Sometimes I really wonder if our current understanding of Christianity is just completely different from what it meant originally.
Besides, some attributes cannot be co-existent anyway, at least not without breaking logic and mathematics. A man cannot turn 20 years old and 120 years old at the same time, for example.
That said, I'm not fully sure because there are some escape valves. Matthew 19:26 or Romans 8:28, for example.
But one of the reasons I don't like talking about religion on HN is that I've found a computer science centric way of thinking about some sub branches of philosophy and theology is a dead end. We're used to dealing with such pedantry and strict logic that I find we over use them in places where they're not nearly as useful as they seem.
Fair enough. I like discussing religion in circles like this one, because I'm convinced there is a lot of value to be found in religious traditions, but I find it hard to connect to the typical religious crowd.
Interesting example, because he could get in a spaceship at age 19, travel out and back at very high speeds, and arrive back at Earth 101 years later having aged just one year. He turned 20 and 120 at the same time.
I realize I've turned myself into a prime example of the pedantry you mentioned, but what I mean to say is that strict logic can be misleading if we don't have the whole picture, which we probably don't.
And not just that. I feel that many of the habits of thinking that lead to success in software engineering actually have pretty limited applicability, but too many software engineer internet commenters parochially assume those habits are superior and universally applicable. It's hard for me to articulate though, because I have those same habits and it's hard to see outside one's limitations.
While Z is not a subset of N, N maps 1-1, onto to Z (i.e., they have the same cardinality). That means every element of one set has a corresponding element in the other and vice versa.
Similarly, ismorphisms, homeomorphisms, diffeomorphisms are formalizations of the idea of "different but equivalent in the relevant structures".
I do not have a deeper point to make, but I think your intro argument is not as solid as you might imagine. Plus, things get weird when you go beyond discrete infinities and into the continuum and beyond.
But that would mean people would need to drop their condescending sense of superiority over others... come on, don't take that away from people for in their eyes it's an easy win.
I'm a Pole, even during "religion" classes or in church during preparation to baptism, the idea of God they would try to show us WAS the "man in the clouds" one, not philosophical one.
The main idea is to pass down moral values.
I can't speak for others but I find it very hard for people to hold on to the literal content of the bible with today's education. Some might believe in the man in the sky, others might stand by just doing what they think is the right thing to do in the framework that was passed on to them, others turn to it in very difficult times because there's nothing else to hold on to and that gives them hope/peace/comfort.
I say this as someone who had catholic upbringing, took those classes for baptism and first communion. Yet I don't consider myself a catholic, still it was part of the context where I grew up.
I am not sure that is true. You can absolutely pass down moral values without involving a God. That is what happened to me. It seems to me that the goal of a lot of religious teaching is to use a bogeyman (God) to scare little children into doing what you want instead of teaching the children why it makes sense to do the right thing.
Suddenly we could move away from the "fear based framework" to the "strive to be closer to the idea of God" framework since we had someone to emulate.
In fact we can arguably say that God gave us complete freedom, and full responsibility since he died on a cross (and in that process He even doubted himself) left us with a role model.
>why it makes sense to do the right thing.
This seems like a trivial task but it's not. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't make any sense at all.
I am struggling to find examples where that might be true. Can you give an example?
As I (very) slowly try to reduce my ignorance around the topic, I find that uncovering a more traditional understanding of it reveals something much more rich than I was led to believe. That's precisely my point :)
Having convinced yourself of all of these things it then feels natural to think of that first mover as somehow complex for creating the universe rather than some infinitesimal speck that started a cascade. To then think in terms of mystical power rather than say energy. It doesn’t feel like you’re less likely to be correct with every assumption which is kind of silly in one way but also seductive.
Which is kind of my point. Even just the word “is” is quite a large assumption that is easy to overlook. I think it’s an outgrowth of saying some thing created existence rather than saying some event created existence.
Edit: Even thinking in terms of assumptions it’s hard to list them all. We think of time as a linear progression which naturally suggests a first action. But set that aside and really strange possibilities show up. What if the universe was created at the end by something that’s yet to exist and time flowed backwards from that event? Now it’s last action that created existence. Or even in the middle with a positive time universe moving forward and a negative time universe moving backwards. Or…
Energy can not be created out of nothing so something had to exist before "existence". My assumption is that every universe collapses and then new universe emerges through something like Big Bang.
