AdamWho

yguy:

I have read every comment here and I think your position is this:
Scientific theories that rely on probabilities for their explanations are not really dealing with the deeper reason behind the "seemingly random" phenomena.

While I agree that collecting more data would reduce randomness and would shed more light on the underlying cause of phenomena. However this has its limitation in QM and in complex systems.

Some "randomness" in QM can never be nailed down because of the Heisenberg uncertainty. No theory or instrumentation can fix this problem. It is a property of matter.

The randomness associated with complex systems has to do with the measuring of initial conditions. Even the slightest error in measurement of initial conditions can lead to vastly different results. You could argue that we just have to make better measurements; however, this too runs into QM problems. The shear number of objects in some systems also presents a problem for measuring the initial conditions.

Bottom line:
There is a fundamental limit to the accuracy we can measure things. This inaccuracy leads to seemingly random results. The theories are not at fault.

yguy

You are correct if we accept your proposition regarding the timelessness of logic and mathematics, but I don't. What would the significance of numbers be before there was anything to number?

The problem is that it's possible to know something about a person that they don't know themselves. You can't do that with God.

Fear that someone's gonna beat Him up? Frustration at not being able to do what He wants to do?

I suppose you could say He fears for His children's souls, but I would say that is qualitatively different from the fear one feels in a dark alley in south LA, or even that of a worried mother.

I don't see how. The only way I know I'm here is that a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense) tells me I am. What truth is external to God?

I won't speak for Christians, not being one myself, but I'd say no.

Correct. I only addressed the point because you brought it up.

With regard to that issue, I suppose it is.

No. That God is the uncaused first cause I justify apriori.

The logical problem you seem to have is that you can't accept the premise. It seems to you that I'm trying to justify God's acausality by the idea that all things are caused, when what I'm really doing is showing why it is logical given my premise that God causes all things by working backwards through the logic chain, which seems necessary since you don't accept the premise. IOW, if one assumes an uncaused first cause, everything falls into place - but of course the assumption only makes it logically consistent, not true. You would obviously ask how the assumption is justified, and I couldn't tell you without going metaphysical - if I could tell you at all.

I don't think I've said that logic demonstrates that. I've tried to illustrate the point in various ways, but I'm not sure it's any more logically demonstrable than the geometric definition of a point.

God would not be an exception, because He is not a thing.

Also, it would be more accurate to say that every object has a subject, and that the ultimate subject of all objects is God.

More accurately stated:

Only God is uncaused; therefore if all things are caused, He must be the cause of all things.

You ask me why the random motion of a particle can't be uncaused; I ask you, why can't God?

yguy

I'm aware of the limitations on accuracy of measurement, but I've seen nothing indicating that it would account for all the randomness. AFAIK, we haven't the foggiest idea what sort of path an electron might take within its orbital.

Jesse

yguy:
You are correct if we accept your proposition regarding the timelessness of logic and mathematics, but I don't. What would the significance of numbers be before there was anything to number?

I would say that even if there are no unicorns in reality, the statement "if you had one unicorn and you added another unicorn then you'd have two unicorns" is true while "if you had one unicorn and you added another unicorn you'd have three unicorns" is false. When you have a conditional statement like this, the statement's truth or falsity doesn't depend on whether the premise is true, it just depends on whether the conclusion follows necessarily from the premise. All mathematical truths are necessary truths, so you can always phrase them in this way.

Jesse:
The fact that we know what other people "look like" is not relevant, I'm talking about knowledge of another person's mind, not their physical appearance. We can't directly peer into each other's minds, we know them only indirectly--wouldn't the same be true of knowledge of God, if he exists?

yguy:
The problem is that it's possible to know something about a person that they don't know themselves. You can't do that with God.

I don't see how this is relevant to your claim about people's minds being objects while God's mind is not. Maybe you can know something about a person's mind that they don't know (that's debatable though--it depends whether you include things like unconscious motivations as part of a person's 'mind'), but you can't know everything about their mind, so you can only hold an imperfect concept of their mind in your own mind, not a perfect replica.

