As such, the idea of a God, an ultimate thing or being that puts all universal laws into place is not contradicted by nothingness. As "true nothingness" is an impossibility, and nothingness itself as described with ρ still has an effect on the relationship of objects despite not being physical. — SpinOwOza

Throughout history, and probably pre-history, humans have generally agreed that the notion of a Creator makes sense. What they argued about was specific attributes (human form?) & interests (chosen people) of that axiomatic deity. Only since the Enlightenment has the concept of a meaningless godless world become imaginable. Ironically, in that case the rational designing deity is typically replaced with, not Nothing, but irrational random accidents & chaotic cosmic coincidences. Personally, I don't accept the specific god-models & creeds of most religions, but I also can't accept the notion of an accidental real world with laws & organisms. Something from Nothing, non-sense! There must be something out there. :smile:

The religious thinkers . . . . . but don't question that since they've granted immunity to its prosecution by merely just declaring it to be supernatural and hyperphysical, and, to protect it even more add infinite scope to its Mind — PoeticUniverse

It's not just "religious thinkers" who extend their inquiring minds beyond the limited scope of space-time. Many non-religious scientists are also not willing to be bound by physical restraints and provable postulations, when their imagination can make quantum leaps into the Great Unknowable beyond the Big Bang beginning. String Theory, Big Bounce, Multiverse, Many Worlds, Bubble Universes, etc. Can those conjectures be dismissed as "religious non-sense", simply because they are literally "super-natural" (outside of knowable Nature) and "hyper-physical" (meta-physical) and "infinite" (external to space-time)? They are literally super-Science in that they go beyond the pragmatic & legal limits of the scientific method. But then, philosophers are not sworn to abide by the laws of Science.

I would think that a practicing programming poet would feel a kinship with those who explore imaginative What-Ifs instead of just prosaic What-Is. Poetry is not subject to empirical testing, only to subjective meaning. Poetry is neither True nor False, but Fictional Facts that resonate with human feelings. My "religion", if you insist on calling it by that name, is to appreciate the poetry of Reality and Ideality. Philosophy is an onerous search for hidden truths, but Poetry reveals the truths that are right in front of us. Poetry doesn't have to prove anything to you ; it makes no claim to objectivity. :cool:


As a moralist, Plato disapproves of poetry because it is immoral, as a philosopher he disapproves of it because it is based in falsehood. He is of the view that philosophy is better than poetry because philosopher deals with idea / truth, whereas poet deals with what appears to him / illusion.

Despite the clear dangers of poetry, Socrates regrets having to banish the poets. He feels the aesthetic sacrifice acutely, and says that he would be happy to allow them back into the city if anyone could present an argument in their defense.

“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.” ― Albert Einstein


What happened before the Big Bang? :
Before the beginning
https://www.space.com/what-came-before-big-bang.html

"According to a recent survey, the most popular question about science from the general public was: what came before the Big Bang?"

For me, metaphysics is the set of rules. — T Clark

Will you give me some examples of those Metaphysical rules?

I was never really interested in discussing "metaphysics" or metaphysics as such. I want to talk about, and use, Collingwood's metaphysical way of seeing things in my everyday and intellectual life. — T Clark

I was not familiar with Collingwood, so I googled and scanned the Stanford biography. I didn't see anything specifically about a list of rules. And in general, his approach seemed to be more theoretical & academic abstractions than pragmatic & everyday applications. He seems to be mostly concerned with classifications & distinctions. One distinction mentioned in the article was between Realism and Idealism, and it said "Collingwood is often referred to as a British idealist". I didn't see anything that would distinguish his definition of "Metaphysics" from any other philosophical topic. Can you summarize his "metaphysical way of seeing things"? Is it a spiritual worldview? :smile:

The One of Necessity that has to be, per Parmenides, as the simplest base. The least can lead to the great, albeit temporary, as seen in our universe. — PoeticUniverse

Exactly! Before the Big Bang Theory, most scientists, including Einstein assumed that the physical universe had always existed ; although perhaps cyclical, but not progressive. But the evidence for expansion from an infinitesimal point (something from nothing), undermined their faith in a stable static predictable universe. :nerd:

Necessary Being :
Parmenides held that the multiplicity of existing things, their changing forms and motion, are but an appearance of a single eternal reality (“Being”),
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Parmenides-Greek-philosopher

