Do non physical things exist?

[Deleted member 619]

Of course. I would be glad to. I just hope you are not expecting much from me.

The most basic question is this:

How would you describe God?

 

[Deleted member 42253]

@hackenslash We are talking manipulation of vectors here and not manipulation of weight. So that example is actually ... a complete miss. I would be manipulating anything that pushes, pulls and rotates on the weight or even the vectors applying to the movement of the atoms of whatever object themselfs. Hell, I could bend the universe around me, making me the center of it and subject it to my every whim, moving it around me without having to do anything silly like lifting stuff.

"Chuck Norris doesnt jump, Chuck Norris pushes the earth away from him with his little toe."

Not everything is about Yaysus, you see, I am a megalomaniac and just looking for a way to make myself an omnipotent nightmare on paper or in a virtual enviroment with the least bit of effort. And I can manipulate vectors in those two cases as I see fit, question is, is there anything I can not do by changing vectors? I guess setting one to zero in a division would completly crash at least a virtual enviroment.

 

[Deleted member 619]

There was nothing wrong with my example, not least because your question is predicated on the existence of a logical absurdity, which was the point of my example. That weights aren't the same as vectors (not actually the case; weights ARE vectors) is irrelevant to the impossibility of omnipotence.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

Oh yeah, weight has to be a vector, since it would not be weight if there was no acceleration or force applied to it. Thanks. Had the colloquial definition of weight weighting on my mind.
And of course it is a complete hypothetical(I think I was pretty clear about that), but it certainly is not an absurdity, since it is possible to manipulate vectors in theory and simulations. I am just asking about the limits to that, since you seemed to be more versed in advanced mathematics than the average Joe. And I am not arguing for omnipotence, hell, call it whatever you like, nearly omnipotent or weird ass cheat skill works as well, it honestly doesnt matter in this context. I am solely interested in the limits to what you can do by manipulating vectors, nothing more, nothing less.
Btw. found two limits myself, it would be completly useless in both, an empty universe and an universe that reached entropy.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Contrary to popular belief, my grasp of advanced mathematics falls in the short range between laughably small and entirely absent. I can muddle my way through equations with a lot of perspiration.

I do, however, have a very solid grasp of physics, including right out to the bleeding edge.

One thing I would say is that all vector manipulation in the real world impacts the energy-momentum four-vector, and must thus be described as physical.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

The most basic question is this:

How would you describe God?

Belive it or not, I don't remember anyone ever asking me this before. I made a list here of whatever first came to my mind;

A person who created the universe and everything in it.

A person who has friends.

A person who can be argued with.

A person who is not omniscient.

A person who gets angry when people hurt his children.

A person who seems to think fishing is cool.

A person who cannot be defeated in chess. He is playing chess against an old enemy. They play 1000 games a second.

A person who values love and justice.

A person who is a good shepard and gives his life for his flock.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Interesting. Only two of those are things that aren't perfectly valid descriptions of many humans. Let me ponder.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Just reading this a second time, I would also add a person of authority. A king. And that's about it I guess. I am interested in knowing what you think about it and am also hoping you would answer a similar question "If God exists, how would you describe him?"

Not meaning the Christian God. Just any creator God, if one exists. Do you think you could extrapolate something of his characteristics from the world around us? Would you define him perhaps as an evil psychopath, indifferent to our sufferings? Or would you consider such a question to be an impossible hypothetical not worthy of consideration?

I have to say I would be very interested to know what you think about it. It doesnt seem to be something I ever really thought much about myself..

 

[Deleted member 619]

Just reading this a second time, I would also add a person of authority. A king. And that's about it I guess. I am interested in knowing what you think about it and am also hoping you would answer a similar question "If God exists, how would you describe him?"

I can't answer that question. I literally have no conception of deity, and no coherent definition has ever been presented. I never believed, and I really wouldn't know where to begin.

Not meaning the Christian God. Just any creator God, if one exists.