I wonder about the connection of apophaticism, found in Christian neoplatonism, and nondualism, found in Advaita Vedanta.
There are only two choices, either something always existed or something came from nothing. Either way, reality cannot have been created. Perhaps there was an external cause of the universe as we currently know it, but that would have to be shown, not just asserted. While that would be useful to know, it would not solve the problem of first cause, but simply push it back one level. Further, calling this unestablished cause a "creator" and/or a "God" is smuggling in a lot of baggage about intentionality that dovetails into all kinds of other religious beliefs. This is confounding at best, and disingenuous at worst.
Another possibility is that time is a property of our universe, but not a property of the larger reality from which it originated. That reality may have properties utterly unfathomable to human minds, and no amount of speculation will ever move us one iota closer to a hint of what it is. In that case it's neither "always existed" nor "something came from nothing". Such statements don't apply. "Always", "something", "nothing"... these might be just parochial terms that are deep and important here, but have no context in that larger reality.
This is the essence of much of Hinduism, particularly monist sects like Saiva Siddhanta
Also as pointed out elsewhere, this assumes that there was a 'first' in any comprehensible way and that that first itself had no prior origin or cause.
If you translate Greek ancient pantheon... well, Big Bang would fit in it, just like all the gods, that described nature and things that were ruling over people, along with other gods that were describing human behavior.
Quite many of etymological meanings to most of names in other languages for God is Giver. It is not much different from Luck - the main difference between those are only in gender, but not in function. So, if someone thinks, that Gods function was to be responsible for Big Bang, they should be very disappointed or very disillusional, as the only function for God for any society was to bring prosperity to the believers(and wrath to enemies).
There are many different beliefs what is God, what is soul and so on. There are belieffs, that animals were gods - even today there is a belief in Tibet, that gods incarnate in people - young girls. Gnostics even believed, that humans are Gods and that was a big issue with Christianity...
As for something that there was something before - that is Christian construct for most of Europe. Ancient Greeks knew, that first there was a Chaos(a gods name)... for many others there was only a sea from which God emerged as a bird. So, there is not uniform belief, that there was something before, or that gofds themselves appeared into this world before creation of this world - sometimes Gods appeared even much later than Christianity is depicting them and for some American natives Gods appeared only as animals, who created humans.
If the discussion is about still unexplainable mechanisms on how this world works, especially about RND and calling it a God... well, there is a problem with English word of God, because it does not have that meaning in etymology and claiming that it is something that we can assing is not really working. Also, none of other God names means any of those things, so it would be better to establish new term for these mechanisms, how the Universe works, as God has nothing to do with that - not to mention, that extension of Christian God is not possible because of clash of meanings.
>>>I mean, are we gnats on God's
There is always possibility to accept that there is no God(who has eyes? - what about God for worms or trees without eyes, like it is for most of Life?). Rivers run without God, Wind blows without God. Life exists without God and need for it. Humans and not God are responsible for attrocities they are doing for each other and other beings.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism
2: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=454...
How do you know?
No, right? So the idea that nothing can come from nothing, is based on an assumption.
Which was the entire point of the comment you responded to, if I'm not mistaken.
Someone pointed out that the relevance of the past to the future is a pure assumption. Even the usual argument that an otherwise unmotivated heuristic is valid -- "it's always worked in the past" -- can't legitimately be used for this point, since it assumes the truth of the question under consideration.
We have no idea what it even means to be outside of our expanding spacetime into that ‘nothingness’ because time doesn’t even exist there, so we couldn’t compute a thought if we travelled there anyway to attempt to grok what the hell was going on.
One can easily conceive mathematical solutions for all of those. People also thought that something had to keep the planets moving until Newton, that something had to keep them from collapsing due to perturbation until Lagrange (I think), most philosophers wouldn't even consider time travel until Einstein came about...
GotG arguments rely on gaps in scientific knowledge as evidence of the existence of the numinous.
This argument isn't about gaps in scientific knowledge. It's about gaps in scientific knowability. The argument is Godelian in nature.