Jesse:
Of course, you could argue that even if we can't know other minds directly, God can. I think the question of whether God can directly know our minds or experiences is actually somewhat controversial--see this article on whether an omnipotent being could share experiences like fear and frustration.

yguy:
Fear that someone's gonna beat Him up? Frustration at not being able to do what He wants to do?

I suppose you could say He fears for His children's souls, but I would say that is qualitatively different from the fear one feels in a dark alley in south LA, or even that of a worried mother.

So you agree with the article's conclusion that an omnipotent God cannot really be totally omniscient? Also, if you're saying that God cannot completely understand every aspect of a mind that can know fear, then it seems to me that our minds cannot really be "objects" in God's mind. And I've already argued that one person's mind cannot be an "object" in someone else's mind either. In both cases, others can only hold imperfect concepts of my mind in their own mind, but they can't understand it 100%.

Jesse:
But even if we assume God can directly know our minds, and thus that our minds can be "objects" for him, wouldn't God also be able to directly know his own mind and thus treat himself as an "object" as well?

yguy:
I don't see how. The only way I know I'm here is that a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense) tells me I am. What truth is external to God?

I don't understand what you mean by a "a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense)".

Jesse:
It's like how infinite sets can contain equally large infinite sets as subsets of themselves--for example, the set of all odd numbers is just as large as the set of all integers. Aristotle viewed God as an entity eternally contemplating its own perfect essence, and even if modern Christians don't see God as only contemplating himself as Aristotle did, wouldn't most of them say God is capable of contemplating himself, among other things?

yguy:
I won't speak for Christians, not being one myself, but I'd say no.

OK, then within your system I guess it's true that God could not be an "object" in anyone's mind. But, as I've already argued, it seems that within your system the same would be true of any other mind as well.

Jesse:
It seems to me that your reasoning here is actually pretty circular. You want to get to the conclusion that everything except God requires a cause

yguy:
No. That God is the uncaused first cause I justify apriori.

The logical problem you seem to have is that you can't accept the premise.

No, I'm just saying you can't justify it in terms of a rational argument, like the one you seemed to be making about "things" needing a cause but God not being a "thing". But if I misunderstood and you're not trying to make a rational argument, but just stating a sort of a priori axiom of your own philosophical system, then I can drop this line of criticism (although I don't see any reason to accept your axiom).

Jesse:
it seems like you're just saying "everything is an object, except in the special case of God.

yguy:
God would not be an exception, because He is not a thing.

Ok, but only if we use your idiosyncratic definition of "thing". When I said "everything" you don't need to interpret it as "every 'thing'" (using your definition), you can understand it as "every entity" or "every noun" or whatever other category you would use that would include both physical objects and God.

yguy:
Also, it would be more accurate to say that every object has a subject, and that the ultimate subject of all objects is God.

But if there are things about us God doesn't know (like how we experience fear) is God really the subject of us? We can have imperfect concepts of God in our mind, but presumably you wouldn't say that we can be the subject of God.

yguy:
Only God is uncaused; therefore if all things are caused, He must be the cause of all things.

Or:
all entities/nouns/whatever (I can't use the word 'thing' since I'm including God in this group) except for God are caused by some other entity/noun/whatever, therefore God is the cause of all other entities/nouns/whatever.

yguy:
You ask me why the random motion of a particle can't be uncaused; I ask you, why can't God?

I didn't dispute that God could be uncaused. However, I would think that a theist would want God's existence be a necessary uncaused truth (similar to what I would say about the statement '1+1=2') rather than a contingent uncaused truth like advocates of quantum randomness consider certain facts about a particle's behavior to be. Also note that, number one, not all interpretations of quantum mechanics say that these events are genuinely random, and number two, the whole concept of "cause and effect" is a bit questionable in modern physics anyway, since the laws of physics are time-symmetric and you can therefore just as easily say the past is determined by the future as the reverse.

yguy

But there is an implicit assumption here that while there may not be unicorns, there are other objects, since the reality we know has objects in it.

