"outside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes."

~The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath

Perhaps Lovecraft derived this idea from the Gnostic's own "idiot" creator God, Yaldabaoth. — Janus

I'm not enough of a Lovecraft scholar to say (actually not a Lovecraft scholar at all :wink: ). Although he was quite erudite, I'm also not entirely sure how many of the sources your article references would have been available to him.

It's also important to be aware that in describing Azathoth as a "blind idiot God" Lovecraft was telling us (as he more explicitly explains elsewhere, I think) that Azathoth was not sentient. So not quite a "blind idiot" in the usual sense.

Yes, that's pretty much where I thought you were coming from. I'll try to get back to you in the not too distant future.

And now, since I'm a righteous dude,
Here's a musical interlude!

Sorry for quoting you without permission. — TheMadFool

I'm cool with it. I'm just making people aware of the reason for any apparent mismatch.

I have been on fora where trolls would quite intentionally post inflammatory stuff then drastically tone it down after people reacted to it, thus making the reaction seem ridiculously overblown. Obviously I'm not doing that - I'm just an obsessive self editor. But such experiences have left me aware for the potential for abuse when people get to edit their own posts after they've been responded to. Hence I thought it important to flag what actually happened.

Back to the matter at hand, I think the issues raised by @leo's posts are quite complex. I do think there is some validity to his (given the moniker, I assume it's a "him") points, so I suppose I have to cop to the fact that my first post on this thread was perhaps simplistic.

That said, I also think the theoretical perspective he appears to be arguing for can be taken too far. It's in finding the middle ground that things get complicated -- but also, I have some hope, extremely productive. That's why I would like to write a more serious reply. Hopefully sometime in the next week I will.

I might as well admit that in real life I suffer from this:

https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/about/

So as much as I enjoy playing here, I'm still figuring out how much of the tiny little bit of energy I have I can afford to spend on this site. :meh:

So far as theism goes, whether it's falsifiable or not, or indeed actually falsified, depends on your definitions. Much like psychoanalysis, you can have a simple, straightforward version of the theory that's testable -- and which very quickly ends up being debunked. The omnigod favored by Western philosophy is clearly grossly incompatible with even the most cursory inspection of the world we live in. It's not only falsifyable: it's clearly falsified. But with theism as with psychoanalysis, you can always salvage the theory at the expense of its falsifyability.

And, as I have said elsewhere, the theology of Lovecraft is not only unfalsified, but fundamentally disturbingly plausible. Though human nature being what it is, it's probably important to stress that I do not mean that Cthulhu is literally there to be found at the bottom of the Pacific ocean! I just mean that entities along the general lines suggested by Lovecraft are... plausible. Under what definitions a belief in such creatures would qualify as theism or deism I leave for others to discuss.

As a kind of holy relic, I saved the OP from Google cache:

The reason for this OP is to provide the concept that perhaps an extraterrestial (Babylonian religion)
induced some of the evolutionary changes in creatures on this earth.

This is not a christian OP but a general "higher" power OP.

Snakes have been shown by scientists to have evolved from lizards. Some snakes have nubs (pythons) where their ancestors had legs. Why evolve and have your ancestors have less physical capabilities. Mammals are not tremendously less physically capable then dinosaurs but a snake is tremendously less capable then a lizard. All things held equal, i want my descendants to be more capable not less capable. We don't always get what we want. lol.

Human women have really small vaginas and child birth is far harder for a women than just about any other animal. Bugs very often die after procreating but the bugs advantage is they don't over think life like humans do. Over thinking leads to depression.

I do believe in evolution and it doesn't contradict my favorite holy book. And know, no, a careful analysis would reveal i'm not trolling.

Maybe you just had to be there. Of course, now you can't. Ever.

Dog is indeed love.

But God?

Now that is a joke...

It was awesome. Fully of snakes and lizards and women with small vaginas.

Also, I promised to pray for someone (coughs @christian2017). But it was not appreciated, and I was politely asked not to.

A man walks into a forum and says:

"God is love."

:lol:

Proposition: Philosophers are humourless gits

Well, the "Snakes don't have legs and the reason for this OP" thread did get deleted... :sad:

I appreciate the thought you and other commenters are expending on my post. — Dfpolis

Oh, PS

Speaking only for myself, you're welcome. I quite enjoyed it. Though I may have to bow out of the discussion. As I was saying on yet another thread, this forum has the capacity to eat pretty much ALL of your time and energy if you let it. Since I arrived I've been struggling to find the right forum-life balance. :meh:

Yes, I know that it is because of the placement of Aristotle's work on first philosophy after his work on nature; nonetheless, there was a reason for the placement, viz. because the Metaphysics examines issues fundamental to, but outside of the scope of, the Physics -- just as metamathematics does with math. — Dfpolis

I might as well admit that I don't know enough about this topic to have an intelligent opinion of my own. But my understanding - based solely on the pronouncements of others - is that it's not quite that straightforward.

