Existence was imagined and it was imagined infinite

[Bassil]

14 minutes ago, pogi said:

For someone who already believes in God and/or Jesus without believing in Theta, do you see any pragmatic benefits of adding Theta to their belief system?

I'm not sure.

[pogi]

9 minutes ago, Bassil said:

I'm not sure.

Ok.  When you can think of a good reason for me to believe other than you say so, maybe I’ll entertain the idea.   I am glad that it has led you to Christ though, and that you have found happiness there.

Edited August 23, 2023 by pogi

[Bassil]

9 minutes ago, pogi said:

Ok.  When you can think of a good reason for me to believe other than you say so, maybe I’ll entertain the idea.

I just express myself. It's not an invitation for people to believe what I believe. I'm an alone person who wants to communicate. 🙂

[Bassil]

11 minutes ago, pogi said:

I am glad that it has led you to Christ though, and that you have found happiness there.

🙏

[Calm]

10 hours ago, Dario_M said:

Oh my oh my...the English language is so beautiful. Most beautiful language of the whole world in my opinion.

Its flexibility is remarkable.  It is so fun to play with.  I know little about other languages as I was never good at learning to understand spoken language or  speak it (even spoken English with a strong accent has been hard for me to understand) so I have nothing really to compare it to.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

11 hours ago, Bassil said:

Can you either comprehend or imagine a mountain in its full size in a keyhole?

This reminds me of the Men in Black first movie where there is the Arquillian galaxy inside the bauble on a dog’s collar** and at the end, there is a being playing with marbles, one of which holds our galaxy/universe with a bag which holds likely a hundred or more similar galaxy marbles.

**https://meninblack.fandom.com/wiki/Arquilian_Galaxy

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Calm

[Bassil]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

This reminds me of the Men in Black first movie

I remember that. 🙂

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Bassil said:

I remember that. 🙂

If one can imagine a full size galaxy in a marble, a mountain inside a keyhole isn’t a big deal.  It is all a matter of perspective, where one stands.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Calm

[Bassil]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

If one can imagine a full size galaxy in a marble, a mountain inside a keyhole isn’t a big deal.  It is all a matter of perspective, where one stands.

Those Galaxies were shrunk into the marbles. When I say imagine I mean draw a valid mental image. I see it as a one-kilometer-high mountain yet inside a half-centimeter keyhole. I'll make it easy for you. Imagine an eleven-dimensional world. 🙂

[blackstrap]

Posts like these may require a new forum... or maybe just rename the " in the news " forum to "in the new age " 😉

[Calm]

40 minutes ago, Bassil said:

Those Galaxies were shrunk into the marbles.

Not from the POV of those in the galaxies though.

[Dario_M]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It's just a school of philosophy to which I am drawn as a 50 year student. 😁

Oh really. How interesting. So you're 50 years old?

The age of 50 is the new young. 💙

[Dario_M]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Its flexibility is remarkable.  It is so fun to play with.

Exactly. That's how i feel as well. You can't do that so much with other languages, playing with it as much you know. Especially with the Portuguess language i find. Making a good joke in Portuguess is just difficult. 

5 hours ago, Calm said:

 I know little about other languages as I was never good at learning to understand spoken language or  speak it (even spoken English with a strong accent has been hard for me to understand) so I have nothing really to compare it to.

They say that Duch is the closest one compared with English. But i believe that you don't understand much of it if i may be really honest. But dutch and English language have a lot of words that are the same. Or sound the same. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Dario_M

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

But i believe that you don't understand much of it if i may be really honest.

I know a little Spanish from high school and college, even less French.  That was embarrassing at times living in Canada where they expected basic French at least with a few organizations I helped my husband with (he is a professor and part of Canada is French speaking to the point they won’t talk English with anyone who is from Canada—Canada is officially bilingual—because of past discrimination against the use of French, they were fine about it once I told them I was from the States thankfully).  Don’t claim to know anything else, except to recognize them on occasion.  Thank goodness for google translation.  I once could ask for help and the very basics in Russian, but living in Moscow for a semester was over 25 years ago, so would have to look that up now to refresh my memory.  If anyone said I knew a little Dutch, I would laugh at them.  I know a few words in Korean because of watching their shows.  Sometimes I can recognize when the subtitles don’t match what they are saying (they often are saying honorific or affectionate titles like calling an older friend their older sister or brother and the subtitles just use the names, which diminishes the relationship in some cases).

Edited August 24, 2023 by Calm

[Bassil]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

Not from the POV of those in the galaxies though.

I'll give more examples. I'll give an example of something that doesn't make sense yet we can draw a valid image about it. An elevator with a capacity of five individuals, its door keeps open and closed every ten seconds. Every time the door opens five people get out. It did that ten times. The total number of people who got out of that elevator was 50 individuals! Though it does not make sense that 50 people came out of an elevator that can hold only five people, we can draw a valid image of the situation.

