A universe with no beginning or end

[Lifegazer]

Originally posted by (Q)
It’s amazing how many times the word ‘logic’ gets bantered around but rarely used.

Okay, I'm listening again...

The claim that god is omniscient and that man has free will is an impossible combination. Omniscience means perfect knowledge of everything that is going to happen. Note that this isn’t clairvoyance but certain and perfect knowledge.

This means that from the moment of creation this god would have perfect knowledge of every event that is ever going to happen right until the end of the universe. This also means that every human event and decision will be perfectly pre-determined from the beginning of time.

I agree, except with the first sentence, which I'll deal with in a moment...

If every such event is pre-determined than man cannot have free will to make any other choices other than that that has already been pre-determined.

Okay. Let's see if I can explain your error here...
Firstly, we're discussing an omni-God, whereby all 'things' are finite-aspects of that God - God is everything (omnipresent). The mistake in your reasoning is that you fail to accommodate this into your conclusion...
Thus, whatever any 'thing' thinks or does actually emanates from God itself. Therefore, all events & thoughts are God's will.
Therefore, all events & thoughts are an expression of God's own free-will.
Hence, the thoughts and actions of mankind are an expression of free-will (Gods).
The above chain-of-logic necessitates that you see all things as God, and that you see all actions of those things as an expression of God's own will.
So; when you said "The claim that god is omniscient and that man has free will is an impossible combination.", you were wrong... since everything/action/choice is an expression of God's free-will.

By the way, what was your nick in pf-2?

 

[Lifegazer]

Originally posted by heusdens
1. Anything that exists, exists in time
2. God does not exist in time.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.

If God does exist, then he doesn't exist in time. He creates time (change). Number-2 agrees with this.
However, 'things' are what God creates, in time. God isn't one of those 'things', and you err when you imply that God is a 'thing' (as you did in premise-1). Consequently, your conclusion is an error.

# existenc in the above statements defined as material existence.

Exactly. So how can you apply material-logic to God?

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
If God does exist, then he doesn't exist in time. He creates time (change). Number-2 agrees with this.
However, 'things' are what God creates, in time. God isn't one of those 'things', and you err when you imply that God is a 'thing' (as you did in premise-1). Consequently, your conclusion is an error.

Indeed, God is not anything ('God is no-thing'), but God is a symbol, which belongs entirely to a category of the mind ('God is an invention of the mind'). God cannot create things in time, cause God does not exist in time.

Exactly. So how can you apply material-logic to God?

How can you apply non-material reasoning to the material world?

 

[(Q)]

Lifey

My dictionary shows omnipresent to mean – present in all places at the same time. With nothing to demonstrate how this could be possible the rational person should conclude that such a state is impossible.

So if god is everything and everywhere then our logic and reason are also part of god. Omnipresence seems to indicate that we could rename the universe and call it God. The effect seems to be the same; we are still left with our abilities to reason and deduce that there is no god.

By the way, what was your nick in pf-2?

I had not signed up here until after the 'renaissance' of pf-3. I came over with a few members of sciforums, which imo, is degrading rapidly.

 

[heusdens]

Does God have any relevance for the world?

Is the existence or non-existence or categorization of the type of existence of God, of any relevance for this world?

Does it make any thing better, look better, or feel better?

Do we really need to even consider the relevance of the existence or non-existence or properties of an invented symbol of formal thinking, named God?

Some reasons for dismissing such non-sense discussions.

Whatever God is supposed to be attributed to, is of no relevance to the real world. Cause God (in this formal thinking) did not create anyone moment of time, but created all of time in 'one shot', and things in time, all 'at once'. God can not influence anything existing in time cause God is not 'living' in time, so God is of no relevance whatsoever to the world.
Secondly, even the minimal existence potential that is available for God as a formal entity belonging to some category of the mind, does not attribuite any necessity to the existence of this entity, since the existence of the material world is not dependend on it.

This can be seen as follows. Using formal logic, and defining some approriate category of existence, one can state that either God is existing, or God is not existing. Suppose the latter, God is not existing. Is that of any relevance to the world? If God is said to have created time/change/matter, etc, would the inexistence of God lead to the inexistence of the material world? So, in other words, is there any formal necessity, is there any logical necessity, for the entity of God to be in existence, would we miss a part of understanding of the world, if we would state that God is not existing?

Another way of trying to answer is to raise the question why there is something, instead of nothing (see thread: The Fundamental Question). Would this question be unanswerable if God is not existing, would it be then that there would not have been a world? Although there are different ways of trying to answer the fundamental question, it does not lead us to the fact that God exists. But the existence of God is ultimately dependend on the fact that the existence of this entity is necessary for the world to exist. So if it can be argued that the existence of the world does not depend on the existence of God, we can state then that God does not even have the minimal requirerements for existence. God fails to exist then.

