GENIUS FORUMS

brokenhead wrote:Kevin Solway:

There's nothing paradoxical about it when you understand it.

Since it is not possible to get your mind around Totality, how can you claim to understand it?

By understanding what it is not (its parts) you can understand what it is.

Neither I nor anyone else can fully grasp what Reality and Totality are.

You are expressing something here which you do not really know.

Laird wrote:

Kevin wrote:you can't imagine something that has no boundaries.

Of course you can! Imagination isn't about forming an exact "image" of the imagined entity.

Ok, then put it this way: whatever you imagine the Totality to be will have no relationship whatsoever with what it really is.

When you imagine someone's face do you imagine every freckle, every wrinkle? Or do you rather omit details and form a bigger picture?

If you omit the main characteristic of the Totality - that it has no boundaries - then you destroy it.

So it is when we imagine the Totality - we abstract it.

When you abstract the Totality you destroy it. You seek to replace the real thing with a model, but the model is totally unsuitable.

Here is the paradox: "every thing is caused, but everything is not".

That's not a paradox, but simply a fact that is easily understandable.

when talking about the Christian God, you should respect the traditional conception. That conception holds that God is a causeless creator. He creates aliens, He is not an alien Himself.

He's not human, and he doesn't live here. Therefore he is an alien.

Also the idea of an intelligent alien being who is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea.

Just as you hold that the Totality is causeless, so the traditional conception of God is as a causeless entity, so: no, in that case God need not be identical with the Totality.

It's not logically possible for a finite being, with boundaries, to be causeless.

I understand that God is often (always?) conceived of as infinite, unlimited and hence unbounded.

God is never conceived that way by Christians themselves. Christians consider God to be apart from themselves and apart from Nature - a creator of Nature. They consider God to be a separate being just as you and I are separate beings. And they consider God to be an intelligent being just as you and I have intelligence, and with a separate mind.

If God were truly infinite (without boundary) then he would necessarily be identical with the Totality, the All.

I disagree that by your model the Totality is totally unbounded anyway.

It's not a model, but a logical necessity.

But you also describe it as deterministic

No. Things within the Totality are deterministic. It doesn't mean anything to speak of the Totality itself as being deterministic.

Kevin Solway wrote:

Why are you even talking about the concept of nothingness

I thought that that was clear: because I'm asserting that it is the natural state

Obviously it's not the natural state, given that there is indeed something.

If nothingness was the natural state, there would be nothing right now.

Laird wrote:Well He's a God in the sense that He's an ultimate:

You can't have AN ultimate though;it implies more than one, or something not final or total.Only THE ultimate.It's a contradiction of terms and/or concepts.

there is none greater than Him.

According to you theres at least something equal to him that you know of,this balancing evil demon.Further your _God_ isn't even omnipotent.

Further again still, you can conceive of something 'more ultimate' than this _God_ .... "Nature + _God_ " ie. utterly everything.Why isn't that THE ultimate?

You know what? I'm going to stick with "God", but I'm going to stick an underscore before and after to make it clear that I'm talking about my proposed conception of God and not the traditional Christian one. If pantheists can have their version of God, and if Kevin can have his, and if Hindus can have theirs, then surely I'm permitted to propose my own version? So _God_ it is.

You can propose it sure,but it doesn't seem to be standing up to scrutiny.

Kevin Solway:

Also the idea of an intelligent alien being who is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea.

You are giving yourself an attitude, aren't you? The philosophy you are promulgating is itself quite repellent enough without your helping it along. Simply entertaining the idea that there could be an uncaused First Cause - which would necessarily be intelligent - is immoral? I believe, Kevin, you may be quite the close-minded sage. Couldn't you at least have used the word amoral? Can you support the quote above in any way? Or were you just getting aggravated that some people run rings around you logically?

Dave Toast:

Not with you here. Can you see the difference between the existence of a number of crows gathered together and the existence of the murder part of a murder of crows? Between the existence of the elements of a set and the existence of the set itself?

That's exactly what Laird is saying, I think. If there is a difference, how can elements of a set exist if the set itself does not?

Kevin Solway:

If you omit the main characteristic of the Totality - that it has no boundaries - then you destroy it.

That's right, Laird!!! You destroy something that does not exist! How dare you?!

brokenhead wrote:Kevin Solway:

Also the idea of an intelligent alien being who is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea.

Simply entertaining the idea that there could be an uncaused First Cause - which would necessarily be intelligent - is immoral?

Yes, it is both irrational and immoral to suggest that any finite thing is causeless.

Couldn't you at least have used the word amoral?

It is amoral for people who do not have the capacity for morality, and immoral for those who do.

Can you support the quote above in any way?

All finite things are caused because there needs to be something to create their boundaries - and indeed their nature.

For example, let's say that there are intelligent creator-aliens. They would have the nature of wanting to create things (being creator-aliens) and they would have this nature for a reason. That is, they have it because they are caused to have it.

There is only one "thing" that is without any cause, and that is the Totality itself.

brokenhead wrote:Kevin Solway:

If you omit the main characteristic of the Totality - that it has no boundaries - then you destroy it.

That's right, Laird!!! You destroy something that does not exist! How dare you?!

As previously explained, the Totality cannot be conceived to either exist or not exist - since it doesn't have boundaries. So if you do either you are mistaken.

Yes, it is both irrational and immoral to suggest that any finite thing is causeless.

You again are presupposing God is finite. To suggest a finite thing is causeless is irrational, I agree. Why would it be also immoral?

brokenhead wrote:

Yes, it is both irrational and immoral to suggest that any finite thing is causeless.

You again are presupposing God is finite.

All along I have confirmed what kind of a God we are talking about - an intelligent alien. And an intelligent alien is a finite thing.

There is only one "thing" that is unbounded (infinite) and that is the Totality, the All.

To suggest a finite thing is causeless is irrational, I agree. Why would it be also immoral?

It is immoral for a person who has capacity for morality to speak untruth.

Laird: I'm trying to work out why you're being derogatory. If this God did exist, then He would be the one thing saving you from eternal torment, and furthermore He would be the paragon of virtue, and therefore deserving of ultimate respect. So I don't think that you would disrespect Him in that case. Clearly then, you do not believe that He exists. I can then think of two reasons why you might want to be derogatory.

The first is that you think that the ideas of Christianity are ridiculous and possibly even dangerous and you think that my twist on them somehow adds legitimacy to the religion when you think that I would be better engaged in trying to delegitimise and destroy it.