The intro and section 1 of this article are quite readable and on point:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/

From section 2 onwards it descends into one of the worst pieces of explanatory writing I have ever had the misfortune of attempting to read, but... that's already been discussed on another thread.

If you're saying that unlimited being has free will, — Dfpolis

No... that's not really it. Although I do agree that -

God must have free will to be truly infinite — Dfpolis

- at least as you have defined your terms for the purposes of this proof. But that wasn't really my point.

My point was purely and simply that completely unlimited being, by which you seem to mean completely unlimited capacity to do, cannot be the fact that makes some state of affairs be as it is.

It is logically incapable of being that fact because it is incapable of rendering any specific state of affairs necessary. Or perhaps to make things more concrete, I could say that it is incapable of rendering any specific state of affairs inevitable.

That's because completely unlimited being as you define it could equally well lead to any other state of affairs. Therefore it does not "explain" - in any sense of the word - any specific state of affairs.

So if you ask "Why did completely unlimited being produce this state of affairs and not a different one?" you will never have an answer.

Never.

It's unexplained - again, in any sense of the word.

Either there is no explanation - the LORD thy God is a capricious SOV - or there is some other explanation. Those are your only choices.

Leo, I would like to reply to you properly, but my response may take a day or two to arrive.



The trouble with this place is that it can eat up literally all the time and energy you have. Sometimes I struggle with my forum-life balance! :gasp:

Incidentally, this is completely trivial and by the way. But I notice you say that:

The foundations of mathematics are examined in metamathematics and the foundations of physics by metaphysics. — Dfpolis

I'm not sure how much formal philosophical education you've had (I'm just a beginner myself), but the term "metaphysics" is just a historical accident. It is not "meta" in the way that modern academics generally use the term. I'm not sure if you're aware of that or not. Forgive me if I'm just belaboring the obvious.

I think I should log off for a bit. Otherwise I'm going to spend the entire day on this forum, and I do actually have other things I should be doing! :razz:

Not to worry: I will be back. And probably sooner than I should! :wink:

There is a lot of stuff in this post I could (and may later) take issue with. But right now I want to cut to what I consider the heart of the matter.

You argue that:

Falsifiability is a requirement applicable to the scientific or hypothetico-deductive method, not to strict deductions. It is no criticism of Godel's work to say that his conclusions are unfalsifiable. While it is irrational to posit a hypothesis that cannot be adequately tested, it is equally irrational to require falsifiability where it does not apply. We have a different, but well-defined method of examining deductions. We consider the truth of the premises and the validity of the logical moves. If both pass muster, the conclusion is true. — Dfpolis

But to go back to your OP, your fourth premise states that:

If a being exists, its explanation must exist. — Dfpolis

And you clarify that by explanation, you mean:

the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. — Dfpolis

When I said that the completely unlimited was the antithesis of falsifiable, I did not simply mean that it could not be falsified scientifically.

My point was and is that the completely unlimited is logically incapable of being the fact that makes some state of affairs be as it is. It is incapable of being that fact because by definition it is equally of making the same state of affairs not be as it is.

Therefore, if there is something that makes the state of affairs be as it is, the completely unlimited is not it.

Therefore we have only two logical possibilities:

1. There is nothing that makes the state of affairs be (no explanation)
2. There is always something other than the completely unlimited that makes the state of affairs be (other explanation).

In either case, your proof falls apart.

Lovecraft's theology does not begin and end with Cthulhu. The ultimate God in his pantheon is Azathoth, the blind idiot God.

Look around you.

Plausible, no?

I can't stress this enough, you are brilliant! — christian2017

I've always thought so...

But, it's adios from me for now. 'Night all!

You would impress me more if you threw in something dumb. — christian2017

Not to worry: it's bound to happen sooner or later!

And you know, some folks here might say that it's happened already. Some might even say that it's happened more than once! :gasp:

But then we need to alternatively explain the major religions, who supposedly had their god(s) speaking to them.

Or is this supposed to be a proof for a god that bears no resemblance to the god of any major religion? — Terrapin Station

GIven @Dfpolis's background, I doubt the latter. But I really shouldn't speak for him.

If we define the universe as everything then God must be within it by definition — Devans99

Okay, I follow you there. But...

