We are talking about the big questions. Philosophical questions. What is existence? What is eternity? Is it conscious? Why is the universe mathematical? Why are molecules assembling themselves into living creatures. Science does not explain these things. It gives secondary explanations concerning the mechanics of what is happening and these explanations are normally based on observation. So scientists describe what they see happening. Science is, for the most part, descriptive.

We are talking about the big questions in this thread. Science does not answer them. When science does answer lesser questions it is normally an explanation based on observations and descriptions of some other unexplained thing. Ultimately science just says 'This is the way stuff is happening'. All well and good but it does not explain what stuff is. It just describes what it is doing.

I think it is a mistake to absolutize these statements. They are just rules of thumb and there are always exceptions: the iron behind the velvet. Sometimes even war is justified (eg The Battle of Britain).

I find "supernatural magic" and "G did it" to be non-explanations (previously ... Nov 9, 2022 ... Jun 4, 2022). They could (literally) be raised to explain anything, and therefore explain nothing. — jorndoe

To be precise, science explains nothing either. Science describes the physical world: Hydrogen + Oxygen = water. But what is hydrogen? Well, a proton and an electron. What is an electron? No explanation. Nobody knows what an electron is. Science tells us what electrons do but does not explain what they are. All of science is in this situation so nothing is explained.

Religion: God did it. Fair enough.
Science: It is happening. Fair enough.

But what is an electron?

Like Jurassic Park the novelty of digital art grabs you but it cannot hold for long. It becomes tedious. These days computer art makes me feel queasy. I enjoyed Jurassic Park but I could not sit through yet another digi movie.

Perhaps mathematics and the logic on which it’s based rest on presuppositions about the world rather than the world itself. — Joshs

Mathematical truth is not a supposition. It is logical independently of what we think.

It is the other war around; the universe is embedded in mathematics. pi is a geometric proportion but it can, with infinite precision, be expressed as infinite series -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz_formula_for_%CF%80

Numbers are eternal objects and the universe is designed around them.

Numbers exist by purely abstract means. Namely iteration and partition (Set Theory)

Start with /
iterate //
again ///
etc //////////////////////////////////////////...

Partition each step: {/} {//} {///}...

= 1, 2, 3,...

Now set them in proportions as in Leibniz's formula-

1/1, 1/3, 1/5, 1/7,...

And, very simply, we go from set theory to pi to space. Now add time and you've got the basis for a universe. Numbers are the 'atoms' of spacetime.

I'm talking about individual revelation from God or His teachers. There is no other way.

As life develops, that unity dissolves. So, if you assume a divine unity, such a progression always results in a falling away from unity, as intentional beings by definition have their own purposes. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why must it fall away from unity/good? It is possible to evolve towards the good. Not all intention is against the good.

Human beings cannot discern spiritual truth by their own means. It must be given to them. Philosophy has failed in its task to answer the big questions. We must be guided by revelation and awareness.

Lucifer and the angels were spiritual, not physical beings. They descended into 'veils of matter' (Origen). The fall led to physical existence.

Press two north poles of two magnets together. You will feel (close your eyes) something solid between the magnets. Solidity is only energy fields pushing/pulling each other.

The fall of creation happened before the physical universe was created. Life in the fallen universe is imperfect because perfection is spiritual, not physical. Perfection is life made free of evil.

Except extraterrestrials visiting earth wouldn't be a miracle. There's no violation of a law of nature. Why should we prima facie think alien visitation is a low probability event? — RogueAI

Hynek suggested they get here via the Astral Plane - what some call extra dimensions or, more traditionally, the spiritual world. Many of the reported sightings suggest they are spirits but many also suggest they are biological beings. Perhaps they are both.

The main requirement would be that the humanoid form is optimal.

I agree with all your points. The genetic stuff is a complete red flag. Why should alien life have 70% genetic similarity to life on earth? Seems implausible. — flannel jesus

Someone once said the humanoid form is universal. I think it was Orfeo Angelucci.

Some children are bad as soon as they learn how to express badness in a human context. Likewise with some good children. When consciousness loves something beyond the self it becomes light. Inward consciousness, that loves itself only, becomes darkness. Evil is synonymous with ego. Goodness is synonymous with love of something beyond the self.

Be careful not to confuse 'nurtured' with merely learning to express what is already inherent.

Well you can call it the source of all that is, if you want to avoid the religious. Personally I think the emergence of existence into being (life) is an intelligent evolution.

See my last answer.

It seems to me that (ontological) space has the potential for any number of dimensions. Physical matter can manifest 4 dimensions. I suspect that dimensions are an emergent property of matter. 4 dimensions is the limit that matter can manifest. If matter evaporates back into energy the 4 dimensional spacetime would evaporate and we would be in a quantum universe of X dimensions.

