God Paradoxes

pH

the_syco wrote:

If he did, it'd be proberly called something other than a Euclidean triangle:p

And all this talk about free-will and predestination -

Can he be certain where Heisenberg was uncertain?

Zombrex

the_syco wrote:

If he did, it'd be proberly called something other than a Euclidean triangle:p

That would imply that God cannot make a Euclidean triangle where the angles do not add up to 180 degrees (in our universe at least), which is impossible because there is supposed to be nothing God can't do

robindch

> reminds me of the whole 10 dimensional space string theory thing. I
> found this link good [...]

Having just gotten around to watching this, let me second Wicknight's praise -- a really, really clear explanation. Thanks for sharing it!

So, is god omnipotent enough to create a line in the tenth dimension? And if he can, is he omniscient and omnibenevolent enough to write a flash animation to explain what it means?

Zillah

robindch wrote:

> reminds me of the whole 10 dimensional space string theory thing. I
> found this link good [...]

Having just gotten around to watching this, let me second Wicknight's praise -- a really, really clear explanation. Thanks for sharing it!

So, is god omnipotent enough to create a line in the tenth dimension? And if he can, is he omniscient and omnibenevolent enough to write a flash animation to explain what it means?

That kicked ass. I feel like laughing at everyone for not realising how impossibly small they are...

pH

robindch wrote:

> reminds me of the whole 10 dimensional space string theory thing. I
> found this link good [...]

Having just gotten around to watching this, let me second Wicknight's praise -- a really, really clear explanation. Thanks for sharing it!

Et tu Robin?

Here's a comment on that guy's own website:

The "theory of reality" that I advance on this website and in the book "Imagining the Tenth Dimension" is not the one that is commonly accepted by today's physicists.

"Not the one that is commonly accepted", is a euphemism for "They fall around laughing hysterically when they hear it"

Have a look at the section on extra dimensions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

All the other dimensions are just 'normal' spatial dimensions the current thinking is they're really really tiny we just can't see them, all that "all possible universes and infinities" on the website is pure and utter rubbish.

here's some light hearted banter about the site
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/52743

Zillah

Dammit.

OT: You own me a PM biatch.

Zombrex

pH wrote:

All the other dimensions are just 'normal' spatial dimensions the current thinking is they're really really tiny we just can't see them, all that "all possible universes and infinities" on the website is pure and utter rubbish.

here's some light hearted banter about the site
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/52743

Oh great pH, thanks a lot. Now I am back to being really confused

Asiaprod

robindch wrote:

Having just gotten around to watching this, let me second Wicknight's praise -- a really, really clear explanation. Thanks for sharing it!

Ditto, thanks too Wicknight, even I understood that.:)

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

That doesn't make sense.

Either man has the possibility of choosing one of 2 decisions, or he doesn't

Just because he thinks he does doesn't mean he does. If the second option is not a possible option, even if the man thinks he can select it he still can't

Anyway, shhh, no arguing in front of the theists

So, not in front of the theists!

Man exercises free will, not the illusion of it, within his frame of reference, which is time-bound, and sequential. From our point of view, we go along, we make a decision, the future is different. Tomorrow I will take a decision - and that decision is not yet made. It is up to me what decision I take - it is not determined by the past. Even if you had total knowledge of the Universe, you would be unable to predict with 100% accuracy my decision, because I can take either. This is free will, is it not?

God, in his frame of reference, sees things differently. For him, there is no difference between tomorrow and today - he is equally present in both places. God does not predict the decision I will take tomorrow - he is simply there, now, as I take it, as much as he is here.

If you like, you can consider this along with the multiple-worlds scenario. There are an infinite number of worlds, in which all the possible decisions ever taken are played out. God is present in all of them, at all times, for all the consequences of our free-will choices, and for every random fluctuation.

This is not exactly an easy concept, but it does produce a god who can be omniscient without impinging on our free will. There may be some specific logical flaw, which collapses the argument, but given I'm speculating on the nature of a non-existent being, I'm not going to worry about any empirical flaws, or sheer improbabilities...