The second is similar but a little different. Perhaps you simply think that manichaeanism is on its own merits ridiculous, perhaps because you think that it doesn't fit with your experience of the world.

Am I anywhere close?

Not really mate. I'm merely making the point that a lowercase god is no God at all. Shorn of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and creator status, this mundane being resembles the traditional conception of God in none of the important ways. The only way Og resembles God is in the compassion department, just as we're all capable of. Og does not come close to deserving comparison with God. When comparing and naming the two, Og is deserving of disparagement and degradation and certainly not deserving of the same or even similar nomenclature.

DT: Og is no God at all really. Og is just a powerful consciousness, subject to the same conditions a squirrel is. Even though Og might be able to more skillfully manipulate those conditions with Og's superior knowledge, Og is only superior to me and you in the same way that we're superior to squirrels.

Laird: Well He's a God in the sense that He's an ultimate: there is none greater than Him.

I've already covered this, as has Ataraxia. Og cannot be the ultimate or the supreme by definition. Og is merely a superior.

Laird: And who knows what kind of magic (i.e. as-yet inexplicable to you and I) He might partake of that frees Him from the same conditions as a squirrel?

That's exactly what I've said. Og is subject to the very same conditions as anything else. It's just that Og is able to more skillfully manipulate those conditions with Og's greater knowledge of their workings. We too can 'magically' free ourselves from some of the conditions incumbent on our bushy tailed friend, even the conditions incumbent on our human predecessors. This greater knowledge doesn't make us gods or supreme, just superior beings in that respect.

Laird: I'm loath to presume that what we can currently conceptualise of cause-and-effect is the complete story.

As Dawkins has it, open mindedness is admirable thing. But one shouldn't remain so open minded that their brain falls out.

You know what? I'm going to stick with "God", but I'm going to stick an underscore before and after to make it clear that I'm talking about my proposed conception of God and not the traditional Christian one. If pantheists can have their version of God, and if Kevin can have his, and if Hindus can have theirs, then surely I'm permitted to propose my own version? So _God_ it is.

Fair enough. Your definition, your call. I'm just pointing out that your nomenclature is semantically inaccurate and thereby misleading, equivocal, deceiving and perhaps even dishonest.

Laird: And when a definition leads to a conclusion such as "every thing exists but everything does not" then I conclude myself that it's pretty unsuitable, as brokenhead has already pointed out.

DT: Not with you here.

Laird: Hmm? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Sorry, I suppose that was a bit colloquial. I just meant that I'm not with you in what you're saying, as in I don't understand.

DT: Can you see the difference between the existence of a number of crows gathered together and the existence of the murder part of a murder of crows? Between the existence of the elements of a set and the existence of the set itself?

Laird: Sure I can, but if an element of the set exists then how can we say that the set itself, which contains that existing element, does not exist?

By realising that we simply project the abstraction of a set and not reifying it.

Contains? Are you saying that each of these crows are contained in a murder? And that this murder is somehow actually existent in the same way that a crow is actually existent?

Seems to me you're trying to have your cake and eat it. Crows exist in that concrete manner that most mean when they say exist. Murders of crows only exist in the way that exist is generally defined around here. Funnily enough though, crows also exist in the same way that murders of crows exist, according to the definition of exist most often employed around these parts; thereby exonerating the latter mentioned definition from the problems of the former.

Laird: If one of the crows exists then how can we say that the flock of crows doesn't exist? I mean, sure, if we define "exists" in the way that Kevin wants to, then we can for the Totality (so he claims, although see one of my recent posts for my opinion that in fact the Totality is in some sense bounded, and hence must exist even according to his definition), but it doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think it makes our language any clearer and it certainly makes it less flexible.

Well I find it admirable that you're interested in linguistic clarity. I would hope you would want to therefore direct that interest towards your designation for Og.

Laird: We would also need a new word to cover the great range that the current definition of "exists" covers, unless we switched to using "is", which is an inferior substitute in many cases. Edit: and what about "exist" i.e. without the trailing "s"? There is no straightforward substitute. "Do concepts exist?" would have to be replaced with something clumsy like "Are concepts?", which would unfortunately lead to the obvious rejoinder: "Are concepts what?" Second edit: Nevermind about this paragraph, I wasn't thinking clearly. The only that time we need a new word is for the way in which the Totality "exists". But since Kevin has already allowed that we can speak of the Totality "existing" "as a figure of speech", we don't need a new word after all.

I know through direct experience that if one assumes that to exist is to present an appearance to consciousness and then applies that definition rigorously, such problems disappear, whilst the unwitting equivocation involved in the employment of other definitions and the resultant labyrinthine definitional disorder becomes crystal clear. Give it a try as an intellectual exercise. Everyone should as it's a real eye opener.

Kevin: you can't imagine something that has no boundaries.

Laird: Of course you can! Imagination isn't about forming an exact "image" of the imagined entity.

Kevin: Ok, then put it this way: whatever you imagine the Totality to be will have no relationship whatsoever with what it really is.

You sure like your absolutes don't you? No relationship whatsoever huh? So there's no way to imagine the Totality? That's a bit of a pity for you, seeing as how you talk about it so much. I wonder what you're doing when you talk about it because you still haven't answered me. You've ruled out "imagining" and "modelling". You failed to respond to my suggestion of "conceptualising". What's left? "Thinking about"? And what are the odds that you'll actually respond to me this time?

Kevin Solway wrote:If you omit the main characteristic of the Totality - that it has no boundaries - then you destroy it.

Fine, so don't omit it. Imagine it. Imagination is a powerful tool. It's up to the task.

Laird: So it is when we imagine the Totality - we abstract it.

Kevin: When you abstract the Totality you destroy it. You seek to replace the real thing with a model, but the model is totally unsuitable.

No, you don't "seek to replace" the Totality with a model - that would be impossible. You simply model it because that's the way that the mind works. Call it what you like - imagining, modelling, conceptualising, thinking about - in all of these cases your mind is forming a mental "picture" of what you're considering. It's not seeking to "replace" the actual thing with the mental picture, it's just that forming the mental picture is the way that the mind works, and you can't get around that. When you write in your posts as if you know what the Totality is, it's because you are imagining/modelling/conceptualising it in the abstract. If you disagree with me, then please put forward an alternate explanation of what you're doing when you write of the Totality.

Laird: Here is the paradox: "every thing is caused, but everything is not".

Kevin: That's not a paradox, but simply a fact that is easily understandable.

