I also wonder what is meant by 'nothing' because it does not appear to us but, perhaps, there is more to 'nothing' than what it appears because as it cannot be observed it may be hard to know how or in what way to describe it, and, perhaps, it is something rather than nothing. — Jack Cummins

That appears to be the reasoning of some Cosmologists, who propose that Something (matter-energy) emerged from No-thing (which was nothing-but formless Aristotelian Potential). Thus, they can assume that some-Thing has always existed, which simply recycles its stuff from one world to another in the tower-of-turtles we call "Multiverse" or "Many Worlds". Since those other invisible & intangible worlds are separated from our material world by an abyss-of-ignorance (space-time boundary), we can't "observe" them, so can only imagine them. That same something-from-nothing reasoning allows hard-nosed scientists to rationalize an invisible intangible Field, from which particular somethings (e.g. elementary particles) emerge at random, for no particular reason.

However, the same Hyperbolic Logic is also used for arguments in favor of various super-natural (or hyper-natural) world-makers. Some imagine humanoid deities, or aliens, as living in parallel universes. But even those imaginary godlets don't have to create new worlds from scratch, since the Potential for un-realized worlds has always existed. Hence, we are forced to conclude that something must have always existed, even if its not a thing in our local Reality. In that manner, we can always extend the tower-of-turtles one step further back closer to infinity. Yet, such asymptotic "what-if" reasoning gets us no closer to complete final understanding. So, that may be why Aristotle avoided speculating on a Real Creator, and merely postulated an Ideal First Cause, or Prime Mover. In that case, philosophers can still argue hypotheticals, as-if those ideals were real, without violating common sense.

That's also why my "G*D" conjecture is not portrayed as Real in any real-world sense. He/she/it only exists in eternal Potential -- like an infinite field of possibilities. And the only function of such a postulate is to extend our reasoning one step beyond the inexplicable Big Bang magical moment. :chin:

Platonic Form :
Form answers the question, "What is that?" Plato was going a step further and asking what Form itself is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms

Implies that for God in order to create something out of nothing needs matter to do so. — SpaceDweller

That would be true if the First Cause or Prime Mover created something new from pre-existing raw material as human creators do. Humans are able to create imaginary Utopias without getting their hands dirty with material stuff. But they don't know how to create worlds from scratch, even in theory. So, in order to explain the sudden appearance of our space-time world, from behind a veil of ignorance, we must assume that the Cause was super-human in some meaningful sense.

So the best something-from-nothing theory I'm aware of postulates an immaterial Cause, who can conjure-up Actual enformed matter from raw Information (Potential). Einstein showed mathematically (E=MC^2) that it could be done, in theory. And scientists have transformed matter into energy (atomic bomb), but the reverse, making matter from energy, seems possible, yet remains elusive. Moreover, it cannot, even in theory, be done from scratch (no prexisting material), Therefore, the First Cause must be assumed to have creative powers beyond current human abilities.

That's why, to this day, the Big Bang Theory sounds more like Magic than Thermodynamic Science. So, maybe our explanation for creation should at least consider the possibility of an invisible Magician of some kind. Perhaps the ancient notion of a super-human god might still make sense, in view of our inability to imagine something-from-nothing, without cheating to define "nothing" in terms of something physical. :confused:

Can we manufacture matter? :
So yes, humans can manufacture matter. We can turn light into subatomic particles, but even the best scientists can't create something out of nothing.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/can-we-manufacture-matter.htm

The physicists' references are to the 'vacuum', whose zero-point rest energy is not zero. This Permanent thing is the source of all; 'god' is not required. — PoeticUniverse

The all-encompassing Vacuum, with un-bounded creative energy, that is capable of creating a world from "nothing", sounds like a modern version of an ancient non-anthro-morphic monotheistic God-Theory, such as the Hindu Brahman. That's also the god-model of Western Deism. :smile:

Brahman : the "creative principle which lies realized in the whole world". . . . . the cause of all changes
Note -- Energy is assumed to be the cause of all physical changes in matter, yet is not a material substance itself.

We know God can be described and has properties, since nothing also excludes things such virtual particles and the laws physics which are not physical things therefore I guess nothing also means absence of God. — SpaceDweller

That's the problem with Krauss' theory of a "Universe From Nothing". His so-called "nothing" paradigm omits the metaphysical Bible-God, but retains such metaphysical "non-things" as Space-Time & Natural Laws & Quantum Fields. Those are all imaginary human ideas about the world, not empirical things in the world. So, he is attributing miraculous creative properties to those immaterial concepts, even as he dismisses the god-theory as a discredited ancient paradigm. However, I suspect that -- as a scientist -- he doesn't believe in philosophical Metaphysics. So, no problem. :joke:


PS___Ironically, Krauss is aware of an anomaly in the Cosmic Microwave Background, that seems to contradict the Copernican principle that there's nothing special about Earth relative to the whole cosmos. That recent discovery was labelled "The Axis of Evil" because the "plane" of the CMB, seems to align, for no apparent reason, with the "ecliptic" of our solar system. That astronomical fact does not fit into the conventional atheistic belief system of most cosmologists. Hence -- Evil. :sad:

Copernican Mediocrity :
“The "Axis of Evil" is a name given to an anomaly in astronomical observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The anomaly appears to give the plane of the Solar System and hence the location of Earth a greater significance than might be expected by chance – a result which has been claimed to be evidence of a departure from the Copernican principle. . . . "   

"But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun – the plane of the earth around the sun – the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.”
___Lawrence Krauss     Cosmologist

No but thanks, It appears not easy to verify credibility of your sources :meh: — SpaceDweller

Ironically, we now have access to a zillion libraries of information on the internet. But there's also a lot of "fake facts" mixed in. And, in the Trump era, even academics & experts are distrusted. So, ultimately, your own common sense & philosophical skepticism may have to make the judgment of trustworthiness.

