Existence and evidence

[Touchstone]

And you are perfectly correct IF you don’t have a founded belief in divine revelation.

For a long time I believed I did have a founded belied in divine revelation.

God has told us that this creation was created for us as our environment for His pleasure and that as far as we are to know He is Himself singular and uncreated in the way that we are created critters.

That’s what I believed for a long time as well. But it became a serious problem verifying that it was actually God telling me (or us) anything rather than highly useful and desirable inventions that carried the same message.

But, if one finds no need of listening to such “unfalsifiable drivel”, then one is “free” to endure the consequences of said not-listening.

If those consequences are actual, then that is quite likely the case, yes. The weight of that obtains from fear, though, not reasoned conclusions, I’ve found.

The evidence that would suffice to prove that God is not necessary for the “designing” of a raindrop falling through the air would be the nonexistence of the matter constituting the raindrop.

Ok, so you are of the convention that mere existence is prima facie proof of design? That’s an unassailable, brute fact, in your view?

The raindrop is not designed, but the universe that “informs” (that operates such that) the raindrop occuring as a raindrop is designed (created) to “force” raindrops to be raindrops.

As a proximal cause, though, there’s no “mind” needed. It’s the outworking of physical law. That’s important because, as nullasalus, the “magic” is all introduced at the source. The outworkings themselves are totally compatible with non-mind/non-personality – the stratosphere is not exercising it’s “will” or using it’s "mind’ in shaping the areodynamic shape of the raindrop.

There may be instances where some more “direct” tweaking of our matter/energy/ruleset is necessary to acheive some “re-design work” (post inital creation work) to fulfil some God-deemed-necessary “thing” which wouldn’t have been possible through the “normal” means of the workings of creation.

With an omnipotent, omniscient, immanent God on the scene, anything goes.

The proof that creation was created by design is that creation exists. The proof that creation operates from a design is that it operates as designed.

Both “proofs” are not proofs at all to the materialist because they consider “creation” a silly idea a priori because the universe is just an ever running machine which has no beginning and has no end.

I don’t think creation as a matter of will or mind is a silly idea. It’s a plausible possibility, if only because metaphysics are inscrutable to us. Could be. It’s just not a necessary explanation.

-Touchstone

 

[Touchstone]

Do you REALLY think that we think that “wetness” requires the “cosmic magic”, apparently from God, of “divine design” to be a property of water?

Well, if the mere existence of “stuff” is proof of cosmic magic, then I think the answer is necessarily “yes” from you. Did I misunderstand your position about creation being proof just because it exists. If I understood that correctly, then worrying about emergent properties of the elements is beside the point, an irrelevant afterthought.

The question is how was the design of the elements, with all the underlying “design” necessary to support “elements”, instituted which resulted in the “wetness” property of water?

It’s not clear that this is a manifestation of design at all. If this universe is just one of innumerable universes in a “cosmic landscape”, where “landscape” refers to the surface of possible configurations of “universal parameters” – the settings which determine the properties of matter and energy for that universe – then it’s a statistical inevitability that some universes would end up with just the kind of settings we see, such that they might give one the illusion of design.

The so-called atheist simply says, “That’s a silly question because that “design” of pattern, or more properly that sub-system of the universe, has never NOT existed and was never designed because the use of that word implies that there was a time where it didn’t exist.”

I don’t recognize that argument. Who do you identify as the source of that argument?

That “explanation” simply evades the question on the table, which is not the supposed “design of wetness”, which IS a ludicrous question, but the design that ALLOWS for the wetness of water.

That’s just begging the question, of course. It presumes its own conclusion. By using the term “allows” you are injecting a conclusion right into the question at issue. If it’s an artifact of an impersonal universe, one of billions in a “cosmic landscape”, there’s no “allowing” going on whatsoever. It’s just a mindless property that emerges from the combination of hydrogen and oxygen under some conditions.

The “FORCE” that the atheist proposes that brought about the “wetness of water” is STILL the great “Beats Me!” void which tells him, “Nothing was created but only infinitely transforms.”

I guess I have to ask what you mean by “force”. Do you mean a physical force, there? Or a “supernatural force”, whatever that may mean? Or is force a kind of metaphor for “emergent property”?

When faced with questions of origins, the so-called atheist will always divert by confusing origins with operations.

Always, huh?

“Wetness” is a result of the operation of God’s designed universe, and not dependent on God instantially willing “wetness” into existence.

I’m not suggesting God had to intervene in some special way to make water “wet” where it was not before, on its own. I’m saying that “wetness” is useful as a crude but effective pedagogical tool to understand emergent complexity as a matter of intrinsics, rather than teleology.

How wetness is a result of God’s designed universe goes to the origin of the universe as a designed thing, where the wetness of water has a purpose.

Well, when you are a hammer, everything looks a nail. When you have design-oriented mind, everything looks designed by mind.

-Touchstone

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nullasalus
Wonderful. You’ve just told me that you’re an experienced liar, and what’s more, you’re stubborn to the point of being able to engage in self-deception on the order of decades. All in the hopes of insinuating that theists are self-deceiving liars. I’ll be sure to make a note of that.

An experienced liar is just a human that’s been around a while. I value honesty highly, and it is that which I claim has primarily driven my abandonment of 30 years of Christian faith.

It is highly honest of you to admit that while you were a “Christian” you had no idea about what it meant to be a Christian! I’ll doff my chapeau to you at your admission.

You have proven, beyond ANY doubt whatsoever, that you were mightily unaware of that “God” means, or what faith [verb] means, and how reason works in areas not materialistic.

And I do think that my faith was a tool I employed in my own self-deception. That’s the fruits of creduility.

Do you think that I’m self-deceived? You’ve proven that you were self-deceived while “Christian”. How do you know you’re not self-deceived once again in your present religion (scientistic materialism)?

Skepticism is no guarantee against self-deception, but it does afford the bearer mechanisms and processes that protect from deception and self-deception. Objective verification, for example, can be a useful filter in identifying cases where subjectivity is an invitation to self-deception.

The so-called atheist MUSTN’T rely on anyone else, of course, but he also MUSTN’T rely on HIMSELF, of course, as being “subjective” is a cardinal sin!

Who does this leave for him to rely upon then?

Oh, of course. The Blue Djinn of the Burner of Bunsen!

 

[Nullasalus]

It’s not a line drawn for reasons of jockeying for position. That’s the way it is, and if that’s a detriment to my credibility, so be it. You seem to be thinking that is said as some sort of chess move, made without respect to the history behind it. It’s just a reflection of the history. As Feynman says “The easiest person to fool is myself”, and I’ve seen that to be more true than I’d like to admit. But I am willing to admit it, as that’s the history in my case.

Honestly, yes, I think it’s typically brought up as a kind of credibility bolster. It’s particularly ineffective with Catholics, since many of us heard the “I know all about Catholicism, I went to Catholic School all my life, and it’s bunk!” line, and then when you ask them what the immaculate conception is, they flub it.

I must have missed the working definitions. Maybe you could quote them here for me, so I can’t miss it:

“real, in terms of the supernatural, means…” → [paste definition here]

If you care, I can’t find coherent definitions of ‘exist’ or ‘true’ in terms of the supernatural either. That would be cool to see your definitions. But I won’t hold my breath. Just so I’m clear, I want to use the definitions as my criterion for evaluating a proposition – X exists supernaturally, for example. What principle do I apply to conclude that X does, or does not exist supernaturally?

Back to the simulation example. If we’re dealing with a situation where we’re in the sim-existence of PRG-world, the programmer in PRG-world is a supernatural entity. The programmer’s activity in my world is supernatural activity. It sounds like you’re conflating a very specific definition of X with the general concept of supernatural. I’m arguing that’s a mistake, both because concepts of supernatural and X are multiple, and in part relational.

In the materialist paradigm, ‘extended in space/time’ provides a remarkably robust starting principle. Does X exist materially? Well, the answer depends on whether X is extended in space/time. What is the dependency for X in terms of existing supernaturally?

Again, this is a conflation of a very specific definition of X/immateriality with ‘supernatural’.

No, and that hasn’t been argued here, by me or anyone else that I’ve read on this thread. My point is only that ‘supernatural’ is fundamentally meaningless, incoherent. That doesn’t mean materialism is utterly satisfying. Just that speaking of the ‘supernatural’ is indistinguishable from speaking of nothings and imaginations.

I disagree, for reasons given above.

The plasticity afforded by virtual systems is a strong basis for understanding the foolhardiness of saying things like “universes can’t just pop out of nothing”, or “universes must pop out of nothing”. It’s by the pedagogy of virtual environments that we understand our limitations with respect to metaphysics. This is new tools for our use, tools not available to Augustine or Anselm.

And I see otherwise - simulations have provided valuable insights that have served to bolster the deistic arguments further. Atheism would have been more tenable back in an age where nature was regarded as beyond human comprehension, not understandable, certainly not predictable or controllable. Since then, we’ve progressively discovered not only the rationality of nature, but methods of organization (Charles Babbage contributed heavily to this with his description of a deistic universe unfolding mechanically) and methods of interaction (computers and computer simulations). These have lent some powerful conceptual and evidential backing to the deistic/theistic case - it’s less-recognized, but it’s certain.

Materialism itself has to grapple with simulation as an idea, and all it implies.

PD isn’t evidence for MD. That makes the mistake of extrapolating local dynamics into the metaphysical realm. Susskind understands these limitations, but has something to bring to bear as a theoretical tool – the mathematical “landscape” that proceeds from the maths of string theory. It’s wholly theoretical as yet, and unlikely to become anything more than just theoretical for a long time. But it’s not a matter of desire or imagination, it just falls out from the solution set of the maths deployed to build coherent models in string theory.

PD is evidence for MD. It’s inconclusive evidence - with fundamental metaphysics, you’re never going to get utterly conclusive evidence - but it’s evidence, and more than the no-design proposition has going for it, because no-design requires an assumption that the fundamentally mindless can act as a creative force, that by definition a person is unable to see. Design, they can’t help but see.

You say Susskind brings something to the table (and imply that people who talk about simulations do not). But all Susskind can do is theorize about a natural mechanism - the moment he starts to theorize about whether or not a mind is fundamentally involved with what he’s seeing, he’s stepped outside of science. Even his scientific theory is every bit as compatible with a deistic/theistic conception as any other theory is - regardless of whether or not he personally believes it to be. Just as Einstein’s work was entirely compatible with philosophical indeterminism, even though he was dead against such a philosophy. And once we get back to ‘fundamental mind versus fundamentally mindlessness’, we’re back to PD being all we’ve got to work with and itself being sufficient to explain what we see when applied via MD, and the alternative being an imaginary lunge.

Deism just doesn’t have any warrant that I can see. Nothing against it – it’s a possibility, but so are pink unicorns, at that level. What I can see and reason about doesn’t point to any deity, absent or immanent, or the reality of anything supernatural at all, as a matter of reasoning.