The religious thinkers face the haunt of the regress that dooms their notion once they propose the lesser from the greater. — PoeticUniverse

Yes. That's why I avoid postulating humanoid deities that, even though presumed immortal, are not necessarily eternal. Leaving open the question of turtle-like regression. Instead, my hypothetical "Programmer" is defined as Meta-physical -- hence not locked in the cycle of birth & death -- and as Enfernal (eternal & infinite) -- neither progressive not regressive, merely Potential. You may ask how I know that? I don't. I merely infer the definitive attributes of a Necessary Being. I can't prove empirically that there IS such a Being. But, I can prove Logically, that there must be a Necessary Being. :wink:

For a minute, let’s discuss what I want metaphysics to be, but which it probably isn’t. At least not entirely – I want it to be the set of rules, assumptions we agree on to allow discussion, reason, to proceed, e.g. there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of it; it’s turtles all the way down; the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. Ha! — T Clark

There are few things in life that are exactly what we want them to be. So philosophers, unlike Scientists, tend to adapt the Self to the Situation (Ethics), instead of changing the world to better suit the human body (Physics).

It would be nice if we could all agree on a "set of rules" for discussing metaphysical questions. That would at least put philosophy on a stable foundation, like the "show-me" empiricism of Science. And Francis Bacon probably devised his Method of Inference with that in mind. But, to date, the best we've been able to do is to quantify the uncertainty of our educated guesses. Since practical physical science deals with real things, at least we can add to the statistical certainty of our inferences by repeating experiments, in order to weed-out exceptions to the general rule. But theoretical Metaphysical Science deals with Ideal concepts that merely represent crude approximations of reality (*1 icons).

Unfortunately, Post-Enlightenment Science staked a claim on all empirically verifiable questions (just the facts, no feelings *2), and left-over for Philosophy only the perennial probability questions that have more-or-less-likely answers. Science greedily hoarded all the objective facts under its purview, and let naive philosophers argue endlessly about subjective opinions. Hence, feckless philosophers can only hope to get Closer-To-Truth, by following Aristotle's logical rules for Induction.

However, some Philosophers, Theologians, and a few Scientists don't even agree that there is a "knowable external reality" for our concepts to correspond to. In that case, there's no benefit to logical argument. So only power rules. And Ecclesiastical Courts of Inquisition take the place of experimentation for ruling out error. So the only humane alternative is to have Democratic Courts of Inquiry like The Philosophy Forum, limited only by Logic and respect for civilized discourse.

That said, we are still faced with agreeing on a definition of whatever it is we are disagreeing about. Which is even more difficult, if we can't even agree on what divisive topics fall under the umbrella of Metaphysics. Some dismiss the very idea of non-physics as non-sense, and refuse to even engage in dialog. And others dismiss physics as illusions of greedy minds. So, that's why I went back to Aristotle, to discover what topics he excluded from his book of Physics, and which he included in the second volume "After-Physics". The substance of volume II later became known to Medieval Christians as the "Meta-Physics", and to Enlightenment Scientists as "non-stuff" and "non-sense".

In Volume I, he defined what today we would call the Elements (Matter) and the Principles (Laws) of Physics, illustrated with specific instances. Then, in the Meta-Physics, he turned to the various ideas that humans have postulated, to explain the mysteries of the Real World. Those ideas are not themselves found in Reality, but in human imagination. Hence, we call them "Ideal". And even pragmatic Aristotle adopted Plato's notion of Ideal "Forms" (ideal patterns for real things) in his explanations. And that non-physical concept is also at the core of my own worldview, based on the Reality and Ideality of what we now call "In-form-ation". :nerd:


Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

PS___That definition of the disputatious term implies that Philosophers have no business arguing by the rules of Physics, instead of the applicable rules of Reason.

