the mind of a god

[Griggsy]

Seriously, how can a mind be disembodied ? How can such a mind direct activites? How can it differentialte the voices of billions in thousands of languages? I t won't do to answer it is far superior to us as we are to fleas as that is the question.Faith is no answer, for that assumes what is to be shown. There are no empirical findings to demonstrate any attributes of a god, much less a disembodied mind . Please, theists and deists answer . I remain in my Socratic ignorance.

[Sir Meep]

Greetings, sir Griggsy! You've posted some great questions here. ^_^

Seriously, how can a mind be disembodied ? How can such a mind direct activites?

Hm... In my opinion, defining God as "disembodied" is a bit off the mark. I think most of us assume that God operates within a substrate of some type or another. "Spirit" is just a placeholder for a magnficiently complex mechanism we know very little about as of yet~ mayhaps God is a type of eternally emerging energy source capable of processing every logically possible event and thought? I personally think that an infinite God would be something very akin to that.

How it would direct activities is another matter... as we lack any observations of God's activities in contemporary times, I think we're pretty much down to guesswork when it comes to this area. However, if God has an interest invested in the development of the life forms it has created, I don't see why it would be impossible for this God to direct it as He/She wishes.

How can it differentialte the voices of billions in thousands of languages? I t won't do to answer it is far superior to us as we are to fleas as that is the question.Faith is no answer, for that assumes what is to be shown.

An infinitely intelligent/powerful God wouldn't have a bit of a problem making out all the languages that ever existed on Earth. If God has complete and total knowledge of everything that has, and is going to ever happen, and has infinite computational power to boot thanks to an infinite source of energy to work with, why couldn't God process each and every language on Earth? Human brains certainly couldn't process such a massive task, but I think if you increased your overall intelligence by 1,000,000,000x10^10^10^10^10 fold or higher, you wouldn't have to think twice to get it all in your head.

There are no empirical findings to demonstrate any attributes of a god, much less a disembodied mind . Please, theists and deists answer . I remain in my Socratic ignorance.

Admittedly, theism deals with things that are unfalsifiable in nature~ where did it all come from, and where is it all going? But we also realize that there are no known empirical findings that demonstrate how something can come from nothing, either. Existence itself is a pretty big mystery, and I think theist and nontheist alike, we've got a lot further to go in discovering all the answers.

[Samurai Drifter]

Seriously, how can a mind be disembodied ? How can such a mind direct activites? How can it differentialte the voices of billions in thousands of languages?

Sheer force of will.

[zorathruster]

Seriously, how can a mind be disembodied ? How can such a mind direct activites? How can it differentialte the voices of billions in thousands of languages? I t won't do to answer it is far superior to us as we are to fleas as that is the question.Faith is no answer, for that assumes what is to be shown. There are no empirical findings to demonstrate any attributes of a god, much less a disembodied mind . Please, theists and deists answer . I remain in my Socratic ignorance.

The mind is a functional anticipator. It tries to "figure out" what relationships exist with indicators in the environment and anticipate future events. The rabbit tracks equate to future dinner, the lion tracks equate to future threat. We think in an effort to determine what to expect. The whole definition of a God invalidates the thinking event. A proposed entity that knows the future doesn't have to think about it. There is no need to formulate mental relationships because future actions are already known. As opposed to any computation of "what is happening" it is more of a book which already knows all that will happen. No processing required.

That is one more reason why the discription of a God as commonly promoted by theists is invalid. The only way to "disprove" the existance of an entity is to show it is logically invalid, in otherwords the definition is contradictory. What you have brought up is one more example of how the definition of a God is contradictory.

[Sir Meep]

Greetings, Zorathruster! ^_^

Looks like this might be a toughie...

The mind is a functional anticipator. It tries to "figure out" what relationships exist with indicators in the environment and anticipate future events. The rabbit tracks equate to future dinner, the lion tracks equate to future threat. We think in an effort to determine what to expect. The whole definition of a God invalidates the thinking event. A proposed entity that knows the future doesn't have to think about it.

