Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

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_Maksutov
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _Maksutov »

mikwut wrote:Hello Mak,

Yes idealism resonates a great deal with Eastern thought that is no secret, but it is found in Christian idealism and Jewish idealism as well. I'm still wondering if you can meet the Randi Challenge and save realism because pointing out resonating views with it doesn't provide any evidence against it.

mikwut


So I'm supposed to join in some supposed contest between realism and idealism? Because why? I don't have any problems with existing in the world. I don't have any problems that require your contest in their solution. You're welcome to solipsism as long as you don't reproduce or vote. :lol: Seriously, go hang out with the presuppositionalists, the heirs of Greg Bahnsen. They like to talk circles as long as someone else pays the bills. If they were paid by the word instead of by the accomplishment they would be rich indeed. Or you can argue about holons with Ken Wilber. None of it will be worth a pinch of pupshit to future generations. :wink:
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_mikwut
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _mikwut »

Mak,

I would point out to your strong aversion to anything "mystical", (or in your words "woo", Ken Wilbur etc.) as a reason against idealism that materialism is more mystical. The strongly objective realm of materialism is forever locked away from us and our experience it is mere abstaction. Never to be known and unknowable. Our only knowledge is found in our consciousness and objective reality only inferred therefrom. Where is your objective stopping point? Colors don't exist out there, they are created in your mind/brain. So a grey rock isn't grey. What is its solidity, where is it a thing that is no longer simply represented to you in your head? And I submit to you whatever you answer to that (physicalism) is more mystical and abstract than what I am arguing for.

No ontology in the history of humankind has been or is more metaphysical than materialism. Unlike all spiritual or religious ontologies – which postulate transcendent realms that can presumably be directly experienced the strongly objective realm of materialism is, by definition, forever outside experience.

Ultimate woo. You can't avoid it.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_mikwut
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _mikwut »

DrW,

Mikwut,

Thanks you for your response. You are correct, the term you used was "mental force" - not mind force.

However, I assume that your response would be the same had I used the term you did.

How can you rationalize your belief in a personal God within the context of the reality you describe?

If it is all in the mind, and of the mind, and there are no space filling fields or forces, how does an omnipotent and omniscient being who exists outside of space and time ever make it in there?


Before I answer I want to be clear that whatever my answer to this question it has no bearing on the discussion so far. If I say God is a burrito that doesn't change anything I have already argued, it simply shows I have gone off the rails at that point. (I understand you currently think I went off the rails long ago).

So my answer, God IS the there, he doesn't need to make it in there. God is being itself so the mind at large being postulated would be God. I have no guru insight deeply into this. Idealism for me simply is a paradigm for which I can find more fulfillment in my own being when it comes to spirituality. I am not trying to convert everyone.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_Maksutov
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _Maksutov »

mikwut wrote:Mak,

I would point out to your strong aversion to anything "mystical", (or in your words "woo", Ken Wilbur etc.) as a reason against idealism that materialism is more mystical. The strongly objective realm of materialism is forever locked away from us and our experience it is mere abstaction. Never to be known and unknowable. Our only knowledge is found in our consciousness and objective reality only inferred therefrom. Where is your objective stopping point? Colors don't exist out there, they are created in your mind/brain. So a grey rock isn't grey. What is its solidity, where is it a thing that is no longer simply represented to you in your head? And I submit to you whatever you answer to that (physicalism) is more mystical and abstract than what I am arguing for.

No ontology in the history of humankind has been or is more metaphysical than materialism. Unlike all spiritual or religious ontologies – which postulate transcendent realms that can presumably be directly experienced the strongly objective realm of materialism is, by definition, forever outside experience.

Ultimate woo. You can't avoid it.

You can festoon the world with labels, mikwut. It won't change what people do in laboratories and operating rooms because you're operating in a microverse, a subculture, a self referential activity by people who don't have to be accountable or produce anything. To me it's in the same category of virtual gaming: an ostensibly harmless activity, unproductive but diverting. :wink: You can discover layers within layers just like the Talmudists, and you can catalogue the most insubstantial, exalted and ethereal internal things like the Vedantists. I think it's a vital and interesting literature, just like the activities of the Surrealists and the psychedelicists, but after the visions wear off, you have to face what's left.

mikwut
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_mikwut
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _mikwut »

So I'm supposed to join in some supposed contest between realism and idealism? Because why? I don't have any problems with existing in the world. I don't have any problems that require your contest in their solution. You're welcome to solipsism as long as you don't reproduce or vote. :lol: Seriously, go hang out with the presuppositionalists, the heirs of Greg Bahnsen. They like to talk circles as long as someone else pays the bills. If they were paid by the word instead of by the accomplishment they would be rich indeed. Or you can argue about holons with Ken Wilber. None of it will be worth a pinch of pupshit to future generations. :wink:


It isn't solipsim, that's why they have different names for starters.

