10) Can we use the Ockham's Razor to solve the controversy regarding - although many arguments do argue for the existence of God, they fail to establish the existence of a unique divine being?
The Ockham’s Razor cannot satisfactorily address the problem of multiple deities. Attempting to use the Ockham’s Razor to solve this problem is an overly-simplistic approach that is not appropriate for the nature of the question.
The Ockham’s Razor asserts that good philosophy should be in its simplest form, and there should be no need to make anything more complicated than necessary. When used in the multiple-deity problem, the Ockham’s Razor can be used in this form:
> A system with a unique divine being is simpler compared to one that has multiple divine beings. Thus, according to Ockham’s Razor, multiple divine beings are not necessary and thus we should only accept one unique divine being.
Hume, in his remark, has addressed this issue to a certain extent. To summarise, his idea is that – although Ockham’s Razor might hold, there is still room to doubt that whether all the properties of God are that of one being only, or dispersed among several divine beings, and we cannot resolve this controversy with the ability that we have now.
I will discuss 2 ideas that are implicit in his remark.
1) A system with one divine being only is not necessarily simpler than a system with multiple divine beings.
> Hume discussed this – implicit in his remark is that, at least in the analogy that he stated, a system with multiple divine beings can be as simple as a system with only one unique divine being.
> Compare the Greek-Roman theological system and the Judeo-Christian theological system – it is not immediately clear which system is a simpler one.
> When we remove deities from a multiple-deity system and move towards a unique-divine being system, we are merely removing the quantity of deities
> A whole new set of problems, potentially even more complicated than before, can arise on the unique divine being
> Thus, removing the mere quantity of divine beings does not make the philosophical system simpler – there is a possibility that it can even become more complicated
> The Ockham’s Razor cannot be used this way – it has to be used holistically, not just removing mere quantities
2) Ockham’s Razor is a methodological paradigm; it cannot be used as an answer to a question.
> Hume said – we can’t ‘pretend that we can decide the controversy’.
> Using Ockham’s Razor to say that we should only accept one unique divine being, according to Hume, we are ‘pretending that we can decide the controversy’. > It can be used as a way to form a theory, decide a mode of action, design tests to test theories – but it cannot be used as a conclusion.
> That is because, issues such as this (the multiple deities problem) demand some kind of truth, some kind of fact, as the conclusion
> Facts and truths cannot be decided by philosophical thought; they are facts and truths and will not change
> If we use Ockham’s Razor, a philosophical method, to decide on this fact, we risk error
> Thus, as long as we do not yet know for sure what is the absolute true answer to the multiple deities problem, there must be allowed room for doubt, as suggested by Hume
> Ockham’s Razor can be used to formulate tests and theories and gather evidence to test and seek the answer to the question, but we cannot use Ockham’s Razor to formulate an answer and decide that that is the answer.
This set of 5 videos is a documentary about the relationship between Britain, the colonists, the new states and native people within the sphere of the Commonwealth in the 50s to the 70s.
Towards the end of the documentary the narrator talked about the positive and negative legacies of the Empire. I don't know how obvious this might be to some of you, but indeed we are still living in the shadows of the British Empire and inheriting its legacies. Although we do not see Britain as our 'motherland' anymore, neither do we feel that Britain would be the best place for us to be in - but without what the British had left behind, our lives would have been very different.
This may sound dreadfully wrong to those Chinese nationalists and fundamentalists (there are millions of those people especially online), but yes British colonial rule is part of our history, without which we would not have our current identity as Singaporeans or Hong Kongers but we would just be one of the 1.3 billion Chinese.
My view is no longer a popular one. Singaporeans don't talk about it, and Hong Kongers are increasingly identifying themselves with mainland China. There is nothing wrong with that though, and me having my views is probably also because of the kind of influence that I was placed under - interesting as it might seem, when I first set foot in Britain in summer 2007, there is this strange sense of familiarity about the things around me. The traffic signs, the telephone booths, the post boxes, the names of places, even the countryside - I have seen them somewhere, either in HK, in storybooks, in stamps, and even in those notebooks that my dad used to bring back for us to use.
Okay enough of Britain. Back to solving that 'meaning of life' question that is probably going to be one of my exam questions.
'If life has meaning, it must be possible for me to know that it does and further to know and understand to some significant extant what that meaning is.' Discuss.