What you posit - what you must posit, from the position of an atheist - is far closer to a ‘pink unicorn’ than what a deist or a theist posits. Again: The deist/theist can easily accept STEM being fundamental in some way. But the atheist cannot accept STEM + mind as fundamental - yet mind is the one thing we’re certain is capable of arranging and ordering. The alternative is brute force luck, brute luck with eternity, or a mix. Even philosophical materialism doesn’t weigh against this, oddly enough; if STEM is fundamental, and minds require nothing more than STEM, the door is already open to mind being fundamental. Add in the very possibility (or, in Nick Bostrom’s view, likelihood) of simulation and you’re in an interesting position to say the least.

By all means, stick with faith in the universe just being lucky and mindless in its fundamentals - argue that all the organization and apparent design is illusory because you can imagine those forces just popping into existence, or eternally pre-existing so finely. But arguing that the atheist’s position is more rational because, if you really do your best to define the question as favorably as possible for atheism, you think you can convince people a theistic universe requires a second entity and it’s better to assume brash luck and an evidence-lacking, mindless creative act than to entertain the need for such an entity - don’t expect me to accept it. It’s ridiculous, and the recent spate of people staunchly insisting otherwise and making fun of people who disagree with them won’t be changing that.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
You’ve done no such thing. In fact, by admitting to the rationality of simulations in both the sim-existence case and the PRG-existence case, you’ve ceded that such a conception of “supernatural reality” is entirely reasonable. You do realize that there’s no firm universal definition of the supernatural, yes? It’s something even theologians of the same faith argue about.

I don’t know of any defintions of supernatural that are coherent at all. That’s been a significant part of coming clean over my self-deceptions regarding faith. When I worked to tease out a meaningful, no-BS definition of what it means to be ‘real’ in a supernatural sense, I failed to come up with anything coherent.

Then I would have asked you about what you meant by “coherent”, as it is obviously the key term which you have out of whack.

I asked a great number of people, including some notable names in Christian philosophy, theology, and apologetics, and as this was part of the process of becoming a Catholic – that was the plan at the time – I focused on Catholic believers and thinkers for answers. The failure to come up with anything even remotely workable was a hard pill to swallow.

Supernatural, Supernatural

We experience the reality of the supernatural when we understand we need and accept our marriage to our spouse.

We experience the reality of the supernatural when we truly understand the great gift of observing a thing of beauty.

We get confirmation of the reality of the supernatural when we accept that God is God, who is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-wise and give ourselves over to this creator, in ways that do not require us to be slaves to anyone or any thing.

If one is not capable of this harmless giving-over of oneself, then some “hurt” has been placed between you and what you really want which demands that you “do it yourself because only YOU are worthy of being God”.

This “interloper” will forever demand that only “physical force” is worthy of honor because only that force can keep you from “being harmed again as you have been”.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
You’re confusing ‘the universe’ with ‘the origin of the universe.’ They’re not the same thing. Again, you have two options as an atheist: “Popped out of nothingness and luckily it had all the right properties to give rise to be coherent, last long, and give rise to life and life that realizes the power of design” or “Existed eternally, lucked out and had all the right properties to continue to exist for eternity and give rise to all we know, and mind did not co-exist with it”. I don’t envy the intellectual position; takes too much mind-bending.

It may be that our universe is just one bubble in cosmic froth, part of what Leonard Susskind called the the Cosmic Landscape in his book The Cosmic Landscape and the Illusion of Intelligent Design.

But if THE UNIVERSE qua “universe”, meaning “all that is”, is ALL THAT IS, then the sum total of this “froth” is STILL ONE THING!

That also doesn’t answer the question we’re concerned with here, which is THE ORIGIN of the (perhaps frothy) universe, and we’re right back to where we started!

The universe may be self-caused and wholly impersonal its causation.

“Self-caused” HOW? Isn’t that as big a “leap”, if not more so, than “God caused”? Please tell us how that is more acceptable to you?

The universe may be a kind of quantum simulation as suggested by Seth Lloyd. It may be the work of a supernatural deity. These answers are beyond our epistemic perimeter. But “likely” for any one over another is a divide by zero error – there’s no denominator for gauging the phase space or the probabilities at the metaphysical level.

Which simply means that we can’t know from our own work. We agree with that. But we CAN know if TOLD by the Creator Himself, which is what we KNOW has happened!

You won’t accept revelation because it’s not “your work”, which is fine, but you have NO reason to say God is unreal because none of your WORK can give you evidence of that claim.

We really don’t mind so-called atheists being atheists, but when they become anti-God-ists by claiming that God doesn’t exist, they are so obviously breaking their own rules that they have NO CREDIBILITY in anything they say as regards ANY God-stuff.

Atheists are simply laughable because they won’t even obey their own professed rules!

We may well find a designer more comfortable and friendly as an idea, because we are anthropomorphs, and have strong tendencies toward anthropomorphization. But that’s not a reasoned basis for calling it “more reasonable”, just more probable as a view we embrace, due to its soothing comfort to our anthropomorphic sensibilities.

You are absolutely correct!

And why is taking that comfort as a sign that God is like us in His person(s)-ness less preferable than taking that self-same fact as a sign that there IS no creator who is personal (has person-ness)?

Some might say that you’re simply being contrary because it’s “fashionable” to see “religious confort” as a sign of “evil”.

What “disappointments” have made you see “religious comfort” as a pointer away from truth as opposed to toward it?

(( According to your own rules, it should be an utterly neutral “pointer” and not direct you one way or the other! ))

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
On a) :
“Supernatural reality” IS indeed incoherent to those who have no need for the universe to be a “coherent thing”. The problem is that this DOESN’T describe YOU!

OK, I take this to mean you think I am speaking incoherently, here?

Not at all! You are quite coherent, within the materialist minimalization of the term “coherent”, in your view of the universe.

You think the universe is a perpetual motion machine which is ultimately deterministic in operation, which has existed forever (infinite time forward and back) which has no “outer context” (metaphysical realm).

That is perfectly coherent. It is also perfectly wrong. But it is allowed to appear to be correct because of the way God leaves “evidence” of Himself, and the fact that persons are allowed to believe whatever they want to believe based on whatever they choose to accept as “evidence”.

Quote:
The so-called atheist simply “pushes back” the question of creation (origin) into the “fog” of “irrelevant to me”-land, and believes ON FAITH that whatever the REAL answer to the question of creation, the universe IS a coherent whole which is “believable in it’s predictability” as being “where we should be” (aka “the mostly friendly universe” theory").

I think the questions about our origin are important and relevant ones for living today. But it’s not necessary to fabricate an answer just because it’s an important question. We can, and should, if we want to live by reason, admit that the question is inscrutable to us a direct question.

To live by reason alone would create a slave society. Why? Because it is most reasonable for one self-perpetuating “strong group” to utterly dominate (remove all options but “serve master”) all of humanity because since “force” is the only REAL “tool”, that force should be used by the strongest for their “comfort”.

That is the result of reason (“winner takes all” in game theory) as THE “lived by” rationale.

You believe that “revelation” is lie. Without revelation there is only “rule by reason”, and the “reason” of the slave master is the ultimate in human reason.

If there is ANY revelation, then humanity has a chance to base it’s behavior on something other than “reason”.

Reason must be the servant of “good behavior”, and the basis of “good behavior” is revelation.

It’s ‘over the event horizon’, for us. Sometimes, the most reasonable disposition is just being honest about the position we are in – we are not epistemically equipped to provide reliable answers on this question.

That is absolutely true! We aren’t equiped, as “human animals”, to sense the basic underlying reality which bears on how we SHOULD behave.

But we’re NOT “human animals”, but animate humans, who have been given a vague sense of that “morally guiding reality” via our conscience, and who have been given first directly revealed truths the later an actual face-to-face experience WITH God as a person.

The “answers” don’t come from US. They come from the Creator who gives them to us, for some reason or other. Possibly because He loves us?

The universe seems largely intelligible, allowing for what can only be called some ‘surreal’ aspects of quantum electrodynamics. Even that is really just a reflection of our own “rut” we fall into as humans, thinking like humans as we should; spooky action at distance is quite far removed from the practical cognitive demands of human life.

It’s law based just like the rest of nature, but takes some work to tie up as “intelligible”.

Of course the universe is “law based”. It was designed to be a sensible predicatable (to an extent) environment for us, and if it weren’t largely predictable it wouldn’t be a very good place for us to learn anything but that “there are no rules here!”, now would it!

But that’s our universe. The uniformity or symmetry of law inside our universe does not apply by necessity to anything outside it, if there is anything outside it

There IS NOTHING outside our universe!

God is a person(s), but “where he lives” is not our business! What we need to know about God-stuff has been totally told to us, though we don’t quite understand all the ramifications of what we’ve been told.

We are SUPPOSED to learn all we can about our physical universe. It’s part of our “training”, as it were. I don’t know how, but it is. We need to use the tools of materialism where they are appropriate, but we are to use the tools of religion (Catholic) to not “mess ourselves up further” by incorrectly using the other tools in ways that cause more problems than they solve.

Materialism without religion begets rampant misuse of tools, and undue suffering because of that.

Religion without materialism begets “stupid students” who won’t work to learn and train themselves, and who disappoint God as “43 year-old slackers living in Dad’s basement”.

 

[Touchstone]

Honestly, yes, I think it’s typically brought up as a kind of credibility bolster. It’s particularly ineffective with Catholics, since many of us heard the “I know all about Catholicism, I went to Catholic School all my life, and it’s bunk!” line, and then when you ask them what the immaculate conception is, they flub it.

You can think what you like about my intentions.

Back to the simulation example. If we’re dealing with a situation where we’re in the sim-existence of PRG-world, the programmer in PRG-world is a supernatural entity. The programmer’s activity in my world is supernatural activity. It sounds like you’re conflating a very specific definition of X with the general concept of supernatural. I’m arguing that’s a mistake, both because concepts of supernatural and X are multiple, and in part relational.

Well, I’d be happy with just a single representative definition that’s coherent, and be happy to stipulate that it wouldn’t have to be comprehensive or complete. Just qualified at all would be wonderful. Alas, that is not forthcoming, just like every other time it’s brought it. It stumped me, too, as a Christian. Having ‘multiple’ concepts doesn’t prevent the presentation of just one – qualify it however you’d like.

As for ‘relational’, that smells purely incoherent, but I’ll stop at that point pending some expansion. What do you mean by ‘relational’ in terms of concepts and definitions? Is that a euphemism for subjective/non-objective? Do I need a ‘relationship’ for the supernatural X to exist, or does X exist or not independently as supernatural regardless of my emotional or personal disposition to it?

Again, this is a conflation of a very specific definition of X/immateriality with ‘supernatural’.