I have personally consulted only a fraction of available sources, though. And, my understanding could be misconstrued. So, don't take my word for it. Test if for yourself. Just don't cherry-pick your sources to fit your preconceptions. Pilate's retort to Jesus still applies : "what is Truth". That's an open-ended philosophical question, not a final scientific consensus. :sad:

PS__This is not a situation where you can just "trust your gut", because you're looking for facts, not feelings.

Reality doesn't need an observer at all. — LaRochelle

Actually, as you indicated later, "reality" is an observation. It's an inference from a variety of independent observations, that there is some objective & stable something (ding an sich) which exists even when the subjective observer is not observing. For a weak example, you can close your eyes, and still confirm that a tree is still there by touching it --- or by asking another person to confirm your observation. If you don't believe your own senses, you can always ask someone else : "Is it really there?"

Unfortunately for your dependence on sensory feedback, some philosophers have imagined a "demon" who could cause you to "see" an illusion. Or, as Berkeley postulated, God is always observing, and sustaining H/er creation, even when no human is watching. That possibility supports the notion that physical Reality is actually a metaphysical Idea in the Mind of God. :smile:


Observation :
1. the action or process of observing something or someone carefully or in order to gain information.
2. a remark, statement, or comment based on something one has seen, heard, or noticed.

↪Gnomon
Since we're now discussing God, I'm currently reading Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens and he writes that despite the claims, monotheism is a syncretic religion and borrows a page or two from polytheism (saints) and dualist religions like Zoroastrianism (the evil god Angra Manyu aka Satan). — TheMadFool

Yes. Insightful book. And Harari is just one of many modern Jews, who acknowledge the assimilated, rather than revealed, regional & mythical foundations of Judaism, and ultimately of Christianity. :smile:

I see, what you're referring to are "traditions" . . . but to say that Elohim and Yahweh are 2 different Gods or to say that they are deities is incorrect. — SpaceDweller

Yes. Like most cultural traditions, the origins of Yahweh myths fade away into pre-history. Some refer toYahweh as a storm god, similar to Greek Zeus, but others trace his beginnings as an iron-working volcano deity, similar to Hephaestus & Vulcan. But,after the emergence of civilizations, in most middle-eastern traditions, those "minor deities" were not assumed to be omnipotent, but merely specialists in certain phases of natural functions, and served as members of a Pantheon (god family or race).

Prior to the rise of city-states though, and communication between regions, each minor deity was typically the tribal-god of small groups, and were often pictured as war-lords. So, their natural functions were more general --- although the dry environment of desert people would emphasize the vital importance of rain, while mountain-people would find other functions more important. Yet, early multicultural middle-eastern empires began to pattern their gods after their emperors, who typically had officers from disparate regions. Thus, began the myths of remote emperor-gods, whose children, or appointees, ruled over local domains of their own.

The point of this recitation is to say that the rank & role of each deity varied over time. Some. such as
Baal (Lord of rain & dew for Canaanites), and chief deity of his own Chosen People, was for a while one of the tribal gods of Hebrews --- along with the female tree-goddess Asherah ( Astarte, Ishtar). But later, in the kingdom era, the Priests of Yahweh, demoted him to a "false-god" or demon-god, and began a campaign to stamp-out Asherah worship among Jews. So, there was a lot of myth-borrowing among the various tribes & nations of the middle east. For example the Jewish Asherah may have been originally the consort of El (Father of the Elohim family), and the mother-goddess of her people.

Therefore, to say that these mythical figures were deities, depends on the place & time. Their rank & role varied from place to place, and from time to time. And that includes Elohim & Yahweh, who may have been father & son in some myths. But later, in the Jewish traditions, El (proper name) may have inspired the notion of the single abstract formless deity of Monotheism (un-nameable). That name is still reflected in modern Islam as Al-lah. Anything else you want to know? :nerd:

PS___BTW, what does this have to do with "Maleus Scientia"?


Later, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud suggested that Mount Sinai was an erupting volcano in an uncharacteristic monograph, Moses and Mono- theism, and that Yahweh was certainly a volcano-god.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0309089214536484?journalCode=jota

The cult of YHWH as god of metallurgy originated among semi-nomadic copper ... This new desert kingdom would leave its mark on the main building at Timna:
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-jewish-god-yahweh-originated-in-canaanite-vulcan-says-new-theory-1.5992072

Asherah is identified as the consort of the Sumerian god Anu, and Ugaritic ʾEl, the oldest deities of their respective pantheons. This role gave her a similarly high rank in the Ugaritic pantheon. Deuteronomy 12 has Yahweh (Jehovah) commanding the destruction of her shrines so as to maintain purity of his worship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah

Hebrew "El" and Islamic "Allah" "
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Hebrew-word-Elohim-and-the-Arabic-word-Allah-etymologically-related

↪Gnomon
Nice comparison but fundamentally incorrect:
1. It makes the serpent redundant and insufficient.
2. It's not in line with the story of garden of Eden, and not even whole scriptures. — SpaceDweller

Taken as a whole, the Old Testament presents at least two, maybe three or more, different models of deity. Among Hebrews, their tribal-god was merely a member of a god-family, Elohim, similar to the Greek Oympians. In that case, each family member had a specific role in ruling the world. For example, Yahweh was originally a lightning-spear-weilding weather-god, similar to Zeus. But. by the time tribal Hebrews had morphed into the short-term kingdom of national Jews, their minor local deity was promoted to an all-powerful singular universal eternal deity YHWH, who was so fearsome that it was dangerous to even say or write his name.