I see no need for a creator, and I honestly only grasp on a purely intellectual level how some are compelled to believe such things. I've always been of the opinion that a good model that make accurate predictions is sufficient an explanation for anything, and no deity could ever stand as an explanation for anything because, as somebody once put it so succinctly (I think it was Feynman on magnets), we explain things by comparing them to things we understand. We have nothing like that to compare a deity to, so it explains precisely nothing. It's a placeholder shoring up insecurities because we'd rather have a non-explanation than no explanation at all, and because learning the better explanations is much harder than listening to some dude talking bollocks for a couple of hours a week for you to let it all go in one ear and out the other.

Do you think you could extrapolate something of his characteristics from the world around us? Would you define him perhaps as an evil psychopath, indifferent to our sufferings? Or would you consider such a question to be an impossible hypothetical not worthy of consideration?

I have to say I would be very interested to know what you think about it. It doesnt seem to be something I ever really thought much about myself...

I consider hypotheticals useful only insofar as they generate testable predictions that can be measured against reality. Scientists do that all the time, because that sort of 'what if' scenario raises questions about what you're observing that might not otherwise be asked. For example, we might ask the question 'what would it mean if water could be piled up?' because it frames the question in a way that generates new perspective over 'why does water find a level?'

Beyond that, unless there's scope for new knowledge at the other end, hypotheticals are a waste of my thoughtspace.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Let me ask you, if a furzlewurgle exists, how would you describe it?

Edited to add: I realise that this question is slightly unfair. I present it only as a perspective on how I see your question about how I'd define a god. I have no referent to attach to the word, so I can't even approach it. I'm not suggesting that you spend any time trying to answer it. There's a danger that you'll see it as a trap, and there is potential for it to be so. That's not my intent.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

A furzlewurgle is quadripedal, approximately five meters in height, weighing approximately ninety kilograms. It shouldn't be confused with a nebawhatsit, which is actually bipedal, although it tends to rest on its forelimbs.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Belive it or not, I don't remember anyone ever asking me this before. I made a list here of whatever first came to my mind;

A person who created the universe and everything in it.

A person who has friends.

A person who can be argued with.

A person who is not omniscient.

A person who gets angry when people hurt his children.

A person who seems to think fishing is cool.

A person who cannot be defeated in chess. He is playing chess against an old enemy. They play 1000 games a second.

A person who values love and justice.

A person who is a good shepard and gives his life for his flock.

Can't be a 'person' because personhood is an association with peers, but your god chap doesn't have any.

As far as I am aware, your God has never been described anywhere as having friends.

Omniscience would typically obviate anger, because one would know absolutely in perfect detail someone's motivations.

I doubt you believe your God created snuff porn, rectal cancer, and child murder, yet they exist within the universe.

Your god didn't give his life, else he'd be dead. It's not really a sacrifice if you lose nothing.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

I can't answer that question. I literally have no conception of deity, and no coherent definition has ever been presented. I never believed, and I really wouldn't know where to begin.

I think you would have at least some concept of deity. At least enough to what it is not....

I see no need for a creator, and I honestly only grasp on a purely intellectual level how some are compelled to believe such things. I've always been of the opinion that a good model that make accurate predictions is sufficient an explanation for anything, and no deity could ever stand as an explanation for anything because, as somebody once put it so succinctly (I think it was Feynman on magnets), we explain things by comparing them to things we understand. We have nothing like that to compare a deity to, so it explains precisely nothing. It's a placeholder shoring up insecurities because we'd rather have a non-explanation than no explanation at all, and because learning the better explanations is much harder than listening to some dude talking bollocks for a couple of hours a week for you to let it all go in one ear and out the other.

I think I can relate to that. It's not like I believe that every single thing that happens in the world is a miracle. Sure we can apply our understanding of things like gravity for example and use them to make predictions about the state of the universe. I'm not exactly impressed by this. The universe is a pretty big place. Some predictions are bound to be right and some wrong. We obviously don't have it all figured out yet. Thats why we build Hadron colliders and have jobs available for scientists. Of course I have a bias. If you wanted me to believe there is no need for a creator you would have to do something extraordinary, like create a chicken egg from scratch, starting with elements.

Maybe I'm wrong to think that way, but thats how I think. When someone tells me that the universe is 13.8 billion years old I think to myself "There is no way we know that for certain, so what's the point in saying that it is?"