What specific definition??? There’s been no specific definition of “X supernaturally exists” given! I’ve been the one asking, and claiming no such definitions are to be found that are even nominally coherent. Now, you’re referring to a “very specific definition”, where none is in view.

I don’t require that any provided definition be constrained to “immateriality”. I just want to know if a coherent definition of ‘exists as supernatural’ can be provided. Construe it however you’d like, just give it meaning, a basis for separating the ‘supernaturally existent’ from the ‘supernaturally non-existent’.

Or don’t. That’s a powerful answer in its own right.

And I see otherwise - simulations have provided valuable insights that have served to bolster the deistic arguments further. Atheism would have been more tenable back in an age where nature was regarded as beyond human comprehension, not understandable, certainly not predictable or controllable. Since then, we’ve progressively discovered not only the rationality of nature, but methods of organization (Charles Babbage contributed heavily to this with his description of a deistic universe unfolding mechanically) and methods of interaction (computers and computer simulations). These have lent some powerful conceptual and evidential backing to the deistic/theistic case - it’s less-recognized, but it’s certain.

Materialism itself has to grapple with simulation as an idea, and all it implies.

I think you can track the concurrent rise in sophistication with respect to simulations and virtual systems with the embrace of materialism as an operating paradigm. That’s not to suggest that correlation is causation, but rather to suggest that materialism seems to flourish with the growth of “virtualization” as a conceptual and technological discipline. This tends to disconfirm your idea, that virtualization is some kind of kryponite to materialism.

PD is evidence for MD. It’s inconclusive evidence - with fundamental metaphysics, you’re never going to get utterly conclusive evidence - but it’s evidence, and more than the no-design proposition has going for it, because no-design requires an assumption that the fundamentally mindless can act as a creative force, that by definition a person is unable to see. Design, they can’t help but see.

I’m not seeking or demanding utterly conclusive evidence. That’s never been an issue. I don’t identify any inconclusive support for MD, based on the presence of PD. I think this may grind down to the mechanics of qualification as evidence, the basis of inference. Happy to go there, if you’d like, and have many times now, elsewhere. The basis for such an inference is missing, if we go look. There’s no foundation for such a transcendent leap, from PD to MD, even as a matter of “likely”, or even “a hunch”.

You say Susskind brings something to the table (and imply that people who talk about simulations do not).

Didn’t mean to imply that. As a sim-writer for some time, virtual systems are powerful tools for understanding the folly of suggesting that PD is evidence – at all – for MD. It’s precisely the degrees of freedom shown between P-existence and virtual universes we might creates that highlight the poverty of PD as even weak/inconclusive support for MD.

But all Susskind can do is theorize about a natural mechanism - the moment he starts to theorize about whether or not a mind is fundamentally involved with what he’s seeing, he’s stepped outside of science. Even his scientific theory is every bit as compatible with a deistic/theistic conception as any other theory is - regardless of whether or not he personally believes it to be.

It’s not a scientify theory Susskind advances. It’s not falsifiable, even in principle for one thing, and he’s the first one to announce it. Rather, it is a theoretical implication that proceeds implicitly from the maths of string theory. Just another plausible competitor in the blender for metaphysics. It doesn’t have congruence with maths that have solid grounding in real science, which is something that theistic conjectures cannot claim, but I don’t suppose (and neither does Susskind) that qualifies as anything more than tantalizing conjecture itself. It’s really more of an affiinity for those folks who build knowledge for a living – it has a familiar ‘feel’ to the things that have borne out (often spectacularly) as performative science. But it’s nothing more than that, from Susskind.

Just as Einstein’s work was entirely compatible with philosophical indeterminism, even though he was dead against such a philosophy. And once we get back to ‘fundamental mind versus fundamentally mindlessness’, we’re back to PD being all we’ve got to work with and itself being sufficient to explain what we see when applied via MD, and the alternative being an imaginary lunge.

If PD=>MD is all you think you’ve got, ya got nothin’. Not as a matter of being conclusive, but even as a matter of being remotely supportive. “Supportive” or “inconclusive” evidential reason stops at the empirical horizon. It doesn’t, cannot cross metaphysical boundaries. This is what virtual systems illustrate vividly – the programmer’s P-existence and the virtual system he creates are completely disjoint, and the virtual environment can be arbitrarily disjoint.

What you posit - what you must posit, from the position of an atheist - is far closer to a ‘pink unicorn’ than what a deist or a theist posits. Again: The deist/theist can easily accept STEM being fundamental in some way.

It’s only easily accepted under the unjustified assumption that the metaphysic works like the physic. Once that’s identified as unwarranted, it’s no easier to accept by reason than pink unicorns.

But the atheist cannot accept STEM + mind as fundamental - yet mind is the one thing we’re certain is capable of arranging and ordering.

We’re not certain of that, or even convinced of that as a transcendental. If the universe is impersonal and self-existent, then “mind” and “design” (PD) are just a manifestation of mindless ordering, a personal artifact of an impersonal environment. If mind (PD) is itself an emergent property of an initially mindless universe, then our “certainty” is wholly misgiven even a thing that is capable of arranging and ordering, since it is really a mindless universe that is doing the arranging and ordering – minds being a useful proxy for that understanding.

The alternative is brute force luck, brute luck with eternity, or a mix. Even philosophical materialism doesn’t weigh against this, oddly enough; if STEM is fundamental, and minds require nothing more than STEM, the door is already open to mind being fundamental. Add in the very possibility (or, in Nick Bostrom’s view, likelihood) of simulation and you’re in an interesting position to say the least.

The door was always open to that possibility. It’s not the possibility of mind-as-fundamental that’s being denied, here. It’s the peer of that idea, mind-as-non-fundamental-and-emergent that’s gotten discounted. For us as humans, mind is fundamental. “I” is a name for our mind. It’s easy to understand why that makes seeing mind as fundamental appealing outside of our human existence, as some kind of cosmic rendering of ourselves. It’s indulgent projection, though, if that’s the basis for the idea. It’s the “mind-centered” seeing reality as “mind-centered” because the self is “mind-centered”. Anthropomorphization writ large.

-Touchstone

 

[Touchstone]

nullasalus:

By all means, stick with faith in the universe just being lucky and mindless in its fundamentals - argue that all the organization and apparent design is illusory because you can imagine those forces just popping into existence, or eternally pre-existing so finely.

I’m not committed to that proposition, and don’t need to be. It might not be the case. That’s an impenetrable black box, every bit as impenetrable as the Excel spreadsheet trying to peer out the monitor glass at the user/programmer. The atheist conclusion doesn’t obtain from that. Rather, God is both superfluous and highly problematic, not to mention extraordinarily useful as a matter of invention, given what we can look at in terms of evidence and observation and objective analysis. We can’t disprove the existence of pink unicorns, but we don’t equivocate on the matter, simply because the burden of proof rests on the claims of existence, rather than non-existence.

But arguing that the atheist’s position is more rational because, if you really do your best to define the question as favorably as possible for atheism, you think you can convince people a theistic universe requires a second entity and it’s better to assume brash luck and an evidence-lacking, mindless creative act than to entertain the need for such an entity - don’t expect me to accept it. It’s ridiculous, and the recent spate of people staunchly insisting otherwise and making fun of people who disagree with them won’t be changing that.

I’m not under any illusions here. I understand that made my ‘faith’ ‘faith’ was in large part an emotional and psychological commitment to those beliefs, quite apart from its epistemic justification. I heard many good arguments that confounded my definitions and evidential claims, but so long as I just wanted to believe those things, I did. The will is very powerful that way, and I don’t expect that something which is obviously so repulsive to you has much chance at all.

As for parsimony, I will insist on being precise here. Theism requires at least one additional enitity that materialist does not – some kind of god that is ontologically distinct from nature itself (I don’t consider pantheism a distinguishing belief (god distinct from nature), whereas panentheism would qualify (the universe is of/in God, but is not synonomous with God). To the extent that theism adds additional entities that atheism doesn’t need, it carries an extra burden in terms of parsimony. That’s just the application of the principle of parsimony. Atheism may not be sustainable in its formulation, though. But that’s a separate question, and this separation is what I want to emphasize. If we can agree on the parsimony burdens, that does not (should not) prejudice the discussion of atheism/theism on the merits. Parsimony only becomes relevant when “all other factors are equal”. And we’re not nearly at a point like that.

-Touchstone

 

[Nullasalus]

Well, I’d be happy with just a single representative definition that’s coherent,

I’ve been bringing up a definition of supernatural repeatedly for the last few replies. You’re examining it now - let’s see where we go.

As for ‘relational’, that smells purely incoherent, but I’ll stop at that point pending some expansion. What do you mean by ‘relational’ in terms of concepts and definitions? Is that a euphemism for subjective/non-objective? Do I need a ‘relationship’ for the supernatural X to exist, or does X exist or not independently as supernatural regardless of my emotional or personal disposition to it?

Relational meaning that what defines something as supernatural is it’s relation to the natural. Or, for the simulation example, sim-existence’s relationship to P-existence. Or P-existence’s relationship to PRG-existence. At this point, as I said before, you can get subjective if you want - if you argue that, since both sim-existence and P-existence is beneath PRG-existence, PRG-existence is the ‘only reality’ and therefore there’s “really” only PRG-existence, you can argue that everything taking place is just “natural” rather than “supernatural”. But at that point it’s just a quibble over definition - how PRG relates to P is supernatural in the strongest sense of how the term has been typically understood.

What specific definition??? There’s been no specific definition of “X supernaturally exists” given!

And I’ve been providing the definitions, and arguing that it’s a mistake to insist that PRG-existence absolutely must be utterly immaterial (not just immaterial in relation to P, but somehow, absolutely non-physical, no matter how different the physics are). I went over this with ateista - perhaps you’ve missed it. And you certainly seem to be insisting that the supernatural must be defined in a similar way. If that’s not the case, by all means, say so.

That’s a powerful answer in its own right.
I think you can track the concurrent rise in sophistication with respect to simulations and virtual systems with the embrace of materialism as an operating paradigm.

You’re confusing an intellectual idea with social results. Few people are pointing out the relationship between simulation and theistic thought in popular press, with very few outlying exceptions (Tipler, for example). Bostrom has hit on the point, but words it in such a way to make it as distanced from theism as possible. I certainly see no evidence of materialism flourishing in any connection with “virtualization”, unless you’ve watered down materialism to mean “secularism”, and “virtualization” to mean “general technological advancement”.

People love to pretend that atheism is on some fiery rise in the world, particularly in europe. The polls don’t really bare that out - in the Czech Republic, recognized as one of the most atheistic nations in europe, the 2005 eurobarometer poll found 19% believed in God, 50% in some kind universal spirit or life force, and 30% believing in no God, spirit, or life force. That’s almost 70% taking a non-materialist view in the atheist stronghold. Some rise, that.