Ironically, the theologians among the prideful monotheistic priests & scribes were forced to address the philosophical Problem of Evil, which seemed to make the one-and-only deity of The Chosen People responsible, not just for the all-good Garden of Eden, but for for the blood, sweat & tears of the post-garden world. So, apparently they subtly & surreptitiously adopted a concept from polytheistic states, and promoted the snake (god's mouthpiece) in the garden, to a full-time tempter and legalistic adversary, as the anti-god Satan.

Later, as the Jews again morphed from a minor city-state into a world-empire in Roman Christianity, the mono-deity was again split into several personalities : abstract YHWH, personal Jesus, motherly Mary, mystical Holy Spirit, and demonic Satan. Hence, their belief system had come full-circle from Olympian Elohim to Cosmic Lord of Hosts. Therefore, if this condensed overview is close to correct, there was always a need for someone to blame for the imperfections of the divinely-created world. It was only the general deity's specific traits that evolved over the span from Genesis to Revelations. Some people today, imagine that Jesus and Satan were brothers in Heaven, who later became mortal enemies on Earth.

But that's just one of many myths that humans have imagined to explain : A> the contingent existence of the space-time world, and B> the existence of Evil in a world created by a supposedly benevolent ruler of the universe. Hence, an evil-god has always been a Necessary Being for mythology. So it seems that, just as we resolve black & white in the Yin-Yang symbol, we try to resolve the Problem of Evil in the notion of opposed deities in Heaven & Hell, while retaining the concept of One Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Being. :cool:

Yahweh :
In the oldest biblical literature, he is a storm-and-warrior deity who leads the heavenly army against Israel's enemies;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

YIN_YANG DEITY :


GOOD vs EVIL GODS :

But if we go by evidence, life wasn’t always around and therefore there must be a cold dead universe that existed before it could be appreciated. — Benj96

That's why Bishop Berkeley argued for an outside Observer, who is always watching what goes on in the world. Of course, his "Observer" was not visiting aliens, but the God of Genesis. :smile:

God in the Quad

There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."

Reply:

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."

Note : Here in our poem a quad is essentially the courtyard of a campus, or a quadrangle thereof.

It is like you are the forum's own virtual particle, forever erupting and self-annihilating from the cyber void. Your contributions exist because the PF vacuum expectation value must manifest its daily quota of crackpottery. — apokrisis

Careful!! I'm not sure what you are saying here, but it sounds like putdownery. :cool:

But even as a metaphor, that is quite the wrong kind of causal model for the kind of self-organising immanence I’m talking about. We diverge big time there. — apokrisis

OK. So what's your Causal Model or God Metaphor?

I'm only superficially familiar with the "vague" vocabulary of Peircean or Postmodern Semiotics or Semiology. They are like Greek to me, σας ευχαριστώ. So, my personal model is the relatively simple algorithm of Hegelian dialectic : the world progresses toward the future along a zig-zag path of positive & negative causes, which tend to sum to a Middle Way (Buddha) or Moderation (Aristotle). The evaluation of those Causes is symbolic, hence subject to subjective interpretation. But that wavering path is "self-organizing" in the sense of Synthesis (bring together) of oppositions. See images in the Maleus Scientia thread. :smile:

↪Gnomon
This evil being God’s own Original Sin. — PoeticUniverse
Contradictory statement. — SpaceDweller

That was a poetic expression of the theological "Problem of Evil", not a statement of fact.

God knows good and evil so he's both of that. — SpaceDweller

I agree. That all-in-one understanding is the core concept of my personal BothAnd philosophy. The Creator is assumed to be Omnipotential, in addition to Omniscient. But not necessarily Omni-benevolent, since that is a matter of opinion for those affected by such super-human powers. Omnipotential includes the possibility of both Good and Evil.

That's why our temporal & relative world evolves along a Hegelian zig-zag path, alternating between extremes of Positive & Negative. But, fortunately for us, those oppositions tend to neutralize each other (Yin_Yang). So most of the time we are able to enjoy the sweet spot in the middle between demonic Bad and angelic Good. That's what we call "life in an imperfect world". Even when it's not ideal, it's not so bad. :joke:

BothAnd Principle :
G*D (All; BEING ; Cosmos ; Logos ; etc.) is the Eternal Necessary Whole of which our world, and ourselves, are Temporary Contingent Parts. Hence G*D is like the Yin/Yang symbol : both black and white.

Example of POSITIVE -- NEGATIVE DIALECTIC


YIN YANG

Gnosticism was declared heresy by the church and stamped out therefore. — TheMadFool

Yes. But it was anathematized presumably, not because un-scriptural, but because It allowed direct contact with God, and bypassed the Church as mediator & translator. Later, the Protestants likewise claimed the right to know the written word of God in vernacular language. And at the same time, gave license to empirical scientists to consult the creation of God directly, Again, making an end run around the Holy Mother Church, with its ancient authorized scriptures, and again violently resisted. From then on, Catholic Mystics (closet Gnostics) tried to fly under-the-radar of the Inquisition, so they could have it both ways : direct divine visions and church sacraments. :halo:

"Unbound = eternal?? . . . ."

