Stephen T-B

Rational BAC: do you agree you are talking about something which isn't us in any meaning which we could possibly recognise?

Imnotspecial

I think this whole heaven thingy is just wishful thinking. For myself I hope heaven is just plain non-existence.
Jesus is supposed to have come down from heaven. Strangly, for someone who's been there he gave us nothing at all about it.
That clears it up for me quite nicely.

Mageth

Hey, thanks. That's pretty cool.


Yes, that's a very good point. Our brains have a finite memory storage capacity, and once filled old memories could be flushed to store memories of "new" experiences, whether novelties or repetitions.

I'd still argue, however, that the ability to flush old memories to make room for "new" memories does not necessarily mean that we wouldn't get bored. As I said, people get bored now, in this life, even though everyone is, in reality, never having the exact same experience twice (though many things we experience seem to be repetitive, like going to work every day).

I'm going to do some more speculative rambling about this - I think it's a fascinating topic. Forgive me if my language is rather inventive.

Also note my point about the finite set of possible states that a human brain can be in - the configuration space of what it is possible for your brain to "experience". What it is possible to experience, I believe, would be much larger than your memory storage capacity, but still finite, not infinite.

However, I would also claim that the "memory storage" area of our brain has a finite configuration space. There is a finite set of different states that this portion of our brain can be in, so there is a finite set of "memories" that we are able to store.

Further, I argue that there is a finite amount of possible "novelty" in any case, as to have an infinite amount of novelty would require an infinite configuration space (a configuration space of things, or states, available to be experienced), which is, for lack of a better word, absurd. To return to the "monitor/pixel" analogy, asserting that the monitor could display an infinite number of different images would require at least one of its dimensions to be infinite. Infinities are useful tools in theoretical mathematics and related fields, but in "realities", infinities are problematic, to say the least.

Now, the configuration space of possible novelty (TM) is no doubt large, and no adjective really does its largeness justice, so to get a grasp on it, our minds assume it is "infinite". But it's not infinite; it's finite. "Infinite" is really just a metaphor we apply to it because it's so large that we "round it up" to infinity so we can get a grasp on it. "Infinity" in this case is a metaphor for how large the configuration space is; it's not actually infinite.

Someone wiser than me in philosophy might come along and prove me wrong here about the finite configuration space of possible novelty (TM)...perhaps it is infinite; if so, that would be great. But my discussion of that configuration space is really an aside, a response to luvluv's assertion that God can generate an infinity of novelty for us to experience, with no two experiences ever being the same.

The real limitation, and perhaps the better response to luvluv's assertion, is in the capacity to experience novelty; according to my discussion above, the human brain, or I'd argue any "state machine" capable of "experiencing", has a finite configuration space (which is necessarily more limited than the "configuration space of possible novelty", if you think about it), and thus is only capable of experiencing, or remembering, a subset of the "configuration space of possible novelty", whether that configuration space is finite (as I argue it is) or infinite (which I argue is absurd).

Since the configuration space of our brains is finite, then in infinite time one would necessarily repeat experiences. Memories of past experiences could be "flushed" to make room for "new" experiences (a necessity, since the configuration space for memories is finite), whether the experiences are novelties or repetitions.

But again, I don't think that solves the problem of boredom. If one has the knowledge that that is what's going on, that you are experiencing an infinitely long life where anything you experience has possibly been experienced countless times before and forgotten, that there is necessarily a limit on what you, a state machine with a finite configuration space, can possibly experience, and thus you are in some sort of endless cycle, then it would seem that boredom (if we still have the capacity to be bored), or possibly even insanity, is not out of the question. If no one experiences death, if death is out of the question, then it seems that that knowledge would be inevitable.

Heck, even if it is possible to have an infinite number of novel experiences, even if the configuration space of possible experinces is infinite, the knowledge that you have been "existing" for who-knows-how-long, and have necessarily forgotten most of what you've experienced, but must go on experiencing new things and forgetting past experiences for eternity, would be enough to drive me to the brink of insanity. What would be the point of such an existence? Merely to experience novelty for an infinite amount of time?

