Is God omniscient? Start Over.

[rodheadlee]

I don't think God invented mathematics, I think he discovered mathematics in it's completeness. If there is such a thing.

[Chum]

5 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

I don't think God invented mathematics, I think he discovered mathematics in it's completeness. If there is such a thing.

I hope someone documented the bugs in earlier universes, before those gods got everything figured out.

"Oh. I think solid water is going to need to float."

[DT_]

On 8/18/2022 at 10:42 PM, Stargazer said:

 It must therefore follow that only a finite number of things could happen in the past.

Thanks very much! You ask lovely questions!  

You're welcome and thank you. 

I'm still very curious. If God created time, how could God have the time to create time before the creation of time? Would time before time make any sense? 

Edited August 26, 2022 by DT_

[DT_]

On 8/20/2022 at 4:42 AM, Calm said:

And neither God nor we remember them because those sins never happened in the time that now exists for us.

Do you think God can quickly recall all the good things that happened in the infinite past? If so, do you think God can count to infinity in less than one minute?

Edited August 26, 2022 by DT_

[rodheadlee]

13 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Do you think God can quickly recall all the good things that happened in the infinite past? If so, do you think God can count to infinity in less than one minute?

One minute? On which planet and time zone?

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Reminds me of Alma 12:9,10

I'm telling you- if you want to read the gospel in secular language/philosophy read Rorty and Wittgenstein.

Pure logic, pure gospel all the way.  We have NO CLUE what we have!

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, DT_ said:

You're welcome and thank you. 

I'm still very curious. If God created time, how could God have the time to create time before the creation of time? Would time before time make any sense? 

That kind of involves inside-universe time and outside-universe time, which would be entirely different times.

If the standard model of physics is correct, time began at the moment of the Big Bang. I said earlier that Hawking's formulation was that in the beginning God had no time to create anything, because before the Big Bang time did not exist. That's fine, as far as it goes, and if that's all there is to say, then as Hawking formulated it there was no time for a Creator to even exist in, let create anything, and Hawking wins. The fundamental absurdity is that if God existed in in-universe time this would involve Him creating himself.

But the absurdity can be eliminated if God exists outside the universe when he calls the universe, and its time, into being. If God exists and created this universe, it must therefore be the case that God has his own time, which I will refer to as supertime. Perhaps our universe is nothing more than a subuniverse within God's superuniverse.  Superuniverse and its supertime is as provable as God is. Or, in other words, this is not falsifiable and cannot be reached by the scientific method. My own personal evidence says that the Judaeo-Christian God of the Bible (and Book of Mormon, et al.) exists. As to the rest of this, superuniverse and supertime, it's just moonshine. And I know that all this sounds like someone trying to explain away one absurdity by coming up with something even more absurd! But I'm having tons of fun thinking about all this.

I don't know if anyone else has come up with these terms: "superuniverse" and "supertime."  I kind of invented them on the fly as I was trying to explain what I just tried to explain. I like these two new terms, though! And I have you to thank for inducing me to come up with them! It will probably turn out that someone else came up with them a long time ago, though. And/Or it will turn out to be nothing but hot air.

Do other universes actually exist? Some physicists believe so, including luminaries such as Hawking and Neil Degrasse Tyson, but there's no more evidence for that than there is for God. There have been attempts to discover if any other universe in the multiverse might have collided with ours, by using CMB measurements, first with the WMAP probe and later with the Planck satellite. WMAP results seemed to indicate that this might have happened a long time ago, but Planck results found this to be false, or statistically insupportable -- Planck had much better resolution than WMAP, so it's likely definite: there's no evidence for multiverses. Of course, as you know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[Stargazer]

39 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I'm telling you- if you want to read the gospel in secular language/philosophy read Rorty and Wittgenstein.

Pure logic, pure gospel all the way.  We have NO CLUE what we have!

I've tried to read you when you talk about these things and it goes right over my head. I imagine Rorty and Wittgenstein unfiltered by mfbukowski would be even harder to follow.

And I was singing your praises to my wife earlier today, about the pure logic thing, and philosophy. The problem is, Mark, pure logic appeals only to a small slice of the population. The rest can't hack it. Not everyone is as sharp as you. For them, the impressions of the Holy Spirit will be what brings them over.

[DT_]

On 8/20/2022 at 4:42 AM, Calm said:

Perhaps time is fluid like that.

Wouldn't that create paradoxes? Do you think some of the things we did never happened? If time is circular or a recursion, wouldn't it mean that God knows the future? Things like the Restoration could happen before the great apostasy.  What happens with free will?  

