My philosophy

(This document specifically describes my metaphysical/religious philosophy)

I am a theological noncognitivist. Normally, I describe myself as an atheist, but to be quite clear, I am not an atheist, and theological noncognitivism is not a form of atheism. The term “atheist” is sufficiently broad that its most general definition applies to me, but if using it more precisely, it does not. I describe myself as an atheist in casual conversation for two reasons:

  • I am a scientific materialist and reject all tenets of all major religions: there is no such thing as a soul, and all cataphatic descriptions of any god are myths. To many, that's sufficient to brand me an atheist, and I'm certainly an ally of atheists.
  • I've found it quite difficult to describe theological noncognitivism briefly, and as I have no interest in changing anyone's belief system, it's often a waste of time to give the long-winded explanation.

The short version of what theological noncognitivism is is this: The question “is there a God?” does not have an answer, not because of any lack of evidence, but because it is not a meaningful question. “God” is not a cognizable concept, and is outside of any reality that would give a context in which to assign a truth value to the statement of its existence. Yes, that's the short version.

I have two long versions of the description of my philosophy, and you may choose whichever you prefer:

Relationship to neoplatanism

NOTE: This and the remaining sections continue from either my from ontology or from language description of theological noncognitivism, and are simply an addenda.

Theological noncognitivism can be argued to be an offshoot of neoplatanism.

One of the core tenets of neoplatanism is apophatic theology, which is the idea that God cannot be described by what he is, only by what he is not. God is not limited, God is not temporal, God is not a creature (in the sense of being created). The philosophy behind this is that cataphatic theology—the definition of God by what he is—necessarily diminishes God. That is, any positive statement about God is dragging God down to the level of a creature, and so cannot be true. Indeed, some branches of neoplatanism even go so far as to banish the statement “there is a God” as restricting God by making him subject to being, exactly as theological noncognitivism does.

But, neoplatanism is a fundamentally theistic position. Apophatic theology is theology, after all.

As a consequence of this positive yet apophatic theology, neoplatanism has been a foundational philosophy of many of the more mystical sects of western religions. The way to understand a God who cannot be described positively is through divine revelation. Most of the remaining beliefs of neoplatanism stem from these revelations.

Theological noncognitivism can be viewed as a related philosophy, but with the rejection of revelation and, with it, the rejection of apophatic theology as well. Described from this perspective, it is hopefully clear why I don't consider myself an atheist. The relationship between my philosophy and both theism and atheism is complex, though as I said, I consider atheists a (much) closer ally than theists.

Relationship to ignosticism

Particularly in the from-language description, I've put a fair amount of focus onto the meaning of words, or lack thereof. There are two subtly distinct schools of thought on precisely how this relates to metaphysical philosophy: theological noncognitivism and ignosticism. The theological noncognitivist argues that these concepts are fundamentally meaningless (i.e., that there is no such concept as “God”), while the ignostic argues that all attempts to form an argument assume too much about these concepts (i.e., that “God” may or may not be a meaningful concept, but any attempt to reify that concept to the point where it is interrogatable are inherently futile). Of course, it is usually the concept of God that is in question, and not the concept of free will, as in my from-language discussion. Or eggs. There is a general consensus, which I am willing to agree with, that this may be a distinction without a difference, or even, more tantalizingly, that the question of a distinction between these philosophies may be as meaningless as the questions these philosophies address.

Bonus musing: The teleporter problem

For those unaware, the teleporter problem is a problem—perhaps—with the concept of teleporters from Star Trek and similar sci-fi. Star Trek's teleporter dematerializes its user and then rematerializes them at the destination. But, there's no obvious reason why the dematerialization should be necessary (since this is fiction, a reason can be invented, of course). If dematerialization doesn't happen, then from the instant of the teleportation—now, really, duplication—two individuals exist with identical composition and an identical history up to the point of teleportation. So, which is the “real” one? Which gets claim to the identity?

To take this out of the realm of sci-fi, we can consider a modified version of the Ship of Theseus. If there was a second crew following along the Ship of Theseus and collecting its scraps, and that second crew built an entire second ship, identical to the first, from the original parts, then which is the true Ship of Theseus?

In line with the rest of my philosophical discussion, my answer is that either, neither, or both can make that claim, and we can choose to define identity such that any of those claims can be true. The actual facts of the case are not in dispute, only the implications, but those implications are actually just in how we conceptualize reality, not in reality itself. Reality cares not for how we define identity, no matter how core we might consider identity to our... ehm, identity.