How many of you read this post?
This is the outpouring that led me to conceive of this thread.
This is the outpouring that led me to conceive of this thread.
Workable systems of god
- Thread starter universaldistress
- Start date
Oooh. This might be fun. Here's a simple one. I might have more.
Since it is impossible for there to be nothing (because it can't actually exist), there must be something. Further, it must be an infinite something, since something must exist everywhere that nothing can't (which is everywhere). So far, then, we've dealt with quantity. But what about quality?
The quantity of nothing is no quantity at all. The quality of nothing is that it has no qualities. So it can be argued that since we extrapolate infinite quantity from the impossibility of no quantity, we should also extrapolate infinite quality from the impossibility of no quality. Since we do not see infinite quality in the physical universe (only the base quality of physicality), then it is God who possesses the qualities that we don't see.
Take that you damned (literally) atheist bastards!
Basically, I believe in direct revelatory experience. None of this praying for belief BS. You make some sort of spiritual contact and go from there on personal recognizance.
Spiritual anarchism, basically.
So, nothing of direct revelation CAN be proven, by its' very nature. Direct revelatory experience can only be studied from the outside, as a psychological phenomena.
That's why I only occasionally pop in on the religions threads...it's like the tao te ching says:
Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know.
I'm talking; I don't know...
But at least I know I don't know.
This is good.
Spiritual anarchism, basically.
So, nothing of direct revelation CAN be proven, by its' very nature. Direct revelatory experience can only be studied from the outside, as a psychological phenomena.
That's why I only occasionally pop in on the religions threads...it's like the tao te ching says:
Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know.
I'm talking; I don't know...
But at least I know I don't know.
This is good.
I have a half-assed theory about how God could exist; don't really know how it could be said to be "workable", but.universaldistress said:
Suppose your brain "talks to itself" and you can tune in to this "conversation". When you do, you don't hear what most people call their mind--you don't think in words.
What you do hear is not because of an external stimulus, it's a stimulus of your auditory centre(s), by the brain's neural activity. This can be "trained" to be like music, by structuring it somehow.
The "structuring" is you concentrating on the "sounds"--these are varied and distinct, like a singing, and like birdcalls or chirping insects (at least, that's a common description). By concentrating you invoke a feedback mechanism, you see; this is otherwise known as meditation.
If you put aside the meaning of the word "God", in fact, if you put aside thinking and just concentrate, you have a working version of something. You can call this whatever you like, but most of the people I know who can do this also call it meditation, or "knowledge". Knowledge of what? Of the way your brain works, of course--and no need to write a thesis and submit it for peer review!
Thank God. . .
p.s. I formed this theory after doing some reading about how neurons "communicate" with each other by forming cooperative groups--a handful of neurons forms a kind of standing wave of activity; there's even a mathematical analysis that uses coding theory, the symmetries of space and time and all that groovy stuff.
I do this rationalisation thing, because I can't help but ask myself what it is, although I also know that any theory will be a poor reflection of the real thing, and the real thing doesn't need a theory--I only think I do. Poor deluded me. ah well.
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The brain does talk to itself, both subconsciously, as in incorporating information, and consciously, as thoughts going back and forth to sort things out, or, sometimes, even the higher to the more primitive, such as "Why did you do that, you fool!"
In meditation all thoughts are removed by not attending to the parade and letting them pass on, ungrasped upon.
So, this is God. (Not really)
No, this is meditation, namely, concentration on the brain's inner workings, or turning the "senses' inward.SciWriter said:
If God = an experience you have when you meditate, can you prove that this God doesn't exist, and would that imply a proof that meditation doesn't exist either?
Perhaps it is better said to be introspection, since in meditation thoughts are gotten rid of, but we could take it as meditating over something as in meaning "pondering".
What's this "If" stuff assumption?
Good post that I can perhaps relate to something.
This infinite quantity spread of something over infinite space is not infinite at any one spot since it is infinitely spread and so there is still room to move, obviously, nor is is zero, since that cannot happen, so it is one, in universals units, since infinity times zero = one (unity), which is finite existence centered between infinity and zero.
