I think it's a fools' task to try to speak for God. Unless, one has an unassailable truth behind them, one that is testable, in the falsifiable sense of the phrase. So far, one can believe in the rightness of religious texts but its a matter of subjective analysis. Try admitting that we don't know and then start with a conjecture. Like Greg Benford, retired physicist and scifi writer. This is what comes of invoking a physicist in the search for spiritual answes. Needless to say, I like it (subjective again).A description of the Omega Point as mechanism.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/benford20140930 Physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler have pointed out that a new source of energy—so-called “shear-energy”—would become available if the universe expanded at different rates in different directions. This shearing of space-time itself could power the diaphanous electron-positron plasmas forever, if the imbalance in directions persists. To harness it, life (whatever its form) would have to build “engines” that worked on the expansion of the universe itself. Such ideas imply huge structures the size of galaxies, yet thin and able to stretch, as the space-time they are immersed in swells faster along one axis than another. This motor would work like a set of elastic bands that stretch and release, as the universal expansion proceeds. Only very ambitious life that has mastered immense scales could thrive. They would seem like Gods to us. As well, our universe could eventually be crushed by denser material not yet in view. Or the smoothing out of mass on large scales may not continue indefinitely. There could be a new range of structures, on scales far larger than the part of the universe that we have so far seen. Physics can tell us nothing of these, as yet. These ideas will probably loom larger as we learn more about the destiny of all visible Creation. -----Original Message----- From: Samiya Illias <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 8:42 am Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore? On 14-Oct-2014, at 3:28 pm, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: On 12 Oct 2014, at 18:33, Samiya Illias wrote: On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: On 10 Oct 2014, at 20:37, Samiya Illias wrote: On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 10:43 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: On 10 Oct 2014, at 00:21, John Mikes wrote: Samiya, I did not participate in the sequence about your wisdom on the list, because you did not refer to my question: WHAT, WHEN, and HOW did it occur that you first thought of the existence of God? (I suggested tha it was your Mummy and at your age as a baby when you were taught to pray, giving you the overtone of your thinking. Later on you may have expanded into the wisdom your father was studting.) I am not a Bible-scholar, consider the Jewish Bible a compendium of earlier tales from (mostly mid-eastern) people - then the Christian Bible a second tier leaving out things and adding Jesus-related stories, (attached some modifications from reform-thinking), while some hundred years after Jesus the Prophet Mohammad presented the Quran as the work of Allah. We are not capable of thinking otherwise than in our human logic PLUS restricted to our 'knowledge-base' we (to date) accumulated and believe. Teleology - the AIM of the World - is beyond that. What I believe in my gnostic thinking is a "WORLD" of infinite complexity of which we got only limited glimpses - even those not correctly understood. That's exactly how the arithmetical truth looks like from the perspective of the universal numbers. Of this 'treasure' of "knowledge" we THINK we know the World. Well, we don't. Nor do they. But the wisest know they don't know. We don't know what is good, or bad, I agree if you mean the moral good or moral bad and other theories, but basically we know very well what is good and bad. I agree that if we look at the details, it can look a bit like the Mandelbrot set, but for the main things I think all the mammals knows the difference between good (like eating, mating, dancing, ...) and bad (sick, desperate, broken, burning, etc.). Now the good divides into the good good and the bad good, and the bad divides into the good bad, and the bad bad. Amateur of wines and beers knows things around this. what (so far) unknowable factors do influence whatever happens in addition to those we (think) we know. If there is a 'Godly' teleology, our human logic asks: Why did a 'Creator' not create it as it is to be finally, but that would go into your prohibition of questioning God. Samiya, does the Quran prohibits questioning God? Do you think we can avoid questioning when praying? No, rather it exhorts us to think deeply. [3: 191=192 Translator: Sahih International] Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding. Who remember Allah while standing or sitting or [lying] on their sides and give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], "Our Lord, You did not create this aimlessly; exalted are You [above such a thing]; then protect us from the punishment of the Fire. Prophet Abraham's faith is greatly praised in the Quran. Consider the following verses about him: [2:260 Translator: Pickthall] And when Abraham said (unto his Lord): My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: Dost thou not believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease. (His Lord) said: Take four of the birds and cause them to incline unto thee, then place a part of them on each hill, then call them, they will come to thee in haste, and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise. [6:74-78 Translator: Pickthall] (Remember) when Abraham said unto his father Azar: Takest thou idols for gods? Lo! I see thee and thy folk in error manifest. Thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth that he might be of those possessing certainty: When the night grew dark upon him he beheld a star . He said: This is my Lord. But when it set, he said: I love not things that set. And when he saw the moon uprising, he exclaimed: This is my Lord. But when it set, he said: Unless my Lord guide me, I surely shall become one of the folk who are astray. And when he saw the sun uprising, he cried: This is my Lord! This is greater! And when it set he exclaimed: O my people! Lo! I am free from all that ye associate (with Him). OK, that is a bit of platonism. Truth is beyond all representations, and the physical might be a representation, in fact an unknown sum on infinities of representations. PS: in 6:76, the word that's translated as star I think should be translated as planet. And I think the following verses partially address the question John Mikes hesitates to ask: [33:72-73 Translator: Pickthall] Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it. Lo! he hath proved a tyrant and a fool. So Allah punisheth hypocritical men and hypocritical women, and idolatrous men and idolatrous women. But Allah pardoneth believing men and believing women, and Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful. But is it not idolatrous (I ask) to pretend that one book got it all, and all others are wrongdoers constructions? I do not believe or state any such thing. I keep affirming that many books and many prophets came throughout the ages. And I do not worship the Quran. I worship Allah (The Deity) who sent the Quran for our guidance, Perhaps. and because it is from Allah and for our guidance, I take it very seriously. I