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Probability of God

I ultimately determined its conclusion was wrong, but no one else was able to at that time. Can you figure out my flaw? — Philosophim

I have no formal training in analytical philosophy, so I'm not qualified to detect flaws, such as unwarranted assumptions, in your argument. So, I'll just note that argumentation in words has the inherent weakness of subjective interpretation of intended meanings.

Perhaps, with that deficiency in mind, scientist & humorist Steven Unwin has written a book that takes Pascal's statistical Wager as a challenge. In The Probability of God, he uses the "universal unambiguous language of science" (i.e. mathematics) to calculate the likelihood of the existence of a traditional universal God, based not on theological Faith, but on logical Math. Unfortunately, even statistical analysis is slightly subject to implicit bias, unless the answer is confirmed by other objective calculators. Unwin's computation found a 67% positive probability. Was your "conclusion" 100% wrong, or some fraction thereof? :joke:

The Probability of God : https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... cation.uk1

"The Probability of God". . . . . Can you figure out my flaw? — Philosophim

No. But I have gone through my own reasoning process regarding the probable existence of a Creator God. It was in the form of a layman's non-academic non-mathematical thesis statement, and was based on a variety of modern scientific "facts".
Statistical probabilities may apply only within the mathematical system we observe in our local universe. But, we tend to assume that mathematics is universal, in all possible universes.

1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which all others follow. — Philosophim

Either infinite intermediate causes or an eternal final Causal Principle.

Final Cause : the purpose or aim of an action or the end toward which a thing naturally develops.

3. This leads us to 3 plausibilities.
a. There is always a Y for every X. (infinite prior cause).
b. Y eventually wraps back to an X (infinite looped prior cause)
c. There comes a time when there is only X, and nothing prior to Y (first cause) — Philosophim

a> Turtles all the way down
b> Infinite chain of cyclical universes
c> Nothing cannot be a Cause

there is no rule on how that first cause has to exist — Philosophim

Yes, the Creator makes the rules. Our local First Cause could be an Eternal Principle of Causation.

4. a first cause could be anything without limitation — Philosophim

The only limitation for our human definition of the Creator is that it must make sense to our imperfect logical minds.

5. then we're right back where we started. The only answer that can be given is, "It simply is". — Philosophim

Multiverse theorists tend to take the unexplainable "just is" diversion to avoid further questions that are unanswerable with empirical scientific methods. It's like a parent's answer to a pestering child's
"why" questions : "just because . . ." But philosophers are not bound by empirical evidence, and often speculate based on logical evidence : "this follows from that".

6. Therefore the only conclusion is that there is a "First Cause" to our universe. This means that there is no rule or reason why the universe exists, besides the fact that it does. That being the case, wouldn't it be fun to examine the potential of what a first cause would entail, — Philosophim

Would that it were so simple!

The existence of the universe has only one "Why" answer : intentional creation.
But scientists typically dismiss philosophical "why" questions as irrelevant. What they want to know is "how". And the Big Bang, although still debated, is our best answer. Unfortunately, it was rejected at first, because it seemed to imply an intentional "act of creation" rather than a random accident.

My personal G*D theory is based on extrapolations from our knowledge of the Creation to postulate the necessary characteristics of the Creator. We come to know the Artist by examining the Art-work. Our gradually evolving world currently entails a somewhat different kind of Creator from the gods of human societies prior to the Theory of Evolution. Back then, they assumed that the only evolution was negative, in that humans were expelled from the perfect idyllic Garden into a thorny world of blood, sweat & tears.

