Estimating God or No God

A place for discussion of ideas presented in the BothAndBlog, or relevant to the Enformationism thesis.
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Gnomon
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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Mon Oct 14, 2019 7:52 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/342008

It can’t have inputs, with no beginning;
So, what chose the song our universe sings?
— PoeticUniverse

The Eternal BEING,
being whole & complete
and self-existent,
has no inputs or outputs.

But it may have self-reference,
creating the whirling turbulence
of dismayed dissonance.
rousing the question of "what if?"

That open-ended possibility
was the itching motive
for seeking an answer
to quell the vexed uncertainty.

Hence G*D said "Sing!",
and so it began
the ballad of evolution,
calculating endless possibilities,

Until it found the probability
of Love's permutations,
until the song has expressed
a feeling close to assuredness.

The Eternal is as a multiverse,
Potentially, with no information,
As in Bable’s Library of all books,
Being as useless as Nothing’s zero.
— PoeticUniverse

The man-made meme of multiverse
'tempts to compute
the possibility of Love
from endlessly roiling & random static.

But G*D's song of Love
is enforméd by
the Intention to know,
which guides the world's enforming acts.

The infinite tower of Babel books
is incomprehensible until,
enformed by Intention,
'til Nil Nada now Knows facts.

Or, a Programmer sets if-then switches, — PoeticUniverse

Random 'verses will never reach Life
Unless a Selector's informed choice
sets the switch to "what-if?"
computing "what-is" from a zillion variables

Yet, the program lines are finite
because Intention defines the end
of heuristic lines of learning :
Livable, Knowable, and Lovable

Inintelligently prrogrammed, many climbs
Were the off-the-shelf reach of nature’s grimes,
A dickering Rube Goldberg ‘invention’,
Our nervous system now ruled by ancient times.
— PoeticUniverse

Intelligence programmed evolution
as the mother of invention,
jerry-rigging neuron tangles :
ancient flukes now known as intention.

What is this sapiens mammal animal?
Still made from slime but of a higher call!
— PoeticUniverse

Man is but a creature of flesh & blood
made of mundane matter
and icky sticky stuff,
which learns, by doing, to Live

But hearing a higher call still,
to progress from mud
to mind, soul and spirit,
able to Know and also to Love


Sorry! My poetic talent should be hidden under a bushel. But I was suddenly inspired to riff on your themes. :smile:

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Tue Oct 15, 2019 1:09 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/342167

There needs to be a Fundamental capability for all that is, no matter the ‘how’ of it, whether supposed as spontaneous, from ‘Nothing’, permanent stuff or energy, or whatnot. If it had an opposite state, there wouldn’t be anything, and so the capability is of necessity; it cannot not be. — PoeticUniverse


Isn't that energy? Plus space? That's a good enough definition of God for me. I'm definitely not at all comfortable with any of the anthropomorphic conceptions--except maybe Mother Nature...
— uncanni


No. As far as Science has been able to determine, Space-Time-Matter-Energy emerged in the Big Bang from nowhere & nowhen. Anything existing "prior" to that point-of-origin is inherently speculative and non-empirical (theoretical, philosophical), including notions of an eternal regression of mystical Multiverses within a self-existent Omniverse*1. Such world-creator concepts were traditionally called "God" and had to be taken on faith. Since the anthro-morphic gods are no longer tenable, I call that inscrutable enigma "G*D" -- defined as an abstraction like Logic or Mathematics : immaterial, but omnipresent in the world. You can call it "Mother Nature", if you prefer a personification.

Since Energy does not seem to be self-existent, we must assume an Unmoved Mover (First Cause) of some kind to get the ball rolling. Besides, your proposed Prime Mover, Energy, has an acute Achilles Heel : Entropy. Anything that starts strong and then simply fades away over time cannot be permanent or fundamental. As PU so aptly expressed, "if it had an opposite state, there wouldn't be anything". Entropy is the inverse of Energy, which is why they are canceling each other over time, fated to end in the Big Sigh, or the Heat Death of the universe.

