On the Immaterial.

Eloise
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On the Immaterial.

I've been meaning to write this for a while and finally had the inspiration.

1. What is matter ? or.. The atom is not plum pudding.
When you think of matter do you associate it with the seemingly solid and dense chunks of classical empirical renown, or do you equate it with the fundamental force interactions at the tiniest level of the universe which one would expect to be basic? Or do you weigh in a little on both sides, perhaps having a pragmatic bias filling the ontological gap in favour of the first, maybe a mystical curiousity inclining you to ontologically favour the latter a bit more?

Perhaps you're not so entirely aware of the fact that matter does not have a continuous smooth definition across its orders of magnitude - that at the very very large scale a clump of matter appears to behave like it was a hole of infinite depth (time axis) and capacity, then on more moderate scales it behaves like it actually was the solid universe that we percieve ourselves coming into contact with every day, while on a very very tiny scale like it is a vastly empty shell comprising random blips and bumps of force leaping out of nothingness.

Matter is all of these things.

2. Etymology or... immaterial is just a word.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | Date: 1996 places the origin of the word "immaterial" circa 1300CE and relates it to the word incorporeal (meaning without body) dated about the same time.
The coining of the word immaterial predates the quantum-relativity era by 600 years, this should tell us a lot about what meaning the word was intended to convey. It was clearly not intended to refer to a negation of the current day conception of material informed by our recent gargantuan leaps in knowledge of the universe. No. The original negation applies strictly to the scale of small to very large orders of magnitude, the nakedly visible universe. 


3. So... Is immaterial proven or disproven?

Some would say that although there is not one smoothly continuous description of the nature of matter the three constrasting versions are strongly suggestive of a well defined continuum (or loop), and moreover, they all are clearly shown to refer to the very one and same phenomenon - therefore nothing can be immaterial and immaterial has no meaning in contemporary dialogue - it is therefore disproved.

Then some others would say, contrarily, that the original prediction of the existence of incorporeal phenomena, or that which is 'without body' (where the referent of body is no more or less the antiquated conception of visibly naked matter as universally and immutably solid and dense) is proven, by virtue of real objects having been empirically and logically proven to be without this antiquated conception of body, and moreover that those objects are undeniably the very objects predicted by the original claimants (ie light, the very very large and the very very fundamental).

However, I say, both are right - the immaterial of circa 1300CE is proven and has been (provisionally) better defined AND thus the word immaterial has no meaning, or reason to exist, in contemporary dialogue.

[mod edit for "embarassing typo"]


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I would say "immaterial" has

I would say "immaterial" has no place in scientific speak since science is primarily conerned with material or "that which has a body".  But it is difficult to avoid such issues when in philosophical discussions since, even a philosophical view is to show how there is no immaterial, would entail a defining of immaterial in order to refute it.  Even in many strict materialists views, they have this idea of emergent propterties to account for, what were previosuly described as immaterial such as identity, personality, etc.  Of course that is really just semantics since these aspects about the human condition are still "without body" or, there is no single physical thing within the human body that can be studied and identified as the personhood center, for instance.  So, I would say the idea of things "without bodies" is still a problem, however, we are jsut using diffrent words to describe it. 

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YES YES Eloise .... as I

YES YES Eloise .... as I read your every word .... ALL is ONE !  

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                        You are so Bright ! And all a lover ....  wow Eloise !   


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There is a dog here now, that REALLY likes beer !

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One would think that such a

One would think that such a long coming post would be followed by long diatribes of analysis. All I can say is:

Yeah, that pretty much covers it.


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AMEN !

AMEN !


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Ack! no edit tab, and I've

Ack! no edit tab, and I've made an embarrassing typo....