Now I'll give two examples regarding existence.

1. You are in a spaceship that is set for a journey in a finite existence. This journey was never meant to stop at any point. Eventually, the ship would reach the border of existence. The question is, is the border infinite? An infinite border means infinite existence instead of a finite one! Another question would be, is the border finite? That would trigger another question, What is beyond the border?

2. You are in a spaceship that is set for a journey in an infinite existence. This journey was never meant to stop at any point. You can draw a valid image of a forever trip just by dropping the borders from that image.

A finite existence makes no sense and we can't draw a valid image about it.

An infinite existence makes no sense yet we can draw a valid image about it.

Our existence is imagined by God, and it was imagined infinite. 🙂

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 minutes ago, Bassil said:

1. You are in a spaceship that is set for a journey in a finite existence. This journey was never meant to stop at any point. Eventually, the ship would reach the border of existence. The question is, is the border infinite? An infinite border means infinite existence instead of a finite one! Another question would be, is the border finite? That would trigger another question, What is beyond the border?

The problem with questions like this is that they create artificial dichotomies - especially when we take them beyond the analogy stage. Our universe is expanding - but according to current theories, it isn't expanding into something. So the border is not infinite (it is finite), and yet there is nothing beyond it. This isn't that hard to wrap our heads around, anymore than to start to talk about the beginning of the universe as a singularity with a finite size and nothing beyond its borders.

4 minutes ago, Bassil said:

2. You are in a spaceship that is set for a journey in an infinite existence. This journey was never meant to stop at any point. You can draw a valid image of a forever trip just by dropping the borders from that image.

As long as you are traveling at a constant speed which is slower than the expansion rate of the universe, you could set out on an infinite journey within a finite space. I'll get back to this in a moment.

6 minutes ago, Bassil said:

A finite existence makes no sense and we can't draw a valid image about it.

This doesn't make any logical sense.

7 minutes ago, Bassil said:

An infinite existence makes no sense yet we can draw a valid image about it.

Infinity is a problematic concept for us - our brains are not wired well to contemplate it. Your example also doesn't relate well to this concept. It becomes a game where we can switch things around a bit. I might suggest, for example, that if I had an infinite number of balls and a really big box, I could number the balls and put them into the box. But, after I put in 10 balls, I take one out. So I put in numbers 1 to 10, and take out number 1. Then I put in numbers 11 to 20 and take out number 2. And so on. After a sufficiently long enough period of time, we reach a point where we know that there should be balls in the box, but we cannot identify a single one of them. After all, if I look for ball number 63,412, I removed it when I put in balls 634,111 through 634,120. A seeming paradox. Of course, if I removed out the last ball of each 10 (number 10, when I put in numbers 1 through 10), we don't have such a problem. All we need to do for your elevator is to re-understand it as the sort of elevator we find in most hospitals. It has doors on both sides ... and standing out in the hallway, we cannot see into it far enough to see the other door.

There is no question that we can all formulate impossible situations which we cannot imagine in the real world. But, contrary to your repeated suggestions, these aren't unimaginable because we cannot imagine them, they are unimaginable because they can't actually happen. And this means that your trying to use these ideas as analogies fails because the analogy is flawed - your examples don't correspond to reality. Of course we can draw pictures of things that aren't real. And of course we can't really fathom them actually happening. That's a feature of the way our minds construct narratives and understand reality. But these examples don't being to suggest that we cannot imagine finiteness. That claim isn't logical or understandable - because we imagine finiteness all the time. We exist in a finite experience. And whether or not we believe that God can create infinite existence or not, we have the problem that is built in to that question over whether or not God ever began to create - was there a beginning to creation (and thus a boundary on creation).

When you start to discuss dimensions (as you did yesterday) we immediately start running into these problems. The so-called fourth dimension is time. Without time, no change occurs. We have been discussing this problem of infinity in terms of spacial referents (that is what it means to take a journey, right?), but without time, you can't have an infinite journey. You don't move without time (and even if you did, you would simply exist in all points on the trajectory at the same moment). The fact that you start a journey creates a boundary in time - provides for it to be finite.

There is an interesting application in all of this to where you take it. If our existence is defined by the thought of God, and God imagines it as infinite, then God has not completed His thought. The moment that God finishes that thought is the moment that the imagination of God is made finite.

I would argue that this is one of the reasons why scripture has an "in the beginning" and it also describes an ending (even if that ending is followed by a new creation - a new thought).

Within Mormonism, this idea is discussed in 2 Nephi 2 -

Quote

12: wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation.

This is an interesting point relative to your suggestion - because God is interested in the end of creation - and not in some infinite and ongoing act of creation.

Quote

15: And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man,

God's purpose in mankind isn't in our mortal existence but in our end.