If it's so easily understandable then explain to me how when you are so fixated on the concept of cause and effect it can be that there exists a causeless entity. I've done you the service of not referring to it as a "thing", even though I find your redefinition of that word overly limiting and disagree that it can't be applied to the Totality - so if you don't want me to use "thing" to describe it, then I'll use "entity".

The extent that I've seen of your "understanding" so far is the assertion that it is logically necessary that the Totality is causeless because it contains all causes. Fine - that seems like a consistent enough model, but it doesn't answer my question: it might be "logically necessary", but that's not an ultimate explanation of how it is that everything exists in the first place without being caused to exist. And again let me preempt your response, which I predict to be "the Totality is, always has been and always will be and that's simply the natural state of affairs". Well if that's a good enough "explanation" for you for how it is that anything at all exists, then all I can say is: go ahead, stick your head in the sand and savour your narrow certitude.

And if that sounds a little harsh, then let me moderate it by writing that I suspect that in the end it's probably of little importance anyway. I think about these sorts of philosophical matters mainly for the pleasure of an academic pursuit, with little expectation that it will have any meaningful impact on my life other than to sustain feelings of awe and wonder. So reality might be infinite, or it might be finite, or it might wrap around on itself, and causelessness might be a paradox or it might be "easily understandable", or we might not yet even be able to imagine the way reality really is - it makes no difference to the way that I live, laugh and love in my everyday life. So: you savour your certitude and I'll savour my wonder, and in the meantime we'll just live in the best way that we can.

Laird: when talking about the Christian God, you should respect the traditional conception. That conception holds that God is a causeless creator. He creates aliens, He is not an alien Himself.

Kevin: He's not human, and he doesn't live here. Therefore he is an alien.

Be that as it may, "alien" is an unconventional and inappropriate label for God - He's typically considered to be in some sense "beyond" the universe, whereas aliens are "of" the universe. What you're really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily. It's a similar but slightly more sophisticated tactic to the one that Dave Toast employed when he suggested "Og" as an identifier for _God_.

Kevin Solway wrote:Also the idea of an intelligent alien being who is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea.

How is that different to: "Also the idea of a Universe which is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea"? Accept it: however you package things up, there's a "ridiculous" or "impossible" causelessness somewhere, even (especially) with your packaging.

Laird: Just as you hold that the Totality is causeless, so the traditional conception of God is as a causeless entity, so: no, in that case God need not be identical with the Totality.

Kevin: It's not logically possible for a finite being, with boundaries, to be causeless.

It's not explicable that an infinite Totality is causeless, but that doesn't stop you from believing that it is anyway. The concept of the Abrahamic God can be criticised in many ways but being causeless is not one of them.

[reinserting some quotes]

Laird: do you accept that the causelessness of the Totality is no less "impossible" than the causelessness of a creator God?

Kevin: The first has no boundaries, while the second one does

Laird: Not according to what I understand of theology. I understand that God is often (always?) conceived of as infinite, unlimited and hence unbounded.

Kevin: If God were truly infinite (without boundary) then he would necessarily be identical with the Totality, the All.

There are different ways in which an entity can be infinite (without boundary). One is in the temporal dimension, another is in one (or more) of the spatial dimensions, another is in the web of cause and effect. Perhaps you can think of other ways. I imagine that you'd hold that "truly infinite" means being infinite in all possible ways. Fair enough, I was suggesting that we might conceive of God as being infinite in certain ways - for example He might have an infinite creative capacity or He might have infinite energy - but I see that for you that's not good enough to be "truly boundless".

Anyway, I think that what you're really saying is that it's understandable that something is causeless when it is everything, but not when it is less than everything. But why should that be? It's just as strange to have an entirety that is uncaused as it is to have an individual "thing" (by your definition) that is uncaused. And we already have quantum randomness that suggests - to me at least (you tell me that you've posted links in the past where scientists talk about this issue and I'd appreciate you posting them again) - some form of causelessness within the universe. So there's already a precedent for it that suggests that the causelessness traditionally ascribed to God is not so impossible after all.

Laird: I disagree that by your model the Totality is totally unbounded anyway.

Kevin: It's not a model, but a logical necessity.

Still in denial that you're modelling? Ah well, I've tried in the past to put that delusion to rest but it seems that you have a mental block.

Anyway, would you care to respond to the substance of my point? For your reference, here is the whole thing again:

Laird wrote:I disagree that by your model the Totality is totally unbounded anyway. You describe it as being infinite in all spatial and temporal directions. OK, so that's a form of unboundedness. But you also describe it as deterministic: in that sense you have compared it to a "block". So in that sense it has a "shape" - being the fixed (albeit infinite) pattern of events of which it is comprised, and in the sense that a shape has a boundary, so does the Totality have a boundary.

You deny that it's possible to question the causes of the Totality being that it contains all causes, but we might reasonably ask: why does the "block" of the Totality have the "fixed shape" that it does, and not some other shape?

Laird: But you also describe it as deterministic

Kevin: No. Things within the Totality are deterministic. It doesn't mean anything to speak of the Totality itself as being deterministic.

I don't see that you're making meaningful distinction. It smacks to me of more need to pick petty fault.

Kevin: Why are you even talking about the concept of nothingness

Laird: I thought that that was clear: because I'm asserting that it is the natural state

Kevin: Obviously it's not the natural state, given that there is indeed something.

It seems that I'm not communicating effectively by using the word "natural", so let me try another one: "expected".

Laird: What you're really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily. It's a similar but slightly more sophisticated tactic to the one that Dave Toast employed when he suggested "Og" as an identifier for _God_.

Eh?

You mean that it's similar to the tactic that you suggested I was using? The suggestion of which I've since corrected and explained to be quite the opposite.

Laird: Well He's a God in the sense that He's an ultimate:

Ataraxia: You can't have AN ultimate though;it implies more than one, or something not final or total.Only THE ultimate.It's a contradiction of terms and/or concepts.

Ultimates have a context though. A mathematical infinite is an ultimate in the context of numbers. A Cray is an ultimate with respect to supercomputers (or is it these days? Might be that it's massively parallel Linux clusters that are the ultimate supercomputers at present). Mount Everest is the ultimate in the context of mountain climbing destinations.

So what I mean is that _God_ is the ultimate with respect to the forces of good. So He is "an" ultimate because there are the other types of ultimates that I gave examples of in the previous paragraph.

What would "THE" ultimate be anyway? The ultimate what?

Laird: there is none greater than Him.

Ataraxia: According to you theres at least something equal to him that you know of,this balancing evil demon.

