What evidence would prove God?

[siti]

Bula!

...an electron is its qualities

Yes, and its qualities is what an electron is - they are different facets one and the same (for the time-being at least, somewhat fuzzy) reality - that is my point. I am probably wrong - hardly anyone I speak to seems to get it - but I know what I mean.

[gnomon]

Yes, and its qualities is what an electron is - they are different facets one and the same (for the time-being at least, somewhat fuzzy) reality - that is my point. I am probably wrong - hardly anyone I speak to seems to get it - but I know what I mean.

Yes. A material particle is a bundle of qualities that the human mind can quantify. What's so fuzzy about that?

But a quality is a piece of information, which prior to Shannon's theory, was assumed to be a thought form, an idea, a mental object with no physical attributes. Now we know that information is a shape-shifter, it can trans-form from ethereality to reality, from Ideal to Real, from mental to physical, and presumably back again---just as amorphous energy can transform into particulate matter. So the question is : which came first, the qualia or the thing qualified? Humans perceive immaterial qualities in things, but who put the qualitative information in there? Who was the Sender of the Message we decode from Matter as Receivers?

It was the concept of matter as a specific form of generic information that led me to the intuitive leap : perhaps the real world is an idea in the Mind of G*D, as proposed by the Idealist philosophers, including Bishop Berkeley. But then those philosophers were ridiculed, because some people couldn't grasp such a fuzzy idea. Get it? Know-what-I-mean?


The Observer and the Quantum Cat : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat



Bishop Berkeley Gives Comfort To His Wife

They say I am mad, but you know I am not,
my dear: you are as real to me as I to you,
and as are both of us to God, and Him to us.
They mock me, say I eat and drink ideas,
am clothed with them, that I have banished
all that’s solid from the world, have made
chimeras out of all that men held certain,
turned to dreams the ground beneath our feet.
It is not so---I say that if our wise Creator
for one moment turned His steady gaze away
(He won’t of course) then this abundant fabric
of the world would vanish in that instant.
What’s improbable in this? If we ourselves
could close our mortal senses up, stop eyes and ears,
what leaves would rustle, how could grass be green?
We trust in them because we trust in God,
know we are present in His mind : the common man
here sees better than philosophers, that no idea
can exist except within a mind, that common matter---
these mere clods of clay---can have no substance
if no spirit once conceived, or now perceives, them.
If this is madness then most men are mad. John Locke
himself admits he can’t say where its essence lies,
this lifeless matter he so much adheres to,
or what exists in his world that is not in mine :
does he doubt that the very fitness of a glove
consists in what I see, and feel, and come to wear?
No, my dear, forget the ingenious philosophers
Who would tell us two and two make five, but trust
the common man, and common sense, and God.

_____Roger Caldwell, English writer/poet, 2012
quoted in Philosophy Now, Jan/Feb 2012

[gnomon]

Yes, and its qualities is what an electron is - they are different facets one and the same (for the time-being at least, somewhat fuzzy) reality - that is my point. I am probably wrong - hardly anyone I speak to seems to get it - but I know what I mean.

Maybe your view of "fuzzy reality" seems wrong only because you are ahead of your time.

The Feb2012 Scientific American magazine has a cover article : Is Space Digital?
<< Craig Hogan believes that the world is fuzzy. This is not a metaphor. Hogan, a physicist at the University of Chicago and director of Fermilab Particle Astrophysics Center near Batvia, Ill., thinks that if we were to peer down at the tiniest subdivisions of space and time, we would find a universe filled with an intrinsic jitter, the busy hum of static. This hum comes not from particles bouncing in and out of being or other kinds of quantum froth that physicists have argued about in the past. Rather Hogan's noise would come about if space was not, as we have long assumed, smooth and continuous, a glassy backdrop to the dance of fields and particles. Hogan's noise arises if space is made of chunks. Blocks. Bits. Hogan's noise would imply that the universe is digital. >>

Hogan's hum hypothesis is similar in some ways to my Enformationism understanding of the relationship between Reality and Ideality. However the negative assertion in bold above is exactly how I envision the "membrane" between real physical particles and ideal meta-physical potentials. That fuzzy film of being/non-being is also the boundary between SpaceTime and Enfernity (eternity/infinity).