7. a> We already know that a God forming as a first cause is possible, because with a first cause, there are no rules.
b> Of course, this also means that a universe could have formed without a God just as easily. In either case, it simply is.
c> At first glance, this might mean that it is equally likely that a universe could have formed on its own, — Philosophim

a> Does that imply that the First Cause simply popped into existence at an arbitrary point in eternity, for no reason at all? I find that hard to believe. Instead, I think that some Power or Potential or Principle must have always existed, in order for anything to exist. I call that Principle "BEING" : the power to be.
b> Our universe is a chain of cause & effect extending back to a singular point, beyond which we have no idea what existed. But our logical minds tend to assume some prior Cause, even in a timeless state. Spontaneous existence with no precedence is not an idea we have any evidence for. "It simply is" is no answer for a philosopher.
c> If so, the universe itself would have to possess the power of sudden self-creation or eternal self-existence. But the Big Bang put an end to such notions, that assumed the ever-changing physical universe was inherently Eternal. For the physical universe to be self-caused, the theoretical mathematical Singularity would be its First Cause : from Math to Matter?
BTW --- If G*D is an eternal creative principle, it would have the potential to create an infinite number of mini-verses. But the only actual world we have experience with is obviously finite, and bounded by space & time.

8. What is a specific universe? — Philosophim

A Specified Universe would be the effect of a specific Cause. But our universe is not completely specified or deterministic. Instead, it seems to have begun with "program" similar to DNA that had the potential for gradually developing into a functioning living thinking "organism", but with the freedom to adapt along the way to random variations. Freedom within Determinism.

9. A God would be a being that has the power and knowledge — Philosophim

In our real world experience, "Creative Power" is what we call Potential, to bring into existence something that does not yet exist. Intelligent Creative Power would have the power & know-how to create intelligent beings.

10. We can simplify this power to think and manipulate environments as a number. — Philosophim

Relative to our imperfect finite universe, the First Cause would have to possess infinite Potential, or at least something like an asymptote to Infinity --- is 67% creative power sufficient to produce a world from nothing?

11. A God would be a prime cause that meets this minimum capability, creates the big bang, and our universe occurs exactly as in the one situation in which the big bang was the prime cause. — Philosophim

See 10 above.
But what "exactly" was the Big Bang? Was it a statistical accident, or a quantum fluctuation, or an act of God?

13. If we take this to its conclusion, there is nothing to stop a God of greater power being . . . An infinite number of beings — Philosophim

Infinite independent-minded Beings instead of a single Infinite BEING? That sounds like Chaos.

14. an infinite number of Gods — Philosophim

See 13 above.

15. It may be good or evil, . . . . it would be indistinguishable from a universe which has no God, — Philosophim

Good & Evil are human evaluations of our less than perfect world. But an infinite creator would have to encompass both Good and Evil, which in equal amounts would cancel-out to Neutral. Neither Good nor Evil, just all possible values.

If an intentional divine creation worked like an Evolutionary Program, and operated as designed, without any need for intervention, it would be indistinguishable from the universe we find ourselves in. A properly designed computer program, once executed, would compute its own internal adaptations via feedback loops, until the final solution is found, and the answer printed out : "42" perhaps.

Evolutionary Programming : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming

16. it is infinite to 1 that our universe was formed by a God instead of simply forming on its own. — Philosophim

I'm not quite that optimistic. We don't have enough information to calculate such odds, without making some arbitrary unfounded assumptions. So, I simply say the universe looks like it could be a progressive program created by a Prime Programmer. But what was the question that prompted the program????

Alright, the challenge is on! Where is the flaw I finally found? Can you introduce a flaw I missed? — Philosophim

I don't know . . . did I miss something? :joke:

Odds for God : http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page51.html

Thank you Gnomon for participating! You spent a good deal of time on your post, and will attempt to honor you in kind. We may come into disagreement at point, but know that it is from a place of respect. — Philosophim

I suspect that our god models may have a lot in common. The main difference may lie in our starting points. My worldview and god-model are based on my layman's non-academic non-rigorous, yet science-based, Enformationism thesis, not on a critical-logical-philosophical Ontology. So our vocabulary, and some assumptions, may be different, even though we arrive at similar conclusions about the existence and characteristics of a non-empirical metaphysical Ultimate Cause of our imperfect, but progressing, world.

