Philosophical Vegan Forum

Okay, I retract my earlier statements, that post as a whole was pretty poor. Everything should in principle be understandable by the human intellect. The way I put it earlier sounded awfully close to the "god works in mysterious ways" cop out. Everything should in principle be logical and understandable. However, at any given time any persons intellect and understanding capacity is limited, perhaps not principally limited, but a persons capacity to understand has a certain size at any moment. Statements and claims should always be logical, however just because they don't appear logical at first sight, doesn't mean they aren't, we could just lack the perspective that allows for it's logical possibility. For example, to a layperson the existence of a superposition in quantum-mechanics might seem to violate the logical principle of non-contradiction, an object being in the state of A and not-A at the same time. The apparent illogicality just stems from a misunderstanding.

IMO the contradiction you see in the statement "God exists outside the universe" just comes from a too rigid interpretation of "the universe". If you want to call the set {God, everything else but God} the universe, that is fine by me. I call everything else but God the universe, to make clear the creator is separate from the creation, to distinguish theism from pantheism. If for clarity's sake we should call everything in existence besides God a sub-universe, or something of that sort, that would be fine by me. The infinite regress you see occur I see like the question "who created God?", or "why does the super-universe containing God exist?". I don't know why God exists, I suspect in a self-caused way (is self-causation contradictory?... in our everyday understanding of causality it is, but perhaps we lack the understanding/perspective here). If postulating a loving creator has explanatory power, it doesn't matter if we cannot regress further in explanation. Any fundamental step "upward" in explanation is "good" scientifically, if it indeed has explanatory power. So the objection of occams razor against postulating a God only applies if a universe without a God had the same explanatory power as one with a God. In my opinion it doesn't. The universe has properties that are better explained as originating from a loving source.

As a nice coincidence, I am going to study academic physics in a month! I just signed up for it. I started physics/astrophysic 8 years ago, but had a lot of mental health problems, so couldn't continue studying. My health issues have for the lions share subsided, thanks to information about spirits and my growth in love because of my relationship with God. So I'm returning to my old love (astro)physics

The following quote I find particularly interesting:

brimstoneSalad wrote:There are no timeless forces, in the proper sense. That's logically incoherent. Force, even the force you're talking about, is a thing that occurs in time.
Even gravity, as a force, is not timeless.

The ARE timeless properties of things, based on some internal logic, that GIVE RISE TO forces when things in reality interact.

For example, where there is matter, it will interact to yield the forces of gravity. Gravity wasn't sitting there waiting, but is emergent from the interaction of matter.
Likewise, we could say that if there are sentient beings, they will inevitably interact to yield the forces of love, hate, etc. Those emotions weren't sitting out there waiting in the ether, they are emergent, and formed by those interactions of sentient beings.

Gravity and Love are both emergent forces in our universe. But neither of them have any meaning without the interactions that produce them. Without that, they're just timeless principles or properties of logic that preexist by necessity making those forces possible WHEN and IF the conditions are right for them.

If "god is love", then god did not exist before there were sentient beings to manifest the force that is god's being, and it does not exist outside of that context; it is within us, and nowhere else. But it has the timeless potential to exist anywhere sentient beings are.

So could you say the potentiality of gravity is eternal, but the actuality of gravity is dependent on the presence of matter? If so I would agree.
Gravity as a force works in time, naturally. But the conditional law, IF there's matter, etc. seems to be true outside of time.

I would say Love isn't an emergent force but the creative force behind the universe. I wouldn't say God = love, as the emergent property that arises when sentient being emerge, I think Love is an emotion that God has, that allows for existence as such. It's the existence enabling emotion. As such this emotion is eternal, while particular instances of this love flowing do exist in time. Analogous to the law/force concepts behind gravity.

brimstoneSalad wrote: AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:
and our souls ability to understand God (and the universe) grows.


That's absolutely false. Understanding does not come from application. And even understanding love does not help you understand the universe. Quite the other way around; understanding the universe helps you understand how these processes work -- like forces -- and can help you understand love too. When you're immersed in it, you're more likely to be unable to see the forest through the trees.

This is probably the thing I disagree with the most. Growing in love definitely will grow our understanding. For example our empathy is a characteristic that grows when we grow in love. We can understand peoples history and choices better when we have grown in love. We can understand why certain actions are not loving, we can understand the worth of things and creatures better. If the universe exists because of Love, naturally we will understand the universe better if that Love enters us more. We might even being to understand the relationship between Love and self-causation. Understanding can come from feeling. <3

<double post>

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:Okay, I retract my earlier statements, that post as a whole was pretty poor. Everything should in principle be understandable by the human intellect. The way I put it earlier sounded awfully close to the "god works in mysterious ways" cop out. Everything should in principle be logical and understandable.