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

> The "theory of reality" that I advance on this website and in the book
> "Imagining the Tenth Dimension" is not the one that is commonly accepted
> by today's physicists.

Rats. Well, he could have put the health warning up at the top, not in the preamble at the, er, end!

Son Goku

On-Topic:
I believe there was a huge essay, if not a several volume treatise, on this subject done in the late 70s. I can't remember the name although it comes under philosophy - epistemology rather than philosophy - theology.

I think it's a good example of Wittgenstein’s idea of certain words being nothing more than two human concepts put together without any consideration of what they mean "out there" in the objective world.

I suppose, "do 'all' and 'powerful' have a logically self-consistent synthesis?", would be the best way to put it.

I think that example such as the stone paradox indicate that perhaps they don't.

pH wrote:

All the other dimensions are just 'normal' spatial dimensions the current thinking is they're really really tiny we just can't see them, all that "all possible universes and infinities" on the website is pure and utter rubbish.

Totally off topic:
The extra dimensions in String Theory are based around the mathematical concept of fibre-bundles, so a flash animation like the one above doesn't come close to the real concept. I wouldn't worry much about understanding them though, as they are mostly technical in character.

5uspect

Ah okay, It was a well explained whatever it was anyway. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I'm just begining to read about quantum physics etc so I'm completely uncertain about it.

UU

Another God paradox!

How come God only seemed to appear to the ancient Hebrews thousands of years ago according to the bible. Yet, he never appeared to other cultures, and doesn't appear to the modern world now. Maybe God has forgotten and doesn't give a shït about us anymore or better still, maybe just maybe he doesn't even exist and most of the bible stories are false.

Zombrex

UU wrote:

Another God paradox!

How come God only seemed to appear to the ancient Hebrews thousands of years ago according to the bible. Yet, he never appeared to other cultures, and doesn't appear to the modern world now. Maybe God has forgotten and doesn't give a shït about us anymore or better still, maybe just maybe he doesn't even exist and most of the bible stories are false.

That isn't a paradox, but it is a good question. Though if anyone say the Tony Robinson program today about Doo***ay, a lot of Christian fundamentalists believe he will be making his next appearance pretty soon.

Jesus is coming, look busy

Polly~Flower

A paradox uncovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, which forced a reformulation of set theory. One version of Russell's paradox, known as the barber paradox, considers a town with a male barber who, every day, shaves every man who doesn't shave himself, and no one else. Does the barber shave himself? The scenario as described requires that the barber shave himself if and only if he does not! Russell's Paradox, in its original form considers the set of all sets that aren't members of themselves. Most sets, it would seem, aren't members of themselves – for example, the set of elephants is not an elephant – and so could be said to be "run-of-the-mill." However, some "self-swallowing" sets do contain themselves as members, such as the set of all sets, or the set of all things except Julius Caesar, and so on. Clearly, every set is either run-of-the-mill or self-swallowing, and no set can be both. But then, asked Russell, what about the set S of all sets that aren't members of themselves? Somehow, S is neither a member of itself nor not a member of itself. Russell discovered this strange situation while studying a foundational work in symbolic logic by Gottlob Frege. After he described it, set theory had to be reformulated axiomatically in a way that avoided such problems. Russell himself, together with Alfred North Whitehead, developed a comprehensive system of types in Principia Mathematica. Although this system does avoid troublesome paradoxes and allows for the construction of all of mathematics, it never became widely accepted. Instead, the most common version of axiomatic set theory in use today is the so-called Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, which avoids the notion of types and restricts the universe of sets to those that can be built up from given sets using certain axioms. Russell's paradox underlies the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem as well as Alan Turing's proof of the undecidability of the halting problem.

pH

Polly~Flower wrote:

A paradox uncovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, which forced...

