Meditations

[Oleander]

A canvas with infinite area that is red over all of it except one yellow square is not a proper comparison to an entity that is entirely [good trait A] except a few times when they aren't. Is God omnibenevolent because he consists almost entirely of benevolences? That doesn't quite make sense; omnibenevolence isn't a quantity. Besides, a canvas of infinite size that has any expressible amount of yellow paint on it *isn't* entirely red anyway. If you are going to say that something is always something, then a counterexample of any size automatically refutes your position completely.

[Vortex]

That's right. Following Anteroinen's comment on the meaning of "omni", sometimes infinitely doesn't mean totally. So we have to leave clear which definition of "omni" are we using.

[Redafro]

So, this reminds me of my thoughts while reading about the Infinity Hotel. For one thing, it seemed you might be able to solve some of the problems by including sets in the idea.

So the problem of there always being vacancies is illustrated by everyone leaving the room they have rented and moving to the next room and the new renter takes room 1. However, if you say that there is a set of people (p) which fills all of set room (r), then the two sets are equal, and if the person from room 1 moves to room 2 and so on up, then it seems you would have to say that whoever was in the infinitely "last" room gets into room 1. Uhg... infinitely "last" room. That broke my brain. Yeah... there is no infinitely last room, so never mind. XD It sure sounded good, until I said infinitely last. XP

[Oleander]

This is basically how it works--all countably infinite sets (like the set of rooms in your hotel) have the same cardinality; that is, the 'size' of e.g. the set of prime numbers and the integers are the same, even though prime numbers are less dense than the integers. Consider, though, including the half integers (n/2) in your set. You might be tempted to say that there are twice as many members, but this set is actually still the same size as the integers. You could extend this to (n/4), (n/8), etc. and these sets would all be the same size.

However, the real numbers (loosely defined, every number with a decimal expansion) are *uncountably infinite*. The set of real numbers is greater in size than any countably infinite subset of the real numbers, like the examples I gave earlier.

The difference between these is easily identifiable- given an arbitrary amount of time, you could list out as many consecutive integers as you wanted, i.e. in an infinite amount of time you could write out all of them. However, the reals are uncountably infinite- even given an infinite amount of time, you could not write them all out in decimal form. In fact, you couldn't even write three consecutive real numbers in their decimal expansion in an eternity.

I don't understand the proofs behind the cardinalities of infinite sets, but this is what I've learned so far.

[Vortex]

So, this reminds me of my thoughts while reading about the Infinity Hotel. For one thing, it seemed you might be able to solve some of the problems by including sets in the idea.

So the problem of there always being vacancies is illustrated by everyone leaving the room they have rented and moving to the next room and the new renter takes room 1. However, if you say that there is a set of people (p) which fills all of set room (r), then the two sets are equal, and if the person from room 1 moves to room 2 and so on up, then it seems you would have to say that whoever was in the infinitely "last" room gets into room 1. Uhg... infinitely "last" room. That broke my brain. Yeah... there is no infinitely last room, so never mind. XD It sure sounded good, until I said infinitely last. XP

No! Don't say "last"! Don't try to order infinities! XD

Ordinal infinities are a nightmare, they go much further than distinguishing between "countable" and "uncountable". Now you can get cardinalities of ordinal infinities, and you find infinite power sequences, infinite power sequences of limits of power sequences...

Check this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number

and this (to see how far could those concepts extend):
http://www.xamuel.com/levels-of-infinity/

As soon as you try to go deeper and deeper, you find concepts from category theory (that's what I'm learning right now).
I know this is hard, I don't understand it fully as of now.

But for the proof that the reals are uncountable, you can use Cantor's diagonal argument:

if you think you have an infinite set with ALL the reals, and write them in decimals like this:

0.9541974189612474196
4.6148719610857196181
3.6516506510616106104
7.3541751671617410613
2.4517196714897417499
1.1961491651865914755
...
in any order you want, you can always form a new one choosing the 1st digit different from the 1st digit of the 1st number, the 2nd digit different from the 2nd digit of the 2nd number, and so on. This number is a real, and is different (in at least a digit) from all the reals of your set, so it's not in the set, that means you can't countably put all the reals in a set without somehow "forgetting" its order, because else there will always be some of them out of the set.