 

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 ... all so good to me , 

 ... all so good to me ,  my Eloise ... I simply adore you  ~

.... and when I object , I will let you know, I promise .... from the bottom of my heart! Thanks for all your words ..... really ..... to know a little of you .... lucky me .... I Love a girl , her name is Eloise ..... wow , so fine , this girl I found , as we know her as , 

                         ELOISE !  wow , I LIKE IT LIKE THAT ..... lucky me !

  sorta like this !!! ....  THE DAVE CLARK FIVE - BECAUSE (1964)

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      Maybe this says it better ???

            Dave Clark Five - I Like It Like That

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H2REaKIOlg

                            Whatever , Hey,  I love Eloise ! That's the deal      I do !

        I am grateful ..... lucky me !!! ......  

         

 


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EloiseBeing a theist (a

Eloise

Being a theist (a pantheist) and you agree that immaterial does not exist, then your god must be material. If so, and you think the universe is god, what is god? Why call the universe god?

 

People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.


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Well again aiia, the reason

Well again aiia, the reason I do it, as I've said many times, is to counter the religious deplorable dogmatic God definition with an ultra simple sensible definition. The word  G-O-D  isn't going away soon if ever .... we are stuck with it for now.

   I think this is more helpful than just saying god doesn't exist, which to often shuts down debate.  So I say instead that the god of religions is wrong. As I also say, all the cosmos, every atom, all there is , is connected, all is one, all is equal, and that is GAWED. Study what gawed is using science. I especially do this because of the impressionable kids in awe.

    This way I can better say to the religious etc, "let's talk about god (the awe), and why religious god ideas are wrong".  This is more of an eastern philosophy approach, not much known here in the west, of western black and white reasoning.

     No Master, All is One , All is GAWED ..... or whatever we wish to call it. How bout, "The Force" ???      Anyhow, the word god isn't the problem ....religion dogma is the problem ..... god fucking damn it ! .....   i god as u  (((( we are the "force"


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aiia wrote:EloiseBeing a

aiia wrote:

Eloise

Being a theist (a pantheist) and you agree that immaterial does not exist, then your god must be material.

Yes, but to oversimplify it doesn't help. The states of matter are extremely variable and strange and my conception of God is real within those bounds.

aiia wrote:

If so, and you think the universe is god, what is god? Why call the universe god?

Because the universe is more like 'god' than a universe. That's basically it. A universe is an abstract construct underlined by methodological naturalism, but there is a more fundamental reality than that abstraction, moreover it appears that the most mysterious and "transcendent" (psychological and emotional) qualities of life extend directly from that foundation, rather than being emergent from a drawn out process.

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 "qualities of life extend

 "qualities of life extend directly from that foundation" .... ~ Eloise

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      Somebody Slap Me

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Eloise wrote:aiia

Eloise wrote:

aiia wrote:

Eloise

Being a theist (a pantheist) and you agree that immaterial does not exist, then your god must be material.

Yes, but to oversimplify it doesn't help. The states of matter are extremely variable and strange and my conception of God is real within those bounds.

aiia wrote:

If so, and you think the universe is god, what is god? Why call the universe god?

Because the universe is more like 'god' than a universe. That's basically it. A universe is an abstract construct underlined by methodological naturalism, but there is a more fundamental reality than that abstraction, moreover it appears that the most mysterious and "transcendent" (psychological and emotional) qualities of life extend directly from that foundation, rather than being emergent from a drawn out process.

In what way do you differentiate emergent processes (those resulting from some sort of economy) from transcendent processes? I'm not sure what you mean by transcendent processes, as I see multiple explanations for psychological and emotional views of the universe. For instance we evolved as we are in a relatively small scope and, only recently, realized  that the environment in which we live is far greater than we could have imagined. It could be compared to, and I hate to mention this, the state of shock that Data went into in a certain episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when he was transported to one of the Q worlds - the amount of space he found himself in was incalculable. Faced with a smaller, yet equally difficult to comprehend, environment an organic system's only recourse must be to convey such vastness with emotion rather than the kind of spacial depth we experience in a 9x9x9 padded room.

