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> Whatever is changing is being changed by another It started off good :) Makes me wonder about the technical details of what hardware God runs on and how tha

> Whatever is changing is being changed by another It started off good :) Makes me wonder about the technical details of what hardware God runs on and how that was created? I got interested in Sethianism, since Seth is my given name, and it has a fun creation mythos. You get a little backstory leading up to the garden of eden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethianism

throw0101a 7y ago
> Makes me wonder about the technical details of what hardware God runs on and how that was created? If it is created, then it cannot be God by definition. If we are talking about creation and existence (and not change), then we are getting into the Second Way: > 1. Everything which has come to exist has been caused to come to exist. > 2. Nothing which has come to exist can be the cause of its own existence. > 3. Everything which has come to exist is caused to exist by something other than itself. (follows from 1,2) > 4. It is impossible for a chain of causes of this kind to go on to infinity. > C. There must be a first cause, which causes other things to come into existence but did not itself come into existence. (follows from 3,4) * https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/mcgill/201/aquinas-cosmological-argument.html https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/mcgill/201/aquinas-cosm... NB: the argument is not "everything has a cause", which, if it is your starting proposition, tends to leads to problems: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument
- state_less 7y ago
  I'm not really sure about any of these premises. Maybe there is some reflexivity in there. Maybe there are causes as far back as anyone cares to look and we'll never know for sure if there are loops or starting point(s). How is anything caused, what does it mean for a cause to not exist, what hardware does God run on and so on?
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    Let us examine premise 2: Something does not exist. How can it then cause itself to exist? I would love to hear how you think this is not logical. > How is anything caused, what does it mean for a cause to not exist, what hardware does God run on and so on? You were caused by your parents, they were caused by your grandparents. Before you existed your parents needed to exist. When your parents did not exist, neither did you. That's one way (though not the only way) "for a cause to not exist". (Called per accidens sequences by Aquinas/Aristotle.) The thing that we call "God" runs on no hardware, but is the hardware that everything else is built on. Strictly speaking, in the (Catholic) Christian thinking, God is not a thing or a being (not even the Supreme Being), but rather Being Itself: God is the act of to be itself. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aseity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aseity * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc
    - state_less 7y ago
      I can imagine inquisitive minds today might want to know more about how the God "hardware" works. We have amazing computers today that can simulate worlds. We use them to simulate and learn about this one. It's almost inconceivable in the past, but now someone might say that this world is a simulation and that our creator may have created along with the hardware our world runs on. Perhaps it seems unlikely, but we have new ideas to explore and I like to leave a little room for them. I suppose that's why I'm not so sure about the premises. The world has turned out to be really amazing and strange. To answer your question, I imagine something may exist at one time, then not exist, but have put in motion the events to cause it to exist again. So things that get into a causal loop like a mushrooms and fungal spores, a cutting or someday perhaps digital copy of a physical person, or some speculate even the whole universe gets recycled.
      - throw0101a 7y ago
        > I can imagine inquisitive minds today might want to know more about how the God "hardware" works. Again, this is a category error. God (in the Catholic/Christian theological tradition) is not, strictly speaking, an individual or a being. Not even the Supreme Being. God is the act of to be. What you mean when you refer to "God" and what theologians mean when they refer to "God" are two different things: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc > The world has turned out to be really amazing and strange. Stranger than you thing. Expanding: > Of every created entity, we may ask two questions: what is its nature, and does it actually exist? Answering the first question does not give us an answer to the second. Consider the question “What is ____?” [...] If, for example, we ask, “What is a human being?” we might reasonably reply, “A rational animal.” We need not add the phrase “that exists.” It does not improve or clarify our response to the request for a definition. We can grasp the “what-it-is” of an entity, in other words, without having to determine whether it exists. [...] > This distinction between essence and existence also applies to imaginary entities. If you ask me, “What are elves?” I will explain that they are rational children of Ilúvatar, but unlike human beings, they are immortal and exist as long as the world lasts. [Per Tolkien.] [...] > Commenting on the above passage from the Summa Theologiae, Bauerschmidt writes: “Existence is not a part of the definition of any created thing; even more, it cannot be derived from that definition, as the ability to laugh can be derived from the definition of human beings as rational animals, for the existence of a particular thing’s essence presupposes that the thing exist” > But not so with the eternal Creator, who is perfect simplicity. If God is God—that is to say, the ultimate and final answer to the question “Why does anything exist rather than nothing?” (the burden of the Five Ways)—then he cannot suffer from essence/existence composition. God does not potentially exist; he necessarily exists. Deity is the mystery where the ontological buck finally stops. Here is perhaps Thomas’s most important contribution to Christian reflection upon divinity. The eternal Creator and first mover must exist in and of himself. He cannot derive existence from some other source; otherwise the question of “why” would continue ad infinitum. But not only must God exist, he is his existence: the whatness of God is identical to his act of existing (ipsum essendi). * https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/god-simply-is-the-sheer-act-of-existing/ https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/god-simply-is-the-s... > To answer your question, I imagine something may exist at one time, then not exist, but have put in motion the events to cause it to exist again. And what caused the thing to come into existence in the first place? It did not exist, at all, at one point it time. It then did. Then it went away, but came back. I'm talking about the first nothing-to-something instantiation. Further, when it does exist, why does it continue to exist? When theologians say "God creates the world", they don't just mean in the past. Yes, you could say "God created the world" via the Big Bang, but they also mean in the here-and-now. Just as Yo-Yo Ma created recordings of Bach's Cello Suites (that will continue to exist after he dies), he also creates the sound of the Cello Suites during a concert: and the music stops when he stops moving the bow. The first ("created") sense is what is called accidentally ordered creation, while the latter ("creates") is called essentially ordered creation: * http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-lemmas-make-lemma.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-le...

