GENIUS FORUMS

Laird wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:On the contrary, it's ridiculous to suggest that it [the universe] does exist. If it exists, it exists relative to what, exactly? Can you now see why the notion of its existence is ridiculous?

This seems to be another genius/enlightened definition. The definition of "exist" that I'm aware of does not imply relativity but perhaps I'm simply ignorant, so let me look up the dictionary.com definition ... "to have actual being; be".

What does "be", or "being" mean?

It is obvious that all being is relative. Things at least exist relative to an observer or something which they are not.

Where does this idea that existence must be relative to something come from?

It comes from the way in which everyone uses the term. People say that something "exists" when they can observe or imagine it. That is where the relativity comes in.

You're a fan of absolutes - surely you can accept absolute existence?

We could say that the Totality exists, as a figure of speech, but it's "existence" is entirely different to the existence of all things. So it would be important not to confuse the two or think that their existence had anything whatsoever in common with each other.

You also ignored my request to provide me with another word to use in place of "exists" for the universe/Totality. Please give me something - I want to be able to communicate with you.

You could say that the Totality "is".

It doesn't matter what words you use to describe it - it's what you mean by those words that matters.

If you don't understand what the Totality is, any words you use to describe it will be wrong.

"Causeless Totality" is a mistaken conception because the Totality is causelessness itself.

That sentence doesn't make any sense to me. I don't see how the Totality being "causelessness itself" proves "causeless Totality" to be a mistaken conception.

By sticking a label on the Totality and calling it "causeless", you are treating it like some kind of finite object upon which you can stick things.

But that's not what it is. It's not an object.

inexplicably uncaused.

This is another example of the same misconception.

You are sticking the label "inexplicable" on the uncaused as though it were some kind of object which requires some kind of explanation. But the Totality is not such an object, and it cannot be conceived as requiring an explanation. Therefore it cannot be inexplicable.

nothingness is the natural state.

What is your proof that nothingness is the natural state?

It sounds like you are just making this up.

Clearly, the natural state is whatever is.

Laird;

Ataraxia If there was such a state as 'nothingness' wouldn't there be a requirement of 'somethingness' to which to contrast it with?

Laird: Why would there be? I honestly don't understand. Sapius has presented similar arguments to me in the past and I find them a little incongruous on a forum dedicated to absolutes.

I’m not sure what you mean Laird. That since this forum is dedicated to “absolutes”, any individual that may participate here has to necessarily be infatuated with “absolutes”? You don’t have to necessarily follow my reasoning, right? And I don’t have to necessarily agree with you either, correct? What has that got to do with the forum being “dedicated” to “absolutes”? I might be here just for the opposite reasons. No? :D

Oh, come now Sapius, there's a fine tradition on this forum of bending the traditional meaning of words. Am I somehow excluded from membership in this club of wordsmiths?

No, you can use that excuse, but I try my best not to indulge in it. And my intention was to just remind you that you are doing just the same, thereby sounding inconsistent to those that are familiar to the traditional meaning. However, I don’t mind expanding the definition of a word, but not bending it, and I think you should be aware of the difference. Any ways, suit yourself.

Hmm, I don't agree that this is "obvious". I'm willing to entertain the possibility that good and evil exist innately in the world beyond the mind.

For example, the merciless torture of innocents is almost universally regarded as evil. The giving up of one's pleasure to alleviate another's suffering is almost universally regarded as good. So there seem to be some universals. It's not hard to posit from there that every act is, as you implied earlier, a mixture of objectively-defined good and evil.

Right, and by saying “universally regarded as evil” or “good”, how exactly does that not involve the mind or moral values as per universally agreed individuals?

S: Since there may not be an Ultimate protagonist, then asking “who” sets the rule may be unreasonable too. And hence, could it be that it grows gradually from rudimentary experiences of trial and error that are held in memory, that set certain parameters and rules that cannot be crossed? For example; Absolute Good or Absolute Evil in and of its self.

L: Do you mean that the Absolute has evolved?