 

[Lifegazer]

C'mon guys. You were using logic to demonstrate that 'God' is not logical (within the context of your considerations).
You need to start understanding the concept of 'God' better (from a reasonable perspective of what such an entity should be like, regardless of its actual existence), before you can really attack the credibility of such an entity.
I think I should start a topic about this. I'll think about it.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
A 'property' cannot emerge within an enclosed system (existence) unless that existence already has the potential to do such a thing.
You don't get something from nothing, remember.

No one said anything about "something from nothing".

I never said that 'we' (conscious awareness within time) created the universe. I implied that a form of awareness (self-awareness) existed before the onset of time, which has now (via life) re-emerged within changing-existence.

So, now we have to accept that "will" and "awareness" are just floating around out there in a disembodied spirit?

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
God doesn't exist in time. God has an unchanging-existence, and is instantly omniscient. God resides at the eternal moment, and has all knowledge in that moment.

I never contradicted any of that.

The error in your thinking is that you apply the logic of time to God's mind. You infer that God needs time to think about things. Yet if he is omniscient - as by definition - then God thinks/knows about everything in an instant.

You are completely missing the point.

I have not made use of the premise that "god needs time to think about things". I made use of the premise that "we live in time".

Here it is again...

1. God is omnipotent.
2. The physical universe subsists in the imagination of god.
3. If a being is omnipotent, then it can do anything.
4. Imagining a universe that extends backwards infinitely in time is doing something.
5. Therefore, god can imagine a universe that extends backwards infinitely in time.

You are the one who said he is omnipotent. You can't take it back with some pseudo proof that time has to have a beginning.

 

[Lifegazer]

Originally posted by Tom
No one said anything about "something from nothing".

Then you should note the significance of 'will', 'reasoning-awareness', and 'emotion' existing now.
If they exist now, then we have to say that existence had the potential for will, reasoning-awareness, and emotion ever before they would become made manifest through humanity, and that these attributes have re-emerged through time.
I put it to you that no singular system can fragment in such a way that the aforementioned-attributes come to exist in fragmented/finite form, unless those very-same attributes already exist within the whole of existence itself.
I put it to you that if the parts of the whole can exhibit such attributes, then the universe as a singular-whole definitely must possesses them.
I put it to you that the heart/source of finite and changing-existence, has will; knowledge; and is emotional itself.
It's a big thing to expect anyone to accept that, I know. But the parts of existence cannot exhibit mental-capability unless the whole of existence itself, as a singular and indivisible-source, already possesses such attributes.

So, now we have to accept that "will" and "awareness" are just floating around out there in a disembodied spirit?

The universe as a whole can be considered as the body of God. Disembodiment is an illusion of a finite-mind.

 

[Lifegazer]

Originally posted by Tom
You are completely missing the point.

I have not made use of the premise that "god needs time to think about things". I made use of the premise that "we live in time".

I thought you mentioned something about God having an infinite- amount of thoughts within eternal-time, and in a specific order which relates to the causality-chain?
My point to you was that this is not the case. God has omniscience at every-instant... and therefore God does not think in time.
We, on the other hand, do, so it appears. Hence, the logic of causality within time can only apply to objects of time (including 'us').
That's why I judged your aforementioned-argument - which used the logic of God having an infinite-ammount of thoughts within eternal time - as not valid.

Here it is again...

Okay. I may have misunderstood you; so I'll have another close-look...

1. God is omnipotent.
2. The physical universe subsists in the imagination of god.
3. If a being is omnipotent, then it can do anything.

I'm okay with this, so far. Except that '3' needs the end-qualification of "God can do anything... within existence.

4. Imagining a universe that extends backwards infinitely in time is doing something.

Yes. God is imagining a universe (it's in God's mind).
I think I really do need to have a topic about ~The God of reason~. Have you considered what the word omnipotent means? It basically means 'all-powerful'.
I highlighted "all" because it is important: it means ~everything~ which exists within God.
So; let me start-off by giving you another example of a statement which seems to contradict God's power:- "Can God create things #outside# of himself? - No. Therefore, God is not omnipotent."
Upon first-glance, such a statement would seem to refute the actuality of 'omnipotence'. However, it does not. The reason being is that the question is "pooh", basically. It's a dumb question (and I have seen many such questions whilst I've frequented these forums).
... 'Omnipotence' equates to everything within God. It's a power over everything within God. It's a power to create things, within God. And since God is also omnipresent, then logic would dictate that there is not an external-reality to God. Hence this particular question is senseless. It does not apply to the reality of the situation.

