Nothing to something

[Gorgias]

Does a necessary being depend on logic?

Not as such. And not for its existence, which the context in which you’re asking. And, to top it all off, God created logic: so, it makes no sense to suggest that a creator is dependent on His creation.

Is it impossible for God to tell STT what STT would do in the future?

It creates a paradox, and is an instance of sin for STT. (After all, he’s asking for that knowledge explicitly so that he might use it as an occasion of sin – he wants to ‘test’ God in order to “prove” Him not omniscient.) God does not participate in sin; therefore, He would not.

Wouldn’t the fact that STT has the good intention of proving the existence of free will - be a sufficient reason for God to answer his request?

He doesn’t want to “prove free will” – he wants to show that God’s not omniscient!

 

[AlNg]

No realli! She was Karving her initials on the moose with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given her by Svenge—her brother-in-law— an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies… Mynd you, moose bites Kan be pretti nasti…

It is difficult to take many of your posts seriously.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

No realli! She was Karving her initials on the moose with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given her by Svenge—her brother-in-law— an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies… Mynd you, moose bites Kan be pretti nasti…

It is difficult to take many of your posts seriously.

I’m literally quoting from the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in these two posts…

 

[Veritas6]

So you’ve arbitrarily decided to define perfection as being pure actuality. Some might consider such immutability to be an imperfection. Why should we accept that your definition is the correct one?

Perfection can mean pure actuality and immutability. Both mean unchanging, but pure actuality is based on our observations of the world. It’s very hard to identify an immutable thing; but it’s much easier to identify some changing thing in the world. It’s easier because we now have an understanding of how change works, and that the hot coffee can’t go from potentially cold to actually cold by itself.

Why is one state considered to be more perfect than another state?

If we follow my definition from a few posts above, something is not perfect if it lacks something else. If I lack the ability to see, we could say I lack perfection (in the sense of what it means to be human). Obviously we all lack many things and don’t consider ourselves perfect. When something lacks nothing, all existence “exists” within it - it has it all. That something is considered perfect.

If we use immutability as perfection, something is not perfect if it changes, because it lacks something else. Same as above.

 

[AlNg]

He doesn’t want to “prove free will” – he wants to show that God’s not omniscient!

Suppose someone, say Mr. Adam, has the good intention of showing that that free will is a reality. Would this be a sufficient reason for God to grant his request of telling him what he will eat tomorrow at 2 PM ? Or is it impossible for an omniscient Being to do so?

 

[Gorgias]

Suppose someone, say Mr. Adam, has the good intention of showing that that free will is a reality. Would this be a sufficient reason for God to grant his request of telling him what he will eat tomorrow at 2 PM ? Or is it impossible for an omniscient Being to do so?

How in the world does telling you “you’ll have a ham sandwich tomorrow at 2pm” demonstrate to you that you have free will?!?

 

[AlNg]

How in the world does telling you “you’ll have a ham sandwich tomorrow at 2pm” demonstrate to you that you have free will?!?

Because then at 2 PM you can freely choose to have a cheese sandwich instead.

 

[Gorgias]

Because then at 2 PM you can freely choose to have a cheese sandwich instead.

That doesn’t prove “free will”; it’s an attempt to disprove God’s omniscience.

 

[AlNg]

That doesn’t prove “free will”

Why not. Since we are bioethical puppets, we are able to do only what is preordained for us, according to the opponents of free will. If it is preordained for us to eat a ham sandwich and instead we do what was not preordained, then it proves we are not bioethical puppets. We have the free will to choose something else and not what was preordained.

 

[Gorgias]

Since we are bioethical puppets, we are able to do only what is preordained for us, according to the opponents of free will.

Except that… they’re mistaken.

If it is preordained for us to eat a ham sandwich and instead we do what was not preordained, then it proves we are not bioethical puppets.

If you choose a ham sandwich freely, you’re not a puppet.

We have the free will to choose something else and not what was preordained.

That’s a flawed definition of “free will”, though. It’s not “I’ma gonna do something different than God thinks”, it’s “I can choose on my own.” The fact that God knows what you will choose has no bearing on your choice.

