Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 4:40 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:04 am NB. We both agree that infinite regression is out of the question..

Yours 1. An eternal intelligent being, God, spoke the universe into existence.

Mine 2. An intelligent being, God, formed from chaos, a place of no logic and no causality, eventually forming into our universe and forming a reality that is perceivable by life (particularly by us).

You’ll have to point out the difference you think exists between those two views. It’s not apparent, unless you take “spoke” to mean something anthropomorphic…which it evidently doesn’t.

Speaking is a human characteristic so of course it's something anthropomorphic being suggested in Genesis as preceding to the existence of everything.

The 1. & 2. are very different I thought that would be obvious.

You on point 1. has a fully capable God intelligence that speaks words to form the universe. This theory of yours begs the question, what formed God and this still fails with an infinite regression, unless it formed from chaos.

My point 2. is suggesting God gradually formed intelligence from the chaotic soup of near maximum entropy of energy. Causality, indeed logic formed from this disorder, the intelligence God formed and proceeded to form matter and our universe into the current state where life including us can exist and perceive this universe. My theory provides a reasonable account for God's existence and negates any issue of infinite regression.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 12:27 am
It’s not possible to have an actual infinite regress of causes. Got it yet?

Yes, that is correct, I get it, in the sense that I am only known to myself as a relative finite contingent being, one who is born and will die, one who begins and ends. As a relative being, I have zero knowledge of actual 'infinite regress' of causes. In other words, that which is finite, can never know the infinite. It's the other way around. It's the infinite that knows the finite in this conception.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 1:50 pm
All I’m saying is that we can use the present evidence in the universe to make the same sort of judgment: what’s the most reasonable explanation for the data before us in the present moment?

I understand what you say. I agree, we can use the present evidence, as the present is always known and available to us, it's always here now so to speak. Right now here in real space and time, lies the source of everything, and is already the case, it is intimately closer than our own skin..

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2024 11:39 pmOkay. What makes that so “obvious” or so “manifest”?

Because it can be observed that the body knows how to function effectively. It has an intelligence all of it's own. The human body for example has somehow, from scratch, has beautifully arranged itself to be a fully formed functioning self-aware, thinking living organism, capable of co-creating other mechanical and non-animate objects into existence. So that to me, is self-evident of an intelligence at work, perhaps beyond the reach of human comprehension, kind of like beating humans at their own game, so to speak. This evident intelligence seems to be beyond human intelligence, as human beings are contingent and limited relative appearances of the absolute knowledge sphere.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 1:50 pmI hear you as saying you think it “obvious” that it was intelligence. If so, then you’re at the concept “God.” The next question, if I could put it this way, would be “What KIND of God,” or better still, “What is the nature of the God who created the universe?” And for that, we’d need another strategy again.

I'll need to think about that question a little bit more. And get back to you.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 1:50 pm
I hear you as saying you think it “obvious” that it was intelligence. If so, then you’re at the concept “God.” The next question, if I could put it this way, would be “What KIND of God,” or better still, “What is the nature of the God who created the universe?” And for that, we’d need another strategy again.

OK, I've just got back from a scouting trip around the archives of human knowledge, and managed to retrieve some data on what I think and believe is the nature of God who created the universe. There are many ideas, and this is just one of the many.

Interesting to note, is that there are many authors who appear here with a tale to tell, but there is only one reader of the many stories appearing in the big great book itself. Many stories appear within the book, and what is ever more remarkable, is that the stories are inseparable from the big great book.


I found this idea authored by Kierkegaard....


''God is inescapable for a self if it wants to understand itself, and a necessary precondition for a self to be a self. When a self looses God, so too it loses itself. This, as we shall see in a minute, is what Kierkegaard meant by despair. Every self that is not aware of itself as grounded in God, as a spirit accountable before God, is not a self, and therefore in despair. One may, at this point, wonder how a self can be both necessarily grounded in God and yet, at the same time, free to determine itself through its own choices – and this is where we enter into subtle philosophical territory. Though ontological determined by, in and through God, the self is, in effect, ethically free from him. God constituted a human person, yes, but constituted them as a relation, and in creating them, thus, released them ethically from the bondage of initial ontological determination. Thus, tough the self may have no choice but to ground itself in god, it can also, at the same time, find ethical identity in a variety of other choices. “There is no ontological freedom from God, but there is ethical freedom.” It is from this ethical freedom that both choice and responsibility come, the responsibility of becoming a self.''

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 5:54 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 4:40 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:04 am
No, it’s actually not. To be “anthropomorphic” is to apply human characteristics to that which is not human. But human characteristics, themselves, are a creation of God. As such, they are, at their very most, a faint representation of the much more profound qualities of God. Thus, when we say “God spoke,” we are using a mere pale human analogy for something that is much more profound.