The set of natural laws is a logical axiomatic system. It cannot be both consistent and complete. Therefore, either the scientific method is fundamentally unreliable for determining the truth, or there are true propositions about reality that cannot be proven within the axiomatic system of the natural laws. In short, unless the natural sciences are inherently bunk, it's a logical necessity that there exists something outside their scope, literally super-natural.
It's an imperfect analogy but I always come back to the idea of CPU privilege rings. We run up against a hard limit of what is observable/provable - a privilege boundary, if you will. That suggests we are in Ring > 0, and therefore there is something in Ring 0.
What's in Ring 0? Nobody knows. Whatever it is, we call it God.
It’s not this mystical thing that people make it out to be online.
However I do wonder if it’ll turn out that these higher dimensional geometric problems turn out to have the same structure as Godel’s proof. That the higher dimensional geometric structure is complex enough to represent their own foundation.
Although now I’m committing the same fallacy I was arguing against i.e. an equivalence between unknowns
Can you explain why?
In other words, there are two ways to talk about the laws of nature: (1) some set of Platonic ideal laws existing outside of human experience, that actually govern the universe and (2) the set of approximations of these ideal laws that could possibly be discovered by a logic-based science. The GGP's mentioning of axioms means they're clearly talking about (2), but your statement makes much more sense if meant about (1).
Everything below is based on my original understanding of what you wrote, which I believe is a misunderstanding on my part.
I'm not sure what you're getting at with regard to Godel's incompleteness theorem not applying to modern science.
Are you arguing that Godel's incompleteness theorem doesn't apply to the mathematical logic model(s) at the heart of the modern scientific method, because a scientific model is an approximation of reality? The match between the models and reality has no bearing on the limits of the structure of the models themselves.
The original statement was about the limits of the logical structure of the models underlying modern science, having nothing to do with how well they actually fit reality.
Are you perhaps saying something along the lines that because scientific models don't precisely match reality, it's okay to introduce axioms that make them complete (able to prove all true statements in their domain) but inconsistent (and therefore able to construct proofs that false statements are true)?
Gödel's work was concerned with formally defined abstract systems, and his results demonstrate the limits of mathematical proof within such systems.
But science never proves anything. Science often uses the language of mathematics to express and to quantify ideas, but the core of science is observation, hypothesis-forming, and experimentation. Scientists apply logic to rule out theories, but it's an informal application of logic, not a formal one, because you can never precisely define a theory the way you can precisely define a mathematical object.
Science may appear to be a rigorous discipline, but it is at best diligent, not rigorous - not in the sense that a proof of a mathematical theorem is rigorous. A proven theorem must necessarily be true - that's what the proof demonstrates. Meanwhile, a scientific theory is only conditionally true, inferred from the evidence and hypotheses about the underlying mechanisms of the universe. All scientific truth is subject to revision if contradictory evidence arises.
Science is a system of best guesses based on what we have observed. Some of those guesses have proven very useful, and very reliable at predicting the future. But none of those guesses are fundamentally based on, or necessarily limited by, formal axiomatic systems of logic.
For all we know, there is a low upper bound on the complexity of the universe, and it might be completely explainable and understandable through the lens of science, without getting anywhere near the towering near-infinities of abstract mathematical thought.
Alternatively, if the universe was a formal system about which there were unprovable truths, one could simply add that unprovable truth as an axiom, to form a larger formal system, which itself would have unprovable truths, but as long as the universe was entirely contained within that larger system, you could prove every truth relevant to it, without being limited by Gödel.
If someone is seeking unknowables in the real world, something like the uncertainty principle could be a closer match.
Q: How many oranges are there in the kitchen? A: 2.
Not so fast. Addition is a mathematical model and doesn't necessarily reflect the physical universe.
Nobody knows if it is or not. It could also be that the physical universe is a reflection of mathematical truth.
> It can be, in cases like addition, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. Which was the parent's point.
Again, nobody knows if it what you claim is true or not. What we do know is that all scientific models are based on math, and if there is something wrong at the foundations of math, then all science is pseudoscience. Gödel's theorems are at the foundations of math. You can't just decide that you are skeptical about that part of math being applicable to physical models but addition is fine.
The real problem with Gödel is that it says something that a lot of people don't like to be true.