I would agree with you that given the most loose definition of what a god is, the universe itself certainly is the only candidate for such a description. However, it seems false to term such a thing as God as the term "Godliness" carries an implied sentience and senescence. It would be equivalent to stating that the transaction of currency from company to company and individual to individual is godly as money is at the moment the ultimate motivator of mankind. In many ways the processes involved in the stock exchange are more advanced than those of thermodynamics, being the combined speculation of multiple entities which are certainly sentient. It could be said that it is demeaning to the word to say that the laws which make up the essence of the universe are godly, both to the term "godly" and to the term "universe."

It is certainly a magnificent state of affairs that we should be so limited as to have to feel out the cosmos like we do rather than acknowledge it with the kind of certainty that adding and subtracting groups of sticks does. Is it necessary to add in an extension of the unknowable though? We can accept the unboundedness of many things, such as the transfinite set of numbers in decimal base ten that represent pi. The ultimate magnitude of pi itself does not technically exist in nature given that it is possible to calculate the value to a precision greater than a circle the size of the universe, so at some point the concept of pi becomes a mere construct when that precision exceeds the physically possible bounds of the reality in which we float. So it is with the concept of god, for me; an irrational (in the mathematical sense), transcendental idea which as far as the world we live in goes has limits under which the definition fails.


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Immaterial is an adjective,

Immaterial is an adjective, and as such is the opposite to "material" in its adjectival form. The word comes straight from Latin where, in the adjectival form also, it meant the same thing. It has nothing to do with describing physical substance or lack of it, and everything to do with applying the principle of substance to the abstract. It is a rhetoric device to indicate irrelevance or relevance, just as the word "weighty" is used to describe something profound to contemplate but does not imply that one's brain becomes heavier in doing so.

 

Cicero once famously dismissed Mark Anthony as "immaterial" and then went on to play with the word; "non-material" (not existing), "ex-material" (derived from substance but now without) and so on, each a derogatory description of his political rival. Mark Anthony equally famously replied to this assault on his materialness by demonstrating just how much he still existed. He sent a hit-man after Cicero to kill him and bring him back the orator's hands. Maybe Cicero should have reviewed his material with a little more foresight before he published it. But it does show that even the Romans got confused with semantics. Cicero thought he was very cleverly accusing Mark Anthony of being increasingly irrelevant. The latter thought he was being told outright that he soon wouldn't exist and set about pre-empting things.

 

Material as a noun, meaning substance, is what you are discussing here Eloise, which is why I wonder you address its opposite as "immaterial" at all? Is it really the concept of "nothing" that you're wondering about? (Before someone sends a hit-man after you)

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Eloise wrote:Because the

Eloise wrote:

Because the universe is more like 'god' than a universe. That's basically it. A universe is an abstract construct underlined by methodological naturalism, but there is a more fundamental reality than that abstraction, moreover it appears that the most mysterious and "transcendent" (psychological and emotional) qualities of life extend directly from that foundation, rather than being emergent from a drawn out process.

For a Theist, 'God' is just whatever science does not yet explain. Since the universe has many things science doesn't explain, it seems like 'god' to you.

Things are only mysterious and transcendent until science can explain them. So what does mankind's lack of knowledge have anything to do with how the universe really is? You make the Theist error, you assign spirituality and some high virtue to mankind's ignorance.

Is your 'god' a natural, unnatural or supernatural phenomenon? Can science one day study and learn the characteristics of this god and have proof of it's existence? Is this god deliberately trying to hide himself from scientists so only a few can know him/her through faith? Any idea why he/she revealed transcendent knowledge to you but not the rest of us?

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inspectormustard wrote:In

inspectormustard wrote:

In what way do you differentiate emergent processes (those resulting from some sort of economy) from transcendent processes?

