Secular Elation

God created mathematics. If he made it, it's not to say that he isn't omnipotent.
Suppose that there is no universe. You are just a mind, with no perception or input. Can you prove to yourself that 1=1? Perhaps this is a fallible arguement..

1)God created mathematics? Sorry. It appears that mathematics exists innately in nature. It is just that man has been able to concoct the many subjects and formulas of mathematics.

2)Yes, I can prove 1=1. If I have one apple in my hand, then I have one apple. No more, no less. Therefore, 1=1!

3)Come on...even god could not make 2+2=5. If you have two rocks, and you place them beside another two rocks on the ground, how many total do you see? Four rocks! You cannot have five. It is impossible. To achieve five, you would have to add yet another rock, but then the equation would no longer be (2+2=4), it would be (2+3=5 or 1+4=5).

Automaton

If causal relationships were independent of time, wouldn't this mean all the entire hierarchy of contingencies would occur at a single moment in time? I disagree with you on this point and believe the idea of logical contingency only stems from an a prosterati observation of causality.
Would you believe the statement "Kenny is alive" represents factual knowledge? If not, why not? Omniscience can be defined as knowledge of all facts, therefore, if "Kenny is alive" represents factual knowledge, omniscience must have mutability. On another perspective, I thought you believed in free will. How does this work if spacetime is a single, immutable manifold?

Ron Singh

Yes, but I propose that, and it is posted here that God created the universe. Since nature is contingent upon the universe, God transitively created mathematics.

Please refer to me saying: Suppose that there is no universe. You are just a mind, with no perception or input. Can you prove to yourself that 1=1?

Well since God created this universe and hence its laws, I have nothing else to compare it to. I just state that the way God made it is the way God made it.

~Your friendly neighborhood 15yr old Sikh.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: sikh ]</p>

tronvillain

I find it funny that I, an atheist, am constantly having to argue that the idea of God existing outside of time is logically coherent. Like another atheist in another thread who was arguing against me, I have to agree with Kenny, at least about the nature of time - there is good reason to think that it is not something that "passes" or "flows" from one moment to another in a linear fashion.

Of course, unless God exists in some sort of meta-time external to the universe, he is a static object which interacts with space-time at various points and upon which space time depends for its existence. If this is the case, it is innacurate to describe God as having created the universe.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Kenny

No, not if time is something that emerges from causal relationships.

There are no a posteriori observations of causality. We may postulate causality to explain our observations, but causality itself, as Hume pointed out, is never something we empirically observe. Causality is a concept we mentally impose upon our observations and it is strictly an a priori concept. And, it seems to me, that what we mean by causality is closely tied to what we mean by an explanation of something. When we say A causes B, we are saying that in some sense B’s occurrence can be accounted for in terms of A’s occurrence.

I think the statement “Kenny is alive” does represent factual knowledge provided that one recognizes the implicit qualifiers inherent in it. The statement refers to the space-time coordinates in which it is originally made. The statement “Kenny is alive at space-time coordinates (x,y,z,t)” may be true while the statement “Kenny is dead at space-time coordinates (x’,y’,z’,t&#8217 ” may also be true. Neither statement is any more true than the other; it just depends on which set of space-time coordinates one wants to talk about. God sees both statements as being true (because they both are true -- the “present” is no more real than the “future&#8221 .

What difference does it make. If, at every moment in space-time that encompasses my consciousness I am actively involved in making choices, why would that somehow negate the fact that all of those choices are being freely made? In one set of space-time coordinates I am a Kindergartener freely choosing to play on the swings at recess instead of the seesaw. In another set I am freely choosing to reply to your post. In still another set, I am freely choosing (hopefully) to play with my grandchildren even though in the set of coordinates in which I am typing this post I have yet to have any children. In other words, I don’t see any problem for freewill here since at every moment that encompasses my awareness, I’m still the one choosing.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Automaton

There are two possibilities here. The first, as I assert, is that time has metaphysical primacy over causality, and that time is in fact a prerequisite for causality. The second, as you believe, is that causality has metaphysical primacy over time, and that "time" is an illusion created by observing causal interaction. I argue that the latter is impossible, due to the fact that time is defined as the measure of change. The basis of causality are the factors of change and interaction. Change in the cause is what generates the interaction, which in turn generates change in the effect. If any change happens, a framework of temporality is required. If time were an illusion, or not a fundamental aspect of spatial existence, we would observe everything happening at in a single "moment", much the same way you believe God would observe the universe. Otherwise, who is to say how much "time" passes between two events, or how long an event takes?