Everything must also be finite — Devans99

Still not entirely sure how you get to that. I'm not saying it isn't, but I'm not at all sure how you justify that claim in a positive sense.

Cool :smile:

Well, but what is acting? Are we talking about shape-shifting, or? If so, then we are talking about an old man in the sky sometimes. It would just be that we're not only talking about that. — Terrapin Station

I can't speak for @Dfpolis, but I'm guessing he might draw a distinction between actually acting, vs simply having the ability to act. So God can act as an old man in the sky, but probably just doesn't on account of the whole thing being... kinda stupid really... :razz:

I think discovering Lovecraft is worth a significant price. My only caution to you is that he is by far the most racist author I've ever read. But he was writing in the early 20th century, and was of his age.

In real life his views were more complex and nuanced than you may suspect from his writing alone: he did ultimately marry a Jewish woman.

Anyway, if you can get past that, there is a lot there that's worth experiencing. Any time we explore authors from outside our own time and culture, we almost inevitably encounter values at odds with our own. But I think on balance it's better to have such encounters than not.

If for no reason other than that seeing all the crazy and stupid things that highly intelligent people from other times and places have believed may make us at least a little more inclined to ask which of the things that we ourselves believe are no less crazy and stupid.

Oh well. On the plus side, I can (and do) drive a manual transmission. So that may allow me to retrieve at least one or two of my lost points! :wink:

Wow... thank you! That is extremely kind of you to say!

But I'm afraid I wouldn't have the foggiest notion of how to go about fixing a car. Does that cost me virtual IQ points in your estimation?

Awesome! :grin:

Yes, I was wondering what exactly @Dfpolis has in mind by the term "being." Although if God is completely unlimited in ability to act the point becomes moot, since that would include the ability to act in all the ways that one would attribute to a sentient being.

if there is a God, and She has anything remotely like personal characteristics, She is wise and kind, and nothing at all like the cruel, vain, childish, violent personality described in the holy books of the three Abrahamic religions. — andrewk

Given the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves, why on Earth would you conclude that?

The Abrahamic God, whatever else you might say of Him, is surely infinitely more plausible than that.

Although personally, I think the most plausible theology is Lovecraft's. Ironic, considering he never represented his own writings as anything other than fiction.

I would argue that infinite (unlimited ability to act) is self-contradictory in a finite universe. — Devans99

I don't personally buy either your theology or that of @Dfpolis. My own chosen moniker is a kind of private joke, and essentially ironic. But that said, I do think there is a problem with this argument.

Specifically, that the "God" philosophers have traditionally talked about is not seen as existing inside the universe, but as beyond it: eternal and uncreated, as it were. In keeping with this tradition, you yourself describe God as a

being outside of time — Devans99

Yet placing God, or at least God's ability to act, wholly inside this universe seems to be a premise of your argument. Remember: post Einstein, time is very much a part of the fabric of this universe. So it is difficult to say that God exists outside of time and yet is somehow constrained by the limits of the universe.

First, for anyone reading this, the post TheMadFool quotes above went through a bunch of edits, the final of which went through after I was quoted. Any discrepancies should be minor, but are, I admit, solely due to my own ongoing tinkering.

To address the question actually asked:

So, what's the difference between the ToE and God? — TheMadFool

The answer is simple: a scientifically valid ToE makes concrete predictions about what will happen. It successfully explains everything only so long as those predictions are never proven wrong.

I'm reminded of Popper's contrasting of Einstein's theory of relativity with Freud's psychoanalysis. What renders relativity impressive (and scientific) is that it says exactly what will happen. If something different ever happens, the theory will have been proven wrong. Psychoanalysis, by contrast, seems capable of telling some kind of story about events no matter what happens.

The same problem exists with God. Or at least, with many formulations of God.

Don't forget: the OP is talking about God as not only infinite, but as completely unlimited.

Harking back to my previous post, I would say that only that which is limited in at least some respect is capable of offering any explanation at all.

Sure, whatever happens the completely unlimited can allow you to tell some kind of story about it. But to call this story an "explanation" is a semantic sleight of hand.

Because the completely unlimited is equally capable of "explaining" literally anything, it predicts nothing. It's the absolute antithesis of falsifiable. It has literally no ability to tell you why any particular thing exists or occurs, as opposed to any other particular thing - or indeed, no particular thing at all.

Why does the sun continue to shine in the sky rather than waft gently down to Earth, offer you a Vienna coffee, and then begin discussing logical positivism? The completely unlimited can't tell you.

Zero explanation.