Equal in power, but opposite in virtue.

Ataraxia wrote:Further your _God_ isn't even omnipotent.

Well yeah, as you already know, the concept of omnipotence has some logical problems. I'm just trying to come up with a saner conception of God than the Christian one.

Ataraxia wrote:Further again still, you can conceive of something 'more ultimate' than this _God_ .... "Nature + _God_ " ie. utterly everything.Why isn't that THE ultimate?

Again I'll ask, ultimate in which context? Number of contained things?

You can propose it sure,but it doesn't seem to be standing up to scrutiny.

Well I don't see that anyone has really as-yet scrutinised it in the sense of assessing its plausibility. All that I've seen you and Dave Toast do is criticise the application of the identifier "God" to this being and argue that He's not all that much of a big deal anyway. Fine, you might not find _God_ to be an inspiring concept, but neither of you have done anything to show that He's an implausible one.

So in the absence of external criticism, I'll supply some of my own.

My main criticism of the scenario that I've proposed is that it's hard to reconcile it with an evolutionary universe. If conscious life is the main object of the battle between the forces of good and evil, then what were these two super-beings doing in all of the billions of years before life evolved? And by whose hand was the universe and ultimately life created - _God_'s or _Satan_'s or in combination, and if in combination, then how do we explain two sworn enemies cooperating? And again, if conscious life is the main object of the battle then why is there apparently so little of it in relation to the rest of the universe - what's the point of all of those countless stars when they have no bearing on the battle between good and evil?

Now if you'd asked me questions like those then I might have accepted that my conception of _God_ had been scrutinised. And to be honest I find it difficult to answer them. I've tried whilst writing this post to come up with sensible-sounding answers but it's difficult to do so without seriously challenging the accepted scientific orthodoxy: that the universe is running along under its own steam according to fixed physical rules and without supernatural intervention. And I've decided that this forum is not the place to present speculation to the contrary. I'll reconsider that decision in the event that I'm challenged to support my existing speculations better.

Dave Toast wrote:I'm merely making the point that a lowercase god is no God at all. Shorn of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and creator status, this mundane being resembles the traditional conception of God in none of the important ways.

I find the concepts of omnipotence and omniscience to be quite problematic, even implausible, so my conception - _God_ - is not all-powerful and all-knowing but rather the most-powerful and most-knowing (of the "good" forces). I maintain that this is at the very least a "resemblance" to the traditional conception of God. As for omnipresence and creatorship, there's no reason that _God_ couldn't possess those qualities to a significant enough degree to reasonably lay claim to them. Of course He wouldn't be "present" in _Satan_, but then I don't think that the traditional God, even being held to be "omnipresent", is held to be "present" in _Satan_, so again it's reasonable to say that _God_ "resembles" the traditional God in this respect. And of course He wouldn't have created His opposite, so He would not be the ultimate creator, but we might speculate that He is the primary creative force behind the universe, which again bears a strong "resemblance" to the traditional God.

Dave Toast wrote:Og does not come close to deserving comparison with God.

I hope that my previous paragraph makes it plain that I strongly disagree with this.

Dave Toast wrote:When comparing and naming the two, Og is deserving of disparagement and degradation and certainly not deserving of the same or even similar nomenclature.

So you're disparaging _God_ because He's not God. That strikes me as a particularly weak reason to disparage a being. Do you likewise disparage all human beings for not being God too? Come on mate, there's got to be another reason behind your disparagement. My best guess is that you think that the concept of _God_ is implausible and you're using mockery to express your distaste for the idea. Perhaps you concur with the scrutiny that I applied to my own speculations in my most recent post to Ataraxia. Or perhaps you have your own explanation of why it's an implausible scenario. If so, then I'm interested to hear it.

Laird: Well He's a God in the sense that He's an ultimate: there is none greater than Him.

DT: I've already covered this, as has Ataraxia. Og cannot be the ultimate or the supreme by definition. Og is merely a superior.

Please see the first three paragraphs of my most recent post to Ataraxia for my take on this.

Dave Toast wrote:This greater knowledge doesn't make us gods or supreme, just superior beings in that respect.

Well, I maintain that there are regions on the scale of knowledge (and power) where an animal becomes a human and then where a human becomes a god - there are clearly in polytheistic religions conceptions of "gods" who are thus referred to due to the amount of knowledge/power that they hold. I think that it's reasonable to extend this to say that there is a point on the scale of knowledge/power where a god becomes _God_ - namely the point where no further knowledge/power is possible.

As Dawkins has it, open mindedness is admirable thing. But one shouldn't remain so open minded that their brain falls out.

Yeah, I like that aphorism. I'm walking around with half my noodle hanging out. :-P

Laird: So _God_ it is.

DT: Fair enough. Your definition, your call. I'm just pointing out that your nomenclature is semantically inaccurate and thereby misleading, equivocal, deceiving and perhaps even dishonest.

Again, I refer you to my first paragraph in this post to make it clear that I strongly disagree with you.

Laird: And when a definition leads to a conclusion such as "every thing exists but everything does not" then I conclude myself that it's pretty unsuitable, as brokenhead has already pointed out.

DT: Not with you here.

Laird: Hmm? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

DT: Sorry, I suppose that was a bit colloquial. I just meant that I'm not with you in what you're saying, as in I don't understand.

Ah! If you'd prefaced it with "I'm" then I would have understood. I had thought that you'd meant "That isn't the case while you're around".

DT: Can you see the difference between the existence of a number of crows gathered together and the existence of the murder part of a murder of crows? Between the existence of the elements of a set and the existence of the set itself?

Laird: Sure I can, but if an element of the set exists then how can we say that the set itself, which contains that existing element, does not exist?

DT: By realising that we simply project the abstraction of a set and not reifying it.

Hmm, it seems to me though that according to QRS (I gather that you sympathise with a lot of their philosophy, and I'm assuming that you sympathise with this reasoning - please correct me if I'm wrong), every "thing" is an abstraction of sorts, being that it's the product of causes, with an arbitrary boundary. So the element of the set is no less an abstraction than the set itself, and that the set is a "projected abstraction" is not an argument against my feeling that the container (set) must exist if that which it contains (the element) exists, because each element is likewise a "projected abstraction".

Dave Toast wrote:Contains? Are you saying that each of these crows are contained in a murder? And that this murder is somehow actually existent in the same way that a crow is actually existent?