*1 Do We See Icons or Reality? :
https://social-epistemology.com/2019/12/05/do-we-see-icons-or-reality-a-review-of-donald-hoffmans-the-case-against-reality-brian-martin/

*2 Facts vs Opinions :
In the 1950's TV police drama, Dragnet, dour detective Joe Friday --- whenever a witness began to stray from observations to insert personal impressions --- would shush them with "just the facts ma'am".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragnet_(1951_TV_series)

'Nothing' cannot even be meant. — PoeticUniverse

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea :
The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshipped it, and the Christian Church used it to fend off heretics. Today it's a timebomb ticking in the heart of astrophysics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LN7XPV/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

So about 1/27 of the total volume of space in the present universe came to exist. Can space itself expand with a faster than light velocity? Hmm... A length of space larger than the diameter of the present-day observable space came into being during that inflation period. But were things moving FTL? — Verdi

Good question. The FTL Inflation Theory (from almost nothing to everything in an immeasurable fraction of time) is either super-natural or magical, or both. For my own worldview, I prefer to move any postulated preternatural events outside of the natural space-time margins. Since we have no empirical evidence for anything that is not subject to the limitations of space-time, outside the known anything is possible. But to imagine such lawless behavior within the bounds of reality is un-realistic.

That's why I'm surprised that so many scientists accept such an egregious hypothesis, simply because it seems to replace divine Creation, with a smoke & mirrors Magic Act. I'm neither a Theist nor Atheist, so I'm not desperate enough to accept Scientish Magic in place of Religious Magic. So, my thesis is not based on Faith, but on rational inference --- from what-is to what-might-be. It's just a philosophical thesis, not an emotional religion. :nerd:


Preternatural : beyond what is normal or natural.

Egregious : extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake;

Zeptosecond - the smallest time unit ever measured
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=smallest+measurable+fraction+of+time

Is The Inflationary Universe A Scientific Theory? Not Anymore :
Inflation was proposed more than 35 years ago, among others, by Paul Steinhardt. But Steinhardt has become one of the theory’s most fervent critics. In a recent article in Scientific American, Steinhardt together with Anna Ijjas and Avi Loeb, don’t hold back. Most cosmologists, they claim, are uncritical believers. . . . . “nflationary cosmology, as we currently understand it, cannot be evaluated using the scientific method.”
___Sabine Hossenfelder
Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity and high energy physics.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/28/is-the-inflationary-universe-a-scientific-theory-not-anymore/?sh=3bb8aefab45e

So, we uncertainly infer by "fact and reason" that 'The Mind' just happens to be sitting around as First, — PoeticUniverse

Yes. Do you have a better explanation for a palpable universe from who-knows-what?

Multiverse theories, infer that an unknowable eternal universe has always existed, and froths with bubble universes that come & go. A likely story, but based on what "facts & reason"? Even within our knowable universe, scientists have imagined an unreal period of hyper-inflation --- fraction of an instant; near zero to astronomical size --- which fortuitously exceeds the speed limit of our own bubble universe.

The mathematical reasoning for that magical "presto!" appearance of something-from-nothing simply worked backwards from a desired conclusion to a highly improbable and unnatural process. Apparently, materialists faced with an apparent Creation Event, can imagine a variety of alternative explanations, and even make them seem reasonable by plucking numbers out of the air. Anything prior to the Big Bang beginning is uncertain, even when postulated by eminent scientists. :nerd:

Cosmic inflation is a faster-than-light expansion of the universe . . . .
https://www.newscientist.com/definition/cosmic-inflation/

Presto : 1 : suddenly as if by magic

Hail to the Imperfect Mind that made a universe that will fall apart. — PoeticUniverse

I'll ignore the blasphemy. A mind capable of designing an evolutionary process, and then implementing it in malleable physical stuff, could hardly be called imperfect. So, I conclude that the tendency to "fall apart" was intentional. Perfecting is a process, Perfection is an end. So to get from imperfection to perfection requires a period of weeding out the unfit. A sculptor begins with a blank block of marble, and carves away everything that is not a "perfect" imitation of the model in his mind. :grin:

“When carving stone, the sculptor removes everything that is not the statue."
___Judith Hanson Lasater

So, how did 'The Mind' and its information, out of thin air, such as it is, not the best, get programmed? Or do we just have to explain an event such as our universe, but not anything much wider in scope — PoeticUniverse

That's easy. Our space-time world is limited by program parameters, but the Programmer (Enformer) of the world exists outside the space-time program. Is that so hard to imagine? A computer programmer is not "in" the computer, hence not bound by its rules. Instead, the computer is created to serve the purposes of the Programmer. The realm outside the confines of the computer is "much wider in scope" than anything within the low-resolution program.