In the 'beginning' existence and God are the same thing. Existence is not a verb, it is a noun. God becomes/creates. Contingent creation is a property of existence. Imagine a lump of bronze representing existence; it is. The bronze can be shaped into a horse, an eagle etc. 'Horse' and 'eagle' are properties.
The verb for God is 'becoming' ie. evolving properties.
More than one apple? There is existence and it can have many apples as properties. Pantheism? No. Existence is eternal. It becomes creation.

Physical space is an emergent property of matter. It is a physical object just like a table or a chair. Physical spacetime has an extra dimension, time. If the physical matter in the universe evaporates back to pure energy, physical spacetime disappears and we are left with the spacetime of energy. We would no longer have a 4D space. We would have something more exotic. Scientists speculate that quantum spacetime has 11 dimensions.

But I'm not talking about imaginary existences.

When we ask 'where' a particle is we must specify which spacetime we are talking about, quantum or physical spacetime. Since particles don't exist in physical spacetime and we can't map quantum spacetime, we don't know where the particle is.
We can only detect trace effects* that the particle leaves on physical spacetime.
This is why Bohr said it is meaningless to ask where a particle was prior to detection because it has no location in 4D spacetime. 'Detection' is when a particle leaves a trace effect in physical spacetime.

*eg a spot on a photographic plate.

Do you understand what existence is? What a positive existence, as opposed to nothingness, means? If you don't you will not understand what I'm saying.
Assume X has the property 'existence'.
Now ask; does X exist distinct from its property 'existence'?

Two answers:
1. X does not exist. Therefore it cannot have properties, let alone 'existence'.
2. X exists. This makes existence as a property superfluous, since X exists anyway, whence X is existence.

This proves existence cannot be a property.

Existence is not a property of God. Existence IS God. All contingent things are properties of existence. Existence is what is from the beginning. It always is. Creation is when existence/God acquires properties.

Generally speaking 'space' is used in two senses; geometric space and ontological space. In physics there are two geometric spaces, the quantum spacetime of energy and the ordinary spacetime of material objects. Since these two geometries are different the universe consists of two spacetimes, two universes. Particles live in quantum spacetime and large objects live in physical spacetime. This is why location is so ambiguous in physics; where is a particle? It is nowhere if by 'where' we mean a location in 4D spacetime. It is elsewhere, in quantum spacetime.
In an ontological sense both spacetimes are 'here' in ontological space but being distinct geometries they are distinct universes.
The geometry of a space is determined by the objects that inhabit that space. Two different geometries can exist in the same ontological space.

The difference is merely semantic. Experience is knowledge.

Such as??? :chin:

(Please, no equivocating uses of "knowing". Thanks) — 180 Proof

There is abstract, intellectual knowledge. There is carnal knowledge. Eat an apple; you know what an apple tastes like. There is consciousness, there is art, music...many ways of knowing and many facets of reality to know.

An ode to blissful ignorance? — 180 Proof

There are different kinds of knowing. In one way I don't know but in another, I believe I do.

What do know of our nature and good laws? — Athena

One of the problems with modern thinking is that to 'know' usually means abstract, intellectual knowledge as if that is the only kind of knowledge. Spiritually, our knowledge is largely through experience and intuition. Our intellect tries to formulate this understanding in abstract terms, but not very well. So I don't "know" what we know, but it doesn't matter.

George Boole is your man . Computation is an analogue of logic.

Existence. All created things are properties of existence.

We are properties of it and perceive other properties/creations.

I agree. 'Nothing' is no (created) - thing, which can be a positive existence.

... and because "nothing" causes it to be. — 180 Proof

If nothingness has a power to cause anything, it is not nothingness. Nothingness is not even there. 'It' is not even an it; 'it' is entirely absent.

I'm not trying to prove anything, just provide food for thought.

Mind is necessary for anything to evolve beyond a primitive level of complexity. Thought comes before all else that is created. Thought is more real than matter.

I cover this same ground on my TPF profile but conclude everything is self-organizing, evolving, dissipating and not "created". — 180 Proof

i. "Why is there anything at all?" Because
(A) 'absence of any possibility of anything at all' – nothing-ness – is impossible.
(B) the only ultimate why-answer that does not beg the question is There Is No Ultimate Why-Question.

There is something because there is nothing to prevent it???

ii. existence in its entirety is the ultimate, unbounded brute fact; therefore, every existent (facts events things persons) is necessarily contingent.

Existence/God contains all possibilities. The real is what has been made real from this potential of possibilities.

iii. the real (e.g. existence) encompasses reasoning (e.g. naturalism); therefore, reasoning cannot encompass (i.e. causally explain) the real.

The power of reason in our minds is God. All mind is ultimately God's Mind.