This is where self-examination and self-honesty become paramount. I was a theist for many years, so I know what the difference was in my case. At the risk of sounding brash, I know that I'm a very smart person. I was very smart when I was a theist, too. My first year of college (I was a theist) was notable mainly for the number of classes I didn't have to take because I tested through them. The only classes I didn't try to test out of were Logic and Intro to Philosophy. I had never studied either.

Many of the concepts of Philosophy were startling to me, and I absolutely loved it. Having said that, you need to realize that I was 17 and had spent the majority of my life presuming god before constructing my worldview. To put it simply, I was a very smart kid who'd never been given the proper tools, and hadn't thought it important to try to discover them. For the next few years, as I moved away from theism, I took gradual steps until it dawned on me that I had never actually started from the ground up. When I did, I discovered that there was no place for God to fit.

Something else to consider: I never really liked my family, and had only a few good friends. I didn't have a strong cultural tie to the religion. As I considered the irrationality of the theist position, I was not surrounded by people discouraging the thoughts. To the contrary, nobody seemed to really give a shit whether I was a theist or not.

Judging from my own experience, I'd suggest that a large majority of people, not just theists, have never built a world view from the ground up. Intelligence is not a good indicator, as many very smart people just never make it a priority. Everybody starts with things that they have believed from childhood. The only people who have a relatively good chance of finding an objective worldview are those with the knowledge on which to base it, and the self honesty to be objective.

I want to be very clear on this. I don't think that intelligence has very much to do with the ability to build a world view. After all, one of my friends has a six year old daughter who announced that Santa Clause and God were both make believe because the stories were stupid. I mention myself to point out that there are lots of intelligent people who have not bothered to try. By the time many of them try, they have a very hard time divorcing themselves from the presumption of god, and the cliches they've heard their whole lives -- you know, those little phrases like, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Yes, I think everyone should at some point drop all their baggage and start from themselves, from a perspective of having no information and see where they can actually arrive, and what in their everyday view they can actually support. This was something I did almost naturally growing up, being certain I was the center of the universe, as I was. 

And I agree that intelligence has nothing to do with it. I still can't figure out that i should read the sign that says push or pull on a door before trying to enter a building.

I think if more people did this they might realize that their god doesn't necessarily fit with everything else that they can justify considering an existent. That may just be my perspective making me see things that way, but I honestly can't understand how they could come to a different perspective.  

Hi Vessel,

I'm inclined to say in my observation Worldviews are rarely built at all let alone built from a single evident truth basis. It seems the natural course of things that the very young accept everything unconditionally, from that perspective a worldview is in all ways, always: whole, complete and all true to whatever extent they can imagine unconditionally. Proving and deliberating comes after and challenges all of it eventually. The child doesn't discern a worldview it "collects" a resemblance of one, and it is unusual for a person to move far beyond that. Ever. Most, I think, simply shuffle the aformentioned around to make other things fit.

And so on to your question to the theists- How did I come to fit God in my worldview?

First, I didn't start with "I". I couldn't when I had already accepted and comprehended both nihilism and existentialism in the one worldview. To me "I" was too unknown and questionable, I started with 'now'. Now was just a frame in which anything if it exists, to the only knowable extent which anything can be said to exist (ie the empirical limit), must necessarily be found. Nothing "seeable" in the world is outside the frame of now [ie what isn't seen is not in now, what is outside of now is outside of all that *is*].

What is outside of this frame can be in thought*(). Future can be imagined, past can be recalled, images of history can be recreated in internal visual processes. Then all that which is not in 'now' is probable in a mental abstract.

*(thought is within the limit of the original frame)

The difference between these two things is not clear; if they are different at all; because:

now IS.

but

past is "remembered", future is "imagined" and history is "mentally recreated" - as "now" shadows on an "inside" view of /now is/, none of the three are now, but in the thought they were now (they were ostensibly in the frame to whatever extent were is a true statement), or they would be now if they were in the frame of now (to whatever extent would be is a true statement).

Conclusion: there is no difference between the thought and the physical they are two "parts" of "one" is (again to whatever extent those are true of this "is")

.... and so forth.... and build up from there and there is always something which is everything, but not that thing. Like God.