Quote

22: And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

This connects back to the issue of time. Without change, mankind cannot progress towards their end. Which is fine, if you are completely happy with something that doesn't change. But without a finite nature, God's creation cannot change or move forward or progress towards God's purposes (which exist in the end of that creation).

Quote

26: And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.

And this is that end. Within Mormon thought, when we are freed from the many problems of mortality through the atonement, we become free forever - to act for ourselves, and not to be acted upon. We are no longer merely the product of God's imagination, we have become ourselves capable of that same imagination. And when there is a new creation following this creation, we don't participate because we are what God has imagined, we participate because we are also imagining with God, and the creation is shared. In LDS theology, God's imagination isn't viewed as infinite (in the way you suggest here) because his purposes are connected to our end (the finiteness of existence as a dependent creation of God).

I think you have it backwards. We comprehend what is finite. And our existence is finite in our current state. And through the developed understanding of our experience of what is finite and our ability to imagine what is infinite, we become ready to comprehend what is infinite and to develop the mind of God (within ourselves) to become God's co-creators.

[Bassil]

32 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

We comprehend what is finite.

Of course, all the objects we interact with are finite. But we don't comprehend a finite existence. 

[Bassil]

35 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And our existence is finite in our current state.

It's not about our existence. It's about existence.

[Benjamin McGuire]

5 minutes ago, Bassil said:

Of course, all the objects we interact with are finite. But we don't comprehend a finite existence. 

Yes we do. You keep saying this, but you haven't really provided any evidence for this claim.

4 minutes ago, Bassil said:

It's not about our existence. It's about existence.

And how do you distinguish between the two?

[Bassil]

10 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And how do you distinguish between the two?

We are countable.

[Benjamin McGuire]

16 minutes ago, Bassil said:

We are countable.

What does this mean? And how is this a difference?

When I was young (I realize that this will date me), I went on a class trip and watched a film adaption of Asimov's The Last Question at a planetarium in Grand Rapids, MI. How is something like that not an imagining of a finite existence on your terms?

[Nofear]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

What does this mean? And how is this a difference?

Not sure what he means by countable, but "countable" does have a precise mathematical definition -- that it has a one-to-one correspondence with the set of positive integers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countable_set). There is countably infinite sets and there are infinite sets which are uncountable. They have different cardinalities. Heck, there are an infinite number of infinities with different cardinalities.

[Dario_M]

On 8/24/2023 at 7:27 AM, Calm said:

I know a little Spanish from high school and college, even less French.  That was embarrassing at times living in Canada where they expected basic French at least with a few organizations I helped my husband with (he is a professor and part of Canada is French speaking to the point they won’t talk English with anyone who is from Canada—Canada

I find that always so rude. Canada may have france areas....but still though...the biggist part of the country speaks English.

Did you know that they also don't wanna speak English with you in France? 

On 8/24/2023 at 7:27 AM, Calm said:

is officially bilingual—because of past discrimination against the use of French, they were fine about it once I told them I was from the States thankfully).  Don’t claim to know anything else, except to recognize them on occasion.  Thank goodness for google translation.  I once could ask for help and the very basics in Russian, but living in Moscow for a semester was over 25 years ago, so would have to look that up now to refresh my memory.  If anyone said I knew a little Dutch, I would laugh at them.

For English and Amerians etc it isn't that hard to learn Dutch because of all those simular words we share.

But is Dutch a beautiful language though? In my opinion absolutely not. 😖

On 8/24/2023 at 7:27 AM, Calm said:

 

 I know a few words in Korean because of watching their shows.  Sometimes I can recognize when the subtitles don’t match what they are saying (they often are saying honorific or affectionate titles like calling an older friend their older sister or brother and the subtitles just use the names, which diminishes the relationship in some cases).

How interesting. You really love the east do you? 🥰

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Dario_M said:

But is Dutch a beautiful language though? In my opinion absolutely not. 😖

I need to find a Dutch program and listen to it.  I sort of have as I watched the original Professor T, which is in Flemish.  I hear it is a dialect of Dutch.  Does the count?  Is it too different from the version you think of or pretty close?

I enjoyed it a lot, which would have included how it sounded.  Unfortunately I am not subscribed to the service I watched it on now, so can’t refresh my memory.  It did take some getting used to iirc.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

29 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

How interesting. You really love the east do you? 🥰

I got to know a lot of Asians when we lived in Canada, tutored them.  Korea especially. It feels like family came from there, even if not my ancestors.

But Korea also has a lot of good mysteries and fantasy dramas.  I love watching fantasies based on other mythology than the ones I am very familiar with, like Norse and Greek.  It is also fun to look for patterns, tropes in different shows and then to check if I am right if it’s a culture thing.

 I hardly ever watch American shows anymore, they feel too much the same or trying too hard, too angsty.  I will hook into British/Australian TV about once a year and get caught up on their new programs.