Uhm...
Sex is fun, not a sterile fertilization ritual. :roll:
Deny natural fun all you like, it's just self-alienating.

I never understood this constant obsession with the sex lives of others. Is it envy? — Jeremiah

Good question.

Partly to allow free will. God will tell each individual through their conscience what He wants. They will not be forced to listen nor forced by unassailable texts. — EnPassant

Hm. Then it seems this God figure is no longer needed here. Falls out of the equation after a fashion.

Anyway, if we go by the Biblical narratives (and others), then God has meddled plenty in human affairs, though.

But did that, by itself, remove free will...? Seems more like rendering degrees of doubt/conviction, than removing free will.

6000 years old — wellwisher

Is that a Biblical timeline you're going by there...?

Human evolution (Wikipedia)

Colloquially, infinite is a quantity that's not a number, $|\mathbb{R}| \sim \infty \notin \mathbb{R}$.
But it's ambiguous (hence the $\sim$).
As it turns out there's more than one infinite, there are infinitely many different infinites, no less (Cantor).
Anyway, Dedekind and Tarski came up with different (general) definitions that can be shown equivalent.

The omniscience paradox is once again a straw man. For one, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then the capacity for God to change his mind would be logically impossible. But for classical theists, God is eternal and outside of time, so it is inappropriate to speak of God "making choices". — darthbarracuda

Right, atemporal renders decision-making impossible or incoherent.
Moreover, it seems that minds are strongly temporal altogether, meaning that an atemporal mind (and atemporal sentience) is equally impossible or incoherent.
(Poll: God is an incorporeal mind that's not spatiotemporal)
Something atemporal would inherently be inert and lifeless, maybe like abstract objects?

Supposing that X is temporal, on the other hand, does lead to something odd about "changing one's mind" while also being omniscient.
(Note, this is not about human "free will", but rather X's own "changing X's mind".)

The omnipotence paradox is a straw man, since it requires that God have a logically incoherent power. God could only be omnipotent if he lacked the power to do something that was logically possible. Demanding God do the logically impossible is like demanding he design a square circle. — darthbarracuda

I don't think anyone demands anything here, do they? :)
All there is to go by is a definition, there isn't anything to point at which makes us go "omnipotent!".

Simply declaring that X can do exactly what is logically possible, does not really solve the conundrum, but just pushes it one out and leaves it hanging there.
You still have to decide whether X can create anything or X can lift anything, because X seemingly cannot do both, yet omnipotence means both.
(That's an exclusive or by the way.)
Recall, we only have these weird definitions to go by.
So, both (create and lift), one and not the other (create or lift), or neither; you have four options to deal with.

Where things get even more hairy is when defining that X is atemporal.

Godsplaining:

The attempt to earn cultural capital or seduce by explaining spiritual concepts to people even though no one has asked for or needs an explanation.

To attribute divine significance to something, usually in a forced manner

Source: Urban Dictionary

What kind of clarification would you accept? — Txastopher

Don't know. Maybe show up for supper on occasion? We're personable hosts, supper's on us. Oh, and grant me omnipotence for a bit, the fun I'd have. :) All-knowing includes knowing such stuff.

Let's say God did appear and said that, "yes, homosexuals should be euthanised". Would this make you change your mind? — Txastopher

Maybe an appropriate response could be: "Well, you best get on with your dirty work, then."
According to some stories, I guess it wouldn't be the first time.

Either way, humans clearly aren't reliable.
Sathya Sai Baba claimed to be a Shiva avatar, and has 100,000s of followers (actually might be in the millions) across the globe, some of whom claim to have witnessed him doing supernatural magic. Some Abrahamic religious folk, on the other hand, claim it's all demonic, followers bound for the grand BBQ. Go figure.
Suppose I was to take the countless fantastic supernatural human babble serious. My head would be filled with just about anything imaginable, mutually incompatible, incoherent babble.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. — Thomas Jefferson (1787)

If God made Himself unequivocally known, Pascal's wager becomes a sure thing. — Rank Amateur

Assuming s/he/it made their demands and identity clear, and that no trickery was afoot.

Well, it's not exactly parsimonious, and lends itself to a regress ...



Programmers of a simulation can do whatever, beyond the usual cheat console in some games.
Reliability goes out the window, which undermines our efforts to understand the world.

_{Guard In Video Game Under Strict Orders To Repeatedly Pace Same Stretch Of Hallway (The Onion, Oct 2014) :)}

Instead of all the "Much Ado About Nothing", wouldn't it make more sense to be a bit more specific?