I think this objection could only hold if it were said that God had perfect foreknowledge of all of His own future actions throughout eternity. I personally find this notion absurd, as it would imply that God really couldn't make any decisions on His own, as He already has/had complete knowledge of everything He was going to do, and all He could do is what He already knew He was going to do. It's one of those notions that makes your head spin.

In relationship to our physical world, it could be said that He has instantaneous access to it at all times. However, I think on His own level (assuming he doesn't have perfect foreknowledge of His own actions), He would be free to think as many thoughts as He'd like.

There is no need to formulate mental relationships because future actions are already known. As opposed to any computation of "what is happening" it is more of a book which already knows all that will happen. No processing required.

If God doesn't know what He Himself is going to do in the future, that always allows for Him to make LFW choices.

That is one more reason why the discription of a God as commonly promoted by theists is invalid. The only way to "disprove" the existance of an entity is to show it is logically invalid, in otherwords the definition is contradictory. What you have brought up is one more example of how the definition of a God is contradictory.

*gulp*

At least there's always Open View Theism if all other options fail.

[shunyadragon]

Seriously, how can a mind be disembodied ? How can such a mind direct activites? How can it differentialte the voices of billions in thousands of languages? I t won't do to answer it is far superior to us as we are to fleas as that is the question.Faith is no answer, for that assumes what is to be shown. There are no empirical findings to demonstrate any attributes of a god, much less a disembodied mind . Please, theists and deists answer . I remain in my Socratic ignorance.

This gets to be an issue from the Jewish/Christian perspective, but from the Baha'i perspective God may not be anthropomorphicly described as having a mind. God is not embodied to be disembodied. God is . . .

[zorathruster]

1. I think this objection could only hold if it were said that God had perfect foreknowledge of all of His own future actions throughout eternity.

2. I personally find this notion absurd, as it would imply that God really couldn't make any decisions on His own, as He already has/had complete knowledge of everything He was going to do, and all He could do is what He already knew He was going to do. It's one of those notions that makes your head spin.

3. In relationship to our physical world, it could be said that He has instantaneous access to it at all times. However, I think on His own level (assuming he doesn't have perfect foreknowledge of His own actions), He would be free to think as many thoughts as He'd like.


4. If God doesn't know what He Himself is going to do in the future, that always allows for Him to make LFW choices.


5. At least there's always Open View Theism if all other options fail.

1. I concur this is impossible but this is the discriptor most theists attribute to their God. They say a God knows all, future included. Without knowledge of the future, all the preminitions of the prophets would be void.

2. That is exactly correct, with God knowing the future, he would not have to make any decisions. Excellent! This description is the logical extension of theistic ideas on God, as you have noted it is obsurd.

3. I assert that thinking is a process to determine future actions, if you already know what will happen, you have no need for thinking, all is pre-determined in your mind.

4. But if he doesn't know what he is going to do, he can't fortell the future because as is discribed in the "butterfly flapping it's wings culminating in the typhoon which wipes out civilization" scenario - small pertibations can have dramatic affects on future events.

5. The issue with any liberal theism fails because it does not commit to any solid discriptor for the God entity. Then once the discrepencies of that discriptor are revealed, they just change the definition to adapt to the contradiction. If you wish to attempt to describe a God that is not contradictory, please do so.

[Sir Meep]

Greetings again, zorathruster! ^_^

1. I concur this is impossible but this is the discriptor most theists attribute to their God. They say a God knows all, future included. Without knowledge of the future, all the preminitions of the prophets would be void.

I suppose I have to disagree with the majority, in that case. I hold that God may be able to tell the future in our universe by predicting in advance the chain of cause and effect that He's set in motion, but I don't think He'd be capable of predicting His own actions in advance. I think that also means that whenever He interacts with the world, He'd have to recalculate the chain of cause and effect that He just interfered with... interesting...

As far as prophecy goes, God doesn't have to have perfect foreknowledge of His own actions in order to carry it out: He merely needs to do so when the time is right.

2. That is exactly correct, with God knowing the future, he would not have to make any decisions. Excellent! This description is the logical extension of theistic ideas on God, as you have noted it is obsurd.

