Then you conclude that God and Chance are the same thing. But they are not. They are not (as you put it) ontically identical. 'Ontic identity' is when two things actually are the same. — Cuthbert

Then you conclude that God and Chance are the same thing. But they are not. They are not (as you put it) ontically identical. 'Ontic identity' is when two things actually are the same. — Cuthbert

Yes, focus on what you know and not on what you can know and it should be clear to you.

:up: I learned there are many reasons why someone grins - grin and bear it!

:grin:

I learned there are many reasons why someone grins - grin and bear it! — TheMadFool

OK, :grin: and :meh: it!

:smile:

.

It could be God or it could be Chance. — TheMadFool

Chance could be working through "god" - whether a necessary OR a contingent "god".

I keep stating (because I love to see myself typing it) that we are on an existence wave in which something has the propensity (nice Popper word) to be rather than nothing; that is why "god" does appear to play dice which are loaded.

Hypothetically, a "god" that was self-effacing in relationships rather than modelling a power craze, might want us to respect what and who is, as a priority over earning cosmic brownie points.

Some of His / its adherents might have distorted the meanings (a different thread expands on this): after all those around Moses were getting it wrong, that's the core of the story. The wording is in places carefully ambiguous in tone so that transmitters of the meaning will be held responsible. (I'm only alluding to a common ground for distaste for "god" talk.)

A "god" that was self-effacing in relationships would be content to slip out of the picture for agnostics "modularly" and want us - especially if we claimed to be adherents - to focus on respect (another thread deals with morals), which especially includes mental honesty in logic and epistemology.



This is why Russell and the anthropic principle aren't in contradiction (except insofar as he averred they were). A "multiverse" is a range of parallel calculations (a set of diagrams), but separate reasoning will tend to help us pick which apply better to the time and place we are in: calculations aren't wasted, if other uses for them don't emerge at least they were good practice.



As to the Bodhi quote, I think it was sophists like Berkeley and Hume that entrenched the dichotomy between matter, spirit etc in usual thinking, not scientists. Spinoza and Hegel pretended to be closing the gap but weren't. It took Husserl to affirm that what is out there and what is in our heads both exist at the same time (what I thought every child knew), but W James vetoed 1 his being published in the States, causing the continental / non-continental gulf and the vacuum into which the nihilist Ayer stepped. (My opinions are based on my "digesting" of secondary sources.)

1 James adversely recommended against Walter Pitkin's translation, f/n 26 - citing a Herbert Spiegelberg book - to Dallas Willard's chapter, 'Knowledge' in Smith B and Smith D W eds, Cambridge Companion to Husserl, 1995.

Chance could be working through "god" - whether a necessary OR a contingent "god". — Fine Doubter

Yes, that's why we can't tell the difference between chance and God.

Rest of your post, irrelevant! Good vibes though!

'Epistemic identity' is when you can't tell two things apart ... 'Ontic identity' is when two things actually are the same. — Cuthbert

Is this what Hume was referring to when he was commenting on most people's abysmal grasp of causation?

Good vibes — TheMadFool

Good "swerve" :wink:

Good "swerve" :wink: — Fine Doubter

:meh:

Strawman again. Anyway, misconstrue things, friend, to your heart's content.

That's an interesting miniature history of philosophy! :smile:

we are on an existence wave in which something has the propensity to be rather than nothing — Fine Doubter

Is there something missing here?
I was expecting something like "rather that not (to be)", "rather than (to) perish", etc.
("rather than", as a conjunction, joins two parallel grammatical constructions; "be" and "nothing" aren't such.)

It would be good if you fix this, because your idea looks like it has a potential but it is left incomplete.