At such instances I am compelled to ask? Are you drunk? Screw the Absolute :D

I am saying that any particular state or thing may not necessarily be considered Absolute at all, but rather a POINT in and of a dynamically evolving self-balancing eternal act, that collapses as soon it approaches an “Absolute”, where the collapsing itself is an act of evolving. For example, imagine Absolute “Good” (or say life) on one end, and Absolute “Bad” (or say death) on the other end, and awareness a point of balancing act. That makes TWO Absolutes on either end; and awareness merely the “point” in and of intersecting dimensionality. Now, if anything (including awareness) could reach any one or those “Ultimate” Absolutes, without having a shred of the other, existence (the balancing act) would cease to exist, but that cannot happen because of its (existence) self-imposed rule of collapsing before point critical.

It was an interesting one.

Was it?

Let's pretend we are agreed that the existence of God cannot be proven, even though the existence of a God that was other than "everything else" would permit Kevin to accept that the Universe exists.

Let me backtrack and try something else. Can we agree that faith is not a symptom of a mental disorder? This is not a trivial point. In other words, faith does not a priori imply some intellectual deficiency?

I can't think of one person who says he believes that there is a God and who also says it makes him feel worse in some way. If we are not forced to have faith (even Inquisition-like force would not produce a faith true from the heart) and it is not a symptom of something negative like a brain tumor, why do any people have faith?

If I had never had any sort of religious experience, I think I would want to have one so that I could understand the phenomenon, out of curiosity if nothing else.

If I assume there is no God, I could espouse the QRS rational philosophy. In fact, to a large extent, I have done just that, even before I found this forum, as they would be the first to say that if you stick to logic and rationality, you more or less have to agree with them. I find that accepting there is a God makes my understanding of the world deeper. It enables my understanding to grow, as if it were a living thing. I can't prove this to anyone, and that is frustrating, but I can certainly demonstrate it, and I think I do.

And there is the fact that I have used drugs in a nonrecreational manner. The understandings I have derived in altered states are more consistent with a world with a god than a world without a god. I think it's no accident that there are naturally occurring entheogens.

brokenhead wrote:Let's pretend we are agreed that the existence of God cannot be proven

The point is that the existence of certain types of God can be absolutely disproven. For example, a causeless, intelligent alien creator being is logically impossible. And a caused, intelligent alien creator being is essentially no different to ourselves, and hence no God at all, but only a pretender.

Can we agree that faith is not a symptom of a mental disorder?

Faith in something that is logically impossible, or which is stupid, worthless, ill-defined, or dishonest, is a symptom of a mental disorder.

This is not a trivial point. In other words, faith does not a priori imply some intellectual deficiency?

See above.

I can't think of one person who says he believes that there is a God and who also says it makes him feel worse in some way.

Likewise with Santa Claus, or the tooth-fairy.

I can't think of one person who says they believe they are King of the Universe who also says it makes him feel worse in some way.

Why do any people have faith?

Because it makes them feel good. Thus, such faith is the very essence of evil.

It's too harsh to say it's symptomatic of a mental disorder as belief is a perfectly normal mental activity and is not necessarily characteristic of disturbed mental activity. Nor is it symptomatic of intellectual deficiency as it is not a case of how good the intellect is but how and where it is directed. A high quality intellect may never be caused to look at the big questions in any detail yet it remains a high quality intellect. Terms such as mental disorder and intellectual deficiency are not to be judged by the standards of enlightenment and perfection.

Belief is more characteristic of mental inertia, a need for answers where none seem apparent, an unwillingness to accept truth for what it is or most often, plain old ignorance.

People have faith because it works. It may not work for everybody, in the sense of any particular faith. But everyone has faith in something, meaning an inherent trust in something that can't be completely proven logically. Otherwise, there is a psychological breakdown. Nothing works otherwise. I think we'd all agree that the Truth has to work! What would be the point in pursuing it if it didn't? It would be of no use, maybe even detrimental. That could not be what is true, because reality obviously works!

Dave Toast wrote:It's too harsh to say it's symptomatic of a mental disorder as belief is a perfectly normal mental activity and is not necessarily characteristic of disturbed mental activity.