It is unbound possibility. So not about an actualised duration. — apokrisis

Agreed.
Potential :
Unrealized or unmanifest creative power. For example the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. Potential is inert until actualized by some trigger. In the Enformationism metaphor, the real world was originally an idea in the Mind of G*D, with the infinite possibilities of Omniscience, that was realized by an act of Will.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

A vortex is a dissipative structure - the emergence of order in the service of disordering. — apokrisis

Yes. Ironically, in thermodynamics, far-from-equilibrium is not necessarily disorder, but can be self-organizing.

And dissipative structure is the order out of chaos story. — apokrisis

Reductionism tends to focus on the local chaos, and to ignore the stable global order.

Why invent another jargon to describe something that already has so many names? — apokrisis

In my Enformationism thesis, I was repeatedly linking Eternity & Infinity, so for brevity I simply coined a contraction to "Enfernity" to describe the opposite concept from Einstein's "Space-Time".
Enfernity, Enfernal :
A contraction of “Eternity & Infinity” to indicate the irrelevance of those dualistic terms in the holistic state prior to the emergence of space & time from the Big Bang Singularity. Eternity is not a long time, it's the absence of space-time.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

So I would say your thinking goes in the wrong direction here. It re-embraces the mechanical model of reality that an organic conception is intent on rejecting. — apokrisis

I think your thinking is seeing only one side of a two-sided coin. My model is both Mechanical (scientific) and Organic (philosophical). :cool:

Shirking responsibility, The Blamer
Cited humans as the culprits of his err,
And cast them out of Eden, to this day—
This evil being God’s own Original Sin. — PoeticUniverse

Yes. The "problem of evil" remains to this day the primary argument against the omnipotent & loving Bible God. Even so, I still infer, from the off-setting positive & negative values of Good/Evil, that the First Cause, whatever it might be, did not create an idyllic Garden of Eden, but something more like a Science experiment pitting Self-determination against Determinism;; Reason against Randomness ; and Virtue against Violence. The final outcome of this vital & volatile alchemy remains to be determined. But, we-here-now, must choose between the eye-opening Apple of Science, and obfuscated Obedience to Fate. :joke:


Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
’Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
___Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919)

↪Gnomon
Except I didn't "label" Graveltty because of disagreement with me, but because of contradictory definition of a God. — SpaceDweller

I apologize, if the cartoon was not an accurate portrayal of the disagreement. As I said, I had just copied the Dilbert for future reference, since name-calling is common on this forum. I hadn't followed your dialog, but the "nonsense!" epithet was close-enough for me to use the 'toon as a "cool-down" warning.

FWIW, my own personal definition of "G*D" does not agree with Wiki for "God". But the Wiki def for PanEnDeism is close. And that's OK : there are dozens of variations on a definition of deity. Most ancient images of gods were un-apologetically anthro-morphic. And even modern Catholicism uses icons of humans & animals --- Jesus & Mary & Holy Spirit (e.g. dove) --- to represent different aspects of an otherwise inconceivable deity.

Therefore, on this forum, we need to address the proposed definition that is in question. We are not obligated to agree on a single interpretation, but we should only critique the one under consideration. It's par-for- the-course for one person's imaginary concept to sound like non-sense to another person. However, a philosophical discussion is supposed to accept each postulated opinon as fodder for rational discourse. :smile:

Universals are a class of mind-independent entities,
https://iep.utm.edu/universa/
Note -- "God" is typically assumed to be universal & singular. But "gods" are usually specific & multiple. Yet, my "G*D" may be considered a little bit of both : Pan + En + Deism.

I thought I would have to think about your "erudite" post over the weekend. I'm only vaguely familiar with Semiology. But, I couldn't resist digging into the Piercean vagueness right away. So here goes :

First, I'll have to translate some of that apokrisean semiology into terms that I am more familiar with.

- that the cosmos arose from unbound possibility as the inevitable growth of a rationalising structure

Unbound = eternal?? . . . . rationalizing structure = Logos??

arbitrariness, or vagueness, must always exist in the system as Platonic order exists only to suppress or constrain it . . .

Arbitrary = Random Chance? Order & Constrain = Natural Selection? Natural laws?

been fully locked in at the Big Bang, and the long-run destiny is for it to become a generalised Heat Death

locked-in = natural laws? . . . . Heat Death = born to die?

this story of an eternally cooling~expanding dissipative structure

Dissipation & Entropy seem to be necessary adjuncts to Integration & Energy in the program of Evolution.

Adjunct : "a thing added to something else as a supplementary rather than an essential part."

"Dissipative structures are nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that generate order spontaneously by exchanging energy with their external environments."
https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dissipative-structures

"Dissipative systems have a tendency to become more “complicated” while dissipating energy. That is, they develop patterns, structures, or behaviors that they did not have when first formed"
https://gmwgroup.harvard.edu/dissipative-systems

Anthropically, if these higher levels of dissipative structure could happen, they had to happen.

Necessity = esssential to the design or program?

why semiotics is then itself an inevitable organising informational arrangement. . . . negentropy to be dissipated

Semiotics seems to imply that Meaning is inherent to the system of evolution. The question is : meaningful to whom?

"Semiotics is the study of sign processes, which are any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the sign's interpreter". Wikipedia

Negentropy is what Aristotle called "entelechy" and what I call "enformy" in my Enformationsim thesis.

laws only work because of the way they can gloss over the detail.