This is the kind of stuff that I have to solve for the philosophy class that I took.
The birthday card Sushi sent me nearly made me start rolling on the floor. When yc handed me the mail I knew immediately it had to be from Sushi. Absolutely NO ONE else I know will send me something like this:
The sheep toy can even be seen through the window in the envelop.
Haha I really really appreciated the card the toy and the effort! Thank you Sushi LOL
It is originally in Cantonese. Someone translated it into English and the rendering is amazing.
Unreserved Love
I've always been told love won't survive Promises will turn into lies The world just thinks love comes and passes through It never lasts pure and true
But I still believe love can last Is your unfailing love that gives me rest You are there when I needed you most I'll never walk all alone
On the cross you died and took away my curse Love so wondrous no one ever could deserve Your bleeding hands proved your love unreserved You're my greatest joy and treasure on the earth
Make my life a fragrant offering I pray Help me Lord to serve you truly everyday Through tears and joy I'll give you all my praise Let the whole world know your love and grace!
>Sushi: THANK YOU! I have sent the Phelps book to you on Wednesday, should get to you by the end of the week...
For the past couple of days -
Tk and Songyu were here. Brought them around Baltimore and Washington DC, and fed them better crabcakes (on two occasions) compared to those GCS had. And thanks to the car they don't have to walk around Baltimore and Washington DC - which was what I made GCS do.
It was fun. It is hard to not have fun when old friends are around. Songyu himself is already an entertainment channel with neverending programming. Though I think we got tk quite bored when we started talking about HCJC and biomedical stuff...
And as usual, felt good switching back to using that form of Chinese. One can actually talk about serious stuff using that kind of language - proven time and again - yet it is so much easier to mess it up and clown around using it. I am just too used to it I guess :P
Now that they have left, what is in front of me is a whole pile of work and exams for the next 19 days. For those of you who are going to be done with this term/semester soon, congratulations - for those of us who still have 14 - 19 days to go, err let's meet for a feast (drinks optional) at 6pm on 19 Dec. ____________________________________________ A friend sent me a message yesterday - I was telling her about my plans to do volunteering / social work when I am back and she showed her concern over recent events by postponing her reply to my topic and talked about something else completely.
I know about the massacre in Mumbai, the protests in Bangkok and also the loss of a young, cheerful and promising Singaporean in Mumbai. I also know that a lot of Singaporeans are struck by the loss - other than feeling for the family, we also began to realise that terrorism indeed affects every one of us, not just the ang moh walking in London or New York.
Based overseas, my immediate reaction was - what there is another one, and a new style?! All forms of terrorism, regardless of scale, impact and justification, ought to be condemned the most severely. However, it didn't affect me much - because, there is nothing we can do to prevent ourselves from being a victim, unless we stay at home all day and not go out.
What because of the risk of terrorist attacks I shouldn't go to New York? No way. I won't go to Columbia or Afghanistan but I will still go to Israel or India if there is a need for me to, not to go there for holiday maybe, but for work, yes.
We mourn for the loss of lives, we condemn the acts of violence, but we shouldn't be scared or depressed, neither should we lose hope and faith.
There are too many things in this world that are happening. Some of them will eventually affect us personally - the worst of the financial crisis is yet to come. But - is there anything we can do to prevent the worst from coming? I don't think so. But we can prevent the worst from happening to us, and according to our means help people to prevent the worst from happening to them.
We are already very blessed because - these crises hit us when we are relatively still burden-free. Which means - we can be relatively casual observers, participating yet not really participating in it while learning from other people's reactions what is the most prudent and appropriate. It is important because - there will definitely be more of such incidents coming in the future. 20 years later, we won't only need to be responsible for ourselves, but also our elderly parents, spouse and children. The previous major crisis (SARS) happened only 5 years ago.
Thus, while the world turns itself upside down, we should just live as normally as possible - and open our eyes to observe. We are not directly affected - so we are not, and we don't have to be. We ought to condemn terrorism, yes - and we should pray for the victims and their families and pray for our leaders so they can lead the world out of these crises peacefully. Other than that, go out and eat as usual, go shopping as usual, do homework as usual, love people as usual, praise the Lord as usual -
Don't doubt and lose hope now. That is what the terrorists want, and the world needs hope. Hope and faith will sustain us through anything - when something even worse comes upon us, it's only through hope and faith that we will know our directions.