I put the "transcendent" in quotes cause I couldn't think of a better term at the time, sorry. I mean only to differ in the way I have indicated, by saying that, for example, a psychological consciousness does not transcend the fundamental processes of it's environment, or IOW is not the accumulation of an increasing complexity that has run over a rim of reducibility.  However, saying that it is reducible could be misleading because though I may refer to it as reducible what I mean by that may defy your ordinary concept of reduction which may follow the line 'the whole is greater than its parts', I would propose a process of reduction which implies rather that 'the whole is more fundamental than its parts'.

InspectorMustard wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by transcendent processes, as I see multiple explanations for psychological and emotional views of the universe. For instance we evolved as we are in a relatively small scope and, only recently, realized  that the environment in which we live is far greater than we could have imagined. It could be compared to, and I hate to mention this, the state of shock that Data went into in a certain episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when he was transported to one of the Q worlds - the amount of space he found himself in was incalculable. Faced with a smaller, yet equally difficult to comprehend, environment an organic system's only recourse must be to convey such vastness with emotion rather than the kind of spacial depth we experience in a 9x9x9 padded room.

That's an interesting proposition and tend to agree with part of it - the part where emotional/psychological states are a conveyance of real perceptible depth of reality. I would only differ with you on the idea that these states were transited into existence by a sort of "objectively independent" bump in the road against the forward momentum of a 'previously' more simple process. (I find this concept which I am challenging to be a greatly entrenched assumption and I apologise for any lack of clarity in identifying it for you).

 

InspectorMustard wrote:

I would agree with you that given the most loose definition of what a god is, the universe itself certainly is the only candidate for such a description. However, it seems false to term such a thing as God as the term "Godliness" carries an implied sentience and senescence. It would be equivalent to stating that the transaction of currency from company to company and individual to individual is godly as money is at the moment the ultimate motivator of mankind. In many ways the processes involved in the stock exchange are more advanced than those of thermodynamics, being the combined speculation of multiple entities which are certainly sentient. It could be said that it is demeaning to the word to say that the laws which make up the essence of the universe are godly, both to the term "godly" and to the term "universe."

I can see your objection but the difference is that it is not the prescribed mechanistic laws which I am equating with "Godliness", that really cannot be done. It also succumbs to uncertainty resulting in the God of that picture having no possibility of coherent sentience.

inspectormustard wrote:

It is certainly a magnificent state of affairs that we should be so limited as to have to feel out the cosmos like we do rather than acknowledge it with the kind of certainty that adding and subtracting groups of sticks does. Is it necessary to add in an extension of the unknowable though? We can accept the unboundedness of many things, such as the transfinite set of numbers in decimal base ten that represent pi. The ultimate magnitude of pi itself does not technically exist in nature given that it is possible to calculate the value to a precision greater than a circle the size of the universe, so at some point the concept of pi becomes a mere construct when that precision exceeds the physically possible bounds of the reality in which we float. So it is with the concept of god, for me; an irrational (in the mathematical sense), transcendental idea which as far as the world we live in goes has limits under which the definition fails.

I think you know I am a believer in the multiverse, the idea of God breaches the universes apparent physical limitations in a number of ways, it needs more energy and more time and more purpose than it makes sense to give anything within those bounds. The concept of the multiverse may seem to merely push back the the limits making no difference, but you may know that such a notion doesn't really encompass the consequences of an existing multiverse. In any case, a multiverse provides some what of a loophole out of that particular difficulty.

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EXC wrote:Eloise

EXC wrote:

Eloise wrote:

Because the universe is more like 'god' than a universe. That's basically it. A universe is an abstract construct underlined by methodological naturalism, but there is a more fundamental reality than that abstraction, moreover it appears that the most mysterious and "transcendent" (psychological and emotional) qualities of life extend directly from that foundation, rather than being emergent from a drawn out process.

For a Theist, 'God' is just whatever science does not yet explain. Since the universe has many things science doesn't explain, it seems like 'god' to you.

No, it's definitely things that scientific dicoveries have implied which look like God to me, this is not a god of the gaps.

EXC wrote:

Things are only mysterious and transcendent until science can explain them.