Oh, sorry, I really didn't read the bit about murder properly at all. I kind of glossed over it and formed the impression that it was a strange typo and that by "the murder part of a murder of crows" you really meant "the flock of crows". I know, I know - a pretty lame misinterpretation, but that's what you get when you rush a response.

So my real response would be that in forming this scenario you're not comparing apples with apples. The original point of contention was over Kevin's assertion that the Totality (everything) does not exist whilst every thing that it contains does. Now "the murder of crows" is not to "an individual crow" as "the Totality" is to "an individual thing", precisely because - as you question me about - it does not "contain" each crow as the Totality "contains" each thing.

Dave Toast wrote:I know through direct experience that if one assumes that to exist is to present an appearance to consciousness and then applies that definition rigorously, such problems disappear

...and new ones appear. In a universe without consciousness, nothing would exist. That's just bizarre.

Dave Toast wrote:

Laird: What you're really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily. It's a similar but slightly more sophisticated tactic to the one that Dave Toast employed when he suggested "Og" as an identifier for _God_.

Eh?

You mean that it's similar to the tactic that you suggested I was using? The suggestion of which I've since corrected and explained to be quite the opposite.

Your correction didn't hold up in my eyes - see above.

Ultimates have a context though. A mathematical infinite is an ultimate in the context of numbers. A Cray is an ultimate with respect to supercomputers (or is it these days? Might be that it's massively parallel Linux clusters that are the ultimate supercomputers at present). Mount Everest is the ultimate in the context of mountain climbing destinations.

So what I mean is that _God_ is the ultimate with respect to the forces of good. So He is "an" ultimate because there are the other types of ultimates that I gave examples of in the previous paragraph.

It seems to me you're bastardising what we understand by the word ultimate.

What would "THE" ultimate be anyway? The ultimate what?

The subject of this thread is 'God'.I don't recognise such an entity personally.So the question should really be directed at yourself. You've introduced the word ultimate in regards to this subject.

To me the only thing we can rationally describe as 'the ultimate' is utterly everything. QSR, and some others who post here,and pantheists like to call utterly everything- 'God'
Personally I don't see the necessity to this; i find the terms 'Nature','Universe','Totality' or 'All' more than satisfactory, but at least saying 'God' in this context it's not logically inconsistent, as far as I can tell.

Laird: there is none greater than Him.

Ataraxia: According to you theres at least something equal to him that you know of,this balancing evil demon.

Laird:Equal in power, but opposite in virtue.

So two 'ultimates' ?

Ataraxia wrote:Further your _God_ isn't even omnipotent.

Laird:Well yeah, as you already know, the concept of omnipotence has some logical problems. I'm just trying to come up with a saner conception of God than the Christian one.

As Dave Toast has pointed out , and out more eloquently than I,you've watered down God to solve a few logical problems(like the problem of evil and the paradox of omnipotence) to the point where this _god_ isn't particularly special or useful.And certainly can't be described as "ultimate"

Again I'll ask, ultimate in which context? Number of contained things?

In the context of 'God'

Well I don't see that anyone has really as-yet scrutinised it in the sense of assessing its plausibility. All that I've seen you and Dave Toast do is criticise the application of the identifier "God" to this being and argue that He's not all that much of a big deal anyway. Fine, you might not find _God_ to be an inspiring concept, but neither of you have done anything to show that He's an implausible one.

As someone pointed out,"you want your cake and eat it too"

You watered down _God_ so he isn't anything like the traditional idea of God is-like omnipresenct,omnipotent etc- to avoid logical difficultities. But then you appeal to this _God_ to solve Paul Davies' like questions in regard to 'Cosmic Fine tunning'

It's logical 'cheating'

Appeals to imagination don't hold much sway with me I'm afraid.I could posit anything using my imagination.Unicorns,spaghetti monsters,serprents that make the sun rise and fall each day,and so forth.But i wouldn't then expect to be taken seriously.At least not on a forum where people are interested in discovering truth.

So in the absence of external criticism, I'll supply some of my own.

My main criticism of the scenario that I've proposed is that it's hard to reconcile it with an evolutionary universe. If conscious life is the main object of the battle between the forces of good and evil, then what were these two super-beings doing in all of the billions of years before life evolved? And by whose hand was the universe and ultimately life created - _God_'s or _Satan_'s or in combination, and if in combination, then how do we explain two sworn enemies cooperating? And again, if conscious life is the main object of the battle then why is there apparently so little of it in relation to the rest of the universe - what's the point of all of those countless stars when they have no bearing on the battle between good and evil?

I don't see the world like that so it doesn't really occur to me use that as a means of argument.These are your ideas of the world,that you seem to think need solving.

The universe reduced to some battle between good and evil sounds like super hero comic stuff to me.

Now if you'd asked me questions like those then I might have accepted that my conception of _God_ had been scrutinised. And to be honest I find it difficult to answer them. I've tried whilst writing this post to come up with sensible-sounding answers but it's difficult to do so without seriously challenging the accepted scientific orthodoxy: that the universe is running along under its own steam according to fixed physical rules and without supernatural intervention. And I've decided that this forum is not the place to present speculation to the contrary. I'll reconsider that decision in the event that I'm challenged to support my existing speculations better.

The only thing i really ask on this subject is that arguments remain reasoned-they don't necessarily have to stick to scientific orthodoxy.

If you stick with that line,then you will find you will get no argument from me.

Laird wrote:

Ok, then put it this way: whatever you imagine the Totality to be will have no relationship whatsoever with what it really is.

No relationship whatsoever huh?

Not if you leave out the fact that the Totality doesn't have boundaries.

So there's no way to imagine the Totality?

No.

What's left? "Thinking about"?

Experiencing it.

If you omit the main characteristic of the Totality - that it has no boundaries - then you destroy it.

Fine, so don't omit it. Imagine it.

When you imagine the Totality, you leave out the fact that it has no boundaries.

No, you don't "seek to replace" the Totality with a model - that would be impossible. You simply model it because that's the way that the mind works.

A model is only useful if it accurately models the real thing. Your model of the Totality doesn't even remotely model the real thing.

explain to me how when you are so fixated on the concept of cause and effect it can be that there exists a causeless entity.

The Totality is not an "entity", since it has no boundaries.

that's not an ultimate explanation of how it is that everything exists in the first place

There's no such thing as a "first place" with regard to the Totality, which has no boundaries, and contains time.

This "first place" is something you are imagining, but which has no relationship whatsoever with the Totality.

He [God] is not an alien Himself.

He's not human, and he doesn't live here. Therefore he is an alien.