I'm simply sharing some of my own ideas on a topic that still fascinates me, long after I lost my faith in the Bible-God of my upbringing. On this forum, I know better than to expect to win any Yes or No arguments about un-provable opinions or beliefs. Humans have been debating such Transcendent notions since the first creatures looked-up at the sky and began to wonder "why?"

At this point, I'm not assuming there is a creator, or there is not a creator. — Philosophim

I too, tried to begin with a blank slate, without any presumptions. And to simply follow the available scientific & philosophical evidence where it led. Unfortunately, our conclusion that logically there must be an uncaused First Cause for this world's sequence of secondary causes is open to question. Some Cosmologists argue that the "ultimate explanation" for our temporal Natural world is an "infinite regress" of Natural worlds (Multiverses). That non-empirical, but reasonable-sounding, possibility allows them to avoid any notions of a Supernatural Cause or Creator. Yet, they may still be uncomfortable with the necessity for Infinities beyond our space-time world.

"Theists and atheists agree there must be some ultimate explanation, some end to the infinite regress. But they disagree over which properties this 'ultimate being' must have".
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=835

what you need to disprove — Philosophim

Atheists "disprove" your assertion of a First Cause for our Natural world, by asserting that automatic impersonal random Evolution itself could be a self-existent eternal Cause --- like gravity "it just is". This unfounded presumption gets around the need to debate any miraculous interventions into the progression of the world. But my god-model also accepts Evolution, and denies the need for divine meddling with the ongoing process.

A is not defined by anything else, and thus can only be understood as its existence, not by something that is not its existence. — Philosophim

I suspect that some Multiverse proponents would agree with your logic, but still disagree with your implication that the First Cause has no causal precedent.

If you imply there is a reason, you imply something BEHIND that first cause. — Philosophim

I was merely noting what you had already implied : that an ultimate First Cause would not "pop into existence", since it continually exists forever. The answer to a "why" question must be a reason or intention, not necessarily a "something". But in the absence of a divine revelation, we may have to accept a mere place-holder : a loosely-defined G*D Concept.

only one "Why" answer — Gnomon
Until you show the above logic as incorrect, this cannot be claimed. — Philosophim

I have no need to refute your impeccable logic. I'll simple define the Causal Creator of our world, whether a> God or b> Multiverse, as the one-&-only answer to why the creation exists. I'm not aware of any other viable answers (e.g super-aliens).

A God Concept : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page34.html

c> If so, the universe itself would have to possess the power of sudden self-creation or eternal self-existence. — Gnomon
No, if it is a first cause, it did not cause itself. It was not, then it was. If it has the power of eternal self-existence, as a first cause, it does, because it does. — Philosophim

That's what I said. "Self-creation" is a circular oxymoron notion, like "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". "Self-existence", though, is a viable characteristic of a hypothetical entity that can create new Worlds & Beings, rather than just cause new forms of pre-existing things. Other self-existent beings could exist, but if they are independent minded, like the quarreling Pantheon of Olympus, it would be more like Chaos than Cosmos.
BEING, per se, could be inert immobile existence, equivalent to nothingness. But "Creative BEING" would be able to use its inherent power of existence to cause other beings to exist. No one can deny that our existence implies the "power to be", and the sudden appearance of our world from who-knows-where is impossible without the prior Potential for existence. So I'm simply defining an eternal Law of Being that must logically cause & create all other laws, principles, and things in existence.

Self-existent : existing independently of other beings or causes.

As long as you understand the underlying concept that at any point of creative power, we can imagine a greater creative power — Philosophim

No. That is the understanding of Atheists who challenge Theists with "who created the creator?" But the "Creative Potential" I have in mind is the Power to Exist, that I call "BEING", for short. There could be no space-time limit on an Infinite Pool of Possibilities. You could imagine that PoP as the eternal law of statistics, governing what is possible in Enfernity (Infinity-Eternity), and what is probable in space-time.

