243 replies to this topic

[mfbukowski]

The Nehor, on 31 March 2012 - 08:23 PM, said:

God is man but this does not preclude him also being more.

I am always wary of philosophical musings on the nature of God. It shows arrogance and not humility. There may be things tied to the nature of God that we have no conception of that make our musings misguided or even irreverent. Plus philosophical explanations about God seem to contribute to apostasy. Reason will not find God. Only his choice to reveal Himself will. We do not reason from first principles to discover God. He shows Himself to us.

The Savior did not teach philosophy. He taught truth and revelation from God directly.

This old joke shows how silly our philosophies often sound when compared to revelation:

Jesus said, Whom do men say that I am?

And his disciples answered and said, Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elias, or other of the old prophets.

And Jesus answered and said, But whom do you say that I am?

Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."

And Jesus answering, said, "What?"

You won't believe this, but I agree.   There is a reason I gave up on academic philosophy, but when someone asks a philosophical question I try to answer it.

What makes sense, makes sense.   If that is "philosophy" then so be it.   But making sense is not always important.

[inquiringmind]

Log, on 31 March 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

For any particle of matter, if it never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, then there appears to be no semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise," as used above.

Of course, I could simply be intellectually deficient.

What you're saying is that every cause has to proceed the effect, and I think you're wrong..

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Surprising as it may be to most non-scientists and even to some scientists, Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes:

Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

Einstein's belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now. He believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."
Most everyone knows that Einstein proved that time is relative, not absolute as Newton claimed. With the proper technology, such as a very fast spaceship, one person is able to experience several days while another person simultaneously experiences only a few hours or minutes. The same two people can meet up again, one having experienced days or even years while the other has only experienced minutes. The person in the spaceship only needs to travel near to the speed of light. The faster they travel, the slower their time will pass relative to someone planted firmly on the Earth. If they were able to travel at the speed of light, their time would cease completely and they would only exist trapped in timelessness.

http://everythingfor...om/einstein.htm

So even if a particle of matter never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, there would seem to be strong philosophical and scientific reasons to believe there could be semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise" (as used by Chris, in post # 5.)

Edited by inquiringmind, 31 March 2012 - 09:23 PM.

[SearchDog]

mfbukowski, on 31 March 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

No, in Mormon theology he IS a man.  You are obviously not Mormon you Platonist you!  

True, but the doctrine does not take away anything else that we know God to be.

[Chris Smith]

Log, on 31 March 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

For any particle of matter, if it never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, then there appears to be no semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise," as used above.

Of course, I could simply be intellectually deficient.

To understand the "Ground of Being" concept, you have to think of matter as a sort of hologram rather than as concrete "stuff". Imagine that the Ground of Being is a computer, and the universe is a piece of software that has been running on it for all eternity. The computer continually "gives rise" to the simulated matter, but this does not mean the simulated matter has a beginning or ending. Classical articulations of the "Ground of Being" idea work the same way. In Platonism, matter isn't real; it's a mere shadow cast by the being of God. In Yogacara, the universe is a dream in the Cosmic Mind. In Tantra (and string theory), matter is a sort of cosmic vibration. Most of these philosophies stress that knowledge of the illusory nature of matter somehow allows one to transcend the illusion and access a higher level of reality. There's also a strong impulse here to show that the apparent diversity of the universe arises from a fundamental unity, which explains why everything in the universe seems to cohere together and conform to the same set of rules.

Edited by Chris Smith, 31 March 2012 - 09:08 PM.

[Log]

Chris,

Your analogy again communicates no real content, because it has no apparent purchase on reality.  I might likewise say "Imagine a square circle."

Nevertheless, the putative unity of the constituents of the universe is, to me, a literal absurdity.  It's binity or bust.

Have a nice thread, guys.

[Chris Smith]

Log, on 31 March 2012 - 09:34 PM, said:

Your analogy again communicates no real content, because it has no apparent purchase on reality.  I might likewise say "Imagine a square circle."

Does "purchase on reality" refer to practical consequences, or explanatory power? I think those who actually espouse these models, such as theoretical physicists, would say they do have "purchase on reality," in both senses. I'm curious why you think they don't.

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Nevertheless, the putative unity of the constituents of the universe is, to me, a literal absurdity.  It's binity or bust.

Well, generally monists start by deriving a basic binity from the unity. The first step in Plato's system, for instance, is that Being implies Non-Being. But not all systems that posit a common "Ground of Being" regard that ground as a monad in the Platonic sense. In classical Christianity, for instance, it's a person.

[Log]

Chris,

Your analogy breaks at every detail when I attempt to apply it to the real world.  It is a mystery to me, in fact, at what point you believe your analogy illuminates any aspect of observable reality.  However, I am all ears to hear how the notion of the universe-as-computer-material-existence-as-program produces testable claims and results which are best explained by that hypothesis versus any other.