"rather than not (to be)" — Alkis Piskas

... is what I had in mind and my construction got mixed up with "something rather than nothing"! :wink:

an interesting miniature history — Alkis Piskas

I had to be frank about the state of my reading and "digesting". "Interesting" is such a tactful word! At any rate I'm finding out things that are very different from what we were usually told in the summaries of summaries. I try to gauge where to spend my money first - not Descartes or Ayer. Secondary sources give me a "feel" - usually mutually contradictory among themselves. I feel sorry for undergraduates who have to swallow the canonical fare in the prescribed sequence. No wonder so few went in for "philosophy".

"God does not play dice" because g/G is the dice — 180 Proof

So when God plays with Himself, He plays dice?

:sweat: You tell me, blasphemer!

I don't know about dice but a God who doesn't play at something would get very bored. Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end... Our Guy got to be playing games.

(See for instance the God Melichrone in Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles. He has abolished all his creatures and also deleted the Hereafter, because He needed time to think, and He has become very very bored as a result, so he wants to destroy the book's main character too, for the fun of it...)

Another reason is: why would a non-gamer create animals like us (or cats) who like to play so much?

"rather than not (to be)"
— Alkis Piskas

... is what I had in mind and my construction got mixed up with "something rather than nothing"! :wink: — Fine Doubter

OK. So I am glad I filled in the hole! :smile:

At any rate I'm finding out things that are very different from what we were usually told in the summaries of summaries. I try to gauge where to spend my money first - not Descartes or Ayer ... — Fine Doubter

Alright, I like this. Quite creative! :up:

ahhh, defining God. The sandbox of wistful minds.

Atheism and Theism are one and the same thing! — TheMadFool

That is a cool paradox!

convince me of the existence of ... God — TheMadFool

I gather that in the Middle Ages "proof" meant logical plausibility for further trial by experience. At best, they were admirable agnostics.

As for order, there is no outer limit on its level of complexity. There are subatomic scales, the scale we're at, the cosmic scale. We're nowhere near "completing" our understanding of any of those scales. Comets with a too long orbit to calculate (yet) may additionally be influenced by "fields" we've barely begun to sense a glimmer of. As it was only a couple of years ago observations were strengthening Einstein's gravity wave idea, or they started photographing black holes, it's beyond credence when some big people claim everything is an open and shut case.

Maybe the elements are in a dance, and we are green with envy because we didn't choreograph it . . .

(On the actually religious side which I want to leave for other threads, often when "god" is mentioned what is really meant is "god pretext" and lots of "god subtexts".)

I gather that in the Middle Ages "proof" meant logical plausibility for further trial by experience. At best, they were admirable agnostics. — Fine Doubter

This actually describes me - I'm a middle-aged person, agnostic and trying my best to formulate a coherent worldview which, I'm told, involves testing theory against experience.

This thread is about how atheism and theism amount to the same thing but, mind you, only in the sense that what's being sought after is an explanation for the existence of the universe. Theists think it's god, atheists think it's chance and as described in the OP, the two were connected in that God(s) worked their magic so to speak as the so-called chance factor.

As for order, there is no outer limit on its level of complexity. There are subatomic scales, the scale we're at, the cosmic scale. We're nowhere near "completing" our understanding of any of those scales. Comets with a too long orbit to calculate (yet) may additionally be influenced by "fields" we've barely begun to sense a glimmer of. As it was only a couple of years ago observations were strengthening Einstein's gravity wave idea, or they started photographing black holes, it's beyond credence when some big people claim everything is an open and shut case. — Fine Doubter

Order, by definition, is simple - there are rules we can get a handle on. Complexity is a function of disorder - it's impossible to grasp chaos. That said, I agree with you that what we don't know dwarfs what we (think) we know.

(On the actually religious side which I want to leave for other threads, often when "god" is mentioned what is really meant is "god pretext" and lots of "god subtexts".) — Fine Doubter

Go on...

This thread is about how atheism and theism amount to the same thing but, mind you, only in the sense that what's being sought after is an explanation for the existence of the universe. — TheMadFool

Well, insofar as theism is untrue, they do amount to the same thing. The (origin of the) universe – finite, unbounded immanence – seems a brute fact. There is no answer to "Why" (which does not precipitate an infinite regress, in effect, begging the question).

