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Iracundus wrote:
By lying, the Emperor set people (such as the Primarchs) up for disillusionment when they discovered the lie, and then more likely to accept whatever the Chaos gods told them since their trust in the Emperor would have been destroyed. If for example the Emperor had instead warned Lorgar that there were evil entities of the warp that would try to turn him, Lorgar probably would have resisted since he was full of faith in the righteousness of the Emperor. It was only after his faith was destroyed and the Emperor's lies about the Imperial Truth and non-existence of the Chaos gods exposed that Lorgar was open for anything to fill the vacuum left behind by his former faith in the Emperor.

This is actually a very interesting sort of "inflection point" to consider. If we take a sort of Kantian deontological stance and just say that the Emperor has a duty to the truth, we are still left with some real questions.

On the one hand, the "truth" seems to be that the original, Materialist, Rationalist Imperial Truth was not strictly true. But it also not strictly false though either, in the sense that, depending on how we choose to define what a god is, what supernatural is, then it might be right in a manner of speaking. But really that isn't "good enough."

So, where I think one could make the case that the Emperor had a somewhat "noble" intention in trying to "demystify" the Universe, to demystify Being, he ultimately is just plain misguided and so misguides. The Warp is real, Chaos is real and simply trying to say that it just doesn't matter is ultimately not going to be a tenable position, as we will see. In a sense, I think we can say that maybe this is a sort of hubris, a notion that a Materialist, Rationalist paradigm can simply just conquer all. Sure, there might have been psychic powers, but just as other facets of the word were demystified, so too will that, "fall" in a sense to the advance of technology. But the Emperor actually knows what the outcome of the Dark Age of Technology is, but we could guess (again, maybe out of hubris) that a notional Rationalism (specifically his brand of rationality) can defeat that as well. In other words, what the Dark Age of Technology lacked simply was his leadership, his vision, his temperament.

Maybe Hiedegger never existed in the 40k universe. If he did, the Emperor likely would have done well to have read some of his work. Consider a statement like: "The world now appears as an object open to the attacks of calculative thought. . . . Nature becomes a gigantic gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry."

Hubert Dreyfus on Heidegger:

In contemporary Japan a traditional, non-technological understanding of being still exists alongside the most advanced high-tech production and consumption. The TV set and the household gods
share the same shelf—the styrofoam cup co-exists with the porcelain one. We can thus see that one can have technology without the technological understanding of being, so it becomes clear that the
technological understanding of being can be dissociated from technological devices.

To make this dissociation, Heidegger holds, one must rethink the history of being in the West. Then one will see that although a technological understanding of being is our destiny, it is not our
fate. That is, although our understanding of things and ourselves as resources to be ordered, enhanced, and used efficiently has been building up since Plato and dominates our practices, we
are not stuck with it. It is not the way things have to be, but nothing more or less than our current cultural clearing.

Only those who think of Heidegger as opposing technology will be surprised at his next point. Once we see that technology is our latest understanding of being, we will be grateful for it. We did
not make this clearing nor do we control it, but if it were not given to us to encounter things and ourselves as resources, nothing would show up as anything at all and no possibilities for action
would make sense. And once we realize—in our practices, of course, not just in our heads—that we receive our technological understanding of being, we have stepped out of the technological
understanding of being, for we then see that what is most important in our lives is not subject to efficient enhancement. This transformation in our sense of reality—this overcoming of calculative
thinking—is precisely what Heideggerian thinking seeks to bring about. Heidegger seeks to show how we can recognize and thereby overcome our restricted, willful modern clearing precisely by
recognizing our essential receptivity to it.

I think the Emperor really fails in this Heideggerian pursuit. On the one hand, on the back of the Dark Age of Technology, this notion is partly known, at least known that a sort of unbridled pursuit of technological optimization does not go "well" for human sanctity (in the sense of imperiling the very foundation of what human Being, or well-being, could be).