I call it a mental disorder because it is essentially indistinguishable from what we classically call madness or insanity.

Granted, the person might be less "disturbed" in the sense that they might not be red-faced and twitching uncontrollably, or likely to kill someone without warning. Yet the quality of their beliefs are little different.

Take, for example, the Muslims who want to kill a person because they have depicted Mohammed in a cartoon. That is quite simply madness - even though it is culturally accepted.

Nor is it symptomatic of intellectual deficiency as it is not a case of how good the intellect is but how and where it is directed.

Schizophrenia is most common among people of higher intelligence.

I would argue that madness does itself require a certain level of intelligence - to imagine-up all the crazy stuff. A stupid person doesn't have enough intelligence to be mad.

Kevin,

DT: It's too harsh to say it's symptomatic of a mental disorder as belief is a perfectly normal mental activity and is not necessarily characteristic of disturbed mental activity.

Kevin: I call it a mental disorder because it is essentially indistinguishable from what we classically call madness or insanity.

Ok but mental disorder is more of a clinical term. It's generally regarded as such and words like madness and insanity are too more and more so in the age of science. They're measured against a norm, not perfection, in the eyes of most. This norm includes all sorts of whacky behaviour and psychology that might be regarded as crazy, mad or insane from a superior point of view. Clinical mental disorders would be essentially indistinguishable from a sufficiently superior point of view. But when measured against this norm they are more distinguishable.

Granted, the person might be less "disturbed" in the sense that they might not be red-faced and twitching uncontrollably, or likely to kill someone without warning. Yet the quality of their beliefs are little different.

Take, for example, the Muslims who want to kill a person because they have depicted Mohammed in a cartoon. That is quite simply madness - even though it is culturally accepted.

That's all true but it is accepted according to the norm. Religious fervour is regarded as quite normal within its own culture.

DT: Nor is it symptomatic of intellectual deficiency as it is not a case of how good the intellect is but how and where it is directed.

Kevin: Schizophrenia is most common among people of higher intelligence.

I would argue that madness does itself require a certain level of intelligence - to imagine-up all the crazy stuff. A stupid person doesn't have enough intelligence to be mad.

Yep, a certain level of capacity at least. I think, on the whole, what most human minds are caused to do plays a larger part in their development than what they are caused to be capable of.

-----------------------------------------

Edited for fookin stupid formatting

If I might return to the original subject of the post, it would seem to me that if one wishes to prove the existence of God, one must first define what the term ‘God’ entails. If by the term ‘God’, one means an entity that partakes of an absolute, independent and immutable existence, and which is the origin and cause of all things, then it would seem a relatively simple task to prove or disprove. In fact, the entire case turns upon whether or not one accepts Parmenides’ contention that there is (exists) only that which ‘is’, and that there is naught else; that is to say, that there is no ‘non-being’. If one can see the truth of this one simple proposition, the existence of God will follow logically out of that one truth; for God and Being are identical.

Jehu wrote:. . . one must first define what the term 'God' entails. . . . God and Being are identical.

This is your definition of God but not that of Christians and others who want to believe in a conscious creator-being.

Kevin Solway wrote:Things at least exist relative to an observer or something which they are not.

That's not what I mean when I say that something exists, but I'm finding it really hard to come up with my own expanded definition of the word "exists" - it's such a fundamental concept that it's hard to express it in other terms. I'll think about it on my bus trip back to Queenstown later today.

Laird: Where does this idea that existence must be relative to something come from?

Kevin: It comes from the way in which everyone uses the term. People say that something "exists" when they can observe or imagine it. That is where the relativity comes in.

We can imagine the Totality, therefore by your words above, it exists.

Kevin Solway wrote:We could say that the Totality exists, as a figure of speech

Goodo, I'll continue to write that the Totality exists then.

Kevin Solway wrote:but it's "existence" is entirely different to the existence of all things. So it would be important not to confuse the two or think that their existence had anything whatsoever in common with each other.

Right, its existence is timeless whereas most things that we say "exist" do so within time (but what about time itself? I would say that time exists - would you?). Are there any other senses in which you think that the existence of the Totality is unique?

