Paradigm versus Heuristic in Limitation Philosophy
The Personality and Being of God is Limitless. The personality and being of human beings is not limitless.
This is the Limitation Paradigm. All Limitation Philosophy follows from its logic.
General Concepts of Limitation Philosophy
We Reach for Paradigms but Only Ever Get Heuristics
In almost all communications best practice is to use everyday words in their ordinary meaning. However, in Limitation Philosophy the words Paradigm and Heuristic acquire extraordinary meaning and require special definition. In the everyday use of these two terms there is a degree of interchangeability but the two are not considered synonymous.
The ordinary meaning of paradigm implies a set of rules for how a model of reality works. There is an axiomatic aspect to it and an absolutist one as well. Heuristic is similar but less absolute. Guidelines and rules of thumb are heuristic, in contrast with the more rigid, absolutist term, law, which is considered paradigmatic. Everyday use of these words often depends on their context and how they are used to determine their meaning in a sentence.
In Limitation Philosophy the word Paradigm is always absolute, invariable and without exception of any kind. Paradigm exists in the Personality and Being of the Deity and the universal process. True paradigms exist only in infinite and eternal reality.
Language paradigms can be expressed in concise paradigmatic sentences and discussed using language, but everyday language often speaks using absolutist terms when speaking of situations where exceptions abound. This is exaggerated in some speakers, but it creeps into all language usage. This unintentional form of absolutism is just part of the less than precise nature of language.
One aspect of the Language Heuristic is that, in ordinary talk one makes a statement and ignores exceptions to avoid confusion. Ordinary language is imprecise. Precise language is impossible because all language is heuristic. The phrase, all language is heuristic, is a prime example of a paradigmatic statement conforming to Limitation Philosophies special definition of the word paradigm which includes language paradigms as a special category.
In Limitation Philosophy, Paradigm never generates error. This leads one to ask, what about language paradigms? How can they be framed in the Language Heuristic and not contain error? The short answer is that they do contain some error and break just as the syllogism does in formal logic due to the heuristic nature of language.
The Special Definition of Heuristic
We are limited beings. Our knowledge is partial not complete. Because we are often frustrated in our desires and determinations, we are prone to anger and other negative emotions. In addition to the limited nature of our being, our existence, that is, the world we live within is local and temporal. Heuristics are the rules and methods we employ to get by in the human situation. We wish for paradigms but settle for what the situation requires for us to get by. We reach for paradigms but only ever get heuristics because we are local, temporal, limited beings.
Paradigms operate in the eternal and infinite universe of Limitless God. We are mistaken to look for something so eternal and complete in our local and temporal world. To us the ocean tides are paradigmatic. Even their variations in strength are predictable by careful calculation. However, there was a time when this earth of ours did not exist and though it may be a long time from now to us there will be a future era when it will have passed away. The ‘scientific laws’ we look to when the tides are calculated are not as invariable as they appear to us but do serve as accurate guides for our use. For us, apparently perfect guides, such as scientific laws and other heuristic models, enable us to navigate our local temporal lives as limited beings. By employing heuristic models, choices are often made without stopping to make conscious calculation.
The framework of life experience models are but one type of heuristic. Unlike the very limiting and excluding definition of Paradigm, Limitation Philosophies definition and use of the word heuristic is very broad and amorphous. Language is by nature heuristic, but the language heuristic is too far-reaching and varied to ever define. Nor can it be explained in anything approaching a complete sense.
Other very large, worldwide, heuristics can be encapsulated in very plain language. In the next section I will do this with the Ordinary Religious Heuristic.
Cognitive biases are another aspect of heuristics. These are effective strategies for behavior that we deploy to succeed and get by in life that also have unfortunate downsides. Behavioral psychologists and Sociologists like to point out the humorous aspects of these downsides, sometimes using anecdotes from their own experience.
(For an example of cognitive dissonance in an expert on cognitive dissonance see, Eliot Aronson’s canoe story, on page 25 of, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Eliot Aronson. In summary the Eliot’s Canoe Story portion of that book recounts how one of the authors, an expert on cognitive dissonance, behaved in a situation that serves as a very good example of cognitive dissonance.)
Because we are limited beings, almost all of our choices are made employing one form of heuristic or another and whether we are operating by intuition or calculation few if any of our choices are without a downside. One valuable benefit of analyzing the heuristic aspect of a choice is discovery of the downside which is often ignored when the choice is made.
