The aim, a noble one, is to keep us on the straight and narrow. The rationale: Maximize freedom & Minimize constraints to the extent possible i.e. not at the cost of our well-being/comfort/peace of mind/whathaveyou.

We, paradoxically, pay considerable sums of money to be fooled (movies, books, magic shows). It perhaps keeps us sane in a world that is dukkha (unsatisfactory). Remember Gautama was looking for an exit (from samsara). He, it seems, wasn't into magic (maya). Too bad.

:ok:

I was looking at God's relevance from a moral perspective, not without good reason: A favorite question of atheists (to theists): Are you good only because God exists? The objective of the query is to expose the theist's conceptualization of God as Judge Dredd (a cop cum judge). This, to my reckoning, immiserizes God to the point of being somebody we fear instead of love.

In addition, God's existence, in my humble opinion, doesn't vitiate the value or authority of science. God did it (theism) doesn't contradict how he did it (science).

As for disproof of God, I'm familiar with your argument from predicates (omni-powers vis-à-vis the problem of evil).

Gracias señor! G'day.

@Merkwurdichliebe

As far as I know, theocracy is just the present avatar of the critical flaw with ethics viz. that it ultimately ends up being a set of impositions. Doing away with theocracy won't, in my humble opinion, solve that problem.

Our instinct to be free (read as, in extremum, the ability to do what we want with our lives) rebels against restrictions which ethics boils down to.

Nevertheless, my hunch is that at the heart of this conundrum lies a very powerful illusion that leads us astray.

"proof" — Relativist

:snicker:

You're predictable! — Hillary

:snicker:

:fire:

My on views on the matter in question form:

1. Does it matter whether God exists/not? Buddha (Noble Silence, The Unanswered Questions). Gautama was the quintessential pragmatist.

2. Can we prove God's existence/nonexistence? OP (Before we get our knickers in a twist trying to do something, let,'s first check if that something is doable. We don't wanna waste time & resources trying to do the impossible). A Mathematician's perspective.

A coupla points:

1. That secular ethics converges on religious ethics is testamsnt to the power of rationality: if we have the same basic values, apply logic and we'll all come to the same conclusions.

2. Divine revelation is, to me, a case of, get this, divine fallacy. Moses, for example, couldn't believe that he was the author of the decalog; he thought, erroneously, that no human could ever pull something that great off on his/her own. Thus, Moses, concludes, again mistakenly, that there's got to be another source of morals, that source he asserts is God. Rather unfortunate.

The LNC doesn't state that you cannot make contradictory statements; if it were impossible to make contradictory statements then the LNC would be redundant, or would never have occurred to anyone in the first place, so I'm not seeing the problem here. — Janus

Well, kindly justify why...we're allowed to state contradictions?

Thanks. But your illustration sounds rather bleak. My understanding of Information, on the other hand, is enlightening. It allows us to see (rationally) what can't be seen (visually). :wink: — Gnomon

Ok. I knew that I wasn't really going to hit the bullseye as to what EnFormAction really is. A ballpark figure of sorts was what I was aiming for. Your thesis does make (strong) claims as to what the underlying first principle of reality is. What got me stoked was how inclusive your system is (BothAnd), something which, to me, requires us to utilize our ignorance rather than knowledge (vide infra, I quote you)

so we only know it by what it does, not what it is — Gnomon

Sorry, if this is a shallow understanding or worse a complete misunderstanding of EnFormAction. G'day.

:smile:

:ok:

Soothing words, good person! I feel energized! G'day!

:snicker:

Nope — Possibility

Alhamdulillah!

brother Agent — Hillary

:smile:

You've deliberately lowered your IQ to participate in TPF haven't you? :snicker:

For your consideration:

The official reason put forward by logicians as to why contradictions are a big no-no ( :heart: ) is that it, in combination with disjunction introduction, leads to thr trivialization of classical logic (re ex falso quodlibet aka principle of explosion) - all statements can be proven true.

Your comments about contradictions is, to my reckoning, an entirely different approach to them viz. that ~p (the negation of p) and p (the affirmation of p) are antithetical/antipodal/incompatible in a way that I'm unable to articulate at the moment.

You see what this means, oui?

The logician has no problem at all with contradictions per se. If it were possible to somehow prevent the detonation (ex falso quodlibet), contradictions are defanged as it were and become harmless and permissible.

You, on the other hand, like me, will take issue because our beef with contradictions has nothing to do with the ex falso quodlibet; our difficulty is something else entirely - it feels more fundamental, more intuitive, more true. You attempted to explicate the point using analogies. Kudos.

@T Clark

A priori, self-evident, intuitive, obvious, and common sense knowledge

If a proposition (herein that causality is logically necessary) can't be proven true but feels true, it could be a self-evident truth!

We need to look at the Kalam cosmological argument's single/unitary cause as a sufficient cause (can be single) and not as a necesary cause (can be/are multiple). The acorn seed (say) is provided with water & good soil (necessary causes). You ensure good sunlight and it begins to germinate (sufficient cause). The sunlight completes the causal set of conditions for the acorn to grow - it is one and this in the Kalam cosmological argument is Allah/YHWH.

brother Smith — Hillary

:snicker:

I like your style, assuming I've got a handle on what it is that you're trying to do.

It's midnight, overcast, new moon, there's a power outage - darkness, pitch black. I'm with my friend, Mr. Magoo, blind as a bat for all intents and purposes. My eyesight, a mole could see better. Anyway, we look out the window. I see a man, Mr. Magoo sees a woman. We argue, Man! Woman! Man! Woman! Man!...I'm angry with Mr. Magoo and he doesn't seem all that pleased with me either.

