Yes, but it's confusing. It's not both at same time. Sometimes particle, sometimes wave. They seem complementary. What does that mean? I know what is complementary. Like ying and yang. Are particles and waves one whole? Is a particle moving in a wave? What
Is the wave made of?

Yes, but it's confusing. — EugeneW

Agreed. That's why quantum mechanics gives people fits, even 117 years after it started out. It is anti-intuitive. As for "Sometimes particle, sometimes wave"... it's always both. It's just the way we observe it that changes. Don't ask me to explain further.

From the article:

"Wave–particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that every particle or quantum entity may be described as **either** a particle or a wave."

So not both at the same time. Which seems the most logical. When you describe the wave, you don't see the particle and vice versa.

In the same article:

"Although the use of the wave–particle duality has worked well in physics, the meaning or interpretation has not been satisfactorily resolved;"

It’s a greater “element”.

God is defined as the greatest being we can imagine.

So of course “something greater than the greater thing” is God’s omnipotent power.

You keep looking for another “ingredient” because of your failure of imagination.

A metaphysical principle that discovers the logical explanation of how the greater things in our reality, such as life and thought and emotion, came to be in such a lesser reality, as our physical universe is, is like the discovery of a once in many lifetimes new super nova overhead.

And you dig holes in the ground to see it, and then whine when you can’t see it and become confused.

The greatest person who ever lived said that we must become like children to see the kingdom of God.

You gave away your sense of awe and excitement to egotistical opinions you frame as math problems.

I’m only taking about one principle, and you keep talking about your definition of what is “greater”, and I am correcting your definition because I provided the principle not you.

I’m repeating myself because you’re repeatedly holding up quantity for me to look at as a greater thing when quantity is not part of the principle, other than calling the extra element of superior quality an added element. — Joe Mello

You haven't yet told me what quality you are talking about. That's what I keep asking of you. Greater in what quality? "Greater" itself does not refer to a quality.

What you should be doing is looking to science to see if it supports the principle, not trying to make it your own. — Joe Mello

I thought that is what you were asking, for me to understand your principle, accept it, and make it my own. How can I look to see if science supports it when I can't even understand it, because you haven't made clear what you mean by "greater"? All you've done is stated examples which are useless because you do not identify the quality which one of the things in the example is greater in. You could say a chair is greater than a table, or a table is greater than a chair. And when I ask you why you class one thing as greater than another thing, you simply say it's obvious.

You and most of the posters here have a failure of imagination. — Joe Mello

So use your imagination then Joe. When you say that it's obvious that one thing is greater than another, use your imagination, and dream up some criteria to justify your claim. Otherwise all you are saying is that X is greater than Y because I say so. And what kind of principle is that?

There are a couple of posters here who readily appreciated the principle and welcomed it into their thinking like they were waiting for it. — Joe Mello

I sincerely want to welcome your principle into my thinking, as you even said above, I'm trying to make it my own. Why else would I spend my time asking you to clarify it for me to understand. But if you do not clarify, then I will not understand, and I cannot welcome it into my thinking.

@Metaphysician Undercover

You can’t possibly be willing to understand the principle.

I’ve told you plenty about what is and isn’t a qualitatively greater thing.

How can you not understand that a myriad of dead material things collected together in any combination cannot create a qualitatively greater thing but only a quantitatively greater thing?

Putting ice cubes in a drink to make the drink cold does not make ice qualitatively greater than water, but just water with less energy and molecules stuck together.

All physical matter changed into different physical matter follows this same lack of qualitative change.

A qualitatively greater thing than physical matter would be living tissue, life, a living being.

A qualitatively greater thing than life would be a thought, an emotion, a human personality.

The principle is logically stating that only something (qualitatively) greater than life and thought and emotion and us, and everything else that has evolved in our physical universe, had to be present for evolution to have taken place.

And the “something (qualitatively) greater than” is God’s omnipotent power.