If you are not David Darling then it is extreme bad form to copy and paste someone else's work without linking and attributing the original author.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/Russells_paradox.html

Zillah

pwnt.

Son Goku

And what has Russell's paradox got to do with God?

Polly~Flower

Lucky I'm David Darling then.. :-)

No all that I meant was that many of your paradoxes were just russell's paradoxes which are just logical blips that came around when we were making up mathematics, linguistics or whatever. God falls into this too I guess, when we were coming up with what he is or was or whatever. No cheap plagiarsm intended, apologies.

Playboy

I think it would more than likely be impossible for us to describe the mind of God in human terms. I'm sure God if he did exist would be able to reveal facsinating solutions to all these paradoxes or maybe the solutions are just beyond the power of the human brain to comprehend. But I'm also sure God would be able to rewire our brains if he liked to help us understand.

stevejazzx

Wicknight wrote:

Robin's post got me thinking about the fun of God paradoxes

For example -

Can God completely destroy himself and then put himself together again?

Can God create an object that no one, including Himself, move?

Anyone got some more?

Can god be wrong about something?
In the bible it mentions a regretful god. This implies God was disapointed by the way certain events turned out which in turn implies no pre determination, but alas if this were the case the bible would be contradicting itself tenfold as nearly every second page tells us and 'thats the way god set it out'.
Scofflaws arguments on free will are the most worthwhile paradoxes because they open a huge whole in the logic of the people who recorded Jesus and God.

Like most religons christianity is built on very solid moral teaching s
essentially "Love God and love and love thy neighbour"
In revision by modern standards there is no need for the 'god' part in that equation. What this tells us is that our primitive forefathers were on their way to civilisation (in saying 'love thy neighbour') but still too superstitous to omit the idea of a all knowing powerful God. God explained the weather, death, plauges, sickness, childbirth litrelly everything that mystified our ancestors.

It was comforting to have a god from an authoritorial point of view. He helped control the urges of those who wanted to rape, kill and steal and also maybe more importantly gave purpose to those who worked endless monotonous jobs and had no family or joy.

So god went from strenght to strenght in the minds of these primitive people but as time passed people grew curious about gods modus operandi and the powers that were at the time put forward the various contradictory nonsense we have today.

Of all of this, the idea of free will is where this very delicately balanced house of cards falls asunder. Free will essentially frees god of any responsibility for the world and it's inhabitants all of which he supposedly has created.

Some Christians might say that a child is a gift from god. No it's not it's free will. They had sex and she got pregnant and vioila, a baby. If that child is killed chrsitians say 'god works in mysterious ways' or the classic 'god called him/her' when again no he didn't that was free will, he gave everyone free will so the killer had free will and just decided to murder that child.

So hypothetically you can have an event where a child is a born and is killed almost immediately which is a bunch of people with free will negating each other. This scenario reduces the idea of meaning in the world to absurdity.

Free will exists because if it didn't god would be accountable for the tragedies of the world. And because the world see s unending tragedy god would be deemed either a cruel god or a powerless god. A powerless god would be pointless, people would lose faith. A cruel god would be written out of histroy.

So we have free will and eveything which happens is our own doing? Not quite, recently we have discovered that we we are just a small planet in a huge unpredictable, unknown universe, that is a fact. Although we could blame ourselves for destroying our own world, if a comet were to hit us tomorrow we could not blame ourselves, although really pedantic chersitains might say
'well god gave us free will so maybe we didn't put the necessary steps in place to destroy a comet before impact'
of which I would reply
'right, well poor argument, because what if a comet had of hit us a thousand years ago when we didn't know anything about them? Surely that wouldn't of been our fault?
So here we are with free will in the middle of a huge universe, like having
sun factor four on a trip to the sun.
As well as all that the bible of old documents god apearing to people and killing people and organinsing other people etc etc clearly interfering with thier free will but these days considering that lack of any definite apearances the idea of free will among christians is huge for if it is shown as nonsense then the foundation of the ideas of god would collapse.