What is God - Who is God

Get Email Updates Email this Topic Print this Page

saiboimushi
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 05:49 am
@Aedes,
Aedes wrote:
I think this is a sort of moot discussion. There's no reason to think that an ALL MUST be infinitely divisible if it consists in material things. A quark or a gluon is not necessarily divisible -- you may speak of or conceive of half a quark, but that doesn't mean it's an ACTUAL division in nature. And the universe, even if it is ALL, may consist of a FINITE number of subatomic particles. So you can theoretically account for 100% of the mass in the universe and 100% of the discrete, indivisible, material units in the universe, even if the universe has nothing outside of it.

But what makes this moot is our understanding of Heisenberg uncertainty, which means that you cannot quantify the universe whether it's infinite or finite -- you can only speak of probabilities and not 'things' if you divide everything down to its simplest elements.


I agree with you wholeheartedly, Aedes. It would not be philosophical to think that something "must" be this or that. Hence, there is no reason to think that Heisenberg's principle must be true. We must amputate our faith in it, and hope to survive the operation--assuming any part of us remains. Only then will we have a chance to understand anything. (And what better pharmakon could be prescribed for our ignorance, but philosophy itself?)

So two questions. First, What is the difference between a conception of half a quark, and an actual half a quark? And second, how can we know whether we have accounted for 100% of the universe's mass and quantity? I long to hear what you have to say.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 06:26 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:

I just do not see the value in saying "apple is true", even in some existential fashion.


I personally wouldn't say it that way. I would say, "Apples are a part of truth." As to value, I am speechless, for the question of value hadn't entered my mind until now. An excellent question it is.

Quote:

A declarative statement would be a claim. I have a cat, for example. That I have a cat is either true or false; I'm just not sure how cat is true or false.


A cat is true because it's real, real because it's true. But no one has to call it "true" or "truth." The world can leave it to eccentrics like me to call it that. If propositions are true by corresponding to reality, then I will not deny reality the honorable and reasonable title of Truth.

Quote:

Then I think you should reconsider the term incompatibility. Just because we can pick out objective differences in two things does not mean that those two things are incompatible. We can differentiate between hydrogen and oxygen, yet they are compatible enough to form water.


This is a great example. What is the difference between hydrogen and oxygen?
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 02:08 pm
@Justin,
You can substitute the word truth for the word real if you like. Just seems misleading to me.

The difference between hydrogen and oxygen? I'm no scientists, and I got a C in high school chemistry, but I would imagine both have different compositions and different atomic weights. But that's the point, they are different yet compatible.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 02:33 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Quote:
You can substitute the word truth for the word real if you like. Just seems misleading to me.


Yes, I will happily take that liberty, being the dreamer and eccentric that I am. But am i right to take it? I don't know. Smile A dreamer is not necessarily a true believer.

Quote:
The difference between hydrogen and oxygen? I'm no scientists, and I got a C in high school chemistry, but I would imagine both have different compositions and different atomic weights. But that's the point, they are different yet compatible.


You don't want to know how poorly I did in chemistry. But let me rephrase my question: Are hydrogen and oxygen made of the same stuff, or different stuff? Because if they are made of the same stuff, how can they be different? But like I suggested, I am not exactly Nobel Prize material lol

My goal in saying all of this stuff, in asking all of these inane questions, is not to argue a point (how vulgar!); rather, it is--believe it or not--simply to ask inane questions (how noble!). No belief should prevent us from asking any question (belief is stupid). And the fear of looking stupid? 'Tis nothing when compared with the fear of being stupid.

Yet if you aren't that smart, it's probably for the best. For really intelligent people tend to believe that they know all kinds of things, and therefore they can be among the least philosophical of interlocutors. Irony is sweet.
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 02:59 pm
@Justin,
Quote:
Yes, I will happily take that liberty, being the dreamer and eccentric that I am. But am i right to take it? I don't know. http://www.philosophyforum.com/forum/../images/smilies/smile.gif A dreamer is not necessarily a true believer.


No, I do not think the statement "apple is true" has any meaning. We can imagine what you mean, "it is true that apples are real", and this later statement makes sense to me.

Quote:
Are hydrogen and oxygen made of the same stuff, or different stuff? Because if they are made of the same stuff, how can they be different?