also respect other scriptures as from God, but as they have suffered human alterations, I rarely use them and when I do, I cross-check with what the Quran says about the same topic, simply because the Quran has not suffered change. What's idolatrous about that? Even if the Quran has not changed (which I doubt), you can't be sure that Muhammad, a human, get the sounds right. If not, you make Muhammad into a sort of God, and that is again the dangerous thing to believe, even in the case it is true. When God does anything, He ensures that it is done properly. So, when He sends revelation, He ensures that it is delivered and communicated. Consider this: Holy Quran 72:27 ------------------ إِلَّا مَنِ ارْتَضَىٰ مِنْ رَسُولٍ فَإِنَّهُ يَسْلُكُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ رَصَدًا Except whom He has approved of messengers, and indeed, He sends before each messenger and behind him observers Holy Quran 72:28 ------------------ لِيَعْلَمَ أَنْ قَدْ أَبْلَغُوا رِسَالَاتِ رَبِّهِمْ وَأَحَاطَ بِمَا لَدَيْهِمْ وَأَحْصَىٰ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ عَدَدًا That he may know that they have conveyed the messages of their Lord; and He has encompassed whatever is with them and has enumerated all things in number. Human are easily credulous. They can believe that the best medicinal plant is a dangerous product which has to be made illegal! You can use the Quran as a guide to the truth, but you cannot equate it with the truth, you can't appropriate the truth, only share experiences, and, if only to be able to listen genuinely to others, you need to be able to doubt, perhaps not the root of your belief, but the shape the beliefs can take for some possible other believers or hopers. Of course OK. But that is not always clear in the way you address the problem. I sent another email soon after the above quoting the verse to never be of those who doubt. I allow for others to doubt, but for me the whole Quran is a message sent from God. I understand some of it, and I try to understand what I do not, but I doubt my knowledge and understanding, not the knowledge and wisdom of the Quran. Samiya Some truth go without saying. Some truth become falsities once asserted. The theological is full of things like that. You keep asserting that. Some day I might understand what you mean by it :) It is actually something playing a key feature in human and machine theologies. A part of the truth cannot be asserted. That might be why Lao-Tseu said that the wise man keep silent. In machine's theology, some truth can be asserted if we assert them with an interrogation point. Some can be verbalized, but cannot be asserted, even with an interrogation point, some other cannot even be verbalized, but can be memorized, some others cannot be memorized. Amazingly, this applies also to some experiences people can have with some use of some plant. I guess there will be opportunity to say more, or less :) later, Bruno Samiya Bruno Samiya I disagree with Brent's "random" - I deny the concept at all - changes are all deterministic whether we know the details, or not. In the big picture, I agree. from inside, the frontier between the deterministic and the non deterministic is infinitely complex. I don't repeat the chorus: who created the Creator? A swarm of numbers. (Again a point way beyond our mental capabilities). To be sure, yes, to grasp as a possible theory, it is different. You can't use an argument for something beyond our mental capabilities as a refutation of a theory. This would no more be agnosticism, but use of a metaphysical principle to discard a class of theories, without argument. The point being here that numbers can see their own limitations, and grasp that truth extends properly their justifiability abilities. Human science works on theories - explanations of the unexplained - axioms - necessary conditions for the theories to work - and consequences - reduced to the level of the up-to-date functioning of our mental capablity. Evidence is in the eye of the beholder. Absolutely so :) Bruno I find it remarkable that your Quran-quote extendes to geography discovered way after (into?) Hedzhra also the cosmology formulated during the recent times and chemistry of the last 100 years (ozon?) - maybe they are included only in the paraphernalia. I would love to read about the other animals as well including non-terrestrials. Have a good time, and forgive my interruption John Mikes On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 11:35 PM, Samiya Illias <[email protected]> wrote: What is your position on teleology? Do you think that there is a cause or purpose for everything? Also, what do you think of this: http://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2014/08/teleology-purpose-built-universe.html Samiya On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 7:30 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: On 10/8/2014 5:07 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 2:50 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: On 10/8/2014 10:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Oct 2014, at 20:17, meekerdb wrote: On 10/7/2014 1:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Oct 2014, at 20:15, meekerdb wrote: Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in the question of whether God exists. The interesting thing about it, for this list, is that "God" is implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence" or "the unprovable truths of arithmetic". How do you know that? How could you know that. I read the interview. For example D.G.: I’m not a believer, so I’m not in a position to say. First of all, it’s worth noting that some of the biggest empirical challenges don’t come from science but from common features of life. Perhaps the hardest case for believers is the Problem of Evil: The question of how a benevolent God could allow the existence of evil in the world, both natural evils like devastating earthquakes and human evils like the Holocaust, has always been a great challenge to faith in God. There is, of course, a long history of responses to that problem that goes back to Job. While nonbelievers (like me) consider this a major problem, believers have, for the most part, figured out how to accommodate themselves to it. It's obvious that Garber is talking about the god of theism. If he were referring to some abstract principle or set of unprovable truths there would be no "problem of evil" for that god. On the contrary, computationalism will relate qualia like pain and evil related things with what numbers can endure in a fist person perspective yet understand that this enduring is ineffable and hard to justify and be confronted with that very problem. But under computationlism it's not a problem. The is no presumption that a computable world is morally good by human standards. Under computationalism, all possible worlds and all possible observers exist and there's nothing God can do about it. God can no more make certain observers or observations not exist than make 2 + 2 = 3. However, a benevolent theistic god under computationalism (with access to unlimited computing resources) could nonetheless "save" beings who existed in other worlds by continuing the computation of their minds. You say "could" as though he had a choice, meaning He's not part of the computable world and is not one of the "all possible observers". Seems to me that he will have to both save everyone and also torture everyone in hell. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