The term "quantum" refers to a strange quality of the sub-atomic realm : a particle either is or it ain't, there is no middle ground, it doesn't gradually come into being like normal things. Quantumness is essentially digital in that the number "1" indicates existence, and the number "0" represents non-existence. Hogan's "chunks" are digital bits of information. Therefore, you could say that a quantum particle "bounces in and out of being", without passing through any intermediate stages. Further, you could metaphorize that space has holes in it like Swiss cheese, where Eternity can interpenetrate with Time, and Infinity intermingles with Space. On the eternity side of the membrane, a "virtual" potential particle is un-real non-being; but when it pops into existence on the time side, the particle instantly becomes a real thing. Thus imaginary Forms become real Things.

The fuzzy membrane between Being and Non-being is also the filmy boundary of the "bubble" of SpaceTime as it floats in a sea of Enfernity. Like the membrane of a single-cell organism, that boundary both separates and integrates the organism (our universe) relative to the Great Beyond, which I call G*D.

What do you think? Am I also fuzzy-brained?

Quantum Foam : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam
Virtual Particle : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle



PS---More quotes & comments :

<< The essence of the universe is information. >> If information originates in a mind, then perhaps the universe is a concept in the Mind of G*D.

<<. . . spacetime is what we call emergent . . . "It will come out of a bunch of 0's and 1's.">> From whence does spacetime emerge, and why in the form of distinctions between being and non-being?

<< One problem : although physicists mostly agree that the holographic principle is true---that information on nearby surfaces contains all the information about the world---they know not how the information is encoded, or how nature processes the 1's and 0's, or how the result of that processing gives rise to the world.>> "Holo-" means all or whole. So a hologram is the whole (all information) written (encoded) in each part (particle). Some cosmologists are now postulating that the universe is essentially a digital computer processing information. Before the invention of silicon-based digital "computers", the term referred to humans who did the hard mental work of calculating logarithms and ephemeris tables with their own meat-based minds. So it should not be too much of a stretch to imagine the universe as a mind running an evolutionary program. But who is the programmer?


Computer :
<< The first use of the word "computer" was recorded in 1613, referring to a person who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, a machine that carries out computations.[3]>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

[siti]

Bula!

I'll have to read Hogan's hypothesis, but suppose space is made of chunks - is matter (and all that it entails) fundamentally composed of nothing more than chunks of space that happen to clump together as a result of the Big Bang perturbation of the otherwise infinite (and ultimately impotent?) equilibrium of eternity? Tiny ripples on the surface of an infinite pond that will eventually dissipate before ever making landfall? Or does it just feel like that because it is Monday morning again?

[TonyHawks 712]

I can't help but feel that any scientific methodology of trying to produce proof of God will ultimately be fruitless. We simply do not have enough facts to support any legitimate hypothesis.

I think God gave us the means to prove his existence with simple reason and logic. Stephen Hawking has hypothesized that no God was necessary to create the universe because matter can self-generate - that because there is such a law as gravity the universe may have created itself from nothing. But if there was no matter before our universe was created, then what was there to initiate gravity? Gravity in and of itself cannot exist without matter, and even if one could presume that gravity could exist without matter, what set gravity in "motion"?

And it is also illogical to presume that a theoretical stretch that proves the universe could have created itself somehow proves that that's what happened.

His argument also does not address that even the empty void of space exists. How did it come to be? His argument seems to be like the one about the tree falling in the forest - if no one is there to perceive that space is empty does it exist? No offense intended to Mr. Hawking, but his hypothesis seems to presume that the emptiness of space does not exist, which I find to be illogical. And if space exists, how was it created? If gravity can exist without matter, then the "law" that allows that to happen was written by somebody, just like all of nature's laws.

In this, I believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spoke truly through his character Sherlock Holmes - "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". To me, it is impossible that gravity can exist without matter or some sort of atomic-level energy. It is impossible that matter or energy could spontaneously be created without gravity. It is impossible that space, which has observable characteristics, does not exist. And so, if all these things are impossible, then the only logical conclusion is that whatever came first was created, implying the presence of a Creator. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[gnomon]

Bula!