Edited August 26, 2022 by DT_

[DT_]

10 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That kind of involves inside-universe time and outside-universe time, which would be entirely different times.

If the standard model of physics is correct, time began at the moment of the Big Bang. I said earlier that Hawking's formulation was that in the beginning God had no time to create anything, because before the Big Bang time did not exist. That's fine, as far as it goes, and if that's all there is to say, then as Hawking formulated it there was no time for a Creator to even exist in, let create anything, and Hawking wins. The fundamental absurdity is that if God existed in in-universe time this would involve Him creating himself.

But the absurdity can be eliminated if God exists outside the universe when he calls the universe, and its time, into being. If God exists and created this universe, it must therefore be the case that God has his own time, which I will refer to as supertime. Perhaps our universe is nothing more than a subuniverse within God's superuniverse.  Superuniverse and its supertime is as provable as God is. Or, in other words, this is not falsifiable and cannot be reached by the scientific method. My own personal evidence says that the Judaeo-Christian God of the Bible (and Book of Mormon, et al.) exists. As to the rest of this, superuniverse and supertime, it's just moonshine. And I know that all this sounds like someone trying to explain away one absurdity by coming up with something even more absurd! But I'm having tons of fun thinking about all this.

Absolutely, and it's fun to ask questions. Do you think the superuniverse and supertime had no beginning? 

[Stargazer]

15 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Absolutely, and it's fun to ask questions. Do you think the superuniverse and supertime had no beginning? 

The wife and I drove downtown earlier and I was jabbering to her all the way (she was driving) about our conversation here and at some point I could tell she had reached the point of hoping I would either shut up voluntarily or I would have a sudden stroke and shut up perforce. But still I went on. I love that woman.

Anyway, do I think they had no beginning? I can't say, because I think I've reached a sudden wall. I can imagine the superuniverse and its supertime. But beyond their conceivable existence all I can do is say "Yes and no." The SU and ST are a proposed solution to the time-creation-absurdity problem, but beyond that I can't really say. Perhaps I haven't had enough practice...

From Lewis Carroll: "Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'. I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"

So after breakfast tomorrow, I might be able to say something further about this. We shall see.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Stargazer

[mfbukowski]

18 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I've tried to read you when you talk about these things and it goes right over my head. I imagine Rorty and Wittgenstein unfiltered by mfbukowski would be even harder to follow.

And I was singing your praises to my wife earlier today, about the pure logic thing, and philosophy. The problem is, Mark, pure logic appeals only to a small slice of the population. The rest can't hack it. Not everyone is as sharp as you. For them, the impressions of the Holy Spirit will be what brings them over.

Thanks, but no, the spirit confirms the logic!

It's just not getting mixed up by language as if language is about reality.  It's not, - it's about ambiguous terms.

Imagine doing math where the value squiggles for every number could mean anything.

5 could mean 7 or 9

8 could mean 1 or 6, or sometimes 17!

Open any dictionary and see how many meanings there could be for one word!

Then we discuss "Is God Omniscient?"

What does "is" mean there? Does that mean "God" = "omniscient"?

Synonym?

What is "God"?  ZEUS? 

And just look at the ambiguity of "omniscient"?

It's all nonsense! Nobody knows what they are talking about!

Edited August 27, 2022 by mfbukowski
Unclear Punctuation

[mfbukowski]

11 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

So after breakfast tomorrow, I might be able to say something further about this. We shall see.

Just make sure what you discuss is not a "thing"

Then you will have no "thing" to get wrong! 😁

[Stargazer]

5 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Thanks, but no, the spirit confirms the logic!

It's just not getting mixed up by language as if language is about reality.  It's no it's about ambiguous terms.

Imagine doing math where the value squiggles for every number could mean anything.

5 could mean 7 or 9

8 could mean 1 or 6, or sometimes 17!

Open any dictionary and see how many meanings there could be for one word!

Then we discuss "Is God Omniscient?"

What does "is" mean there? Does that mean "God" = "omniscient"?

Synonym?

What is "God"?  ZEUS? 

And just look at the ambiguity of "omniscient"?

It's all nonsense! Nobody knows what they are talking about!

 

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Just make sure what you discuss is not a "thing"

Then you will have no "thing" to get wrong! 😁

I doubt I will have breakfast in any case. I tend not to wake until lunchtime. Nightowl.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I doubt I will have breakfast in any case. I tend not to wake until lunchtime. Nightowl.

Would you like to take the Rorty passage line by line?

