h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, OK, R'man. You did say 'hand'.

No worries.

Any response to "No one acquires the truth by divine revelation"?

I query whether there is such a thing as divine revelation. If not then the above proposition is true.

Supposing there is such a thing, I can't think of an example which doesn't consist of orders, disapproval etc. These don't really seem to be truth-functional items. So once again, the proposition is true.

toxx

So on the question of the putative existence of "A person who doesn't have a body, is perfectly good, omniscient, omnipotent, outside time and space, creator and sustainer of whatever else there is" -- presumably there is no possibility of that, or at least of any knowledge of such a being without divine revelation?

Incredible non-sequitur there R'man. Sure we can know of that person without divine revelation, just as we can so know of the existence of the electron, for example.

The alternative would appear to be along the lines of: "I reveal myself, therefore I am." I'm somehow less happy with that than perhaps I ought to be.

toxx

Ah. You reach God by deduction. He stands up to Occam's Razor?

Most assuredly! Although induction comes into it too. We need suppose just the one entity, God, to explain everything. Being of unrestricted properties, He has no limitations to be explained by reference to other entities or factors. I can't think of a more Occam-compliant explanation.

Just think of the ontological implications of the standard physical model. Whence comes Planck's constant, the Second Law of Thermodynamics or the speed of light?

toxx

"I can't think of a more Occam-compliant explanation"

I can. The Freethinkers of the 18th century applied Occam's Razor ("Do not multiply entities unnecessarily", dear lurker) and decided God was not necessary. Berkeley applied it to Newtonian physics, especially Locke's account, and decided that God was necessary but substance (matter) was not.

I like Berkeley's argument, and it leads to your kind of theology: a person who doesn't have a body, is perfectly good, omniscient, omnipotent, outside time and space, creator and sustainer of whatever else there is. Trouble is, it is an inspiring image but not an explanation of anything. Rather it is a conversation-stopper, an admonition to stop asking questions and smell the magical coffee (which we only percieve through God's continued goodness).

We may be wrong to ask questions, or to expect answers, but it doesn't look as though we're going to stop.

Oh you're quite right R'man, God isn't necessary (although some claim that He is a necessary being). The point is that He is sufficient! Otherwise at least some other entities are just brute facts. These are the least Occam-compliant of entities. Explicable entities violate Occam less, if at all. Of course, God doesn't require an explanation in terms of time and space. Since He created them, such an explanation would be to put the cart before the horse.

toxx

Vestboy
It may be foolish to stick to your path in life if you know it to be wrong but it is more foolish to leave the path you believe to be right because others think it is too difficult.

birds of a feather flock together .....brats of a father kick together

Hi Toxx,

Now that this philosophical thread has become subject to exactly the same argument as the "GodForF " thread, we should tackle the topic here with more philosophical vigour, perhaps.

<> This sentence alone begs so many questions as to be philosophically useless. The basic statement, that God ( He) is sufficient....is effectively meaningless. In an earlier posting, you agreeed that "He" must be omniscient etc.etc., and outside of time and space, and yet "good," as well. This simply does not add up in any logical philosophical sense. But you surely realise that.

Dualistic qualities, such as maleness, divinity, sufficiency, goodness etc. are by definition bound within time and space, within the realm of logical opposites and qualities. The very questions that lead to speculation as to the origin and nature of the universe, how it "got there in the first place", whether it was created, by what or whom and so on, arise within minds which are bound by such notions as causality, duration and similar time/space functions.

Outside of the temporal, i.e., within the eternal, unbounded etc., these dualistic manifestations cannot, by definition, apply. It is therefore pointless to attribute any qualities, good or bad, whatsoever to the Divine. Hence the Buddhist insistence that ultimately "form is emptiness and emptiness is form..." (Heart Sutra)

The most we can say is that there is being, (for the time being), and with Wittgenstein, if we are going to pretend to talk logically, we cannot talk logically about the Divine. We must pass over in silence. Or admit that our conversation is at best a shadow of the reality ( which is true of all conversation anyhow.) Meanwhile, with the mystics and the more honest physicists/cosmologists we can intuit that the sheer fact of there being something ( ie a perceptible universe with perceiving awarenesses ) is a miraculous mystery of such awesome proportions we can only gasp in wonder at the splendour of it.