God definition : "a being than which no greater can be conceived" ___Anselm

. . . . the First Cause would have to possess infinite Potential — Gnomon
I don't think this is logical. . . . the infinitely powerful God is only one of an infinite other possible gods. — Philosophim

I was talking about the infinite Potential (possible creations) of a single omnipotent deity, not a sequence of Creator Gods all-the-way-down. The First Cause (Agent) is also the Final Cause (Design) --- all-in-one.

I hope I misunderstood you. Can the set of [Infinity] logically or mathematically contain an infinite array of [Infinite] sets? [[[[[[[[Infinity]]]]]]] Or were you allowing for a hypothetical infinite regress of First Causes, where each new First Cause would possess some fraction of Total Power? Or did you have in mind something like the Hindu notion of an infinity of universes cycling forever. Anyway, my puny brain can't deal with such mind-boggline un-definable concepts, so I simply use the shorthand of a single graphic symbol : Ꝏ.

13. If we take this to its conclusion, there is nothing to stop a God of greater power being . . . An infinite number of [possible] beings — Philosophim

For Atheists, that might be true. But for my thesis, a multiplicity of gods is no better, no more powerful, than Creation by Random Accident. And that's not a God by my definition. It's statistical Chance. So, if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on a Unitary Creative Cause, instead of waiting for infinite rolls of the dice. :joke:

"The first cause must be X" from this argument. You can only conclude a first cause is what must be, and that this first cause could be anything. — Philosophim

Since I was not presenting a formal logical argument for academic review, I had more liberty than you in reaching my conclusion. So. I tried to infer what properties a First Cause would have to possess in order to create the world we know.

One of those requirements was that the Prime Cause must be Intentional (non-random), because random chance in our world is incapable of creating organization. Some scientists like to imagine that evolution is a blind random process. But they don't take into account that Natural Selection is a sort of If-then algorithm making on-the-spot choices, based on whatever criteria were programmed into the algorithm in the beginning. Atheists will presuppose that the selection criteria were an accidental result of infinite roiling randomness. I just take it as-it-is in the here & now.

This Natural Algorithm is just one of many facts that led me to conclude that the “Programmer” of our world must have some of the characteristics typically attributed to creator gods. Hence the FC couldn't be "just anything". For example it must have the Potential to create (cause) space, time and mind. If the hypothetical Multiverse has that programming power, then it could be the First Cause.

And it would loosely fit my Real & Ideal definition of G*D. Who, like Spinoza's deity, is both metaphysical (Ideal) and the physical (Real) "substance" of reality. Spinoza arrived at his infinite/eternal Substance concept of God, long before the Big Bang theory dispelled the notion that our world is eternal. So, in my thesis, there is a need for a creative act, but not for a humanoid Person --- merely the power of BEING.

Natural Algorithm : In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm

My statement is, "It is logically possible that a God exists from the conclusion that there is a first cause." No atheist can claim that a God is an illogical or impossible being at this point. — Philosophim

Yes. The famous Atheist, Richard Dawkins once wrote that he had no rational problem with Deism as a religious philosophy. But that was probably because he assumed the non-intervening Deus was a do-nothing deity, and was only a logical possibility (thought-stopper) for those who don't like the idea of a godless world.

For me though, the Deus is not only possible, but the Necessary Being. And my thesis proposes that the Prime Programmer would have no need to tinker with his evolutionary system once it had been executed in the Big Bang. Unfortunately, that also means that humans were provided with sufficient smarts to work-out their own problems, without praying for personal favors.

Spectrum of theistic probability : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_ ... robability

Cosmic Computer Programmer : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page26.html

I wanted to assure you that we do not fall into the "Gods all the way down" argument. — Philosophim

Thanks. I didn't think you meant it was “turtles all the way down”. But origin-less causation is a common response to First Cause arguments.