• "nothingness" = absence of anything and everything
• nothing = common use, like "there's nothing in the fridge", out of beer :o

The former would then be like a referent-less word, since anything and everything already is all-inclusive, and hence "nothingness" is our way of talking about it's non-existing all-exclusive complement.

The latter we may quantify with zero.

Isn't the opening post a bit along the lines of Frege and Russell (the abstract number is the set of all sets with the concrete number as it's cardinality)...?
I think it was Frege and/or Russell anyway (from memory), might have others (as well).

By the way, the dimensions of units would have to be fairly general.
You could have, say, "I own the Moon, my left ear, and the range from my front-door to the street", which could be construed as just "3 items".
(Yes, the Moon is mine I tell you.) :)

@GreenPhilosophy, I think any answers to your inquiry may differ depending on context.

In a civilized society, things may be sort of complex, but most look after their citizens.
Actually, this might be a good measure of how well-developed such societies are.

I don't think you can demand that another individual provides for you as such.
(Surely you don't "blame" nature for suffering? The universe is largely indifferent to our troubles.)


Hey @jm0, a fellow Dane, who knew. :)

@apokrisis, incidentally, I think the peculiar fractal'ish thing applies to self-knowledge in particular.
(This coincides with documented (evident) introspection illusions, an illusory information horizon necessitated by a finite self-model.)

Instead, the simplest map just tells you where are the obstacles, where are the paths. That is, where are the constraints, where are the degrees of freedom.
[...]
The kind of tool we are talking about here is a map. And maps are interested in the global structure of an environment, not its inessential details. — apokrisis

Right.

If we abandon the peculiar fractal'ish structure, then it seems that the only exhaustive map is the territory.
It's just that, by that line of thinking, the term "map" is then implicitly bent around instead (or "territory" is).
Where maps (models, understandings, idealized abstracts, information, memories, etc) are epistemic - they're ours - territories are ontological.
But then, by collapsing maps and territories, we sort of populate it all with us (like a self-externalizing hypostatization), if you will.

Maybe omniscience-granting maps, or otherwise entirely accurate maps, are a pipedream.
Still useful (cf your pragmatism), if not required, just in a domain of excluding particulars, or flattened as you put it (if I'm reading your comments right).

And there could also be the most complete map possible map. The Map of Everything. — apokrisis

You'd then have to have the map being part of it all.
Or, in other words, the map would have to include itself as a proper part.
A bit fractal'ish I suppose, infinite in depth where the map maps itself.
While not impossible, it would give a peculiar structure of it all.

And if scientists said all things were made of pixie dust, rather than particles, then these would also be commitments. Since they are commitments about what exists, they are metaphysical commitments. — Moliere

Right.
There's a difference between merely that something exists (∃) and what exactly something is (quiddity), though.
Shamelessly pointing over at an old post: ∃ and quiddity
In general, the sciences tend to suppose that something is, and then try to learn more about what it is.
That said, of course some make commitments to specific metaphysics about what exactly things are, but, on the angle above, the sciences don't really care much.

Suppose things were made of pixie dust.
The scientific methodologies wouldn't change a bit.

In (very) short, science is self-critical, bias-minimizing model → evidence convergence, where tentative hypotheses can be derived from the models.
Evidence, observations, experimental results accumulate, and the models convergence thereupon.
The convergence protocols are what scientists do.

So, on that angle at least, only regularities are required, without which everything would be incomprehensible chaos anyway.

Wouldn't fare well with scriptural accounts or among church/mosque folk.
Abstracts aren't sentient or causal, for example, but kind of inert.
Religious believers typically envision deities as active, alive.

So your morality consists in total freedom of the individual, with the exception of harm. — Samuel Lacrampe

The listed items are not exhaustive (which may not be feasible in the first place). More like a few simple basics extracted from experiences through life this far.

Say, 1500 years ago slavery, misogyny, stoning, mistreating animals, etc might just have been common everyday stuff of no particular consequence/interest, whereas today they're considered immoral or criminal. I guess the contemporary political correctness movement exemplifies emerging morals or moral awareness.

(1) Is it morally wrong to eat animals and plants? (2) Is it morally acceptable to lie to others if they never find out? (2) Is it wrong to give an employee a raise, and another no raise, due to favoritism? — Samuel Lacrampe

I couldn't say in general, though favoritism comes through as wrong to me; I'd certainly raise my eyebrows if I noticed, but maybe the company established a kind of "discrimination" that new employees are informed of? For that matter, is it morally wrong to mow the poor lawn...? What did the nice green grass ever do to anyone, to deserve such barbaric treatment...? :)

Either way, not all situations are (readily/necessarily) morally decidable, as shown by the Trolley problem. I'd say both decidability and undecidability have to be taken into consideration in an analysis.