My point is that science does explain a lot about those particular things, and what it explains indicates that a shift toward methodology founded on a radically innovative treatment of those 'mysteries' is imminent and to some, inevitable.

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Nordmann wrote:Immaterial is

Nordmann wrote:

Immaterial is an adjective, and as such is the opposite to "material" in its adjectival form. The word comes straight from Latin where, in the adjectival form also, it meant the same thing. It has nothing to do with describing physical substance or lack of it, and everything to do with applying the principle of substance to the abstract. It is a rhetoric device to indicate irrelevance or relevance, just as the word "weighty" is used to describe something profound to contemplate but does not imply that one's brain becomes heavier in doing so.

 

Cicero once famously dismissed Mark Anthony as "immaterial" and then went on to play with the word; "non-material" (not existing), "ex-material" (derived from substance but now without) and so on, each a derogatory description of his political rival. Mark Anthony equally famously replied to this assault on his materialness by demonstrating just how much he still existed. He sent a hit-man after Cicero to kill him and bring him back the orator's hands. Maybe Cicero should have reviewed his material with a little more foresight before he published it. But it does show that even the Romans got confused with semantics. Cicero thought he was very cleverly accusing Mark Anthony of being increasingly irrelevant. The latter thought he was being told outright that he soon wouldn't exist and set about pre-empting things.

 

Material as a noun, meaning substance, is what you are discussing here Eloise, which is why I wonder you address its opposite as "immaterial" at all? Is it really the concept of "nothing" that you're wondering about? (Before someone sends a hit-man after you)

I think you may have missed some of the subtler points of my post.  My intention is to show that historical 'nothings' (esp. theological eg Aristotle's immaterialism) are contemporary something's and it no longer makes sense to defer to negation to approach those things. 

I go with the premise that people are still deferring where they shouldn't or are ignorant of the fact that a very good provisional definition (and explication moreover) is available for the concept that they are probably trying to articulate.

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Eloise gives my little brain

Eloise gives my little brain a refreshing buzz !

I am much more concerned about being wrong, than being right. I really don't much worry about being right. So I must often say "I don't know".....

Words are "funny", and often do a dis-service to conveying science / philosophy to the general public. Examples of confusing misleading words: "Antimatter - Big Bang - Uncaused".

Everything we can study is a form of matter interactions, and what is "Big / Small"?, and "uncaused" simply means "cause unknown". 

 

  I wish the science community would be more careful with word / label choices.

The mysteries of the "material",  Energy/Matter/Mass/Gravity/Consciousness , are yet full of immense mystery. Infinite and Eternal, are the most compelling words I can ponder.  

 

 


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Eloise wrote:I think you may

Eloise wrote:

I think you may have missed some of the subtler points of my post.  My intention is to show that historical 'nothings' (esp. theological eg Aristotle's immaterialism) are contemporary something's and it no longer makes sense to defer to negation to approach those things. 

I go with the premise that people are still deferring where they shouldn't or are ignorant of the fact that a very good provisional definition (and explication moreover) is available for the concept that they are probably trying to articulate.

 

I don't think I did, with respect, Eloise.

 

Aristotle's "immaterialism" was not a theological concept - when I used to study these things at least. It was an aspect to his metaphysical assertion that the insubstantial could be proven to have form by observing how causality affected it. In effect he was simply stating grandiosely what we all do as a matter of course when we conceptualise abstracts such as thought as physical entities. Euphemism, in other words. He just took that concept and ran with it (into a brick wall, but that's just my opinion).

 

Aristotle however did not try to ascribe the quality of substance to nothing, unless you completely misread him. Scientists, as you point out on the other hand, have had to do just that. Those that try to explain the concept metaphysically hit the same brick wall as Aristotle and other philosophers who eventually reach illogical absurdity in their conclusions. The big mistake is to assume from this that scientists experience likewise. They don't.