In Limitation Philosophy, Paradigm is without exception true in itself and without error. Heuristics in operation generate error. Heuristics are used to make sudden, in the moment behavioral choices. Once the choice is made and the behavior sequence unfolds, the operations, that is the chosen behavior itself will generate the errors. So, inherent in any Heuristic is the aspect of error generation.
Socrates had an apparently uncanny ability to find faults in his interlocutors answers to his questions. Once you accept that all language is heuristic this ability becomes easy to understand. So long as all Socrates did was ask questions the only assertive statements being made were those of the interlocutor. The interlocutor’s positive affirming statements being made using the language heuristic contained within their truth some form of error. Socrates simply developed a keen eye for finding that error and pointing it out in the form of yet another question. By putting it in question form he made no positive affirming statement of his own and by doing this the interlocutor could never use Socrates’ own method against him. One wonders why anyone even talked to him.
Part of the language heuristic is that humans seem to be born with a godlike self-image that resists seeing their very human limitations. This godlike self-image perseveres because like every other heuristic, despite its inherent downsides, we cannot live without it. The unfortunate truth is that we need that godlike self-image to survive the dilemmas of limitation.
People who hedge and qualify almost everything they say don’t seem to have anything up on the rest of us. Some of the riddles of our existence are not only insoluble, perhaps we are better off not trying to solve them. Not if that solution makes us hem and haw, qualifying every statement we make with ‘perhaps’ and pointing out exceptions to our statements that introduce confusion. Limitation Philosophy accepts the heuristic nature of our limited being.
Having brought up the riddle of our godlike self-image let’s look into the heuristic we use to ‘see God.’
The Ordinary Religious Heuristic
A very wide range of systems of religious belief share a set of common characteristics that shape their beliefs and practices. On the face of things Christianity and Pantheism are very distinct religious systems. Prayer, a practice common to most religions might be practiced in both but the manner and content of prayer in each will be very distinct. However, each of these religious systems operate using The Ordinary Religious Heuristic as do other systems of theistic religious belief.
If you look at the beliefs of the major theistic religions, there are three core elements present in some form. Their Deity, deities or whatever stands in as Deity is anthropomorphic. This Deity is authoritarian. Rules of behavior emanate from the Deity. And the relationship of the Deity to the believer is transactional. This structure is explicit in conventional religious systems and obscured in unconventional ones.
In Christianity there is God, the Father whose personality is exalted far above ordinary human personality but understood using ‘theory of mind’ (using ourselves and our own understanding of human behavior as a reference for understanding others). This idea of our use of ‘theory of mind’ to understand a Deity extends to the Pantheist. Nature or the Universe has a mind, albeit on a higher plane than ours, Nature feels and can become offended and it’s motives are calculated using ‘theory of mind’ methods. The Pantheist sees disasters resulting from climate change in terminology that echoes divine vengeance. In Pantheism the anthropomorphism is obscured but the constraints of narration make that impossible to fully accomplish. The ‘theism’ in Pantheism comes out in its narrations.
While massive differences define each major religion most if not all of them operate in human personality by the Ordinary Religious Heuristic. Consider this conception using the lens of personality structure, that is mind, heart and will, alongside the three parts of the Ordinary Religious Heuristic. Our minds anthropomorphize, our hearts recognize common feeling, and our wills use our own various intentions to gauge those of others, even when the other is a deity.
As humans we frame any form of intention in human terms. It’s how we understand stories. Using the Ordinary Religious Heuristic to form an understanding of deity is normal human behavior. Ignoring the error generation aspect of the heuristic is also ordinary human behavior. When the heuristic fails, the user says the deity is inscrutable, not my method of understanding the deity has failed.
As normal human behavior the Ordinary Religious Heuristic can be considered within the two thinking systems cognitive model which Daniel Kahneman makes plain in Thinking, Fast and Slow. The Ordinary Religious Heuristic forms the basis for intuition, system one, and provides a framework for the philosophical theorizing of theology, system two. Religious faith shapes the believers intuition so that speech and action consistent with the faith happen without forethought and then believers defend system one religious behavior with the complex articulations of system two thinking.