The door opens, Eli walks in, slams the door shut and announces "hey guys, I saw a person outside the window." I look at Mr. Magoo and he looks at me, we never talk about this inicident for the rest of our lives.

Which is obvious nonsense! How can a particle be at two places together? It can't! Thats why an alternative QM is needed. — Hillary

How did he know about the quantum vacuum already back then?
— Hillary

He didn't.— T Clark


He didn't.
— T Clark

It looks as if though. Maybe the two are the same in disguise.— Hillary


The mind's natural habitat is the quantum world. Lao Tzu was onto something i.e. his mind did know about whatever the hell quantum vacuum is. Have you seen gravity (the dominant force at large scales) ever give a consciousness preferential treatment? On the other hand, wave function collapse is effected via consciousness. — Agent Smith

:snicker: I maybe right but I'm definitely not all right! WTF? Our minds matter at the quantum level (consciousness/observation - wave function collapse) but our minds can't parse it (superposition, :chin: )

this thread is indeed a waste of electrons, over and out. — Wayfarer

:snicker:

Is Germany Incurable? — Athena

Leprosy is a considered a disease but Buddhism is considered by some to be a cure. Both mess up our pain threshold.

:snicker:

How can a particle be at two places together? It can't! — Hillary

:snicker:

Glitches in The Matrix aka miracles!

Pythagoras was attributed with mulitilocation (being in more than one place at the same time). That he had an identical twin was a well-guarded secret!

Hermann Minkowski (spacetime) is gonna turn in his grave.
10m
— Agent Smith

If he has enough space! — Hillary

:snicker:

What a waste of the digital resources space. :roll: — jgill

a complete waste of time. — javi2541997

:snicker:

Funny, people rarely talk about "a complete waste of space". Hermann Minkowski (spacetime) is gonna turn in his grave.

Slavery and serfdom lasted for centuries. — ASmallTalentForWar

These are now reportedly dead and buried. I'm not sure though, evil memes adapt and evolve and find new ways to survive. Just yesterday I was reading up on Batesian mimicry. Feels relevant (to me).

Another thing, what do you suppose the law is all about? Incarceration to capital punishment - don't these give you the impression that some form of eugenics (regulating the gene pool) is going on here? Then there are the social credits you gain for being a good human being? Something mighty interesting is going on, wouldn't you say?

A great math guy but something of a nut case toward the end.

This thread is like a time travel back to the scholasticism of the 13th century using quantum theory to revive that ancient nonsense. String theory vs angels on the head of a pin. What a waste of the digital resources. :roll: — jgill

I thought you might say that. :snicker:

There's a thin line between genius and insanity. — Oscar Levant

Also, good ideas and good arguments are timeless in a manner of speaking. They're as relevant today as they were back then and they will stay so until better ones come along.

Did you know, no one's actually refuted the ontological argument to everybody's satisfaction. That speaks volumes, does it not?

This is utter nonsense. — frank

Oh good, coming from you, this means I am exactly correct. — Streetlight

:snicker:

The beauty, if it is, of capitalism is that you can lend the same money to 10 different people, at least that's how it is in the US according to Yuval Noah Harari. That's called killing two birds with one stone or for the more animal rights oriented, feeding two birds with one scone. It's a most ingenious scheme if you ask me. By the way I'm a poor person!

Danke!

Evolution is not a morally guided system,e well its not a guided system at all. Organisms evolved to reproduce, thats it, many things, good and bad have come from it, but we cannot decided what is good or bad based on its results — Louis

Good is, by and large, pro-life (pro-choicers might wanna rethink their position because now they look bad) i.e. ethics seems to be be a faithful servant of (the god of) evolution which, as we all know, seems to be in the business of creating/perpetuating life (for as long as possible). A survival game or endless mode.

misfortune — ASmallTalentForWar

Misfortune can be blamed on somebody?! Marcus du Sautoy writes in a book (title forgotten) that to many of our forebears, Chance = God.

I have no idea what the modern understanding of luck is but here's a little story from my life: I'm part of a team of transportation services. There's this driver who performs poorly (late to office and all that). We put him to task and his response was that all his lapses were due to, get this, bad luck; I think he meant to imply it wasn't his or anyone's fault that he was doing so poorly. Something to think about, eh?

Judgment Day: 2060, according to the greatest mind the earth has ever known, Isaac Newton. Even his mistakes were correct! :snicker:

You really like when masks tell the truth don't you? — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Apologies if I downplayed your angst. I should've known better! Just to be clear, the bottomless pit, that's my current address! :snicker:

:ok:

pagan gods — Moses

Human + (Supernatural) Power = Superhero/Supervillain

Remember Thor (Marvel Comics)!

As for an explanation for the stuff you listed: Divine wrath OR Divine favor and everything betwixt.

3 Revolutions!

1. Creatio ex nihilo (Deus/Fluke): Nothing $\to$ Something

2. Biological: Inanimate $\to$ Animate

3. Psychological: Animate $\to$ Consciousness

---
Posited 4^th Revolution

4. Transcendence (Nirvana/Deus/etc.): Consciousness $\to$ ? Sabrá Mandrake!

Wittgenstein did portray most philosophy as a kind of mental illness — ASmallTalentForWar

:snicker:

More like being under a witch's spell:

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The whole earth had a common language and a common vocabulary. 2 When the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had started building. 6 And the Lord said, “If as one people all sharing a common language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. 7 Come, let’s go down and confuse their language so they won’t be able to understand each other."

8 So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why its name was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth.

— Genesis 11:1–9 NET — Wikipedia (Migdal Bavel)