Quote from TraderZones:
You may realize why I put Stu on ignore a long time ago. It is like debating with a potted plant. No matter what you say, right or wrong, you eventually understant that you are not getting anywhere...
Well, I will take this statement as my entry back into this argument. On the contrary, the debate between Stu and WaveStrider has been a joy to follow. Both parties have executed the art of mental combat perfectly.
Stu, your original reply to my "...nothing can pre-date the Creator...." was "..Existence must have predated a Creator. Creators cant exist unless existence exists. No Creator could exist were there no existence..."
Your reply was concise, compact and direct. My many attempts to reply were unsatisfactory due to the length and multi-pronged avenues I needed. I could not match the profound simplicity of your statement. I could match the argument, no doubt, but not the compactness.
WaveStrider carried the "potentiality" water in a very effecient and logical manner. This was one of the avenues I would have needed [potentiality], and WaveStrider presented the argument better than I could have.
You have intimated that a large portion of the "existence v. potentiality" argument is philosophical, and this is correct, in my opinion. You and I are virtually in agreement regarding the cold hard "fact" of existence. I still contend, that our positions meet at the edge of that "chasm" of pre-beginning. You view that gulf of darkness as "...existence of the possibility existed. Then existence existed..." whereas I view the darkness as the instant prior to creation, time and knowability.
None the less, the argument between yourself and WaveStrider, has cleared the way for me to enter my position of "knowability", as you have already deduced with your comment "..knowing about whether it is unrealized or realized, is a seperate matter altogether.....", but is it ?
In the Biblical account of creation, G-D blesses the creatures of the sea and the winged fowl. I find this poignant, because these creatures operate in an enviroment that man cannot, without the aid of mechanical devices. Man, for the most part, is "designed" to operate on the firm footing of the earth. Those creatures whose potential and possibilities are found in the sea or in the air, required, according to the Biblical account, a special "blessing" to "operate" in these inhospitable environs.
So, allow me, at the risk of my argument being critiqued as "..for the birds..", too use our feathered friends regarding "knowability" of existence AND existences, as opposed to the Kantian precept that "..all of our knowledge must conform to objects...".
I would assume, that whether our beliefs state that we are created entities or we have evolved to our present state, agreement would be had in the assumption humans are the pre-eminent creature in our present "time / history"...
We look at birds, as objects or as created entities, and analyze what we observe. We can "know" the habits, bone structure, muscle structure, mating, speed and distance of flight, etc..
We paint pictures, take photographs, make sculptures and other representations of birds. We "know" that a bird stays aloft because of the pressure of the air on top of its wing is less than the pressure below, much like the aerodynamics of airplane flight.
But, does the bird "know" this. I would doubt it. It operates purely within its organic potential and possibilities. It is airborne when it desires to be, and lands when it decides to do so.
The bird, I would venture to say, is oblivious to our cataloguing of its "existence". We may "know" the how, but the bird can be the only "knower" of the why. Why did the one bird endeavor to catch the grasshopper in mid-flight, when the companion did not.
Why did one bird land at the water source and decide to fly away, when another lands with it and revels in the water.
These birds are living within the proscribed perimeter of their potential and possibilities. Our observations do not impact their living, or their "why" or, may I say, their "known" existence, as they understand it.[Obviously, as the "pre-eminent" creature, we can impact their existence by various means, but not by our detached observations].
Birds , via our observations, are "known" by man, to be very sensitive to temperature, pressure, humidity, wind currents and light. We know, as the pre-eminent creature, the why and how of these factors, the mechanics of these factors. The bird does not "know" the mechanics, but rather, the bird "knows" its required and optimum responses to these enviromental stimulus.
Our knowledge of the mechanics, does not alter the birds "knowledge" of its existence, and its natural instincts.
Therefore, if the bird, operates within the truth of its "known" existence, potential and possibilities, and is oblivious to an "unkown" entities observations and cataloguing, and said observations have no impact on the birds "known" existence, why would the same truth not also be a "potentiality" for man, even within the sphere of the cold, hard, logical statement by man that nothing can or does lay outside of "known" existence and its objects ?
The dividing line between what the bird can "know" and what man does "know" would seem to be valid for my argument, if in fact an entity did exist outside of the perimeter of our "knowing"and our existence. Since we can see the validity of my argument with lesser creatures, are we being presumptuous, when we endeavor to state that "we" are the end of the line of this particular argument ?
" He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not "
John 1:10