I think you have a different definition of a God then I do, which is perfectly fine, and it seems nice. This argument here is more about a pure philosophical God, that is extremely limited in scope. — Philosophim

Yes. After I discovered the basic principle of Enformationism --- that Information was not just dumb data (per Shannon) --- I was no longer content with my Agnostic Deistic "god-of-the-philosophers", who is merely an impotent metaphor, or a statistical probability. My G*D (Enformer) has real world powers, that are dismissed by reductive scientists, because you have to think holistically in order to see the Enforming power working in the natural world. And it's overlooked by most Theists, because they are looking for minor miracles, like a drowning victim who revived. But I am much more impressed by the miracle of creating an autonomous living world-organism from scratch.

My G*D definition is based on a very particular line of reasoning that began with an unusual understanding of the role of Information in the world. Information is not just a container for ideas & values, it is also the cause of new forms of matter (energy). That's why I define G*D, not just as a logical First Cause, but as the active agent Enformer (creator) of everything in the world.

What is Information ? : The power to enform, to create, to cause change, the essence of awareness. It's Energy & Matter & Mind
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page16.html

God of the philosophers : What the philosophers describe by the name of God cannot be more than an idea. __Blaise Pascal

does my assessment that if we look at our universe, there is only one possibility that its first cause was not a God, versus an infinite number of possibilities [,but] that the first cause was some type of God? — Philosophim

I added the "but" in quotes to make it say what I think you meant : "the First Cause is a God". With that I agree. For several years, I tried to find some alternative to the familiar, but baggage-laden, term "God" to refer to my 21st century Enformer/Programmer notion. So, I compromised with a neologism, G*D, that suggested a deity, but not necessarily the God of Theists.

G*D : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

Logically, the bare possibility of a First Cause may be a satisfactory conclusion. But scientifically, I want to know much more about the actualities of Causation. And that is the point of my thesis -- in which I didn't use the term "God".

Enformationism thesis : http://enformationism.info/enformationi ... age11.html

Enformationism website : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

The Reasonableness of Theism/Atheism
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/452110

C – It is reasonable to believe in either atheism or theism — DPKING

Yes. Both Theists and Atheists are reasonable in the sense that they each have reasons to support their pro or con conclusion. The problem is that Atheists don't accept the proposed "evidence" in favor of god-belief (miracles, moral stance, etc). So, it's not the reasoning that makes a difference in conclusions, but the initial motivation, which defines acceptable evidence. The conclusion is inherent in the initial assumption.

For example, Theists tend to feel that a supernatural deity is necessary to explain the very existence of our temporal conditional world. Atheists, though, seem to be un-bothered by the open question of bare existence. Yet in both perspectives, eternal existence of something (God or Multiverse) is, perhaps subconsciously, taken for granted --- as an unproven Axiom. That timeless unconditional fundamental power-to-be is what I call BEING. It's a logical necessity that any reasoning about ultimate questions must build upon. So, how about essential BEING as a starting point for reasoning about otherwise open-ended philosophical questions?

What if it’s not a matter of feeling that a God is necessary, but that alternative theories about existence don't seem to be satisfactory for theists. — DPKING

What "alternative theories about existence" did you have in mind? Most atheists seem to just take the existence of "Reality" for granted. Hence, the Multiverse theory is merely an extension of the pre-Big-Bang assumption of an eternal material universe. Variations on that immortal-matter theme were cyclical temporary universes, and ongoing natural creation of matter to replace the stuff lost to Entropy. A recent Hypothesis to fill the gaps in Inflation Theory is Eternal Inflation. Are such turtles-all-the-way-down theories not satisfactory for you?