If our world is a space-time bubble, whatever is outside the membrane is Not Space Time, hence could be eternal. Even the imaginary Multiverse is assumed to have always existed. So who programmed the Multiverse, with Natural Laws & Energy & Matter? If you like, you can imagine the Programmer of our world as an ever-growing tower-of-turtles, but only an Eternal Programmer can end the inconclusive ellipsis of open-ended existence. . . . . . . . . . .

When philosophers and scientists begin to develop an explanatory theory for a mystery, they usually begin with an Axiom : an unproven assumption. G*D, Logos, First Cause, Prime Mover is the all-encompassing axiom upon which my thesis is founded. That simple assumption is postulated as a beginning point for further argumentation. The rest of the argument is in the Enformationism website, and the BothAnd Blog. Any questions? :joke:


Axiom : An axiom, postulate or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments.

Pragmatic Idealism :
the kind of Pragmatic Idealism I'm envisioning does not replace scientific Realism --- and doesn't endorse fantasies of magic, miracles & monsters --- because every thing or fact in the “real” parts of the world is subject to logical validation or empirical testing prior to belief. Only the unreal (ideal) Deity is, by necessity, taken for granted as an axiom.
http://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page9.html

Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

You can break the laws of nature? Really? Where? How? Let me see! — Artemis

Drivers on speed-limited highways "break" the law by exceeding the posted limit. Nature has imposed certain limits on its creatures (Natural Laws), but arrogant humans have gone beyond those limitations. In that sense, they "break" the law. For example, where terrestrial animals are bound to the ground by their "nature", humans have learned to fly with artificial wings, and even to "slip the surly bonds of earth" to fly into uninhabitable space. That's un-natural, and un-lawful. Do you "see" what I'm saying? :joke:

even if you're right... being the most powerful natural beings doesn't make us and our culture unnatural. — Artemis

Perhaps not. But it does make our way of life Artificial. :cool:

Artificial synonym : unnatural
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/artificial

It fails. Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. — PoeticUniverse

My worldview acknowledges the imperfections of our beloved world, and offers a rationale for a less-than-ideal creation of a World Creator : it ain't perfect until it's over. Nothing that changes will ever be perfect (whole, complete), until it ceases to change. Perfection has no room for evolution. So, our role is merely to evolve, until we can't go no mo'.

Only ALL (1) or NOTHING (0) or Full-Circle are complete and perfect. Since we are somewhere in the middle of those extremes, we can only assume that the world is still evolving from Alpha toward Omega. Hence, imperfect creatures cannot expect a perfect creation. However, it's good-enough for my moderate needs and expectations. So, I'm content (dare I say "happy"?) with Aristotelian Moderation in all things. That's a philosophical/Stoic attitude toward a less than perfect world. Are you a frustrated perfectionist? :cool:

PS___are you disappointed in your imperfect world?

How to beat Perfectionism :
Perfectionism rarely begets perfection—only disappointment.
The Stoics understood how pointless—and dangerous to our mental health and progress in life—those thoughts were.
https://dailystoic.com/perfectionism/

Therefore using same logic, Spinoza's view that God = nature and nature = God is imperfect as well. — SpaceDweller

Is anything in this world perfect? My religious up-bringing repeatedly pointed to the imperfection of humans, and human logic. But then, it pointed to a leather-bound book, and declared that it was "perfect" as a revelation from God.

Yet, after the age of reason I concluded, via my imperfect logic, that the man-made book was so obviously imperfect, that I couldn't believe a word it said. Since the only thing Perfect is ALL (1) or NOTHING (0) only death will make my life perfect. In the meantime, I simply deal with uncertainty, and make-do with good-enough for pragmatic purposes. :smile:

PS___I accept that Nature is G*D, in the sense that the First Cause created the world out of H/er own substance : Information (the creative power to enform). So, the space-time creation is imperfect and evolving; but the Enfernal (eternal-- infinite) Creator must be perfect, in the sense of Whole, Complete, ALL.


PanEnDeism :
Panendeism (all in god) 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.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

The 'theoretical' Philosophy has no theory in concluding "deemed to be God" because 'deeming' doesn't make 'God'. — PoeticUniverse

As a philosophical hypothesis, I would use the term "inferred". In my Enformationism thesis I provide the factual basis and the reasoning. "To Deem" is to have an opinion. But "to infer" is to have good reasons. Of course, all inferences, scientific or philosophical, are uncertain. To "infer" a Big Bang from astronomical evidence doesn't "make" a universe from nothing. But, so far, nobody has come up with a better solution to the perennial philosophical "why" questions. So, G*D is my "theory", and I'm sticking to it. :joke:

To Infer : deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements

Theory : an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action.