I won't suffer your wrath by also calling this statement of yours "pooh"; but it does have a few major flaws, not unlike the above example:-
1. 'Imagination' is not reality. Not even God's imagination is reality. If we accept, for argument's sake, that God does exist; then God itself is reality. And any reality which is gleaned, other than 'God', is an illusion of reality.
2. Can God create the ~illusion~ of a reality which reflects your statement? Yes. Sure 'he' can. All he has to do is make the universe 'work' in such a way as though to reasonably-suggest (to all observers) that this is the case.
I'm not sure what God would have to do to create such an illusion. All I know is that this universe has failed to convince - for things are products - and no product can be manufactured by an eternal causal-process. There can be no end-product to an eternal-process.
If things which exist are the resultant-products of an eternal-chain, then these things represent an end to an infinite process, which has no beginning. And frankly, if it was God's intention to ~imagine~ such a reality, then God has failed.

5. Therefore, god can imagine a universe that extends backwards infinitely in time.

I'm okay with this. I'm quite sure that 'God' could imagine anything (create the illusion of anything). The point is that God has
not done so, in our case. Our reason has uncovered such a plot. Or rather, it should have done, by now.

You are the one who said he is omnipotent. You can't take it back with some pseudo proof that time has to have a beginning.

There's no such thing as pseudo-philosophy, Tom. There's only correct-reasoning, and incorrect reasoning. It's exactly like math: correct sums, and incorrect sums.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
Then you should note the significance of 'will', 'reasoning-awareness', and 'emotion' existing now.
If they exist now, then we have to say that existence had the potential for will, reasoning-awareness, and emotion ever before they would become made manifest through humanity, and that these attributes have re-emerged through time.

The only response I can think of is, "So what?" How does this fit into the context of the discussion here?

I put it to you that no singular system can fragment in such a way that the aforementioned-attributes come to exist in fragmented/finite form, unless those very-same attributes already exist within the whole of existence itself.

?

I put it to you that if the parts of the whole can exhibit such attributes, then the universe as a singular-whole definitely must possesses them.

This reasoning is so bad that it has been given a name: The Fallacy of Composition

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html

I put it to you that the heart/source of finite and changing-existence, has will; knowledge; and is emotional itself.

Same fallacy, and just as easily dismissed.

The universe as a whole can be considered as the body of God.

It can also not be considered the body of god.

Disembodiment is an illusion of a finite-mind.

That's why I reject it.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
I thought you mentioned something about God having an infinite- amount of thoughts within eternal-time, and in a specific order which relates to the causality-chain?
My point to you was that this is not the case. God has omniscience at every-instant... and therefore God does not think in time.
We, on the other hand, do, so it appears. Hence, the logic of causality within time can only apply to objects of time (including 'us').
That's why I judged your aforementioned-argument - which used the logic of God having an infinite-ammount of thoughts within eternal time - as not valid.

Okay. I may have misunderstood you; so I'll have another close-look...

I'm okay with this, so far. Except that '3' needs the end-qualification of "God can do anything... within existence.

Yes. God is imagining a universe (it's in God's mind).
I think I really do need to have a topic about ~The God of reason~. Have you considered what the word omnipotent means? It basically means 'all-powerful'.

These posts about 'God' in the Philosophy section by now start to be irritating and annoying. There is a subsection of the Philospohy section entirely denoted for this kind of discussion.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
I'm okay with this, so far. Except that '3' needs the end-qualification of "God can do anything... within existence.

Why the qualification? If god can do anything, then he can define existence any way he wants.

I highlighted "all" because it is important: it means ~everything~ which exists within God.

Good, because I relied on that to show the incoherence of your position.

So; let me start-off by giving you another example of a statement which seems to contradict God's power:- "Can God create things #outside# of himself? - No. Therefore, God is not omnipotent."

The scenario I brought up was not nearly that severe. I did not ask you to consider something that is outside of god. I am talking about the mental act of imagining a universe with an infinite history. If god is omnipotent, then he should be able to do it.

1. 'Imagination' is not reality. Not even God's imagination is reality. If we accept, for argument's sake, that God does exist; then God itself is reality. And any reality which is gleaned, other than 'God', is an illusion of reality.

Again, "so what?"

I am talking about omnipotence here. You cannot claim that god is omnipotent, and then claim that he can't create (in his head) a universe that has infinite time, then he is not omnipotent.

