How does Tom Holland fit into this thesis? He seems to have moved into Peterson's territory (as Peterson seems to be moving closer to the flame of which he has long felt the warmth): he says he believes the stories are "true". He sees the root of Christianity in everything humanistic. He has concerns humanism can't survive long being uprooted from the hidden source he has now identified with some chagrin. Yet, he doesn't properly believe. Is he now a rebel from humanism? A Nietzsche who has tired of the skeptical angst? A wishful agnostic? Merely a skeptic who is skeptical of his skepticism? I agree with you in the hints that are in Ecclesiastes 3:11.
Good question. I've written on him before and could have folded him in here, but this was getting over-stuffed as it is. I think Tom is moving towards a variant of liberal Anglicanism, closer than Peterson but in some respects still on the left side of little "o" orthodoxy. To some extent, his project is in line with my drumbeat that Real Humanism (TM) is actually Christian humanism. (Which is why Andrew Copson has blocked him on Twitter. They can't stand each other.) Where I think he pushes his own thesis too far, though, is when he tries to make Christianity jibe with things like the sexual revolution. I get what he's trying to do, and of course on the most basic level it's true that you can't talk about, e.g., giving gay couples the "dignity" of marriage without helping yourself to the Christian notion of human dignity from the start. So in that sense he's right that secular humanists saw off the branch they're sitting on. But in another sense, you can't graft in the sexual revolution to the tree of Christianity. My .02.
Great read. I have a slightly different take on it, maybe you'd care to take it down. :) The phrase "literally fase, metaphorically true" holds a bit more value than I think you give it credit for, depending on your definition of Truth or existance.
Is Belgium true? No and yes. Reducing down, you could say Belgium is just something made up by European powers as a buffer. Or a - natural- arbitrary lap of land. An alien, when observing the earth without human interference, could not see observe this "Belgium". Yet at the same time, it lives and it wills. It acts on the world. We can't get rid of it when we don't want it anymore, like an imaginary friend. It procreates new Belgians and evolves.
My interpretation would be that Belgium is true- but not in the same way stones are. The same way, stones are not true in the same way quarks are, and quarks are not in the same way true as the fundamental laws of physics are. There is a hierarchy of truths (padum tss) with different properties. Saying that something is "metaphorically true" can mean "useful lie" but can also mean "there is such a thing as a metaphorical Truth". And maybe it's both! Just like Belgium is a lie and a truth.
I don't think Weinstein himself is really out of that forest either. He once used the example of "When you hear a rattle shake, it is cursing you." IIRC. He called it metaphorically true, and on first sight this sound like a "useful lie". But I could also intepret it there being a "heuristic" that imposes itself. The potential of a venomous bite is the curse. The truth brings life and survival, and the option to live on and research the truth more closely. I think he means the first though, but I saw in it something that I never could express as a Christian. The feeling of the Spirit imposing itself on me.
It has made me experience the Holy Spirit and Christ in a way I haven't experienced before, even though in hindsight it seems so obvious. Christ -almost literally!- as the way to God. The Spirit who pulls me towards it. A "way" is not a thing that holds ultimate value in the physical world. But it does so for all who live and seek progress. I think it is what you call evidence. But I do feel its evidence on a whole other plane of truth than we are used to talk about. "Metaphorical Truth" seems like a useful word for me to describe it in contrast with physically true, as long as it's not used to dismiss its realness. This seems to be a tightrope the darkweb is walking.
I also don't think that this means that God is a emerging property of the laws of nature. But rather the gravity that attracts us forward. We are pulled into existence, not spilled into it.
Excuse me if I'm saying anything stupid, I'm not well read on the subject! If you have something that would enlighten me, I would love to hear!
So, I think we should distinguish here between "metaphorical" and "immaterial/non-physical" There can be true things or true statements about things, not in a pragmatic sense but in the usual straightforward correspondence sense, that aren't physically tangible. I should know, I spent my whole graduate education working with numbers. :) If I heard someone say "The number 2 is both a lie and a truth," I would tear my hair out, the way I tear my hair out when I hear people talk about "objective truths" and then proceed to make "objective" synonymous with "scientific."