R'man is away until Tuesday, so we will not have the benefit of his input for a few days.

Cheers,

Chaiwallah \|/

Yo Chai. Back now from shopping with bike and backpack. I won't be able to answer all your points in one message, but I'll make a start.

<<> This sentence alone begs so many questions as to be philosophically useless. The basic statement, that God ( He) is sufficient....is effectively meaningless.>

OK, I'll expand on the second point: He is sufficient to explain the existence of everything else. Do list the questions that are begged so I can respond.

As to God's necessity: we must distinguish between 'de re' and 'de dicto' necessity. OK, God is 'de re' necessary if He exists. I concede that. I was hoping to provoke discussion. It makes no 'de re' sense for Him to be contingent on something else.

As to God's 'de dicto' necessity; I don't like the idea. It seems to me that it's logically possible that nothing, not even God, might have existed. This would make Him 'de dicto' contingent which I like even less than 'de dicto' necessary!

To be continued shortly ..................

toxx

< In an earlier posting, you agreeed that "He" must be omniscient etc.etc., and outside of time and space, and yet "good," as well. This simply does not add up in any logical philosophical sense. But you surely realise that.

Dualistic qualities, such as maleness, divinity, sufficiency, goodness etc. are by definition bound within time and space, within the realm of logical opposites and qualities.>

Re the second para, so why not 'necessity'? I don't see how (eg) goodness is 'bound within time and space'. However, I don't deny God's having acted (if not continuing to do so) in the spatio-temporal universe. It's up to Him whether He chooses to be there. In a sense, it's traditional that He can be *both* on Earth and in 'heaven'. So He can be in eternity and yet do good things in time and space.

I don't take W's dictum to be all that significant. After all, it starts: "Whereof we cannot .....", not: "There are things of which we cannot .....". Without an existential claim, his rule of silence is possibly inapplicable.

toxx

(raises hand above the chatter)

... I'd like to join.

SupremeEarthworm (U811024)

"Wisemen learn more from fools, than fool from the wise."- Fortune Cookie

(I think I used the same quote for RQG, but hey it works... )

Do you guys know you have two versions of this thread? One with conversations at the bottom and one without... Its very perplexing, and also very much a nusance if one intends to get here...

Does Quantum Theory say goodbye to logic?

1 + 1 is now probably 2.

In "A Brief History of Time" a particle is descibed which must be turned round twice (720 degrees) before you see the original image again.

Doesn't this undermine most 'logical' arguments, especially about what a creator could or couldn't do?

My understanding is that Quantum Theory is largely counter-intuitive, and definitely non-logical. After all, it also happily embraces particles inter-acting with each other from parallel universes ( which may not even exist.)

That which we call "God" is that which transcends dualistic logic, but which incorporates the wholeness of both manifest and unmanifest reality ( ie both vacuum states and excited states of energy.)

Cheers,

C \|/

What I'm trying to say is that there can be no "logical" arguments about what any putative creator can or cannot do, as the nature of the creation, even in quantum cosmology, transcends/defies logical explanation. The fact is that the cosmologists cannot answer the basic question "why" anything exists at all. Saying "God is responsible" is merely to say we still don't know why.

C \|/

Why? That indicates a motive/purpose doesn't it.
I've had discussions like this before mainly on purpose v function.
If there is an afterlife should questions be about Why is there an afterlife or How can I get into the afterlife?

Chai.



Oh, I think we can work out 'why'; although not 'how'. I also think we can answer the last 'what' in the following.



Given the Theistic assumption that God is perfectly good and omnipotent, the answers are derivable. This is the task of the philosopher and theologian. The 'how' question is for science. We can approach answers, but apparently never quite reach them.

toxx