I don't believe in the Big Bang Theory or Macro-evolution. Many Christians who are smarter than me do. I have been going over quite a bit of Aron Ra's material lately. He often makes a claim about presumptions Christians have which invalidates them having a scientific world view. I have never heard a satisfying response to this claim and I dont think I ever really understood the point he was trying making until now.

A theist can always claim that the universe might appear in certain ways to look like it's 13.8 billion years old but it is not because, that's how God made it. I claim that. And the only reason that I do is because I think the Bible provides an accurate model of the way things are. But where exactly do Christians draw the line? If I want to know why my geraniums aren't growing I must first assume that there is no god affecting my flowers. In a sense, I must become an Atheist to find the answer.

So, I think that's pretty interesting. I appreciate the time you have taken to make such personal statements about yourself at the risk of possibly putting yourself into some kind of verbal trap or having someone use your own words against you. You seem to be an honest person who has a valuable understanding of some things.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Can't be a 'person' because personhood is an association with peers, but your god chap doesn't have any.

As far as I am aware, your God has never been described anywhere as having friends.

Omniscience would typically obviate anger, because one would know absolutely in perfect detail someone's motivations.

I doubt you believe your God created snuff porn, rectal cancer, and child murder, yet they exist within the universe.

Your god didn't give his life, else he'd be dead. It's not really a sacrifice if you lose nothing.

If a creator god exists, how would you describe him?

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Let me ask you, if a furzlewurgle exists, how would you describe it?

Edited to add: I realise that this question is slightly unfair. I present it only as a perspective on how I see your question about how I'd define a god. I have no referent to attach to the word, so I can't even approach it. I'm not suggesting that you spend any time trying to answer it. There's a danger that you'll see it as a trap, and there is potential for it to be so. That's not my intent.

I understand what you mean. But I have a strange feeling that because of how the word looks, most people would describe it as a weird, furry creature about the size of a bread box. Is it a creature? One of the first things God had Adam do was to give names to all the creatures.

 

[Sparhafoc]

If a creator god exists, how would you describe him?

Well, not as a him right away.

I mean, if there is such an entity (as in created the universe, made stuff with intent, etc) and it is gendered, then it would have to be female according to everything we've seen within the universe, unless it's being really creative and intentionally creating stuff here to be different than it. The existence of males is purely an evolutionary strategy to maintain variation, so the concept of a singular entity being male is not something I can ever hope to agree with.

For me, the trouble with imagining an entity that exists outside of our universe means one can just imagine anything. There's no limitation at all on what you can imagine, which as a creator of worlds myself (albeit for film and tv) I know isn't actually very useful - you need limitations to foment creative imaginations - infinity is monochrome, isotropic.

I would think though that if such a class of entities exist, then they'd have no characteristics identifiable by humans. They'd not possess physical bodies, and so would be invisible and undetectable, they'd have the ability to will things into existence - basically uber magic, were such an entity responsible for the creation of this universe and all life - or at least all the conditions for life - then the entity necessarily must have caused the universe to act in such a way that evolution occurs, and thus it is very unlikely that we were planned, or have any centrality to the system at all. I expect a god entity would see us in the exact same way it would see mosquitoes, worms, and bullfrogs - simple organisms struggling against the forces of the universe to survive long enough to reproduce - and wouldn't conceive of us as anything special at all. My guess is that even with such an entity, the chances of it being aware of us particularly or interested in us specifically are basically zero - anything else would be hubris.

I also don't think any god entity has made a heaven, a special after-death place. If an entity that created everything wanted its creation to live forever, there'd be no such thing as death. We're bags of meat, and when we die, we rot - our personalities, experiences and memories inhabit a physical part of an organism made of rotting meat, and we simply cease to exist. None of that need occur if one has the power and desire to set up a system absent them, so if a god created this universe, it did so knowing billions of trillions of organisms would suffer and die.

I imagine that if our universe were created by such an entity, then there must be many such universes created by that entity, and maybe more of that class of entities. There may be infinite universes with infinitely different characteristics, all of which were made by a kind of gardener/collector god, which then basically ceases having anything personal about it, and become a force. I would expect that were such entities to exist, we could never conceive of them as organisms, but rather as forces of a greater nature.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Well, not as a him right away.