The rest of your discussion takes us beyond the far-fetched into the downright looney. It is nothing more than wild speculation.

LG, you are the one who made this god up. Why don't you just tell us what he's like? There's no need for you to wonder about the "what-ifs". If it turns out to be inconsistent, you can always change your god when that becomes apparent.

There's no such thing as pseudo-philosophy, Tom. There's only correct-reasoning, and incorrect reasoning. It's exactly like math: correct sums, and incorrect sums.

When I said "pseudo proof", I meant "invalid logic". It is an argument that has premises and a conclusion, but whose premises do not necessarily imply the conclusion. The Fallacy of Composition is just such an example.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by heusdens
These posts about 'God' in the Philosophy section by now start to be irritating and annoying. There is a subsection of the Philospohy section entirely denoted for this kind of discussion.

Amen.

This is the kind of junk that causes people to think that philosophy is for cocktail party chats. Insisting that god is a logical necessity, or talking about some silly notion as "the god of reason" is not philosophy.

 

[drag]

Greetings !

Tom and LG,
If I may interfere for the slightest moment
in your discussion, I would like to present my
view of your general argument.

Tom,
You clearly do not appear to recognize the basic
fact that your arguments are flawed. After all,
you recognized above that there IS always
a chance things are different. So why keep
trying to deny what you can not ?
(Are you a supporter of the "old" materialism ?! )

Basicly, you are trying to judge about the
existence of the "game" from the "rules" of
the "game". And that is clearly impossible.
(Though I can never prove that either...)

LG,
As usual you are trying to claim a whole lot
of strange stuff not observed by us to be
true so far. As usual, while it is impossible
to prove you wrong, your argument in favor
of things that are not supported by any
recognized proof is to say the least unreasonable.
What's the point ?
Your "proofs" were not accepted.

Basicly, you should learn the way of "proof
recognition and acceptance" which science
currently provides us and test your arguments
in light of this approach before displaying
your "proofs".


"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way
as to be understood by everyone, something that no
one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact
opposite."
Paul Dirac

Live long and prosper.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by drag
you recognized above that there IS always
a chance things are different. So why keep
trying to deny what you can not ?

I suppose you are referring to my discussion of inductive reasoning. Of course, I do not try to deny that things can be different than how I understand them. If so, then I could never accept a new theory.

The flipside to the "inductive logic" coin that you are not seeing here is "falsifiability". We hold to ideas about the universe until they are proven wrong and supplanted by better ones, recognizing all the time that the new ideas are only tentative. The guiding principle should be that the acceptance of new ideas must bring us closer to our experiences, not farther away from them.

In the case of arguing for a "god", there is no connection to our experiences whatsoever. Thus, we cannot say anything meaningful about it.

 

[drag]

Greetings Tom !

Originally posted by Tom
The guiding principle should be that the acceptance
of new ideas must bring us closer to our experiences,
not farther away from them.

In the case of arguing for a "god", there is no
connection to our experiences whatsoever. Thus,
we cannot say anything meaningful about it.

ONLY IF by "our experiences" you mean our
physical theories and ONLY the laws themselves
rather than any interpretations. And even then,
it's just a "likely" guiding principle.

Otherwise, some people might mistakenly
think you really mean our experiences, which
would be a rather ridiculous thing for them
to think because current theories like GR and
QM appear to go AGAINST our experiences.

Live long and prosper.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by drag
ONLY IF by "our experiences" you mean our
physical theories and ONLY the laws themselves
rather than any interpretations. And even then,
it's just a "likely" guiding principle.

No, theories are not experiences. Theories are how we make sense of our experiences. Experiences are observations and measurements of things in the world. In regards to knowing the universe, such experiences are the only things to which we have access, and as such are the only things we can really know.

Otherwise, some people might mistakenly
think you really mean our experiences, which
would be a rather ridiculous thing for them
to think because current theories like GR and
QM appear to go AGAINST our experiences.

Arguments from ignorance are never valid, drag. If people choose not to become informed of experimental results, then that kills the discussion. Or, in some cases, makes it go on for 20 pages (but it is really dead by about page 2).

 

[drag]

Greetings Tom !

Originally posted by Tom
No, theories are not experiences. Theories are how we make sense of our experiences. Experiences are observations and measurements of things in the world. In regards to knowing the universe, such experiences are the only things to which we have access, and as such are the only things we can really know.

In that case, it sounds like a rather pathetic
guiding principle...

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought,
I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy
has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing
positive knowledge."
Albert Einstein

Originally posted by Tom
Or, in some cases, makes it go on for 20 pages
(but it is really dead by about page 2).

