisingly the answer lay implicit in another question posed by the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato and his student, Aristotle. The question was how is intellectual knowledge, which is universal, related to material sense knowledge, which is particular?

We need not consider the answers given by Plato and Aristotle, because implicit in the question lies the answer to, ‘What is time?’ The question of the relationship of the universal and the particular may be rephrased as: ‘What is the relationship between the timeless and the mutable?’ In this question, lies the answer to ‘What is time?’

Time is the quality of mutability. Time is the unextended now of s. Past changes are related to the now of mutability qualitatively. Potential future change is similarly related qualitatively and speculatively to the now of mutability.

If time is qualitative, then why do we habitually refer to it quantitatively? ‘I fish an hour after dawn or an hour before sunset.’ ‘The fur trader was here two moons ago.” We can put that off until autumn.’ Quantified time is purely logical. Quantified time is the mental comparison of one motion with respect to another motion, chosen as a standard of measurement.

The standard motion chosen is typically cyclic or repetitive. In the examples above, the cyclic motions chosen as quantitative standards for expression of the comparisons are respectively, diurnal, lunar and annual. The choice of a standard for the logical concept of quantitative time as well as the choice of other standards for logical comparisons in science has an interesting history.

If we become so fascinated with the logical comparisons of one material property with another, we can begin to think that such logical comparisons of size not only comprise the totality of human knowledge, but that they are self-justifying so that we can ignore philosophy completely:

“For concepts like ‘time’, which are unambiguously part of a useful vocabulary we have for describing the world, talking about ‘reality’ is just a bit of harmless gassing. They may be emergent or fundamental, but they’re definitely there. . . . The question of whether time is fundamental or emergent is, on the other hand, crucially important. I have no idea what the answer is (and neither does anybody else).” (Sean Carroll, “Time is Real“)

The Philosophy of Sean’s Universe: Scientism

Sean claims that it has been only in the last four hundred years through the science of measurement that reliable knowledge, knowledge that works, has developed.

The totality of the universe is composed of elementary particles, which obey the laws of physics. That is it. Whether in the earth’s atmosphere, the earth’s crust acts as a mobile set, such as the human body, every set of elementary particles simply obeys the laws of physics. That is it. By means of personal experience we cannot know anything other than scientific knowledge. There is nothing more.

The bad news is that the universe does not care about us.

The Gospel of Sean

The good news is we have the gospel of Sean. The gospel of Sean is that we can create meaning, purpose and love. We can create ‘The Meaning of Life’.

My Interpretation of the Creation of Meaning

No one can deduce anything from personal experience beyond scientific measurement, except for Sean. He has deduced from his personal experience the gospel that we can ‘create’ meaning, purpose and love.

In my judgment, rather than creating meaning, purpose and love, it would be more accurate, in this context, to say we pretend that there is meaning, purpose and love. After all, there is nothing beyond elementary particles obeying the laws of physics.

Pretending may be without or with the cognizance of the pretense. If it is without cognizance of the pretense, one is insane. If it is with cognizance, then acting on this antiscientific pretense as if it were not pretense should be acknowledged as self-contradictory and false.

According to Sean, prior to the advent of the science of measurement four hundred years ago religion claimed to explain the meaning of life. The science of measurement did away with that explanation. We now know that only elementary particles obeying the laws of physics is all there is. Yet there can be meaning to life after the advent of science. Sean has granted us permission to create it.

Of course, Sean Carroll does not have the authority to grant us that permission. Within his philosophy, which accepts only scientific knowledge, we can only pretend there is meaning to life.

Conclusion

That science based on measurement is the only knowledge is simply a prejudice. It is the belief that it is only quantity which is knowable, specifically in the comparison of size to chosen standards of size.

By this prejudice, the traditional knowledge of quality based on personal experience, including the concepts of time, meaning, purpose and love are dismissed from the scope of human knowledge. Sean Carroll suggests ameliorating his dismal philosophy by pretending that his dismal philosophy is false.

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24 thoughts on “Time and the Gospel of Sean”

  1. “Pretending may be without or with the cognizance of the pretense. If it is without cognizance of the pretense, one is insane. If it is with cognizance, then acting on this antiscientific pretense as if it were not pretense should be acknowledged as self-contradictory and false.”