*nods*

3. I assert that thinking is a process to determine future actions, if you already know what will happen, you have no need for thinking, all is pre-determined in your mind.

However, if God doesn't know the future of His own actions, that would imply that he would have to contemplate them before carrying them out. Therefore, the ability for God to make decisions is preserved.

4. But if he doesn't know what he is going to do, he can't fortell the future because as is discribed in the "butterfly flapping it's wings culminating in the typhoon which wipes out civilization" scenario - small pertibations can have dramatic affects on future events.

If God knows everything that is going to happen in our world via cause and effect, then he can know everything there is to know via determinism. However, like I said before, He would have to recalculate the whole formula every time He interacted with the universe. But I don't see how that'd be a problem.

5. The issue with any liberal theism fails because it does not commit to any solid discriptor for the God entity. Then once the discrepencies of that discriptor are revealed, they just change the definition to adapt to the contradiction. If you wish to attempt to describe a God that is not contradictory, please do so.

Yowzers. That is a MASSIVE issue... there are all sorts of "divine incompatibility" arguments, ranging from the problem of free will, to the problem of evil, to the "a perfect God can't create a universe because that implies that he had a want/need or drive to do something, and a perfect being has no wants or needs" argument, etc..., etc... Was there anything in particular you'd like to focus on?

I could see this leading into a good discussion.

[zorathruster]

I could see this leading into a good discussion.

Good points however: If God doesn't know the future far out in advance, how can it be that he would know that eventually there will be a great battle between good and evil and he will be victorious. Specifically, the entirity of Revelations would be a falsehood.

Now walk through how far in advance God is supposed to know what is going on and how far his preminition goes. Does that jibe with prophetic claims of Christians? Remember they are claiming prophetic claims from Samuel that foretell the Jesus event. They proclaim Jesus fortold future happenings. However, when Jesus proclaimed that "there are those amoung you who will see the coming" which was obviously falacious.

Back up point. If that particular point was falacious how much other of the points he predicted were falacious?

[Sir Meep]

Hello once more, zorathruster. ^_^

Good points however: If God doesn't know the future far out in advance, how can it be that he would know that eventually there will be a great battle between good and evil and he will be victorious. Specifically, the entirity of Revelations would be a falsehood.

God would simply have to set up the final battle between good and evil in advance, and make sure that every time He interacted with our universe that He wouldn't alter the chain of events as to mess up this scenario. Surely an omnipotent being could do this. Then when the time came, God would just have to step into history. Besides, I don't think that the fulfillment of Revelation is going to be filled with all the special effects and explosions and monsters that people tend to associate it with. As I only possess a very cursory knowledge in regards to eschatology, I guess I really can't get much past this point... preterism is always a possibility, though.

Now walk through how far in advance God is supposed to know what is going on and how far his preminition goes. Does that jibe with prophetic claims of Christians? Remember they are claiming prophetic claims from Samuel that foretell the Jesus event. They proclaim Jesus fortold future happenings. However, when Jesus proclaimed that "there are those amoung you who will see the coming" which was obviously falacious.

Back up point. If that particular point was falacious how much other of the points he predicted were falacious?

Yowzers. That is indeed one of the most difficult parts of the Bible to interpret. The only answer I know of is that several of those prophecies may have already occured in 70 AD... however, I'll have to do some looking into the matter to confirm whether this is plausible or not. I do know that JP Holding has written several articles in defense of preterism (and on the other side, an equal amount of articles by Farrell Till trying to debunk it), so I'll go ahead and see if the theory holds water. I truly hope it does.

[Duder]

Seriously, how can a mind be disembodied ? How can such a mind direct activites? How can it differentialte the voices of billions in thousands of languages? I t won't do to answer it is far superior to us as we are to fleas as that is the question.Faith is no answer, for that assumes what is to be shown. There are no empirical findings to demonstrate any attributes of a god, much less a disembodied mind . Please, theists and deists answer . I remain in my Socratic ignorance.