Live long and prosper.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by drag
In that case, it sounds like a rather pathetic
guiding principle...

I guess you've never heard of Karl Popper. He was the founder of this principle, and indeed of the modern scientific method (which I have sketched here). According to many, he is to philosophy of science what Einstein is to physics and Goedel is to logic. You really should read up on it, instead of snickering at it.

http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought,
I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy
has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing
positive knowledge."
Albert Einstein

And how many of these fantasies did he publish? Whatever he used as inspiration, or whatever it was that brought him happiness are one thing. The technical business of shedding falsified theories is quite another.

 

[drag]

Thanks for the link.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
I do not argue for a cause outside/external to existence. I argue for a cause within existence itself. Existence is 'the whole', and any changes which occur must emanate from inside existence.
Thus, the time-evolution of the state of a system is not logically-impossible from a static-state, since the system can be affected by an internal impetus. Namely will.

A concept of will isn't applicable to the totality of things, and whatever we can consider will to be, it isn't something static, and ultimately dependend on already existing material world, including change, motion, etc.
Will in the context of a human mind, is always an envision of using some capacity (maybe future capacity) of own's own body or mind, will is not something that can exist on its own.

Within the context of a pure material world, will is for certain not something applicable, same as consciousness and like, they are mental capacities, functioning within the context of an existing mind and body, and not having meaning outside that context.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
Equations apply to effects of time. They do not ponder time's own cause. Physical-equations cannot be used as evidence that time has no origin. I'm surprised you don't see that.

No, indeed, they come from another fact, namely that unchanging existence remains unchanging throughout all of eternity, which is for most people the reason to think that time did not have a beginning.
As for the use of mentioning terms like 'cause' you use it in a strange way, by saying time had a cause. Time for sure did not have a cause, because any causual connection assumes an already existent time. This comes from the ambiguity of language, when we say what is the cause for some mathematical expression to be true, we don't imply that the laws of causality govern mathematics, like 1 and 1 are causes for 2 to be their sum, as if mathematics would be the real world, with effects happening in time.

The efforts to explain existence, in terms of 'Unchanging-Existence' and things a like, are futile attempts to explain that there is an existing world, which does have an ordinary explenation. See for example the thread 'The Fundamental Question'.
Some of the ways to answer this question ("Why is there something, instead of nothing") point to the impossibility to answer the question, or to the fact that the question itself is meaniningless, or just a tautology ("something" has existence, whereas "nothing" has not).

 

[Steven Taylor]

Originally posted by heusdens
Well, what you state here is simply nonsens, cause material existence which does not implie motion and/or change, and thus requires time and space and time to exist, is a gross absurdity.

Change can not start from nothing, there is always a previous change. If there was at some time no change or motion at all, then where would that initial change/motion come from?

Your reasoning become very absurd. Time/change popping up from nowhere is as absurd as existence popping up from nowhere.
If time or change is said to have a beginning, then that itself was a change, at a time where it is said, there was no change. Which can for obvious reasons, not have been the case.
Because existence implies change and motion, there can't have been a state of existence in which there was no change or no motion. it would be an endless state of existence in which nothing whatsoever changes. What kind of existence would that be?

But with your stubborn kind of reasoning I guess you will never get at it.

I know I'm jumping aboard this thread a little late but--and I also know this may be a subject more appropriately addressed in the religion forum, but it follows naturally from the original topic--the notion of eternal chaotic inflation sounds an awful lot like the Buddhist conception of the Cycle of Samsara, in which the universe is a great wheel spinning eternally according the rule of cause and effect. It is this aspect of Buddhist belief that leads to the idea of rebirth and karma. The reasoning goes, the universe has always existed and will always exist, but as it spirals endlessly toward chaos, repeating, relatively orderly patterns sometimes emerge (this may seem a somewhat creative, interpretation of these ideas, but this interpretation is well supported by Buddhist texts). Consciousness, the argument goes, viewed on a higher-level is just such a pattern. And since all physical systems must in some sense be reproducible, why not consciousness too--even down to the level of individual experiences of consciousness?

I only offer these remarks because I believe that some aspects of Buddhist cosmology are remarkably sophisticated, and there are many volumes of keenly analytical debate on similar topics in Buddhist doctrinal texts.

 

[wuliheron]

Welcome to the forum Steven,

Buddhist cosmology does not necessarilly belong in the religion forum. Many Buddhists are philosophical rather than religious Buddhists. Essentially, they are Pantheists and can be Atheists or Agnostic who practice or believe in a simplified version of Buddhism.