If you try to prove that 1+1=2, you inevitably end up basing it on something unprovable, so that it appears it is based on nothing. And it is based on no thing - and that is what I suggest is timeless rather than the mathematical conceptualizations we take for granted.

I do - and believe me, you can know such things. I was in conversation with a woman the other day, and I could see that she resented her mother - and I know I was right because she finally admitted it herself. If unconscious motivations couldn't be discerned, con artists would starve.

OK, but the same can be said for a rock. Even though you can examine it more thoroughly than you can a human, you can never grasp every aspect of it perfectly, because to do it, you'd have to understand the atoms it is made of perfectly, at the very least.

In the sense that He can't feel it as we do? I'm not sure. Some would say that's what the Incarnation was about - it allowed God to empathize with man vicariously through the sufferings of Christ. I'm not prepared to debate that, however.

I'm not really sure what knowledge of the object has to do with the subject/object relationship per se. Even if God can't empathize with fear, He knows it's there.

It is external in the sense that if I cease to exist, it does not; however, it is also inside me in the sense that I can access it any time I want to. Mostly I don't, truth being the bitter pill that it is.

OK, fair enough.

Every one of those things can be conceptualized by the mind of man except God. That is to say, all our conceptualizations of objects are imperfect, but all conceptualizations of God are false.

True, because again, all conceptualizations of God are false.

I cannot agree to such an inclusion.

Sorry, you lost me.

Edit:

OK, I see what you mean, but why WOULDN'T God's existence be a necessary truth, from a theistic POV?

Sounds like fodder for a better intellect than mine.

Jesse

Jesse:
I would say that even if there are no unicorns in reality, the statement "if you had one unicorn and you added another unicorn then you'd have two unicorns" is true while "if you had one unicorn and you added another unicorn you'd have three unicorns" is false. When you have a conditional statement like this, the statement's truth or falsity doesn't depend on whether the premise is true, it just depends on whether the conclusion follows necessarily from the premise. All mathematical truths are necessary truths, so you can always phrase them in this way.

yguy:
But there is an implicit assumption here that while there may not be unicorns, there are other objects, since the reality we know has objects in it.

Even if there were no objects, I would say that the statement "if there were objects, one object plus one object would yield two objects" would be true while "if there were objects, one object plus one object would yield three objects" would be false. Do you disagree?

Jesse:
I don't see how this is relevant to your claim about people's minds being objects while God's mind is not. Maybe you can know something about a person's mind that they don't know (that's debatable though--it depends whether you include things like unconscious motivations as part of a person's 'mind'),

yguy:
I do - and believe me, you can know such things. I was in conversation with a woman the other day, and I could see that she resented her mother - and I know I was right because she finally admitted it herself. If unconscious motivations couldn't be discerned, con artists would starve.

I didn't say that unconscious motivations couldn't be discerned, I just said they aren't necessarily part of your "mind" any more than the contents of your bloodstream. Some people would define the contents of your mind as only those things you are currently having conscious experiences of--certainly unconscious factors might influence your current conscious experience, but then the contents of your bloodstream might influence it too.

Jesse:
but you can't know everything about their mind, so you can only hold an imperfect concept of their mind in your own mind, not a perfect replica.

yguy:
OK, but the same can be said for a rock. Even though you can examine it more thoroughly than you can a human, you can never grasp every aspect of it perfectly, because to do it, you'd have to understand the atoms it is made of perfectly, at the very least.

Yes, but God could grasp every aspect of a rock. But according to you, he could not necessarily grasp every aspect of my mind.

I'm pursuing this line of questioning because earlier when I said God could be an object of thought, you said "I think we think of our conceptualizations of Him, not of Him directly." But what would it mean to think of something "directly?" If you have only an imperfect conceptualization of a rock or another mind, wouldn't that mean that the object itself is not really an "object of your thought"?

Jesse:
So you agree with the article's conclusion that an omnipotent God cannot really be totally omniscient?

yguy:
In the sense that He can't feel it as we do? I'm not sure. Some would say that's what the Incarnation was about - it allowed God to empathize with man vicariously through the sufferings of Christ. I'm not prepared to debate that, however.