Laird: You also ignored my request to provide me with another word to use in place of "exists" for the universe/Totality. Please give me something - I want to be able to communicate with you.

Kevin: You could say that the Totality "is".

Hmm, I don't really see much difference between the two words. In fact if you examine the definitions of "is" at dictionary.com, you will find that several of them even incorporate the word "exist".

Kevin: "Causeless Totality" is a mistaken conception because the Totality is causelessness itself.

Laird: That sentence doesn't make any sense to me. I don't see how the Totality being "causelessness itself" proves "causeless Totality" to be a mistaken conception.

Kevin: By sticking a label on the Totality and calling it "causeless", you are treating it like some kind of finite object upon which you can stick things.

You already stick labels on it - labels like "infinite" - I still don't understand what you've got against the "causeless" label.

Kevin Solway wrote:But that's not what it is. It's not an object.

"Totality" is a term that points to a "block" (poetically speaking of course). A block is an object. So in some sense (even if only poetic) we can consider the Totality to be an "object". I suspect that you'll veto this reasoning so let me add something: even if you disagree that the Totality can be considered as an object, "Totality" is a noun and nouns can be modified with adjectives. You still haven't explained what's wrong with the particular adjective (causeless) that I used.

Kevin Solway wrote:[T]he Totality [...] cannot be conceived as requiring an explanation.

That's our fundamental disagreement. You (plural) use a framework to justify this assertion but to me you appear as ostriches with your heads in the sand, so keen on certainty that you refuse to countenance what to me is a blatant mystery.

Kevin Solway wrote:What is your proof that nothingness is the natural state?

I've already explained it in a previous post, and it's not a proof: it's an argument. In a nutshell my argument is that nothingness has no requirements whereas somethingness does have requirements. As soon as requirements are present then there is the problem of how they are being (or have been) satisfied. Since nothingness has no requirements, it has no problem of satisfaction, and hence it is a more natural state.

Kevin Solway wrote:Clearly, the natural state is whatever is.

That removes the distinction between "natural" and "artificial". The artificial state is just as much as the natural state is.

Sapius, I hope to respond to your post sometime after my bus trip.

Dave Toast wrote:Religious fervour is regarded as quite normal within its own culture.

That's true, but madness itself is regarded as normal within its own culture.

The insane person rarely thinks they are insane, and that is part of the reason they are insane. If a person knows they are insane then they are at least having flashes of sanity.

I just don't think it's helpful to view things from the mad perspective, even if that is the perspective of the "norm", or the scientific perspective.

Laird wrote:

People say that something "exists" when they can observe or imagine it. That is where the relativity comes in.

We can imagine the Totality, therefore by your words above, it exists..

No, we can't imagine it. No "image" can be formed of it. How could you form an image of that which has no boundaries? It is not logically possible.

So whatever you are imagining it is, is not it.

Are there any other senses in which you think that the existence of the Totality is unique?

It is unique in every way because there is nothing even remotely like it.

Kevin: By sticking a label on the Totality and calling it "causeless", you are treating it like some kind of finite object upon which you can stick things.

You already stick labels on it - labels like "infinite".

That's a misinterpretation of the words.

Kevin Solway wrote:But that's not what it is. It's not an object.

"Totality" is a term that points to a "block" (poetically speaking of course). A block is an object.

But the Totality is nothing whatsoever like a block. A block is a finite thing while the Totality isn't. That makes them entirely different.

So in some sense (even if only poetic) we can consider the Totality to be an "object".

You can only speak about the Totality poetically when you understand what the poetry means. If you don't, then you can't.

You still haven't explained what's wrong with the particular adjective (causeless) that I used.

I explained that the Totality is causelessness itself, so speaking of causeless causelessness shows a lack of understanding of what the Totality is.

It would be like talking about a square square. No sane person would do it.

nothingness has no requirements

It requires that there's not something.

whereas somethingness does have requirements.

It requires that there's not nothing.

Kevin Solway wrote:Clearly, the natural state is whatever is.

That removes the distinction between "natural" and "artificial". The artificial state is just as much as the natural state is.