Besides, it has no need to be kryptonite to materialism; all it establishes is that materialism itself can’t eliminate minds as fundamental based on the philosophical assumption of materialism alone. Then again, materialists do have a habit of calling everything that really exists ‘material’.

I’m not seeking or demanding utterly conclusive evidence. That’s never been an issue. I don’t identify any inconclusive support for MD, based on the presence of PD. I think this may grind down to the mechanics of qualification as evidence, the basis of inference. Happy to go there, if you’d like, and have many times now, elsewhere. The basis for such an inference is missing, if we go look. There’s no foundation for such a transcendent leap, from PD to MD, even as a matter of “likely”, or even “a hunch”.

There is plenty of foundation - I haven’t argued “likely” because there’s no way to quantify such, just “vastly more reasonable given what we know”. We know that PD exists, indisputably. PD absolutely explains some things, indisputably. We know that there is no logical barrier to our universe in its entirety being explained by PD (via simulation or something analogous to such). The only question is whether such an explanation of our universe would end there - if our universe is designed in its entirety by a designer which has always existed, PD becomes MD.

If you argue -MD is the case, you’re immediately sacrificing mind - the one thing we know is capable of creating a universe (however it’s ordered). You’re also sacrificing any explanation for the existence of those fundamental properties. With PD/MD, mind is fundamental - we have a mind capable of orchestration. With -MD, we don’t even have that. There’s no explanation of the orchestration other than appeals to brute luck for each and every originating property and/or eternity - and not just eternity, but mindless eternity, or else it’s just MD by a different proposed mechanism. -MD sacrifices the one thing that can provide a satisfactory explanation for ‘why all this order’, and it still relies on the brute-fact existence of an entity to do it.

Didn’t mean to imply that. As a sim-writer for some time, virtual systems are powerful tools for understanding the folly of suggesting that PD is evidence – at all – for MD. It’s precisely the degrees of freedom shown between P-existence and virtual universes we might creates that highlight the poverty of PD as even weak/inconclusive support for MD.

Unless you recognize that P-existence can itself be the sim-existence of a PRG-existence. Oddly enough, you’re trying to insist that PD can’t be used as evidence because what PD is capable of simulating/designing is essentially unlimited. But that’s the strength of PD - it CAN do all those things, and we KNOW it exists.

Your response has been that MD can explain absolutely everything, and therefore it’s useless. But -MD can explain absolutely everything as well! The difference between -MD and MD is we’re intimately aware of PD existing, and what PD is capable of. We have zero awareness of -MD, by definition. It’s utterly imaginary, a theoretical construct that can never be verified even in part. It comes with a built-in poverty. -MD may well be real. So too may invisible dragons and teacups. Having knowledge of PD and knowing that PD can explain anything -MD can, reason dictates we go with PD/MD.

It’s not a scientify theory Susskind advances. It’s not falsifiable, even in principle for one thing, and he’s the first one to announce it.

Uninteresting to me then, other than what I’ve already stated.

If PD=>MD is all you think you’ve got, ya got nothin’. Not as a matter of being conclusive, but even as a matter of being remotely supportive. “Supportive” or “inconclusive” evidential reason stops at the empirical horizon. It doesn’t, cannot cross metaphysical boundaries. This is what virtual systems illustrate vividly – the programmer’s P-existence and the virtual system he creates are completely disjoint, and the virtual environment can be arbitrarily disjoint.

I gots me more than you’ll ever have, going with the atheist -MD option. Nowadays, I have models to work with. I can point at the success of design in our own world, simulations in our own world, functional thought experiments. Try to play with the definition of ‘evidence’ as much as you please, but it qualifies. You may not like it, it may not seem fair to use science and technological advancement in the employ of deistic/theistic argument. But it’s not going away.

You can settle for ‘it all inexplicably just burst into existence with all the right properties and no mind was involved’ if you like. That’s your religion, at that point. Kind of Lovecraftian if you ask me.

It’s only easily accepted under the unjustified assumption that the metaphysic works like the physic. Once that’s identified as unwarranted, it’s no easier to accept by reason than pink unicorns.

It’s utterly justified - it’s limited evidence, but it’s vastly more evidence than the alternative has going for it. At this point you’re reduced to saying, ‘Fine, PD absolutely exists, we can create sims in PD, PD could explain our whole world, we have technology to use as models for thought experiments of PD - but I can imagine it being otherwise, so I’m not counting PD as any kind of evidence at all!’ If you want to, go for it. Just don’t be surprised at having it pointed out how intellectually unpersuasive that position is.

We’re not certain of that, or even convinced of that as a transcendental. If the universe is impersonal and self-existent, then “mind” and “design” (PD) are just a manifestation of mindless ordering, a personal artifact of an impersonal environment.

Yes, and if invisible pink bunnies are crapping out universes, then “mind” and “design” are just a manifestation of invisible pink bunnies’ digestive tracks. But we have to go with what we know and the limited evidence we have, and the limited evidence points towards mind being fundamental. It doesn’t have to be right - maybe those invisible pink bunnies are out there - but I’ll stick with the evidence.

 

[Nullasalus]

Rather, God is both superfluous and highly problematic, not to mention extraordinarily useful as a matter of invention, given what we can look at in terms of evidence and observation and objective analysis. We can’t disprove the existence of pink unicorns, but we don’t equivocate on the matter, simply because the burden of proof rests on the claims of existence, rather than non-existence.

And when the atheist asserts that the universe has its origin in fundamentally mindless causes, the burden of proof rests on them. And in the choice between fundamentally mind-inclusive causes and fundamentally mindless causes, the former wins out easily as the more reasonable explanation due to the evidence. There’s a reason why lately atheists have taken to recasting themselves as ‘agnostics’ in debate; an agnostic makes no claims, and can take as many potshots as he or she pleases. But an atheist is making a definite claim, one that can be compared to. It turns out to be the option obviously less congruent with what we know.

As for parsimony, I will insist on being precise here. Theism requires at least one additional enitity that materialist does not

I do not agree on your parsimony claim whatsoever - you’re insisting on considering ‘God’, even a panentheist God, as somehow a distinct and entirely separate entity from the universe, despite the classical understanding of God’s immanence throughout the universe. At the same time, you’re trying to classify the atheist explanation as somehow ‘only requiring the universe’ - despite the fact that there are two options on the table for the atheist (lucky mindless pop out of existence at a finite point in the past, or lucky mindless eternal pre-existence), and identifying the event with ‘the universe’ means you’re either accepting the fundamental feature as distinct from the universe (in which case you’re dealing with 2 entities rather than 1 - the fundamental origin and the universe) or you’re grouping them together under the heading of one universe to compare against each other (in which case there’s no objection to my grouping STEM + mind under one heading, any more than there is to grouping STE + M under one heading.)

The number of entities between the theistic/deistic and atheistic concepts on this subject are at most equal in number.

 

[Touchstone]

Then I would have asked you about what you meant by “coherent”, as it is obviously the key term which you have out of whack.

By ‘coherent’, I mean ‘holds together logically, intelligible’. If you give me a coherent definition, it will be internally consistent, and will integrate with external, related concepts. For example ‘extended in space/time’ holds together well, as its constituent parts connect logically with concepts we have in place and can apply. We can assign meaning to “extended”, for example, as a concept we are familiar with just from every day usage. The coherence proves itself in its application; if we can establish the extension of X in space/time, we have a meaningful basis for calling it ‘existent’. If not, we don’t. It provides a clean principle which sorts ‘exists’ from ‘not-exists’.

Supernatural, Supernatural

Neither of those links provide any definitions that I can find, for ‘exists’ in the ‘supernatural order’. Maybe I missed it, and you can point it out? What it is that separates the ‘supernaturally existent’ from the ‘supernaturally non-existent’. It seems I can talk about things that supernaturally don’t exist, and they are perfectly indistinguishable from those that are supposed to exist. If I present claims of X, Y, and Z, as ‘supernaturally existent’, what principle would you use to determine which, if any, were true claims?

We experience the reality of the supernatural when we understand we need and accept our marriage to our spouse.

That may be, but it doesn’t help me get a conceptual footing for ‘exists’ as applied to the supernatural. NewAdvent says the supernatural is ‘effects exceeding the powers of the created universe’, which doesn’t help at all for separating the ‘supernaturally real’ from the merely imagined. If someone claims they ‘saw’ an angel in some supernatural sense, what makes that angel real vs. imaginary. How would we distinguish the ‘experience of the reality of the supernatural’ in accepting our marriage relationships, from simply imagining that there was something supernatural about such an affirmation?

We experience the reality of the supernatural when we truly understand the great gift of observing a thing of beauty.

This strongly suggests that ‘supernatural’ is synonymous with ‘imaginary’. How would what you say be distringuished from simply imagining there was a supernatural experience (whatever that is) involved in beholding a thing of beauty. I can certainly understand the desire or appeal of that idea, but that supports the imagination hypothesis – motive for imagination. What would distinguish it if we are interested in avoiding self-deception or self-indulgence?

We get confirmation of the reality of the supernatural when we accept that God is God, who is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-wise and give ourselves over to this creator, in ways that do not require us to be slaves to anyone or any thing.

Aren’t we slaves to God at that point – “bondservants” as Paul might say? Again, what separates that confirmation from the mere imagination of same. If you were to ask me back what confirmed the natural confirmation of the love my wife has for me, I could line up a long line of independent witnesses who can attest the sacrificial, kind, generous, affectionate, romantic and encouraging things she’s done to and for me over twenty years of marriage. I have my own experiences, but if want to take steps I’m not fooling myself, I have objective attestations available, and a lot of them, that discount the plausibility of that just being a matter of me imagining things or humoring myself out of vanity.

If one is not capable of this harmless giving-over of oneself, then some “hurt” has been placed between you and what you really want which demands that you “do it yourself because only YOU are worthy of being God”.

Sacrificial love is the highest love.

This “interloper” will forever demand that only “physical force” is worthy of honor because only that force can keep you from “being harmed again as you have been”.

I missed the part where I got harmed?

-Touchstone

 

[bullfrog543]

i disagree because of the deal recently found with rain you also made it into purity rings your suggesting your still alowed to intergrate i suggest you havent kept your promise that everything else is allowed

 

[Touchstone]

And when the atheist asserts that the universe has its origin in fundamentally mindless causes, the burden of proof rests on them.

Heh. Well, this is the core problem, I think. Consider what your statement here means. The atheist bears the burden of proving a negative! Do you bear the burden of proving there is no Shiva, or Vishnu, if you claim no belief in the reality of either? Of course not. That’s anti-reason, right there, and self-servingly so. There is no observation of Cosmic Mind, no communication with Cosmic Mind, no testing of Cosmic Mind. It may exist, in principle, but operationally, Cosmic Mind “behaves” perfectly in accordance with something that does not exist. If we line up the attributes of that which does not exist, and we compare it with the what we can establish for a Cosmic Mind, the lists are identical.