Hubert Dreyfus again:

This expanding of technological efficiency is the greatest danger. But these saving practices could come together in a new cultural paradigm that held up to us a new way of doing things, thereby focusing a world in which formerly marginal practices were central and efficiency marginal. Such a new object or event that grounded a new understanding of reality Heidegger would call a new god. This is why he holds that ‘‘only another god can save us.’’

And again, we see the "lesson" of the DAoT, but we see the Emperor simply not have the Heideggerian insight into the "solution."

Again, Dreyfus:

To many, however, the idea of a god which will give us a unified but open community—one set of concerns which everyone shares if only as a focus of disagreement—sounds either unrealistic
or dangerous. Heidegger would probably agree that its open democratic version looks increasingly unobtainable and that we have certainly seen that its closed totalitarian form can be disastrous. But
Heidegger holds that given our historical essence—the kind of beings we have become during the history of our culture—such a community is necessary to us. This raises the question of whether
our need for one community is, indeed, dictated by our historical essence, or whether the claim that we can’t live without a centered and rooted culture is simply romantic nostalgia.

It is hard to know how one could decide such a question, but Heidegger has a message even for those who hold that we, in this pluralized modern world, should not expect and do not need one all-embracing community. Those who, from Dostoievsky, to the hippies, to Richard Rorty, think of communities as local enclaves in an otherwise impersonal society still owe us an account of what holds these local communities together. If Dostoievsky and Heidegger are right, each local community still needs its local god—its particular incarnation of what the community is up to. In that case we are again led to the view that releasement is not enough, and to the modified Heideggerian slogan that "only some new gods can save us."

Again, one could make the case that Lorgar "sees" this, not literally, but implicitly. And the Emperor simply doubles down, in a sense, that a Materialist/Rationalist approach won't lead to another DAoT just because it is his Rationalism.

Alright, let me take a break, this post is long enough as it is.

Oops, forgot to add a link the the Dreyfus paper, just in case anyone wants to read it.

Voss wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Nevertheless, they are still taken a priori. They cannot prove themselves by their own method. Just watch the video. it explains the concepts much better than I can. It's still a fairly new concept to me. I'm not decrying science or the scientific method, I'm just pointing out that there are still things that the concept takes 'on faith'

Descartes, Cogito ergo sum, is for some, the only truth verifyable of our existence that we can garner about ourselfs, preciscly because we can not prove our senses ourselfs by their methods.

Granted it takes the awarness also a priori.

I think you actually need to read Descartes really horrible proof of that particular catch-phrase. He says the opposite of what you seem to think, prattling about dreams, drugs and demons, before coming up with an out-of-nowhere assumption that a benevolent god exists and wouldn't let evil demons trick us into thinking we exist, and so assuming the existence of god (and saying nothing about what this all powerful god could make us think), we think therefor we are... if the rather shaky bits about dreams and drugs are also true.

I mean, you could take an ultimately dismissive view that descartes demon was merely a biased construction to justify a belief in god, but I feel the whole 'cogito ergo sum' thing does have some value. it allows the path that humans are their own entity, and not just a piece in some pre determined game, to begin, and allow a search for a deeper understanding.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I mean, you could take an ultimately dismissive view that descartes demon was merely a biased construction to justify a belief in god, but I feel the whole 'cogito ergo sum' thing does have some value. it allows the path that humans are their own entity, and not just a piece in some pre determined game, to begin, and allow a search for a deeper understanding.

Well, Decartes I think was trying to find the "rational limit" of a sort of skepticism. But I am not a Decartes scholor by any means.

However, it seems to me that Kant picks up along those same sorts of skeptical lines, positing the Phenomenal/Noumenal "break" and just what then we could know and how.

On the notion of "Scientism" though, consider this line: "Echoing common criticisms of logical positivism and verificationism, philosopher of religion Keith Ward has said scientism is philosophically inconsistent or even self-refuting, as the truth of the statements "no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically (or logically)" or "no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true" cannot themselves be proven scientifically, logically, or empirically."

Again, there is a reason all philosophy cannot be boiled down to just Logical Positivism, along the lines of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem (essentially that a formal system cannot, from with that system prove the constancy of it's fundamental assumptions).