Instead, there is an emerging opinion among Cosmologists and Mathematicians that the fundamental essence of our world is Information*2. And Energy is now viewed as a sub-form of Information*3. So, I have adopted a novel term "Enformy" to epitomize the YinYang nature of nature's dynamic forces*4. And EnFormAction is the "fundamental capability for all that is"*5. Hence, the eternal Enformer "cannot not be".


*1 Turtles all the way down : http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page41.html

*2 Is Information Fundamental ? https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/i ... ndamental/

*3 Energy is Information : https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/the-b ... nformation

*4 Enformy : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

*5 EnFormAction : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Tue Oct 15, 2019 1:11 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/342167

Information is subject, not object. We exist in an object. — Punshhh

Information is both Subject and Object, both Noun and Verb, both Matter and Energy. Information, according to current physics, is the essence of everything in the world. Or as the link below says : Information is the only thing that exists. So we, subjects and objects, exist within Information.

“IT FROM bit.” This phrase, coined by physicist John Wheeler, encapsulates what a lot of physicists have come to believe: that tangible physical reality, the “it”, is ultimately made from information, or bits.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... at-exists/

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Tue Oct 15, 2019 1:15 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/342167

Yes: beyond the capabilities of our telescopes, we have no idea if the same laws are being followed. As for the nowhere and nowhen: it seems logical to me to assume that matter has always existed. — uncanni

That's an argument from ignorance. I could say that logically, G*D has always existed, and you could not refute that assertion with evidence. So. we are both speculating beyond the range of our empirical instruments.

Lucretius, in his 99BC ode to Materialism, asserted that Atoms were fundamental and eternal. But modern physics has unpeeled the Atom to discover that there is no end to its layers. The deeper they probe the less materialistic it seems. Current physics has replaced Atoms with Fields, as the fundamental substance of reality. But a field is just a theoretical abstraction, consisting of nothing but mathematical information. So, if anything has always existed, Holistic Information has a better claim than composite Matter.


Information :
• Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
• For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
• When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.

http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:35 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/342547

Our planet is very good at promoting life,
But it is much better at extinguishing it.
Of the billions upon billions of living things,
99.99% are no longer around here living.
— PoeticUniverse

That is exactly what you would expect if our world was not intended to be a perfect Garden of Eden, but instead an experiment in freedom. If G*D is eternal-infinite, then there is no time or room to grow, to develop, to improve. But if all things are possible, given unlimited time & space, then G*D could make room internally, so to speak, for a finite bubble universe that is free to start from nothing (Singularity) and develop into something (Seity). Within the limits of space-time, it is programmed to explore all possibilities (random mutations) guided only by natural laws (selection criteria). The mutant entities that don't meet the criteria of fitness for G*D's purpose are abandoned (extinction). Imagine Edison trying hundreds of permutations for his goal of creating a practical electric light. Where are those failures now? His arduous experiment, although fraught with failures, was a success. The dark world has been transformed by his creation.

Note 1 : Philosophers tend to compare Reality with Ideality, and not surprisingly, find reality to be less than ideal. A pragmatic attitude would make the best of what-is, without unrealistically pining for what-ought-to-be.

Note 2. Cynicism is what passes for sophistication among many intellectuals. Romanticism is the refuge of those sensitive souls, who find reality unbearably bleak. A better alternative is not Pollyanna optimism, but up-beat get-er-done Pragmatism. Or up-dated Stoicism, for a world where pain & pleasure are two sides of the same coin.

Note 3 : The Eternal could create a perfect world, but it would be predestined. And what's the point of that? Unpredictable Freedom is more Fun. :smile:

The human race had been degenerating, — PoeticUniverse

That is an erroneous perception, due in part to the popular media's penchant for reporting nasty gossip and bad news. "if it bleeds, it leads". But in reality, the human race is ethically and technically superior to the race of upright apes that walked out of Africa.