The challenge is directly related to our discussion that's why. If you can show the experiements of QM have not defeated realism you should be awarded a nobel prize. You seem so confident in realism I would assume that confidence rooted in strong arguments to meet that challenge.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_Maksutov
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _Maksutov »

mikwut wrote:Mak,

I would point out to your strong aversion to anything "mystical", (or in your words "woo", Ken Wilbur etc.) as a reason against idealism that materialism is more mystical. The strongly objective realm of materialism is forever locked away from us and our experience it is mere abstaction. Never to be known and unknowable. Our only knowledge is found in our consciousness and objective reality only inferred therefrom. Where is your objective stopping point? Colors don't exist out there, they are created in your mind/brain. So a grey rock isn't grey. What is its solidity, where is it a thing that is no longer simply represented to you in your head? And I submit to you whatever you answer to that (physicalism) is more mystical and abstract than what I am arguing for.

No ontology in the history of humankind has been or is more metaphysical than materialism. Unlike all spiritual or religious ontologies – which postulate transcendent realms that can presumably be directly experienced the strongly objective realm of materialism is, by definition, forever outside experience.

Ultimate woo. You can't avoid it.

mikwut


You can festoon the world with labels, mikwut. It won't change what people do in laboratories and operating rooms because you're acting in a microverse, a subculture, a self referential activity by people who don't have to be accountable or produce anything. To me it's in the same category of virtual gaming: an ostensibly harmless activity, unproductive but diverting. :wink: You can discover layers within layers just like the Talmudists, and you can catalogue the most insubstantial, exalted and ethereal internal things like the Vedantists. I think it's a vital and interesting literature, just like the activities of the Surrealists and the psychedelicists, but after the visions wear off, you have to face what's left. I've spent time with some of those things and don't regret it, but in the rear view mirror it can look like a bad love affair. :lol:
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_mikwut
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _mikwut »

Mak,

but after the visions wear off, you have to face what's left.


Were both making that same argument - what's left that we should ground everything in. Your just responding with emotion and not to the arguments - so what is left is still on the table.

What is it you propose a hallucination, a colorless, senseless, tasteless, soundless hunk of something or another?

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_Maksutov
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _Maksutov »

mikwut wrote:Mak,

but after the visions wear off, you have to face what's left.


Were both making that same argument - what's left that we should ground everything in. Your just responding with emotion and not to the arguments - so what is left is still on the table.

mikwut


I don't need emotion to make my case, I have whole civilizations as exhibits. You're still in your inner space. :lol:
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_huckelberry
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _huckelberry »

DrW wrote: Regardless of whether this universe is a simulation or not, the laws of physics apply in every region of the universe that we can observe and on every scale accessible to observation - from sub-atomic dimensions (10^-35) meters to astronomical dimensions (10^ 25 to 10^10^10^120) meters.

These laws of physics put a strict limit on the speed at which useful information can propagate. While the consequences of quantum entanglement (non-locality) can emerge instantaneously upon observation, it has been demonstrated that entanglement cannot be used to transmit useful information (so called quantum no communication theorem - consistent with Bell's inequality).

Assuming that the laws of physics do, in fact, apply in this universe, and superluminal communication is forbidden, then rapid communication with the Mormon God (who dwells a few light years away near Kolob) is just not possible.

Likewise, rapid (near contemporaneous) communication with a God that is "outside of space and time", as is confessed by the traditional Christian Nicene Creed, is simply not possible, again according to the laws of physics, or if you will, the rules of the simulation.

This same kind of constraint by the laws of physics that apply to the universe (physical or ideal / simulated) applies to many of the miracles and magical powers believed in as part and parcel of Christianity.

Just because a conscious mind imagines or believes it, does not make it so, even in a simulation.


to conversation midstream, Mikwut and Dr W,
I finally had time to get through the utube .sim theory 2016. That is the one under discussion I believe (much of this discussion is so oblique to the subject I do wonder if I watched the right one.

I am reasonable sure its intentions were theistic. The last individual Davis is a well known theist interested in these subjects. What I saw was a presentation of traditional theism such as presented by Aquinas represented in modern language. I was not sold on belief but it did allow reflection on Aquinas picture of the universe from a little bit of a different angel . It presented some of Aquinas's ideas which I find hard to swallow in ways which may make me more open minded about them.

In a sense I thought I was watching a restatement of the traditional proofs of God. Now as Aquinas noted these do not demonstrate the particulars of a Christian God, atonement resurrection new birth. Those things are additions by revelation.

What I am puzzled by Dr W is how you see the Christian God not just as undemonstated but as disproven. You see the Christian God ,understood as infinite, omnipresent, outside of space and time. as being unable to reach us. Such a God would be the source point equal distant from every point. At that location he is closer to your mind than your nose and mouth are. He would have no difficulty following your actions or communicating.

Of course I understand you do not believe that that Christian God is real. You are more inclined to see a deist God. I suspect that is more a result of the lack of an observed pattern of intervention from God than by any proof that such a God is not possible.
_mikwut
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Re: Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

Post by _mikwut »

Mak,

You think I'm in woo-land fair enough. I have produced the Randi challenge that realism has been all but falsified by current quantum physics. So I think you are.

I think you don't understand what's being discussed. Impasse. I'm interested in real discussion. I can have my mind changed but i like learning not being opinionated without evidence to death.

I hope you had great holiday weekend.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
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