If you do not see the spectacular error in your assignment of the burden of proof for a negative, here, can you tell me how you carry the burden of proof that then rests on you in disbelieving in the existence of Shiva? I’m assuming you do not affirm the existential reality of Shiva, correct me if I’m mistaken.

Reason does not obligate one to prove non-existence, because it’s intractable in principle. We can say “there is no cat in this box”, and show with reasonable confidence that if there were a cat in the box, we would be able to observe it. But existentially, for a being[sic] that is non-observable by its nature, there cannot be any such demonstration. It’s a non-falsifiable proposition, such claims of existence for such beings. And yet, somehow, you’ve assigned the burden to me to falsify the unfalsifiable.

And in the choice between fundamentally mind-inclusive causes and fundamentally mindless causes, the former wins out easily as the more reasonable explanation due to the evidence. There’s a reason why lately atheists have taken to recasting themselves as ‘agnostics’ in debate; an agnostic makes no claims, and can take as many potshots as he or she pleases. But an atheist is making a definite claim, one that can be compared to. It turns out to be the option obviously less congruent with what we know.

As I understand it, an ‘agnostic’ is really undecided about God’s existence. I do have a conclusion, and that is that no God exists, and that ‘supernatural’ is inchoate as a concept. That does not mean I know there is no God, as that’s not knowable. It means the conclusion I’ve reached is that there is no God, based on what evidence I can see, and what reasoning I can apply to it. I think you are confusing a “proof for the non-existence of God” with a reasonable conclusion that no justifiable basis exists for belief in God. Those are not the same proposition.

I do not agree on your parsimony claim whatsoever - you’re insisting on considering ‘God’, even a panentheist God, as somehow a distinct and entirely separate entity from the universe, despite the classical understanding of God’s immanence throughout the universe.

Well, let’s cut to the chase. “Immanent” does not change God’s ontic essence. Being in the universe – immanent – does not make God and the universe one entity. In orthodox Christianity, Creator and created are not confused at all, and God’s immanence in the universe does not confuse God’s ousia with creation at all. If you’re not a Catholic, maybe check this out with your local priest if you doubt this. You have every right to non-Orthodox views of God and divine ontology, but as a matter of Christian orthodoxy – Catholicism, here – God is distinct from his creation. He exists outside of/prior to/after/beyond/apart from His creation.

Which means there are two entities (at least) that are required for the orthodox Christian cosmology - Creator and created.

At the same time, you’re trying to classify the atheist explanation as somehow ‘only requiring the universe’ - despite the fact that there are two options on the table for the atheist (lucky mindless pop out of existence at a finite point in the past, or lucky mindless eternal pre-existence), and identifying the event with ‘the universe’ means you’re either accepting the fundamental feature as distinct from the universe (in which case you’re dealing with 2 entities rather than 1 - the fundamental origin and the universe) or you’re grouping them together under the heading of one universe to compare against each other (in which case there’s no objection to my grouping STEM + mind under one heading, any more than there is to grouping STE + M under one heading.)

A ‘feature’ is not an entity. You are apparently trying to say that a self-existent impersonal universe must somehow be two entities, by virtue of being self-existent? Doesn’t follow. And I’m not talking about ‘grouping’ or ‘headings’ here – that’s not what ‘entity’ points at conceptually when we are talking ontology. Entity is an existential boundary, not a “heading” for a category. Think about this ontologically. A unity universe – impersonal and self-existent – doesn’t imply two separate modes of existence. But God and creation do. If God ‘created’, then there must have been a context where God was (existent) and creation wasn’t (existent). That’s an ontic divider, and this does not exist for a single, impersonal universe that is self-existent. Self-existence is just a feature of the universe in that case, part of its nature.

The number of entities between the theistic/deistic and atheistic concepts on this subject are at most equal in number.

I can’t tell if you are confused or intransigent here, but maybe we need to go look at some philosophical literature on ontology here to clear this up? If you are commited to the idea that God is the universe – not “in” the universe (I’m ‘in’ my office, but I’m not my office) – then I will grant you the unity you claim, a single entity. But if you suppose that God created the universe, that the universe is something God produced, then you have been talking through your hat, here, throughout, with respect to the entities implicated in your explanation. Catholic doctrine indisputably distinguishes between God and His creation, and immanence does not have them confused about the distinction between them.

-Touchstone

 

[Nullasalus]

Heh. Well, this is the core problem, I think. Consider what your statement here means. The atheist bears the burden of proving a negative!

That’s not what I said, and not what I’ve been saying. The atheist proposes a metaphysical cosmology - just as the theist does. In the theist model, there is a fundamental mind. In the atheist model, there is no such mind - there cannot be such a mind. We’re comparing the models and seeing how well they fit the evidence, how they perform as explanations. I’ve argued that between our knowledge of PD, our models of simulation, etc, that the theist/deist model does a better job of explaining the data. I haven’t argued, not once, that the atheist must prove a negative - any more than the theist must prove another negative (‘There existed/exists a fundamental mindless entity capable of popping out a universe with all the right properties, or that eternally pre-existed with all the right properties’.)

Put another way, in a roughly analogous example: If we came across some rune-like scratchings on a slab on Mars, we could imagine two explanations. ‘It was done by alien natives’ and ‘It wasn’t done by alien natives’. The advocate of the former doesn’t need to insist the advocate of the latter prove there were no aliens to argue his take is the more reasonable one given what we know.

If you do not see the spectacular error in your assignment of the burden of proof for a negative, here, can you tell me how you carry the burden of proof that then rests on you in disbelieving in the existence of Shiva? I’m assuming you do not affirm the existential reality of Shiva, correct me if I’m mistaken.

Believe it or not, I don’t ‘disbelieve in the existence of Shiva’. That old line about ‘Christians are atheists about all other Gods - we atheists just go one God further’ is a canard as far as I’m concerned. Hindus affirm a given view of the divine. I believe the details of their view is incorrect, very much so. But at base, what many of them call Shiva, or Brahma, or what-have-you, is in some fundamental ways close to what I believe. Fundamental divine mind. I find it makes no more sense to argue ‘Shiva does not exist’ than ‘Allah does not exist’ or ‘Yahweh does not exist’ or ‘The God of the Deists does not exist’, etc. I can understand others disagreeing - I just consider it a grand mistake, especially given that Catholic history is rife with apologists approaching prospective converts on the terms of ‘What you truly believe in is better described by what our faith indicates.’

Anyway, skipping over a whole lot of replies here, as they’re insisting that I insist an atheist prove a negative, when that’s not the case. Just comparing positive claims and how they fit what we know of the world.

Well, let’s cut to the chase. “Immanent” does not change God’s ontic essence. Being in the universe – immanent – does not make God and the universe one entity. In orthodox Christianity, Creator and created are not confused at all, and God’s immanence in the universe does not confuse God’s ousia with creation at all. If you’re not a Catholic, maybe check this out with your local priest if you doubt this. You have every right to non-Orthodox views of God and divine ontology, but as a matter of Christian orthodoxy – Catholicism, here – God is distinct from his creation. He exists outside of/prior to/after/beyond/apart from His creation.

I’m Catholic, and I’m well aware of the diversity of views in both the orthodox and the Catholic viewpoints. First off, I haven’t been arguing exclusively the Catholic/Christian conceptions of God here - hence my including ‘deist’ repeatedly. Second, I’ve asked a question previously that I saw no answer to: If there exist simulations, are there therefore ‘two or more entities’ in the universe writ large? If you say no, then a being existing ‘above our universe’, immanent within yet descriptively distinct from it (at least in part), is very reasonably classified for the purposes of this discussion as part of a/the single entity. If you say yes, then you can’t provide a ‘single entity’ within the atheist universe, because we certainly have simulations operating within our ‘reality’ that we know of, however primitive at the moment.

Either way, I don’t believe that Catholic and Orthodox depiction of God as a being distinct from the material universe was ever meant to qualify as ‘two entities’. Both would regard any depiction of a universe without God as an incomplete description of the universe - a being distinct from our known material reality is not automatically a being distinct from the universe itself. Hence theistic philosophers talking about God as a necessary being, where God exists in all possible universes, and the universes where God chooses not create are still universes.

A ‘feature’ is not an entity. You are apparently trying to say that a self-existent impersonal universe must somehow be two entities, by virtue of being self-existent? Doesn’t follow.

Nor does it follow that a universe with a self-existent personal creator that could organize and orchestrate the values of the universe must somehow be two things. I’d like to see your response to the sim question. Maybe I missed it.

If God ‘created’, then there must have been a context where God was (existent) and creation wasn’t (existent). That’s an ontic divider, and this does not exist for a single, impersonal universe that is self-existent. Self-existence is just a feature of the universe in that case, part of its nature.

You’re involving some fuzziness between ‘the universe’, ‘God’, and ‘creation’ here. The universe still exists if “creation” doesn’t exist; the universe is simply comprised by God alone by that view. If God give rise to creation, there’s still one universe - a single totality. If you argue that this is a instance of one entity giving rise to another entity (‘God’ giving rise to ‘creation’), well. Simulation question comes up again. My take is that you’re dealing with one grand entity in both the atheist and theistic case, with one distinct feature between them (mind). Otherwise it’s just a war of semantics.

And again: You’re focusing on doctrine here, but the atheist’s fight is against something greater than a particular doctrine. If you define STEM + mind as ‘absolutely pantheist’, you’re still ending up with a cosmology that the atheist cannot accept, that the deist/theist can, and which provides a better explanation than the alternative. Further: if you accept that simulations within the universe are not distinct entities from the universe, then these distinctions between God and universe as ‘Two entities’ are going to melt away on the instant. If you don’t accept that simulations aren’t distinct entities, well. Then we’re in what becomes a very interesting situation as far as we view the universe.

I can’t tell if you are confused or intransigent here, but maybe we need to go look at some philosophical literature on ontology here to clear this up? If you are commited to the idea that God is the universe – not “in” the universe (I’m ‘in’ my office, but I’m not my office) – then I will grant you the unity you claim, a single entity. But if you suppose that God created the universe, that the universe is something God produced, then you have been talking through your hat, here, throughout, with respect to the entities implicated in your explanation. Catholic doctrine indisputably distinguishes between God and His creation, and immanence does not have them confused about the distinction between them.

I’ve been arguing that doctrine doesn’t matter in this debate whatsoever - hence my defense of deism and basic theism, and my use of what’s mostly an eastern orthodox concept to get a point across. But there’s still a mistake here, because you’re confusing ‘the universe’ with ‘creation’: What God is distinct from by Catholic doctrine is material reality we know. But this does not entail being distinct from “the universe”, unless “the universe” absolutely must be that material existence; there we have the importance of the sim question again, and my wondering how much of this is coming down to semantics.