I mean, if there is such an entity (as in created the universe, made stuff with intent, etc) and it is gendered, then it would have to be female according to everything we've seen within the universe, unless it's being really creative and intentionally creating stuff here to be different than it. The existence of males is purely an evolutionary strategy to maintain variation, so the concept of a singular entity being male is not something I can ever hope to agree with.

Damn bro. Sorry I asked..

 

[Deleted member 619]

I think you would have at least some concept of deity. At least enough to what it is not....

I could be cruel here and reply 'extant'.

But no, seriously, the word has precisely zero semantic content.

If you wanted me to believe there is no need for a creator you would have to do something extraordinary, like create a chicken egg from scratch, starting with elements.

That's absurd. In order to show that there's no need for a creator, you want a creator to create an instance of something that very definitely is not created. How would that work? I'm honestly not seeing the route from premises to conclusion there.

Maybe I'm wrong to think that way, but thats how I think. When someone tells me that the universe is 13.8 billion years old I think to myself "There is no way we know that for certain, so what's the point in saying that it is?"

Certain? Certainty's for the gullible. We can say to any actually possible degree of certainty that the last scattering surface is 13.82 billion years old based on exactly the same science that makes it possible for you to share your thoughts with me here. That is, if the science underpinning the operation of the microchips in your computer and the global communications network is correct, we know to a greater degree of justified certainty than can be expressed by anybody in ANY other area of thought.

I don't believe in the Big Bang Theory or Macro-evolution.

Neither do I, but for different reasons. Macroevolution is a fact, an observed process, so not something to be believed. I don't believe in macroevolution in exactly the same way I don't believe in tables.

I'd be interested to learn what you think macroevolution is, because I never met somebody who said they rejected it but actually knew what it was.

The big bang theory is an outmoded idea some forty years out of date, but the big bang itself is an observed fact. It's just the name we have for the observed fact that the universe is expanding.

Many Christians who are smarter than me do. I have been going over quite a bit of Aron Ra's material lately. He often makes a claim about presumptions Christians have which invalidates them having a scientific world view. I have never heard a satisfying response to this claim and I dont think I ever really understood the point he was trying making until now.

I haven't come across that claim from him. I know with absolute certainty that he's talked about some of the believing scientists he's encountered, some of whom, like Kenneth Miller, he numbers among his friends. I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me that it's perfectly possible to be even an exceptional scientist while still believing nonsense propositions, but that what you can never be is the best scientist you can be. Holding faith positions is anathema to science. It's the one unforgiveable sin in science (this is a joke, sort of.

A theist can always claim that the universe might appear in certain ways to look like it's 13.8 billion years old but it is not because, that's how God made it.

A theist can make any claim she wants. What they can't do is get from premise to conclusion.

I claim that. And the only reason that I do is because I think the Bible provides an accurate model of the way things are. But where exactly do Christians draw the line? If I want to know why my geraniums aren't growing I must first assume that there is no god affecting my flowers. In a sense, I must become an Atheist to find the answer.

There's only one accurate thing about the bible; the title. It's a book. The bible provably models exactly nothing correctly about the way things are.

So, I think that's pretty interesting. I appreciate the time you have taken to make such personal statements about yourself at the risk of possibly putting yourself into some kind of verbal trap or having someone use your own words against you. You seem to be an honest person who has a valuable understanding of some things.

I'm never in danger of being trapped or having my words used against me. Trust me, that isn't on the cards.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I'm surprised you didn't already know - I never just repeat back 'him' without questioning it or at least putting it in quotes. I think it's a wonderful exposition into the minds of those who created the Creator.

Edit, and I forgot to add... capitalizing the pronoun - classy! Much superior to adding a hyphen instead of the 'o', i.e,; g-d - that's all manner of peculiar crazy.

 

[Deleted member 619]

I understand what you mean. But I have a strange feeling that because of how the word looks, most people would describe it as a weird, furry creature about the size of a bread box. Is it a creature?

And so you went and tried to answer it. It was meant to show that your question was nonsensical to me.

One of the first things God had Adam do was to give names to all the creatures.

Adam never existed. Provably.