The Physiology of Teleology

[_Mercury]

Yep, and monkeys are being creative when they defecate in their hands and throw it too.

Then make sure you wash your hands before you eat Mercury.

If one were to apply the title of monkey I would have to tag you with it...maybe you didn't get that in my post.

[_Analytics]

Hi Cog,

In case you missed it, you said,

Meaning is always there for God, but for us as mortals, we must have an organized, coherent created order with which to interact for such meaning to be manifest. Beyond that, you've essentially got it. [/b]

Could you clarify this? I thought the question was about the existence of meaning, not whether or not the meaning is manifest (I.e. readily perceived). If for whatever reason a mortal found himself without an organized, coherent created order, would the ultimate purpose of the universe cease existing, or would it merely become invisible?[/quote]

[_Coggins7]

I

nfinity is a line? You mean time? Sounds like you haven't thought the possibilities out.
You sound like you accept the notion of absolute time (contra relativity).
Do you think that the spacetime continuum is Aritotolean? Galilean? Lorentzian?

Infinity is in-finite time, a forward motion of time on into the future whose leading edge continues indefinitely. If that movement goes in the opposite direction, from the point of origin and on into the past indefinite, then one faces eternity. Existence has no end point, but no point of origin either. Whether time has an end or not is somewhat superfluous, as existence continues regardless. No, time is not absolute, at least in our universe. In others?

I accept relativity theory, but this only says that the rate at which time moves forward changes relative to the speed at which an observer is traveling. Eternity is, of course, outside of time, but I'm not sure this cancels the concept of infinity. A point can keep expanding indefinitely even its not being measured. In other words, one could still mark time if one wanted to (someone living in the Celestial Kingdom 19 billion billion years from now, could still, if asked, say "I've been here 19 billion, billion years" even though his perceptual frame of reference is timeless. He could do this because other phenomena still exist outside of that eternal frame of reference, and nothing prevents such a being from being aware of those relative time/space relationships. God, in LDS theology, is not "trapped" in his eternal frame of reference. He is aware of the other relative time based reference frames)

And just so you know, I know you're doing nothing more than playing with words and logic here and that you don't intend this argument to really go anywhere, nor do you intend on actually trying to understand LDS theology with any degree of open mindedness to the possibility of discovering some concepts that might at least stimulate your imagination and generate some new, original thinking on your part and open up some new possibilities other than those you have normatively assumed to be true about the world

Just so you know.

[_Coggins7]

Hi Cog,

In case you missed it, you said,

Meaning is always there for God, but for us as mortals, we must have an organized, coherent created order with which to interact for such meaning to be manifest. Beyond that, you've essentially got it. [/b]

Could you clarify this? I thought the question was about the existence of meaning, not whether or not the meaning is manifest (I.e. readily perceived). If for whatever reason a mortal found himself without an organized, coherent created order, would the ultimate purpose of the universe cease existing, or would it merely become invisible?

[/quote]


What I'm trying to say here (I think), is that God, being a perfect mind, and having a perfect knowledge of the purpose and meaning of existence, understands those concepts irrespective of any other frame of reference. Our universe was at one time, a chaotic mass of unorganized, incoherent matter and energy. Now, I'm not saying that meaning did not exist for this mass. Meaning is still emergent, or imminent, in such phenomena, but God's creative activity is required to actualize that emergent potential and manifest it as an organized, lawful, systemic cosmos.

Since other worlds and cosmoses have always existed, there is always a template for the next. Hence God does not create meaning, but, meaning is only emergent, or potential, until matter and energy are organized and constituted such that a lawful, coherent whole emerges. I should say that this is the case for any particular universe. The template, and hence, the meaning associated with that template, has always existed.

[_Coggins7]

If one were to apply the title of monkey I would have to tag you with it...maybe you didn't get that in my post.

None of your posts are of any relevance to anything Mercury, so who cares?

[_Analytics]

What I'm trying to say here (I think), is that God, being a perfect mind, and having a perfect knowledge of the purpose and meaning of existence, understands those concepts irrespective of any other frame of reference. Our universe was at one time, a chaotic mass of unorganized, incoherent matter and energy. Now, I'm not saying that meaning did not exist for this mass. Meaning is still emergent, or imminent, in such phenomena, but God's creative activity is required to actualize that emergent potential and manifest it as an organized, lawful, systemic cosmos.