Sure, they are fundamentally composed of the same stuff, or nonstuff, or what have you. But they can still be different. If I cut my hair today, I am different than I was yesterday because I have rearranged my hair.

Everything in the universe is fundamentally compose of the same stuff. Yet we can tell the difference between a black hole and our earth. These distinctions are drawn from objective differences. Think about cats, for example. All cats are cats, but we can see that some are this color, others that color, they have different personalities, ect, but still they are all cats.

Quote:

My goal in saying all of this stuff, in asking all of these inane questions, is not to argue a point; rather, it is--believe it or not--simply to ask inane questions. No belief should prevent us from asking any question.


Eventually I'll contradict myself in such a way that I can't reconcile the two offending statements. In the meantime, ask away.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 03:03 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Quote:
Sure, they are fundamentally composed of the same stuff, or nonstuff, or what have you. But they can still be different. If I cut my hair today, I am different than I was yesterday because I have rearranged my hair.


So it is form, and not substance, that differentiates all things?
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 03:11 pm
@Justin,
Quote:
So it is form, and not substance, that differentiates all things?


Sort of. Fundamentally, and I think science agrees with me, everything is composed of the same stuff. We differentiate between things, or apparent things, by noticing objective differences. We might call those objective differences form, but I'm not sure if these differences are some inherent form, or simply the way humans tend to organize and differentiate out of convenience.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 04:19 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Quote:
We might call those objective differences form, but I'm not sure if these differences are some inherent form, or simply the way humans tend to organize and differentiate out of convenience.


I'm not sure either Sad

Also, I think you should know that I have no intention of making you contradict yourself. I'm not as smart as Socrates: I can't even lead myself into a contradiction. I just want to satisfy my own curiosity about things, not necessarily convert anyone to Philosophy.

But then again, if I don't convert anyone, who can I philosophize with? Ah, I know the answer: anyone who will listen.
 
ogden
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 04:52 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
hello.

(EDITED 4-5-08)- I am arguing in oposition to the idea that :
1.)God is a sungular component truth
2.)All substance is a sungularity, namely God

Can something exist and have no physical properties? Fictional fabrications, or intangables like fear or love which exist only in concept (without physical properties). So then concepts exist in a diferent mode than physicality. They may be made of (physical) sungular compnent truths but put into a composit that is false or at least a non existant concept. But can I concieve of any singular component truth that does'nt exist? No, because it would not be a component truth if indeed it did not exist, right?

Now it is my turn to drop the G bomb:). I suspect that the reason for reducing averything down to one substance is to show that God exist in the physical mode. It could be said that if God were to exist in physicality He could be ALL THINGS and therefore transend meer concept. So seeming to be specifically absent God is actually ALL THINGS.

I like this argument, but I would have to say that it still requires belief because it is a concept. ALL THINGS must be reduced to one substance in order for it/God to become the modality of singular component truth, and still it is a leap of faith to call that one substance God (in my humble opinion).

ALL THINGS = ONE SUBSTANCE
ONE SUBSTANCE = GOD
ALL THINGS = GOD

I believe God is a concept and a phenomenon revealed through revilation requiring only faith and is therefore above reason and empericle proof.

THINGS are diferentiated by form, and also duration, and relation, and mass, and so on. So What. Without distinction there is only meaningless ether.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 05:03 pm
@ogden,
ogden wrote:

Can something exist and have no physical properties? Fictional fabrications, or intangables like fear or love which exist only in concept (without physical properties). So then concepts exist in a diferent mode than physicality. They may be made of (physical) sungular compnent truths but put into a composit that is false or at least a non existant concept. But can I concieve of any singular component truth that does'nt exist? No, because it would not be a component truth if indeed it did not exist, right?


You're right: it would not be a truth if it did not exist. And I like the question you are raising, viz., whether concepts or ideas have substance. It may be the case that ideas have no substance apart from the mind that conceives them, making them essentially the manifestation of mind, and hence possibly identical to mind. Could mind be its thoughts? Could mind be thinking itself, and not a "thing" that "thinks"?

Quote:
Now it is my turn to drop the G bomb:). I suspect that the reason for reducing averything down to one substance is to show that God exist in the physical mode. It could be said that if God were to exist in physicality He could be ALL THINGS and therefore transend meer concept. So seeming to be specifically absent God is actually ALL THINGS.