EDIT: sorry for off topic, I didn't notice we were in the meditations thread D:

[Redafro]

These are meditations, as far as I'm concerned.
By the way,

That doesn't quite make sense; omnibenevolence isn't a quantity.

I'm beginning to think this is true. I have the baggage of something like 1000 years (perhaps more than twice that as some of these ideas date back to greco-roman times) of Christian ideas to unpack and sift through for consistency. The omni's were one I had become skeptical of but hadn't found the justification for jettisoning until I chatted with you wonderful people. XD

Edit:

like the set of rooms in your hotel

Your probably know this, but it isn't mine. David Hilbert's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27 ... rand_Hotel

So, would it make a difference in the paradox if the rooms of the hotel were not numbered? Then at least there is no problem with saying that the "last" guy in the "last" room moved to the "first." In fact, saying there is a first sets up a different kind of infinity, right? One that is only infinite in one direction, not one that is infinite in two directions. Is that the culprit in the paradox?

I'm starting to think no, because these kinds of infinites are just too wonky. XD

[Vortex]

It won't make a difference, if the new guest takes the first room, but it will if he wanted to take the last, because the sums involving ordinal infinities aren't commutative. Check this page, it explains ordinal infinities very well (i linked the hotel paradox explanation, but you can read the rest of the page if you want):

http://www.cut-the-knot.org/WhatIs/Infi ... html#hotel

[Redafro]

If my memory serves me well, the nations that were killed by the Israelites descend from Kanaan, whose grand crime for being ostracized was seeing Noah naked. This is, to my knowledge, the ultimate reason used to justify the murders (i.e. that's why Abraham got the land for his offspring). This, to me, seems unjust. As for your second one, I don't remember any particular such thing happening, so I can't comment.

This has really become one of my top 10 problems and I'm going to take some more time to work on it. The answer seems to be a concept I've kind of ignored or dismissed without meaning to. That being, God's sovereignty. I'm looking for the justification for it now and haven't found a fully orbed and satisfactory one yet, but for now I'll say this: none of us truly have control over the moment of our death. We can forestall it perhaps by healthy living and avoiding danger, but our will, the thing I've been arguing is the point of life and the process of choosing God, is the primary point and it is not directly related to the length of our life. So, God feels this is something he has ownership over so long as he feels we have had a full opportunity to accept or reject him. (Edit: that is really weak. I'll work on that more later.) With children, the Christian assumption has always been that until they reach a place of full accountability God does not count bad decisions (lying, stealing, hate, etc.) against them. So though it is gruesome and distasteful to us, God seems to not always protect children so that free will is maintained. I'm having more of an "uhg" response to this, but I'm working hard to come to a better understanding of these things and I have tons of reasons to keep going.

I'll also say briefly that I have a feeling of being wedged into a very uncomfortable corner because I have experienced God in a way that convenes me he is real and he is the God of the bible. However, I'm unaware of a theory that fully explains a consistency between God being good, the evidence of the bible, and the evidence of real life. I'm working on it and I feel I'm getting closer. I have to follow the "evidence" of my life to see where it leads, just like anyone else. If I can't find a road that works, well, that would be a shame and would of course be quite confusing. But there is a lot of ground yet to be covered before I'd even consider giving up.

So anyway, I'll try to hit some of the other points.

Bible also promotes sacrificing animals, which I find disgusting since I find that it was waste and animals do feel pain and distress, if nothing else. I'd say burning grain is equally a waste, but not harmful per se. Then there is circumcision, which I find to be peculiar thing, more than horrible. Then there are various laws of purity that if practiced in pure form make it impossible for lovers to touch each other. Laws that without reason ban homosexuality and punish it and other sexual relationships by death. Perhaps the most horrible is the hypocrisy of all of this killing and "thou shalt not kill".