The artificial is a subset of the natural.

Laird:

blatant mystery

...goes on the preponderance scale for the existence of God.

brokenhead wrote:Laird:

blatant mystery

...goes on the preponderance scale for the existence of God.

We know that any particular thing is caused by something else, and in that regard there's no mystery. Even if there are creator-aliens ("Gods"), they too would be caused by something else.

The artificial is a subset of the natural.

In general, I might have to agree with this. But in real life there is a useful distinction between the two terms, because we are at this evolutionary juncture and not a later one. The robot dog that I did not buy my nephew for Christmas is a case in point. For the above quote to be a true statement, then everything that is classed as "artificial" must also be classed as "natural." The robot dog was clearly artificial; that you could get many unpaid people to also call it natural is doubtful.

The dog was just too creepy. My nephew wants a pet but is too young to care for one. I could wait 25 years or so, when the robot dogs are not as creepy, or I could wait maybe two or three years until he learns to be responsible enough to care for a real dog. A more natural dog.

Kevin, does any of this make any sense?

brokenhead wrote:Kevin, does any of this make any sense?

Your arguments about God don't make any sense at all.

It would be like talking about a square square. No sane person would do it.

That's what they said to Lobachevsky when he said maybe not every square is square.

Kevin Solway wrote:

brokenhead wrote:Kevin, does any of this make any sense?

Your arguments about God don't make any sense at all.

On the contrary, they make tremendous sense. They make nothing but sense. And I'm just getting started.

brokenhead wrote:. . . when he said maybe not every square is square.

If he said that then he was very, very stupid. It is more likely that he was simply trying to get attention for his work.

If he said that then he was very, very stupid. It is more likely that he was simply trying to get attention for his work.

But his work was nonEuclidian geometry, of which he and Gauss were the pioneers. Is it stupid to want attention for one's work?

brokenhead wrote:Is it stupid to want attention for one's work?

No, it's stupid to say stupid things, such as, "A square may not be a square".

There is no possibility whatsoever that a square is not a square, regardless of what shape it has when seen from different perpectives and dimensions.

By saying something irrational he is seeking to appeal to the masses who who want to see logic destroyed, since they are easily parted with their money.

Kevin Solway wrote:

brokenhead wrote:Is it stupid to want attention for one's work?

No, it's stupid to say stupid things, such as, "A square may not be a square".

There is no possibility whatsoever that a square is not a square, regardless of what shape it has when seen from different perpectives and dimensions.

By saying something irrational he is seeking to appeal to the masses who who want to see logic destroyed, since they are easily parted with their money.

He was seeking to appeal to a learned few who would take his notion of non-Euclidean geometry seriously enough to read his papers for publication. He didn't say literally "A square may not be a square," that I have read anywhere. Instead he took what the accepted definition of a square was, and, having abandoned Euclid's fifth postulate (please look this up somewhere so I don't have to type it all out) discovered or invented - you would say he did both - analyzed it in a non-Euclidian manner. In other words, in a hyperbolic (or Lobachevskian) space, it is impossible to draw a square, with four equal sides and four equal angles. This is a mathematical construct, just as Euclidean geometry is. Which holds in the real world? Physicists are leaning towards a non-Euclidean space-time, possibly hyperbolic (also sometimes called hypergeometric, Gaussian, or Bolyai) space.

It is believed that Gauss was the first to discover (or invent) non-Euclidean space, but that he did not publish it because of the reaction he thought he would receive. Lobachevsky, unaware of Gauss's work, was advised by his academic peers not to publish for the same reason, yet he risked ridicule and did publish.

I imagine they were told pretty much the same thing that is in Kevin's quote above.

Ataraxia: If there was such a state as 'nothingness' wouldn't there be a requirement of 'somethingness' to which to contrast it with?

Laird: Why would there be? I honestly don't understand. Sapius has presented similar arguments to me in the past and I find them a little incongruous on a forum dedicated to absolutes.

