Do you know why God cannot KNOW?

by Terry 81 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

Terry

My mentioning of the "Will" was to demonstrate that any reduction of a gestalt such as the MIND into a mere organic brain has to pretend the actual purpose of thinking is beyond constituency of neuron firing while simultaneously assuming it isn't. You can't really get away with having it both ways.
The binary detection of True/False depends on how much we value the Lie or the Truth (which is to say what is at stake) when representing something
to others. A sociopath is better able to escape detection because the "tells" are not connected to a highly developed sense of truth.
The WILL of the sociopath over-rides the physiology of detections and subverts the reductionist theory rather well.
Etude

Terry
" My mentioning of the "Will" was to demonstrate that any reduction of a gestalt such as the MIND into a mere organic brain has to pretend the actual purpose of thinking is beyond constituency of neuron firing while simultaneously assuming it isn't. You can't really get away with having it both ways. "
I think we're narrowing down our meanings or at least refining them. Let me see if I can re-state for the purpose of clarity what you're saying: The gestalt of the MIND is global or comprehensive. So, we don't think of a table in terms of lines and rectangles but as a complete and whole entity. When we think about beauty, we don't just think of colors and shapes and sounds but of the whole thing that is beautiful. You say that reducing whatever it is that transpires in the mind to mere electrons in an axon jumping the synapse to another neuron's dendrite "pretends" that thinking is more than a neuron but at the same time assumes it isn't. Damn, even my dissection of your original sentence confuses me. Perhaps you can explain it better in your next response.
But assuming that my interpretation is correct and that my understanding of you intent is clear, we may be talking about apples and oranges. I'm not saying that when we think our thinking process transpires in terms of the most basic components, shapes, or attributes of things (the reductionist idea). At least, that's not the way I view life in general. What I am saying (and maybe this is where I seem to be a reductionist) is that the underlying function of the mind (everything it does to operate) is performed by chemical reactions and obey a construct of nature (the natural laws).
That is not to say that the result (ideas, beauty, musical genius, etc) of the chemical reactions and the laws that govern them is not gestaltic (I'm not sure if there is such a word). In other words, I don't see why the results of such a neurological processes cannot engender more than lines and colors and basic shapes and instead pretend that what it does is beyond the neuron. That we cannot presently explain how some established paths of neurons yield genius does not mean that the process cannot engender genius.
To think in other terms, that the physical process of chemical thoughts are NOT associated with "mind" leads me to that terrifying and mysterious place where "mind" seems to be separate from body, allowing for the possibility that it may exists outside of the body.
So, we can be in agreement if we both substantiate that "mind" (thinking, perceiving beauty, or having genius) IS perceiving in a whole (gestalt) manner and is not reductionism , whereas the process that drives that capability is simply fundamental and obeys the laws of physics.
I think that the pathology of the brain, precisely when it is due to a chemical imbalance that would cause psychosis or schizophrenia, clearly shows that the underlying process of "mind" is due to nothing more than chemical reactions creating electrical paths. This is why it seems reasonable that wearing a helmet with electrodes can make one feel or experience the gestalt of spirituality or a unique sense of "oneness" with the universe.
Terry

You say that reducing whatever it is that transpires in the mind to mere electrons in an axon jumping the synapse to another neuron's dendrite "pretends" that thinking is more than a neuron but at the same time assumes it isn't.
Close enough for hand grenades:)
If we look up into the sky and see a horse while looking at a cloud you wouldn't say that the "horse-ness" of our identification is contained in
the constituency of the cloud itself, would you? I reckon not. It is in the inherent pattern-seeking which the brain has developed.
If we look at twin mountains, like the native Americans did, and name them the Grand Tetons (Big Titties) that would hardly be reducible to
the boulders and soil, would it? Nah.
I am saying we blurt our impressions "as though" they are credible. The deer that blurts a waving plant stalk as a Lion's tail in that waving high grass may be wrong--but--if correct? The actual crouching lion will lose the advantage of camouflage and surprise.
Science is like that. What is an hypothesis but a blurt? The testing of it is the proof of such pudding.
Now...back to GOD.....if you don't mind....:)
We as a species tend to assign causality in the same manner the deer blurts the lion tail out of the waving grass.
Without God the primitive humanoid has no agency to approach for mercy or appeasement--so, how useful if the transaction could be due to invisibility.
After all, Charles Taze Russell thought it solved the 1914 return of Jesus problem. (Psssst....he's invisible!)
God having the FOREKNOWLEDGE to see the end from the beginning is a default of the magnification of human imagination into unnecessary superlatives.
Eternity has no "end" so God cannot possibly see "it".
If God cannot (rather than will not) create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it----well, GAME OVER as far as superlatives is concerned.
The legal precept in latin "Falsus in Unum, Falsus in Omnibus" means "False in one, false in all" and basically means that if an entity (person or government) has lied to you about one thing, it is safe (and legal) to assume that entity has lied to you about everything.
But, you get the picture.
ANY LIMIT on God is as good as pulling back the curtain on the Wizard.
Etude