I'm not crazy about it either, and I like your ethic about waste, but these sacrifices, both grain and animal, and circumcision are all I believe what you might call living symbols. The call to the people of this society was to sacrifice in order to recognize what stepping out of the social construct costs them. I don't know if I've made this argument well enough, but part of the idea is that the OT social laws create a society who's aim is to honor God and to keep the society itself somewhat consistent. If you read Frank Herbert's Sci-fi novel The God Emperor of Dune, there is a lot of similar ideas. In it, the "god emperor," a man that has been transformed into something nearly god like, has the gift of seeing the future and an extremely long life. His goal is to create a forced peace, though not a utopia, with the goal of guiding humanity down the one road he can see into the future that will guaranty the survival of humanity. I think OT law served a similar purpose.

None of that means you have to like it though. XD

I am willing to admit that I determine "horrible" purely from my contemporary, personal viewpoint. I am, however, quite confident that many woud agree that those are nothing to be waved away nonchalantly either.

Sure others agree, but that doesn't mean it is true or false any more than the people who agree with it. However, I totally agree we can't nonchalantly disregard the difficulties. I'm trying hard to face them all.

In which scenario: Humans (A) have a moral code (humanism). Humans (A) create human-like individual or race (B) which doesn't conform to their humanism. The race (B) doesn't do that. And then it is questioned if we (A) are judgemental.

Ah, well, I wasn't arguing for that though. I was saying that it is wrong for us to do that, but that God is different. What that difference is is part of what I'm still working on. I believe it has to do with the difference between a philosophical based Kantian ethic, and a practical based Utilitarian ethic. I'm getting closer to having a bridge between the two that I think will help eliminate the difficulties.

Is it unjust for humans to decide that a particular nation must be massacred? Why, yes, in my opinion it is. Not everybody is evil in a particular nation: there were good and charitable acts in Nazi Germany! To be honest, I oppose capital punishment in general.

I agree that it is unjust for humans to decide this, but I'm not convinced God's sovereignty doesn't allow this for the right utilitarian reasons. I forgot to mention it earlier, but the nation God commands wiped out, the decedents of Ham, we are told why they are to be wiped out way before it happens in Genesis 15. God is there telling Abraham, the first Jew if you will, that his descendents will be slaves for 400 years and after which they will come back to the land of the Canaanites to take it over, "for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Amorites being another name for the Canaanites. So the idea is that God didn't let them take that civilization down until they were so corrupt that God could justify the venture. If he hadn't known they would get that corrupt, the issue probably would never have come up.

If it is perfect, it is. That doesn't change depending on our perspective, surely.

Sure it does. Lets say we have 4 circles and my question to you is to identify which circles are perfectly round. The first one is close, but after close examination you realize it is slightly oval. The other three look perfectly circular to your eyes... until you for some reason decide to pull out a microscope. At that point, you see that one of the three circles is highly irregular at microscopic levels. Two left... so seeing the trajectory of this, you send one off to your buddy at a university with something like an atomic force microscope and discovers that one of the circles continues to be circular on the atomic level, regardless of how difficult that would be to actually do. So you see, recognizing perfection truly depends on your perspective, or lack there of. Part of my hole argument rests on the fact that mankind is incredibly limited. We can say we believe what is true, but we can never fully justify and confirm that belief.

I don't see the controversy with a perfect law and free will either. We could break it for our own pleasure just as well.

I'll have to deal with this one later and look up the context better. I'm not sure I know what you mean.

Why then does he tell Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree, as if it was poisonous? And in what sense it is a choice, if they are without knowledge of good and bad? And if they didn't know right from wrong, naked from clothed, were they not exactly that: zombies who believe him? They also believed the snake, but that is rather irrelevant since they couldn't possibly understand the concept that they could be lied to without prior knowledge of good and evil existing.

That one will take some time to unpack, so I'm coming back to it with the rest.