This is your personal belief, unless you can justify it. I won't hold my breath, because this discussion has been raging for centuries with no end in sight.
> For example, infinite numbers exist, but the natural world cannot have an infinite or infinitessimal amount of things, there are upper and lower limits.
Nobody knows if the natural world is finite or not. Consider for example the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. We just don't know enough to assert such as thing.
Although, some would argue the universe would cease to exist without humans to observe it (and initiate collapse :))
I certainly have faith in physics...
"God, that is, Nature..."
Here's a good quote, wherein he's criticizing people's conception of God as the 'first cause' -
"So they will not cease to ask for the causes of causes, until you take refuge in the will of God, that is, the asylum of ignorance."
But I don't believe that our universe is neither unique, neverending, or cyclical.
I believe that our universe is just one of many, that exists on a super-dimensional plane (or substrate - not sure what word to use), where 'universes' continously appear and disappear, like bubbles in boiling water.
Every one of these universes will have different sets of laws, or rather, the laws will be tweaked differently, depending on the exact conditions of how they form.
Most will not be valid. They will 'pop' or implode near instantaneously. Some will not have the right values for constants like gravity and speed of light.
But every once in a while, there will be a universe where the laws are just perfect for what we see in our universe. A place where stars and planets can form. Where the right elements appear, and life as we know it is possible.
I wasn't trying to answer that.
I'm aware that my comment merely added an additional layer, between us and "the creator"/creation, (however you define that).
My point was more, that I don't believe our universe is unique, as in "alone". But rather that it is just one of many.
That some "God", or event, didn't create a single universe, perfect for (human) life. That's way too antropocentric for me.
Instead I believe that they are plentiful, and by chance one of them happened to be suitable for life as we know it.
We are not here because a universe _was created for us_.
We are here because a universe _could produce us_.
But of course it’s unfortunately impossible to know due to space time limits.
The community thrives by following guidelines, among them:
* be kind
* do not sneer
* do not call names
* respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize
But can we at least recognise that there's an enormous distinction between criticism of people and criticism of ideas? In my estimation, when someone is calling for an idea to be protected from unkindness, or name-calling, or sneering, it's probably deserving of it.
However, by labelling the idea as nonsense, by extension I must be someone whose ideas are nonsense.
This lowers the level of discourse. To what end? What did labelling my idea as nonsense accomplish? Did it help your argument? Or was it to make me feel bad, or to make you feel good?
I certainly wouldn't say labelling an idea as "dumb" would be unethical, though. It's just not productive to having a conversation: name calling begets more name calling. It puts people on the defensive where they are not receptive to new ideas.
They're both? But agree with everything else
And with that you've just demonstrated my point. By focusing on an aesthetic component of my rhetoric rather than the substantive, you have chosen to steer this entire discussion away from the underlying topic.
> by extension I must be someone whose ideas are nonsense
That is nonsense. It does not follow.
> What did labelling my idea as nonsense accomplish?
It's my opinion. And while you're welcome to call that idea yours, I only consider it an idea. You shouldn't be so quick to tie your ideas to your identity. Everyone has lots of opinions and a good number of them are certain to be wrong.
But you are not someone who makes ill conceived, pedantic, or desperate arguments to save face. That would be nonsense. It does not follow. Don't be so quick to tie your identity to the pedantic arguments you've made.
* do not sneer
* do not call names
* respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize
"God" is a name we assign to the force behind the original, unexplained creation. Presently that would be the force behind the origin of this amazing universe, light, space. Maybe we push that envelope further in the future, but the boundary always exists. In our understanding there always is a 'first'. We have only the vaguest idea in a cosmic sense how that first came to be.
It's pretty neutral and sensible to call "everything" the creator, as Spinoza apparently did, cuz "nothing" sure didn't make the universe. And as a matter of definition, that would be God. What's so fascinating is where this thought exercise may lead. We are talking about everything, acting by law unknown, generating an impossible, unexplainable result. What then don't we know of everything and what possibilities does that raise, relative to its consciousness and intelligence on unimaginable scales of time and of space. I mean, are we gnats on God's ... I'd say eyeball but everything clearly is not human so ... presence?
I'm not sure how a serious person who considered the question openly could avoid these conclusions.