Be that as it may, "alien" is an unconventional and inappropriate label for God

It is perfectly appropriate. Such a God is an alien with questionable motives.

He's typically considered to be in some sense "beyond" the universe, whereas aliens are "of" the universe.

The Christian God is held to be an intelligent being with a separate mind, so he is definitely of the universe.

Kevin Solway wrote:Also the idea of an intelligent alien being who is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea.

How is that different to: "Also the idea of a Universe which is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea"?

As I've said previously, the difference is that the Totality is infinite (without boundaries) while the traditional Christian God is finite (with boundaries). That is a huge difference.

It's not logically possible for a finite being, with boundaries, to be causeless.

It's not explicable that an infinite Totality is causeless

The Totality can't be conceived as being either explicable or inexplicable, since it doesn't have boundaries.

The only way you could conceive it as inexplicable is by projecting boundaries onto it, which it does not have.

If God were truly infinite (without boundary) then he would necessarily be identical with the Totality, the All.

I imagine that you'd hold that "truly infinite" means being infinite in all possible ways. Fair enough, I was suggesting that we might conceive of God as being infinite in certain ways - for example He might have an infinite creative capacity or He might have infinite energy - but I see that for you that's not good enough to be "truly boundless".

That's right. The Totality is infinitely larger than such a puny God.

Anyway, I think that what you're really saying is that it's understandable that something is causeless when it is everything, but not when it is less than everything. But why should that be?

Because it's not logically possible for everything to be caused, because there is nothing other than itself.

It doesn't mean anything to speak of the Totality itself as being deterministic.

I don't see that you're making meaningful distinction.

That's because you don't see a distinction between the Totality, which is unbounded, and the bounded things within it.

Obviously it's [nothingness] not the natural state, given that there is indeed something.

It seems that I'm not communicating effectively by using the word "natural", so let me try another one: "expected".

I expect there to be whatever is natural. And what currently exists is what is natural. So it is perfectly expected.

Ataraxia wrote:It seems to me you're bastardising what we understand by the word ultimate.

Oh really? Care to explain why?

Laird: What would "THE" ultimate be anyway? The ultimate what?

Ataraxia: The subject of this thread is 'God'.I don't recognise such an entity personally.So the question should really be directed at yourself. You've introduced the word ultimate in regards to this subject.

To me the only thing we can rationally describe as 'the ultimate' is utterly everything. QSR, and some others who post here,and pantheists like to call utterly everything- 'God'
Personally I don't see the necessity to this; i find the terms 'Nature','Universe','Totality' or 'All' more than satisfactory, but at least saying 'God' in this context it's not logically inconsistent, as far as I can tell.

Well if you want to direct the question at me then I'd say that THE ultimate for me personally would be the answers to the mysteries of existence - the "real" 42 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - that's what I'd mean if I wrote about an unqualified ultimate. I guess that everyone's going to have their own interpretation of what THE ultimate is though, and you and QRS are welcome to your idea that it's "everything". But either way, my point stands that an ultimate has a context. The context of my personal ultimate is "answers to mysteries" and the context of your personal ultimate - if you'll allow me to say so - is "elements of reality" or something similar. So I don't see how I'm "bastardising" the word ultimate to write that it always has a context.

And I've already explained why I introduced the word ultimate in regards to this subject: because _God_ is an ultimate in the context of good forces, and if some person decides that "good forces" is the context of eir personal Ultimate, then _God_ would be THE ultimate for that person.

Laird: there is none greater than Him.

Ataraxia: According to you theres at least something equal to him that you know of,this balancing evil demon.

Laird:Equal in power, but opposite in virtue.

Ataraxia: So two 'ultimates' ?

Sure - as I said, there are many ultimates and I gave you three examples in my last post. These are simply two more examples: "ultimate force for good" and "ultimate force for evil".

Ataraxia: Further your _God_ isn't even omnipotent.

Laird:Well yeah, as you already know, the concept of omnipotence has some logical problems. I'm just trying to come up with a saner conception of God than the Christian one.

Ataraxia: As Dave Toast has pointed out , and out more eloquently than I,you've watered down God to solve a few logical problems(like the problem of evil and the paradox of omnipotence) to the point where this _god_ isn't particularly special or useful.And certainly can't be described as "ultimate"

As I've already explained, I disagree that _God_ can't be described as "ultimate". He is the ultimate force for good. I will accept that I've watered God down to the point that He isn't as useful for explaining the existence of the universe though.

Laird: Again I'll ask, ultimate in which context? Number of contained things?

Ataraxia: In the context of 'God'

Well that's pretty arbitrary! Are you just saying that because it happens to be the subject of the thread? If I asked you in a thread about peanuts what "THE" ultimate's context is would you answer "peanuts"? If it is "THE" ultimate then it can't depend upon which thread we're in.

Ataraxia wrote:You watered down _God_ so he isn't anything like the traditional idea of God is-like omnipresenct,omnipotent etc- to avoid logical difficultities. But then you appeal to this _God_ to solve Paul Davies' like questions in regard to 'Cosmic Fine tunning'

It's logical 'cheating'

Actually I wasn't particularly thinking of my conception of _God_ when I wrote about cosmic fine tuning, but I suppose that it works - _God_ could still be conceived of as the prime creative force behind the universe, as I wrote in my last post to Dave Toast. I don't see how there's any logical cheatery involved.

Ataraxia wrote:Appeals to imagination don't hold much sway with me I'm afraid.I could posit anything using my imagination.Unicorns,spaghetti monsters,serprents that make the sun rise and fall each day,and so forth.But i wouldn't then expect to be taken seriously.At least not on a forum where people are interested in discovering truth.

Well it's a matter of faith that ultimate truth can even be discovered. My personal opinion is that it's unlikely. I don't consider what's propounded as the orthodoxy of this forum to be "absolute truth", although some of it certainly is accurate.

I use my imagination because, as I wrote earlier, I've had some difficult-to-explain experiences that this scenario would help to explain. In the absence of those experiences I would probably have an attitude similar to yours regarding what I'm speculating on - i.e. that: "The universe reduced to some battle between good and evil sounds like super hero comic stuff to me."

Fair enough Laird.Your _God_ has worn me down.

"Uncle"

Laird: What you're really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily. It's a similar but slightly more sophisticated tactic to the one that Dave Toast employed when he suggested "Og" as an identifier for _God_.

DT: You mean that it's similar to the tactic that you suggested I was using? The suggestion of which I've since corrected and explained to be quite the opposite.