The 1. & 2. are very different I thought that would be obvious.

You on point 1. has a fully capable God intelligence that speaks words to form the universe. This theory of yours begs the question, what formed God and this still fails with an infinite regression, unless it formed from chaos.

Actuallly, it does not “beg” that question. If you understand Theism, you would know that no Theist supposes God is a created being. As such, it would be quite silly and contradictory to think one could ask, “What caused the First Cause?” The First Cause is God: nothing precedes or “causes” Him. And we know full well that there had to be SOME first cause — and you have said you think it would be an intelligent One as well. So you’re at the same point, logically; you would have to believe that God is the First Cause, and is uncaused.

My point 2. is suggesting God gradually formed intelligence from the chaotic soup of near maximum entropy of energy.

So you believe in a created “god”?

Then you have two problems: one is that whatever you’re believing in is not, by definition, “God,” but some “caused” being, a lesser being with a prior cause: but if that’s the case, then the second problem follows it, namely, that you now would have to answer what caused your god to exist, which you say is “chaos.” This would mean that “chaos” would be your substitute for what Theists mean when they say “God.” And you’d either have to say that this “chaos” always existed and somehow became capable of creating things, or you would indeed have to suppose an actual infinite regress of causes — which we have already established is an incoherent theory.

How do you solve that?

Fairy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 7:56 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 12:27 am
It’s not possible to have an actual infinite regress of causes. Got it yet?

Yes, that is correct, I get it, in the sense that I am only known to myself as a relative finite contingent being, one who is born and will die, one who begins and ends. As a relative being, I have zero knowledge of actual 'infinite regress' of causes. In other words, that which is finite, can never know the infinite. It's the other way around. It's the infinite that knows the finite in this conception.

This is where the maths are so helpful. Mathematically, the idea of an “actual infinite regress of causes” can’t be rendered coherent or possible; so we’re quite safe in saying no such thing can be a correct description of the origins of the universe. Our difficulty in dealing with the infinite is no impediment to this mathematical realization.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:36 pm you now would have to answer what caused your god to exist,

Yet you can't explain what caused yours to exist.

Fairy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 8:20 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2024 11:39 pmOkay. What makes that so “obvious” or so “manifest”?

Because it can be observed that the body knows how to function effectively. It has an intelligence all of its own. The human body for example has somehow, from scratch, has beautifully arranged itself to be a fully formed functioning self-aware, thinking living organism, capable of co-creating other mechanical and non-animate objects into existence. So that to me, is self-evident of an intelligence at work, perhaps beyond the reach of human comprehension, kind of like beating humans at their own game, so to speak. This evident intelligence seems to be beyond human intelligence, as human beings are contingent and limited relative appearances of the absolute knowledge sphere.

Yes, I’d agree. I think that’s the obvious supposition. Certainly we know of nothing unintelligent that’s capable of both being eternal and uncaused, and yet also being able to create — particularly the kinds of things we observe in the present. Not everybody is willing to concede that conclusion, but I think they’re fighting the obvious.

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:36 pm you now would have to answer what caused your god to exist,

Yet you can't explain what caused yours to exist.

I’ll get back to you on that in the day I stop believing God is the First Cause. You’ll have to ask it of somebody who believes in “caused” gods. Try a pantheist, perhaps.

Fairy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 8:45 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 1:50 pm
I hear you as saying you think it “obvious” that it was intelligence. If so, then you’re at the concept “God.” The next question, if I could put it this way, would be “What KIND of God,” or better still, “What is the nature of the God who created the universe?” And for that, we’d need another strategy again.

OK, I've just got back from a scouting trip around the archives of human knowledge, and managed to retrieve some data on what I think and believe is the nature of God who created the universe. There are many ideas, and this is just one of the many.

Interesting to note, is that there are many authors who appear here with a tale to tell, but there is only one reader of the many stories appearing in the big great book itself. Many stories appear within the book, and what is ever more remarkable, is that the stories are inseparable from the big great book.


I found this idea authored by Kierkegaard....


''God is inescapable for a self if it wants to understand itself, and a necessary precondition for a self to be a self. When a self looses God, so too it loses itself. This, as we shall see in a minute, is what Kierkegaard meant by despair. Every self that is not aware of itself as grounded in God, as a spirit accountable before God, is not a self, and therefore in despair. One may, at this point, wonder how a self can be both necessarily grounded in God and yet, at the same time, free to determine itself through its own choices – and this is where we enter into subtle philosophical territory. Though ontological determined by, in and through God, the self is, in effect, ethically free from him. God constituted a human person, yes, but constituted them as a relation, and in creating them, thus, released them ethically from the bondage of initial ontological determination. Thus, tough the self may have no choice but to ground itself in god, it can also, at the same time, find ethical identity in a variety of other choices. “There is no ontological freedom from God, but there is ethical freedom.” It is from this ethical freedom that both choice and responsibility come, the responsibility of becoming a self.''