throw0101a 7y ago

> Makes me wonder about the technical details of what hardware God runs on and how that was created? If it is created, then it cannot be God by definition. If we are talking about creation and existence (and not change), then we are getting into the Second Way: > 1. Everything which has come to exist has been caused to come to exist. > 2. Nothing which has come to exist can be the cause of its own existence. > 3. Everything which has come to exist is caused to exist by something other than itself. (follows from 1,2) > 4. It is impossible for a chain of causes of this kind to go on to infinity. > C. There must be a first cause, which causes other things to come into existence but did not itself come into existence. (follows from 3,4) * https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/mcgill/201/aquinas-cosmological-argument.html https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/mcgill/201/aquinas-cosm... NB: the argument is not "everything has a cause", which, if it is your starting proposition, tends to leads to problems: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument

state_less 7y ago
I'm not really sure about any of these premises. Maybe there is some reflexivity in there. Maybe there are causes as far back as anyone cares to look and we'll never know for sure if there are loops or starting point(s). How is anything caused, what does it mean for a cause to not exist, what hardware does God run on and so on?
- throw0101a 7y ago
  Let us examine premise 2: Something does not exist. How can it then cause itself to exist? I would love to hear how you think this is not logical. > How is anything caused, what does it mean for a cause to not exist, what hardware does God run on and so on? You were caused by your parents, they were caused by your grandparents. Before you existed your parents needed to exist. When your parents did not exist, neither did you. That's one way (though not the only way) "for a cause to not exist". (Called per accidens sequences by Aquinas/Aristotle.) The thing that we call "God" runs on no hardware, but is the hardware that everything else is built on. Strictly speaking, in the (Catholic) Christian thinking, God is not a thing or a being (not even the Supreme Being), but rather Being Itself: God is the act of to be itself. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aseity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aseity * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc
  - state_less 7y ago
    I can imagine inquisitive minds today might want to know more about how the God "hardware" works. We have amazing computers today that can simulate worlds. We use them to simulate and learn about this one. It's almost inconceivable in the past, but now someone might say that this world is a simulation and that our creator may have created along with the hardware our world runs on. Perhaps it seems unlikely, but we have new ideas to explore and I like to leave a little room for them. I suppose that's why I'm not so sure about the premises. The world has turned out to be really amazing and strange. To answer your question, I imagine something may exist at one time, then not exist, but have put in motion the events to cause it to exist again. So things that get into a causal loop like a mushrooms and fungal spores, a cutting or someday perhaps digital copy of a physical person, or some speculate even the whole universe gets recycled.
    - throw0101a 7y ago
      > I can imagine inquisitive minds today might want to know more about how the God "hardware" works. Again, this is a category error. God (in the Catholic/Christian theological tradition) is not, strictly speaking, an individual or a being. Not even the Supreme Being. God is the act of to be. What you mean when you refer to "God" and what theologians mean when they refer to "God" are two different things: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc > The world has turned out to be really amazing and strange. Stranger than you thing. Expanding: > Of every created entity, we may ask two questions: what is its nature, and does it actually exist? Answering the first question does not give us an answer to the second. Consider the question “What is ____?” [...] If, for example, we ask, “What is a human being?” we might reasonably reply, “A rational animal.” We need not add the phrase “that exists.” It does not improve or clarify our response to the request for a definition. We can grasp the “what-it-is” of an entity, in other words, without having to determine whether it exists. [...] > This distinction between essence and existence also applies to imaginary entities. If you ask me, “What are elves?” I will explain that they are rational children of Ilúvatar, but unlike human beings, they are immortal and exist as long as the world lasts. [Per Tolkien.] [...] > Commenting on the above passage from the Summa Theologiae, Bauerschmidt writes: “Existence is not a part of the definition of any created thing; even more, it cannot be derived from that definition, as the ability to laugh can be derived from the definition of human beings as rational animals, for the existence of a particular thing’s essence presupposes that the thing exist” > But not so with the eternal Creator, who is perfect simplicity. If God is God—that is to say, the ultimate and final answer to the question “Why does anything exist rather than nothing?” (the burden of the Five Ways)—then he cannot suffer from essence/existence composition. God does not potentially exist; he necessarily exists. Deity is the mystery where the ontological buck finally stops. Here is perhaps Thomas’s most important contribution to Christian reflection upon divinity. The eternal Creator and first mover must exist in and of himself. He cannot derive existence from some other source; otherwise the question of “why” would continue ad infinitum. But not only must God exist, he is his existence: the whatness of God is identical to his act of existing (ipsum essendi). * https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/god-simply-is-the-sheer-act-of-existing/ https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/god-simply-is-the-s... > To answer your question, I imagine something may exist at one time, then not exist, but have put in motion the events to cause it to exist again. And what caused the thing to come into existence in the first place? It did not exist, at all, at one point it time. It then did. Then it went away, but came back. I'm talking about the first nothing-to-something instantiation. Further, when it does exist, why does it continue to exist? When theologians say "God creates the world", they don't just mean in the past. Yes, you could say "God created the world" via the Big Bang, but they also mean in the here-and-now. Just as Yo-Yo Ma created recordings of Bach's Cello Suites (that will continue to exist after he dies), he also creates the sound of the Cello Suites during a concert: and the music stops when he stops moving the bow. The first ("created") sense is what is called accidentally ordered creation, while the latter ("creates") is called essentially ordered creation: * http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-lemmas-make-lemma.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-le...