My primary problem with those alternative theories of a self-existent Reality is that the only example of a real-world we have experience with has been "proven" by scientific evidence to be temporary, with a definite beginning and a fade-out end. For all we know, Time began at the Big Bang. And there is no known mechanism for relighting the fuse after the Big Fizzle. Speculations on Black Holes and Worm Holes and Branes are no more scientific than speculations on creative deities, except that they remain loyal to faith in Materialism/Physicalism. Each new discovery of the overall nature of Nature, requires faith-inspired creative thinking to maintain the modern facade on the ancient dogma of Materialism.

However, my personal dissatisfaction with hypothetical alternatives to intentional creation is that they typically ignore the immaterial and holistic phenomena that have emerged as matter-manipulating powers in our Real world : e.g Life & Mind & Intentions. Without a theory to explain how those world-changing Metaphysical realities emerged from Physical processes, the non-physical aspects of Reality, that are most important to non-scientists, are left out of the recurring reality equation. That's why I have developed my own personal hypothesis, that is not beholden to Biblical or Physical doctrine. It is instead based on the ubiquity of Information, which is both physical & metaphysical, both material & mental.


Materialism : the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.

Metaphysicalism : Physicalism differs with naturalistic metaphysicalism in at least one specific concept. Physicalism holds that nothing is greater than the sum of its parts.
http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2009 ... alism.html
Note -- this site is new to me, but the notion of Metaphysical Naturalism sounds like it might be amenable to my own concept of Enformationism.

is what I call BEING — Gnomon
Great, call it what you like. But on what basis do you say anything about it? And, what answers the question of where the multi-verse came from, or being itself? If we're talking about belief, these are relatively trivial questions. If what is real, not so easy. — tim wood

BEING is a personal neologism, coined to encapsulate the notion of fundamental essential existence that is logically necessary, and not beholden to any traditional belief system --- including Theism and Physicalism. What theory of Reality do you believe in?

BEING : In my own theorizing there is one universal principle that subsumes all others, including Consciousness : essential Existence. Among those philosophical musings, I refer to the "unit of existence" with the absolute singular term "BEING" as contrasted with the plurality of contingent "beings" and things and properties. By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
NOTE : "So, how about essential BEING as a starting point for reasoning about otherwise open-ended philosophical questions?"

"On what basis?" --- I talk about Ontology on the same basis that all philosophers do : my knowledge of the world, and my personal theory of reality, guided by the traditional rules of Logic.

Why Coin Tech Terms? : http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page6.html

What is real? : Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary
NOTE : Tim, what is your belief system, Materialism, Physicalism? How much of that system is hypothetical, axiomatic, and unproven?

Reality is a Theory : http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page15.html

The Case Against Reality : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

You seem to have your own "philosophizing" as about your beliefs. Fine, for your personal entertainment. But to my way of thinking as an approach to any kind of knowledge that's wrong and upside down. You can start with a belief, call it a hypothesis, and subject it to test, a matter of science, which is a kind of thinking. If your science is any good, then you have some knowledge, subject to refinement under further science. — tim wood

Apparently, you think that the "reasonableness of Theism" topic is an intra-natural scientific question. But, I am approaching it as a supra-natural philosophical question. If the existence and nature of G*D was a scientific issue --- like the nature of mysterious Dark Matter --- we would be discussing it on a science-related forum. So, why are you insisting on the Baconian scientific method for a question that has no physical evidence --- except the conditional existence of Nature itself? Why are you disparaging philosophical methods on a philosophical forum?

Are you a practicing scientist? If not, do you have "good" knowledge? Or are you just believing the current majority opinion of scientists-in-general? For the record, I am not a Theist, and I'm still Agnostic about my hypothetical Creative Force. But my personally entertaining thesis is based on the latest science, including the ubiquitous role of Information in all phases of Nature and Culture. Does your fallible scientific method produce "good" knowledge about cultural questions? Or, do psychological & political & religious issues remain primarily in the domain of Metaphysical Philosophy?