Along those line, I love this quote:

"What defines thought in its three great forms—art, science, and philosophy—is always confronting chaos, laying out a plane, throwing a plane over chaos. But philosophy wants to save the infinite by giving it consistency: it lays out a plane of immanence that, through the action of conceptual personae, takes events or consistent concepts to infinity. Science, on the other hand, relinquishes the infinite in order to gain reference: it lays out a plane of simply undefined coordinates that each time, through the action of partial observers, defines states of affairs, functions, or referential propositions. Art wants to create the finite that restores the infinite: it lays out a plane of composition that, in turn, through the action of aesthetic figures, bears monuments or composite sensations.

From Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy?

I actually don't think the Emperor was trying to assert a formal Scientism though. Not really, but something like one in this own sort of Materialist/Rationalist paradigm, which actually wasn't logically consistent in-itself anyway. Which actually sort of sows the seeds of it's own undoing, really.

Looks like i started quite the thread.

I was just curious about the irony of it all with the Big E and his hate for religion contra what we have today.. Which is a religion.

Are you enjoying it? I love philosophy, as you might have guessed.

Beardedragon wrote:
Looks like i started quite the thread.

I was just curious about the irony of it all with the Big E and his hate for religion contra what we have today.. Which is a religion.

The whole thing is also the reason why I don't believe the theory that the Emperor knew what will happen during the Heresy and it's all part of a grand plan, that sometimes gets mentioned in lore threads.

Statistx wrote:

Beardedragon wrote:
Looks like i started quite the thread.

I was just curious about the irony of it all with the Big E and his hate for religion contra what we have today.. Which is a religion.

The whole thing is also the reason why I don't believe the theory that the Emperor knew what will happen during the Heresy and it's all part of a grand plan, that sometimes gets mentioned in lore threads.

I've never liked that, it has way too many holes in it for a decent plan.

ooh, determinism has entered the chat.

FWIW, per the Konrad Curze primarch novel, the Emperor emphatically does not believe in determinism. That's the big difference between how he and Curze approach their precognitive abilities. Curze's belief in determinism is a big part of what made him go evil and crazy. The Emperor seems to be a "there's always a third option" kinda guy, at least in that portrayal.

My take on it?

The whole ‘no religion’ thing is purely because he knows of the Chaos Gods, and a fair amount about their nature.

You want to stamp them out, or at least massively reduce their influence, you’re gonna need a non-theistic society. After all, if someone doesn’t believe something exists, they’re not going to go dabbling or looking for it.

Of course, strictly speaking they’re not Gods. They’re just ineffable entities incapable of creating things. They’re also completely insane by any metric.

The threat there is that if The Emperor became seen as a God, those opposed to him might turn to other ‘Gods’ to challenge him. That exposes the truth of the warp, and it all goes downhill from there.

I dont think he knew that much about their nature. If he did, he would realise that its not worship that sustains them, but emotions, so stamping out religion is not going to get rid of them.and with this knowledge, a drastically different set of actions would have to be put in place. the only thing I can suggest is that he wanted to make a unified humanity, with a single ideology, with a morality based on rationality. (however, this is never going to be possible without endless war due to the need to force this onto unwilling populations)

Statistx wrote:
The whole thing is also the reason why I don't believe the theory that the Emperor knew what will happen during the Heresy and it's all part of a grand plan, that sometimes gets mentioned in lore threads.

My headcanon is that he masterminded the Heresy as a way to get the Primarchs out of the way once they had conquered the galaxy for him. What *wasn't* supposed to have happened was him being mortally wounded; Sanguinius, Magnus, or Kurze was supposed to go on the Throne.

There was always supposed to be a galaxy of worshipers to feed Big E's ego, but he was supposed to be a living god, not a dead one. He was going to sacrifice his own sons for his own benefit, in a sort of horrific inversion of the Crucifixion. As a figure who is jealously hoarding power and preventing it from being passed on to the next generation, he's playing the myth of Koschei the Immortal (and many more besides) from Slavic folklore out on a galactic scale.