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Or: sorry if I offend you: A human wrote those words and passed them on as being God? In which case (and once again - no offense): they gave their best thoughts

• tsegratis 7y ago
  Thanks :) Your reply made me happy Redefining the universe as a loop is neat. It answers where the universe came from at each single point But if we redefine the universe, I think it is then reasonable to redefine the question: from "Why the universe?", to "Why the loop?" For instance we can define the chicken in terms of the egg, and the egg in terms of the chicken. This _does_ answer a lot of questions. And we can even attempt to throw away the base of that recursion maybe by using a continuum, a loop, or maybe even infinity(?) Which would be very neat. If I were to ask why that whole loop exists; we could say there is a loop of loops, or even an ad infinitium loop of loops of loops. But at each stage we can generalize to say we are answering the question X with "Because f(X)". You (in my opinion) have made f very small. Which is good. But if we ever truly remove f, then we are left with "Why X? Because X." Which is an unhelpful truism. "Why the chicken? Because the chicken." So I guess that every argument needs to be based on un-proven axioms. I.e. mathematics is based on a small set of axioms. You can choose which axioms. But I've never seen someone manage to remove all axioms So why is viewpoint no1 different (in my opinion)? In a sense I agree with you that it isn't To loosely quote Einstein (according to the internet): "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them" I think the bible makes this same point on several occasions -- that the universe does not define God, and values based on this universe do not contain him So any answer needs to step up. For instance: "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." Jesus uses several analogies at that point (John3) including the famous one of being born again. Since that is similar to the chicken and egg or universe loop, let me include an excerpt: "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’" > Or: sorry if I offend you: A human wrote those words and passed them on as being God? Nice. You are very polite. If you offended I think the implication is I am reacting to a hole being poked in my beliefs. In which case I appreciate you poking more Like mathematics I can move my axioms such as onto personal experience, logical evidence, the bible, or direct revelation The standard Christian view point is, as you say, that humans _did_ write those words, pass them off as being from God, and gave their best as to what they percieved God was They call it divine inspiration. I can understand the incredule response. But I think to engage with viewpoint no1, it is necessary to allow the bible, since from the axiom of the bible it is trivial to explain why the universe exists, and from the axiom of God creating the universe it is not a stretch to reach the bible But I would agree with you that I am entering the same chicken and egg issue here. I have simply proved one in terms of the other, and there are still unanswered questions as to the whole But maybe I am missing something?
  • photon_lines 7y ago
    I definitely see your viewpoint - and like I said, you definitely write with great clarity and you seem to have a great sense of belief in the system which ... points towards a God who is ever-present or ever-lasting and isn't prone to causality. I'm just trying to see different takes on people who might be exploring a self-consistent system - once which may 'create' or 'contain' itself. I'm sorry if I can't put it in terms that are less confusing. Once again, I appreciate the feedback and it's great to hear other takes on this matter :)
    • tsegratis 7y ago
      Self-consistent systems is a great thing to search for! It would reduce complexity AND allow for a self-proving belief system. Who wouldn't want that? Could you even use it as a logic device to prove other properties? Can we think of any examples of this kind of system? That might help us search for one that encompases the universe: Is there anything either truly fully self-contained, self-creating, self-descriptive, or fully self-anything? For instance the Earth is very self-contained, but depends on sun light A black hole is very self contained but still communicates via Hawking radiation Self-creating head butts against the second law of thermodynamics -- that randomness or entropy always increases in a closed system. This law sadly implies we will have to reach outside the universe if we want to be self-consistent.... Edit: Outside of that are there any thought processes that are fully self-X, would visual illusions count, such as Escher drawing the world folding in on itself? Maybe we can say the second law of thermodynamics doesn't globally apply, and the universe is an aberration within that system. But that is beginning to push outside the box of self-consistency Sorry, I'm becoming stuck. Outside of paradoxes and unbalanced equations I can only think of one answer Edit2: Oooh, in your favor is the effectively infinite amount of possibilities, which gives a lot of hope for finding other self-consistent systems. Since I'm not sure I can disprove their existence any better than as previously when defining self-consistency as 'X = X' and then suggesting this definition is an unhelpful truism But I realize that is possibly not fair 'x = y+3' is not a truism; but then it is also not self-consistent. Maybe I am setting too high a bar? --- I can't do better than repeat what Chris said: > You’re ambitious, which is great. You’re respectful, even greater