God

I should try to quote, but Captcha hates code in my posts. This will not be terribly coherent. I have just woken up and am in a rather delirious state (fun time to write).

Yes, I have thought that if such a higher intelligence r power existed that could create our universe likely would be outside it and would be more likely to be on a plane of the "metaphysical". Another dimension perhaps outside of time and space, or perhaps, to come across as rather metaphorical and fanciful, the Divine is the resonance of the strings in the String hypothesis, or we and this universe are merely a part of the body of God, but this wouldn't imply intelligent design -- it would be an unintentional biological process.

I don't think to have an intelligent designer one must necessarily need a designer for that the designer that designed us -- especially if that designer operates somewhere else (such as the metaphysical plane that twseel speaks of) or elsewhere outside of space-time which doesn't operate according to our physical laws (the interstices of dimensionality or void perhaps, which can bleed into our reality -- a little like the Upside Down). There might not be just a huge and mysterious universe out there, but a huge and mysterious multiverse and other planes of existence. When you're dealing with the infinite (even if our particular universe is finite), things can be infinitely possible. I suspect that there are being that are more intelligent out there and there could be something divine that corresponds to a deology or theology (or every theology and deology -- something like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land conception perhaps where all Gods/ religion can exist for the individual).

As for the robot analogy, I see what you're getting at, but I'm going to expand on this in whatever stranger directions my mind takes me. The question that super robot A might ask is "Is there evidence that we may have been created by a higher intelligence?" So Robot B says, "No, there is no evidence for that because then that which created us would need a creator" (okay, to explore your notion I don't need to mention evidence, but....) It's an interesting analogy and interesting that the robot's "first" cause was a creature of less intelligence and biological than likely mechanical. I say first cause since people might have created programs to design those robots (they may have been designed by, say, AI, which was designed by other AI but we got it started, or for today's Theist, God got it started). I suspect that AI will eclipse us in generalised intelligence and already technology is being used to create better programs.   The robot may have been designed by AI, which may have been designed by other technology, which may have been designed by humans. A question would be, is there physical evidence that the robots are not "natural" (not that the robot might use the term, but in our terms)? Do they believe or know about biological life? Could they assume that a biological lifeform would be capable of creating them? Is there evidence to assume that they could be a technological construct that could not have developed naturally/ is there physical evidence that our design ("our" is me speaking as a robot) could be a natural phenomenon. What limitations they have to work with depends on their environment and their programming. I'm differentiating this from purely ontological reasoning and I don't know that one can argue for God without taking an ontological approach.

Interesting to think that if super robots could have been create by inferior intelligences, then could humans have been created by an inferior intelligence?

Another example instead of mechanical devices would be genetically engineered lifeforms since they might be less distinguishable from the so-called natural world (although the robot one works especially if the natural world is gone or inaccessible so less evidence to work with).

Perhaps later I'll try to write something more coherent. Even without quotes Captcha still thinks I'm a robot -- perhaps I am of a sort.

Logan wrote: Yes, I have thought that if such a higher intelligence r power existed that could create our universe likely would be outside it and would be more likely to be on a plane of the "metaphysical". Another dimension perhaps outside of time and space ... especially if that designer operates somewhere else (such as the metaphysical plane that twseel speaks of) or elsewhere outside of space-time which doesn't operate according to our physical laws

I think you've hit on it there.

Logan wrote: Another example instead of mechanical devices would be genetically engineered lifeforms since they might be less distinguishable from the so-called natural world

There you go. Or why not a combination of both? Just think what technology might be able to do 500 years from now.. I mean 500 years ago was 1517. There wasn't even electricity back then, or cameras, or radios, or phones, etc. So 500 years in the future.. God only knows what all there'll be!

Again my thing is I, very sincerely, asked for a sign and then that night I got one! So I'm not going to now say, "no you know what.. that wasn't good enough. I need more." No, I asked for something and got it. So for me God is real, period. And I know the rest of you will find that out as well eventually. All I ask is just be open to it.


Edited by YESESIS - October 29 2017 at 17:22

Logan wrote: It certainly might seem ungracious to pray hard for a sign and then casually reject it. The setting: a sunny day in parched lands. Moses wanders alone. Moses: "Yahweh, give me a sign!" God conjures up a rainbow Moses: "I don't find that sign very convincing. It could be a natural phenomenon. Give me another sign!" God sets a bush alight Moses: "That could still be down to natural causes. Give me another sign!" God: "Oh for heaven's sake!" [strikes Moses down with lightning] Moses [badly singed]: "Yeah, I think that will do, erm even if it... [Moses thinks better of it as thunder rumbles] No, never mind, that will do very nicely thank you."

lmao.. exactly.

The religious person might say we can know God through revelation.

Interesting post; it makes me we wish I could jot down some meaningful equations. I've mostly heard Lawrence Krauss talk about this universe from nothing.

Nothing (the absence of something including space, time, any sense of dimension, energy, no physical laws, no quantum gravity) is physical in a sense, in an another sense it's not concrete. Of course when talking science one should try to speak in scientific terms and nothing is not just some philosophical concept, of course, it's very much a concept of science.. If nothing is non-existence, it can be described as non-physical (its certainly not quantifiable) but it can also be described physically. Quantum gravity, of course, is still very much a work in progress, and I'd need to brush up on the theoretical frameworks (just understanding general relativity relatively well took time). Nothing is considered unstable in this and indeed it's said that instability gives rise to something frequently due to the laws of quantum mechanics (gravity plus quantum mechanics can create space itself).

Incidentally, I wish I hadn't talked about a universe without matter or energy in the multiverse (there are requirements to have space itself and things come into being....).

Edited by Logan - October 29 2017 at 21:51

Logan wrote: A little bump since I think Condor came up with an interesting topic here, but my babble may have maimed this thread. I've been thinking more about concepts of the divine of late.

It's man ability to form concepts and ask questions about the divine, the afterlife, etc. I don't think it's within man's ability to answer them. I like the mystery of things and I suppose that's another trait man has, not to know all the answers and be quite happy with that. I'm rambling too but what the heck.

Mellotron Storm wrote: Endless Love

While I'm agnostic (a soft atheist), this is the conception of "God" that I would like to believe in.

Edited by Logan - July 30 2018 at 12:51

What is God...  let me start with what God is not haha

I can see what micky wrote above and agree with some, not all of it, but because I am Catholic and have stronger more positive feelings about God. God is the Creator, he created the earth, heavens and man and so to understand this one I think would have to understand the universe, which will never happen.

To resurrect this Bertrand Russell quote:

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

The vaguer the conception of God, the more likely to me. It's a concept that we can define into existence.

To mix up Orwell's 1984 slogans: Ignorance is strength. I see both the firm belief and dogma of the orthodox as weakness, and I see the ignorance of those who don't claim to know as a strength....

Edited by Logan - July 30 2018 at 19:39

I have studied various religions and I am much more okay with some religious belief systems than others. I grew up going to Church and I consider myself to be a cultural Christian, by the way.