Edit:

Just for clarity I''l add that I arrived, in my worldview, at an ancient point not a new one, (hence why you'll often see me standing up for ancient thinkers) -

The Logos - Heraclitus

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/HERAC.HTM

Parmenides

http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/parmenid.htm

Well said.

If i'd carried the analogy further I think I may have said something along similar lines regarding the shuffling such as moving the couch a few centimetres left give the illusion of new carpet or rehanging the 'last supper' crosstitch to conceal the big hole in the reasonin... I mean, wall ... but yeah. Like you said.

Aha! LOL.

But seriously, at that point there is no identity but "now" what fits within that in it is allowed conditional identification (which is what all the quotemarks meant) not held to be truths of themselves.

So what does I mean in this context? Nothing until it is defined in the conclusion. The conclusion defines it as a part of what is. A subsystem, the autonomy of which is seeming also as a part of what is and the two have a logical connection, also a part of what is. therefore I can be defined after the fact as "I" in what amounts ostensibly to an ordinary definition.

yeah, sorry Vessel, I didn't mean it to vex. As I said, the quotes denote conditional identification a priori. The conclusion satisfies those conditions (ie everything is) so the definitions afterward become ordinarily useful.

I've had that one thrown this way before, of course. But that experiment doesn't change this conclusion because those are two nows, one is not more in existence than the other except in the separation of moments.

As it goes against the question of what is different about thought and physical is again part of what is, not a separation of two things that are in the framework defined as now.

 In retrospect a better, more precise, choice of words would have been - there is no separation between thought and physical (lack of differentiation is a possible inference) -

Yes, it does go to materialism, but only in the sense that one can arbitrarily select an extant in now, you could as likely choose cause and say it alone exists to become a causalist, or identity to become an indentalist, or structure to become a structuralist. These are all reductions that work to the same extent.

I didn't arrive at it. I started with it. Consciousness is extant in now thus at conclusion what is has being in conciousness. That being is wholly but not limited to what we ordinarily define as us. The ordinarily useful definition of consciousness is (to the extent that it is valid in ordinarily useful definition) and in being, then, what is has a "subset" conciousness, but consciousness is not what is.

All told, this standpoint is a neutral monism.

edited: poor choice of words. 

Yep, that's the difference.

I-centrism presupposes an independence which is eventually contradicted by the reduced materialism (ie. the I is completely dependent on the reality), unless you mean you create your own reality, which I would say is a reasonable conclusion of itself but i-centric reasoning can only get there ad-logicam.

All this was in my head when I sat down to examine my worldview, as I noted originally, so making the a priori assumption of everything being dependent on the I was just completely out of the question as of go.

This kind of misses the point of my defined 'now'. Perspective is, so it is already dependent on the now framework. I have no perspective, yet. Conditionally 'perspective' can given apparence within the framework of now of it's own definition. But wether that definition holds boils down to how pervasive now is of all conditional definitions. By the trueness of thought and reality in a packaged uni-laterally defined 'now' I prove to myself that perspective is, just as defined so the conditions hold, bold underlined by the question "meaning of meaning", and continue to be useful definitions.

In other words - because the framework now conferring thought and reality contains all thought and all reality pervading now permuations intrinsically, then everything is according to the conditional premises, confirming the epistemic status of those premises - underlined by inductive uncertainty but usefully realistic no less.

It's still convoluted language, I apologise, I'll try one more time to be more clear. In now the consequent conditional definitions are extant using the whole now (thought to reality), for example the past is not in now, but everything that actually exists is in now, can I confirm that the past exists? yes. by connections which exist in now as thought. Thought exists, therefore what exists in thought is, which is every probailistic thing that is not extant directly in now.

Phew... philosophy is a ball tearer subject sometimes.

I am not saying they transcend the now. First I am saying I can conditionally identify them in the now as being, then confirm being, then say the condition holds in this way, then I can use the identities as always (in probabilistic form).

So the source of the mental construction it's necessary component, I, and the logically apparent connection of the two - have no status in the question, the answer gives them status and confirms it as the same inductive status they've always held.