Terry:
" If we look up into the sky and see a horse while looking at a cloud you wouldn't say that the "horse-ness" of our identification is contained in the constituency of the cloud itself, would you? I reckon not. "
OK. Even though perhaps we've drifted some from the original topic, what the conversation has amounted to are various supporting arguments to the original topic. By your statement above, you present the idea that perception (or interpretation) of an event is not part of what is being observed but solely lies with the observer. In one sense I tend to agree because if not for our ability to observe clouds there would be nothing t to interpret. It's the classic "if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Well, I don't know how you feel about that, but you must concede that if two individuals are watching the cloud and they both recognize the shape of a horse, rather than one seeing a horse and the other a table, that there is some fundamental patterns holding information (whatever that is) to cause more than one individual to identify the same shape of the cloud.
How all of that relates to our topic is via the inference that whatever we perceive is conducted in our brains and has a discrete underlying process that follows the laws of nature. How that process turns a cloud-shape to appear like a horse, is not exactly attainable to us. But at least we know why it happens. In my discussion, I was allowing for the possibility that because of a physical process underlying thinking, it may be possible (though highly improbable) that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could gather all variables associated with a thought or decision and predict what will come next. Causality, in this case, is akin to the "Butterfly Effect", where the flapping of the butterfly wings in one part of the world might triggered a hurricane in another. The Lorenz' Strange Attractor and the equations behind it point to causal effects, but not in the linear statistical fashion and rather in a mathematical chaos model.
So, I agree with you that "God cannot know" from the aspect of what you last described: that " God cannot (rather than will not) create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it ". It presents an unexplainable paradox. But that doesn't exclude for me the possibility of "knowing" that you referred to previously. It's like Arthur C. Clarke said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Terry

In my discussion, I was allowing for the possibility that because of a physical process underlying thinking, it may be possible (though highly improbable) that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could gather all variables associated with a thought or decision and predict what will come next.
Even a perfectly operating chess program can be defeated some of the time because underlying principles cannot be reduced to the foreseeable.
What is it about a purpose that is predictable? Life isn't a process whereby we die. Yet, die we do. Life is a co-mingling of infinite variables spontaneously co-existing in a give and take gestalt.
What the chess program can't take into consideration is any other than possible responses which MAKE SENSE according to the valuation of position.
The pieces and pawns have a relative value which can be instantly negated or transformed by change in position (or, pawn promotion.)
Joe Blow has chosen to be the world's greatest doctor. He bends everything toward that end. His life is in order. His goals are set. His path is clear.
Then, he meets Victoria and falls in love. She is moving to a 3rd world country to be a missionary.
Joe isn't even religious. But....he is in love!
All that planning is less than useful at that unforeseen moment of intersection between known and unknown.
Finkelstein

Do you know why God cannot KNOW?
Since man made god(s) out his own imagination, gods moral conscience and existence is limited and binded from man's limited Knowledge.
Based upon that, how can a god know anything more than what man could possibly imagined himself.
Terry

Since man made god(s) out his own imagination, gods moral conscience and existence is limited and binded from man's limited Knowledge.
Based upon that, how can a god know anything more than what man could possibly imagined himself.
It has a twist ending, actually.
Since man imagines that God can read human thoughts it turns out He can....because....(wait for it...............) Man's thoughts are what
the imagined God is in the first place!
I could sit down and write a story about a man who knows everything I'm going to do before I do it. Then, on the last page, it turns out
that "other" man is really me. I have a split personality and can only see that "other" as NOT me.
Projecting upon God everything we need for god to be.....He....becomes that very thing.
Etude

" Even a perfectly operating chess program can be defeated some of the time because underlying principles cannot be reduced to the foreseeable. "
Depending on what "perfectly" means then, yes! So can a human being. My impression is that chess-playing computers are getting "smarter" by the minute and have algorhythms that help it learn after a mistake. In other words, many programs contain the essence of learning after failure. What the chess program needs to determine is which, out of all the possible outcomes, is the winning strategy. It's starting to happen although presently, computers are barred from open competitions. But in 1997 IBM's Deep Blue beat Kasparov and in 2004 Hydra, Fritz 8, and Deep Junior (all computer programs) beat top players Ruslan Ponomariov, Veselin Topalov and Sergey Karjakin.
" Joe Blow...meets Victoria and falls in love. She is moving to a 3rd world country to be a missionary. Joe isn't even religious. But....he is in love! "
Perhaps Joe Blow is in lust because Victoria can suck a golf ball through ten feet of hose. That's where thinking ends. He's at the mercy of whatever happens and is not concerned with what can be known.
" Man's thoughts are what the imagined God is in the first place! "
Indeed, yes! That's a very good answer to why "God cannot know".
Terry

