Irrelevance of God? - Page 5

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Summer3 thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#41
I see life just an in "internet" connection to some dimension. Similarly there could be connections to other dimensions too, to which we do not have any privy.
Perhaps a bit of Vintage wine will bring us there 😆
So where does God stand in all this ? He has the Master key to every dimension, perhaps the ability to multi-task and function independently.
One thing I realise from experience is that God is watching all the time, silently. When a Being transcends Time the view must all be different, or perhaps just a blank.
karandel_2008 thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#42
Some nice discussion going on. I will have to read from the beginning.

About simulation, I think its about imitating something. So if we were a part of simulation then what are we imitating? I like more the idea of projection than simulation.

Instead of asking if we can simulate a real world or not? One better question will be what are the hurdles to do that? Some hurdles would be, in case of centralised simulation, that we are trying to centraly simulate a massively decentralised system, seemingly decentralised due to time and space. Other hurdle would be smarter AI than what we have today.

In anycase we already have that simulater. Its our mind. It can simulate not only past, but also future, in order to plan things.
-Aarya- thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#43
I am sure you have heard this joke about the first man to return from the afterlife? The first question he got was, "What was God like?" The returnee replied, "I met God, and she's black." The real joke is not that God is female and/or black, but that God turned out to be so different from our cherished assumptions...
ninand thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#44

Originally posted by: Spammer.

Since conciousness is created by some arrangement of the neurons and electrical impulses in our brain (barring a 'soul'), consciousness can theoretically be recreated using a man-made computer. Matter and the laws of physics can also be described using a computer, to a degree of accuracy. If both these statements are true, I see no reason why a simulated 'Universe' - indistinguishable from the real McCoy, to its inhabitants - could not be created by a single person, naturally at some point in the distant future. My question is this: would the person (or people, for that matter) who built the computer and wrote the software be accurately described as God(s)? In other words, is the creation of the Universe, life and consciousness (as well as an assumed omniscience, in the computer program scenario) enough to be classified as God, or are omnipotence and immortality absolutely necessary? More importantly, would the creation of a Universe without pain, death - the usual drawbacks - make you objectively 'better' than, for argument's sake, the Christian God?

First timer here, feel free to rip my arguments to shreds.


I stumbled upon this debate very late , but ah.. the way the topic maker has worded it, I simply had to respond.
Since I haven't had the time to go through all the responses here,(and I am most certainly a metaphysics illiterate) I will limit to arguing against exactly the point raised by the tm. And I will keep it short.
I'll let alone the concept of omnipotence and immortality, since these are among the innumerable concepts which we have not been able to be successfully unraveled or understood beyond their very obvious meanings (and thus have been bestowed a degree of awe and reverence of sorts), and thus bear just about as much relevance to the definition of God as everything known about Nature does. Which is not to mean that I do or do not believe in God. That is again irrelevant.

What is relevant though is your question that if someone can gain the full understanding of what this universe is, and how it relates and operates for each unique conscious, then can that person can be called God or, atleast the God of Creation ,if only by strict definition?

No. No he cannot be. How can he? How can a person be called a God of creation if all he does is simply have the capability to reverse engineer creation? It would say a lot about his intellect, he would be far above all mortals, yes, and even work on an entirely different plane that us all, but how does that qualify him to be called God? Even if he were to recreate it all in a self sustained replica, that is all iot would be- a replica. A reproduction.

You can call him a genius, a saint,depending on how your definition for those go, but he cannot equal the God of creation!
For a person, an engineer, an artist, to reach so far, so exalted a title, it would have to be an original idea from him , as original, profound, self-replicating-yet unique self-sustaining and deceptively simple as life. His universe will have to function on its own unique set of laws, and not on those which govern ours.
How can mere programs written or mysteries solved, or imaginations wielded with only the elements known in this world afford a man a stature that is beyond it? The new universe would have to be as elemental as this one. Its weaknesses should be unknown and unimaginable to us all, and its strengths just as confounding .

It has been ages, eons since we have existed and we have been battling the same questions. It commands an enormous respect, reaching the answers, no doubt, but those who answered aren't the ones who inspired those questions. And that is where A new God has to begin.





K.Universe. thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#45

Ninand, whatever you said is also applicable to the creator of this universe assuming there is a creator. So, unless you think logic is not applicable beyond our space-time, the creator of this universe too would be subject to the same reasoning and same skepticism that the simulators among us would be facing. Shouldn't the creator of this universe wonder too from whence He/She/It, with the untold powers to create an universe of this magnitude, came?! How do we know if this universe is completely unlike our creator's universe?


ninand thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#46

Originally posted by: K.Universe.


Ninand, whatever you said is also applicable to the creator of this universe assuming there is a creator. So, unless you think logic is not applicable beyond our space-time, the creator of this universe too would be subject to the same reasoning and same skepticism that the simulators among us would be facing. Shouldn't the creator of this universe wonder too from whence He/She/It, with the untold powers to create an universe of this magnitude, came?! How do we know if this universe is completely unlike our creator's universe?



We work with what we have, for or against it is not the question. All I am saying is anyone who 'created' this universe implemented an original idea as far as we know. Ours is the yardstick, the axis, the sort, which has been established from what has existed here on this planet. Whether it be the physical realm or the subconscious or the true conscious. We can only define parameters which are applicable to this universe. and we can only judge 'creators' who are from this universe because that is all the tangible evidence we have.

That is the reason I stuck with the literal meaning of what the topic maker asked. That anyone who can emulate, and by that anyone, an engineer or programmer or artist, I definitely mean someone from within the ranks of us mortals, and thus, anyone like that would only be able to produce only a reproduction and cannot be termed 'God' of 'creation' .

Of course if there is someone outside the realm of these laws, then those would have to compared against their own kind. The 'creator' or his existence itself is of course treated with quite a healthy amount of skepticism and that is the best part. Such skepticism, curiosity is what drives the evolution of our intellect, even the soul. But to go ahead and start wondering if hes a simulator as well, or critiquing his handiwork , with what do you compare?
Even before comparing this universe, one will have to wait to get a complete comprehensive understanding of at least what this world is. Unless that happens comparison is a moot point. An untenable argument.
We can be skeptical about how this all came into being, but the argument of if there is a creator, was he original , that will be an untenable one. One has to first establish there was a creator and then have something tangible to pit him against it. What is to be gained(and definitely how??) from mulling over his merits when there is nothing to compare him against??


(On an aside- Thank you for responding. I had only noticed that the topic had been posted in january and thought it would be a dead thread after all that debate... lol , commented only because I couldn't help myself.)
K.Universe. thumbnail
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Posted: 12 years ago
#47
By definition the word everything encompasses all that exists. Our universe is defined as everything that exists.

After formulating an airtight definition like that, it would be disingenuous to say that whatever we "create" is but a derivative of what already exists. of course, it would be because you smartly enveloped everything under that one umbrella term and left us with nothing (a null value!) even before the game began, so to speak. Tomorrow, if we were to peek out of that umbrella and journey to hyperspace or discover extra dimensions, you would move the goalpost again and include those too in the "original" universe. If that is the case, logic dictates that the creator too, if any, of this universe would have to be a part of this so-called everything to begin with and not separate and distinct from everything at any point in time. What's good for the goose (us) is good for the gander (creator)? If a creation ever occurred, then that would mean there was nothing before that moment of creation and by nothing we mean no-thing as in not even a creator (ex nihilo). Even vacuum is not considered as nothing.

The argument regarding what might exist beyond space-time would remain unfalsifiable (untenable?) so long as singularity is not breached. We discussed time, space, big bang and singularity quite extensively in other threads so I don't want to linger on those in this one.


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