Mutual understanding amongst believers results from collective efforts using the heuristics cognitive methods. The shared method tunes believers to broad agreement on the general terms. Because errors arise from method and not user originality, a humanlike, authoritative deity to whom they are transactionally related becomes their common possession.
The only religions exempt from the Ordinary Religious Heuristic are those with no deities to anthropomorphize, which are, the non-theistic religions and the theological system made plain in The Logic of Limitless.
As a theology, the Limitation Philosophy’s premise is that the Deity is not humanlike with non-authoritarian and non-transactional following from the non-anthropomorphic premise. As the culmination of its theme The Logic of Limitless proves that, as a form of perception, the Ordinary Religious Heuristic hides reality, the ultimate reality of God and the nature of the universe of things.
It’s natural and in some ways impossible not to anthropomorphize. We do it all the time with our pets. I know how I think. I believe I know how you think, but do I really know how my cat thinks? We tend to frame any form of intention in human terms. The self-reference of our own human intention plays a large role in how we understand and follow stories, especially fictional stories. A Non-Anthropomorphic Deity cannot be given a dramatic role in a story. Such a Deity can be discussed by the characters, but the role of any non-human character in a story requires its intentions to be anthropomorphized.
The True Source of Social Darwinism
Critics of Social Darwinism cite Evolution and Natural Selection as the origin of Social Darwinist theorizing. They ignore the fact that genocides and every other moral outrage proposed or carried out by Social Darwinists were present in wars of religion long before the Social Darwinists came on the scene.
Social Darwinist thinking begins with a pantheistic deity. Nature is made into an anthropomorphized deity with humanlike intention. In the Social Darwinist narrative, nature has decided that one group is fit to survive, and another is not. Natures intention stands in for ‘God’s will’ in the Social Darwinist narrative. This is analogous to the narrative of every holy war. Social Darwinists embrace an unconventional form of theistic religion operating within the ordinary religious heuristic.
Evolution and Natural Selection are functions of a deified nature’s, moral authority and will. Nature as a rule making authority demands that believers destroy those whom their god has marked for destruction. Nature is to be obeyed as if it were a humanlike king or queen.
Having abandoned the holy war model of ages past, Christian denominations can now point out the immorality of Social Darwinism. Most Christians today are very different from those of the Crusades and the Wars of Religion. There is nothing hypocritical about modern Christians denouncing Social Darwinist faith and practice. However, a modern Christian advocating some form of holy war while decrying Social Darwinism might be considered hypocritical.
In Limitation Philosophy, the Deity does not have the humanlike intentions to “will” a holy war, and the manner in which the earth, life, and human beings ‘come to be,’ by ‘process not intention’ does not license any subset of any species to destroy others because they are the favorites of some anthropomorphized pantheistic deity which animates that process.
There is a humanlike intention evident in the decree ‘survival of the fittest.’ Limited beings, because they are local and temporal, use laws, which are by nature a form of heuristic. The Deity described in the cosmology of Limitation Philosophy is non-authoritarian because Limitless Personality can handle infinite exceptions, so laws play no role in Limitless Being. The will aspect of Limitless Personality is, according to our imperfect understanding simply that things ought to thrive. This is accomplished by process not intention, and this means it is not some law decreed by a theistically understood pantheistic deity.
Social groups of limited beings concoct stuff like Social Darwinism by manipulating the Ordinary Religious Heuristic to justify doing in groups the kind of things their innate moral sense as individuals tells them is wrong. Far from being the expression of paradigmatic natural law, Social Darwinism generates so much moral error that most social groups see it as just plain wrong.
The way the earth, life and human beings come to be as part of the universal process is far too enmeshed with the rest of Limitation Philosophy’s cosmology to be explained in isolation. The best way to understand it is by a careful reading of The Logic of Limitless.
The cosmology of Limitation Philosophy is more distinct from than similar to General Darwinism. The risk of associating the cosmology of Limitation Philosophy with Darwinism is troubling to me. In our culture, the anthropomorphizing of the terms evolution and natural selection is a deeply ingrained language habit and thinking in terms of paradigmatic laws like survival of the fittest is mostly what General Darwinism is all about.
Darwinism is often used to deny the existence of God while being spoken of in what my discerning eye sees is very theistic language. The cosmology is not Darwinism, and the way the language of Darwinism is spoken of is the opposite of Limitation Philosophy.