What the chess program needs to determine is which, out of all the possible outcomes, is the winning strategy.
A game is never predetermined because the game is what actually happens as it is played.
The "best" course of action turns on a dime. A series of sacrifices may lead to a winning position.
From: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chess.html
Chess is a two-player board game believed to have been played in India as early as the sixth century AD. In different parts of this world, different chess games are played. The most played variants are western chess, Shogi (in Japan), and Xiangqi (in China).
The western version of chess is a game played on an board, called a chessboard, of alternating black and white squares. Pieces with different types of allowed moves are placed on the board, a set of black pieces in the first two rows and a set of white pieces in the last two rows. The pieces are called the bishop (2), king (1), knight (2), pawn (8), queen (1), and rook (2). The object of the game is to capture the opponent's king.
In Ingmar Bergman's 1958 film classic The Seventh Seal, a Knight and his squire arrive home from the crusades to find Black Death sweeping their country. As they approach home, Death appears to the knight and tells him it is his time. The knight then challenges Death to a chess game for his life. Chess also appears as one of the games known to the WOPR computer in the 1983 film WarGames.
Hardy (1999, p. 17) estimated the number of possible games of chess as . The number of possible games of 40 moves or less is approximately (Beeler et al. 1972), a number arrived at by estimating the number of pawn positions (in the no-captures situation, this is ), multiplying by the possible positions for all pieces, then dividing by two for each of the (rook, knight) pairs that are interchangeable, and dividing by two for each pair of bishops (since half the positions will have the bishops on the same color squares). (However, note that there are more positions with one or two captures, since the pawns can then switch columns; Schroeppel 1996.) Shannon (1950) gave the estimate

Rex Stout's fictional detective Nero Wolfe quotes the number of possible games after ten moves as follows: "Wolfe grunted. One hundred and sixty-nine million, five hundred and eighteen thousand, eight hundred and twenty-nine followed by twenty-one ciphers. The number of ways the first ten moves, both sides, may be played" (Stout 1983). To be precise, the number of distinct chess positions after moves for , 2, ... are 20, 400, 5362, 71852, 809896?, 9132484?, ... (Schwarzkopf 1994, Sloane's A019319). The number of chess games that end in exactly moves (including games that mate in fewer than plies) for , 2, 3, ... are 20, 400, 8902, 197742, 4897256, 120921506, 3284294545, ... (Sloane's A006494).
Cunningham (1889) incorrectly found games and positions after the fourth move. C. Flye St. Marie was the first to find the correct number of positions after four moves: . Dawson (1946) gives the source as Intermediare des Mathematiques (1895), but K. Fabel writes that Flye St. Marie corrected the number (that he found in 1895) to in 1903. The history of the determination of the chess sequences is discussed in Schwarzkopf (1994).
The analysis of chess is extremely complicated due to the many possible options at each move. Steinhaus (1999, pp. 11-14), as well as many entire books, consider clever end-game positions which may be analyzed completely.
Etude

" A [chess] game is never predetermined because the game is what actually happens as it is played. "
Yes, a game is never predetermined because it actually has to happen. However (wouldn't you know there'd be one), there is a finite number of moves possible on a chess board; that would be every possible combination of moves given 8x8 squares [ ]. Even though the number is quite high, there is a limited number of games under 40 moves that can be played [ ], out of which a subset number of moves for a specific game is drawn. The remaining number though considerably less is still large, but that's not a problem even for today's crop of PC processors, let alone something like Deep Blue.
Furthermore, even thought there is a limited number of possible moves per game, many moves can be eliminated that are not strategic or significant towards winning the game. The point is not about the huge number of permutations that is possible but the much smaller number of moves that are practical and conducive to winning a match, especially after the first 4 moves on the chess board.
The capability of the silicon processor is what has furthered the mathematical discipline called Combinatorial Game Theory. I expect that the AI techniques will advance sufficiently to make us redefine our idea of consciousness and intelligence. Thank you for allowing this conversation to provide some "logical" legs stretching.

Do you know why God cannot KNOW?

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