I think Weinstein is pretty clearly talking about useful fictions. If believing the hedgehog can throw its quills helps you live ten years longer, that belief is "metaphorically true" -- so "metaphorically true" = "whatever helps you live longer and perpetuate your genetic line." So this isn't truth in a correspondence sense: By the old Greek definition, saying of that which is that it is and saying of that which is not that it is not.
God, of course, is not a physical entity. Nevertheless, He is. (I AM, He helpfully tells us.) So, likewise, are many non-physical things. So we don't really need a different category of truth for the statement "God exists" as opposed to "The sky exists." Both are facts about the nature of reality.
I hope this is useful. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thank you for explaining, that helps. I concede that that's probably what Weinstein meant, I just got a different message from it.
One push-back I am inclined to make is towards the distinction you make between "whatever helps you live longer..." and "which that is". Doesn't the distinction depend on whether you see it as an emergent property/happy accident, or a property of an entity? I get its a weird way of thinking about it, but if you would say "That which helps..." instead of "whatever helps..." it becomes a different argument. In a religious context, of course, I would not use genetic longevity as the end goal of "that" or "whatever", but of course the ultimate proximity to God. But one does not necessarily excludes the other, right? I don't hold this belief firmly or anything, I'm just scouting the idea, but isn't it a coherent way of thinking about it?
The only metaphor that comes to mind would be pathfinding algorithms in computer science. Agents looking for a path to a goal do neither know whether a path exists or the goal exists. But they share a heuristic, something to peek into the future and move towards the goal as a best guess. Is the heuristic "whatever" which moves it forward, or "that" which moves it forward?
So, it might be a true statement that *believing* the porcupine can throw its quills does, in fact, help you live longer. But of necessity that longevity is based on saying "that is" of a thing that is not (the porcupine's quill-throwing ability). Maybe some would then want to make the case that we shouldn't really care about anything else besides what things increase our longevity. But that's a separate conversation.
How does Tom Holland fit into this thesis? He seems to have moved into Peterson's territory (as Peterson seems to be moving closer to the flame of which he has long felt the warmth): he says he believes the stories are "true". He sees the root of Christianity in everything humanistic. He has concerns humanism can't survive long being uprooted from the hidden source he has now identified with some chagrin. Yet, he doesn't properly believe. Is he now a rebel from humanism? A Nietzsche who has tired of the skeptical angst? A wishful agnostic? Merely a skeptic who is skeptical of his skepticism? I agree with you in the hints that are in Ecclesiastes 3:11.
Good question. I've written on him before and could have folded him in here, but this was getting over-stuffed as it is. I think Tom is moving towards a variant of liberal Anglicanism, closer than Peterson but in some respects still on the left side of little "o" orthodoxy. To some extent, his project is in line with my drumbeat that Real Humanism (TM) is actually Christian humanism. (Which is why Andrew Copson has blocked him on Twitter. They can't stand each other.) Where I think he pushes his own thesis too far, though, is when he tries to make Christianity jibe with things like the sexual revolution. I get what he's trying to do, and of course on the most basic level it's true that you can't talk about, e.g., giving gay couples the "dignity" of marriage without helping yourself to the Christian notion of human dignity from the start. So in that sense he's right that secular humanists saw off the branch they're sitting on. But in another sense, you can't graft in the sexual revolution to the tree of Christianity. My .02.
Great read. I have a slightly different take on it, maybe you'd care to take it down. :) The phrase "literally fase, metaphorically true" holds a bit more value than I think you give it credit for, depending on your definition of Truth or existance.
Is Belgium true? No and yes. Reducing down, you could say Belgium is just something made up by European powers as a buffer. Or a - natural- arbitrary lap of land. An alien, when observing the earth without human interference, could not see observe this "Belgium". Yet at the same time, it lives and it wills. It acts on the world. We can't get rid of it when we don't want it anymore, like an imaginary friend. It procreates new Belgians and evolves.