What is the main purpose of philosophy? :
Philosophy overall aims to question assumptions we make about our lives and really dig in to the details of why we think what we think and how we choose to act. It can get complicated at times, but it can also help a person to see more clearly that there are other ways of looking at the world than is our habit.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/philosophy-definition-purpose.html

The sticky part #1 is that humans ARE natural beings as well. Just as much as a bird. So how does a building or a computer differ from a nest? They're are both built by natural beings. — Artemis

True, but trivial. Everything in the world is "natural". But only one species of natural beings has gone beyond the limitations of Natural Laws, to become a law unto themselves. Humans can now break, or bend, the laws of Nature to their own Will (culture). Admittedly, sometimes this "super-natural" power works to their own detriment (pollution) , but the law-bending also results in undeniable benefits to humanity (air-conditioning).

Ask yourself if you'd rather live like a cave-man (i.e. like an animal), or like a modern house-man ; or woman. The cave-dwellers used cold dark caverns and rough animal skins to shield them from adverse weather conditions. But, modern home-dwellers have air-conditioning to make the indoor weather more suitable to their preferences. That power to rule over Nature, makes humans more like gods than animals. As a species, humans have not yet created a Garden of Eden, but they are working on it. :joke:

PS___The technological progress of humanimals may seem to be offset by a lack of moral progress. However, from a long-term perspective, the ethical treatment of animals & fellow humans has evolved in a positive direction, as illustrated by Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, i.e. Human Nature .

If you want to join us you're more than welcome. :wink: — Raul

I might be interested in an open-ended Discussion, but not a Yes-or-No Debate. :smile:

Why are they natural, but human buildings are unnatural? — TiredOfYall

Bird's nests are Natural, because they are "designed" by evolution. Buildings are Cultural because humans take control of plodding erratic Evolution, in order to speed it up, and turn it to their own purposes. :smile:

Nature vs Culture :
What makes culture distinct, according to Ortner, is that it has the power to transcend the natural and manipulate it for its own purpose.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-relationship-between-nature-culture-diana-szpotowicz

One cannot even hope to have an 'explanation' that itself would need all the more explanation, to the nth degree, even, plus as a regress. — PoeticUniverse

That may be true of empirical Science. But not of theoretical Philosophy. Yet, the best they could come up with is a mysterious hypothetical First Cause that at least terminates the regression of Evolution at a Question Mark (Singularity ; God ; Logos, ?) instead of a never-ending tower-of-turtles ellipsis (multiverse ; many worlds) . . . . .

Philosophers have been "explaining" the same general questions to each generation for eons. Ironically, even empirical scientists get mired in eternal regress whenever they try to explain general questions, such as a Theory of Everything. :joke:

TOE or GOD ? :
A theory of everything (TOE or ToE), final theory, ultimate theory, theory of the world or master theory is a hypothetical, singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. Finding a theory of everything is one of the major unsolved problems in physics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything

First Cause vs Infinite Regress :
A cosmological argument, in natural theology, is an argument which claims that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

A Deistic profession of Faith :
The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm

Given all the discoveries and insights we collected, I think it's rather God or infinity (That is God or I don't know): — SpaceDweller

That was indeed my choice, many years ago, when I decided that my Back-to-the-Bible religion was no longer believable. However, I had no answer to more general philosophical questions, such as "why are we here?", or "Did something come from nothing". So, for years, I labeled myself an Agnostic (I simply don't know).

But now, after many more years of philosophical investigation, I call myself a Deist. That allows me to say I believe that some kind of God (creative principle) was necessary to account for the existence of our contingent temporary world. But, I still don't know anything directly about the First Cause, except what I can infer from studying the non-random Effects of Creation. That way, I can have my Creator and Science too. :smile:

PS__But, sadly, no hope for salvation from an imperfect creation. So, I just make the best of a sometimes difficult situation.

