Whether it's true or a metaphor is very much irrelevant.

Consider a religious zealot who denies evolution on the basis of a literal interpretation of a Creator. Pretty ridiculous right?

The opposite end of the spectrum is an empiricist who only cares to discuss or consider that which can be posited and falsified by scientific experiment. If something can not be observed and measured then it is "supernatural" and therefore nonsense that doesn't merit consideration.

I am of the opinion that the empiricist is just as much of a bull-headed fundamentalist. Of course the empiricist is more rational on the surface, but as you peel the layers of logic away, eventually you realize that there is always faith in something in the end. Maybe you believe that objective knowledge can give us meaning, maybe you believe science can explain all phenomena, maybe you believe there is nothing real which can't be somehow perceived.

Well I am an agnostic. To me, the application of Occam's Razor is that my consciousness if evidence of some meaning. The idea that the configuration of my atoms gives rise to my consciousness is possible but does not seem particularly likely, yet many so-called rationalists somehow assume this is the case out of fear of a "supernatural" explanation. Setting up an image of God as a bearded man in the clouds is just a strawman to discredit what is actually a very reasonable idea: there is some purpose to the universe which is probably beyond our understanding and which will never be revealed by science.

Talk of a higher being necessarily implies not understanding. Being able to sit comfortably with not knowing is a valuable trait. Putting a framework like a "higher being" around difficult psychological conditions is one way to grapple with uncertainty and perhaps find a solution. Getting caught up in whether or not that is a metaphor is to really miss the point.

> Setting up an image of God as a bearded man in the clouds is just a strawman [...] > Getting caught up in whether or not that is a metaphor is to really miss the point.

Very good point. Most people in the west assume that religious texts are written to be understood literally and not metaphorically.

This might be due to zealotry witnessed in some major religions.

I think you underestimate how radical a rational position can be.

You've invoked consciousness, purpose and meaning as if they were important. All of which are like the higher being - they aren't real outside psychology. They are compact labels we made up to try to capture some aspects of our psychology. They help us predict each other's behaviour and communicate effectively.

There's no hard problem of consciousness, no problem of meaning or purpose, no need to ground anything in faith, no solutions exist, because all these things are psychological concepts that have no meaning at all outside the psychological context. They aren't nonsense - they are important to us as people - but that doesn't make them real in any fundamental way. They are contingent on the details of our brains. Its very important to realize that we don't need cosmology to be compatible with these things.

Consider how difficult it is to even define any of these terms in satisfying way. They are all metaphorical, like the higher being.

This means that:

> what is actually a very reasonable idea: there is some purpose to the universe which is probably beyond our understanding and which will never be revealed by science.

is incoherent. 'Purpose' is a property that is convenient to ascribe to brains. There is absolutely no justification to apply it to anything else. And if you look even a little closely, you can't even find it in brains.

> Consider how difficult it is to even define any of these terms in satisfying way. They are all metaphorical, like the higher being.

Are you able to explain what an electron is, or what gravity is or how light propagates without resorting to metaphor and hard-to-define terms?

I used to be a pretty hardcore rational materialist until I accepted that it doesn't fit very well with my own experiences.

> You've invoked consciousness, purpose and meaning as if they were important.

They are and you know it.

I say clearly that they are important to people.

My point is that you don't need to ground your cosmology on them.

Who made you the arbiter of what is fundamentally real? That is the entire basis of your argument.

No one can say there is no absolute because that statement itself is asserted as absolute.

Who put you in charge of tying your shoelaces? Some things we naturally just get to decide for ourselves.

> they aren't real outside psychology.

is your mind real? is mine?

so you're committed to nihilism then?

"Maybe you believe that objective knowledge can give us meaning"

I doubt anyone believes that. How could that ever be so?

"To me, the application of Occam's Razor is that my consciousness is evidence of some meaning"

This really makes no sense, it's the same anthropocentric fallacy that led people to believe for centuries that the Earth must be the centre of the universe.

It's back-to-front... the need to seek 'meaning' for life is more likely a result of the narrative tendency in human consciousness. And in recognising this we can turn away from the idea that there must be some kind of 'higher' externally-provided big-m 'Meaning' - an idea which must lead to either hopelessness and futility, or self-delusion.

Instead, small-m 'meaning' in your life becomes something you can give to yourself, you can choose what gives meaning to your life, you can change your mind.

Being able to sit comfortably without Meaning is a valuable trait.

You are not immune to the anthropocentric fallacy by virtue of being an empiricist, it's a fantasy. We are all anthropocentric by definition, and that is at the core of my argument.

Note that I don't need for there to be Meaning, I just happen to believe there is because it makes sense to me. It's not particularly anthropocentric because I'm not claiming that it has anything more to do with humans than with space dust. Again this is not about knowledge but about faith. We all have faith in something, but some people have trouble accepting that and instead justify their belief systems by pointing to facts. The problem is we don't live in a mathematical world where the axioms are defined by us, our logic has to ultimately be based on something. I agree with you it's a beautiful thing that we get to choose what that is.

I have both been depressed and spent time with depressed people.

The problem with this conversation is that the idea you unpack from the phrase "higher being" isn't really like the idea they compiled to that phrase. There's a fundamental translation problem in that things which are simple structures in one framework are hard or impossible to express in the other.

You have to understand what the reverse image of that phrase is in their model, not what the reverse image is in your model (ie, the idea they were trying to convey, not what you would have been trying to convey using those words). This is obviously extremely hard, as we only have access to our own model, not theirs.

For places where the models are similar, this is less of an issue, because the two reverse images are then similar. However, when the models substantially diverge, it leads to one of the most common breakdowns in communication we see (and we see it a lot, across topics).

I mean, modern mathematics happened because people had different internal models for what "function" meant, but you seem to think a concept like "higher power" is easy to translate.

For what it's worth, I don't think the two ideas are incompatible -- could you elaborate on why you do?

> you seem to think a concept like "higher power" is easy to translate.

I have no idea why you think I have any position on the ease or otherwise of 'translating' this term. I've made no claim about that. I read the article in good faith. 'Higher being' is the term they chose. I assume it's the best term available to the author. I'm not arguing about it. I'm just not persuaded that depression is a call from a higher being, as far as I understand what they are getting at.

But my exact point is I don't think you understand what they're getting at if you think the two views are incompatible. (Which you said you were pretty sure of, up thread.)

If you don't actually understand what they're getting at, you being pretty sure the views are incompatible results from misevaluating how well you understand what they're saying -- hence the discussion of why that communication is hard.

Which is why I asked you to elaborate on why you think the views are incompatible. Which you declined to do.

So I'm not really sure what else to say if you don't want to get in to specifics of how you interpreted the concept and why you think the two models are incompatible.

I didn't claim they were incompatible. Since nothing is incompatible with the existence of a supernatural higher being, that would be obviously wrong.

I said they weren't equivalent, and earlier I asked which explanation is more likely.