Hello, Griggsy -

What, exactly, do you see as being the problem?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by disembodied. Are you talking about matter? You know, lots of interesting patterns can be found in things other than matter. Think of all the information routinely modulated onto waves of electromagnetic radiation in the RF range. And never mind that the whole universe appears to be the product of a quantum wave function, a very curious kind of pattern that is completely abstract and made of nothing at all. If the pattern that makes up your mind can be imprinted onto matter, is there any reason to suppose that a similar kind of pattern cannot be imprinted upon a medium of an altogether different sort?

But perhaps that is off the mark. Sir Meep suggested God might be "made of" some kind of substratum - a medium, as it were, that his pattern is imprinted upon. But that would leave us with the serious metaphysical and theological problem of having a substance that was more fundamental and necessary than God, since he would need it for his existence.

What if God is not made of anything, and neither is he imprinted onto any medium - but rather, he is the medium upon which all things are imprinted? Ocean waves wiggle in water, sound waves wiggle in air, and everything wiggles in God.

Explaining God as a fundamental property may not seem immediately attractive because you have never been able to detect any "God". But really, that should not trouble you too much, since no one has ever detected any matter, either. Matter, conceived as "ponderous stuff", doesn't exist. What does exist that we call matter, well, we just don't know. And yet we deal in it all the time and talk about it as if we did know what we are talking about.

You asked why God can differentiate among billions of voices. You can play me a chord on a piano, and I can mentally attend to each of the three notes you have struck. The problem of attending to billions of voices is harder than differentiating the notes of a chord, but it differs only in degree - not in kind. So in principle, what is the problem?

Granted, the mind that attends to every single fact in the universe must be at least as complex as the universe to which it attends. God's knowledge of the universe would be like having one universe in God's mind, and another universe outside of God's mind. There is a certain redundancy to having two universes, one mental, the other physical, but both of them being in every other way identical . My own metaphysical position eliminates one of them as being unnecessary; most theists retain two. But what is it that bothers you about there being a divine mental universe?

[zorathruster]

God would simply have to set up the final battle between good and evil in advance, and make sure that every time He interacted with our universe that He wouldn't alter the chain of events as to mess up this scenario. Surely an omnipotent being could do this. Then when the time came, God would just have to step into history. Besides, I don't think that the fulfillment of Revelation is going to be filled with all the special effects and explosions and monsters that people tend to associate it with. As I only possess a very cursory knowledge in regards to eschatology, I guess I really can't get much past this point... preterism is always a possibility, though.

This is not limiting enough to avoid the previous problems. If there is a definite chain of events that has to be sequenced to produce a particular outcome, God has to know those sequences, and therefore pre-know what will happen.

Remember the book of Job? Satan and God just sit around talking like old friends over a cup of coffee. If Job is true, thats one of the few times where it shows how the relationship between the two operates. It's not like two imperial leaders in their war rooms one in heaven and one in hell planning strategy. It defies logic that one day God looks over and says, "You know in the end I'm going to have to whip your ass!" and Satan says back, "Yea I know you can and I know you will but just to show a good stand, I'll get all my minyons and demons to put up a good fight." These guys aren't mortal enemies, they are depicted as buddies who over a game of golf discuss their latest accomplishments.

What do you suppose is the longest par on the course in heaven?

[Duder]

The mind is a functional anticipator. It tries to "figure out" what relationships exist with indicators in the environment and anticipate future events. The rabbit tracks equate to future dinner, the lion tracks equate to future threat. We think in an effort to determine what to expect. The whole definition of a God invalidates the thinking event. A proposed entity that knows the future doesn't have to think about it. There is no need to formulate mental relationships because future actions are already known. As opposed to any computation of "what is happening" it is more of a book which already knows all that will happen. No processing required.

That is one more reason why the discription of a God as commonly promoted by theists is invalid. The only way to "disprove" the existance of an entity is to show it is logically invalid, in otherwords the definition is contradictory. What you have brought up is one more example of how the definition of a God is contradictory.