My interpretation would be that Belgium is true- but not in the same way stones are. The same way, stones are not true in the same way quarks are, and quarks are not in the same way true as the fundamental laws of physics are. There is a hierarchy of truths (padum tss) with different properties. Saying that something is "metaphorically true" can mean "useful lie" but can also mean "there is such a thing as a metaphorical Truth". And maybe it's both! Just like Belgium is a lie and a truth.
I don't think Weinstein himself is really out of that forest either. He once used the example of "When you hear a rattle shake, it is cursing you." IIRC. He called it metaphorically true, and on first sight this sound like a "useful lie". But I could also intepret it there being a "heuristic" that imposes itself. The potential of a venomous bite is the curse. The truth brings life and survival, and the option to live on and research the truth more closely. I think he means the first though, but I saw in it something that I never could express as a Christian. The feeling of the Spirit imposing itself on me.
It has made me experience the Holy Spirit and Christ in a way I haven't experienced before, even though in hindsight it seems so obvious. Christ -almost literally!- as the way to God. The Spirit who pulls me towards it. A "way" is not a thing that holds ultimate value in the physical world. But it does so for all who live and seek progress. I think it is what you call evidence. But I do feel its evidence on a whole other plane of truth than we are used to talk about. "Metaphorical Truth" seems like a useful word for me to describe it in contrast with physically true, as long as it's not used to dismiss its realness. This seems to be a tightrope the darkweb is walking.
I also don't think that this means that God is a emerging property of the laws of nature. But rather the gravity that attracts us forward. We are pulled into existence, not spilled into it.
Excuse me if I'm saying anything stupid, I'm not well read on the subject! If you have something that would enlighten me, I would love to hear!
So, I think we should distinguish here between "metaphorical" and "immaterial/non-physical" There can be true things or true statements about things, not in a pragmatic sense but in the usual straightforward correspondence sense, that aren't physically tangible. I should know, I spent my whole graduate education working with numbers. :) If I heard someone say "The number 2 is both a lie and a truth," I would tear my hair out, the way I tear my hair out when I hear people talk about "objective truths" and then proceed to make "objective" synonymous with "scientific."
I think Weinstein is pretty clearly talking about useful fictions. If believing the hedgehog can throw its quills helps you live ten years longer, that belief is "metaphorically true" -- so "metaphorically true" = "whatever helps you live longer and perpetuate your genetic line." So this isn't truth in a correspondence sense: By the old Greek definition, saying of that which is that it is and saying of that which is not that it is not.
God, of course, is not a physical entity. Nevertheless, He is. (I AM, He helpfully tells us.) So, likewise, are many non-physical things. So we don't really need a different category of truth for the statement "God exists" as opposed to "The sky exists." Both are facts about the nature of reality.
I hope this is useful. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thank you for explaining, that helps. I concede that that's probably what Weinstein meant, I just got a different message from it.
One push-back I am inclined to make is towards the distinction you make between "whatever helps you live longer..." and "which that is". Doesn't the distinction depend on whether you see it as an emergent property/happy accident, or a property of an entity? I get its a weird way of thinking about it, but if you would say "That which helps..." instead of "whatever helps..." it becomes a different argument. In a religious context, of course, I would not use genetic longevity as the end goal of "that" or "whatever", but of course the ultimate proximity to God. But one does not necessarily excludes the other, right? I don't hold this belief firmly or anything, I'm just scouting the idea, but isn't it a coherent way of thinking about it?
The only metaphor that comes to mind would be pathfinding algorithms in computer science. Agents looking for a path to a goal do neither know whether a path exists or the goal exists. But they share a heuristic, something to peek into the future and move towards the goal as a best guess. Is the heuristic "whatever" which moves it forward, or "that" which moves it forward?
So, it might be a true statement that *believing* the porcupine can throw its quills does, in fact, help you live longer. But of necessity that longevity is based on saying "that is" of a thing that is not (the porcupine's quill-throwing ability). Maybe some would then want to make the case that we shouldn't really care about anything else besides what things increase our longevity. But that's a separate conversation.