 

So my warning earlier still applies, and I think your last sentence might indicate that you agree with me. Be very careful that you don't confuse the euphemistic term "material" with the scientific term "material". Overlapping them intentionally simply means that you still hit the absurdity wall metaphysically, and moreover prevent yourself from understanding how the universe hangs together physically. A waste of time to any intelligent person.

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Good posting.  Could we say

Good posting.  Could we say that science is also fueled by our metaphysical innate human nature, and that which becomes understood is simply no longer metaphysical ? Words astound me .... as much as raw math modeling science .... 

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IAGAY wrote:Could we say

IAGAY wrote:

Could we say that science is also fueled by our metaphysical innate human nature, and that which becomes understood is simply no longer metaphysical ?

 

 

We can if we use the most modern usage of the term "metaphysics", which simply means anything not explained or conceptualised in scientific terms. But that's a lazy definition and not one I go along with (yet another example of where switching between semantic meanings simply confuses the issue and gets no one anywhere - except perhaps theologians into university jobs). Metaphysical philosophy, to me, is the root of all scientific study itself since it attempted, at a time when very little was understood about the nature of reality, to apply scientific methodology to understanding it nevertheless - almost the opposite meaning to the modern one.

 

I'm not sure we have a "metaphysical innate human nature" either, in any case. We have a mind that is a slave to conceptualisation - the real root of metaphysics as well as science of course - but our "nature" follows very understandable and observable patterns without the need to transcend science in order to describe it.

 

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I think we are in total

I think we are in total agreement ..... and that feels good ! So we must say this again in other words ....   

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Eloise wrote:However, I say,

Eloise wrote:

However, I say, both are right - the immaterial of circa 1300CE is proven and has been (provisionally) better defined AND thus the word immaterial has no meaning, or reason to exist, in contemporary dialogue.

Yeah, absolutely.

At this point, Eloise, I think the only difference we (you and I) encounter on a philisophical (and mathematically theoretical) level is labelling something "God". Which is funny if you think about it, since I'm a strong atheist.

Also, typo fixed.

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Eloise wrote:I put the

Eloise wrote:

I put the "transcendent" in quotes cause I couldn't think of a better term at the time, sorry. I mean only to differ in the way I have indicated, by saying that, for example, a psychological consciousness does not transcend the fundamental processes of it's environment, or IOW is not the accumulation of an increasing complexity that has run over a rim of reducibility.  However, saying that it is reducible could be misleading because though I may refer to it as reducible what I mean by that may defy your ordinary concept of reduction which may follow the line 'the whole is greater than its parts', I would propose a process of reduction which implies rather that 'the whole is more fundamental than its parts'.

I think I see what you're saying but I'm not sure that, even though we can express it linguistically, such an idea is internally consistent. Perhaps if you could reference or construct a parallel example of a system whose characteristics matches those you mean.

Eloise wrote:

That's an interesting proposition and tend to agree with part of it - the part where emotional/psychological states are a conveyance of real perceptible depth of reality. I would only differ with you on the idea that these states were transited into existence by a sort of "objectively independent" bump in the road against the forward momentum of a 'previously' more simple process. (I find this concept which I am challenging to be a greatly entrenched assumption and I apologise for any lack of clarity in identifying it for you).

Actually I think that the emotions I can only describe as wonder aren't derived from our expanding scope - rather it's probably an instinct which would have benefited our ancestors by keeping them curious and alert when approaching new situations. Of course, for us, instincts translate via cognition to emotions. That was what I meant - I suppose I shouldn't have put so much emphasis on the transition from simple to complex.

Eloise wrote:

I can see your objection but the difference is that it is not the prescribed mechanistic laws which I am equating with "Godliness", that really cannot be done. It also succumbs to uncertainty resulting in the God of that picture having no possibility of coherent sentience.

I think you know I am a believer in the multiverse, the idea of God breaches the universes apparent physical limitations in a number of ways, it needs more energy and more time and more purpose than it makes sense to give anything within those bounds. The concept of the multiverse may seem to merely push back the the limits making no difference, but you may know that such a notion doesn't really encompass the consequences of an existing multiverse. In any case, a multiverse provides some what of a loophole out of that particular difficulty.