By "gloss over" you mean "allow" or "permit" such details as the temporary exceptions to thermodynamics that we call living organisms?

Local spontaneity is built into the model along with the global necessity.

That's what I call "freedom within determinism"

information as the structure of constraints that limit the arbitrary. . . . information vs entropy

That "structure" may be what I call the constructive power of EnFormAction.
Information vs Entropy = Enformy

a metaphysics of order out of chaos - an information theoretic framework. But entropy descriptions are still ones that presume an essential meaningless of reality,

But "order" is the essence of "meaning". So the fact that Reality contains creatures capable of semiotics and extraction of meaning would seem to deny the "essential meaningless of reality"

So there just is no singularity, as there is instead just a vagueness that becomes a somethingness as soon as it starts to become a structure of relations. . . . Apeiron - an unbounded and formless "sea"

The un-formed "vagueness" of the Singularity may be comparable to a seed that doesn't resemble the tree.
What you call "Apeiron" is similar to what I call "Enfernity" : the unbounded realm of Eternity and Infinity, which is an unformed ocean of Possibility. Which I also call BEING, the eternal power to be, the essence of existence. The "seed" contains a tiny bit of Potential (genes, programs) that gradually Becomes (come into being) a Real World.

is a perfect symmetry. Any and everything can be happening. It is also the definition of unchanging

Perfect Symmetry = eternal & infinite, but still, pool of Potential

"Tyger, tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" ___William Blake

something had to happen

So, that infinite Potential couldn't be bottled-up forever? Something Actual must come out of it. But what Cause triggered that phase change from Voltage to Amperage, from Ideal to Real?

where disorder learns to constrain itself.

That's what Design does : it constrains disorder into order; it organizes (pattern) that which is disorganized (randomness).

same number at there at the Big Bang as they are at the Heat Death.

The evolutionary process comes full-circle from the nothingness of Potential, to fullness of Actual, and back to zero again. From Eternity to Timelessness.

But an even more general metric looks called for.

I propose that the emptiness of Shannon's Information as container, be supplanted by []Enformation[/i] as carrier of content.

Whew! I'm exhausted from writing all those big words. I'll have to take the weekend off to recuperate. :nerd: :yawn:

EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. It’s the creative force (aka : Divine Will) of the axiomatic eternal deity that, for unknown reasons, programmed a Singularity to suddenly burst into our reality from an infinite source of possibility. AKA : The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

I really like Wheeler as a bold and holistic thinker. The anthropic principle is also an obviously powerful argument when it comes to the cosmological problem. And I even agree - as Peirce argued - that the cosmos arose from unbound possibility as the inevitable growth of a rationalising structure. Wheeler also got that right with his geometrodynamics. — apokrisis

Wow!! I didn't expect such an expanded & erudite response to my open-ended question. Since my brain is also a "dissipative structure", it may take me a while to digest all that "Piercean vagueness". A lot of it goes right over my pointy little head. So, I'll have to get back to you. :wink:


In theoretical physics, geometrodynamics is an attempt to describe spacetime and associated phenomena completely in terms of geometry. Technically, its goal is to unify the fundamental forces and reformulate general relativity as a configuration space of three-metrics, modulo three-dimensional diffeomorphisms. ___Wikipedia

PS__My own attempt to make sense of Big Bang & space-time may be labeled "geo-info-metro-dynamics". But, at the moment, I'm not sure what that means. :cool:

Now you start to talk nonsense, fine, wikipedia definition of God is same as God described in the bible: — SpaceDweller
Nonsense from your POV. Calling something nonsense is usually done when the sense of the competing POV (mine) is in contradiction with the POV it contradicts. I merely use the vocabulary of infinite potentiality (be it moral, physical, or semantic) and make a kin of reductio ad absurdum to reveal the shortcomings the POV. That's all it is: a point of view. It's not mine though. — GraveItty

Pardon the intrusion, but I just copied this Dilbert cartoon from Steven Pinker's Rationality, and was looking for a place to put it. Just kidding! :joke:

From a historical point of view, these questions have predated any "religions" we think of today, ancient/modern philosophy and certainly modern science. — Xtrix

For me personally, I have only an archaeological interest in popular (of the common people) world religions --- including that of my own culture --- which are specific to a place & time that no longer exists. But I find a lot of commonality in the more elite philosophies of the deep thinkers in each culture. The religions retain their cultural flavor, for sampling in small doses, but even the obsolete worldviews still contain some nutritious meat for thought about perennial questions. :smile:

Even non-Christians know the rather tragic tale, The Fall Of Man. The story goes that Eve was enticed by Satan in serpent form to eat the forbidden fruit - — TheMadFool

As you implied, the Garden of Eden myth seems to be intended as a warning against "evil" Science, which trusts its sensory extensions and rational conclusions more than the absolute Word of God : "apple bad, trust me". That's also why the Bible repeatedly indicates that physical Flesh (including taste & touch) is corrupted, and only the non-physical Spirit is pure & good, and a direct link to God --- so, trust, and don't bother to verify..