[Stargazer]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Would you like to take the Rorty passage line by line?

OK, I'll admit I haven't given full attention to this. I revel in my attention deficit disorder sometimes. I take it you are referring to your sig:

"To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

"Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

If this is the passage you mean, I'll actually buckle down and read it for effect. Tomorrow. It's a quarter to two in the morning where I am and I was supposed to be in bed three hours ago. 

--------

ETA: I went and had a quick look on Amazon for the book this quote comes from, and there was this first sentence in the book's description:

"In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals."

Commentary: Yep, it's definitely English. Yep, I understand what most of the words mean. But when stuck all together in the sentence I haven't a quiver of an understanding of what the sentence means.

Sorry, I'm still up even though I said I had to go to bed. My quick look at Amazon turned into a forehead-wrinkling puzzle. 

Bed now. Seriously.

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Stargazer

[Calm]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Imagine doing math where the value squiggles for every number could mean anything

Kind of like algebra?

[mfbukowski]

48 minutes ago, Calm said:

Kind of like algebra?

Actually I would not disagree with that!

The difference is that the variables in algebra are usually defined objectively whereas in religion they tend to be subjective- like the problem here of a working definition for "omniscient".

What does it mean to know everything? Pretty much whatever you need it to be in your paradigm!

But that's ok in religion! As long as you can squeeze it into a dogma!

We postulate that Jesus (and therefore Father) personally experienced every experience humans are capable of experiencing

Works for me! 

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by mfbukowski

[Vanguard]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

OK, I'll admit I haven't given full attention to this. I revel in my attention deficit disorder sometimes. I take it you are referring to your sig:

"To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

"Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

If this is the passage you mean, I'll actually buckle down and read it for effect. Tomorrow. It's a quarter to two in the morning where I am and I was supposed to be in bed three hours ago. 

--------

ETA: I went and had a quick look on Amazon for the book this quote comes from, and there was this first sentence in the book's description:

"In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals."

Commentary: Yep, it's definitely English. Yep, I understand what most of the words mean. But when stuck all together in the sentence I haven't a quiver of an understanding of what the sentence means.

Sorry, I'm still up even though I said I had to go to bed. My quick look at Amazon turned into a forehead-wrinkling puzzle. 

Bed now. Seriously.

 

I would love to hear more about the Rorty passage from Bukowski. ; )

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Vanguard said:

I would love to hear more about the Rorty passage from Bukowski. ; )

Thanks, Late now, tomorrow for sure. I will do both the siggy and Stargazers 

 

[MiserereNobis]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Thanks, Late now, tomorrow for sure. I will do both the siggy and Stargazers 

 

Post the vi-de-o! Vi-de-o! Vi-de-o! 😉😊

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Post the vi-de-o! Vi-de-o! Vi-de-o! 😉😊

Stop being bad or I will!

😡  Then you will be sorry!!

 

[Amulek]

17 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It's just not getting mixed up by language as if language is about reality.  It's no[t] it's about ambiguous terms.

Imagine doing math where the value squiggles for every number could mean anything.

5 could mean 7 or 9

8 could mean 1 or 6, or sometimes 17!

Open any dictionary and see how many meanings there could be for one word!

Then we discuss "Is God Omniscient?"

What does "is" mean there? Does that mean "God" = "omniscient"?

Seriously. Our language isn't even especially good at expressing fine points about logic or mathematics. I mean, as an exercise, just try to express the following in English prose:

        x = [√(y2 + z√w)] / [2.7w (a3 + log(y – 0.5z))]

But, 'Is God Omniscient?" Sure, that's one we can totally handle in casual conversation. 

Speaking of language, since we're on the subject now, I'm reminded of the following passage from Alice in Wonderland (about Haddocks' Eyes):

Quote

"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It's long," said the Knight, "but very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else—"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'."
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways And Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention." 

 

[mfbukowski]

28 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Seriously. Our language isn't even especially good at expressing fine points about logic or mathematics. I mean, as an exercise, just try to express the following in English prose:

        x = [√(y2 + z√w)] / [2.7w (a3 + log(y – 0.5z))]

But, 'Is God Omniscient?" Sure, that's one we can totally handle in casual conversation. 

Speaking of language, since we're on the subject now, I'm reminded of the following passage from Alice in Wonderland (about Haddocks' Eyes):

 

Have I got a video for YOU!

Here- 20 minutes that could change your way of seeing EVERYTHING 

What he missed though is the Holy Ghost,  a language game with the universe.

Yet he has moral beliefs and did not comment where they came from.

We know.