The Better Angels of Our Nature : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bette ... Our_Nature
The Moral Arc : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Arc

The problem was that the celestial music of the spheres had fallen out of tune. — PoeticUniverse

No. The problem is that a percentage of humanity is tone-deaf. The celestial symphony continues to play magnificently, but cynical misanthropes focus on the down notes and miss the high notes.

Cheer up! The dismal science of Misanthropy focuses on the losses, and fails to enjoy the gains. :wink:

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:48 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/342547

But there are moments during each day, when one perceives the true reality, or the minutist details of Mother Nature at work. Then one is immensely-comforted, knowing that mother nature will arrive at the inhalation point, when all matter must return to be re-combined and re-dispursed. New Baby, New Big Bang. — uncanni

What? Have you given-up on "true reality", and place your hope in a new reality? That's the attitude of pessimistic Christians, who are willing to abandon the real world to Satan, and grimly live on faith in a new Heaven or a new Earth in some sublime perfect future. What makes you think the New Big Bang will be any better than the old one?

Why not try to make an imperfect situation better? That is what pragmatists do, despite disappointments. :smile:

It's true I have little faith in humnakind, but I have infinite faith in the cosmos, i.e., mother nature. — uncanni

If humans are the black sheep of Mother Nature's family, why do you have faith in such a bad mother? If the current Cosmos is such a failure, why imagine that it will turn-out right the next time? Unless you expect to experience that future perfect Cosmos, why not make the best of the one you have in hand? B-)

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:52 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... for-no-god

'God' seems to be restricted to using evolution by natural selection and the laws of nature. — PoeticUniverse

From my Enformationism perspective, I would say that eternal-infinite G*D intentionally "restricted" space-time to natural selection and laws of physics. But those limitations do not apply to the Programmer who lives outside the frame of the game of evolution. My god-model is PanEnDeistic, not PanDeistic : all-in-god, not god-in-all.

PS__Enformationism is perfectly compatible with The Unified Theory of Evolution. In which Darwin's (pre-genetic) non-progressive mechanism is united with Lamarck's updated notion of progressive development via epigenetics. : https://aeon.co/essays/on-epigenetics-w ... s-theories

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:54 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... for-no-god

Who said she was a "bad mother"? Nature is not our primary caretaker! — uncanni

If Mother Nature had bad children (humanity), who is blame? No, I don't think Mother Nature is bad just because there are a few bad apples in her family tree. Mother Cosmos is imperfect, but not Evil. :smile:

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:10 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... for-no-god

And Ghandi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, said, “I think it would be a good idea.” And lots of people said “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet, since the waist was a terrible thing to mind.” Yes, there were more horse’s asses than horses. Some even put Horace before Descartes — PoeticUniverse

:grin:

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Re: Estimating God or No God

Post by Gnomon » Fri Oct 18, 2019 12:05 pm

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/343090

My fundamental premise is that human cruelty, greed and exploitation of nature are "bad." — uncanni

True. But Kindness, Generosity, and Conservation of Nature are good. Unlike animals, humans are moral agents. They have a choice to do good or bad. But most are pretty good or not so bad. Only a few are excessively extreme in their saintliness or demonism. That's why, in an imperfect world that seems to be gradually getting better (morally), we need to appreciate the moderate. It's OK to be just OK.

Philosophers shouldn't become despondent about the world's flaws, but merely work to make their little corner of the world better. In view of Aristotle's Golden Mean and the modern Mediocrity Principle, "The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged, exceptional, or even superior". As moral beings, we can imagine Utopia, which gives us something to work toward as we muddle through our mundane lives. But, unless you expect God to rapture you directly to Heaven, just be grateful that this is the best of all "real" worlds. :smile:

Steven Pinker on The Better Angels of Our Nature : 'reasons to be grateful' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GUdPIVymKQ

The Mediocrity Principle : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle

Desiderata : https://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html

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