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TornadoEvil
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11 Mar 2013, 9:29 pm

Of course, its in the very question, The Doctor is behind god.

There is, of course, no actual way to test any of these hypothesis with regards to god.

I think I read in the gospel that god doesn't like being tested and is sick and tired of sending signs, he sent a son, that is it. Guy seems to have covered quite a bit.



Jono
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11 Mar 2013, 9:42 pm

Ancalagon wrote:
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Actually, I think that would probably be an unacceptable trade-off for an Abrahamic conception of God. Because then for instance, and this is alluded to in the video, God would never be able to rule out that he has not been created by a higher God that rules over a greater realm even if he's omniscience in the sub-realm that he rules over.

I'm not at all clear on how you got this out of what I said.


Because it could be one of the unknown unknowns that you decided to exclude as part of the knowledge required to call a being omniscient.

Ancalagon wrote:
But let's consider this from a practical point of view. Sure, this idea wouldn't sit well with an Abrahamic religion. Let's assume it's true, though. God is omnicient over this universe (and any others he may have created). By definition, God is more intelligent and more knowledgeable than any entity or set of entities that exist or could exist in this universe, and therefore more intelligent and knowledgeable than humans. If this thing that God doesn't know about exists, then God can't detect its existence, and since God would be better at detecting its existence than humans, humans will never detect it, so it cannot have any practical effect on any human being, ever. If this thing were to exist, it would necessarily have exactly zero importance to humans.

So although the idea doesn't quite sit well with me, if it were proven to be true (or rather possible, since it couldn't possibly be proven to be true), then it wouldn't take me long to get used to it.


Well, the whole point is to kind of argue against the Abrahamic conception of God. From that same practical argument then, why would God even have any importance to humans?



xenon13
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12 Mar 2013, 12:46 am

Metagod?



Ancalagon
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12 Mar 2013, 5:29 am

Jono wrote:
Ancalagon wrote:
But let's consider this from a practical point of view. Sure, this idea wouldn't sit well with an Abrahamic religion. Let's assume it's true, though. God is omnicient over this universe (and any others he may have created). By definition, God is more intelligent and more knowledgeable than any entity or set of entities that exist or could exist in this universe, and therefore more intelligent and knowledgeable than humans. If this thing that God doesn't know about exists, then God can't detect its existence, and since God would be better at detecting its existence than humans, humans will never detect it, so it cannot have any practical effect on any human being, ever. If this thing were to exist, it would necessarily have exactly zero importance to humans.

So although the idea doesn't quite sit well with me, if it were proven to be true (or rather possible, since it couldn't possibly be proven to be true), then it wouldn't take me long to get used to it.


Well, the whole point is to kind of argue against the Abrahamic conception of God. From that same practical argument then, why would God even have any importance to humans?

The argument I made doesn't apply there, since humans are not even close to omniscient, and God isn't trying to deliberately hide even the possibility of his existence, unlike the posited meta-thing.


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Ancalagon
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12 Mar 2013, 5:43 am

Jono wrote:
Ancalagon wrote:
Jono wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Unknown unknowns possess no challenge for an omniscient being- it knows that there is nothing it does not know.


The statement in bold is logically impossible since by definition, unknown unknowns are called that because you are unaware of them. Therefore, if it is possible for unknown unknowns to exist, it is impossible to say for certainty that they don't. Please point out where that is circular.

Your first sentence is circular: you assume that there are unknown unknowns with respect to an omniscient being, and that because of the existence of these unknown unknowns there must be unknown unknowns.


No, I have actually never assumed that there are unknown unknown with respect to an omniscient being at all.

Then that first sentence doesn't make sense. What are you trying to say there?

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In fact, I freely admit that they may not.

Wasn't your argument against omniscience based on the opposite of this? If not, what exactly was it based on?

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However, I did argue that it is impossible for that omnipotent being to know whether or not they exist because he would be unaware of them by definition.

Are you trying to argue that whether unknown unknowns exist is an unknown unknown?

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Obviously, someone is misunderstanding the argument here.

Clearly.


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Rudywalsh
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13 Mar 2013, 7:56 am

As Charles Darwin once said "God was created from the image of man, not man from the image of god”.



Jono
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13 Mar 2013, 9:19 am

Ancalagon wrote:
Jono wrote:
Ancalagon wrote:
Jono wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Unknown unknowns possess no challenge for an omniscient being- it knows that there is nothing it does not know.


The statement in bold is logically impossible since by definition, unknown unknowns are called that because you are unaware of them. Therefore, if it is possible for unknown unknowns to exist, it is impossible to say for certainty that they don't. Please point out where that is circular.

Your first sentence is circular: you assume that there are unknown unknowns with respect to an omniscient being, and that because of the existence of these unknown unknowns there must be unknown unknowns.


No, I have actually never assumed that there are unknown unknown with respect to an omniscient being at all.