 

[Touchstone]

That’s not what I said, and not what I’ve been saying. The atheist proposes a metaphysical cosmology - just as the theist does. In the theist model, there is a fundamental mind. In the atheist model, there is no such mind - there cannot be such a mind. We’re comparing the models and seeing how well they fit the evidence, how they perform as explanations.

Well, if that’s your measure, it seems pretty lopsided, evidentially. We’ve not got any Cosmic Mind in view or in contact, which conforms nicely with the materialist model, eh? Even if you suppose there’s a programmer running all our P-existence as a sim, she’s not given you evidence to support her existence at all, or her role as PRG-admin over P-existence. She’s empirically transparent, which is perfectly consistent with her non-existence.

Science marches on, filling in the gaps in the knowledge chain bit by bit, and each successive one, millions of times over now, reflects uniformity and mindless (proximally at least) automation proceeding from fundamental physical law. If you’re looking at this as applied reasoning – scientifically, that is – you have two competing hypothesis, and the materialist explanation predicts the universal absence of observed teleology. Even the “miracle of the eye” – something Darwin expressed credulity about at one point in terms of evolution – comes into view as a practical bit of gradual, stepwise, mindless processes. Rather than finding “miracles”, the unfolding of the universe as we discover it consistently supports “automatic, gradual, symmetric and law-based”.

That doesn’t disprove Cosmic Mind – nothing can, as it is unfalsifiable. But it pushes it all the way out of the real into the metaphysic. That’s why you must seek shelter in deism rather than Catholic doctrine on this issue – deism is just the last step before capitulating to the superfluity of Cosmic Mind as part of the fundamental explanation. Evidentially, your backed into the corner of deism, which is not even your own belief, on this issue, due to the lopsided evidential outcome of the last several centuries. You’re left with no other “evidence” (which is not evidence by any better reason than wishful thinking) of PD existing in our frame, supposing that that also applies to the metaphysical. We might as well suppose gravity works the same way out there in the metaverse – we see it here, so that would be “evidence” in your view for the physics of the metaphysic. Why not? What else do we have to go on, right? Just like PD!

I’ve argued that between our knowledge of PD, our models of simulation, etc, that the theist/deist model does a better job of explaining the data.

Pink unicorns do a much better job of explaining creation than the materialist model, if it doesn’t matter if your creative agents aren’t established AT ALL. Atheism loses hands down to Pink Unicornism and Catholicism and Deism if there’s no requirement for account for your actors and agents. A fantasy KILLs an explanation that’s accountable to the facts every time. It’s only when one must provide accounts for the resources invoked that an explanation must prove its worth, and this is where Pink Unicornism falls flat – along with Deism, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I haven’t argued, not once, that the atheist must prove a negative - any more than the theist must prove another negative (‘There existed/exists a fundamental mindless entity capable of popping out a universe with all the right properties, or that eternally pre-existed with all the right properties’.)

Maybe you can lay out your expectations, then, for the success conditions for the materialist hypothesis. If that is a possible conclusion, what is the path to arriving there? What do you expect to see, in order for you to say, “Yep, that’s what I need to see to affirm the superiority of the materialist hypothesis that’s competing with all the deist/theist/magic ones”?

My suspicion, and it is only a suspicion, is that you are not prepared to articulate those conditions, and have effectively insulated yourself from that conclusion, no matter what the evidence and facts in view are. I may be wrong, and can be shown to be with such an articulation.

Put another way, in a roughly analogous example: If we came across some rune-like scratchings on a slab on Mars, we could imagine two explanations. ‘It was done by alien natives’ and ‘It wasn’t done by alien natives’. The advocate of the former doesn’t need to insist the advocate of the latter prove there were no aliens to argue his take is the more reasonable one given what we know.

No, but the error pops up earlier than that, in your supposing that example is analogous. In the case of the runes, it’s perfectly plausible – at least provisionally – to stipulate that Mars may host life forms capable of forming rune-like scratches. We know through direct observation that such beings exist on earth – a nearby planet in the same solar system – and while the conditions on Mars appear much more daunting for life, it’s plausible that some beings evolved there as well, capable of making such marks.

This is the “matching” that is integral to valid design inferences that Intelligent Design refuses to do (because it cannot). There is a plausible case to be made that even if we haven’t encountered any “Martians” yet, it’s plausible that such creatures may exist, or that beings from somewhere beyond Mars left them there – another plausible source of real, actual “designer” resources that theistic-creation lacks. We don’t look at life on earth with creative, design minds and say “well, it’s plausible that that’s how the metaverse works too!” – that’s crossing borders where all analogies become nonsense. Analogies assume a common frame of reference, a shared set of dynamics (that’s necessary for isomorphism).

Believe it or not, I don’t ‘disbelieve in the existence of Shiva’. That old line about ‘Christians are atheists about all other Gods - we atheists just go one God further’ is a canard as far as I’m concerned. Hindus affirm a given view of the divine. I believe the details of their view is incorrect, very much so. But at base, what many of them call Shiva, or Brahma, or what-have-you, is in some fundamental ways close to what I believe.

Hmmm. As a programmer, I work with a lot of people from India, some who are devout, knowledgable Hindus. I even post occasionally on a Hindu theology forum/loop, because of contacts with these colleagues. I’d be interested to see what you consider to be “fundamentally close” about Shiva to the Catholic God (looking at your identification as a Catholic, below).

Shiva, according to my Hindu colleague, has “three mothers”, which seems a fundamental difference – not “close” – from your Catholic God: Shiva is not the only god, and is a created God. Shiva is not the creator – that 's a different god (is that “close”?) named Brahma; Shiva is the destroyer to Brahma’s creator. Shiva is alternately ascetic and hedonist, and his wife Parvati (another similarity?) is crucial to Shiva keeping an even keel between the two. I can go on, but there’s some problems with “closeness” there, I think. Being created and a peer with other gods is a fundamental aspect of a god, no? Catholics point to God’s singleton nature as a deity as well as His eternal uncausedness as fundamental attributes of God, as well they should.

Maybe you are saying the Catholics and Hindus are all getting a bit ahead of themselves, and really, there’s an amorophous, conveniently ambiguous proto-god underneath all that unifies theistic belief?

Fundamental divine mind. I find it makes no more sense to argue ‘Shiva does not exist’ than ‘Allah does not exist’ or ‘Yahweh does not exist’ or ‘The God of the Deists does not exist’, etc. I can understand others disagreeing - I just consider it a grand mistake, especially given that Catholic history is rife with apologists approaching prospective converts on the terms of ‘What you truly believe in is better described by what our faith indicates.’

If you suppose that one might reasonable mistake Shiva for Yahweh, or vice versa, that’s a good prima facie argument for the incoherence of both as real or remotely intelligible. I think the “Shiva is just a misunderstood Yahweh” line is an excellent argument in support of atheism, and I fully encourage its promoters to advance it loudly and proudly. It just nukes the rational argument for identifying any god at all, and give good weight to the idea that what you are struggling with, along with your Hindu neighbor, is a case of determined imagination and the common utility of self-deception.

Anyway, skipping over a whole lot of replies here, as they’re insisting that I insist an atheist prove a negative, when that’s not the case. Just comparing positive claims and how they fit what we know of the world.

What would be the way for an atheist to make that positive case, in your view?

I’m Catholic, and I’m well aware of the diversity of views in both the orthodox and the Catholic viewpoints. First off, I haven’t been arguing exclusively the Catholic/Christian conceptions of God here - hence my including ‘deist’ repeatedly.

If you are a a deist, that’s fine. But I’m not debating a deist, here, I don’t think. I’m interested in what supports your particular brand of theism. I’m not interested in hearing you speak as an apologist for the beliefs of someone else. Please have the commitment to defend your beliefs as your beliefs. I will do the same.

-Touchstone

 

[Touchstone]

nullasalus:

Second, I’ve asked a question previously that I saw no answer to: If there exist simulations, are there therefore ‘two or more entities’ in the universe writ large?

Sure, or even more generously, I’m fine either way. You can slice up the natural world into as many sub-units as you like, and that’s fine by me, as each explanation admits the natural as part of the explanation. If the universe to you is rightly counted as 16,349 discrete entities, so be it. I can accept that number as my basis, and proceed. You, as a theist/deist, must add something extra that I do not add, which would be God, the Big Kahuna of all multplied entities.

No matter how you count the entities P-existence, we will match one-for-one. But you must multiply beyond that for your explanation. That’s allowed, and maybe correct. It just works against the principle of parsimony.

If you say no, then a being existing ‘above our universe’, immanent within yet descriptively distinct from it (at least in part), is very reasonably classified for the purposes of this discussion as part of a/the single entity.

Only if you’re looking to avoid the implications of parsimony. It’s totally artificial otherwise. I know it, you know it, your priest knows it.

If you say yes, then you can’t provide a ‘single entity’ within the atheist universe, because we certainly have simulations operating within our ‘reality’ that we know of, however primitive at the moment.

If you suppose God existed before the universe, and that the universe has different fundamental attributes (God is spirit, for example, the physical universe is not), then your straining to avoid the implications here are clearly shown for what it is.

Either way, I don’t believe that Catholic and Orthodox depiction of God as a being distinct from the material universe was ever meant to qualify as ‘two entities’.

Catholic doctrine has never confused God and His creation as being the same entity. This is a heresy it has chased out of the Church many times, with good vigor.

Both would regard any depiction of a universe without God as an incomplete description of the universe - a being distinct from our known material reality is not automatically a being distinct from the universe itself. Hence theistic philosophers talking about God as a necessary being, where God exists in all possible universes, and the universes where God chooses not create are still universes.

Not of that is remotely relevant to whether God and creation are the same entity, or separate entities. Really, I think we must resort to pedantics here, given your response, and go look at what the semantics are for ‘entity’. That’s a frustration, if so, but that’s how these exchanges go, sometimes. In many exchanges with theists, you’re the first I’ve met that couldn’t even get past the acknowledgment that God and creation are not the same entity in orthodox Christianity. Would prestigious Catholic theologians and philosophers suffice along with CCC quotes, here? Or is this just your novel concept, uncatechized?

Nor does it follow that a universe with a self-existent personal creator that could organize and orchestrate the values of the universe must somehow be two things. I’d like to see your response to the sim question. Maybe I missed it.

There’s no meaning to the label “creator” if that entity (God) doesn’t create some thing. If God is the universe, he’s no creator, he’s just himself! The very terms you are using refute the sentences you use them in.

As for the sim question, see above, regarding 16,394 entities in the natural universe, or one, or any number.

You’re involving some fuzziness between ‘the universe’, ‘God’, and ‘creation’ here. The universe still exists if “creation” doesn’t exist; the universe is simply comprised by God alone by that view.