But you said you were not a Christian, correct?

Jesse:
I don't understand what you mean by a "a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense)".

yguy:
It is external in the sense that if I cease to exist, it does not; however, it is also inside me in the sense that I can access it any time I want to. Mostly I don't, truth being the bitter pill that it is.

What is the "it" that you're talking about? I thought we were talking about whether a mind can contemplate itself (and thus have itself as an 'object of thought').

Jesse:
Ok, but only if we use your idiosyncratic definition of "thing". When I said "everything" you don't need to interpret it as "every 'thing'" (using your definition), you can understand it as "every entity" or "every noun" or whatever other category you would use that would include both physical objects and God.

yguy:
Every one of those things can be conceptualized by the mind of man except God. That is to say, all our conceptualizations of objects are imperfect, but all conceptualizations of God are false.

That looks like a conceptualization of God itself. By saying God has a particular property--namely, that of being impossible to conceptualize, even imperfectly--you are defining a particular concept of what it means to be "God". The same goes for various other statements you've made about God, like that God is uncaused.

Jesse:
Or:
all entities/nouns/whatever (I can't use the word 'thing' since I'm including God in this group)<snip>

yguy:
I cannot agree to such an inclusion.

You cannot agree that there is any class which includes both "things" and God? Even "nouns"? Even "the class of all things, plus God"?

I think you're getting into the realm of mystical paradoxes here. Even by talking about God, giving him any description at all (including 'impossible to describe') you're contradicting yourself.

Jesse:
I didn't dispute that God could be uncaused. However, I would think that a theist would want God's existence be a necessary uncaused truth (similar to what I would say about the statement '1+1=2') rather than a contingent uncaused truth like advocates of quantum randomness consider certain facts about a particle's behavior to be.

yguy:
Sorry, you lost me.

Edit:

OK, I see what you mean, but why WOULDN'T God's existence be a necessary truth, from a theistic POV?

I wasn't saying he wouldn't be, I was just pointing out that there's an important distinction between the sense that quantum events are sometimes said to be uncaused and the sense that God (or 1+1=2, if you're a mathematical platonist) is uncaused.

However, I'm not sure you can say God's existence is a necessary truth, because that's another conceptualization which assigns God a particular property.

yguy

I think so, because I cannot imagine myself in a reality in which there were no objects and never had been - and I doubt your ability to do it.

BTW, if Jesus' miracle with loaves and fishes is veridical, it makes 1+1=2 something other than a timeless truth, it would seem.

I wouldn't agree with that definition, at least in the context of this discussion.

I don't see why. I've never read "Oliver Twist", for example; yet with respect to my mind, it is an object in the sense that its awareness of me is inferior to my awareness of it.

I don't profess that faith because I don't care to give it a bad name, but I'm inclined to believe the Bible is mostly true, and that Christ rose from the dead. I'm not exactly a "believer", but I'm definitely biased in that direction.

The truth.

I can't contemplate my own mind except the truth shines a light on it.

Notice that these are statements about what He is NOT, rather than what He is. Am I really conceptualizing you if I say you're not a walrus?

What I mean by conceptualization is to have an image of something in the mind's eye. The universe itself we can conceptualize with a percentage of accuracy greater than zero. Even infinity we can have enough comprehension of to use in mathematics. Not so with God, for it is He whose light by which we see such images.

See above.

I would say that is not a conceptualization of Him but a recognition that His existence is necessary.

Jesse

Originally posted by Jesse
Even if there were no objects, I would say that the statement "if there were objects, one object plus one object would yield two objects" would be true while "if there were objects, one object plus one object would yield three objects" would be false. Do you disagree?

yguy:
I think so, because I cannot imagine myself in a reality in which there were no objects and never had been - and I doubt your ability to do it.