Here's one of my big concerns right now: is the All reduceable to one substance, or more than one? In other words, if there are atoms (I mean this in the ancient sense of indivisible, fundamental particles), are all of these atoms qualitatively and quantitatively identical, or can they be classified into categories? My intuition tells me that substance itself cannot differ from itself--i.e., that there cannot be more than one substance. But how can one prove this?

Here's an indirectly related issue: the atomic "elements" of the universe (hydrogen, helium, oxygen, curium, einsteinium, etc.) are all composed of the same subatomic "elements" (protons, neutrons, electrons), which in turn are all composed of the same quantum "elements" (quarks and stuff). Yet if these "elements" all have the same stuff, but just have it in different proportions--i.e., if the elements differ only in terms of quantity--then whence do their specific qualities arise? Is quality merely a function of quantity?
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 4 Apr, 2008 06:53 pm
@Justin,
Quote:
Can something exist and have no physical properties? Fictional fabrications, or intangables like fear or love which exist only in concept (without physical properties). So then concepts exist in a diferent mode than physicality. They may be made of (physical) sungular compnent truths but put into a composit that is false or at least a non existant concept. But can I concieve of any singular component truth that does'nt exist? No, because it would not be a component truth if indeed it did not exist, right?


What do you mean by thing and what do you mean by physical property?

Do love and fear exist without physical properties? Are they not results of a physical process, ie, some process occurring in the brain?

Though I think you are right about non existent concepts. Maybe there are such things, because we have not thought of them, but we surely cannot give and example because to do so would be to conceive of them.

Quote:
I like this argument, but I would have to say that it still requires belief because it is a concept. ALL THINGS must be reduced to one substance in order for it/God to become the modality of singular component truth, and still it is a leap of faith to call that one substance God (in my humble opinion).


Why would we call everything God? Wouldn't it just be everything?

Quote:
I believe God is a concept and a phenomenon revealed through revilation requiring only faith and is therefore above reason and empericle proof.


Requiring only faith? Then why do not more of the faithful have such revelations? Psychedelic experiences from LSD, for example, are no different than episodes of revelation described by mystics from just about every tradition. They obvious do not require faith, but only that one ingest some substance.
And what of God is a phenomenon; I thought you said God was everything. Is He always everything, or only everything when this particular phenomenon occurs?
But if God is some phenomenon, then isn't the experience of said phenonmenon empirical evidence of God (you used the word proof even though there is no such thing as empirical proof, while there is logical proof).
Anyways, how could God be above reason and empirical investigation? Didn't you use these very tools to arrive at the conclusion that everything is one thing, namely God?

Quote:
THINGS are diferentiated by form, and also duration, and relation, and mass, and so on. So What. Without distinction there is only meaningless ether.


How is the unorganized meaningless? Does reality change because we humans call things this and that?
 
ogden
 
Reply Sat 5 Apr, 2008 06:14 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Hey Didymos.

Let me preface this response by noting that Siabiomushi and I had some earlier posts that revealed an argument that ALL is one substance, and that substance is God, which I contested (see posts #34-#45, page 4 & 5). I'm sorry if my thoughts were ambiguosly in that context.

Didymos Thomas wrote:
What do you mean by thing and what do you mean by physical property?


I mean if there is no physicality then it doesn't exist.

Quote:
Do love and fear exist without physical properties? Are they not results of a physical process, ie, some process occurring in the brain?


Good point!

Quote:
Though I think you are right about non existent concepts. Maybe there are such things, because we have not thought of them, but we surely cannot give and example because to do so would be to conceive of them.


Let me use another example, SPACE. Space doent exist it is a place between things that do exist so it is a concept of something that has no physicality. It is a modality of non-existance, yes?

Quote:
Why would we call everything God? Wouldn't it just be everything?


This is the antithesis of my view.

Quote:
Requiring only faith? Then why do not more of the faithful have such revelations? Psychedelic experiences from LSD, for example, are no different than episodes of revelation described by mystics from just about every tradition. They obvious do not require faith, but only that one ingest some substance.


My point is that knowledge of God is not emperical. As for drug induced hallucinations, the trip requires only ingestion but interpretation of the results to spiritual truth require faith.