It is? On what basis? The universe is then uncreated? I think you’ve not thought this through. Tell me how you define ‘universe’, in any case. What makes the universe the universe? Just to lead the way, I will provide my definition:

universe: everything that physically exists, the sum totally of space/time.

Your turn!

If God give rise to creation, there’s still one universe - a single totality.

OK, totality of what? If there’s no physical creation (using your term there), what exists in its absence to make the universe the universe? This smells very much like the incoherence of ‘supernatural’, redux.

If you argue that this is a instance of one entity giving rise to another entity (‘God’ giving rise to ‘creation’), well. Simulation question comes up again. My take is that you’re dealing with one grand entity in both the atheist and theistic case, with one distinct feature between them (mind). Otherwise it’s just a war of semantics.

Bickering over semantics is bad when it’s trivial. It’s required when the dispute is fundamental. And this is fundamental. The created is not the Creator, on the orthodox Christian view, OR the deistic view. If you want to discuss shadings of pantheism, that’s fine, that’s just atheism with an extra measure of whimsy. But a deist (having just read a good book on Jefferson, this comes to mind) doesn’t conflate the Creator with creation anymore than your local parish priest does.

And again: You’re focusing on doctrine here, but the atheist’s fight is against something greater than a particular doctrine.

Perhaps, but we can find agreement at least in this resolution:

The Catholic church does not consider “God” and “creation” synonymous. God exists apart from creation according to Orthodox Christianity.

That is some ground we can gain.

If you define STEM + mind as ‘absolutely pantheist’, you’re still ending up with a cosmology that the atheist cannot accept, that the deist/theist can, and which provides a better explanation than the alternative.

A practicing Catholic cannot accept ‘absolute pantheism’ anymore than an atheist can. You’re apparently thinking there’s some sort of ‘nebulous theism’ that shifts gears and changes shape out there to accomodate and avoid challenges that I’m arguing against. I’ve no time for such shape-shifting, that’s just childish gaming. You can any one, or even several theistic frameworks as you wish, but please keep consistent within them. You’re quite right that a pantheist is in much better shape in terms of parsimony than a Catholic. I wouldn’t raise the issue of parsimony with a pantheist, as it’s a push. But your particular brand of theism – what you believe – is at a significant disadvantage in terms of parsimony (parsimony is not a normative truth maker, and related caveats, etc.).

Further: if you accept that simulations within the universe are not distinct entities from the universe, then these distinctions between God and universe as ‘Two entities’ are going to melt away on the instant.

As above, I’m happy to count them any way you wish. Count how you like, at the end of the day, you still must add “God”, the mother of all parsimony burdens to your explanation.

If you don’t accept that simulations aren’t distinct entities, well. Then we’re in what becomes a very interesting situation as far as we view the universe.

Any way you want it. Doesn’t affect the parsimony calculus at all.

I’ve been arguing that doctrine doesn’t matter in this debate whatsoever - hence my defense of deism and basic theism, and my use of what’s mostly an eastern orthodox concept to get a point across.

Hmmm. Maybe I’m wasting my time, then. Are you representing points you personally affirm, here? I take that as a given, but maybe I’ve made a mistake.

But there’s still a mistake here, because you’re confusing ‘the universe’ with ‘creation’: What God is distinct from by Catholic doctrine is material reality we know.

By your own words, here, then, you’ve got two entities where the materialist has just one. (1)God, and (2) material reality. If they are distinct, you’ve got extra baggage you are carrying in terms of parsimony over just (1)material reality.

But this does not entail being distinct from “the universe”, unless “the universe” absolutely must be that material existence; there we have the importance of the sim question again, and my wondering how much of this is coming down to semantics.

I’ve no idea what you mean by ‘universe’ if you are definitine as something apart from ‘the sum of physical existence, the sum of space/time’, and I suspect you don’t know what you mean by your usage, either. I hope you will try to clarify, in any case. But as you have it, we now may have (1)material reality, (2)the “universe”, whatever that is in your view, but something different than (1), and (3) God. I shall need a program with pictures to keep your cast of characters in this play straight.

-Touchstone

 

[Nullasalus]

Well, if that’s your measure, it seems pretty lopsided, evidentially. We’ve not got any Cosmic Mind in view or in contact, which conforms nicely with the materialist model, eh? Even if you suppose there’s a programmer running all our P-existence as a sim, she’s not given you evidence to support her existence at all, or her role as PRG-admin over P-existence. She’s empirically transparent, which is perfectly consistent with her non-existence.

Actually, there’s been plenty of evidence - that you don’t want to call it evidence is of no concern to me. I have evidence in the form of simulations / models, evidence in the form of the existence of PD itself - this before getting into less reliable evidence, such as testimony, etc.

I don’t doubt the ability of materialism to explain away all the evidence, then posit another entity entirely capable of providing ‘illusions of design’ all over the place. It’s not the deity topic, but watching Dennett do this in his conversations with Chalmers was a lot of fun.

Science marches on, filling in the gaps in the knowledge chain bit by bit, and each successive one, millions of times over now, reflects uniformity and mindless (proximally at least) automation proceeding from fundamental physical law.

So you proved that angels aren’t moving planets? Wonderful - it means nothing to theists or deists. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with exposing that grand wonderwork of creation with each successive discovery of the genius of natural law and orchestration - I don’t even deny you your right to mutter over and over ‘It just LOOKS like design, it’s not REALLY design’.

You say it all ‘fits into the materialist framework’. I’m sure it does, so long as you’re committed to the power of mindless forces to work out and out miracles. Your only explanation is a lack of one. Brute force, ‘it just is, we’re just lucky, quit asking questions’. It’s not very convincing. Science marches on and provides data compatible with both the theist/deist’s model as well as the materialist’s. That, you’ll just have to cope with.

That doesn’t disprove Cosmic Mind – nothing can, as it is unfalsifiable. But it pushes it all the way out of the real into the metaphysic. That’s why you must seek shelter in deism rather than Catholic doctrine on this issue – deism is just the last step before capitulating to the superfluity of Cosmic Mind as part of the fundamental explanation.

Wonderful - so now you’re reading my mind. It’s not that I feel a respect for worldviews from classical deist to Christian deist to muslim to even mormon. No, it’s all part of some grand conspiracy! You got me, Touchstone!

Oh, wait. No. You’re just angry that you keep lobbing charges at me, and none of them stick. Yes, the concept of fundamental mind is not falsifiable, which is why I’ve said as much repeatedly. But neither is what you offer, the cosmic brute-force luck. But my conclusion fits the data far better. And once it’s ceded that deism is the preferable model to theism - then I can start wondering about religions and doctrines. You’re welcome to your mantra - “It’s all luck, it’s all luck, it’s all luck.”

Atheism loses hands down to Pink Unicornism and Catholicism and Deism if there’s no requirement for account for your actors and agents. A fantasy KILLs an explanation that’s accountable to the facts every time.

Freaking out here a bit much, don’t you think?

The funny thing is, for all your false complaints about how I’m demanding atheists prove a negative - that’s what you’re demanding I do here. ‘Prove that the fundmentally mindless can’t account for the universe! Prove it!’ You already ceded that there’s no way for a programmer to prove to its denizens that it is, in fact, the programmer - it just isn’t possible without brutely coding ‘I believe in the programmer!’ into their heads. Then you apparently forgot it when you realized the concession helped my case vastly more than yours.

Incidentally - I’ve been polite here. You’ve rolled in, talking about how you’re oh-so-well-versed in the lies and deception theists sling and experience. Now you’re down to rambling about FSM equivalents. You should be less emotionally invested in these discussions; you’re an atheist. None of this matters. Materialism explains everything, remember?

Yep, that’s what I need to see to affirm the superiority of the materialist hypothesis that’s competing with all the deist/theist/magic ones"?

My suspicion, and it is only a suspicion, is that you are not prepared to articulate those conditions, and have effectively insulated yourself from that conclusion, no matter what the evidence and facts in view are. I may be wrong, and can be shown to be with such an articulation.

It can only be a suspicion if you haven’t been reading this thread, including my responses to you: I have told you outright, repeatedly, that no such evidence is possible - not even in principle. Just as no decisive evidence to prove God is possible. And no decisive evidence to disprove your “fundamental mindlessness” is possible. We have minds - we know what minds are capable of. We know that mind can be responsible for all we see in nature. We cannot, by definition, ever get similar evidence of the capability of mindlessness. This isn’t a new revelation - it’s something I’ve asserted plainly in this thread more than once.

I’ve also said that it’s entirely possible for it to be wrong. Maybe, against all the evidence we know and have, material universes can just ‘happen’ and organize themselves and be rooted fundamentally in nothing at all. Maybe that kind of magic is really what this world was built on. But reason will always support deism at the very least as the more compelling conclusion.

I’m not even saying a person should not be an atheist, or should be mocked for being such. By all means, take that leap of faith. Be polite about it and I’ll hardly care.

No, but the error pops up earlier than that, in your supposing that example is analogous. In the case of the runes, it’s perfectly plausible – at least provisionally – to stipulate that Mars may host life forms capable of forming rune-like scratches. We know through direct observation that such beings exist on earth – a nearby planet in the same solar system – and while the conditions on Mars appear much more daunting for life, it’s plausible that some beings evolved there as well, capable of making such marks.

This is such a desperate stretch. I made no reference, zero, to Mars’ life-sustaining capabilities, it’s position in the stars, or otherwise. I didn’t even describe the quality of the runes. I simply pointed out that someone could argue ‘These scratchings were designed’ is the more reasonable solution without any requirement that a negative be proven.

This is the “matching” that is integral to valid design inferences that Intelligent Design refuses to do (because it cannot)

Wonderful - this is where I should say I’m not much of an ID advocate, because I know that detecting design in nature is not science. Nor is detecting the lack of design. The insistence of many atheists to abuse science by asserting the latter invited the former to make the same move. I have, obviously, strong sympathies with ID philosophically. Science-wise, I prefer it be left out of the classrooms.

If you suppose that one might reasonable mistake Shiva for Yahweh, or vice versa, that’s a good prima facie argument for the incoherence of both as real or remotely intelligible.

Not really, but I’m getting tired of your spin attempts. Yes, it’s been well established that you’re very, very eager to advance atheism however you think is possible. I know. I’m sure everyone is very proud of you.

What would be the way for an atheist to make that positive case, in your view?

Again and again: I don’t think they have much to go on, other than appeal to imagination. “Just imagine the universe always existed / popped into existence with the lucky properties to result in the rise of beings with minds whose minds could organize and orchestrate all the universe except no mind did because we got lucky!” Oh boy, sign me up.

If you are a a deist, that’s fine. But I’m not debating a deist, here, I don’t think. I’m interested in what supports your particular brand of theism. I’m not interested in hearing you speak as an apologist for the beliefs of someone else. Please have the commitment to defend your beliefs as your beliefs. I will do the same.