Still can't have 'The Mind' as First and Fundamental even as a Potential that thinks as much as an Actual; complexity can't be just sitting around already complete. — PoeticUniverse

So you say. And that's a true statement . . . in the physical Real World. But, the metaphysical Ideal Realm may not be bound by the physical rules of thermodynamics. Scientists have long been perplexed by the existence of "Natural Laws" in a dynamic world scrambled by fundamental Randomness. For Plato's Forms, actual complexity is not "just sitting around already complete". Instead, a Metaphysical Form is merely the Potential Design for a future thing, that must then be Actualized, sometimes by a prolonged complex process of evolution, into a Physical Thing.

For example, if randomness is just a tool for creating novel opportunities, then maybe that tool is "wielded" so-to-speak by the organizing law of Natural Selection. Together, the random-number-generator and the non-random-fitness-selector form a progressive evolutionary program for optimizing a design. But that program would not exist without a Programmer, who has the mental potential to imagine a future reality, and to make it actual. In the First Cause scenario, the computer -- our complexifying physical universe -- is merely the execution of a simple Genetic Algorithm.

So, maybe you can't make sense of a Primal Mind, but a designing mind is essential to an evolutionary program. The mind doesn't have to do the work though, it merely sets the criteria for Selection (Natural Laws). Then, the Programmer starts the machine to grind-out solutions to the Cosmic Question. Anyway, to me, the notion that our world began as an idea in the Mind of G*D is more poetic than the null hypothesis of an accidental world, existing for no reason. That would be a meaningless irrational coincidence. Moreover, the magical theory of a world-from-nothing makes no sense without a magician. :joke:


Evolutionary Programming :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution – limited only by local restraints – to the original programmer’s goal or purpose. In Enformationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative deity, who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

Evolutionary Design :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_antenna

Genetic algorithm :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm

Coincidence vs Creation :
Laws of Nature’s God
http://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page51.html

PS__Even in the scientific metaphor of the world as a dumb machine, someone . . . some Mind has to design the mechanism, and to turn it on. Machines don't just appear out of nowhere.

Aquinas makes an unwarranted leap here to a Being having Mind because he wants 'God'. — PoeticUniverse

Yes. As a Catholic theologian, his philosophical definition had to resemble the official Bible-God, which is described both as an eternal principle (similar to Brahman or Tao), and as a humanoid person, with some un-god-like human attributes, such as a fragile ego, and a quick temper (like Zeus). Nevertheless, I find his rational philosophical God to be closer to my own than the typical bible-thumper's hell-fire War-Lord of the World. But, I actually go back to Aristotle's non-religious ideal principles for my god-model.

BEING (being qua being) would not "have" a mind or brain, but would be The Mind, in the sense of containing & processing all of the information necessary to create a space-time world from scratch (i.e. physical world from meta-physical design -- an idea & a plan). Philosophical god-models are usually abstract & potential, as opposed to the Religious deities that are concrete & actual.

Brahman :
In Hinduism, Brahman connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality in the universe.

Tao or Dao is a Chinese word signifying the "way", "path", "route", "road" or sometimes more loosely "doctrine", "principle" or "holistic beliefs". Wikipedia

That's better; I hope Aquinas is listening. It's not only simple as a necessity for its forming of the lightweight elementaries but also because its needs to be partless and continuous to be Absolute as Fundamental. It would not be able to think, plan, and create via a System of Mind as the ultimate simplicity; however, so it is that the lesser leads to the greater, not as Aquinas' view that is the reverse and would lead to an infinite regress of greaters making lessers. — PoeticUniverse

In my worldview, the First Cause (Creator) must be eternal (timeless) and simple (in the sense of atomic Holism). However, in order to produce the space-time world --- that we know & love, and grumble about --- the Cosmic Cause must have the infinite Potential to subdivide the whole into subordinate parts, while remaining more than the sum of the parts. And the power to create beings that not only have living bodies, but also thinking & planning minds. Consequently, a physical deity would not suffice. Only a metaphysical BEING could be "partless and continuous" (no elementary particles). In order to be Eternal and Necessary and Creative, that First Cause would have to comply with Aristotle's metaphor of a Seed of Potential. The seed is not a tree, but it contains coded information (DNA) that can be transformed into a full-grown tree.