To choose my words a little more carefully so as to avoid the apparent paradox inherent in my previous formulation, in its superficially apparent ability to explain literally anything, the completely unlimited actually explains nothing.

Incidentally, another problem with the concept of God as

completely unlimited — Dfpolis

...is that as an explanatory concept, it's completely bankrupt. You have a theory that can explain literally anything. It's the absolute antithesis of falsifiable.

So by being able to explain literally anything, your theory predicts nothing, and therefore explains nothing.

I think this is the most fundamental problem with your proof.

Further, I find the insistence that God must be omnipotent unnecessarily limiting, given the well-trodden logical problems with the notion of omnipotence. In my view, no god worth believing in is omnipotent — andrewk

Yes, even if one accepted this proof (which I don't) one must be careful about the implicit leap from

completely unlimited being — Dfpolis

to any other characteristics traditionally assigned to God. To hand wave over this with a simple assurance that we are not talking about

an old man in the sky — Dfpolis

seems... problematic.

The OP is quite lengthy and complex. My off the cuff response is that there are a number of things in your proof that do seem problematic to me. The stand-out would be:

Premise 4: If a being exists, its explanation must exist.
If this were not true, science would be impossible. If things "just happened," the observations would not be underlying dynamics, and could neither confirm nor falsify hypotheses. Note that “explanation” has two senses: (1) the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. (We may or may not know these.) This is the sense I am using. (2) Our attempt to articulate our understanding of (1). This is not the sense I am using here. — Dfpolis

It is to your credit that you state this premise explicitly. But this does not mean that it is unproblematic.

Science does not require that literally everything have explanation. Science only requires that some things have explanation.

Much of physics, as an intellectual project, has been an attempt to determine the fundamental laws of the universe. If there are fundamental laws, by definition they are unexplained. They are simply "brute facts." Today's brute fact may be tomorrow's well explained phenomena (witness what Einstein did for Newtonian gravity), but at any one time there is a base level of explanation. Acceptance of the idea that explanation has to end somewhere is quite widespread among both scientists and philosophers, and science works perfectly well on this level.

I am not going to say that there are brute facts. I am going to say that it is not a self evident truth that there are not - and since you're the one offering the proof, the burden is on you.

If brute facts are not for you, you also do not seem to consider the possibility of antifoundationalist infinite regress, in which every finite explanation has another finite explanation... and so on forever. "Turtles all the way down," as it were.

Another unconsidered possibility here is that of an Escher-esque universe that is ontologically circular. To provide a concrete example of this, consider the following extract from the SEP's entry on time travel:

Gödel. The time traveller steps into an ordinary rocket ship (not a special time machine) and flies off on a certain course. At no point does she disappear (as in Leap) or ‘turn back in time’ (as in Putnam)—yet thanks to the overall structure of spacetime (as conceived in the General Theory of Relativity), the traveller arrives at a point in the past (or future) of her departure. (Compare the way in which someone can travel continuously westwards, and arrive to the east of her departure point, thanks to the overall curved structure of the surface of the earth.) — Smith, Nicholas J.J.

So you can pick up the collected works of Shakespeare from Amazon, go back in time, and hand them to Shakespeare, who is then spared of the chore of ever having to actually write them. It may or may not be allowed by the laws of physics. It may be mind-bending. But it is generally accepted that there is nothing incoherent in this. It is not a priori clear that it is not possible. And bear in mind, of course, that this is just a concrete, physical example of what I'm talking about.

Finally, the logical possibility of this kind of circularity brings us to premise six. You argue:

Being human explains my ability to think, because that is part of what it is to be human. But, being human does not imply that I exist. If it did, no human could cease existing. — Dfpolis

I'm afraid I can't agree. To be human (or to be anything at all) is to exist. You can't be human if you don't exist. So to be human does imply that you exist. To imply existence is not to imply unceasing existence. If it did, everything that existed would exist forever, which is clearly not the case.

These are just off the cuff thoughts, of course.

Another question we could ask is "If this is the case, why are we typically having such boring sex with each other?" Maybe we should step up our game. — Terrapin Station

I agree! And frankly, @Maureen, I think watching more pornography would be a good way to fire up your imagination!

You seem very intelligent. — christian2017

Recognition!

Finally... :roll:

I listen to your arguments, christian2017. They bring me great happiness.

Speaking of which, I truly grieve for the loss of the thread with all the snakes and lizards and small vaginas. I think the forum is a poorer place without it.

I wonder what Kant himself would've made of this thread. — Frotunes

I'd like to help you, Frotunes, but I'm afraid I only do thread necromancy.

At least, most of the time!

:naughty: