What accounts for this possible world being actual instead of one of the others? That is, why is this particular possible world concrete, as opposed to one of the other possible worlds? Is it just by chance? — Brayarb

Well...

There's no reason to think other possible worlds don't exist. It's like travelling in a car to work. You being you and the car being your world. It'd be a constricted view indeed if you thought yours was the only car on the road. There'll be others travelling by car, bus, taxi, or even walking. Likewise other possible worlds may be as real and concrete as this in which we live. We're just not in it.

The philosophical question that arises is...

How does one recognize oneself? What gives us a unique identity that can be percieved to allow the distinction self - notself?

Either way God isn't really relevant to salvation in Buddhism. — praxis

But the Buddha didn't say anything about God. Why?

Actually I think I have, it's you who is frustratingly ignoring it. — Agustino

Your reason is:

Buddha kept silent to encourage people to seek the truth themselves.

This I said was unacceptable since you've just said it and it's easy to say it, why should the Buddha be silent?

Then you said that that would kill people's curiosity.

I replied that that isn't true.

Then you said I was wrong.

Then a kind poster said:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao

You agreed, giving examples of Christian mysticism.

So, my question to you is why couldn't the Buddha say something like ''The Tao that....is not the eternal Tao''

It's not difficult. As you can see above.

You've defined the universe in such a way that precludes any such possibility.

However...I do see a solution so far as communication is on the menu.


When we think in solitude, we are in a sense communicating with ourself.

So, your mirror image may do exactly what you do, but we could make progress in this self-reflection.

(Y)

Make your words soft, warm, and sweet... for you might have to eat them! :-x — 0 thru 9

(Y)

Direct experience + faith. — Agustino

But you just said God's incomprehensible. Shouldn't that preclude any knowledge, including and beyond God's existence?

Anyway, that's a side point. The main issue is Buddha's silence on the matter. You haven't given me a good reason why.

God is beyond order and beyond chaos. — Agustino

Then how do you know God exists? According to you God's beyond comprehension. That puts God in the same bracket as chaos. How do you draw a heirarchy here?

Read below:

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. — 0 thru 9

This is relevant to my question. Reminds me of...

Speech is silver. Silence is golden.

Why? Why? Why?

@Agustino, @Wosret

There is one thing I know that is inexpressible - CHAOS.

Is God = chaos?

So, you're saying Buddha was ignorant of God (omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being). I find that highly implausible.

Hinduism has the holy trinity of Shiva (destroyer), Vishnu (protector) and Brahma (creator).

You mean to say that the Buddha didn't/couldn't start off from that to conceive of a God?

This is clearly unreasonable.

But it wasn't that the Buddha was unaware of a creator-god: Brahma

Also, surely, a great mind as his must've considered an all powerful divinity.

I personally like to try to figure out what's being talked about before I move on to propositions about them — Wosret

Ok.

''God'' is an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being

''Exist'' means to have effects in our world and the afterlife (if that's true).

The concepts are neither true nor false, so that nothing is gained in affirming or denying them. — Wosret

''God exists'' is not a concept. It's a proposition and therefore, has to be either true or false. Buddha refused to assign a truth value to that proposition. Why?

You really should reflect a some more before launching a string of characters, but then you might have to change your moniker ;-) — Wayfarer

:D

You've been beating around the bush. Thanks for the energy used/abused on my account.

Anyway...can you see it through my eyes, just for a moment.

1. Buddha knows God exists
2. Buddha knows God doesn't exist
3. Buddha doesn't know

These are the only options I can think of.

AND

Buddha was a good man

So, it follows that knowledge of God's ontology is harmful in some way.

Where's the problem?

Is my assumption that Buddha was good wrong?

Is knowledge of God bad?

Have I missed out any possibility here?

Yes, and if he said that, would they not lose the will to discover the truth? Of course they would! — Agustino

I would not. In fact, it would encourage me to seek an answer. I think that's true for others too.

No, for like the tenth time, I did not. — Wosret

Sorry.

Not like he went out of his way to deny the divine — Wosret

But neither did he affirm the divine. Plus, he didn't he say he was agnostic. The question of his silence remains unanswered.

One way to make sense of it is the Buddha anticipated all the conceptual problems the divine entails, from its description (@Agustino) to the problem of evil. A wise man would discreetly avoid such unsolvable controversies. Thus, Buddha kept mum on the issue.

This is pure speculation. An attempt to read Buddha's mind but surely something worthwhile. Perhaps in silence there's great wisdom.

I answered that question. Because then people wouldn't be curious to find out anymore, they'd have a clear answer given. — Agustino

Even this is expressible in words and the Buddha could've said so. ''If I tell you anything about God then you will lose the will to discover the truth'' - see? Easy.

Your main point is God's inexpressible in words. This you offer as a reason for Buddha's silence.

But it's easy to say ''God is beyond words''. I just said it. You said it and, I think, @Wosret said it.

Yet, Buddha didn't. Why?

How have you gotten about since your car was stolen. Have you adapted to public transport? Or do you just walk? — Wayfarer

You're sidestepping the obvious fact that my statement asserts. Either Abrahamic religions got it wrong or Buddha is wrong in being silent. Is this a false dichotomy? You tell me.

He was,however, founder of one of the major world religions, which would be unlikely had he found 'nothing at all'. — Wayfarer

Exactly! So, why the silent treatment?

"God" is a word. If you remove a word, what remains is the reality underlying that word. — Agustino

The word ''God'' has meaning. An omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being. Remove that and Judaism, Christianity and Islam implode.

It's in the sutras, his objection is that it doesn't sound right, and probably isn't translated right because Buddha was poisoned (which isn't extractly clear itself...) — Wosret

May be @Wayfarer will have something to say about that.

However, it seems all the possibilities for why the Buddha remained silent can be eliminated. So, we're left with:

The Buddha was either being deliberately deceitful or there's great harm in knowing God's ontological status. This is a real dilemma for me because I consider Buddha a good man and I'm open to the existence of God.

And no - "God exists" isn't the core assertion of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam — Agustino

If I remove God from these religions, what remains? Nothing!

And yes, rational analysis is not very helpful when it comes to God — Agustino

This could be a reason why the Buddha was silent. But...he could've said that. There's more to Buddha's silence than the reasons you profer because in each instance he could've just said so e.g that god is ineffable. He didn't. Why?

Because they thought conveying that God exists would be a better way to motivate people to seek God. Buddha thought that being silent would be a better way to get people to seek God, as it would pique their curiosity — Agustino

Please read above

No it doesn't. It may be very beneficial, but impossible to communicate through words — Agustino

What then of Christianity, Judaism and Islam - their core assertion is ''God exists''. Why didn't they remain silent, as the Buddha did, if God is inexpressible?

Clearly, the discussion is diverting towards other religions but to keep it on track...

If Abrahamic religions didn't see any problems in asserting God's existence, the Buddha too shouldn't have remained silent on the matter. The contraposition of the above isn't a compliment for Abrahamic religions.

Because it's meaningless to answer questions of existence with regards to an X that people don't understand the meaning of. — Agustino

What do you mean? God is undefinable? What use is that for rational analysis? We should discard all rationality, and with it religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam and dive headlong into mysticism.

As I attempted to explain, knowledge of God is not harmful, but an empty image of God is. Isn't that also something western religions agree about? No idols, and even the name of God being something that can't even be pronounced. Literally unspeakable without misunderstanding — Wosret

So, you think Buddha was silent because God is ineffable.

Why didn't he say that? It's quite simple. You just said it. @Agustino said it. I think there's more to his silence than ineffableness simpliciter.

I'll refresh the page, so to speak:

1. Buddha found god
2. Buddha didn't find god
3. Buddha didn't know

There are three clear possibilities.

Assumption: Buddha was a good man, dedicated to alleviating suffering.

It follows that:

A) knowledge of God's existence is bad
B) knowledge of God's nonexistence is bad
C) knowledge of Buddha's ignorance is bad

A and B are reasonable. God was/is/will be a cause for discrimination/murder/war, etc. In these two options Buddha's good intent is preserved.

However, C is intriguing. Who stands to benefit by concealing ignorance? Quite obviously the ignorant concealer. Loss of reputation, credibility, all sorts of negative consequences follow from revealing one's ignorance. With C, Buddha loses his goodness. He's being deceitful. Of course, one can see a moral arithmetic whereby the Buddha achieves greater good by hiding his ignorance. However, these benefits are marred by the immorality of deceit on Buddha's part. Was Buddha a consequentialist?

@Wayfarer please have a look at my argument above.

Whilst reason dictates against discussing such a recondite question with a person whose forum name is 'Mad Fool', I will hazard a reply. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the compliment :P

Anyway, one thing's clear. You've avoided answering the question, like the Buddha, I must say.

About God? Who knows? There are endless possibilities to choose from. — Rich

Give me a possibility that best explains Buddha's silence on God, in your opinion.

Because the truth of God cannot be adequately conveyed through language — Agustino

I understand describing God is not easy. However, Buddha simply had to answer a yes/no question: Does God exist?. What's so difficult about that? People, presumably not half as wise as thr Buddha, do it all the time.

Yes, I was worried that my inquiry would be interpreted as a conspiracy theory. After all, my line of inquiry leads back to the first assumption I made: Buddha is a good man. Do you think it's possible to guess correctly what the Buddha's intentions were? Can we read his mind, so to speak? It doesn't look that difficult, since there are only 3 options which I've outlined above. Please try.

I think that all that is really important to note, is that every religious tradition agrees about one thing, and that is that morality is paramount — Wosret

Let's begin here. We can assume Buddha had the best interests of mankind in mind, morally. So, it follows that knowledge of God is harmful. Why else would he remain silent? Can you pick up the thread from there...

Just because we don't see something from nothing, it does not mean that we can't see something from nothing — Samuel Lacrampe

Perhaps I should've restricted my domain of discourse to macroscopic physical objects.

The end of our statement is interesting "...we can't see something from nothing.

Can you clarify. Thanks

Because he wanted people to see for themselves. — Agustino

An acceptable answer but why? What was/is it that made him decide the truth about God wasn't/isn't something to be shared? Given my assumption that Buddha was a decent soul the only possibility is that the truth about God is dangerous. This isn't a far-fetched interpretation. Look at history - crusades and now jihad. On the other hand we have materialistic nihilism which is depressing, to say the least.

So, affirming or denying God has negative consequences; consequences the Buddha, being a good man, didn't want to be responsible for. Anyway, he preempted fanaticism and nihilism by neither affirming nor denying god respectively.

:-} Looks like I've answered my own question.

That's my POV though and I'd like to read yours.

One can speculate — Rich

What do you think?

'No comment' — CasKev

I agree but that's a politician's tactic. Do you think Buddha was a shrewd politician - deftly avoiding controversy? Doesn't seem like it because he was also preaching Karma and rebirth, both equally hard to prove as God.

No problem whatsoever. — 0 thru 9

How so? The Buddha is censoring vital information.

think, like us, he could neither prove nor disprove God — CasKev

He could have said that. I don't see any clear and present danger in admitting agnosticism. Yet, he didn't. Why?

I think Buddha did reveal - or at least he invited people to see for themselves. — Agustino

Then why did the Buddha remain silent on the matter? Where in Buddhist scriptures is there anything about a creator god?

Thus, talking about Buddha's motives and omissions gets kind of tricky and extremely speculative and ultimately just another branch of Buddhist philosophy/religion — Rich

Yes, but it's not like we've to navigate a complex array of possibilities here. There are only 3 possibilities:

1. He found god
2. He didn't find god
3. He didn't know

He didn't say which. Why?

Daniel Quinn's idea about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the book of Genesis may be relevant — 0 thru 9

Thanks for pointing that out. So, Christianity also has something similar. In God's eyes, knowledge of good and evil is harmful. Why else would he forbid Adam and Eve from eating from the tree.

What exactly is the problem here? Buddha remains silent on God. God refuses to give Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil

Again, irrelevant. Your wager is a false dichotomy, as I've shown. As a rationale for believing in God, it fails. — Michael

Either God exists or he doesn't. Either you believe or you don't. Dichotomy is unavoidable except, of course, in trivial or irrelevant ways.

Well your definition isn't how people generally define God either. It's what people generally think but not what is generally used as a definition. — BlueBanana

Believe God = heaven and Not believe God = hell are not essential features of religion???!!!

Well, your version of God is in stark opposition to what people think of when they hear ''God''. My argument is about the latter.

How do you define God? God could be defined by his/her/its actions as well for example. We call the being whose son Jesus is God. — BlueBanana

So far as this thread is concerned, God is a being who promises heaven if you believe in him and hell if you don't. Nothing else matters. In fact, I think we can leave out even heaven in this discussion. I'm mainly concerned with the threat of hell.

The crux is that there may exist a psychopomp who punishes those who believe in him – or any other God or gods – with eternal hell. — Michael

Yes, but that's just being very imaginative. Please read my definition of God in my response to BlueBanana (above). I think my definition is true to the general conception of the term ''God''.

This is ridiculously poor reasoning. You're concluding that the default epistemic stance for any claim is that it is false based on a supposed behavioral similarity between two types of people when it comes to a single claim? — Terrapin Station

There are 3 options when it comes to dealing with propositions at the beginning - when you first encounter it:

1. Assume it's true
2. Assume it's false
3. Suspend decision

You can't choose 1 because you need good reasons for believing something to be true. There's an important step between a proposition and its truth viz. looking for good justification.

You can choose 2 or 3. I agree there's a difference between the two for 2 is a knowledge claim and 3 is a claim of ignorance. However, the similarities between the two, which I'm hoping you'll see, are

A) both demand evidence to switch to 1

B) There's no difference between 2 and 3 in terms of causal consequences. You can't distiguish someone who's never heard of Santa Claus from someone who doesn't believe in him.

So, it's reasonable to think that the default truth value of a proposition is false.

Wait. Now you're deciding which empirical option is the case by definition?? — Terrapin Station

Please read my response to BlueBanana above. Thanks.

I just, can't bear the thought of all experience ending with us. — Zoonlogikon

Me too.

I like the sense of duty you see in creating AI. I feel that too but I wonder what would be the consequences for biological life.

I've given one: God punishes those who believe in him with eternal suffering in hell — Michael

God, by definition, doesn't do that. If you're going to change the definitions then it's pointless to argue.

In this case, a "positive" phrasing of "God doesn't exist" could be something like "only the natural world exists" — Michael

But, that doesn't solve the problem. Rephrasing a proposition doesn't change the logical connection it has with other propositions, in this case the contradiction still holds.

So I think we need to operate under this experiential view. It's almost our duty to create an intelligence that will outlive us and be able to expand throughout the universe — Zoonlogikon

I like that thought. Biological evolution, despite it producing so much complexity and variety, is limited to planets and the local environment.

In creating machine AI's we would be stepping beyond such limitations and setting the scene for nothing less than a new and grand epoch in life. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic.

Yes rationality contributes to religion but does religion return the favor?

No!

On the other hand, rationalization in science has produced undubitable results. These in turn bolster our trust in rationalization. It's a two-way street, each supporting the other.

So I have to assume both that "TheMadFool is an only child" and "TheMadFool has at least one sibling" are false? That would be a contradiction. — Michael

Good point. That is a contradiction IF you hold that both are false at the same time. However, the normal process is to evaluate one proposition at a time. For instance we don't think God exists is false and God doesn't exists is false at one and the same time. We take the proposition God exists and then begin our investigation. Depending on the evidence we either affirm or deny the proposition.

Also, negative propositions don't get the same treatment as positive propositions. I've never seen anyone starting from negative propositions, e.g., God doesn't exist. Arguments begin from positive propositions. So, the issue of a contradiction doesn't arise.

Your argument suffers the same problem as Pascal's wager. It's a false dichotomy. There are more options than just "no God, and so no reward or punishment" and "God, and reward for belief and punishment for disbelief" — Michael

What are these options?

Pascal's Wager is a gamble, depending, at its core, on win-loss analysis. Yes, my argument also involves win-loss evaluation BUT...it exposes a paradox in human behavior viz. we think it wise to assume that a dog is dangerous while we, paradoxically, don't think it's wise to assume god's existence. That despite both being threats.

Today rationalization appears to apply widely, even to religion. — praxis

But the feedback loop is missing. We rationalize religion but the converse isn't the case. Isn't religion about faith, the suspension of rationality?

Well, the way I see it, I think the universe, like us, has two aspects:

1. Non-life: The cold nonliving aspect - the burning stars, the planets moving mechanically, the cold empty space that separates them; mindlessly following the laws of nature

2. Life: Struggling against 1, feeling, loving, hoping and rebelling against 1 - trying to bend and break the laws of nature, if only to survive for the next millisecond.

I equate this dichotomy with the human condition - cold logic vs warm emotion.

I think a self-aware AI, without emotion, would represent only half of what it means to be a part of this universe of ours. In that sense, it would be incomplete.

Yes, there's many advantages in being able to navigate the universe without emotion but what would motivate the AI to aspire for knowledge. It would be without an objective and without that it would simply sit there and do nothing.

Give me a good argument for emotion over reason and logic, or why a superintelligent AI would be a bad thing. Or, at least, any worse than humanity. Thanks — Zoonlogikon

Nothing is perfect, except may be God. So, both logic and emotion, in isolation, have harmful effects. Anger, jealousy, hate are destructive. Logic is cold and indifferent.

Logic and emotion complement each other - compensating and enhancing each other's flaws and merits respectively.

So, I think it's undesirable to isolate either of them in an attempt to create a super-rational being or a super-emotional being.

How do you think geniuses feel?

Some of them, e.g. Archimedes, Netwon, Euler, Turing were advanced beyond their time. It was like they time-traveled back from the future.

Similarly, I think our mental evolution, the parts that deal with rationality and morality, has outstripped our physical evolution. In a way, we're gods (able to be rational and moral) trapped in a primates' body (kills, hates, etc).