The elegance of the principle leaves out mentioning quality because any philosophically trained mind would readily understand what a greater thing is.

It really isn’t a principle for people who use the Google machine.

So, do the work to understand it, or just leave me alone with the thought that I don’t understand it, as you accused me of before.

So not both at the same time. Which seems the most logical. When you describe the wave, you don't see the particle and vice versa. — EugeneW

If it makes you feel better to tell yourself that, knock yourself out.

A qualitatively greater thing than physical matter would be living tissue, life, a living being.

A qualitatively greater thing than life would be a thought, an emotion, a human personality. — Joe Mello

This is a good example of why I do not understand you. First you say that a living being is greater than a dead thing. Then you say that a thought is greater than a living being. How can a thought be greater than a living being, when a living being is the cause of a thought? I do not understand how an effect can be greater than its cause. What is "greater" supposed to mean in your usage?

The principle is logically stating that only something (qualitatively) greater than life and thought and emotion and us, and everything else that has evolved in our physical universe, had to be present for evolution to have taken place. — Joe Mello

So this doesn't make any sense at all. Your examples show the posterior thing to be greater than the prior thing; physical matter is first, than the greater thing, living tissue, then an even greater thing, a living being, then an even greater thing, a thought. So your examples display that for you, greater things come from lesser things. The lesser things are prior to the greater things. Then you claim that there must be something even greater, which is prior to all these things. But that's completely inconsistent. You ought to conclude that there is something lesser which is prior to all these things. The thing which had to be present in the first place would be the least thing, not the greatest thing.

A qualitatively greater thing than physical matter would be living tissue, life, a living being.

A qualitatively greater thing than life would be a thought, an emotion, a human personality.
— Joe Mello

This is a good example of why I do not understand you. First you say that a living being is greater than a dead thing. Then you say that a thought is greater than a living being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn't this simply putting things in their order of significance - a rock is less than a mouse; a mouse is less than a human?

@Metaphysician Undercover

No, it’s not me you don’t understand.

It’s common sense and your own experiences.

You have screwed your mind up royally somehow.

I really don’t want to keep witnessing it.

Maybe better: the particle moves in the wave. So a particle remains a particle, tough not an ordinary one. Surrounded by a mysterious wave. So particle and wave together! Strange stuff, that quantum stuff...

Joe Mello. — dimosthenis9

:grin:

Yeah, many people's minds are screwed up. Already at young age it starts. At school. The institute of so-called enlightenment. I reality it are dark rooms with very refined slave drivers filling the mind with bad stuff and taking good stuff out. And children looking outside of the window to the butterfly on the flower is diagnosed with ADD.

The principle is logically stating that only something (qualitatively) greater than life and thought and emotion and us, and everything else that has evolved in our physical universe, had to be present for evolution to have taken place.

And the “something (qualitatively) greater than” is God’s omnipotent power.

The elegance of the principle leaves out mentioning quality because any philosophically trained mind would readily understand what a greater thing is. — Joe Mello

I agree. It's the only final explanation when all gaps are closed. You could ask who then created gods but then the answer would be the same. It doesn't take gods to create gods. It takes them though to create a universe and only they can breath life into the equations.

@EugeneW

God is the greatest being we can imagine.

When you pluralize “God” you violate everything from his definition to the human history you have been a witness to.

And there can’t logically be two gods.

And to even entertain the question of who created God is to not be intelligent enough to know your own mind.

Maybe better: the particle moves in the wave. So a particle remains a particle, tough not an ordinary one. Surrounded by a mysterious wave. So particle and wave together! — EugeneW

If it makes you feel better to tell yourself that, knock yourself out.

I think everything is occuring at the same vibrating time, so effects can be causes.

And God must be everything, or God couldn't have created everything.

I think there is more to evolution along similar lines.

Somehow the dinosaur must be aware of the sky to become a bird, and that, to me, suggests mind over matter. I don't buy the pretext that, oh, a dinosaur randomly sprouted a feather. I think there is a yearning within the imagination, that perhaps no material mechanism can be found for, that aids in things like dinosawyers becoming birds.