As I haven't the appetite for logic-chopping and subdividing propositions ad infinitum, I am bowing out.

Edited by Log, 01 April 2012 - 02:52 AM.

[Chris Smith]

Log, on 01 April 2012 - 02:39 AM, said:

Your analogy breaks at every detail when I attempt to apply it to the real world.  It is a mystery to me, in fact, at what point you believe your analogy illuminates any aspect of observable reality. However, I am all ears to hear how the notion of the universe-as-computer-material-existence-as-program produces testable claims and results which are best explained by that hypothesis versus any other.

I'm not saying the universe is a computer program. I'm just using that to explain the principle of "giving rise" to matter. But to extend the analogy, I suppose that if you could figure out the rules of the software, you could find bugs and exploits for manipulating reality. That's sort of what theoretical physicists are trying to do with theories like string theory, actually. See here for an example of the kind of prediction that a holographic universe can generate, and here and here for the kind of explanatory power it could have. I'm not a theoretical physicist, so this stuff is pretty meaningless to me except as a mind-opening thought experiment. But apparently when you start doing the math on fundamental forces and exotic sub-atomic particles, you can get a lot of mileage out of theories like this. And if you can find the right theory, then you can predictively model particle behavior.

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As I haven't the appetite for logic-chopping and subdividing propositions ad infinitum, I am bowing out.

Sheesh. Whatever, bro.

Edited by Chris Smith, 01 April 2012 - 11:36 AM.

[inquiringmind]

Log, on 01 April 2012 - 02:39 AM, said:

Chris,

...I am all ears to hear how the notion of the universe-as-computer-material-existence-as-program produces testable claims and results which are best explained by that hypothesis versus any other...

Chris,

Doesn't quantum physics produce testable claims and results (in particle accelerators, etc) that would fit the hypothesis of matter being more like a hologram projection than concrete "stuff" having real substance?

Edited by inquiringmind, 01 April 2012 - 11:28 AM.

[Chris Smith]

inquiringmind, on 01 April 2012 - 11:27 AM, said:

Doesn't quantum physics produce testable claims and results (in particle accelerators, etc) that would fit the hypothesis of matter being more like a hologram projection than concrete "stuff" having real substance?

Yeah, see my post above.

[inquiringmind]

Chris Smith, on 01 April 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Yeah, see my post above.

Thank you Chris.

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And if you can find the right theory, then you can predictively model particle behavior.

Like particles popping in and out of existence in particle accelerators, right?

Are you LDS?

Do you believe there's room for an ontological ground of all being in LDS theology?

Does quantum physics suggest a model of the universe that looks more like a great thought than a great machine, and does that suggest that the underlying ground of it's being may be best conceived of as some kind of mind (or intelligence)?

And even though I don't  the Big Bang Theory was being mocked at General Conference today, doesn't Elder Richard G. Scott asking his audience "if an explosion in a print shop could produce a dictionary" kinda suggest that he personally sees the need for some kind of ground of all being?

And (while I don't think he was mocking the theory of evolution per sey), would you agree that he was mocking any theory of a wholly undirected, and purposeless  process of evolution?

Edited by inquiringmind, 01 April 2012 - 04:29 PM.

[Chris Smith]

inquiringmind, on 01 April 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

Like particles popping in and out of existence in particle accelerators, right?

Yep.

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Are you LDS?

Nope.

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Do you believe there's room for an ontological ground of all being in LDS theology?

Yep. The LDS God is a contingent, material entity subject to natural laws, and I don't see anything in LDS theology to indicate whether there is anything ontologically "behind" God, or what that might be.

In fact, HF could easily be an evolved entity. I can't remember if it's the BoA or a sermon of Joseph Smith that says God "found himself" among the intelligences, but whichever it was, this almost implies that God didn't know his own origin.

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Does quantum physics suggest a model of the universe that looks more like a great thought than a great machine, and does that suggest that the underlying ground of it's being may be best conceived of as some kind of mind (or intelligence)?

No, I don't think so.

Quantum physics basically says that the universe exists as a probability function, which is "indeterminate" until an act of "observation", at which point it appears to "collapse" into a particular determinate state. A lot of folks in the humanities have made a big deal out of this concept because they suppose it grants some metaphysical status to "minds" and "observers". But there are a lot of questions surrounding this phenomenon. First of all, there's the question of whether the probability function really collapses into a single state or merely appears to. In the Copenhagen interpretation, observation causes indeterminacy to be actually replaced by determinacy. This does seem to grant a sort of magical power to observation, but even in this view there is the question of whether the observer has to be a mind or can simply be a particle colliding with another particle. Anyway, the more elegant interpretation, in my opinion, is the Many Worlds Interpretation. In this view, all the different probabilities of the wavefunction exist simultaneously as parallel universes, and the act of observation merely answers the question of which universe the observer is in. Other observers in other universes are observing different outcomes. So in this view, indeterminacy isn't actually affected by the act of observation, and therefore no special metaphysical status for observers is implied.