Laird: Your correction didn't hold up in my eyes - see above.

Wow, I know we're antipodean but it's more like we're on different planets.

Here you have suggested that what I was "really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily". I corrected this suggestion, and later assertion, when I said:

"I'm merely making the point that a lowercase god is no God at all. Shorn of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and creator status, this mundane being resembles the traditional conception of God in none of the important ways. The only way Og resembles God is in the compassion department, just as we're all capable of. Og does not come close to deserving comparison with God. When comparing and naming the two, Og is deserving of disparagement and degradation and certainly not deserving of the same or even similar nomenclature."

So rather than reducing the traditional conception of God to something more easily scoffed at, which is what you said I was doing, I was actually venerating the traditional conception of God when compared with the concept of Og. As I said, what I was doing was quite the opposite to what you suggested and then asserted that I was doing. You imagine I was denigrating when I was actually venerating, quite clearly.

This is exactly what happened last time we spoke on another subject. You are not reading the words simply for what they are. Rather you are assigning imagined motivation and agenda to their construction and then reading them through that filter. Even once your misconception has been clearly pointed out you still insist that the correction didn't stand up in your eyes when it's actually not even a matter for discussion. When my point is put in such crystal and unequivocal terms, you still manage to misinterpret it due to the filter of imagined agenda you confidently and yet indiscriminately assign to my words.

Am I then motivated to see this as a conversation worth having?

Kevin: Ok, then put it this way: whatever you imagine the Totality to be will have no relationship whatsoever with what it really is.

Laird: No relationship whatsoever huh?

Kevin: Not if you leave out the fact that the Totality doesn't have boundaries.

Well I don't leave that fact out when I imagine the Totality. Do you?

Laird: So there's no way to imagine the Totality?

Kevin: No.

Have it your way then mate. Reduce yourself to ridiculousness.

Laird: What's left? "Thinking about"?

Kevin: Experiencing it.

What's happened to that practitioner of "bloodied and dangerous" thought? He's turned into a New Ager / hippy. "Don't think about it, man, just experience it", wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and dropping a tab of acid on his tongue.

Kevin: If you omit the main characteristic of the Totality - that it has no boundaries - then you destroy it.

Laird: Fine, so don't omit it. Imagine it.

Kevin: When you imagine the Totality, you leave out the fact that it has no boundaries.

I dunno about you but I don't.

Kevin Solway wrote:Your model of the Totality doesn't even remotely model the real thing.

"My" model is nothing other than the one that you've described to me.

Laird: explain to me how when you are so fixated on the concept of cause and effect it can be that there exists a causeless entity.

Kevin: The Totality is not an "entity", since it has no boundaries.

Please don't tell me that we're going to go through all of this again. We've just been through it with you rejecting "imagines", "models", "conceptualises" and "thinks about" with respect to what you do of the Totality. Now we're starting a new cycle with respect to which category the Totality falls into. OK, let's get started then. So... the Totality isn't a "thing" and nor will you allow me to use the words "object" nor "entity". So which word can I use in this context then? Could it be "construct"? Or "agglomeration"? Or "structure"? None of those seem as suitable as "entity". Can you provide me with something suitable?

Laird: that's not an ultimate explanation of how it is that everything exists in the first place

Kevin: There's no such thing as a "first place" with regard to the Totality, which has no boundaries, and contains time.

It was a figure of speech. If you find it inappropriate then for "in the first place" substitute "at all". You've avoided the issue though: how do you explain that there is anything at all if everything is uncaused?

Laird: He [God] is not an alien Himself.

Kevin: He's not human, and he doesn't live here. Therefore he is an alien.

Laird: Be that as it may, "alien" is an unconventional and inappropriate label for God

Kevin: It is perfectly appropriate. Such a God is an alien with questionable motives.

Again, have it your way mate. Pervert our language as per usual.

Kevin: Also the idea of an intelligent alien being who is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea.

Laird: How is that different to: "Also the idea of a Universe which is causeless is completely ridiculous and it is immoral to respect such an idea"?

Kevin: As I've said previously, the difference is that the Totality is infinite (without boundaries) while the traditional Christian God is finite (with boundaries). That is a huge difference.

As I've already argued, the Totality can be considered to have boundaries just as the Christian God can be considered to have boundaries (and I note in passing that for the second time you failed to respond to my argument - could it be that you can't think of a counter to it?). But in any case, even assuming that the Totality were unbounded, how does that make its causelessness any less "ridiculous" and "impossible" than that of the supposed God? Oh, and "because it simply is, always has been and always will be" is no explanation, it's merely a description of what you believe.

Kevin: It's not logically possible for a finite being, with boundaries, to be causeless.

Laird: It's not explicable that an infinite Totality is causeless

Kevin: The Totality can't be conceived as being either explicable or inexplicable, since it doesn't have boundaries.

Ooo, the Totality is so magical! It just can't be pinned down at all can it? And it all comes down to: lack of boundaries! There's something so very special about that isn't there? Well you know what: I don't reckon firstly that the Totality is boundless in every respect and secondly that lack of boundaries excuses the Totality from ultimate questions and from being characterised.

The Totality is infinitely larger than such a puny God.

More unjustified denigration. There's nothing puny about the Christian conception of God, albeit that there's plenty illogical about it. He has the power to do anything: to transform your mindless Totality into any shape that He wants to.

Laird: Anyway, I think that what you're really saying is that it's understandable that something is causeless when it is everything, but not when it is less than everything. But why should that be?

Kevin: Because it's not logically possible for everything to be caused, because there is nothing other than itself.

Your "logical necessity" is no explanation though. Have you ever studied physics? I studied it in high school and muddled my way through in university. The thing that I noticed about it was that you could derive formulas that were "logically necessary" given your starting conditions but that you had to find a separate explanation for that was not inherent in your starting conditions - an explanation like "the energy that we can calculate using this formula is that which is lost as heat" when it wasn't obvious at all from the formula itself exactly what the energy was being released as. And that's what I'm saying to you. You have "derived" a "formula" (i.e. a conclusion) that the Totality is causeless, but you don't have an explanation for how this can be, and one is required because causelessness is, as you've previously acknowledged, "ridiculous" and "impossible".

[reinserting some content]

Kevin: No. Things within the Totality are deterministic. It doesn't mean anything to speak of the Totality itself as being deterministic.

Laird: I don't see that you're making meaningful distinction.

Kevin: That's because you don't see a distinction between the Totality, which is unbounded, and the bounded things within it.