Of course, in the Garden, those child-like humans had direct sensory experience with God, who walked in the garden, making sounds that frightened the babes-in-the-woods. Today, we are bereft of that intimate contact, and the original words of God, are now -- reportedly -- recorded in man-made books, after passing through the fallible minds of many generations of sinful fleshly humans. Therefore, it follows that the self-reliance of Science may be the product of a Satanic plot. Hence, your label "malus scientia" seems to be appropriate. Unless, human reason is the only remaining reliable Word (Logos) of the Creator. :chin:

So one way to arrive at a constant in a dynamic world is perfect symmetry. — apokrisis

Does that relationship between Symmetry and physical Constants, imply that the Big Bang Singularity was also perfectly symmetrical and unchanging (e.g. eternal), until some perturbation (outside force) broke the symmetry, resulting in our dynamic and evolving world? I ask that strange question because I just wrote a review of a book that reaches Anthropic conclusions from the : "unique “initial conditions” and “fine-tuned constants” that seemed arbitrarily selected to produce a world with living & thinking creatures."
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html

Immanuel Kant, likely for profound reasons, associated space with geometry and time with arithmetic. — TheMadFool

Perhaps, for similar profound reasons, Einstein associated Space with physical Matter (Objects), and Time with metaphysical Energy (Change). Maybe not in so many words, but implicitly in his Relativity theory. :smile:

Geometry seems, in a certain sense, more physical than arithmetic. I'm not as certain about this as I'd like to be. — TheMadFool

In my personal Information thesis, Geometry is indeed more "physical" than abstract math, in the sense that it measures relationships between real things, instead of relationships between abstract concepts. But, it's still the metaphysical (mental) relationship (inter-connection) that makes the meaningful difference (qualia), not the physical object (quanta) itself. :nerd:

But if God created time, then time was not needed for that initial act of creation. We can conclude, then, that there can be creation without time, for otherwise time itself could not have been created. — Bartricks

I'm a late-comer to this thread, and haven't read much of the subsequent discussion following the OP. But I may have something to add, relevant to the quote above. I don't have any direct knowledge of the Creator of our temporal world -- it could have been a tower-of-turtles in a time-bound Multiverse, for all I know. But I think it's more reasonable that the creator of Space-Time & Matter-Energy was independent of such limitations. In other words, whatever caused the hypothetical initial Singularity to explode into space-time must have existed in some sense prior to Space-Time.

So, it seems that the Creator (which I label ambiguously as "G*D") could only have existed as Eternal-Potential, instead of Temporal-Actual. Admittedly, Aristotelian "Potential" does not exist in any physical empirical sense. You can't examine it under a microscope. But as a metaphysical theoretical Platonic "Ideal", it encompasses unlimited infinite Possibilities. In the Real world, only lawful things are possible, By that, I mean, Natural Laws are the boundaries of Nature. In which case, only something not subject to those laws --- not natural ; unbounded --- could create the laws themselves : The Lawmaker.

Therefore, I conclude that the Singularity, and its subsequent Big Bang blowup, was not a physical thing --- subject to limits & laws --- but a program (design ; plan) for world creation, existing as an ethereal idea in the timeless Mind of G*D. And that is what I would call "creation without time". Real world Space-Time --- an ideal mathematical model --- exists only in the presence of Matter-Energy --- the physical elements of the real world. Hence, the Eternal Cause of our Temporal World cannot be Real ; so must be Ideal : existing only in unbound Potential. That is the assumption of PanEnDeism. :cool:



"Turtles all the way down" is an expression of the problem of infinite regress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

Aristotelian Potential :
In philosophy, potentiality and actuality[1] are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, and De Anima. . . . The concept of potentiality, in this context, generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have . . . Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality

Platonic idealism usually refers to Plato's theory of forms or doctrine of ideas. It holds that only ideas encapsulate the true and essential nature of things, in a way that the physical form cannot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_idealism

Panendeism is an ontological position that explores the interrelationship between God (The Cosmic Mind) and the known attributes of the universe. Combining aspects of Panentheism and Deism, Panendeism proposes an idea of God that both embodies the universe and is transcendent of its observable physical properties. https://panendeism.org/faq-and-questions/
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Most of us don't either. — jgill

When I said I don't take irrational & infinite concepts in Mathematics "too seriously", I meant they don't bother me, as they did the ancient Greeks. But, they do intrigue me, in the sense that many scientific & mathematical discoveries have resulted from anomalies that evoked a "huh? that's strange" response.

I'm aware that Pseudo-scientists tend to cut themselves loose from Physical grounding when they explore the open-ended possibilities of ethereal Meta-physical implications. But, although my personal experience is the touchstone for my belief-system, I am painfully aware of how biased misinterpretations of observed "facts" can lead us astray. Anyway, I find the metaphor of the physical world as a manifestation of its mathematical/logical structure to be useful for my personal worldview. :nerd:

All this math stuff exists in the mind only. All math stuff has acounterpart in physical reality — GraveItty

Yes. I typically refer to Mathematics as Meta-Physical, because it is not physically real, but a logical abstraction from Reality. So, since this is a philosophical forum, you'd think Metaphysical topics would be routine. But I get a lot of negative feedback whenever my arguments veer from Empirical Physics into Non-empirical, hence debatable topics. That's why I thought the notion of Irrational and Transcendental mathematics would encounter some friction from those insecure posters with Physics Envy. :smile:

PS___Of course, I understand their uneasiness with fringe ideas and pseudoscience. But, I have learned to deal with the uncertainties of the borderlands. So, I like to discuss edgey ideas, but prefer open-minded Skepticism to encapsulated Cynicism. :smile:

Physics Envy :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy

All physical constants are irrational numbers — TheMadFool

That strange fact does suggest something mysterious about a Real world with transcendental numbers. They do imply, not just the logical-geometric foundations of the physical world, but that abstract (metaphysical) geometry is not limited to the space-time boundaries that we take for granted. For example, the transcendental numbers, such as "Pi" and "e" are never-ending, Such fractured integers just keep on going long after our finite minds give up.