Even if observing minds do turn out to be somehow special, the picture physics gives us of the universe is still overwhelmingly mechanistic and mathematical. So if the Ground of Being is a mind, that mind apparently works far more mechanistically than ours do.

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And even though I don't  the Big Bang Theory was being mocked at General Conference today, doesn't Elder Richard G. Scott asking his audience "if an explosion in a print shop could produce a dictionary" kinda suggest that he personally sees the need for some kind of ground of all being?

Well, I didn't watch conference and I don't really know anything about Elder Scott. But one of the appealing features of the Many Worlds Interpretation is that it essentially allows for a potentially infinite number of parallel print shop explosions, one of which is bound to produce a dictionary. In other words, the multiplicity of universes explains how a universe could have emerged with the rather unlikely set of characteristics necessary to produce life.

Edited by Chris Smith, 01 April 2012 - 05:29 PM.

[inquiringmind]

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...the more elegant interpretation, in my opinion, is the Many Worlds Interpretation. In this view, all the different probabilities of the wavefunction exist simultaneously as parallel universes, and the act of observation merely answers the question of which universe the observer is in.

So every possible universe would exist, and anything that could possibly happen would happen in some universe.

But not everything would be possible, and not everything possible would be possible in every universe (so the theory would leave a lot of questions unanswered, wouldn't it?)

The theory wouldn't explain why some things were possible, and other things weren't, why some things were possible in one universe and not in another, why there are any laws of physics anywhere, what consciousness is or why it arose, or why anything is possible anywhere (would it?)

Edited by inquiringmind, 01 April 2012 - 05:41 PM.

[Log]

Yep.  With the unlimited probabilistic resources posited by MWI, absolutely anything can be explained by an appeal to chance.  So you buy a God-free existence at the cost of statistical rationality.

Carry on.

[inquiringmind]

Log, on 01 April 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

Yep.  With the unlimited probabilistic resources posited by MWI, absolutely anything can be explained by an appeal to chance.  So you buy a God-free existence at the cost of statistical rationality.

Carry on.

I don't buy the Multiple Worlds Interpretation.

I believe Intelligence creates, and is the ground of all being.

[Chris Smith]

inquiringmind, on 01 April 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

The theory wouldn't explain why some things were possible, and other things weren't, why some things were possible in one universe and not in another, why there are any laws of physics anywhere, what consciousness is or why it arose, or why anything is possible anywhere (would it?)

The MWI itself doesn't suffice to explain all of that, but presumably one could account for it through a theory of what the wave function is and how it operates. I'm not a physicist, so I can't comment on how all this relates mathematically to string theory or other models of the universe. But I assume efforts have been made to integrate these concepts and come up with some kind of combined model.

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With the unlimited probabilistic resources posited by MWI, absolutely anything can be explained by an appeal to chance. So you buy a God-free existence at the cost of statistical rationality.

God-free if God is defined according to classical theism, but not necessarily God-free when God is defined according to the finitist theology of the LDS Church.

[Chris Smith]

inquiringmind, on 01 April 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

I don't buy the Multiple Worlds Interpretation.

I believe Intelligence creates, and is the ground of all being.

If the wave function exists within a divine mind, the MWI could still be true.

[Log]

Sure, there might be an infinite number of universes where a finitistic deity exists.  However, the necessity to invoke the actual existence of any such deity to explain any phenomenon whatsoever is nil since you've got unlimited probabilistic resources.

[Chris Smith]

Log, on 01 April 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

Sure, there might be an infinite number of universes where a finitistic deity exists.  However, the necessity to invoke the actual existence of any such deity to explain any phenomenon whatsoever is nil since you've got unlimited probabilistic resources.

No, the unlimited probabilistic resources would only explain why the universe improbably had the constants necessary to produce life. Events within the universe, such as your testimony experience, would still have to be explained by appeal to finite causes. In other words, MWI eliminates the design argument, but not the testimony argument, which is what's supposed to be the basis of LDS faith anyway.

Edited by Chris Smith, 01 April 2012 - 06:00 PM.

[Log]

Chris,

You can't be that naive.

Literally any state of affairs possible to occur, including a universe which has, as its sole existing object, a brain in a vat, occurs, and occurs infinitely often.

That's MWI.

Edited by Log, 01 April 2012 - 06:06 PM.