@theRiddler

God is not everything because God’s omnipotent power does not engulf the uniqueness in every created thing.

What is the greatest thing in the physical universe?

Is it not a human being?

And what is the greatest thing about a human being?

Is it not his or her personality?

Therefore, it logically follows that the greatest thing about God is his personality, not his power.

And God’s personality doesn’t identify with everything or everyone, but with himself.

In a word, God is first and foremost a personality.

And he created everything and everyone out of perfect love, not out of self-love.

God is not everything because God’s omnipotent power does not engulf the uniqueness in every created thing.

Says you. But if God was not the only resource from which to create, even if God has the power to make imagination tangible, then technically God did not create everything; he created everything out of an arbitrary "something."

Furthermore, if we possess power God does not, this disqualifies God from being all-powerful.

Yeah, you guys keep trying to tell me God is a person. I just don't believe as such. A universal mind, perhaps, but that's as far as I'll go.

I do not seek to know the mind of God. That's waaay too deep and too powerful.

That said, I am a pantheist, sorta of the classical variety, and believe God is as personal as we subjectively are to ourselves, which is very personal.

But yeah, I don't go there. Beware, cause God is dangerous.

@theRiddler

Yes, says me.

Maybe you should be talking about television shows.

I experience more than one god. They can't logically be alone as the creation of love and hate takes two at least. Only when you have knowledge of another mind, you will understand that. Monotheism lacks love.

@Joe Mello

Why should I listen to you and not me?

Television shows? I don't get it.

I experience more than one god. They can't logically be alone as the creation of love and hate takes two at least. Only when you have knowledge of another mind, you will understand that. Monotheism lacks love.

That's a possibility, too, and a good one. Though I would imagine some kind of primeval collision of worlds.

And when you think about it, there is a disjunct symmetry to many things, including the human brain. Maybe we evolve to resemble nature.

If it makes you feel better to tell yourself that, knock yourself out — T Clark

Better than what?

Hello Joe,
I've been following this forum for 6 or 7 years and before that, the old PF. You now have 273 posts on your first thread. You have said that you have been on other forums. I was wondering how you would evaluate your first experience on this forum? How do you think this first thread is going? Are you getting anything out of this? Do you think others are?

Actually 295.

I browsed through the posts here to try to understand how this introduction thread of a new forum member got to be 10 pages long. I don't mean to offend anyone, but I thought finally someone had the profound insight into what it is the rest of us was missing in our understanding of philosophical questions in metaphysics.

@Joe Mello, sorry dude, but I tried reading your posts, but the more I read the more I get confused as to your point. And 10 pages later, no one has got a clue on what is being discussed. I don't mean any disrespect, but 10 pages of back and forth attempts at clarification went nowhere in the end.

Could you summarize for me the philosophical view you're trying to articulate? Please be concise. I just really need to know because there's a lot of "god" and finite and intangibles being thrown around here. They are, to me, conflicting ideas.

That's a good one too! So we evolved in the image of some eternal divine nature. As gods made us in their image, then that's very well possible. And it includes all creatures. I mean, it's kind of miraculous that everything exists. So maybe an eternal divine nature made us appear. Along with everything in the universe.

It's amazing how some humans become more theistic as they get older. They seem to get more afraid as oblivion gets closer. The last hope of those who live in such fear is the god fable.
No matter how much study these people do and regardless of their background, they remain the scared little children they will always be. Those who hope a superhero god of the gaps will save them from oblivion are just deluded fools who will never appreciate the true wonders of the natural Universe. Meantime the intelligent humans will continue to look to science for life extension and future transhuman options. This thread is an utter waste of time.

God is the greatest being we can imagine. — Joe Mello

Yep you are firmly rooted in the realm of imagination. If you were not holding onto your idea of God it would drift away with the wind. God is an idea that you sustain and keep alive. Let it go and find what is unchanging.