I'm glad you understand that. I hope you'll understand its extension as I mention below:

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:Statements and claims should always be logical, however just because they don't appear logical at first sight, doesn't mean they aren't, we could just lack the perspective that allows for it's logical possibility. For example, to a layperson the existence of a superposition in quantum-mechanics might seem to violate the logical principle of non-contradiction, an object being in the state of A and not-A at the same time. The apparent illogicality just stems from a misunderstanding.

Sometimes this is true. That's called a paradox, and not a contradiction. A paradox is just a seeming contradiction, wherein there's a particular trick to it such that it may nonetheless be true. These are big problems, and not to be lightly dismissed.

In the case of superposition, it's not in both states, it's a probability wave; indeterminate. Anyway, yes, these situations very often come from misunderstanding -- that is, an incorrect premise.

However, here's the rub: When you find something that seems to contradict logic, you should provisionally disbelieve it, and search for more information until you find a way it could be consistent.
The correct response is not to believe it until somebody "proves it wrong"; because then you're holding an unfalsifiable belief (or one you will not accept any proof against), since every time somebody proves it wrong you will just claim they don't properly understand it and that there's some kind of explanation for it that we don't understand. Which gets back to the first point regarding the "beyond understanding" copout.

Maybe they do understand it, and maybe it's just incoherent. But if you always reject that idea, then your illogical beliefs are held beyond reproach.

You have to accept the possibility that it's just wrong. And that's the honest assumption you have to make any time somebody shows why, logically, something is false -- until you can prove the the disproof wrong.
Only until you have come up with another way to look at it that resolves the contradiction should you then believe it (again, until shown to be false).
That's how a dialogue in philosophy should work.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:If for clarity's sake we should call everything in existence besides God a sub-universe, or something of that sort, that would be fine by me. The infinite regress you see occur I see like the question "who created God?", or "why does the super-universe containing God exist?".

Correct.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:I don't know why God exists, I suspect in a self-caused way (is self-causation contradictory?... in our everyday understanding of causality it is, but perhaps we lack the understanding/perspective here).

Yes, being self-caused is contradictory. Something can be logically inherent, but not self caused.

This is a big problem when you define a deity as a creator. You said the being was necessary for the (or our sub-) universe to exist, and yet if the super-universe can exist without a creator to make it, then clearly it is not necessary and this could just be that super-universe instead.

Now if you throw out the creator quality of the deity, you don't have this problem.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:If postulating a loving creator has explanatory power, it doesn't matter if we cannot regress further in explanation.

What? Of course it does, because then it has no explanatory power. All you did then is made it more complicated, and explained nothing whatsoever.

A. The Universe just exists, we don't know why (actually we kind of do, but that's another topic).

B. The super-Universe and God just exist, we don't know why. Furthermore, God, within the super-universe, created the sub-universe.

Do you see the problem here? All you did is moved the unknown, and add more complications in-between. You did not simply or explain anything, you just created more questions.

Ignoring the new questions you create (which are more questions than there were before, relying on large amounts of speculation) and pretending that you answered a question is just as bad a copout as saying "god works in mysterious ways".

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:Any fundamental step "upward" in explanation is "good" scientifically, if it indeed has explanatory power.

Now you're bringing science into this, and that's a mistake.
You've only done something with scientific value when your theory (and it must be a theory) makes unique predictions that are falsifiable.

Your theory must predict something that the standard model does not, in a way that can be tested, to show that your theory is correct and the standard model is wrong.

Science has no notion of "upward". It just has proving old models wrong, and bringing in better ones that won. Wherein models make the same predictions, none are considered inherently right or wrong over others provided they didn't jump in after the fact (in which case they are ignored).
That is, in order to get points, you have to guess the lucky number BEFORE the draw.

You aren't talking about science here, you're talking about metaphysics.
Metaphysics is a VERY different game, with VERY different rules (and does allow ad hoc speculation).

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:So the objection of occams razor against postulating a God only applies if a universe without a God had the same explanatory power as one with a God. In my opinion it doesn't. The universe has properties that are better explained as originating from a loving source.

Science cares about falsifiable predictions, not somebody's opinion of "well this feels like a better explanation to me". Occam's razor is a principle in philosophy, but hardly a very important rule.
You make a theory that makes falsifiable predictions, and predicts something the standard model doesn't, and that prediction is demonstrated true through controlled experimentation, and THEN your model will be better, regardless of whether it's more or less complex than the old one.

God is a failed hypothesis, not a theory. It doesn't make any falsifiable predictions that have come true. If you do, you can change all of that. But until then it should not be taken seriously.