Air planes don't break the law of gravity:

I didn't say that well. My point was that if your going to say that when God does a miracle that it must be he is breaking a law of physics, then you must say the same thing when an airplane [edit: supersedes]the laws of physics. My point is that the whole "miracles are when God breaks the laws of physics" is a poor definition. It makes much more sense simply to say he supersedes them, not that he breaks them. I don't even know what it would mean to break the laws of physics. Does he break them, then put them back together real quick or what?

I personally am of the opinion that without evidence, even if a reason could be given why evidence does not present itself, it is better to suspend disbelief rather than belief. After all it is possible to justify lack of evidence for many phenomena that are generally disbelieved, such as ghosts.

As an experiment it is not bad to try and find God, but if one doesn't find him, is it then warranted to stop looking? If a search might take a lifetime, is it a good way to go about things?

Well, that is kind of a decision you have to make. To me, the stakes are too high to not try. How often do you try or how long? Well, I would try any time it feels like a good time to try. It doesn't make sense to me to just stop trying an experiment if you haven't got a result yet. The Large Hadron Collide was expected to take what, years to start showing the results they wanted? Yes, I know, you can study all the theories and research leading up to it, but that is my point: if the God theory is consistent (and I know I'm not there yet) and you know people who claim to have competed the experiment and discovered a relationship with God, why would you ever stop trying? Just because it is annoying? Surely not. After all, it doesn't cost you hardly any time or effort, just the occasional "God if you are there, help me know your there, and help me want to have a relationship with you." If you said that once a month, perhaps when your bills come due, would that be all that bad?

Ok, I think that is enough for now. I'll deal with some of the other issues later. I kind of think I shouldn't have written even this much. It is just sooooo much effort to deal with these multiple point posts. But how else can we get through a mega-post, right?

[Isobel The Sorceress]

Well, that is kind of a decision you have to make. To me, the stakes are too high to not try. How often do you try or how long? Well, I would try any time it feels like a good time to try. It doesn't make sense to me to just stop trying an experiment if you haven't got a result yet. The Large Hadron Collide was expected to take what, years to start showing the results they wanted? Yes, I know, you can study all the theories and research leading up to it, but that is my point: if the God theory is consistent (and I know I'm not there yet) and you know people who claim to have competed the experiment and discovered a relationship with God, why would you ever stop trying? Just because it is annoying? Surely not. After all, it doesn't cost you hardly any time or effort, just the occasional "God if you are there, help me know your there, and help me want to have a relationship with you." If you said that once a month, perhaps when your bills come due, would that be all that bad?

Just a quick question: I understood that you are looking for the Christian God only. Why did you dismiss the possible existence of all the other deities so quickly? Did you ever consider that they could be the real deal, and not the Christian God?

And also:

To me, the stakes are too high to not try.

Are you referring to Pascal's wager here? If God is real and you don't believe in Him, you go to hell, so it's better to believe just in case. (Which IMO is a very poor reason to believe in anything, and I'm sure God wouldn't approve it either.)

Anyway, Pascal assumes only Christian God, when he should also consider all the other deities as well. As far as I know, in many religions worshipping the wrong deities is considered worse than not worshipping at all. So if you really want to play it safe, you shouldn't pick a god before you die and know for sure which one (or none) is real.

[Vortex]

As a matter of fact, one of the main reasons why I became agnostic is because of Internet, I came in contact with people who believed in different religions and I saw they couldn't all be right at the same time. Though I wasn't so sure what I was.

But then in Philosophy class I learnt that one of the reasons why philosophy started in Greece is because their situation and political organization (in independent "polis") led them to stay apart from the main stream of ideas and to come in contact with many foreigner religious ideas and deities, and that drove them to dismiss the current religious explanations that the world's phenomenons were caused by deities, and to start postulating natural laws. So it seems that after all agnosticism is not a bad starting position

only time will tell if I finally become atheist, or I have a beyond-any-reasonable-doubt religious experience from some particular deity (or I continue like this).