From Necessary Entity to Christian God.

[Nearly Sane]

Gor blimey, guv'nor! That would mean that most of the verbiage on this forum should be ditched. Christianity exists, Caspar the friendly ghost does not. Conversations in thousands of posts here have been about whether the philosophical arguments for a necessary being/entity* are sound  - I don't think they are, as many here don't, and that's where the real pointlessness lies. But that's the starting point - and beyond that the vast range of religious beliefs of humankind, which may have certain features in common, but nothing that suggests they might all originate in the same 'necessary being'.

*Professor D prefers the word 'entity' - this would seem to suggest conversations of this subtlety could only take place in English (or such languages that might be able to make that specific distinction) Maybe God is an Englishman, but drawing attention to this does certainly indicate the limitations of language, especially when attempting to delineate the characteristics of hypothetical entities/beings.

Since the equivalent to Caspar in my analogy is the Christian personal god, not sure why saying Christianity exists is relevant.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No it doesn't - it has pretty well no evidence to support it. Indeed it is only used to then argue a get out cause of its illogicality (infinite regress) as a (very poor) argument for god.

Contingency has plenty to support it, the argument from contingency is merely that contingent things have causes. An endless regress is inevitable if the premise is everything has a cause. But the argument from contingency does not say that.. An infinite regress is a solution to a different assumption, a dodgy one since we don't know everything and cannot rule out the possibility of a non contingent being or entity. A non contingent contingency is an absurdity

The point about the argument from contingency is that it takes a very anthropocentric view of looking at time as humans perceive it, rather than how it actually is. Once you consider time to be neither constant nor unidirectional then the whole notion of contingency crumbles to dust.

That is plain nonsense. You might as well say that about any argument or methodology.

How does even the change in the direction of time or it's rate affect cause and affect? Which you will note is cause and effect not cause then effect. I don't think you have followed this through.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

My point was that it seems an entirely pointless approach. it's like saying if we assume ghosts exist, then can we derive Caspar the friendly ghost from that. I think kmaking assumptions that you don't know how to provide evidence for is an utter waste of time.

Yes, Philosopher Ed Feser himself says other arguments then come into play.

I find the great Internet atheist revelation that these arguments don't show God yet claim to is itself based on another argument,
Namely, high minded Christian philosophers and low minded backwoods literalist non questioning believers are interchangeable.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Gor blimey, guv'nor! That would mean that most of the verbiage on this forum should be ditched. Christianity exists, Caspar the friendly ghost does not. Conversations in thousands of posts here have been about whether the philosophical arguments for a necessary being/entity* are sound  - I don't think they are, as many here don't, and that's where the real pointlessness lies. But that's the starting point - and beyond that the vast range of religious beliefs of humankind, which may have certain features in common, but nothing that suggests they might all originate in the same 'necessary being'.

*Professor D prefers the word 'entity' - this would seem to suggest conversations of this subtlety could only take place in English (or such languages that might be able to make that specific distinction) Maybe God is an Englishman, but drawing attention to this does certainly indicate the limitations of language, especially when attempting to delineate the characteristics of hypothetical entities/beings.

I think you are adding a subtlety to English that just isn't there. Ancient Greek with its dozen words for love and with it's
Homousions and homoiousions is far more intricate and able to handle more ideas that English with it's slippery use of euphemisms.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This makes good sense, and only involves the comparison of knowing what humans actually do and have done since they were capable of imaginative thought. What Vlad is asking people to believe is that we can extrapolate from the phrase 'necessary being/entity' that it must have certain qualities, and as you rightly point out, this goes way beyond requirements of Occam's Razor. How could any of us begin to delineate the essential qualities of that unknown power, let alone state that it must possess them? However, we do know certain supposed consequences of its supposed creative capacity - that the world is full of unimaginable suffering, and has been through the millennia - life working its tortured way through millions of years of evolution, with many a false start ("Oops! Silly me" says N.B. - "got that a bit wrong, have to go in a different direction").
And all to produce the crowning glory of the evolutionary process - Homo Sapiens (especially the Chosen Ones). As you say, pathetically anthropocentric.

How can any of us assess the attributes of such great a power, Dicky, sounds almost worshipful.
One thing we can say is that it is powerful, it's actual, it can't have come from nothing, was never therefore a potential, has nothing to influence it's actions and it has ultimate agency since it is the first in any ontological series etc.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

https://youtu.be/qJAVP7jP0bI?si=nfDmuNJP9dpAKC66

Are you saying then contingent things are independent from other things for their existence?