Since other worlds and cosmoses have always existed, there is always a template for the next. Hence God does not create meaning, but, meaning is only emergent, or potential, until matter and energy are organized and constituted such that a lawful, coherent whole emerges. I should say that this is the case for any particular universe. The template, and hence, the meaning associated with that template, has always existed.

Are Gods capable of exercising any creativity as they goes about organizing universes? In other words, if a God was creating a universe, and for a very coherent and well-defined reason decided to do it a little differently than the dictates of the template, would meaning not exist in that universe?

For example, Lucifer’s plan probably strayed from the template. Presumably, God had the power to do it Lucifer’s way—he could have chosen that plan. If he would have done that, would the universe he created still had meaning, or would it be meaningless because it was outside of the eternal template?

[_Mercury]

None of your posts are of any relevance to anything Mercury, so who cares?

You act as if you speak from a position of authority. Do you honestly believe that your laughable pseudo philosophical ideas are taken seriously by those with even half a brain? Instead they relate more to something one would encounter with the rantings of a urine soaked street preacher.

[_Coggins7]

Are Gods capable of exercising any creativity as they goes about organizing universes? In other words, if a God was creating a universe, and for a very coherent and well-defined reason decided to do it a little differently than the dictates of the template, would meaning not exist in that universe?

For example, Lucifer’s plan probably strayed from the template. Presumably, God had the power to do it Lucifer’s way—he could have chosen that plan. If he would have done that, would the universe he created still had meaning, or would it be meaningless because it was outside of the eternal template?

I think I probably wasn't clear. The "template" is the fundamental meaning for which the universe is created (teleology). That meaning is God's work and glory, which is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". In this sense, the template cannot be altered, for doing so would be, for all intents and purposes,a sin; a form of evil with respect to his children, and if God were to sin, the scriptures tell us that he would "cease to be God" upon those terms.

That universe (Satan's) would still have meaning, but would foul the entire plan of salvation--the very reason for the existence of the universe in the first place. There would have still been meaning (Satan's plan means a abrogation of free will), but at that point, the whole exercise would have been pointless.

Soviet Russia, Castro's Cuba, and Nazi Germany all have meaning. Evil and depravity have meaning, as long as you don't accept Richard Dawkin's view of the universe.

[_Analytics]

I think I probably wasn't clear. The "template" is the fundamental meaning for which the universe is created (teleology). That meaning is God's work and glory, which is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". In this sense, the template cannot be altered, for doing so would be, for all intents and purposes,a sin; a form of evil with respect to his children, and if God were to sin, the scriptures tell us that he would "cease to be God" upon those terms.

That universe (Satan's) would still have meaning, but would foul the entire plan of salvation--the very reason for the existence of the universe in the first place. There would have still been meaning (Satan's plan means a abrogation of free will), but at that point, the whole exercise would have been pointless.

Soviet Russia, Castro's Cuba, and Nazi Germany all have meaning. Evil and depravity have meaning, as long as you don't accept Richard Dawkin's view of the universe.

A pointless exercise with meaning? Isn't that a contradiction?

It sounds like you are saying that according to your paradigm, intrinsic meaning exists in "the template", and is manifest by various agents, including God, communitsts, and Nazis. Things that follow God's plan have meaning, and things that rebel against his plan have meaning. Does anything orthogonal to God's plan have meaning?

[_grayskull]

1. God did not create meaning. The Restored Gospel implies that the central, overarching truth about reality is existence itself. Existence qua existence is the fundamental reality, and there is no other. That is to say, nothing can ever not exist if by "not exist" we mean an absolute ontological negation. Matter, energy, and intelligence will always exist and, most importantly, have always existed. In this sense, Gospel cosmology deals only with the concept of infinity as an aspect of the whole. The Gospel deals primarily with eternity.

That's not very clear. What is "meaning"? And how does the necessity of matter etc. existing ensure meaning?