I’m not sure precisely how you are understanding that. As I see it, it’s about the relationship between us, God and ethics, not per se about the nature of God Himself. But maybe you’ll unpack that a bit, if you’re inclined.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:49 pm ---

You have completely misquoted me as if I am u and vice versa above - it's a bit of a mess. Do you want to edit correct it so that I know what to address and I am not quoted as talking nonsense (U)?

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 2:03 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:49 pm ---

You have completely misquoted me as if I am u and vice versa above - it's a bit of a mess. Do you want to edit correct it so that I know what to address and I am not quoted as talking nonsense (U)?

In fact, I used the quote feature PN has. And I simply asked you if what you seemed to say was what you intended to say. If you call your own words “misquoted,” I can only suppose that you didn’t manage to say what you intended to say. In which case, feel free to reword.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 2:12 pm

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 2:03 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:49 pm ---

You have completely misquoted me as if I am u and vice versa above - it's a bit of a mess. Do you want to edit correct it so that I know what to address and I am not quoted as talking nonsense (U)?

In fact, I used the quote feature PN has. And I simply asked you if what you seemed to say was what you intended to say. If you call your own words “misquoted,” I can only suppose that you didn’t manage to say what you intended to say. In which case, feel free to reword.

If there is anything worse than an idiot, it is an arrogant idiot. LOOK AT THE PRIOR POST YOU MADE ADDRESSING ME - YOU QUOTED ME - AS YOUR WORDS - AND YOUR WORDS AS MY WORDS - are you blind? --- A total misquote FFS.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:36 pm

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 5:54 amThe 1. & 2. are very different I thought that would be obvious.

You on point 1. has a fully capable God intelligence that speaks words to form the universe. This theory of yours begs the question, what formed God and this still fails with an infinite regression, unless it formed from chaos.

Actuallly, it does not “beg” that question. If you understand Theism, you would know that no Theist supposes God is a created being.

Don't dictate to me what mere theists believe. Theists believe in all sorts of nonsense, such as that God spoke the universe into existence!

Immanuel Can wrote:As such, it would be quite silly and contradictory to think one could ask, “What caused the First Cause?” The First Cause is God: nothing precedes or “causes” Him. And we know full well that there had to be SOME first cause — and you have said you think it would be an intelligent One as well. So you’re at the same point, logically; you would have to believe that God is the First Cause, and is uncaused.

You are the last person that I should be concerned about be called "silly" by..!

Before I bother to explain that there is NO contradiction in my version of God, let's deal with your contradictions. You state that the universe is EVERYTHING all encompassing, nothing exists outside of the "uni"verse and that the universe is not eternal. So where does your version of God exist?

Immanuel Can wrote:

attofishpi wrote:My point 2. is suggesting God gradually formed intelligence from the chaotic soup of near maximum entropy of energy.

So you believe in a created “god”?

Then you have two problems: one is that whatever you’re believing in is not, by definition,

Who gets to define GOD? Nobody comprehends/understands this entity so who are humans to be so stupid as to have a strict definition of IT?

Clearly you want God to be something that it cannot be - your version of God is implausible, it fails with every typical theist contradiction. Theists such as you, state that because there is so much order and beauty in the world, that humans exist with such intelligence that there must be a God that created everything including us. CONTRADICTION - this then requires that God be accounted for by the same reasoning - that something MUST have created such an intelligent being...yadayada - the causal regress never ceases in your mad assumptions of GOD.

Immanuel Can wrote:“God,” but some “caused” being, a lesser being with a prior cause:

A lesser being than what? The being that you assumed was God, a being beyond any scientific plausibility!!?

Immanuel Can wrote:..but if that’s the case, then the second problem follows it, namely, that you now would have to answer what caused your god to exist, which you say is “chaos.”

No I said it formed FROM chaos, thus I removed the rest of your post as you had your groundwork wrong and insisted on a bunch of bollocks based on it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:46 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 1:36 pm you now would have to answer what caused your god to exist,

Yet you can't explain what caused yours to exist.

I’ll get back to you on that in the day I stop believing God is the First Cause.

I'll remember that get out clause the next time you object to something I believe but you don't. I might start believing that the universe itself is the first cause, and as long as I believe it, that exempts me from having to explain anything, right?

Actually, the term, "first cause", doesn't mean much without an explanation of what a first cause is. Obviously, nothing causes a first cause, but does anything precede it, or is it the first thing to be? And if nothing did come before the first cause, does that mean it has always existed, or did it start to exist at some point without anything having come before it?