Merely creating an ad hoc model that tries to link things together without making predictions (and I discussed this with String theory) is not empirical science, and should not be confused with it.

Muslims think the Qur'an is a better explanation of the universe. Your opinion, I'm sorry, means nothing.

Now, again, metaphysics is a rather different matter. Therein we're trying to create models that elegantly explain why and not what; we're not worried about making falsifiable predictions, but in eliminating loose ends and lingering questions, and making the models simpler.
And in that sense, sorry, but your attempt also fails utterly.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:As a nice coincidence, I am going to study academic physics in a month! I just signed up for it.

That's great. I hope you'll be able to learn quite a bit.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote: The following quote I find particularly interesting: [...]
So could you say the potentiality of gravity is eternal, but the actuality of gravity is dependent on the presence of matter? If so I would agree.
Gravity as a force works in time, naturally. But the conditional law, IF there's matter, etc. seems to be true outside of time.

Yes, that's correct. But keep in mind that a law is really a statement of a logical principle; it's not in any way a thing or force. It's much like saying Pi is Pi regardless of whether there are any circles around or not. But it doesn't actually DO anything.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote: I would say Love isn't an emergent force but the creative force behind the universe. I wouldn't say God = love, as the emergent property that arises when sentient being emerge, I think Love is an emotion that God has, that allows for existence as such. It's the existence enabling emotion. As such this emotion is eternal, while particular instances of this love flowing do exist in time. Analogous to the law/force concepts behind gravity.

That's not really analogous in the way you think it is. See above. I think you need to think about this some more.

The universe was not created by a force. Both creation and force are products of time, the universe (actually multiverse, or wave function) was not created at all.

Gravity, as an active force, exists because matter exists.
You could in a roundabout way say that matter exists because the principle/law of gravity exists (not in a causal sense), but you can also say matter exists only because the principle of Pi exists, or only because 2+2=4 (or another random axiomatic truth)-- that is, if you remove ANY principle/law or axiomatic truth, which is logically true, and make it untrue then logic breaks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

If logic breaks, the universe can no longer exist.

In that sense you can say that the universe only exists because the timeless principle of love exists, but it's equally true to say it only exists because the timeless principle of hate exists.
None of these things created the universe. Although it's necessary for all of them to be true in order not to break logic -- every possible truth must be true -- and that [logic not being broken] is necessary for the universe to exist rather than not exist.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote: This is probably the thing I disagree with the most. Growing in love definitely will grow our understanding. For example our empathy is a characteristic that grows when we grow in love. We can understand peoples history and choices better when we have grown in love. We can understand why certain actions are not loving, we can understand the worth of things and creatures better.

You're confusing ability and motivation. We have the ability to understand these things, but we may not have the motivation to do so unless we feel love or another emotion (which will provide us the motivation to understand it).
To give a cliched example: A mother may have the ability to lift a car, but believe she can not, because she does not have the motivation to do it until her child is trapped under said car.

Emotion is motivation -- this is distinct from ability.

To give you another more disturbing example: A psychopath can, without any love at all, learn to understand empathy and love in order fake the emotions and avoid detection. A psychopath who is out to murder people can empathize with the victims to understand their motivations and become a better predator.

Love motivates you to understand. But it does not give you the ability. Introspection, deep thought, philosophy, science -- these are tools that provide ability (but no motivation). You need both ability and motivation, but motivation can come from other places (and darker places) too.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote: If the universe exists because of Love, naturally we will understand the universe better if that Love enters us more.

The universe exists just as much because of hatred as love, or anything else. That doesn't follow at all that we would have better understanding of it through any of those emotions alone. Emotions just provide the PUSH to act, from doing things, to learning, and understanding.

Love can do this (provide that push), but the motivation of hatred can do the same thing; if somebody is truly consumed and overwhelmed by motivating hatred and wrath, they can grow in understanding (including understanding of love) through the motivation of that hatred and the tools of thought available to them.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote: We might even being to understand the relationship between Love and self-causation.

If you think you understand that relationship, your mental faculties and rationally have fully broken down and you need to check yourself into a mental institution. The same if you sincerely think you understand that 0 = 1.
Some things can not be understood, not for lack of ability, but because they are illogical and incoherent. This is one of those things.

AlexanderVeganTheist wrote:Understanding can come from feeling. <3

Again, it can't. But feeling can motivate you to do the work needed to understand.
A person without any feeling is apathetic, sloth, unmotivated to do anything, and only breathes because it's automatic and there is no motivation to consciously act to stop breathing.

You need motivation, it's like the gas in the car. But you're not getting anywhere without the engine and the road.