    “…. If it is without cognizance of the pretense, one is insane…”

    Yes. Just about everyone is insane in that they really believe that they have not given their own meaning and purpose to their lives. Take Tom Brady as an example. In his delusional mind, he has accomplished something truly great in winning the Superbowl. Yet, if Malcolm Butler does not intercept Russel Wilson’s pass at the goaline, Tom has failed to win the big one for the third time out of six tries making him less accomplished. Yet his body of work was the same and he could have just as easily lost had Butler not intercepted. He has defined the meaning and purpose in his life to include winning the Super Bowl as many times as he can. But that really doesn’t make his life any more meaningful or purposeful than mine.

    That is just one example. You may set your goal as attaining eternal life with your god in heaven. That is the meaning and purpose YOU have given to YOUR life. But it is no more real than Tom’s.

    1. The claim that all that exists are atoms obeying the laws of physics is untenable. If it were so, there would be no one to know it, communicate it or receive it as a communication. I have characterized this untenable position as demanding the pretense that it is false.

      How could it be demonstrated that each atom of a set was both
      an atom and belonged to a fundamentally arbitrary set, Tom Brady?

      Such a demonstration would not be required of one who maintains that Tom Brady was a subsistent principle which transiently informs lesser material elements, including atoms. Due to the kind of subsistent principle, which is Tom Brady, he has an inherent and ultimate meaning, which is independent of and which moderates any proximate goals of his own choosing. https://catholicstand.com/the-subsistent-soul-are-you-more-than-particles/

    2. “…there would be no one to know it, communicate it or receive it as a communication.”

      Materialism does not account completely for consciousness. There is a material component to consciousness without which there would be none. The operation of the brain is a prerequisite for consciousness. But there is more that can’t presently be explained in solely natural terms.

    3. ” The operation of the brain is a prerequisite for consciousness. ”

      I would argue that consciousness waited around for the brain to evolve and develop to the point where in could receive it. If you invented a radio and
      no one was transmitting anything there would be nothing to receive.

    4. Consciousness is a mystery. I don’t think the brain functions as a receiver of a preexisting consciousness but your guess is as good as mine.

    5. Your first three sentences are in accord with Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy. The fourth sentence would be also, if modified to: Human consciousness and intellectual knowledge are fully explicable in solely natural terms.

    6. “Human consciousness and intellectual knowledge are fully explicable in solely natural terms.”

      Are you saying that you believe that? I don’t get where you are coming from. I don’t even believe that.

    7. Of course, I believe that. Human consciousness
      and intellectual knowledge are fully within the scope of the nature of humans.
      If there is some disagreement, perhaps we have different definitions of natural.
      The nature of man is that of a thinking animal whose operational capacity for
      intellectual knowledge and consciousness are dependent upon sense knowledge,
      which is material. That is the philosophical tradition beginning with Aristotle.
      Humans have the capacity to abstract intelligible principles from a composite
      of sense knowledge, which composite Aristotle termed a phantasm. In contrast,
      his mentor, Plato, thought that sense knowledge jogs our memories of abstract
      principles, which we knew before entrapment in our bodies.

    8. Are you saying that there is nothing supernatural about consciousness? For example, can consciousness persist after the brain stops working? Did it exist before the brain developed? Do I have a soul that will continue to exist after I die? I don’t get your take on what is natural as opposed to supernatural.

    9. The Catholic Faith is that grace builds upon nature. Grace does no violence to nature, but is above nature, i.e. super-natural.

      From a strictly natural perspective, setting aside what we know from revelation, the answers to your questions in order are: (1) Yes, there is nothing supernatural about consciousness. (2 & 3) Consciousness is dependent upon a developed and functioning brain. (4) There is no natural reason for the soul to perish. However, because the soul is the animating principle of a thinking animal, there is no reason to think that a person as a soul, separated from its body, would
      be conscious or otherwise functioning after death.

      In accord with revelation and due to the gratuity of God, the answers are (1) Yes, there is nothing supernatural
      about consciousness, (2) Yes, consciousness can exist after the brain stops working, i.e. after death, (3) No, consciousness does not exist before the brain develops, (4) Yes, the soul continues to exist after death. Within the context of these questions, the only change from natural intellectual knowledge to added supernatural information is the definitive belief that each human will
      be conscious after death due to the gratuity of God, before eventually being whole once more united with his body.

      If natural were identifiable exclusively as material, then consciousness would be supernatural. In contrast, because humans are correctly identified as thinking animals, thereby capable of developing mathematics and science, consciousness is natural to man.

      In this discussion, consciousness refers to self and
      intellectual knowledge. It does not refer to sense knowledge, which is solely at the material level. Nevertheless, human self and intellectual consciousness is extrinsically, but naturally, dependent upon sense knowledge. I intend to express no deviation from Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy.