I don't think it matters. I think the statement would still be true regardless of whether I can imagine what such a state of affairs would be like, or regardless of whether there would be any beings that could recognize that the statement is true. But I guess the belief that statements can be true independently of anyone recognizing them as such is just a variation on my own mathematical platonism.

yguy:
BTW, if Jesus' miracle with loaves and fishes is veridical, it makes 1+1=2 something other than a timeless truth, it would seem.

Not at all. In the story, Jesus didn't manipulate one object and another object such that those particular objects added up to something other than two, he miraculously added new objects that weren't there before. To show that 1+1=3 you'd have to show that one unique object, when combined with another unique object, would yield three unique objects, without adding any additional objects or changing the nature of the original objects.

Do you think it is possible even for God to do something like this? Do you think it is possible for him to violate, not the laws of nature, but the laws of logic? Could God make a square circle? Most theists would say no.

Jesse:
Yes, but God could grasp every aspect of a rock. But according to you, he could not necessarily grasp every aspect of my mind.

I'm pursuing this line of questioning because earlier when I said God could be an object of thought, you said "I think we think of our conceptualizations of Him, not of Him directly." But what would it mean to think of something "directly?" If you have only an imperfect conceptualization of a rock or another mind, wouldn't that mean that the object itself is not really an "object of your thought"?

yguy:
I don't see why. I've never read "Oliver Twist", for example; yet with respect to my mind, it is an object in the sense that its awareness of me is inferior to my awareness of it.

You never said anything earlier about superior vs. inferior awareness. If I have a very sketchy concept of you in my mind and you have an even sketchier concept of me, does that mean you are an object in my mind but I am not not an object in yours?

Jesse:
But even if we assume God can directly know our minds, and thus that our minds can be "objects" for him, wouldn't God also be able to directly know his own mind and thus treat himself as an "object" as well?

yguy:
I don't see how. The only way I know I'm here is that a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense) tells me I am. What truth is external to God?

Jesse:
I don't understand what you mean by a "a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense)".

yguy:
It is external in the sense that if I cease to exist, it does not; however, it is also inside me in the sense that I can access it any time I want to. Mostly I don't, truth being the bitter pill that it is.

Jesse:
What is the "it" that you're talking about?

yguy:
The truth.

Jesse:
I thought we were talking about whether a mind can contemplate itself (and thus have itself as an 'object of thought').

yguy:
I can't contemplate my own mind except the truth shines a light on it.

I don't know what you mean by "the truth shines a light on it". This is obviously a metaphor of some kind, but I don't understand what it means for "truth" to "shine a light" on something.

And how does this apply to my original question about having oneself as an object of thought? Would you also say that "I can't contemplate Oliver Twist except the truth shines a light on it"? If not, what's the difference? And if so, then if this doesn't stop Oliver Twist from being an object of thought for me, why would it stop my own mind from being an object of thought for me?

yguy:
Every one of those things can be conceptualized by the mind of man except God. That is to say, all our conceptualizations of objects are imperfect, but all conceptualizations of God are false.

Jesse:
That looks like a conceptualization of God itself. By saying God has a particular property--namely, that of being impossible to conceptualize, even imperfectly--you are defining a particular concept of what it means to be "God". The same goes for various other statements you've made about God, like that God is uncaused.

yguy:
Notice that these are statements about what He is NOT, rather than what He is. Am I really conceptualizing you if I say you're not a walrus?

Sure. Of course "not a walrus" is a pretty broad category, but then "living organism" would be pretty broad too, but that's conceptualizing me to some degree (animal, vegetable, or mineral...). There's no clear-cut difference between "negative" statements and "positive" ones...for example, is it really so different to say "Bob does not easily anger" and "Bob is fairly mild-mannered"?

yguy:
What I mean by conceptualization is to have an image of something in the mind's eye. The universe itself we can conceptualize with a percentage of accuracy greater than zero. Even infinity we can have enough comprehension of to use in mathematics. Not so with God, for it is He whose light by which we see such images.

Again, I don't understand what "light" in your metaphors is supposed to stand for. And isn't categorizing me as "not a walrus" a conceptualization of me that has "a percentage of accuracy greater than zero"? So why isn't "uncaused" a conceptualization of God that has a percentage accuracy greater than zero too?