Then that first sentence doesn't make sense. What are you trying to say there?

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In fact, I freely admit that they may not.

Wasn't your argument against omniscience based on the opposite of this? If not, what exactly was it based on?


No, the argument was not initially concerned at all with whether or not there are things unknown to God, rather it was only concerned with whether God would be aware of such things if there were. That was the whole point of introducing the concept of unknown unknowns, it was never relevant at all whether they really exist with respect to an omniscient being, it was only relevant whether or not they can be known to exist.

This is supposed to be similar to the argument for Godel's incompleteness theorem when one discusses statements that can neither be proven true or false within a consistent system of axioms. One is not concerned with whether such statements are true or false, only their provability or whether they can be proven to be true or false.

Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
However, I did argue that it is impossible for that omnipotent being to know whether or not they exist because he would be unaware of them by definition.

Are you trying to argue that whether unknown unknowns exist is an unknown unknown?


I am arguing that that is unknowable, yes. One could argue that it's actually a known unknown because at least you could deduce that it's unknowable but that doesn't change anything because it still can never be known.

P.S. This argument against omniscience was first used by the guy in the video below. Maybe his explanation is better than mine:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vauFcJAnnTY[/youtube]



ruveyn
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13 Mar 2013, 10:20 am

Jono wrote:

P.S. This argument against omniscience was first used by the guy in the video below. Maybe his explanation is better than mine:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vauFcJAnnTY[/youtube]


This is not as bad as some philosophical discourse I have read or listened to, but it is still (in the end) word salad.

This fellow, at least, sounds reasonable.

ruveyn



Drehmaschine
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13 Mar 2013, 7:18 pm

Who created God?
Some rich bloke with a large milling machine.



Jono
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01 Apr 2015, 11:58 am

I know that I posted this thread about 2 years ago but I've actually found the source of this argument against omniscience as paradoxical. Apparently it was first thought up by Patrick Grimm and is based on Cantor's theorem in set theory, except talking about whether it's possible to have a "set of all truths" and finds a logical contradiction regarding whether such a set exists. Though doesn't explicitly mention unknown unknowns like I did previously but the argument is logically equivalent.:

http://www.pgrim.org/articles/omniscience9.pdf

Look at the parts 5 and 6, "the Cantorian argument".



Lazar_Kaganovich
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01 Apr 2015, 12:37 pm

Jono wrote:
Here's another brilliant video from Darkmatter, in which God meets his creator. One of the arguments, given by religious people, for God's existence is the argument from design. The argument goes that something as complex as yourself and the universe must of had a creator. However, given that God is more intelligent and more complex, shouldn't that same logic mean that something created God?

The video also explains why the concept of omniscience, or all-knowing, is actually a complete and utter logical contradiction. The reason for that is that knowing everything implies also knowing unknown unknowns (things that you don't even know that there is to know), which by definition, can't be known. If that sounds confusing, maybe the video explains it better:






God in all theologies is exempt from causality since *he* exists outside of space and time which resolves that particular contradiction. But what makes an omnipotent being a logical contradiction is the question can God make a stone so big that he couldn't lift it? If God is omnipotent, then God could create a SuperGod that could dominate him and he'd have no control over!



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01 Apr 2015, 12:56 pm

Well, the solution is simple: declare questions such as “who created God?” to be blasphemies and burn all the heretics. Never forget the only truly valid argument in any discussion is force.


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Lintar
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01 Apr 2015, 7:52 pm

People who ask the question, 'Who, or what, created God?', are asking a question that no philosopher or theologian would ever take seriously. You're basically asking, 'Who, or what, created that which is atemporal and therefore has no beginning in time, is what is known as a necessary entity and therefore was not created, and which provides the ultimate explanation (i.e. effectively short-circuits the infinite regress issue) for why there is something rather than nothing?'

I mean, seriously. A question like this is only ever asked by the philosophically naive. Nothing 'created God'. That is the simple, straight and truthful answer, the only answer.

(By the way, by 'nothing' I don't mean 'gravity', 'branes' or 'a quantum vacuum soup' - I mean 'a complete absence of all, no-thing as such' - i.e. the true meaning of the word).



Lintar
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01 Apr 2015, 7:55 pm

Spiderpig wrote:
Well, the solution is simple: declare questions such as “who created God?” to be blasphemies and burn all the heretics. Never forget the only truly valid argument in any discussion is force.


No 'Spiderpig', the question itself is a profoundly stupid one, a question that demonstrates, like nothing else does, the ignorance of the one asking it.



DentArthurDent
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02 Apr 2015, 12:43 am

Oh my the arrogance. "My version of philosophy proves God" Lintar your assumptions are something that most physicists and anyone seeking real understanding would never take seriously.


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02 Apr 2015, 1:19 am

xenon13 wrote:
Metagod?


ts;dr

God is just the singularity we all live in. Or potentially a neighboring one.


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