Is it wrong to do harm to the nazis to prevent them from killing more jews? — Samuel Lacrampe

Nah, the nazis forfeit their rights.

• violation of the above may entail forfeiture of some or all of them

Suppose we wanted to reduce morals to something. What might this something then be? What would acceptable "moral atoms" look like? Self-interest alone doesn't do it for me (like some rules seem to suggest), but maybe that's just me.

Sure, but why would I follow such a rule? I would only follow it if I valued it. I will only act justly if I value justice. The value of justice must come from a subject mustn't it? If the value of justice is objective, how can it connect to what I do? Why would such objective values matter to me, or indeed to any subject? — bert1

Well, maybe you don't follow any such rules. Or any morals at all perhaps. The universe at large sure don't. :) It would mean someone else might deem you not moral based on your actions or inactions.

(here’s a copy/paste of something I once typed up elsewhere)

We don’t usually talk about torture of rocks or abuse of snow. Moral matters are (existentially) mind-dependent, i.e. subjective, and are generally social matters. Four simple basics of morals:

• we can assume that anyone including non-humans likes freedom by default (cf autonomy)
• we can assume that anyone including non-humans dislikes harm by default (cf the Hippocratic Oath)
• the above sets out a default baseline for the Golden Rule
• violation of the above may entail forfeiture of some or all of them

These have been codified in various important historical documents, such as:

Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the fruition of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law. — Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, Article IV

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. — The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, Article 19

Liking freedom and disliking harm are typically involuntary, not a matter of opinion, not discretionary or invented, regardless of liking and disliking being mind-dependent (subjective).

The complexities of life entails significantly more complex regulations and injunctions; these, and their applicability, may be informed by the basics above.

Moral action includes acting in the interest of others.

• Social sustainability (Wikipedia article)
• Urukagina (Wikipedia article), examples of early (-2400 — -2301) codes of conduct
• Trolley problem (Wikipedia article), not all moral dilemmas are decidable
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 (Wikipedia article)
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (Wikipedia article)

There are any number of related inquiries.

How might I prove to you that I'm self-aware?
Does it all cease to exist while I'm unconscious? Only to re-emerge when I come back to?
A blind person does not see the Moon; a synesthete might smell it.
A dead (or hypothetical) person cannot prove (or know) anything, let alone about the Moon.
If all else is (existentially) dependent on my experience thereof, then it all seem to part ways with ex nihilo nihil fit for example.
Can an unseen boulder falling off a cliff kill you?
Is phantom pain evidence of a real limb, or more, say, like a hallucination?
What's the deal with alien hand syndrome?

To me at least, it makes (significantly) more sense that I'm but part of a (significantly) larger world.

In a major project, Reuters tracks the real impact of President Trump’s policies - all in one spot: This is ‘The Trump Effect’.

Top story as of typing: Exclusive: As Trump trashes NAFTA, Mexico turns to Brazilian corn (P J Huffstutter, Adriana Barrera, Reuters, Feb 2018)

Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) by Jared Diamond is a great read on how different societies evolved/developed differently. Diamond has a flair for spotting and avoiding biased tendencies towards understanding/explaining this stuff. Yep, some societies brought their pet germs with them, who just about took out other societies they came across.

Anyway, some groups somehow feeling (and acting) superior to others sure has been, and is, common enough. At least we can address such crap when encountered.

U.S. hate groups proliferate in Trump's first year, watchdog says (Ian Simpson, Reuters, Feb 2018)

There's also the in/voluntary aspect of beliefs.

Example of involuntary:
I have troubles choosing to believe, to be convinced, that there are pink elephants in the front-yard (say, maybe just for five minutes sharp).
If I hallucinate them, then I'd likely falsely believe that they're there, though perhaps somewhat justified.

So, there's a part of beliefs that have to be genuine, honest, which also is related to justification, indoctrination, or whatever.
I guess formation of belief is a whole study in its own right.

What are examples of voluntary beliefs?
Is seeing believing?
(Err sorry, not intending to off-track the thread.)

_{seeing is believing (Wiktionary entry)
Seeing & Believing (Raymond Tallis, Philosophy Now, 2013)
Seeing is believing (Nature, Dec 2005)
Seeing Is Believing (Richard I Cook, Annals of Surgery, Apr 2003)}

Welcome to, .