Potential vs Actual :
This connects the matter/form distinction to another key Aristotelian distinction, that between potentiality (dunamis) and actuality (entelecheia) or activity (energeia).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/#ActuPote

'Is', not 'was'. It's enough to know that it's the simplest possible, it being the closest to Null that could be. It's extremely far from Full, for as Full it could not rearrange. — PoeticUniverse

My hypothetical G*D "is" and always was. It's simple, in the sense of an undivided Whole, but in order to create, must have the power & potential to produce a physical world, not from Material, but from Ideas (Information). Since G*D per se is no-physical-thing, it is "Null" in terms of actual things. However, it must also be All-metaphysical-things in the sense of creative Potential. Hence, "Full" of unformed possibilities.

G*D—God Damn! To boldly jump to it having Mind is a leap much more than a tiny quantum jump. — PoeticUniverse

Yes! Absolutely. If the First Cause did not have the Power to conceive a world,, how could human minds emerge from the rough & tumble of mindless Evolution. The conceptual leap is from a humanoid god-concept to an abstract philosophical principle :Mind qua Mind = intellect, consciousness, thought

The Philosophical Principle : being qua being.

Conceive : 2. form or devise (a plan or idea) in the mind.

What is a first principle in philosophy? :
A first principle is a foundational proposition or assumption that stands alone. We cannot deduce first principles from any other proposition or assumption.

Being Qua Being :
Metaphysics is the study of "being qua being", or the study of attributes that belong to things merely insofar as they exist, e.g. existence, unity, sameness and difference.

1. This Permanent Thing would be local everywhere, as it is before and after our universe and during. Further, as it's the only thing, its rearrangements are it too; even we are it. — PoeticUniverse

I agree. That's why I define my personal First Cause simply as BEING : essential existence. Aquinas defined his God as the Necessary Being, without whom nothing (no beings) would exist. It's the "only thing" that exists absolutely. So simple unitary existence must be the beginning point of all theories of how & why the space-time world exists. Some postulate that space-time/matter-energy is eternal, but the Big Bang cosmology --- including the Big Freeze finale --- put a damper on such speculations. And physical Nature has never been shown to create something from nothing.

So, if we accept the logic of First Cause or Necessary Being, we can assume, without fear of contradiction, that some universal creative agency existed prior to the beginning of Space-Time. That said & set though, the "hard problem" is to determine what that hypothetical "permanent thing" was, in a more definitive sense. Reductionists & Materialists prefer to imagine that it was more-of-the-same forever : turtles-all-the-way-down. But Holists & Idealists lean toward Meta-physical & Essential answers to ultimate questions. Unfortunately, neither side can prove their pet theory, empirically or logically. So, it comes down to a matter of opinion and preference. For my money though, the eternally un-changing Ideality answers make more sense, than anything resembling our temporal and ever-changing impermanent Reality.

Ironically, most religious god-models are based on imperfect impermanent human features. That's why I prefer philosophical non-physical god-theories, such as those of Aristotle & Aquinas. :nerd:


Does modern cosmology prove the existence of God? :
The Kalam cosmological argument asserts that everything that exists has a cause, and what caused the Universe? It's got to be God.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/modern-cosmology-god/

Kalam Cosmological Argument :
1. whatever begins to exist has a cause,
2. the Universe began to exist,
3. and therefore the Universe has a cause to its existence.

G*D :
An ambiguous spelling of the common name for a supernatural deity. The Enformationism thesis is based upon an unprovable axiom that our world is an idea in the mind of G*D. This eternal deity is not imagined in a physical human body, but in a meta-physical mathematical form, equivalent to Logos. Other names : ALL, BEING, Creator, Enformer, MIND, Nature, Reason, Source, Programmer. The eternal Whole of which all temporal things are a part is not to be feared or worshiped, but appreciated like Nature.
I refer to the logically necessary and philosophically essential First & Final Cause as G*D, rather than merely "X" the Unknown, partly out of respect. That’s because the ancients were not stupid, to infer purposeful agencies, but merely shooting in the dark. We now understand the "How" of Nature much better, but not the "Why". That inscrutable agent of Entention is what I mean by G*D.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

OFF TOPIC :
My internet connection is slow & erratic today. Anybody else notice the slow responses? A Google search didn't find any experts blaming it on the current Solar Storm. But, since Something doesn't come from Nothing, that will be my assumption until I find some other deity to pin it on. :joke:

A couple of years ago, I posted a review of The Feeling of Life Itself on my blog. I am generally interested in his ideas, but I can't say that I'm "passionate". FWIW, here's the link :
The Feeling of Consciousness
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page18.html

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