No, it's not, it's because the Totality is the sum of the things within it and to say that "things within the Totality are deterministic" is to say that the Totality itself is deterministic. You yourself have written that everything is contained in the Totality as a "single block", which is to say that the Totality is deterministic.

Kevin: Obviously it's [nothingness] not the natural state, given that there is indeed something.

Laird: It seems that I'm not communicating effectively by using the word "natural", so let me try another one: "expected".

Kevin: I expect there to be whatever is natural. And what currently exists is what is natural. So it is perfectly expected.

Ha! Basically you're saying "I expect there to be whatever I find". So whatever you find (whatever "is natural") retrospectively becomes what you "expected" anyway. You've rigged the game. No, you're certainly not talking about an expectation. An expectation exists prior to your discovery of what actually is, or it is at least (as in this case) independent of what actually is.

Anyway, I'll try to get my point across in different words. When nothing exists there is nothing to explain: nothingness requires no explanation. Somethingness entails the existence of things and hence of the Totality. You assert that the Totality requires no explanation, but it does: at the very least it requires an explanation of why it exists as opposed to nothingness.

Laird: What you're really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily. It's a similar but slightly more sophisticated tactic to the one that Dave Toast employed when he suggested "Og" as an identifier for _God_.

DT: You mean that it's similar to the tactic that you suggested I was using? The suggestion of which I've since corrected and explained to be quite the opposite.

Laird: Your correction didn't hold up in my eyes - see above.

DT: Here you have suggested that what I was "really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily".

Actually that's not what I intended to suggest. I intended to imply that you were doing to my _God_ what Kevin was doing to the Christian God through similar tactics.

Well, when in considering my treating Og derogatorily, you suggest:

"you think that the ideas of Christianity are ridiculous and possibly even dangerous and you think that my twist on them somehow adds legitimacy to the religion when you think that I would be better engaged in trying to delegitimise and destroy it."

And later assert:

"What you're really attempting to do is to reduce the traditional concept of God into something that you can scoff at more easily. It's a similar but slightly more sophisticated tactic to the one that Dave Toast employed when he suggested "Og" as an identifier for _God_."

How am I supposed to read it?

Laird: it's because the Totality is the sum of the things within it and to say that "things within the Totality are deterministic" is to say that the Totality itself is deterministic.

I've pointed this out to you before on this very same subject. This statement commits the logical fallacy of composition. It does not logically follow that something true of a part, some parts or even all parts is true of the whole. Much in the same way that the existence of crows does not imply the existence of murders of crows.

Will you take it on board this time or is it just another truth to be ignored on account of it confining the scope of intuition?

Laird wrote:Well I don't leave that fact out when I imagine the Totality. Do you?

Yes, you do leave out the fact that the Totality has no boundaries when you attempt to imagine it - otherwise you wouldn't be able to conceive of it as being "unexplained".

For there to be something "unexplained" there needs to be something. And right there is where you are drawing its boundaries. You are making it a "something".

Kevin Solway wrote:Your model of the Totality doesn't even remotely model the real thing.

"My" model is nothing other than the one that you've described to me.

I haven't described any model of it. I have specifically stated that it can't be modeled. You can't create a remotely accurate model for something that has no boundaries.

So... the Totality isn't a "thing" and nor will you allow me to use the words "object" nor "entity". So which word can I use in this context then?

There's already a word for it, namely "Totality". This is also what some people, such as myself, call "God".

Could it be "construct"? Or "agglomeration"? Or "structure"? None of those seem as suitable as "entity". Can you provide me with something suitable?

See above.

If you find it inappropriate then for "in the first place" substitute "at all". You've avoided the issue though: how do you explain that there is anything at all if everything is uncaused?

Finite things, and the Totality (the Infinite) are entirely different, so you shouldn't confuse the two. That which applies to the one does not apply to the other, because of their completely different natures, and completely different characteristics.

That which applies to the Totality does not apply to its finite parts, so it is illogical to say, "If a particular reasoning applies to the Totality, then why doesn't that same reasoning apply to its parts?".

It is simply irrational.

You can ask why there are parts of the Totality, but you cannot ask why there is a Totality, because the latter question is irrational, for the reasons already explained.

One of the things which causes finite things are their boundaries, and those boundaries are in turn caused by our senses. That's where the parts come from.

Even to ask why there are parts of the Totality is ultimately irrational, because even if intelligent aliens (eg, your "God") had something to do with their creation, it doesn't answer anything at all, because we are left with the question of why this God is doing what he is doing, and whether he is good or evil, etc.

even assuming that the Totality were unbounded

It is unbounded by definition.

. . . how does that make its causelessness any less "ridiculous" and "impossible" than that of the supposed God?

Because it is logically impossible for the Totality to have a cause - since it is not possible for there to be anything other than itself (by definition).

If you found a cause for it, that cause would, by definition, be a part of the Totality.

By contrast, it is a logical necessity that a finite thing, such as the traditional Christian God, must have a cause.

The Totality can't be conceived as being either explicable or inexplicable, since it doesn't have boundaries.

Ooo, the Totality is so magical!

It simply conforms to logic. You can call that magical if you want to.

The Totality is infinitely larger than such a puny God.

More unjustified denigration. There's nothing puny about the Christian conception of God

The finite is necessarily extremely puny when compared to the infinite.

albeit that there's plenty illogical about it. He has the power to do anything: to transform your mindless Totality into any shape that He wants to.

Once again, your are conceiving of something outside and apart the Totality, proving that your model of the Totality is completely wrong.

If there are alien creator-Gods in existence, they are necessarily part of the Totality, by definition.

You have "derived" a "formula" (i.e. a conclusion) that the Totality is causeless, but you don't have an explanation for how this can be

The explanation is that there is no possibility of there being anything that could have caused it - because if such a thing existed, it would necessarily be part of the Totality.

This is a faultless explanation.

. . . and one is required because causelessness is, as you've previously acknowledged, "ridiculous" and "impossible".

Only finite things, such as the traditional Christian God, require an explanation.

to say that "things within the Totality are deterministic" is to say that the Totality itself is deterministic.

No, because that which applies to the parts does not apply to the whole, because their characteristics are entirely different.

You yourself have written that everything is contained in the Totality as a "single block", which is to say that the Totality is deterministic.

It doesn't mean anything to speak of the Totality as either deterministic or non-deterministic. This is simply a logical fact.

nothingness.

I have already proven that there cannot ever have been nothing - because if there ever were nothing, there would not be something now. So there is no logical reason why you are persisting with the idea.