I could care less what views you want me to provide a defense of - the fact that you’re insisting I defend something other than what I am just illustrates how poorly you think you’re doing against what I am defending. If you conducted yourself in a different way, I’d be willing to do so - I’d even be willing to accept private mails for a long-term exchange. But considering you’ve engaged in unprovoked mockery, smug accusations about others’ mental well-being, admitted yourself to be a long-standing liar and engaged in self-delusion, and now are getting progressively ruder, I won’t honor the request. I entered this thread defending basic deism and theism - I’ll remain consistent in that. Don’t like it? I’m sure materialism offers you a mechanism for coping.

 

[Nullasalus]

You can slice up the natural world into as many sub-units as you like, and that’s fine by me, as each explanation admits the natural as part of the explanation.

You’re adding another entity just as I am - brute force, inexplicable, quite possibly eternal luck. And you’re so enamored with the principle of parsimony that you’re having a hard time coping with the fact that I disagree with your metric. You said yourself that it isn’t all that important. Wait, I guess that’s part of that old toolset being used again.

Only if you’re looking to avoid the implications of parsimony. It’s totally artificial otherwise. I know it, you know it, your priest knows it.

Ah, more mindreading. No, I don’t ‘know’ it - I’ve given reasons why I don’t count it the way you do. You want to see some violations of the principle of parsimony? Watch the excuses Many World Interpretation advocates give when they’re called on it. ‘Well, it’s just one wavefunction! Sure, there’s countless, possibly infinite universes, but by my count its one!’ I mean, you just admitted it yourself: You can count the number of entities in the universe however you want. But, by George, we better count it in a way such that mind is always an entity, mindlessness isn’t, and therefore the theist always has more than one!

This is a heresy it has chased out of the Church many times, with good vigor.

So what? I’m not trying to defend any doctrine here - I repeatedly (notice how many times I have to repeat myself with you) said that doctrine doesn’t matter in this discussion, because as you’ve ceded, the atheist isn’t arguing against any particular doctrine. They’re arguing against God in any form - whether it’s the Catholic God, Shiva, the Deist God, Mormon Elohim, or whatever Frank Tipler’s actually articulating.

One more time: The universe exists wherever God is, whether or not creation is in play.

Would prestigious Catholic theologians and philosophers suffice along with CCC quotes, here? Or is this just your novel concept, uncatechized?

I haven’t bothered with a defense of doctrine here - I’ve made a reference to panentheism and immanence out of utility, in a faith I’m not enrolled in. I know you haven’t missed the fact that I’m defending deism and basic theism here; for some reason, that just riles you up. You’ll have to deal with it or walk, though; based on how you’re conducting yourself, I don’t feel the need to extend the conversation on to such a topic.

There’s no meaning to the label “creator” if that entity (God) doesn’t create some thing. If God is the universe, he’s no creator, he’s just himself! The very terms you are using refute the sentences you use them in.

What nonsense. Mormons regard God as the creator of the world, despite believing that God has eternally pre-existed alongside matter. For many pantheists, God being the universe is no bar to God being creator - God is capable of orchestrating changes over time, order that did not exist originally or at least in the past. I’m afraid all the refutations will remain your problem here.

As for the sim question, see above, regarding 16,394 entities in the natural universe, or one, or any number.

I ask one direct question, and you fudge it. My question stands: Do simulations count as entities, or do they not? If you won’t answer, well, that’s that. This whole exchange is deteriorating anyway.

It is? On what basis? The universe is then uncreated? I think you’ve not thought this through. Tell me how you define ‘universe’, in any case. What makes the universe the universe? Just to lead the way, I will provide my definition:

universe: everything that physically exists, the sum totally of space/time.

Your turn!

I already distinguished between the universe and creation for my purposes. And I don’t have much of a problem with your definition, save for a few questions. If Chalmers and other philosophers are right about consciousness, does that mean consciousness doesn’t exist? They take it to be a non-physical property. What about emergent properties? Some materialists argue emergence a real phenomenon, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Other materialists accuse them of succumbing to dualism and magic.

On second thought, ‘everything that physically exists’ isn’t good enough. I’d say ‘Everything that exists’. Why stipulate?

OK, totality of what? If there’s no physical creation (using your term there), what exists in its absence to make the universe the universe? This smells very much like the incoherence of ‘supernatural’, redux.

Are you asking me what exists in a universe where only God exists? As for incoherence of supernatural, you asked me for an explanation, I provided it. And then you completely ignored it.

Bickering over semantics is bad when it’s trivial. It’s required when the dispute is fundamental. And this is fundamental. The created is not the Creator, on the orthodox Christian view, OR the deistic view. If you want to discuss shadings of pantheism, that’s fine, that’s just atheism with an extra measure of whimsy. But a deist (having just read a good book on Jefferson, this comes to mind) doesn’t conflate the Creator with creation anymore than your local parish priest does.

Despite what Dawkins tells you, pantheism is not ‘sexed up atheism’ - in case you haven’t noticed, he’s rather known for being theologically (and philosophically) ignorant, and admits to being such in the former sense. And you are aware that deists are rather… not bound by doctrine, as a rule? I’m sure some deists may view the world as distinct from the creator, but there is no such doctrinal rule.

Either way, I reject your characterization of eastern orthodox doctrine. God is immanent throughout creation, God sustains it, it could not physically exist without this immanence. But there comes those semantics again; materialists who buy MWI agree there is a single creation, even though there are separate worlds. Multiverse proponents believe there’s just one multiverse which they view as a singular entity. And considering you’ve already said you’re willing to count entities by whatever standard, it’s hard to see why you’re so frantic about parsimony anyway.

Perhaps, but we can find agreement at least in this resolution:

The Catholic church does not consider “God” and “creation” synonymous. God exists apart from creation according to Orthodox Christianity.

That is some ground we can gain.

It’s too bad I haven’t defended any particular doctrine in this entire exchange then, did I? And again, God exists apart from creation by orthodox christianity, but is utterly immanent.

As above, I’m happy to count them any way you wish. Count how you like, at the end of the day, you still must add “God”, the mother of all parsimony burdens to your explanation.

I’ll take ‘mind’, which I’m certain exists, rather than ‘brute luck and possibly eternity too’, which is more ‘magical’ by leaps and bounds.

Hmmm. Maybe I’m wasting my time, then. Are you representing points you personally affirm, here? I take that as a given, but maybe I’ve made a mistake.

How can you have been “taking that as a given” when in your immediate previous post, you demanded that I defend Catholicism rather than deism since you thought (correctly) I’m Catholic? Did you lie this much when you were a theist?

By your own words, here, then, you’ve got two entities where the materialist has just one. (1)God, and (2) material reality. If they are distinct, you’ve got extra baggage you are carrying in terms of parsimony over just (1)material reality.

Read what I said again - ‘Material reality we know’. Back to my simulation question: Is a simulation another entity, or isn’t it?

I’ve no idea what you mean by ‘universe’ if you are definitine as something apart from ‘the sum of physical existence, the sum of space/time’, and I suspect you don’t know what you mean by your usage, either. I hope you will try to clarify, in any case. But as you have it, we now may have (1)material reality, (2)the “universe”, whatever that is in your view, but something different than (1), and (3) God. I shall need a program with pictures to keep your cast of characters in this play straight.

Yes, I’ve noticed you need an awful lot of repeating to get things clear. And last time I asked you to provide me with a program where you “had a square circle” or along those lines, you hemmed a bit, then balked and went on about how that happened, but they’re just symbols. I received no program.

Anyway. First, of course you’d have no idea what I’m talking about if you’re taking an utterly materialist viewpoint. All that exists to you is physical - you apparently won’t even entertain the possibility of PRG, much less claims of the non-material. (I’ll assume you’re one of those materialists who looks at wave-particle duality and other aspects of QM and asserts ‘I’m not sure how, but damnit, that’s all material!’) Second, read again: Then ask yourself, if we’re living in what amounts to a simulation, aren’t we both within a certain material reality, yet there can be something outside of said reality - and while both the programmer and the simulated are in a single universe, they don’t both occupy the same material reality?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

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We experience the reality of the supernatural when we truly understand the great gift of observing a thing of beauty.

This strongly suggests that ‘supernatural’ is synonymous with ‘imaginary’. How would what you say be distringuished from simply imagining there was a supernatural experience (whatever that is) involved in beholding a thing of beauty.

I distinguish the “supernatural” from “the imaginary” by the weakest of all “proofs”, which is “authority”.

The authority of the Church tells me what is not only supernatural, but what is supernaturally GOOD as well a what is supernaturally EVIL.

Without an authority to delineate revelation from elsewhat, it is impossible to have certainty of either the existence or the quality of the supernatural. It’s ALL just “imagination”, INCLUDING normal everyday, and otherwise, seemingly materialistic reality!

I can certainly understand the desire or appeal of that idea, but that supports the imagination hypothesis – motive for imagination. What would distinguish it if we are interested in avoiding self-deception or self-indulgence?

Whether it (the seeming perception of the supernatural) is in-line with the Church’s description of the supernatural, or not.

Once again, for the scientistic materialist, no supernatural is necessary, so no explanation of the supernatural is possible.

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We get confirmation of the reality of the supernatural when we accept that God is God, who is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-wise and give ourselves over to this creator, in ways that do not require us to be slaves to anyone or any thing.

Aren’t we slaves to God at that point – “bondservants” as Paul might say?

We are simply “slaves” in the same way as every mathematician is a “slave” to the fact that “2+2=4”.

Again, what separates that confirmation from the mere imagination of same.

Absolutely nothing to one who won’t do the experiment (prayer).

To one who does do the experiment, it is a gift.

The materialist’s supposition is that doing the experiment IS capitulating to the desired result. That is not accurate.

If you were to ask me back what confirmed the natural confirmation of the love my wife has for me, I could line up a long line of independent witnesses who can attest the sacrificial, kind, generous, affectionate, romantic and encouraging things she’s done to and for me over twenty years of marriage. I have my own experiences, but if want to take steps I’m not fooling myself, I have objective attestations available, and a lot of them, that discount the plausibility of that just being a matter of me imagining things or humoring myself out of vanity.

Love confirms itself. God confirms Himself. You refuse to allow God to confirm Himself. He allows you to do so, which allows you to be anxious at not having a love that all persons need.

You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t somehow “anxious” about God-stuff.

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If one is not capable of this harmless giving-over of oneself, then some “hurt” has been placed between you and what you really want which demands that you “do it yourself because only YOU are worthy of being God”.

Sacrificial love is the highest love.

Why!? That is utterly unsupportable on purely materialistic grounds.

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This “interloper” will forever demand that only “physical force” is worthy of honor because only that force can keep you from “being harmed again as you have been”.

I missed the part where I got harmed?

That which “drove” you from the obvious benefit of God’s love to reliance on not being hurt by being “deluded” or “self-deluded” was your “being harmed/hurt”.