Jesse:
You cannot agree that there is any class which includes both "things" and God? Even "nouns"? Even "the class of all things, plus God"?

I think you're getting into the realm of mystical paradoxes here. Even by talking about God, giving him any description at all (including 'impossible to describe') you're contradicting yourself.

yguy:
See above.

You didn't answer the questions in my first paragraph. Does God not fall into the class "nouns"? Does God not fall into the class "the class of all things, plus God"?

Jesse:
However, I'm not sure you can say God's existence is a necessary truth, because that's another conceptualization which assigns God a particular property.

yguy:
I would say that is not a conceptualization of Him but a recognition that His existence is necessary.

But isn't "exists necessarily" an attribute? How can you attribute qualities to some X without "conceptualizing" that X to some degree? Kant, in his critique of the Ontological Argument for God's existence, argued that "existence" is not a predicate like "red" or "tall" (see this short explanation or this longer one), so I guess that might be a way out, although I'm not sure whether a Kantian philosopher would say the same about "necessary existence".

yguy

Yes, it appears we must agree to disagree here.

I'm not sure I agree with the logic, but it's not worth debating right now.

I would say I don't know. Could Euclid have conceived of lines, equidistant from each other in two places, which intersect? I would guess not.

As for laws, you could say Jesus was violating the law of gravity by walking on water, but you could also say he knew something about gravity that we don't. He wasn't breaking the law any more that the Wright brothers did - He just had a better understanding of it.

No, because even if you know me better than I know you, I can see things about you that you can't see about yourself.

You know that hypocrisy is wrong whether anyone ever told you or not, but you don't know HOW you know. The truth shining its light on the concept is how you know.

Yes.

It doesn't - but your mind is not you, any more than your computer is.

Yes, but you are drawing the "living organism" inference improperly, since it is theoretically possible that you are a sophisticated computer program, or something I can't conceive of.

But again, there are unconscious assumptions here, because in common parlance they are very similar, but in strictly logical terms they are not. The Bob who doesn't easily anger, for instance, could be dead.

See above.

God is no more a noun than you are. Nouns are only labels - so that would be a no.

IOW, how can one posit God's existence without conceptualizing Him? The same way I can posit your existence without coneptualizing you. There is, of course, the tendency of my mind to imagine what you look like and so forth, but I need not imagine your existence.

According to Kant,"...we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this thing is."

I couldn't argue with that, but I don't see how it's relevant - and unfortunately, I found the longer piece incomprehensible.

(apologies yguy, I meant to reply to your post but I accidentally edited it, fortunately I was able to restore it--Jesse)

Jesse

Jesse:
Do you think it is possible even for God to do something like this? Do you think it is possible for him to violate, not the laws of nature, but the laws of logic? Could God make a square circle? Most theists would say no.

yguy:
I would say I don't know. Could Euclid have conceived of lines, equidistant from each other in two places, which intersect? I would guess not.

Sure he could, if you explained to him that you were defining lines on a curved surface as "straight lines". The fact that you can modify Euclid's axioms just shows that you shouldn't get too hung up on any given mental image of what the entities described by the axioms "really are"--different concrete situations can be described by identical or very similar axiomatic systems.

Jesse:
You never said anything earlier about superior vs. inferior awareness. If I have a very sketchy concept of you in my mind and you have an even sketchier concept of me, does that mean you are an object in my mind but I am not not an object in yours?

yguy:
No, because even if you know me better than I know you, I can see things about you that you can't see about yourself.


So is that a condition for having something as an "object" in your mind? If I know a lot about you, but nothing that you don't already know yourself, are you an object in my mind?

Jesse:
I don't know what you mean by "the truth shines a light on it". This is obviously a metaphor of some kind, but I don't understand what it means for "truth" to "shine a light" on something.

yguy:
You know that hypocrisy is wrong whether anyone ever told you or not, but you don't know HOW you know. The truth shining its light on the concept is how you know.

