Big Spoon

First lets assume that God is infinite, which I think is a reasonable assumption. An infinite god can't be defined in terms as being good, as if he is infinite he must encompass all that is evil aswell. To ascribe some kind of consciousness to god also violates this assumption of infiniteness, so God could only exist as some benign, abstract quantity.

Darth Dane

Bingo

If God is all/everything, then I must be it!

Man was made in the image of God!!!

It means there is something "behind" which is beyond the human mind.


Ask youself this:

Where does my thoughts come from?





DD - I Am Spliff

Jobar

To talk about something, you have to be able to put it into words- you have to define it. The thing then becomes definite.

If something is infinite it *cannot* be definite. So the infinite cannot be spoken of.

"The Tao which can be talked about is not the infinite Tao."

Big Spoon

But by that logic, the word "infinite" can't even represent an infinite quantitiy. There are problems of self-reference here therefore a metalanguage is required.

Where do your thoughts come from? they're chemical impulses in your brain. That may sound reductionist but i have no reason to believe otherwise.

Darth Dane

"where do your thoughts come from? they're chemical impulses in your brain. That may sound reductionist but i have no reason to believe otherwise."

If my thoughts are just chemical impulses, I gather that we don't have freewill, how do you control the impulses in your brain? If you control them, WHAT controls them? It can't be the thoughts and mind, as you stated.

I believe we do have freewill, and that thoughts are not inherently only from the physical brain.


Well put Jobar, in a nutshell it tells us not to talk about that which we simply cannot talk anout





DD - Spliffed

Travis

Only to the metaphysicist.

excreationist

That's way too simplified... it's like saying that a calculator doing calculations just involves some electrons moving around.
In the calculator example, there is a device which has different "rules" programmed in, which cause it to add and subtract, etc, correctly... there are also inputs coming from an external source (like a person). The input basically interacts with the calculator system (based on its rules) and it produces an output...
We have preprogrammed rules too (instincts) - like we want to seek or repeat certain things (like some newness/discovery) and avoid other things (like bodily pain). I don't think we can go against those urges. We can have multiple urges, but we'll always select the one that we've learnt would probably make us maximize pleasure signals and/or minimize pain signals.
We also learn new problem solving strategies... so that we can seek our instinctual desires in more sophisticated ways...
I think all of our thoughts are motivated by our basic desires. (desires to seek/repeat or avoid things such as boredom, bodily pain, alienation, etc). I think we'd feel no desire to think if we were absolutely content... so we wouldn't think. [I'm talking about restless philosophical-type thought - rather than an end to all brain activity...]

Darth Dane:
What is the difference between free-will and my view, where we have to select the option that seems the most emotionally attractive? Does your theory add a little bit of randomness as well?

bd-from-kg

Big Spoon:

False. Something can be infinite without being everything. For example, the set of all primes is infinite, but not all natural numbers are prime. (In fact, an infinitesimal percentage are.) Not to mention that not all things are natural numbers!

Why?

Jobar:

False. First off, it’s simply not true that to talk about something you have to define it. I can say that Mozart’s clarinet quintet is beautiful without defining “beauty” (or even being able to). I can say that I’m in pain without defining “pain”. I can say that a pile of stuff is a “heap” without defining “heap”. I can say that I’m holding something in my hand without defining “thing”. (In fact, I have no idea how to define “thing”.)

Second, it’s perfectly possible to give completely definite, unambiguous definitions of some infinite things. For example, I define 0 as the empty set, 1 as the set containing only 0, 2 as the set containing only 0 and 1, etc. (In general I define N+1 as the set containing only 0, 1, 2, ..., N. This can all be made completely rigorous, with no need to use ellipses.) Now I define Int as the set containing all members of the sequence 0, 1, 2, ...

I have just defined a definite infinite set.

Philosoft

Hmm. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I can say "beauty" without having defined it and, in a most limited sense, I am talking. But I consider talking about something qualitiatively different - to talk about something, I'm trying to express some proposition about the thing.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. I suppose that, for any speakable string of letters, there exists a nonzero probability that said letter-string is used by someone to represent something. So, even if I don't mean anything by a particular letter-string, the probability exists that someone means something by it.

Am I thinking straight here?

Jobar

bd, you can describe (or define) something as infinite, but you cannot describe (or define) the infinite. Your mathematical example defines a set which *is* infinite, no argument. But infinity itself is indefinite.

Semantically, we are incapable of completely defining anything. My keyboard, for instance, is a standard Mitsumi model KFK-EA4XT, with a long serial number I won't inflict upon you. But to give you a complete and precise description of this keyboard is impossible, because it would require a vast and always-changing volume indicating the placement of every speck of dust, every stain, every wear mark on it.

Even worse, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle means it is impossible to give a complete definition of even the smallest particle.

And before you accuse me of trying to slip in 'complete' here- I think that the presumption that I, and Big Spoon, make, is that when talking about god(s) it is fair to assume we are attempting a complete definition.

(I think this thread may wind up in your forum, Philo.)