Then 'I have perspective' is probablistically true, insofar as 'I' 'have' and 'perspective' are true of forms of what is.

This is actually the point of the line of questioning. there is no actually mentally reconstructing past moments, and they don't fit in the framework of what now is. Are they therefore null? Not really. The extent to which mental constructions can mimic those actual moments is probabilistic, they can be more or less true to ends of phenomenal degree (for example delusion -> phenomenal vision) . The identifiable connection between variations of state within the framework of now is in the framework of now (to the degree that thought is in now), therefore it is and can be held true.

Everything that is in all forms, is dependent on the limits of induction from what is now. (or, probabilistic law holds.)

This, again, invokes ycyor from materialism, but doesn't support it logically. If the causal relationship is dependent on the I, then you either have Descartes duality of mind and body, or you have causal relationships from the I to the reality. If you are going to choose the second of these you need to show why.

Again, this misses the point. To what is, one or both only fit in the frame. the "or" operator has no meaning in this situation within the frame. There is no thought or reality, both are at once; the duality is an illusion. How you underline that illusion is the question.

Another way to look at this is to say - what is in the instant of being hit in the head with the bat .. a: the physical event and b:the thought that exists in unity with the physical event.

So I am never actually saying there is a no difference between being hit in the head with a bat and thinking about being hit in the head with a bat. Between those things there is a difference, and that difference is. What I am saying is that there is no quantifiable difference between a thought and an action in any given frame of now. They both are. There are not two realities one of thought and one of action, they are one reality at the extents of form.

Where you have a thought of a penguin there is a 'thought penguin'. The difference between them is also confirmed as being in the now frame. ergo the difference in the now frame is a connector of thought and reality, not the separator. Does that help?

How?

Yep, well said.

Oh and BTW the time is Now

Howdy again,

For the purposes of this thread, can you define exactly what you mean by worldview? 

I don't think that you can build up a worldview from the ground up.
Worldviews are holistic - i.e. each proposition only makes sense within the context of the rest of them.
Instead, what you do it modify your current worldview whenever you find a problem with it.

e.g. you might find that one of your beliefs don't cohere with the real world or you might find a contradiction within your worldview. Whenever this happens, work needs to be done to fix this problem. As this process carries on, your worldview gradually becomes more coherent and more accurate to reality.

Okay. I skipped to here because the whole 'I'/'now' perspective conflict thing was not helping me in understanding you, and I said I was interested in the the answers not arguing against them so I should probably live up to that. So, let me break this down and try to clarify.

Everything that is, is now. If something is not in now then it isn't. Thoughts are connected to external reality (for lack of a better term, realizing that thoughts are real) in that they both exist now. The 'I' is dependent upon the now to exist so the now is necessarilly prior to the I. Now is the common reference point by which 'the I and external reality/thoughts and external reality' are connected. Corrections to this point?

Assuming that I'm somewhere close to what you are trying, very patiently I might add, to explain;

How do you account for causation and the continuity of existence in this now-centric worldview? Is there any reason that, with now as the foundation on which existence rests, existence would not be one stagnant solid state?

Hi Vessel,

your summary sounds close enough to the main theme, and your questions are the ones I'd expect you to ask, so I think it's fair to say you have understood me. thankyou.

So first with the easy question, the continuity of existence is accounted for simply by several statements about mind which are fairly uncontroversial, I think.

The ability of mind/thought to compensate for error can support an illusion of continuity, the boundaries of conscious awareness in mind can filter out awareness of discontinuity or underlying change in the frame; these are both close to the same thing but there is a subtle difference between them. so for examples, we have agreed that a past is not literally recreated in thought, however, it exists in now in thought as a memory, and/or as an extrapolation from what is.

The memory would be the one of these you might say is most affected by error, to the conscious mind the now would corroborate the memory by smoothing over obvious errors.

An extrapolation from what is could also be affected by error, but there is the case of careful documented extrapolation from a continuum to account for, and what would affect this most would be the limits of the awareness frame. To demonstrate this I would also have to give the account for your second question why is it not static? So I will do that.

Start with the assumption that The mind is a part of now in its present beingness, by my original conclusion.