    10. “each human will
      be conscious after death due to the gratuity of God, before eventually being whole once more united with his body.”

      That seems like something we might like to believe and something to promise people to get them to follow you but something that has zero chance of coming to fruition. It is just something that gives people hope but is simply fantasy.

    11. “…each human will be conscious after death due to the gratuity of God, before eventually being whole once more united with his body.”

      Such a silly concept, sir, this thing and obsession over the body. As eastern
      deism so rightly postulates, an unenlightened mind always mistakes the body to be the self. It’s along the same lines as Jehovah Witness theology that the saved enjoy the New Jerusalem on earth, playing with tigers and having all kinds of fruits and goodies fall into their hands. Jesus pointed out that the idea of marriage and being given in marriage is not what heaven is about.
      So what is the purpose of this glorified body with its useless genitals and digestive system, what purpose would the nostrils and anus have in the hereafter. This attachment to the body is no more than the inordinate fear
      of becoming something you cannot imagine. Its almost a denial of our soul’s purpose to stand before God alone and unencumbered by the product of an earthly evolution of gross material energy.

    12. My profound apologies. My reply was meant for Mr. Bob Drury.

      I am truly sorry for any pain or embarrassment I may have caused you.

      Please forgive me. I will be more careful next time.

    13. This is true EXCEPT that the resurrected Christ ate and drank with the apostles until His ascension into heaven.

      He did this to show them it wasn’t a ghost they were seeing
      He transfigured Himself to show He is God.
      What essential info about ourselves that should not be dismissed ?

    14. How do you know what Christ is doing with His body in Heaven?

      All we know is that Christ’s body ascended into heaven.

      Are you denying that our body is part and parcel of the TRUTH (ie us)?

      Are you denying that my gender plays a role in my choices?

      Are you denying the assumption of Mary into heaven?

    15. Are you denying then that one’s body adds to one’s identity?

      You are mistaking the body for the self. It is interesting that the mind records the deposit of the body’s experience – yet the mind
      cannot recall physical pleasure or pain as it can the emotional
      components of such experience. We can recall the smile on someones face and relish the memory but not the tactile sensation of touching it.

      Are you denying the relevance of GOD’s incarnation as a man?

      No more than God’s physical appearance as a burning bush which
      didn’t work for the Israelites. God walked among us so we could
      relate to His humanity.

      Are you denying the relevance of Mary’s role as a woman and the Catholic doctrine of the Assumption?

      Nope, I’m fine with that exception.

      If GOD’s body is not all that important to Him in heaven, why did He not leave it behind as evidence of His incarnation for us humans to evaluate?

      Silly question. What good is an incarnation without a resurrection ?

      The singular and separate uniqueness of each person’s IDENTITY as imprinted on one’s body is the information too precious to dismiss.

      It is what the body/mind imprints on the indelible soul that matters.

    16. #1 & #2 — “You are mistaking the body for the self.”

      No. I am not mistaking the body for the self. The self is soul and body.

      #3 — “No more than God’s physical appearance as a burning bush which
      didn’t work for the Israelites. God walked among us so we could
      relate to His humanity.”

      So GOD’s incarnation as a man was no more important than his physical appearance as a burning bush. I guess you believe in the “Holy Trinity or More” god.

      #4 — “Nope, I’m fine with that exception.”

      So Mary is an exception; but Jesus CHRIST is not.

      #5, #6, #7 — “What good is an incarnation without a resurrection?”

      What good is an ascension without a body?

      “It is what the body/mind imprints on the indelible soul that matters.”

      This statement is unintelligible. Ink can be ‘indelible’. Paper cannot be. If the soul is ‘indelible’, can it be imprinted?

      By now it should be clear why I cannot ‘follow’ you. You aren’t Catholic.

  2. Excellent essay as usual.

    I was particularly struck by your restraint when you insightfully wrote:

    “…Pretending may be without or with the cognizance of the pretense. If it is without cognizance of the pretense, one is insane. If it is with cognizance, then acting on this antiscientific pretense as if it were not pretense should be acknowledged as self-contradictory and false.”

    I would have taken it further. When Sean is pretending with cognizance, and thus not insane, his statements are not only self-contradictory and false, but he is also in fact lying. Why?

    My answer: he, like many other modern scientists have fallen into the world of solipsism. Their oversight in such a state? The futility of communication with any other mind than their own.

    Keep up the good work, Bob Drury!

    PS: Enjoy the Schrodinger’s Cat poster via this link: http://www.snorgtees.com/wanted-dead-and-alive

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