[Nearly Sane]

Are you saying then contingent things are independent from other things for their existence?

No, I was saying your 'argument' was circular.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

those of us who are not yet theists can check their workings.

You're not touching my workings.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, I was saying your 'argument' was circular.

My definition was circular, yes.
Hopefully, that is corrected.

[Nearly Sane]

My definition was circular, yes.
Hopefully, that is corrected.

And your 'argument' was based on the definition. You said the statement was true because it was the definition
 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And your 'argument' was based on the definition. You said the statement was true because it was the definition

OK I had better give a better definition. A Contingent entity is one which is dependent on other entities for it's existence.

[Gonnagle]

No - I'm suggesting that humans (and specifically humans living in a particular time and place) create a god specifically imbued with the characteristic that are important to them, but in super-sized form. Despite the fact that human attributes have virtually no relevance in a cosmic scale, as they are only features of one species on one planet - therefore being features relevant in 0.000000 ..... 000001% of cosmic space and 0.0002% of cosmic time.

The christian god (and indeed pretty well all gods purported to exist) are exactly what you'd expect humans to make up. Bit like asking a child to draw an alien and almost certainly they'll take human-like features and expand them - so a figure will 8 arms and a thousand eyes and be evil/good/super intelligent etc etc despite the fact that arms and eyes, being evil/good/super intelligent might have actually no value or relevance for an alien existing in a totally 'alien' environment in another part of the universe.

Dear Prof,

Well yes! Next time Stranger, Dicky or Gordon ask me to describe/define or what are the Characteristics of God, I simply say, see ProfDaveys post, sorted

Gonnagle.

[ProfessorDavey]

OK I had better give a better definition. A Contingent entity is one which is dependent on other entities for it's existence.

So presumably a necessary entity is one that another entity requires for its existence. So of course (as I keep pointing out until I'm blue in the face) entities can be both contingent (dependent on something else) and also necessary (something else is dependent on it). And there are plenty of examples of mutual dependence - in other words A is dependent on B and B is dependent on A. So each entity is both necessary for and dependent on the other.

So what you seem to be banging on about (incoherently) isn't necessity, but non-contingency, in other words whether there are entities which aren't contingent on anything else. Now that entity might also be a sub-set of the massive number of necessary entities (see above) or it could be non-contingent and non-necessary (in which case it would exist in complete isolation from everything else).

But how this has any relevance to consciousness or having 'volition and knows what it's doing' is beyond me. We know from real world examples that consciousness or having 'volition and knows what it's doing' and absolutely contingent processes - being contingent on all sorts of things e.g. evolution, molecular neurophysiology, energetics etc etc. So if we are looking for non-contingency consciousness or having 'volition and knows what it's doing' are definitely not the entities or attributes we should be focussing on.

[Stranger]

No - I'm suggesting that humans (and specifically humans living in a particular time and place) create a god specifically imbued with the characteristic that are important to them, but in super-sized form. Despite the fact that human attributes have virtually no relevance in a cosmic scale, as they are only features of one species on one planet - therefore being features relevant in 0.000000 ..... 000001% of cosmic space and 0.0002% of cosmic time.

The christian god (and indeed pretty well all gods purported to exist) are exactly what you'd expect humans to make up. Bit like asking a child to draw an alien and almost certainly they'll take human-like features and expand them - so a figure will 8 arms and a thousand eyes and be evil/good/super intelligent etc etc despite the fact that arms and eyes, being evil/good/super intelligent might have actually no value or relevance for an alien existing in a totally 'alien' environment in another part of the universe.

Dear Prof,

Well yes! Next time Stranger, Dicky or Gordon ask me to describe/define or what are the Characteristics of God, I simply say, see ProfDaveys post, sorted

Gonnagle.

So you admit God is just made up by humans and you are, in fact, an atheist. 

Doesn't really explain why you keep having a go at your fellow atheists (or these mysterious 'Atheists'), though.

[Gonnagle]

No - I'm suggesting that humans (and specifically humans living in a particular time and place) create a god specifically imbued with the characteristic that are important to them, but in super-sized form. Despite the fact that human attributes have virtually no relevance in a cosmic scale, as they are only features of one species on one planet - therefore being features relevant in 0.000000 ..... 000001% of cosmic space and 0.0002% of cosmic time.