I'll have to read Hogan's hypothesis, but suppose space is made of chunks - is matter (and all that it entails) fundamentally composed of nothing more than chunks of space that happen to clump together as a result of the Big Bang perturbation of the otherwise infinite (and ultimately impotent?) equilibrium of eternity? Tiny ripples on the surface of an infinite pond that will eventually dissipate before ever making landfall? Or does it just feel like that because it is Monday morning again?

No. You feel chunky and perturbed on Monday morning because your weekend is finite and the week seems eternal.

The cutting edge of sub-atomic science seems to be getting closer and closer to the Kantian/Platonic conclusion that matter is a figment of the imagination. After slicing atoms into smaller & fuzzier bits of insubstantial fluff, they are finding only statistical hints of real things. Consequently, you could say that the stuff that appears to be so solid to us is actually a confluence of immaterial information waves splashing around in a vast emptiness devoid of any physical medium (ether). Now, even space itself, formerly assumed to be smooth nothingness, is described (without irony) as chunky emptiness.

Remember though that our physical senses can only detect matter via the immaterial information (qualities) of those aggregations of subatomic tsunamis : consequently, we don't see things, we see qualities. Based on those localized lumps of quality, we quantify mental images as physical objects. By pure reasoning, without empirical evidence, Immanuel Kant concluded that we can never know a thing-in-essence (i.e. directly), but only in appearances (i.e. indirectly, via proxies).


<< Platonic Ideas and Forms are noumena, and phenomena are things displaying themselves to the senses [...] that noumena and the noumenal world are objects of the highest knowledge, truths, and values is Plato's principal legacy to philosophy. >>
—The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

Noumenon; ding an sich :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_an_sich

[gnomon]

I can't help but feel that any scientific methodology of trying to produce proof of God will ultimately be fruitless. We simply do not have enough facts to support any legitimate hypothesis.

I don't pretend that Science can prove the existence of God, but it can support my intuition of G*D; to show that my belief is not irrational. Deism is characterized as Rational, not in opposition to Intuition, but in alliance with it. Hence, Rational Faith versus Blind Faith.

Science studies Reality; Faith feels Ideality; together they uphold our otherwise feckless assumption that there is some unquantifiable quality to our world, that is more than the sum of its parts. Separately, they divide the world into incompatible halves; but as complementary worldviews they see "Redeality" in stereoscope, as a physical & meta-physical whole.

BTW, my interest in the intricacies of Science is primarily for the joy of understanding G*D's creation, not for knowing G*D personally. As noted in the post above, we cannot know ding-an-sich, only the qualities associated with concepts that we label as things "out there". G*D is a meta-physical concept : the whole of which our universe is a part. Therefore, it's not surprising that, after reducing the physical universe down to its smallest particles, what we find is vast nothingness with potential for particular somethingness.


PS---If you conceive of God as a natural phenomenon---as in Reinventing the Sacred---then Science should be able to eventually "prove" the existence of such a thing. But if God is conceived as supernatural, you'd be wasting your time to look for Scientific evidence. So the title of this thread could be restated as : what kind of evidence would prove God---natural or supernatural?

[Varokhâr]

I don't pretend that Science can prove the existence of God, but it can support my intuition of G*D; to show that my belief is not irrational. Deism is characterized as Rational, not in opposition to Intuition, but in alliance with it. Hence, Rational Faith versus Blind Faith.

Well-said

[TonyHawks 712]

Deists all seem to be an inquisitive lot. We've used our sense of reason to arrive at the beliefs we hold and it seems like we've all arrived at somewhere near the same set of beliefs. So let me ask this then - why pandeism? Why panendeism? It seems to me that if we ultimately arrive at the conclusion that we can, through science, understand much of the universe as we know it, but can acknowledge we will probably never be able to prove the existence of God, then why do people go that next step and say, "I believe God became the universe when He created it"? If, as Gnomon says,

Science studies Reality; Faith feels Ideality

Isn't that crossing the boundary between the two somehow? Are pandeism and panendeism really belief structures, or just theoretical exercises in the mechanics of Creation to "flesh out" how it might have happened? I'm just asking out of curiosity because taking that extra step doesn't seem rational to me.