Philosophical Methodology : Plato said that "philosophy begins in wonder", a view which is echoed by Aristotle: "It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them." Philosophizing may begin with some simple doubts about accepted beliefs. The initial impulse to philosophize may arise from suspicion, for example, that we do not fully understand, and have not fully justified, even our most basic beliefs about the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_methodology

PS__ I began from "simple doubts" about the beliefs of my religious upbringing. And have boiled-down the "reasonable" evidence for a creator to the otherwise mysterious existence of a world that is not self-existent --- it comes down to BEING. "To be, or not to be", that is the philosophical question relevant to Theism vs Atheism.

Enformationism :
As a scientific paradigm, the thesis of Enformationism is intended to be an update to the obsolete 19th century paradigm of Materialism. Since the recent advent of Quantum Physics, the materiality of reality has been watered down. Now we know that matter is a form of energy, and that energy is a form of Information.
As a religious philosophy, the creative power of Enformationism is envisioned as a more realistic version of the antiquated religious notions of Spiritualism. Since our world had a beginning, it's hard to deny the concept of creation. So, an infinite deity is proposed to serve as both the energetic Enformer and the malleable Substance of the enformed world.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Then it is speculation. All that can be sought for in speculation is an internal consistency, and whether it contradicts anything in the world — tim wood

My Enformationism thesis is qualified by the admission that it is an informal layman's speculation, intended only to serve as the basis for a personal non-theistic worldview. Which is the perspective from which I comment on this forum. However, I think if you were to actually read the thesis (rather than pre-judging it), you would find few contradictions with proven Science. For example, It accepts the heuristic process of Evolution, specifically denies miraculous intervention, and limits its conjectures to the same pre-Big-Bang realm in which some cosmologists imagine a turtles-all-the-way-down Multiverse. Moreover, the eternal world-creating random Multiverse and the eternal world-creating intentional G*D are both reasonable-yet-unprovable explanations for the existence of our contingent world *1. The difference is that the G*D inference can account for the otherwise mysterious metaphysical aspects (Life & Mind) of our world organism, by attributing the Potential for Meaning & Intention to its First Cause. That's why I call it G*D, rather than simply "blindly blundering Nature".

There may well be things in nature that are conditional, but what does it mean or imply to hold that the existence of nature itself is conditional? — tim wood

Thanks for asking. Before the Big Bang theory became the only reasonable explanation for the evidence that space is expanding and nature is evolving, most scientists and philosophers assumed it had existed forever. Since that's no longer a viable belief, we must deal with the contingent (not of necessity) existence of physical reality, and look elsewhere for a "necessary Being". The commonly accepted condition for our world is the "creation" event --- accurately, but grudgingly, described as a sudden eruption of something from nothing. Yet, since that sounds too much like a miracle, alternative but equally conditional, scenarios have been conjectured. None are actually plausible unless laws of Being and Becoming were already in place. And that is the role of my hypothetical "natural" force of BEING.

Necessary Being : It is commonly accepted that there are two sorts of existent entities: those that exist but could have failed to exist, and those that could not have failed to exist. Entities of the first sort are contingent beings; entities of the second sort are necessary beings.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/

Metaphysical Necessity : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_necessity

*1 Purely random processes would take 12 forevers to create a single strand of DNA. But randomness plus intentional Selection could do the job in only one forever.

Does this make sense, or is there some relevant literature to this question that you all might recommend? — DPKING

The evidence and reasons of believing or disbelieving in a mysterious deity, responsible for the existence of our world, have been bated & debated for eons. And not much common ground has been uncovered. So one author decided to eliminate the ambiguity of human language in order to determine the mathematical probability of what he defines as "God". Using Bayesian statistical methods, he methodically computes a number to represent how certain he can be that his God exists. The book is clearly & humorously written, not too cluttered with equations, and appropriately skeptical of such touchy topics as miracles. Unfortunately, I doubt that many convinced Atheists will be impressed by his mathematical evidence for a wizard behind the curtain.


The Probability of God : A Simple Calculation That Proves The Ultimate Truth
____Stephen Unwin, Phd