The christian god (and indeed pretty well all gods purported to exist) are exactly what you'd expect humans to make up. Bit like asking a child to draw an alien and almost certainly they'll take human-like features and expand them - so a figure will 8 arms and a thousand eyes and be evil/good/super intelligent etc etc despite the fact that arms and eyes, being evil/good/super intelligent might have actually no value or relevance for an alien existing in a totally 'alien' environment in another part of the universe.

Dear Stranger,

See ProfDaveys above post, and okay I will be an Atheist for today ( capitalisation, sign of respect, I do respect some Atheists ) I am just an evolved Monkey, ook, ook, sorry, monkeys, eek eek.

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

Dear Stranger,

See ProfDaveys above post, and okay I will be an Atheist for today ( capitalisation, sign of respect, I do respect some Atheists ) I am just an evolved Monkey, ook, ook, sorry, monkeys, eek eek.

Gonnagle.

You are an ape, rather than a monkey, but hey, I'm a believer, not a trace of doubt in my mind.

[ProfessorDavey]

Dear Stranger,

See ProfDaveys above post, and okay I will be an Atheist for today ( capitalisation, sign of respect, I do respect some Atheists ) I am just an evolved Monkey, ook, ook, sorry, monkeys, eek eek.

Gonnagle.

No, no - we aren't just an evolved monkey, we humans are really, really, really special! How do we know? Well because the god we've made up is basically just a superannuated human and speaks only to humans, completely ignoring the rest of the cosmos (and even other species on this tiny irrelevant planet). And the god we've made up tells us we are special ... so we must be!

Yup, of course.

[Gonnagle]

No, no - we aren't just an evolved monkey, we humans are really, really, really special! How do we know? Well because the god we've made up is basically just a superannuated human and speaks only to humans, completely ignoring the rest of the cosmos (and even other species on this tiny irrelevant planet). And the god we've made up tells us we are special ... so we must be!

Yup, of course.

Dear Prof,
How do you know he/she/it only speaks to humans, wait! no wait! you are not only a Prof but also a Doctor, Doc Dolittle I presume

But lets get serious, the word speak to us that's language, words, this is where we fall down.

While trees don't communicate in the same way humans do, they do have sophisticated ways of interacting and sharing information with each other. This includes using underground fungal networks, releasing chemical signals, and potentially even sensing sounds and vibrations in their environment.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Fungal Networks:
Trees connect through mycorrhizal networks, which are essentially underground fungal highways that link their root systems. These networks act as a communication system, allowing trees to share resources like water and nutrients, and even send distress signals to one another.
Chemical Signals:
Trees can release chemicals into the air or soil to warn neighboring trees of threats like insect attacks. They also use these chemicals to signal their needs and potentially even share memories.
Sound and Vibrations:
While trees don't have ears, research suggests they can sense sounds and vibrations in their environment. They can detect changes in wind speed and direction, and even the rustling of leaves, which can provide them with information about their surroundings.
Social Behavior:
Trees exhibit social behaviors, such as supporting their offspring and even showing care for their kin. They can recognize their relatives and provide them with extra resources through the fungal network.
Mother Trees:
Larger, older trees, often referred to as "Mother Trees," can play a crucial role in supporting the younger trees in their vicinity, sharing resources and even defense signals.

Hows Mrs Conifer doing over in the next valley asks Granny Oak.

Gonnagle.

PS: This is AI not wonderful wiki.

PS PS: Its the future Prof

[Stranger]

See ProfDaveys above post, and okay I will be an Atheist for today ( capitalisation, sign of respect, I do respect some Atheists )

It's not respect to capitalise it because it implies we are an organisation or something. An atheist is just somebody who doesn't have a belief in any God or gods. That it, full stop, end of story.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Stranger,

No you are an organisation, secret society with one aim, you are all out to get me, I know this because a Tree told me

Gonnagle.

[ProfessorDavey]

Dear Prof,
How do you know he/she/it only speaks to humans, wait! no wait! you are not only a Prof but also a Doctor, Doc Dolittle I presume

But lets get serious, the word speak to us that's language, words, this is where we fall down.