The ancient mathematicians were so baffled by the notion of infinity, that they labeled such numbers "irrational". Which they are literally, since human reason is only capable of dealing with fractions of whole numbers. But, now that we have tireless computers to calculate those amaranthine digits, the mystery goes beyond just human limitations, to suggest that even the material world, that we assume is a stable comprehensible reality, is somehow transcendental. Leading some to imagine things that never were, and cannot be . . . in reality.

Personally, I don't normally take such anomalies too seriously, since I'm not a professional mathematician. So I can usually just ignore anything that points beyond space-time. But as an amateur philosopher, I do find that inherent irrationality to be somewhat spooky. I just posted a new blog essay, which reviews a science-based book that reaches some transcendental conclusions, which seem to point beyond the limits of empirical science into the Great Transcendental Beyond. Since I remain somewhat agnostic about such ideas, I'd appreciate your comments. It's only three pages. :nerd:

Information-Consciousness-Reality :
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page18.html

Amaranthine : ceaseless, eternal, never-ending, . . . immortal ???

I think that AI are a greater species. — Varde

That seems to be the assumption of Technological Evolution theorists. But science-fiction writers always look for the fly-in-the sweet-smelling-ointment, and point-out some of the ways that homo techno could go wrong (e.g. The Matrix ; Foundation Series by Asimov).

Nevertheless, I too, have an optimistic Omega Point theory, but I don't make any predictions of how that far-off high-point of evolution would be reached. The advantage of Artificial Evolution (or Intelligent Evolution as I call it) may be the combination of goalless random alternatives (mutations) with future-oriented conscious Intention. :nerd:


An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which some form of artificial intelligence becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species.
Wikipedia

Omega Point Theory :
The Omega Point Theory is a scientific hypothesis about the possibilities and fate of intelligent life in the universe. It was proposed by physicist Frank Tipler in The Physics of Immortality.

The theory is named after the Omega Point concept of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a concept widely regarded to anticipate the internet and the technological singularity.

The Omega Point Theory provides a foundation for scientific theism, such as is often used in Christian transhumanism and other variants of religious transhumanism.
https://hpluspedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point_Theory

"The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future." ___ Eric Hoffer
https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/predict-quotes

"We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events". ___ Nassim Nicholas Taleb
https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/predict-quotes

Indeed I am a believer because I still want to see the good (which I however can't find in evolution, or at least in the theory of evolution as it is formulated in the moment). — FalseIdentity

Several years ago, I wrote an essay -- based on my work-in-progress personal worldview, Enformationism -- which was intended to be an update to the current state of Evolution theory, combined with Information & Quantum theory. It was also presented as an alternative to the Intelligent Design theories based on the Genesis myth. It combines the basics of Darwinian theory with later developments, including Evolutionary Programming, which combines computer Logic with a randomized heuristic (trial & error) method of gradually evolving an optimum solution to a specified problem.

Of course, it's not a divine revelation, just a novel way to think about how we got from Big Bang (the creation event) to the emergence of Life & Mind from Matter & Energy plus Information. I haven't revised the essay with the later developments of my philosophical worldview. But it was a crude attempt to offset the afterlife-optimism (deferred gratification) of the Judeo-Christian myth, and the make-the-best-of-a-bad-situation pragmatism of the Existentialism solution to the problem of Evil.

It doesn't make any promises for personal salvation. But it does offer reasons for viewing Evolution as an upward trend in the arc of an expanding universe. "I suppose we can do what all human societies have done before us: use the myth as a map to guide us through the wilderness of this wacky world." Maybe it will help you to offset the cynicism & pessimism of current popular culture. :smile:

Intelligent Evolution , A 21st Century Creation Myth :
"Religions have historically
fossilized around an antique world-view,
which is taken to be more true than any new-
fangled notions of science. But a map is not
the territory. And maps quickly become out-
dated. So consider this story of Intelligent
Evolution to be merely an update to older
scriptural and scientific paradigms."
http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf

Optimum :
1.most conducive to a favorable outcome; best.
2.the most favorable conditions or level for growth, reproduction, or success.

Hi Wayfarer. Are you able to deconstruct for us "al-arif bi'lah"? — tim wood

Pardon my intrusion, but I googled it, and this is one explanation :
"This Man is the one who has fulfilled his 'reason to be'. He has purified himself in readiness to receive the supreme mystic knowledge . . .:
http://www.almirajsuficentre.org.au/qamus/app/single/168

What's in a preposition? The by makes all the difference. The wisdom and importance of little words, oft neglected by people who think they have big ideas, but don't. — tim wood

Yes. Some people attribute their own personal intuitions & instincts to a mysterious outside (extrinsic) source. When someone says he "trusts his gut", he's probably simply referring to the emotional heart rather than the rational head.