Well, insofar as theism is untrue, they do amount to the same thing. The (origin of the) universe – finite, unbounded immanence – seems a brute fact. There is no answer to "Why" (that does not precipitate an infinite regress, in effect, begging the question). — 180 Proof

I defer to your better judgment!

which does not precipitate an infinite regress, in effect, begging the question — 180 Proof

This is a very interesting point. And it doesn't help "theism" (or only a little in some people's minds), overall.

In my young day "crea-tion" meant (secular agnostically) meant just "what turned up". To non-Hoylites, as an event it might mean "some sort of start" (I think we thought vacuums were more vacuumy then). A "creat-or" was a "being" or even "force" that set things in motion or being. A creator-god was a subset of that, and different religions' gods were very diverse subsets again.

All this was very modular. You just slotted out what you didn't want. Remarkably other people didn't mind us slotting in what we did want for ourselves. (You can't help others if your beliefs - on any subject - aren't held by you for you.)

It looks likely that the "single big whimper / bang" idea and the whole series of them / infinite regression or recursion-regression probably aren't incompatible: the first is either part of the second or is the second viewed in less detail.

Why questions are largely how questions and how questions are largely what questions.

Our finding is that things appeared. Out of nearly nothing (there are things in vacuums).

Our findings are mostly done with the considerable aid of complicated calculations and inferences. For example planet / star speeds and distances, as well as chemical compositions, are done by colour spectrums last I heard. I wish I had stayed in sciences of these kinds but am grateful I stayed near to words.

I'm referring to infinites. The questions that remain are infintely regressing from view, but maybe not uniformly. Whether this maps a kind of recursion, or there are spin-offs that have gone out of "sight" I wouldn't know. Maybe the existence wave that swung one way swings the "other way" or "all other ways". Are there several existence waves - but not all washing the same sort of "stuff" - "interfering"? This would interrelate with the shimmering Epicurus intuited (and people long before).

I think infinite (as mathematical "fiction" or ideal is an approximation to an approximation, as are infinitesimals. I got to this in my spatial imagination, by edging back, as near as couldbe no amount from almost more than everything. Or edging forwards, or something like that. And the same in reverse in miniature.

I jumped off the picnic tabel at the end of the universe!

I believe that zero is an approximation. The point 180 proof is making is that apparently finite and apparently infinite have intricate relationships. And we never get to "why-why". I think people should take more interest in how and especially what. Isaac Newton got where he did because he embraced the what.

In a sense "why" is "so that we can talk about it". Even better: "so that we can laugh about it". :rofl: (I'm no panpsychist because of individuality.)

Complexity is a function of disorder - it's impossible to grasp chaos — TheMadFool

Chaos is an ideal, a fiction. Disorder is relative. It means in effect complexity. Complexity scientists (they are called that because they got chucked out of every other "discipline") are finding that complexity is, well, complex.

I don't know Maxwell nor notations but I wonder if this is the sort of thing. I got a gut feeling when I looked at the prose bits:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/how-to-explain-the-overdetermination-of-maxwells-equations.803535/

Here's a lovely piece about underdetermination:

https://lishanchan.com/2012/09/27/underdetermination/

I wish we had done (simple versions of) these two at school. It's vital for critical thinking, which is the opposite of jumping to conclusions.

Thanks :up:

So when God plays with Himself, He plays dice? — Olivier5

:lol:

Sorry.

Sorry. — Olivier5

Dont be!!! Im not sure where that lol-smiley is for but I had to laugh from the inner bones because its truly funny! You just made me laugh. I couldnt hold it in fact! God is there but I dont care about him. I rather care about his creations!

There must be a reason why blasphemous jokes are funny... ?

In Afghanistan, the only jokes in circulation are about a certain Mollah Nasruddin.