The quality of this eternal state is everything possible, and that has already happened somewhere, for forever states are their own precursors, such as there having been no first star, as well as no first anything; yet, they still have a dependency on the lessor and more basic somethings, and the basic somethings are dependent on that there cannot be nothing.
This forced state of affairs is the closest to what could be called ‘God’, but it is the only way that things can be, and so not conscious but at least brute force creative, everything possible having to become, although this is not planning, nor for anything of particular design.
Hail to the new. Let us not overload the word ‘God’ but call it ‘totality’ or the ‘way things are’. There is no need to bow when it gets mentioned.
The Why of existence is that ‘nothing’ cannot be, and the How is that all the somethings must sum to zero. The What consists of the basic ‘sum-things’, with the Where being everywhere, the Then and the When being of change and motion of things, and the Who being life forms like us or better.
? It implies a testable conjecture, or hypothesis.
If __ is an experience you have when meditating, then when you meditate you experience __.
Please to fill in blanks with nice-sounding words. . .
OK, let us in on the results.
SciWriter said:
Could be a while, nobody seems to be able to decide what to fill in the blanks with.
What's up with that?
"If's" and such are always right and always wrong in their states of limbo.
If I started with something not ridiculous It wouldn't be a workable system. Belief implied or explicit of a "deity". We aren't "bound" by anything in the universe except our simple misunderstandings of it.
You think I'm being grandiose when I speak an objective truth or intelligent joke. 9 times outa 10. Modest Mouse
Here's another one.
Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku feels (as do I) that there are two kinds of nothing. First of all, there is the complete absence of absolutely everything that is (or isn't) conceivable. Then there is the perfect vacuum (the complete absence of all matter) that has a tendency to transform itself into matter temporarily. This is similar to the kind of nothing that physicists such as Victor Stenger are talking about when they suggest that the universe is the result of a statistically inevitable phase transition from nothing to something. Michio Kaku seems to believe that such a vacuum contains energy (the potential to do something) and is therefore not actual absolute nothingness.
God, therefore, is vacuum energy.
EDIT: In other words, God is the result of the impossibility of nothingness, and the universe is borrowed energy from God.
Are you all theists yet, or should I keep trying?
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Ah yeah it can . Asteroid the hemorrhoid comes a long and blasts the shit out of us sending massive debris clouds into space. Changes the mass of the earth and wa la a moments notice goes into play . Lets pray it don't happen in our moments notice of our life time . Whose with Me. My workable system of God is the natural laws that govern . It is only for us to discover what this god quality of natural laws are . Consider this < the laws exist whether we know what they are or not
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
What I wrote was, "You ask for "theories of how god could exist". I'm not entirely sure what a 'theory of how a chair could exist' would look like. What is 'existence' in the first place? What kind of conditions have to be met in order for even mundane things to exist?"
How would you go about producing a theory of how chairs, stones, or any common physical object could exist? What would such a theory address? What would it include?
If we aren't even clear about what your question means or what it is seeking in the simplest physical object cases, then what sense does does the question retain when it's applied to supposedly transcendent objects like gods?
Isn't this thread about producing a "theory of how [something] can exist"? It isn't about whether or not something exists, let alone about "proving" that something exists. (That problem with 'proof' again.) The question should be easiest to answer in the simplest and least contentious cases, before we try to extend it to more difficult problem cases.
I wrote: "If science describes physical reality and seeks to correlate physical events with other physical events as cause/effect etc., then what relevance could science possibly have to explaining the existence of something that isn't part of physical reality?"
That doesn't imply that god can't act in the physical world or that miracles are impossible. It does suggest that even if we could somehow determine that something analogous to causation forms part of "a theory of how god can exist", it wouldn't be the physical causation that links together physical events and it wouldn't fall within science's scope.
I don't believe in god. Why would I have a theory to account for the existence of something whose existence I don't believe in? That doesn't make sense. I'm not even sure whether the idea of a theory of how anything can exist makes a whole lot of sense at this point.
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deathrhapsody
Registered Member
God is logically valid (depending on what logic one used) but by the very definition is scientifically invalid (at least for anthropomorphic Abrahamic God). But then again, the definition of God is so obscure, it can even be scientifically valid if one is to define It in an extremely unorthodox way.