Well, it sounds like you're advocating your own version of "platonic truth", except about morality instead of math. Unless you think I know hypocrisy is wrong because God chose to design me with certain a priori beliefs--but then it isn't really "truth", it's just my "programming" (God could just as easily design a being who 'knows' that murder is good in this case).

Anyway, I still don't understand how this applies to your original statement that "The only way I know I'm here is that a truth external to me (in the metaphysical sense) tells me I am." Knowledge of my existence is not too similar to knowledge of morality--is the connection that both involve a priori knowledge that I can't justify in terms of anything else? "I think therefore I am" and all that?

Jesse:
And how does this apply to my original question about having oneself as an object of thought? Would you also say that "I can't contemplate Oliver Twist except the truth shines a light on it"?

yguy:
Yes.

How so? If by "truth" you're talking about some kind of a priori knowledge, what such knowledge do I need to contemplate Oliver Twist?

Jesse:
If not, what's the difference? And if so, then if this doesn't stop Oliver Twist from being an object of thought for me, why would it stop my own mind from being an object of thought for me?

yguy:
It doesn't - but your mind is not you, any more than your computer is.

OK, I didn't realize that you were differentiating between my self and my mind. So--can my own self be an object of thought for me? If not, what's the crucial difference here with Oliver Twist, if both need the truth shining a light on them, yet Oliver Twist can be an object of thought for me? If so, then why can't God be an object of thought for himself?

Jesse:
Sure. Of course "not a walrus" is a pretty broad category, but then "living organism" would be pretty broad too, but that's conceptualizing me to some degree (animal, vegetable, or mineral...).

yguy:
Yes, but you are drawing the "living organism" inference improperly, since it is theoretically possible that you are a sophisticated computer program, or something I can't conceive of.

I don't see your point. "Not a walrus" could "theoretically" be an incorrect description of me too...how does this relate to your view that somehow negative descriptions of things don't count as "conceptualizing" them but positive descriptions do?

Jesse:
There's no clear-cut difference between "negative" statements and "positive" ones...for example, is it really so different to say "Bob does not easily anger" and "Bob is fairly mild-mannered"?

yguy:
But again, there are unconscious assumptions here, because in common parlance they are very similar, but in strictly logical terms they are not. The Bob who doesn't easily anger, for instance, could be dead.

Even so, I don't see any fundamental difference between negative descriptions and positive descriptions--both exclude certain things and include others. It seems like it's just a quantitative difference, that negative descriptions generally only exclude a small number of things (in this case, the class of all things that anger easily) while including everything else (anything that doesn't fit into that class, including dead people). Positive descriptions, on the other hand, usually include a relatively small number of things and exclude everything else.

Jesse:
Again, I don't understand what "light" in your metaphors is supposed to stand for. And isn't categorizing me as "not a walrus" a conceptualization of me that has "a percentage of accuracy greater than zero"? So why isn't "uncaused" a conceptualization of God that has a percentage accuracy greater than zero too?

yguy:
See above.

See what? I didn't see anything you said earlier that answers this question.

Jesse:
You didn't answer the questions in my first paragraph. Does God not fall into the class "nouns"? Does God not fall into the class "the class of all things, plus God"?

yguy:
God is no more a noun than you are. Nouns are only labels - so that would be a no.

OK, "describable by nouns". Or "the class of all 'things', plus God." The point of all this is, you seemed to say earlier that "you cannot agree" that there is any class which includes both "things" (using your notion of what this word means) and God, which seems obviously false to me. Was I misunderstanding you?

Jesse:
But isn't "exists necessarily" an attribute? How can you attribute qualities to some X without "conceptualizing" that X to some degree?

yguy:
IOW, how can one posit God's existence without conceptualizing Him? The same way I can posit your existence without coneptualizing you. There is, of course, the tendency of my mind to imagine what you look like and so forth, but I need not imagine your existence.

You can't posit that X exists without specifying in any way what X refers to. For example, it is meaningless to say "I posit that smeegoflaks exist" unless I am willing to say at least a little bit about what the word "smeegoflak" means.