However, some literally believe that they are in communication with some spiritual realm : god, or jnana, or "inner knowledge of dharma", or Akashic Record, or spiritual gnosis. But most Western educated science-based thinkers simply assume that subconscious instincts & intuitions are the result of eons of incremental Darwinian programming into perpetuating genes. Which is more Believable, depends, I suppose, on innate or acquired individual preferences. Which is more True though, remains debatable on philosophical forums. However, there seems to be an interesting parallel between Paranoia (unwarranted feelings) and Intuition (gut feelings). :cool:


Trust your gut… That’s God speaking through you
http://hannahebroaddus.com/trust-your-gut-thats-god-speaking-through-you/

Difference between paranoia and intuition :
Paranoia is defined as: Suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification. And here's the definition of intuition: The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=intuition+vs+paranoia+cheating

Carl Jung on Gnostic, Gnosis, Gnosticism :

At the other end is Gnomon’s desire or affected awareness of possibility - the recognition that we construct intentionality not just from our knowledge but from our own aesthetic relation to every particle. — Possibility

Yes. Affect, emotion or feeling, may be the missing bookend of Artificial Intelligence. Current examples of AI are good at processing data dispassionately, without actually being affected by it. Some social robots are being programmed to simulate affection, but they are still far from emotional, even though they may be able to consult a list of possible outcomes of their actions. Ironically, humans are so "programmed" for affect, that they come to "love" their robotic companions. Probably the humans project their own feelings onto robotic behavior, even when they lack essential human features. Including the intangible & complex quality of personality.

Their lab-developed mathematically-processed "feelings" are far from human passions, evolved over millions of years of inputs & outputs, good & bad, beautiful & ugly, to the point where they are subconscious automatic reactions. However, AI researchers are also simulating Darwinian evolution, by allowing their programs to learn from experience. If they succeed in creating learning programs that can reproduce their memes, then artificial evolution may eventually give birth to the successors of homo sapiens, as the internally-motivated (intentional) masters of the world. :nerd:

AI Quiddity :
Is artificial intelligence the new alchemy?
https://www.quantamagazine.org/science-has-entered-a-new-era-of-alchemy-good-20211020/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Why not? Distrust? — GraveItty

No. Philosophical skepticism. As Reagan responded to a Russian nuclear-proliferation treaty : "trust but verify". :smile:

Skepticism :
Some people believe that skepticism is the rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse “skeptic” with “cynic” and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas — no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe.
https://www.skeptic.com/about_us/

More and more people I see retreat socially and trust only a very small number of friends. Attempts to make more contacts mostly end in fighting, injury and biterness. If we would give up the idea that our mind can be neutral or that we are fighting just for "the truth" in such disputes like this one we might be able to understand why our societies implode in this way and prevent it. — FalseIdentity

Our times do indeed seem, at least in politics & fake news, to be devolving into cynicism, bitterness, & apocalyptic thinking. For example, many blockbuster movies in recent years seem to be built upon apocalyptic themes (e.g. Zombie Apocalypse).

But then, there's nothing new about that. History, as Hegel noted, tends to swing up & down, back & forth, toward positive (optimistic) or negative (pessimistic) extremes. At the low points of negativity (antithesis), people cry-out that "the end is near". But, eventually a new synthesis becomes dominant, and optimism reigns for a while. All I can say, based on historical dialectic is, "stay tuned, it can only get better". :smile:

PS__as an introvert, I am always in social retreat. But that's just my individual personality quirk. And I'm quite comfortable in my little hermit hole. But it doesn't mean that I am also, anti-social, pessimistic, or bitter. On this forum, I am often challenged to defend my Pollyannaish optimism. But I merely think of it as being realistic about the overall progressive trend of the world as a whole. :starstruck:


Apocalyptic Thinking :
The end is always nigh in the human mind
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028156-300-the-end-is-always-nigh-in-the-human-mind/

The end is near :
An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/

Where is it written that the philosophy here should be western? It's called the philosophy forum. Not the western philosophy forum. — GraveItty

You missed the point. I was not denigrating Eastern philosophy, which I find often enlightening. Instead, I was merely noting that TPF is usually not very "accepting of personal confidence as evidence of truth". Instead, any confident assertions are expected to be supported by articulated argument. Although, some seem to think that this is a scientific forum, and demand empirical evidence. :smile:

There is the difference between you and I:I have not endeavored to articulate any un-orthodox ideas. Hence my curiosity about why your initial response launched into an argument as if I had. — James Riley

I apologize if I misunderstood your intentions. But if you were not "endeavoring " to postulate or defend any debatable or "unorthodox" ideas, why were you posting on a Philosophy forum?

Were you merely seeking for like-minded people? There may be a few closet Gnostics on this forum, but I suspect you would find more of them on the alternative truth forums. Perhaps, on such platforms they can share feelings, without enduring any critiques or challenges. Personally, I enjoy the civilized give & take of this forum. That's even though my personal philosophical position may be in the minority. :smile:

PS__You might find some compatible community on a Quaker forum. Their services are characterized by sitting silently until the spirit ("light of God") moves them to speak. Such messages -- sometimes called a "word of knowledge" (i.e. gnosis) -- are usually received without critique, since it is presumed to be literally the Word of God (amen).

Perhaps it is a continuum which is at one end is alertness to chemical surroundings: an atom of carbon being alert to the proximity of another atom of carbon such that they bond. At the other end it is being able recognize oneself as distinct from one's surroundings. Not too different though; mostly a change in scale.

That's one way to look at awareness. But for me, having a self-perspective allows me to establish relative values for making judgments of where to take my atoms next. Not because physics says I have to, but because I, myself, want to. :joke:

Or, am I wrong in trying to frame philosophy as an alternative to religion? — Jack Cummins

I recently admitted publicly, on this forum -- only partly tongue-in-cheek -- that my personal Religion is Philosophy. It doesn't promise deferred gratification in another life. But it does allow me to define & refine my personal beliefs into a coherent worldview, which helps me to navigate the ups & downs of the only life I know for sure, here & now. I comfort myself for losing the anticipation of a better life tomorrow, by telling myself that "a living bird in hand is worth eternal life in the mythical bush". :joke: