Nathaniel Spencer’s Reviews > The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans > Status Update
Nathaniel Spencer
is 40% done
Paraphrasing the conclusion to ch.3: The reality of social organisms is no less literal than human persons. Thus Sin can be said to exist as a superorganism that supervenes on the choices and structures created by individual persons. This social organism of Sin then exerts downward causation on individuals, coercing behaviors and erecting boundaries and defining goals and methods for them.
— Dec 13, 2022 06:20AM
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Nathaniel’s Previous Updates
Nathaniel Spencer
is 60% done
Seneca writes, “The very soil was more productive when untilled, and yielded more then enough for peoples who refrained from despoiling one another.” p. 120
— Dec 14, 2022 06:36AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 60% done
One remembers the “great symbiosis”: the ancient pagan state of affairs in which gods needed humans as much as vice versa, because the sacrifices humans made actually sustained them and made them more powerful. In return gods then bestowed whatever blessings humans needed to flourish- crop yield, fertility, victory in battle, etc.
— Dec 14, 2022 05:48AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 60% done
This so reminds me of Gaiman’s depiction in American Gods. The old gods are weak and starved because the communities that brought them over have ceased worshipping them, giving their devotion instead to Media, Wealth, and Beauty which as a result are physically stronger, better dressed, better organized and live in more opulence.
— Dec 14, 2022 05:48AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 60% done
“Sin not only gains power over people’s lives through their cooperation, but also, Sin depends ontologically on the is cooperation, as Sin’s supervenience base consists precisely of this cooperation.” p. 111
— Dec 14, 2022 05:48AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 60% done
Concerning Romans 1: “We are the authors of our own tragedy, demiurges of a slavemaster that holds us in bondage. The turn to idolatry is, in a certain sense, ironically successful. The story of the advent of idolatry is the story of the creation of a real, superhuman power that truly does exercise dominion over its human subjects.” p. 108
— Dec 14, 2022 05:20AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 40% done
If social persons are metaphorical, then so are individual humans persons.
— Dec 13, 2022 06:24AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 40% done
IOW, people sin, and then Sin comes into the world as a result, constraining them to sin more, in ways that provide for the ongoing existence and nurture of Sin. In all this Sin is said to have a singular mind and intention in the exact same way individual humans do. Critiques of this idea backfire and undo the ontic distinction of the individual person as well.
— Dec 13, 2022 06:23AM
Nathaniel Spencer
is 40% done
“..the social is both a biological and a psychological entity of a new species.” p. 98
“Mythological entities are (at least minimally) subjective selves. They preform cognitive functions. They are intentional subjects. Indeed their cognition exercises downward causation upon the superorganisms from which they emerge…” p. 98
— Dec 13, 2022 06:06AM
“Mythological entities are (at least minimally) subjective selves. They preform cognitive functions. They are intentional subjects. Indeed their cognition exercises downward causation upon the superorganisms from which they emerge…” p. 98