Also, if time is merely an illusion, this conflicts with your statement that God observes a single spacetime manifold, as the concept of "spacetime" depends on the fact that time is a dimension.
D'oh! I knew I misspelled a prosteriori. To the point, this is another dilemma to which we have disagreement, whether or not causality can be known before or after it is actually observed. Would a human that is totally disconnected from outside reality, and all that is available to them is their own thoughts (assuming they had fully formed and functional reasoning capabilities), ever conceive of causality, given they never experience causal relationships? Obviously not, and thus such a thing cannot be said to be a priori knowledge. In a universe such as ours, it is obvious, even axiomatic, that macroscopic events and objects don't just happen, but what of a completely arbitrary universe?
Indeed. But causality is primarily a general term for the model in which we describe actions within our universe. The fact that all actions are explained by their preceeding causes comes only after we acknowledge this model.
Fair enough, I agree with this. To be honest, I had thought of this objection as well, but you have phrased it in a manner that has convinced me my original reasoning was flawed. Thank you. But I still think my other two arguments (those from freewill and change) are sound.
I think you misunderstand. Free will means that the possibilities for your actions are open, that one chooses between these two possibilities freely, and that this free action is in no way predetermined. That means there must be two alternative futures, one in which you make choice X, and one in which you make choice Y. Only one of these alternative possible futures will be actualized, one become definitely true, the other being definitely false. If God has absolute knowledge about all facts, he knows which future wil be actualized. But if he knows one over the other, it means that reality can't contradict this, and therefore one will definitely happen over the other. This means the action was predetermined, and not really free at all.

Clutch

God does not know "the future", if he is atemporal, simply because he does not think of it as the future. God's knowledge includes knowledge of all events, where these are represented as the contents of the 4-space "block" universe.

It can be a fact about the block universe that S does x at t -- hey, lucky x; I've seen S! -- as a matter of free will, and thus that it was not "predetermined", ie, *determined* prior to t, that S would do so. God's knowing every truth does not determine every truth "in advance", simply because God doesn't know them "in advance". He just knows them, tenselessly, period. Notice: even if his knowing them entails their necessity, this is consistent with whatever notion of free will the Christian might spell out. If it's a necessary truth that S *freely* does x at t, then it's true that S freely does x at t.

The real questions are: What the heck is this notion of free will? What is it for a cognitive *agent* to be atemporal? and What remote grounds are there to think of God as atemporal if the OT and NT are our guides to the nature of God? The bible, and especially the OT, systematically describe God as a temporal agent. It was the Greeks who formulated, wrote and taught Christian theology, that turned the god of the Jews into a Platonic form.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Tron,
Though you verse the concept well you have only included 1 of 2 options concerning God and 'timelessness'.

He could be a static being (no time)...

OR

...he could be a being that experiences all time
at once.

The common idea is that God experiences no past, present or future. These are all witnessed as the same to him. All things concurently experienced.

It may be more accurate to say that relative to God: the Big Bang, the Fall of Rome, Woodstock, the moon landing, 9/11 and a leaf falling in central park in the winter of 2087 *are* happening concurrently.

While this might seem to be a unfathomable 'smear' of events that humans (1D time) would find incomprehensible...this may be one (of many) distinctions between God and mans existence.

Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

tronvillain

SOMMS, if you wish to have God exist outside of time, then those are not seperate options, unless you wish to propose some sort of meta-time in which God exists. On the other hand, you could have God exist within time linearly while experiencing all time simultaneously, but then one would wonder if he came into existence at the moment of creation rather than being responsible for it.

HRG

We should be careful to distinguish between our description of the universe (as a space-time block) and the universe itself, which may be a random process
S can be predetermined to do x at t. But S cannot be predetermined to do x at t as a matter of free will, no more that he can be predetermined to draw a square circle. Predetermination eo ipso excludes free will.
The contradiction with free will occurs as soon as there is a fact about the future to be known, no matter by whom. X has free will means that some statements about future actions of X can never be facts today.
Similarly to above: that S freely does X at t can never be a necessary truth. Free will entails that both "S does X at t" and "S does Y at t" (Y &lt;&gt; X) are possible; thus none of them can be a necessary truth.

Regards,
HRG.

&lt;snip&gt;