While trees don't communicate in the same way humans do, they do have sophisticated ways of interacting and sharing information with each other. This includes using underground fungal networks, releasing chemical signals, and potentially even sensing sounds and vibrations in their environment.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Fungal Networks:
Trees connect through mycorrhizal networks, which are essentially underground fungal highways that link their root systems. These networks act as a communication system, allowing trees to share resources like water and nutrients, and even send distress signals to one another.
Chemical Signals:
Trees can release chemicals into the air or soil to warn neighboring trees of threats like insect attacks. They also use these chemicals to signal their needs and potentially even share memories.
Sound and Vibrations:
While trees don't have ears, research suggests they can sense sounds and vibrations in their environment. They can detect changes in wind speed and direction, and even the rustling of leaves, which can provide them with information about their surroundings.
Social Behavior:
Trees exhibit social behaviors, such as supporting their offspring and even showing care for their kin. They can recognize their relatives and provide them with extra resources through the fungal network.
Mother Trees:
Larger, older trees, often referred to as "Mother Trees," can play a crucial role in supporting the younger trees in their vicinity, sharing resources and even defense signals.

Hows Mrs Conifer doing over in the next valley asks Granny Oak.

Gonnagle.

PS: This is AI not wonderful wiki.

PS PS: Its the future Prof

Of course all sorts of species communicate with each other in all sorts of ways.

So why isn't the bible stuffed full of descriptions of god communicating with the myriad of other species on earth. And indeed why is the bible pretty well entirely silent on the 99.99999 ... 999% of the universe which isn't the earth.

The bible reads exactly as you'd expect if written by a tiny subset of one species (humans living in a small part of the eastern Mediterranean) at a particular blink of the eye in terms of time (around 1000 years). And where those people had no real understanding of their irrelevance in terms of cosmic time and space.

Effectively the bible is 'all about us' (i.e. humans living in the eastern Mediterranean about 3000-2000 years ago), which is a huge red flag if you want anyone to believe that it is describing an all encompassing god that should be equally relevant everywhere in the universe, at any time and to everything (living or otherwise). Rather it feels entirely made up by humans living in the eastern Mediterranean about 3000-2000 years ago.

[Dicky Underpants]

Fair enough. But I'm still interested in finding out from those who believe in philosophical proofs for God how they then go on to justify their belief in the particular deity of their choice, out of all the myriad of options available. It comes as no surprise that the belief system many tend to adopt happens to be the dominant belief system of the country in which they live or were born, as has often been pointed out here.
One would have thought that people capable of the supposed sophistication of thought necessary to follow philosophical arguments (albeit ones which to me sound specious) might be a little more adventurous in their choice of religion. I'd have thought that Gnosticism fitted the actual known facts of existence better, for instance.

[Dicky Underpants]

How can any of us assess the attributes of such great a power, Dicky, sounds almost worshipful.
One thing we can say is that it is powerful, it's actual, it can't have come from nothing, was never therefore a potential, has nothing to influence it's actions and it has ultimate agency since it is the first in any ontological series etc.

Worshiping great power? Well people used to worship the sun. I'm not into worshiping any 'great power', I'm simply conceding for the sake of argument that "the first in any ontological series" could be conceded to demonstrate this. Beyond this, anything else is wild extrapolation - including, as the Prof pointed out - granting it (as you do) consciousness, and many more wondrous characteristics besides. I bring you back to the brute fact of the evolution of life - do you honestly think this demonstrates that "It" had a bloody clue what it was doing?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Worshiping great power? Well people used to worship the sun. I'm not into worshiping any 'great power'

And yet people devote their lives and sense of awe to "The universe"

I'm simply conceding for the sake of argument that "the first in any ontological series" could be conceded to demonstrate this. Beyond this, anything else is wild extrapolation

Thats wrong though. As first in the series there is nothing before it. There are no laws of nature or whatever to govern it or for it to blindly and unconsciously 'try out'. It, and it alone dictates the next ontological level. Since unconsciousness is then not possible it must be conscious and since it dictates it must have volition. There is nothing "wild" about that

- including, as the Prof pointed out - granting it (as you do) consciousness

Davey seems here to be guilty here of the anthropomorphisation he accuses me of with time!"

, and many more wondrous characteristics besides. I bring you back to the brute fact of the evolution of life - do you honestly think this demonstrates that "It" had a bloody clue what it was doing?

Yes.As I have pointed out there is no context for it to stumble blindly in, no laws of nature. If there were, those would be be the necessary entity.
You should have also worked out that abstract necessities do not bring anything into being.

⁶

[Gordon]

Thats wrong though. As first in the series there is nothing before it. There are no laws of nature or whatever to govern it or for it to blindly and unconsciously 'try out'. It, and it alone dictates the next ontological level. Since unconsciousness is then not possible it must be conscious and since it dictates it must have volition.

All you've done here is define this thing into existence based on what you imagine it should be like: but, existence can't be treated as a predicate (see Kant), so existence isn't like an ingredient you can just add into your recipe for 'God'.