More speculation around the idea of a "vast memory": assume that we, somehow, are given an "infinite" amount of storage for memory (requiring a "memory storage" with an infinite configuration space - problematic, as I've described, so problematic as to be absurd). Now, you're rolling along for an enormous amount of time, all the while storing memories of what you've experienced. Now, how do you access that vast storage of memories? I work with computers: How would you address an infinite storage to retrieve a memory? How would you locate one thing in an "infinite configuration space"? The addressing scheme would itself have to be infinite. Another absurdity.

And, related to the addressing problem, how could you efficiently search an infinite memory with an infinite configuration space for a particular memory, once one had stored an enormous amount of memories there? There are some pretty damn good search algorithms, but as the stored memories approach infinity, the time it would require to search the memory would start to approach infinity, no matter what algorithm you used. (And, since an infinite memory would require an infinite addressing scheme to store and retrieve memories, the notion of a "search algorithm" for an infinite memory is another absurdity).

And, aside from the problem with retrieval of any memory from a memory storage with an infinite configuration space, after a long while, say after you've stored a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years of discrete memories, all stored in that memory with an "infinite configuration space", what good would they do you? How can you "recall" that many memories anyway, aside from the problem of how you could retrieve one? It would take you a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years to recall all of what you've experienced. The longer you live, and the more memories you store, the bigger this problem becomes. As your stored memories approach infinity, then the time to recall them would approach infinitiy. So the vast majority of those stored memories would, in essence, be unavailable to you.

That's the problem with positing infinities in reality; they lead to absurdities, and practical impossibilities. To nonsense, in other words.

Note that, if my arguments are sound, they could be applied to the notion of God, and to his proposed "infinities". Does God have an "infinite memory"? If God is infinite, has he stored an infinite amount of memories? Is his knowledge "infinite"? Is God himself an "infinite state machine" with an infinite configuration space? Is God capable of generating an infinite amount of novelty (which would require an "infinite configuration space" in which to generate novelty)? If so, how does he overcome the problems with such infinities I've outlined above? Of course, when one makes such arguments, theists wave their "magic wand" and say something like "God is, by definition, able to do those things, or solve those problems, as he is by definition omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite", or "God is timeless, and that solves all those problems", or somesuch.

Mageth

A strange thing for you to say, since that's exactly what we've been doing on this thread.

No shit. And that's exactly what I've been getting at.

The problem is, I find that it's theists, as often as not, who lack imagination in this area.

It's not "narrowness of vision" at all - it's imaginative speculation on the possible problems that an infinite existence might pose for beings like us.

If you can't imagine the possibility of being bored in eternity, if you can't imagine some of the implications that eternal life may have for beings like us, then perhaps it's your vision that needs some correction.

Clivedurdle

What we are discussing about heaven must also be true of hell - as well as getting bored with infinite pleasure we would get bored with infinite pain - it would not work after a while!

Mageth

I think "numb" might be a good word to use. After experiencing essentially an infinity of pain or pleasure, and knowing that one had an infinity of more such experiences in front of you, it would seem that one would become terminally numb to such experience. What's one more experience, whether pleasant or not, if you've already had an infinite number of such experiences, and have an infinite number before you?

braces_for_impact

One could think that, or one could conclude it absurd. Not out of fear or strangeness, or lack of experience, but out of reasoning. It simply doesn't seem to make sense. Some are not willing to chalk it up to "god magic" and "the mysteries of god" as if that were an answer unto itself, and leave it at that.


I don't doubt that seems true of humans at times, but I really don't see that here. People are mulling this idea over in their head, and a lot of thought is going into it. It's easy to dismiss an idea you don't agree with as narrow vision, simply because they don't agree with your method of answer seeking.

Everyone has a tiny little box of of perceived reality to work with. Just because you look for answers outside the natural world doesn't mean you are using a different framework. Sure, you can entertain them in your head, but you don't really put these supernatural ideas to practical use in the real world. If you lose your car keys, you look for them, you don't entertain ludicrous ideas like them being stolen by aliens, or demons, or hidden by Jesus Christ to test your faith.

Personally, I'll keep my little box of reality. It seems so much better than constantly chasing after the unfalsifiable, always just out of reach.

Clivedurdle

Sorry, false.

Much mathematical theory deals with infinity, as noted above Hinduism deals with it a lot. We are able to nibble away and define it - it is not impossible, just difficult.