two common logical fallacies

Although many leading scientists are into possible universes and other dimensions, I suspect most people live - in terms of their every day, unthought out world-view - in a solid, common sense sort of universe with just one dimension. There causality is a matter of atom knocking against atom like billiard balls - with a predictable result.

This leads, I believe, to two closely related and very common logical fallacies.

One is to believe that if an event can be shown to have one cause, no other causes are possible. So an example relevant to my work would be to believe that because thunder and lightning can now explained in terms of clashing blocks of air and electricity, they cannot be the result of the anger of a god as was once believed by 'primitive' peoples.

Another example which relates to a common belief today would be that if you could capture on CCTV a pigeon shedding a feather just before you walked into view, then you would know that that is the cause of your sighting of the feather, not that an angel is trying to send you a message.

The reality is that when no-one has an ideological - in this case anti-spiritual - axe to grind we commonly accept that simple events have infinite networks of causes behind them, and so that, in these examples, there is nothing contrary to logic about supposing that both the mechanical and spiritual explanations may be true at the same time.

One might call this fallacy - with an ironic nod to the law of excluded middle - the law of excluded cause.

Closely related to this fallacy is another one to do with the interpretation of texts. According to this fallacy, if it can be shown that, for example, biblical or mythological stories such as the conquest of the Promised Land, Jason and the Argonauts or the siege of Troy are descriptions of astronomical events or alchemical processes - as they all have been - then they cannot be true descriptions of historical events.

That  simply does not follow. To borrow Alvin Plantinga's tools of analysis, there are many possible universes in which both these interpretations are true.

Indeed in the esoteric universe of my book, ALL true descriptions of events on this planet are also true descriptions of astronomical events.

One of the aims of my book was to give a slight nudge to consciousness away from the billiard ball view to something more mutli-dimensional, more in tune with idealism's embracing of the reality of inter-penetrating realms.

It's been much on my mind recently because people I work closely with and friends all seem to be having an exceptionally painful and stressful time, both in stuff to do with work and in their private lives. It seems to be a time of division and loss. Bad moon arising, Saturn stamping his foot or somesuch - I want to find out more.

Comments

[Stef]

I've just commented on this point on your "happy" post, but I know a few people (myself included) having a similar experience. I think there is Something Going On but I don't know what - it seems beyond coincidence for all of us to be having similar experiences all at the same time.

Unless it's a conspiracy by chocolate manufacturers to defeat the credit crunch...

[Steven Broadbent]

A growing number of astronomers believe there is something beyond our Universe, and new evidence supports this view. Dr Sasha Kashlinsky and his team from the NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration) Goddard Space Flight Center, have provided further evidence to support the concept of a universe beyond our own. Their paper was published just last month in the prestigious journal, The Astrophysical Journal Letters*. If correct, this is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time, and one that must change our beliefs in the nature of reality.
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