Quote:
And what of God is a phenomenon; I thought you said God was everything. Is He always everything, or only everything when this particular phenomenon occurs?
But if God is some phenomenon, then isn't the experience of said phenonmenon empirical evidence of God (you used the word proof even though there is no such thing as empirical proof, while there is logical proof).


Again, I don't believ God exists outside of the mode of a nonexistant concept. You are correct though about phenomenon. I used the wrong words to convey my intended meaning. I was trying to say that God is often the infered causality of phenomenon because they are beyond our explination.

Quote:
Anyways, how could God be above reason and empirical investigation? Didn't you use these very tools to arrive at the conclusion that everything is one thing, namely God?


No, I didn't, sorry my missleading you to that conclusion:o.

Quote:
How is the unorganized meaningless? Does reality change because we humans call things this and that?


Unorganized is what my room looks like. It is a caotic assebleage of things that could be differentiated if I had time. If I boil everything into a spup of one substance (including my body) where nothing can be differentiated then I think there is no order and no meaning. So it is indeed order, and relation, and all of our other distinctions that brings meaning (imo). I am responding to the praposed monism that the universe is one substance, a sigularity. I can only reduce it to a plurality of existance and nonexistance, the later being an unrealized potential that existance comes from.
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Sat 5 Apr, 2008 04:11 pm
@Justin,
Quote:
I mean if there is no physicality then it doesn't exist.


What is it? I thought you said everything is one thing.

Quote:
Let me use another example, SPACE. Space doent exist it is a place between things that do exist so it is a concept of something that has no physicality. It is a modality of non-existance, yes?


Space. But doesn't space take up space in reality, and therefore have some physical property?

Quote:
My point is that knowledge of God is not emperical.


Then how do we know of God? You say this requires faith, and that with faith, we can have some sort of experience of God. How is that experience not empirical support for God?

Quote:
As for drug induced hallucinations, the trip requires only ingestion but interpretation of the results to spiritual truth require faith.


I don't think this requires faith at all. Regardless of spiritual background, atheists included, people who have such experiences tend to report a sense of oneness and other spiritual realizations occurring while under the influence of LSD.

In any case, if faith is all that is required to have an experience of God, then more practitioners should have such experiences, and such experiences should constitute empirical evidence for God.

Quote:
Again, I don't believ God exists outside of the mode of a nonexistant concept.


What is a nonexistent concept?
 
ogden
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 07:41 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Quote:
Saiboimushi- To me God is the truth, whatever truth is. He is all that really exists.


THIS IS NOT MY POSITION, even if it is what I wrote in my post. I was trying to show that it was NOT logical.

I DO NOT THINK GOD IS EVERYTHING!

Again in post no. # 37 Saiboimushi-
Quote:
All that exist must exist: there must be an all, so far as I can see. This all cannot have anything outside of it, or exist apart from other thing, or else it would not be all.




1) That there is NOT a singular (ALL) because I believe in the possibility of NOTHINGNESS. That means that there are two modalities existence and nonexistence. Now if you say that nothingness is a thing that is included in ALL, I say that is illogical. Plurality is my position.

2) You say space exists? Perhaps as a concept or condition of area between THINGS. Does zero exist? How about negative three? These are not things that are real outside of their being concepts.

3) Didymos you ask about my idea of a nonexistent concept. What I meant was a concept of nonexistence. I do NOT believe that everything I conceive must be existent in a physical modality. Some thing I conceive of can exist ONLY AS A CONCEPT. The argument that God exist because I can conceive Him could mean that He exist only in concept and not in physicality/reality.

Does mind exist? If you say yes, then show me a mind. What is the physicality of mind, brain? Are you your brain?


Do I think mind exists? YES, but not in a physical mode. It is a phenomenon created by the brain and its consciousness. It (the mind) is a phenomenon. I mean that one of the definitions of a phenomenon is that which appears real to the senses, regardless of whether its underlying existence is proved or its nature understood.

That is precisely how I believe God exists! I do not see God as a singular component truth but as a concept that is a compound formed from qualities that stem from our own consciousness.

