i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
Self-awareness is not necessary for existence.
Sorry , you have lost me.
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Descartes: I THINK, therefore, I AM.
Self-awareness is not necessary to the person born with a brain-stem only, or to a snail, or to a microbe. Each and all exist, but
are probably not aware (meaningfully) they exist.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
I ran out of cream!
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Now why, I ask you, do people (humanity) insist on reading the Bible to discover WHO/WHAT God is?
Our brain has a one on one relationship with the nature of our earthly reality.
Man's sin is a default of his human nature.
God's goodness is a default of God's nature.
Communication and understanding of Man and God take place with words, writing and thoughts irrevocably tied down to an attempt at rational discourse.
Rational is a ratio between verifiable and non-verifiable data whereby we actually determine a DIFFERENCE!
Otherwise, morality is impossible to judge on the basis of understanding what is moral/immoral.
Reductionism doesn't work for certain things such as the MIND sets before itself. The Gestalt is such that the whole is actually greater (more profound) than the sum of its parts.
What you and I perceive as beauty and truth is irreducible yet connected to "that which IS..."
Mozart and Bobby Fischer anybody?
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We know that the brain does work electrically and organically to produce a sort of ghost in the machine which enables the brain's owner to interface with
all perceptible stimulation.
Additionally, the human mind can dabble with its own after-echoes. These resonances become recursive and all attempts
to analyze them create meta-entanglements. If we think about thinking, for example...
Now, I understand that we can stimulate the brain and "cause" precitable reaction. But, how is that different from clapping your hands and frightening off
grackles in the tree in your driveway?
My toothache may be universally and empathetically accessible to others--but--that is an inference objectively appraised. It is a far cry from being identical to MY PAIN which is subjectively experienced by ME.
When a gay guy looks at the very same women I'm lusting after I'd have to hypothesize that an essential difference is happening in our respective brains.
Is this because the woman is somehow different to each of us? Doubtful.
Is our filtering/appraisal/conceptual mechanism that much different? Dunno.
Our personally acquired VALUES determine how we FEEL about what we see and hear and think. Ineffable, intangible and irreducible to specs.
However similar me and the gay guy might well be-- our respective identity as a person makes our values considerably at odds.
Our mind is our nature.
Map it as you will--it is irreproducible for what it actually is as a part of the individual human whose nature lies therein.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
He knows, therefore, He is. If He cannot know, He does not exist.
The interesting question (well, to ME, anyway) is, what is it we are CERTAIN that God knows in advance when there exist person's who have the power and the will to change, disturb, rearrange, nullify, invent or corrupt?
I assert that God possessing and using Foreknowledge cannot occur beyond a vague or general "best guess". And that is NOT the same thing as seeing the future in advance.
Scientific Prediction deals with non-living physics accurately enough to --say---shoot a rocket containing a robot off through space and land it in a specific area at a precise location in time and space EVEN THOUGH earth is spinning and so is Mars WHILE revolving about the Sun! That is NOT foreknowledge of the same nature that is attributed to God, however. The Rocket cannot will itself otherwise nor is either Earth or Mars likely to decide to change orbit.
God speakers(people who speak FOR God) fall back on magic as their explanation. That's why it's a dead end. Using magic as the answer for such huge, important parts of your life stops thought, real searching and is intellectually lazy.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"
If there were nothing (now follow with me on this) the person who asks this question would not exist either.
The fact that the question exists means there must be something so that the QUESTION can exist.
This topic is intended to focus on KNOWLEDGE. There is no "question" without a mind to do the questioning. The existence of a questioner and a question produces the result. Without a questioner, there is no question, and without existence there is no questioner.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
Minimus: I do.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
However we cannot know that God is restricted to the boundaries of time as we understand it. There are lots of Bible hints that we do not see the whole picture.So on the basis that my knowledge of eternity , space ,time etc may be only partial I can't agree simply because I may not know all the facts.
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We solve problems, that's what homo sapiens do.
We never begin solving a problem by declaring ignorance as a GAME OVER.
All science is knowledge because it is provisionally testable and amenable to additional evidence.
The first men who sailed out "too far" in expeditions into the unknown may have seen maps
where the horizon ended and the words: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS boldly emblazoned.
This topic if for the mind mariner who refuses to be kept on shore by fear of the end of the known.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
i suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
AND FINALLY . . .
To exist is to be something, somewhere. For there to be a somewhere it must be measurable!
Science (which is knowledge) measures before it does anything else.
By locating and describing and measuring we pin down what IS and differentiate.
What is the biggest difference between something REAL and something UNreal?
Answer: you can measure it.
I asked a question a long while back in another topic. At first it sounds wacky. But, I asked it to make an important point.
The question was: HOW BIG IS A DEMON?
I asked it because of the NT story of the fellow possessed by a Legion of demons who were literally driven into swine and drowned.
My thought process was this:
If a demon is real and the man were real then we start with what we know about man. Man is of a certain size and shape.
In order for a LEGION (5,120 soldiers) to occupy the same space as a man---what size would they be?
You see what I mean? By reducing the problem to the point of absurdity it becomes clear (at least to me) what baloney demons really are. At least in THAT story:)