So… go ahead and pick whatever you wish for lunch tomorrow. That’ll be your demonstration of ‘free will’.

 

[STT]

What if you are an atheist and say that there was no creation, but everything just exists and was always there.

Things could not have existed since ever. There is a beginning if there is no creation.

What is time anyway?

Time is substance which allows change to happen.

Is it a property of matter by way of the 2nd law or is it a property of space by way of GR ?

It is not a property of matter by way of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It is the fundamental variable of any dynamic reality.

There is also a problem with saying that God needed time to create time. If so, then where did the first instance of time come from before it was created?

Yes, that is the problem that I am mentioning. Creation time leads to regress.

How do you know that there was a beginning of time?

There are two reason for this: 1) We are not in heat death state and 2) We cannot reach from infinite past to now

The surface of the unit sphere is bounded by itself. It doesn’t need anything else to bound it. rho = 1 is the equation.

But this surface is embedded in space. Can you imagine a sphere which is not embedded in space?

 

[lelinator]

Yes, that is the problem that I am mentioning. Creation time leads to regress.

But I don’t see where you’ve proposed any solution to this problem.

 

[AlNg]

But this surface is embedded in space.

Could space itself be a sphere ?

 

[STT]

But I don’t see where you’ve proposed any solution to this problem.

Creation is impossible. In regards to the beginning of time I have different solutions for two different scenarios, 1) There was nothing or 2) There was something at the beginning. In first case, we have two times which move opposite of each other and they are connected at the the beginning, so they cancel each other. In second case time exists at the beginning.

 

[STT]

Could space itself be a sphere ?

Sure 3D space could be a sphere which is embedded in 4D space, etc.

 

[AlNg]

We cannot reach from infinite past to now

I don’t see why it is necessary to perform a reach into an infinite past. It is only the present now that is existing. To say that the present now did not have a beginning, does not necessitate reaching into an infinite past. It simply says that the present now was always here and there was no time when there was no present now. The past does not really exist so there is no sense in reaching around trying to find it. It may have existed at one time, but not now, so at this time now you are not going to be able to reach into it at any point.

 

[STT]

I don’t see why it is necessary to perform a reach into an infinite past.

That is the definition of infinite past, no mater how far you go to past, you cannot reach it. That applies when there is no beginning.

It is only the present now that is existing.

True, if we are dealing with non-block universe (I am not sure if that is the right technical name). Otherwise, past time exists now.

To say that the present now did not have a beginning, does not necessitate reaching into an infinite past.

It does.

It simply says that the present now was always here and there was no time when there was no present now.

If present now always existed then it means that you cannot reach to a point in past which it didn’t exist.

The past does not really exist so there is no sense in reaching around trying to find it. It may have existed at one time, but not now, so at this time now you are not going to be able to reach into it at any point.

Yes, past existed. The problem is how far past existed if there was no beginning for time.

 

[AlNg]

past existed.

But it does not exist now. We only have the present and we do not have access to reach into the past. We can speak about the past, but we cannot reach into it. Similarly, we can not leap into the future. Because the future does not exist now. It is only the present that exists.

 

[AlNg]

We cannot reach from infinite past to now

There is no point in the past which is the infinite past point. Choose any point in the past. Say for example 1492. From that point to today there is only a finite amount of time, which in this case would be 528 years. It works for any point in the past from which you choose to begin. From every such point in the past to the present point there is only a finite amount of time. There is no such thing as an infinite past point.

 

[Gorgias]

Time is substance which allows change to happen.

Umm… what’s the nature of that substance? Can you measure it? After all, if it’s a substance, then it will have physical extension – or be able to be converted into something that has physical extension!

No… time is not a ‘substance’, per se.

STT:

Yes, that is the problem that I am mentioning. Creation time leads to regress.

But I don’t see where you’ve proposed any solution to this problem.

Abandon the problematic assertion as illogical.

But it does not exist now. We only have the present and we do not have access to reach into the past.

That we do not have access to the past doesn’t prove that it does not exist; it merely proves that we cannot access it. (I’m not making a positive claim, mind you; just demonstrating that your assertion doesn’t hold.)