Again, sorry for the confusion:o.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 02:46 pm
@ogden,
Quote:
Saiboimushi- I know you are laughing at my folly because reading my posts must resemble someone falling down on Americas Funniest Videos.Smile


Yes, but the video montage of me walking into a sliding glass door 13 times over a two week period was the $100,000 Grand Prize winner. Your folly is no match for mine.

I'm almost tempted to go along with your argument that nothingness can exist. But the obstacle that prevents me from catching up to you is my current idea of nothingness, expressed in this potentially fallacious syllogism:

1. Every thing that exists is something.
2. Nothing is not something.
3. Therefore, nothing is not a thing that exists.

I bet there are like 9 different fallacies in this one syllogism, but I only got a B in logic, and that was about 8 years ago, so it's hard for me to tell. But what do you think, Ogden? How am I going astray?
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 05:09 pm
@Justin,
Thanks Ogden, though, you do not give me enough credit. I'm at least partially responsible for being confused.

Quote:
1) That there is NOT a singular (ALL) because I believe in the possibility of NOTHINGNESS. That means that there are two modalities existence and nonexistence. Now if you say that nothingness is a thing that is included in ALL, I say that is illogical. Plurality is my position.


But nothing isn't something, as you point out, so how is there anything more than existence? Wouldn't what is real be everything as nothing is, well , nothing?

Quote:
2) You say space exists? Perhaps as a concept or condition of area between THINGS. Does zero exist? How about negative three? These are not things that are real outside of their being concepts.


How are some things not real outside of concepts? Take, for example, a rock. It is only a rock because I call it a rock, but that which I call a rock still exists even if I do not know it.

Quote:
3) Didymos you ask about my idea of a nonexistent concept. What I meant was a concept of nonexistence. I do NOT believe that everything I conceive must be existent in a physical modality. Some thing I conceive of can exist ONLY AS A CONCEPT. The argument that God exist because I can conceive Him could mean that He exist only in concept and not in physicality/reality.


Then we need to ask 'what are concepts?'

If we cannot conceive of anything without a mind, and if the mind is a function of the brain, then concepts are fundamentally physical. Are they not?

Quote:
Does mind exist? If you say yes, then show me a mind. What is the physicality of mind, brain? Are you your brain?


I think mind does exist, yes. As for showing you a mind, well, electrons exist, but I cannot show you one. Minds exist as functions of our brains; this seems to correlate with what science has to say about the brain and brain functions.
And sure, everything that is most essentially "me" is fundamentally my brain. Then again, you have to remember I reject the notion of some static self.

Quote:
Do I think mind exists? YES, but not in a physical mode. It is a phenomenon created by the brain and its consciousness. It (the mind) is a phenomenon. I mean that one of the definitions of a phenomenon is that which appears real to the senses, regardless of whether its underlying existence is proved or its nature understood.


Isn't consciousness a function of the brain, though? You say mind is the result of the brain, but then claim that mind is not physical. But how can something physical produce something entirely non-physical?
 
ogden
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 05:13 pm
@saiboimushi,
Hi Siaboimushi!

I neve took logic so I guess my ideas are illogical and I should rethink them. Darn:D.

I do see the paradox in my position that nothing exists but as nothing. Wheeew, this is a tough one. But is it not paradoxical to say that nothing exists as a thing, then it could no longer be nothing could it?
 
ogden
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 05:31 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:


Isn't consciousness a function of the brain, though? You say mind is the result of the brain, but then claim that mind is not physical. But how can something physical produce something entirely non-physical?


I don't know. I guess my argument falls short. I just have this notion that at one point in time "I" did NOT exist, and then I did, and soon enough I will again not exist. So for me it is hard to let go of the idea of nonexistance. To say I will exist in nonexistance seems wrong somehow:o.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 05:48 pm
@ogden,
Quote:
But is it not paradoxical to say that nothing exists as a thing, then it could no longer be nothing could it?


I would argue that that statement is paradoxical, yes. But were you making that statement or was I? I don't even know anymore--too many posts and not enough gin.
 
vajrasattva
 
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2008 05:53 pm
@Justin,
I'm not saying that nothing exists I'm saying that nothing exists outside of cause and effect and impermanence. And since their is no first cause logically everything is just empty appearances interpreted by the mind as having intrinsic existance
 
 

 
Copyright © 2024 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.05 seconds on 12/13/2024 at 03:51:19