Sapius: I’m not sure what you mean Laird. That since this forum is dedicated to “absolutes”, any individual that may participate here has to necessarily be infatuated with “absolutes”? You don’t have to necessarily follow my reasoning, right? And I don’t have to necessarily agree with you either, correct? What has that got to do with the forum being “dedicated” to “absolutes”? I might be here just for the opposite reasons. No? :D

Sure, you are an individual with your own perspective and I don't really expect you to always follow the trends of the forum. Perhaps my comment seemed to suggest otherwise and I should have expressed it a little differently. Yes, so scrap the bit after the "and" where I wrote about your arguments being "incongruous" and replace it with "I don't see why one thing's existence (or our awareness of it) should be reliant upon its opposite rather than simply being an absolutely existent or perceived thing". I do agree that often contrast is useful in forming and fine-tuning our understanding, I'm just not so sure that it's essential.

Laird: Oh, come now Sapius, there's a fine tradition on this forum of bending the traditional meaning of words. Am I somehow excluded from membership in this club of wordsmiths?

Sapius: No, you can use that excuse, but I try my best not to indulge in it. And my intention was to just remind you that you are doing just the same, thereby sounding inconsistent to those that are familiar to the traditional meaning. However, I don’t mind expanding the definition of a word, but not bending it, and I think you should be aware of the difference. Any ways, suit yourself.

There are lowercase gods and there is the uppercase God. All that I'm saying is that the uppercase God might really be more akin to a lowercase god. Perhaps, since you're right that I shouldn't indulge in word-bending, I should call this entity "lowercase supreme god", or LSG for short. Other suggestions welcome.

Sapius wrote:Right, and by saying “universally regarded as evil” or “good”, how exactly does that not involve the mind or moral values as per universally agreed individuals?

Oh, sure, it does. I'm just suggesting the possibility that the reason that they are universally agreed upon is that there are absolute conceptions of good and evil that our minds are keying in to.

S: Since there may not be an Ultimate protagonist, then asking “who” sets the rule may be unreasonable too. And hence, could it be that it grows gradually from rudimentary experiences of trial and error that are held in memory, that set certain parameters and rules that cannot be crossed? For example; Absolute Good or Absolute Evil in and of its self.

L: Do you mean that the Absolute has evolved?

S: At such instances I am compelled to ask? Are you drunk?

Huh? No, I was sitting stone cold sober (w.r.t. alcohol - I was probably high on caffeine though) in an internet cafe in Dee Why.

Sapius wrote:I am saying that any particular state or thing may not necessarily be considered Absolute at all, but rather a POINT in and of a dynamically evolving self-balancing eternal act, that collapses as soon it approaches an “Absolute”, where the collapsing itself is an act of evolving. For example, imagine Absolute “Good” (or say life) on one end, and Absolute “Bad” (or say death) on the other end, and awareness a point of balancing act. That makes TWO Absolutes on either end; and awareness merely the “point” in and of intersecting dimensionality. Now, if anything (including awareness) could reach any one or those “Ultimate” Absolutes, without having a shred of the other, existence (the balancing act) would cease to exist, but that cannot happen because of its (existence) self-imposed rule of collapsing before point critical.

Hmm. You write that absolute life (i.e. without a shred of death i.e. immortality?) would necessitate a collapse of existence, but why should that be? Why would immortality cause existence to cease?

Laird: It was an interesting one.

Sapius: Was it?

What I understood of it, yeah.

brokenhead wrote:Let me backtrack and try something else. Can we agree that faith is not a symptom of a mental disorder? This is not a trivial point. In other words, faith does not a priori imply some intellectual deficiency?

Who says ‘faith’ in something is a symptom of a mental disorder? If it were, then faith in logic and reasoning would be no different. ‘Faith’ is not the real issue as I see it, but how reasonable or logically consistent is ones faith in something… or any thing for that matter, and that is what matters; ‘faith’ however remains; one can’t help that.

Eventually, only reasoning can evaluate ones faith; that is, justify the rationality of what one has faith in.

Laird;

Sapius, I hope to respond to your post sometime after my bus trip.

Please take your time, and don’t mind me, you have bigger fishes to fry :D

---------

I just saw your post; I'll get back tomorrow.