The most important answers being: — Jonathan AB

Wouldn't it be neat if a 1-dimensional model could be found, that our universe could be "encoded" in?
Would go well with computation analogies and simulation hypotheses.

When idealists hijack quantum mechanics I sometimes wonder why they still can't derive qualia therefrom.

Well, some such idealists are hell-bent on making room for their deity.
I came across one claiming to have proven the Christian Trinity from quantum mechanics, no less.
A Californian physics student I think.
(Admittedly, I didn't bother to read it.)

, when looking at your piece of paper, put your hands in front of your eyes so you no longer see it.
Now move your hands away again.
1) Did the paper disappear? 2) Did a goat appear where it was? 3) Do you see the paper again?
(The former two may be evidence of David Copperfield playing tricks.)
Wouldn't it be neat, if, say, a piano was falling down towards you, and you could look away, et voilà, the piano would no longer exist? :)
Bit like that old story of ostriches sticking their heads in the sand when they see something scary.
The most parsimonious line of thinking seems to degenerate into solipsism (or similar idealism), something like that. (N)

What? Does that mean? — Cavacava

Having abandoned logic, you've abandoned identity ("it's fine saying that G is not G"), non-contradiction (G is possible and impossible, G both refers and does not), and some other things.
So, with G there's no longer anything in particular that's talked about.
Maybe G is just goat. (And not goat, but I prefer goat.) :)
To me it seems mostly like linguistic suicide, baby-talk, shooting oneself in the foot.
Which sort of makes me wonder what people are talking about here, well mostly the Yes voters.

If G is illogical in this manner, then it's fine saying that G is not G.
(¬(G = G)) ∧ (G = G)
Not sure why anyone would make such a move; they'd no longer be talking about anything in particular.
Weird :o

Thanks for the posts all.

I am unsure what you are suggesting though, Jorn, with the title and all... — TimeLine

It seems that, by current findings, big bang inflation + expansion does not account for the spatial extent of the universe.
Admittedly I haven't gone through the motions/calculations myself, but that was my thinking with the opening post.

how can portions of the universe which were next to each other 14 billion years ago be more than 14 billion light-years apart now? — T Clark

The light speed limit applies to mass, not to spatiotemporal geometry (while going by relativity).
So, big bang inflation + expansion itself has "carried" things apart at seemingly superluminal speeds, if you will.
(If that's what you meant.)

Anyway, the three references in the opening post taken together, seems to indicate that the big bang was sort of "localized" spatially.
Even if the spatial geometry is not quite flat, it's close enough to suggest a (much) larger extent than what might have come about over some 14 billion years.
Maybe you're up to par with the latest, @apokrisis?

... said, did not, did too, ... :D

Trump Says Haiti Is Not a 'Shithole,' Just 'Very Poor and Troubled'
Ryan Sit
Newsweek
Jan 2018

There's plenty talk about these supposed beings.
Yet, the talkers don't show them, and they don't show, all that's left is the talk.
The talkers would (at least) have to come up with (invent?) an appropriate, coherent response to ignosticism for such talk to turn out more than mere fancies, more than just making things up.

As far as I can tell, most talkers end up postulating "something else entirely" (implicitly unknown), but still "mind", s'gotta be "mind".
The talk about atemporality and such tend to get ditched due to incoherence or incompatibilities with other supposed characteristics (that apparently are deemed more "important").

Aren't leaders supposed to set an example? And to be reliable? ...?

Promoting the sentiment expressed by calling places "shitholes" shifts focus away from (or deprioritizes) helping out, for example. It's to be avoided/expelled, which (incidentally, unsurprisingly) affects people. Sheep that flock to defend Trump's expression then happily propagate such a trend.

Oh well. I guess the future will tell what Trump's leadership brought to the table.

“Transcends time” or “outside of spacetime” or some such does have implications.

• Suppose x is defined as not spatial, “outside of space”. Well, then obviously x is nowhere to be found. And x cannot have any extent, volume, area, length, or the likes, not even zero-dimensional (like a mathematical singularity).
• Suppose x is defined as atemporal, “outside of time”. Well, then there can be no time at which x exists. And there can be no duration involved, x cannot change, or be subject to causation, cannot interact, and would be inert.

Hence, anything that partakes in the world, interacts, is active, cannot be “outside space/time”.
The closest that comes to mind would be something like “abstract objects” (assuming reification).

An object is abstract (if and) only if it is causally inefficacious. — Abstract Objects, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

In terms of causation, the 2^nd bullet above only goes as far as: atemporal implies cannot be an effect in part or whole.
Obviously there cannot be anything that “transcends existence”, and “transcends spacetime” seemingly converges on that.