What is present in a now is a vast continuum of which this mind is one section over varying dimensions of equivalence. So if you graphed the many dimensions of equivalence in the continuum the coordinates of the mind, generally speaking, would be relative to multiple continuums of what is.

This would be the case with any identity which fits into the now frame, and to wit, a conscious awareness in now would necessarily take such measurements in order to establish the existence/nature of some object or identity in awareness.

Now these measurements have error limits which we accept are normal, par for the course, accuracy and precision. I talked about accuracy above in terms of memories, but here I am referring to precison. In scientific terms we increase precision by measuring more times and averaging the differences over the number of measurements. This is a practical approach which is analogous to the coordinate points over the multiple continuums.

If you have a thing in 4 dimensions and you give three coordinates to that thing - say the thing is a (7,2,8,3) And I give you just (7,2) and 3=w. (I chose four dimensions because of it's relevance to the topic) Now you have a place to stand on the x,y plane and two directions to look for this thing on the z axis, with 3 units of time to wait for it to appear. If you are looking up from your position, you will see the thing at w=3. If you are looking down you will see nothing. Do you presume it was not there? no, you don't, because you know you had only the coordinates for seeing the thing if you were looking the right way by chance, while you know this, you must suppose that it could be the lack of precision which made the thing invisible.

Now the thing was above where you looked, and you were looking down so you didn't see it, but one unit of time later it falls on your head and you feel its effect even though you never saw it.This is how you see a lack of precision can mask an underlying change. If you had measured your reality on the z coordinate the effect of the thing falling on your head would not be a mysterious sudden pain which is apparent as the reality of something visible at (8,3,0,6) {ie it fell slightly to your right}. The invisible change in your reality at (7,2,your height,4) is visible when using one more coordinate to ascertain it's nature. However, In the case that it was invisible because we didn't have the coordinate, we instead take a second measurement (ie {8,3,0,6}) and sum over the difference. A mind has little problem correcting for the mishap if it is working well. 

and then.. back to the original point, the mind is an object in as many dimensions as now actually exists in. The more dimensions it is in the more information you need to be able to see exactly what it is, and what is in it. Now if we assume they (the mind and its contents) are each a reflected proportion of the one underlying reality which encompasses both (energy in forms of matter and thought waves) then every measurement we take of each should be taken on the same number of axes to establish the realism of either.

And since 'we', refers to a measurement made by a mind and mind itself has an existence on multiple continuums of now, we thus have a coordinate space within a coordinate space which is thought. the precision of the thought then is up to and including how many coordinates it measures on. The mind itself exists on ostensibly all possible coordinate bases of the now frame, while the thought is filtered through a lack of precision depending on the axes over which has measured. 

So what this boils down to is this. Causality and movement are 'corrections' accounting for a lack of precise measurement over many dimensions. The precise measurement of one now of reality, as far as we can 'know' in the terms of our existence by my original conclusions - dualistic forms of experience of unified being- can be up to and including everything that ever was and ever will be.

I dubbed "corrections" with quotes because I mean it as merely a technical example of the possible process, I don't want that to be construed as a negative opinion on the validity of human experience if I can help it. I don't feel that way, and I'm not personally nihilistic. I do, however, incorporate and accept the practical and valid terms of the nihilist argument.

and this also answers why the now would not be static 'seeming' to us. The answer is the number of measurements taken over dimensions consisting a conscious thought. If we took a precise complete and unfettered measurement we would get a static state. A continuum of imprecise measurements of the same thing would gives a perceptibly dynamic (or jittery) state which can be averaged over corrections.

edit: I came back to this thread to make just one note about your summary, which is not greatly significant but could end up as an issue eventually and it was gnawing at my concentration after I posted -

you said: If something is not in now then it isn't.

just to be clear, I could not say that something not in now 'isn't', what I'd rather say is that if something is not in now *I* can not know with certainty that it ever was or would be. (It is this point that compels the questioner to decide if something outside that frame actually does exist. )

Since you are talking about "theists" as a broad term, I will respond as well.

As a Deist, I do not insert God anywhere into what I can observe. Plain and simple. If I did, then I would not be a Deist.

 Therefore I would say that I build my worldview in much the same way as I would had I been an atheist.