Scientific Proof of God, A New and Modern Bible, and Coexisting Relations of God and the Universe

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Remaking America by George Shollenberger, Idea XXXIX (The science of Gottfried Leibniz, Part XVIII)


Today, I will discuss the thoughts of Gottfried Leibniz on the content of ‘atom of substances.’ Leibniz refers to these atoms as monads and discusses them in detail in his 1714 paper on "Monadology.’ This paper is found on pages 179-194 of G. H. R. Parkinson’s book ‘Leibniz" Philosophical Writings.’ I refer these atoms as ‘spiritual atoms’ in my book, ‘The First Scientific Proof of God.’ In most religion, Leibniz’s atoms of substances are usually called ‘souls.’ In this blog, I will focus on the human soul.

Our soul can be known only if we use Plato’s negative. Apparently, Nicholas of Cusa recognized the importance of Plato’s negative when he wrote a paper ‘On God as Not-Other. (click) In this paper God is identified as Not-other and all created things are identified as Other. In this paper, Cusa develops different statements. For instance, he says, ‘in a hot thing, what is not-hot is the hot thing.’ This statement would be viewed as a contradiction by today’s U.S. logicians. But they are wrong because this statement merely distinguishes the phenomenon, hot, from a not-hot thing, which can become hot. In general, this kind of statement identifies a Subject, the not-hot thing, and a Predicate, which is the phenomenon hot.

So, when Leibniz moves sensations out of our brains and places them into our souls, he gave our soul phenomena and made our soul an ‘independent’ thing. With this move our souls are no longer epiphenomena of the brain, as atheists argue.

But Leibniz searches for more truths about this independent thing. To find more truths, he negates the sensations. Using Cusa’s Subject/Predicate statement, Leibniz thought that ‘in a sensual thing, what is not-sensual is the sensual thing. Leibniz’s gives the term not-sensual its positive nature using the symbol ‘wisdom.’ Here, we see that Leibniz gives the soul two reasoning abilities --- logical reason and sufficient reason.

In his book on 'Critique of Pure Reason,' at ‘General Observations on Transcendental Aesthetic,’ Kant was wrong to say that Leibniz connected the sensible and intelligence merely logically. It is clear that Kant never used Plato’s negative. This error by Kant might have helped to impede the propagation of Leibniz writings in Europe and the USA.

4 Comments:

  • At 5:21 PM, Blogger Quantum_Flux said…

    I don't believe that anything has a soul.

     
  • At 6:38 PM, Blogger George Shollenberger said…

    response to Q_F,

    This is where the field of science is misleading the people of the world.

    Don't you feel your independence. If you don't, your feelings have been depressed too far.

    Do you have a pet? or a wife?

    Without a soul, you would be passive and a mechanical thing.

     
  • At 11:04 PM, Blogger Quantum_Flux said…

    I've got a mind that makes intelligent decisions, but I doubt that I have a immortal soul though. I can't remember anything before the time when I was born, but if a soul or consciousness were eternal then I should have memories of what I was doing before I was concieved. Ergo, my mind leads me to believe that I have no eternal infinite soul.

    Perhaps consciousness has a beginning and no end? I don't see any reason, I think if there is a beginning of consciousness at birth then there ought to be an end of consciousness at death.

    Catch 22, if I do have a soul then I have one and I won't know for sure until after I'm dead though.

     
  • At 11:20 AM, Blogger George Shollenberger said…

    response to Q_F,

    No one has ever proven that they appeared in this world before. I have thought about this subject often. I have had more success is proving life after death with leibniz's monads.

    Logic can close the mind of a person with ease. i protect myself against logic by my personal security.

    Beginning and end is a dualism that applies only for machines that wear out and living things that are reincarnated.

    My next blog shows that you have a soul.

     

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