[gnomon]

Isn't that crossing the boundary between the two somehow? Are pandeism and panendeism really belief structures, or just theoretical exercises in the mechanics of Creation to "flesh out" how it might have happened? I'm just asking out of curiosity because taking that extra step doesn't seem rational to me.

IMHO the "boundary" between Reality and Ideality is artificial. G*D is both Real and Ideal : all of reality is in G*D, but G*D is not limited to our reality : pan-en-deism. But that's just a theory. I've never had an epiphany.

For me, Panendeism is not a belief structure or a religion, but a detailed philosophical worldview which envisions G*D as part & parcel of the physical universe, but also much, much, infinitely more. My belief structure, such as it is, follows from my worldview, not the other way around. My pragmatic worldview is defined in relation to an ideal deity, not the other way around.

As a direct answer to your question about "theoretical exercises", I happen to enjoy such rational adventures; you got a problem with that? If anyone is interested, I don't rely on scriptural evidence to prove my faith; but I have piles of scientific evidence to support my Panendeistic worldview. Since I am not confident in my "irrational" intuition, I "flesh out" my faith with rational scientific facts. For those who are not interested in verifiable facts, I beg your pardon for seeming to sully idealistic intuition with realistic reason.

However, as I said before, all the science in the world will not prove the existence of an immaterial deity. Only a direct revelation would do that. And proving G*D is not the point of my "pointless" theorizing. G*D is simply the fundamental (unproven) axiom for all of my real-world reasoning. I happen to believe that some sort of creator-god is the best explanation for why we are here, and serves as the ultimate premise for reasoning about everything in this world. Regarding that "extra step", since when is reasoning about ultimate things irrational? An undefined intuition of something beyond material reality is just the first step for me, not the final conclusion.

Intuition : The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.
Axiom : A principle that is accepted as true without proof.

[TonyHawks 712]

As a direct answer to your question about "theoretical exercises", I happen to enjoy such rational adventures; you got a problem with that? If anyone is interested, I don't rely on scriptural evidence to prove my faith; but I have piles of scientific evidence to support my Panendeistic worldview. Since I am not confident in my "irrational" intuition, I "flesh out" my faith with rational scientific facts. For those who are not interested in verifiable facts, I beg your pardon for seeming to sully idealistic intuition with realistic reason.

Well answered! And, no, I don't have a problem with "theoretical exercises" of any kind - it's what led me to believe Christianity was hopelessly mired in "blind faith" as you put it. It just seemed from your original statement, "Science studies Reality; Faith feels Ideality" that you saw a boundary there, one that you now say you don't believe exists. I apologize for misinterpretting your thought.

As it turns out, the difference between us lies more, I think, in the definitions of Deism and Panendeism. To you, Panendeism is a worldview. To me, I claim Deism as my faith. Calling it a religion is a little premature because there are none of the trappings of a religion (church, prayers, clergy, religious rites, etc.) associated with Deism yet. And maybe Deism will never be a religion - but whatever the case, it is my faith. And I suppose if I were a Christian and the tenets of Christianity were my faith I would find it odd that someone would call my faith their worldview. But maybe "worldview" has a different meaning for you than what I associate it as being, so I won't accuse you of sullying my idealistic intuition with your realistic reason.

[gnomon]

But maybe "worldview" has a different meaning for you than what I associate it as being, so I won't accuse you of sullying my idealistic intuition with your realistic reason.

Anytime we draw distinctions for rhetorical purposes there is a tendency to think of them as mutually exclusive. But I think of them as opposite poles of a continuum.

I use the secular and philosophical term "worldview" deliberately, to avoid the historical baggage that comes with the religious term "faith". IMHO, Paul the Apostle corrupted the original meaning of faith (hope & trust) by presenting it as a miraculous gift from God to deserving individuals. Consequently, the Christian meaning of "faith" is hope & trust & divine gift (essential for salvation). For Paul, spiritual faith made practical "works" unnecessary. For me though, faith has nothing to do with salvation from sins, or eternal life in heaven; it's simply a self-reinforcing emotional loop to prop-up ordinary hope & trust, which normally require a more tangible foundation. I could go on, but perhaps you get the idea that I have a philosophical problem with that innocent little word in its usual religious context.