That is not correct. We always do what God knows and there is no conflict between God's knowledge and free will unless we are informed and wish to do opposite. — bahman

The typical idea towards this, is a block universe "viewed from the outside" if you will.
As per above, I don't think this can be coherent if it includes "outside of time" observed by a mind.
Might not have to be atemporal, though, at least not necessarily, though the block universe usually includes all of time.

Time and such (older parallel thread)

So you are saying that an atemporal God cannot communicate? — bahman

Well, cannot be communicated to, at least.
(Which incidentally would make prayer futile.)

More pertinently, cannot be a mind.
Minds are not inert, inactive, quite the opposite.

I have had visions of other beings, such as Devils, Angels, and deceased people. — bahman

Might be more interesting if you had visions (plural) of someone/something entirely unknown to you, that you could then later verify/falsify independently. Make a statistic out of it.

I am however puzzled with the fact that what I sometimes see in my vision cannot be seen by others. The beings in my vision behave like normal people and seems to have thoughts and feelings. I cannot say that my vision is construct of my brain activity when I am awake. How couldn't they be true when they seem very real like others? — bahman

If you slapped me in a dream, would you then expect me to have a bruise the next day in real life...? They're different kinds of experiences (from memory, I think it was Searle that had some good points on this stuff).

Out of body and near death experiences share a category with hallucinations and dreams. — opening post

Suppose (for the sake of argument heh) that we're imperfect perception/conception organisms.
What might we then expect...?

Ayer had an epic experience:
A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (Peter Sjöstedt-H – philosopher; Sep 2017)

You are subjecting God to the constructs of time, which is a mistake. The reality is that everything that ever has existed or happened, and everything that ever will exist or happen, can just be seen as being. A sort of singularity of things going on. We cannot help but view things through the lens of time because that's how our brains process information, but time is not something "out in the world", it only exists inside our minds. — JustSomeGuy

Well, something that's atemporal, "outside of time" cannot interact, cannot see or observe, which would require being subject to causation (an effect in part or whole).
Would be inert, immutable, dead, absent of freedom, etc, unless you posit something like another temporal dimension (not exactly parsimonious).
Check this post above.

What is the issue related to atemporal God? — bahman

A copy/paste from elsewhere (without embedded links, too lazy):

Mind is typically used as an umbrella term, including the likes of, or synonymous with some of: (1st person) experiences, qualia, (self)awareness, consciousness, sentience, thinking, ideation, feelings, pain/joy/love, perhaps “free will” (whatever that may be exactly, if anything); mind is such activities, such parts of individuated selves.

• Suppose x is defined as not spatial, “outside of space”. Well, then obviously x is nowhere to be found. And x cannot have any extent, volume, area, length, or the likes, not even zero-dimensional (like a mathematical singularity).
• Suppose x is defined as atemporal, “outside of time”. Well, then there can be no time at which x exists. And there can be no duration involved, x cannot change, or be subject to causation, cannot interact, and would be rather inert.

Yet minds partake in the world, interact, are active.

There's a more straight forward incompatibility to be found, as far as I can tell.

Suppose one entity, or single mind, that's both omniscient and free (to change it's mind).
Mind and freedom to change it's mind already implies temporal. †

Freedom (to change mind) is independent of whatever, including whatever knowledge.
In principle it's solely dependent on (the existence of) said mind, if it's to be free at least.
So, freely changing mind along the way cannot be known prior by the mind, since otherwise it wouldn't be free (to do so).

Conversely, in case said entity already knows everything at an earlier time, then that means the knowledge is true.
Which, in turn, cannot be false later on, and hence means the entity cannot change mind by then, since otherwise it would be false.

Not because omniscience itself is causative, but just because the knowledge is true.
(As an aside, this line of reasoning doesn't involve modal logic per se.)

Note, this stuff pertains to just one mind that's assumed both all-knowing and free, it's not about any other entities/minds.

Thus, God cannot be a mind that's both omniscient (with foreknowledge) and free.

† Some responses to the incompatibility will have the entity (or God as a special case) be "atemporal".
I think this may be even more problematic, though.

EDIT: added "by the mind" to clarify

, not to detract from your angle with the opening post, but perhaps perspective could be contrasted by omnipresence if you will (ignoring the religious denotations).
So, we're locally individuated (and mutually separated), which automatically sets a perspective, both in scale, scope and experience.
My here-now is hence more or less my (mutable) perspective, which differs from others'.