I'm not sure that it does.

Even if it is true that our universe sits among many others, the existence of each individual universe must still either follow certain basic premises or be similar enough to our own for such universes to interact or QED is so utterly wrong as to practically require that we throw it in front of a bus.

For instance, all universes must obey the law of identity. Those things which do not obey the law of identity would necessarily be at least two universes via the definition in the context of many-worlds. So it follows that ontological laws follow from those basic axioms in that sense, and those are the same laws which Todangst and Deluded God have used to show that 99.999% of all god concepts are meaningless.

Next, any universe or collection thereof which supports an entity which is sufficiently influential to be called "godly" would thus be so different from our own as to be impossible for the known rules of superposition and entanglement to work as they do alongside such an entity's interaction with this universe. Except, perhaps, in extreme physical situations such as those found around black holes.

All that aside, I'm still finding it hard to say what you're referring to that is both material and godly.

EDIT: I suppose all this and more will be revealed in the one on one with Kevin! I'll tune in there.


QuasarX
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I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:I am

I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:
I am much more concerned about being wrong, than being right. I really don't much worry about being right. So I must often say "I don't know".....

Agreed.  To not have an opinion on an issue is to keep the uncertainty in plain view, so we stay aware of it.  To be wrong about something is to have a false belief mixed in with our true beliefs, and then what do we have to base our decisions on but a mix of false and true beliefs which we don't distinguish between?  Better to remove the false ones and try to avoid putting them in in the first place, I think. 


Eloise
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inspectormustard

inspectormustard wrote:

 Perhaps if you could reference or construct a parallel example of a system whose characteristics matches those you mean.

Darn, I'm usually good at this but right now I'm drawing a blank for a decent example.. raincheck?

inspectormustard wrote:

Eloise wrote:

I can see your objection but the difference is that it is not the prescribed mechanistic laws which I am equating with "Godliness", that really cannot be done. It also succumbs to uncertainty resulting in the God of that picture having no possibility of coherent sentience.

I think you know I am a believer in the multiverse, the idea of God breaches the universes apparent physical limitations in a number of ways, it needs more energy and more time and more purpose than it makes sense to give anything within those bounds. The concept of the multiverse may seem to merely push back the the limits making no difference, but you may know that such a notion doesn't really encompass the consequences of an existing multiverse. In any case, a multiverse provides some what of a loophole out of that particular difficulty.

I'm not sure that it does.

Even if it is true that our universe sits among many others, the existence of each individual universe must still either follow certain basic premises or be similar enough to our own for such universes to interact or QED is so utterly wrong as to practically require that we throw it in front of a bus.

For instance, all universes must obey the law of identity. Those things which do not obey the law of identity would necessarily be at least two universes via the definition in the context of many-worlds. So it follows that ontological laws follow from those basic axioms in that sense, and those are the same laws which Todangst and Deluded God have used to show that 99.999% of all god concepts are meaningless.

Ahh yeah, but, and I think you grasped a hint of this when you were doing the commentary on the debate- Identify one universe using those concepts of QM, identify one entity of any kind that is unto itself? Persistence is nothing but a fantasy, a superstition, and an account of identity across time necessarily interacts with other universes. The identity law might hold, but it would only do so trivially, what use is a consistent law of nothing?

 

inspectormustard wrote:

Next, any universe or collection thereof which supports an entity which is sufficiently influential to be called "godly" would thus be so different from our own as to be impossible for the known rules of superposition and entanglement to work as they do alongside such an entity's interaction with this universe. Except, perhaps, in extreme physical situations such as those found around black holes.

I haven't gotten to the part where we deal with how different or similar our universe should be to encompass godliness, so don't take from what I have said so far that I haven't considered it. The problem is in identifying that universe which is supposed to be like god to me which we haven't quite done as yet. 

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