Hi, zorathruster -

That is a good insight. I think what it casts doubt on is not God Himself, but a common, anthropomorphic misconception of God.

If you think of God as if he were a "being" who exists "in" reality (one object among a set of objects that are all members of an existential field), and then attribute to God all of the attributes that he is supposed to have, God becomes a static repository of information - not a thinking God.

As you correctly note, this God would not have to think because every conceivable piece of data about the other objects in the existential field is already in this mind. It is complicated even further if you consider that God is an object of his own knowledge. He never even has to consult with his omniscience, because he has perfect and total self-knowkedge. He not only knows, but he knows that he knows, and he knows that he knows that he knows. Every conceivable datum in his mind is held before his immediate awareness at all times, so that there is no question or problem that he would ever have to put to his omniscience. This concept of God is a sneaking idolatry. It makes of him a kind of golden calf that just sits there.

There's another concept of God, where God is not so much a being inside of reality, but rather, he is the reality inside of which all beings exist. He's not "a being", but he's being itself, to borrow Paul Tillich's language.

See it this way, and God actually does something. What you and I experience as motion, change and the passage of time - you can think of it as the mental motion of God. You know, time is a thing most difficult to pin down and define. Intuitively we think of it as a moving stream, and maybe that's what it is - the notion of God's mind - a mind that we are inside of. If your theory objecifies us and places us outside of God's mind, then God becomes the static idol.

.

[zorathruster]

1. If you think of God as if he were a "being" who exists "in" reality (one object among a set of objects that are all members of an existential field), and then attribute to God all of the attributes that he is supposed to have, God becomes a static repository of information - not a thinking God.

2. It is complicated even further if you consider that God is an object of his own knowledge.

3. He never even has to consult with his omniscience, because he has perfect and total self-knowkedge.

4. He not only knows, but he knows that he knows, and he knows that he knows that he knows.

5. Every conceivable datum in his mind is held before his immediate awareness at all times, so that there is no question or problem that he would ever have to put to his omniscience. This concept of God is a sneaking idolatry. It makes of him a kind of golden calf that just sits there.

6. There's another concept of God, where God is not so much a being inside of reality, but rather, he is the reality inside of which all beings exist. He's not "a being", but he's being itself, to borrow Paul Tillich's language.

.

1. If God knows all of what purpose is the thinking process? It makes no sense to contemplate things that you already know how they will transpire. It would mirror the futility of a person pondering whether the sun would rise. It is not a variable it is known what will happen and to ponder it is futility. If he doesn't know what will happen then all claims to that effect are mute as well. A static repository is exactly correct. Since you say he is not such, could you please explain how he can both know the future and be an active thinker at the same time?
2. I am not sure what this is supposed to assert. Does this somehow equate to the man who sits pondering his own navel? How can he be an object of his own knowledge. That implies things that are not logical or properly described. Maybe you can attempt to do so.
3. How would an entity divide himself thusly? What you are describing more closely resembles the Hindu concept of multi-layered Gods who each ponder lesser levels of existence, the top one only pondering himself. A Christian claiming commonality with Hindu multilevel Godship, be careful of what you assert.
4. Sorry this is a semantic trap and not a valid discription of an entity.
5. Here is where I began this post objecting to. In order for him to know all that could transpire he would have to have more knowledge of all that would not transpire than what actually happens. Because there are infinite possibilities of ways for things not to go. For example a person making a choice. The simplest is a dual choice where one is selected and one is not. Take two sequential choices and now there is one way for it to happen but three ways for it not to happen. Now for every choice there might be not just two but multiple options lets say a vector which has 360 possible directions but only one is selected. For what you have described a God would know what transpires for all 359 alternative vectors and the one vector taken. That means for just this choice a God would know significantly more information about what doesn't happen than what actually happens. Now take every choice and suddenly the amount of information required for all those things that don't happen SIGNIFICANTLY outstrips the information of what actually transpires. To put it precisely, a God of this description would have extensive knowledge, overwhelming knowledge of what doesn't happen compared to his knowledge of what actually does happen. That is wasteful. Therefore, such a wasteful description is incompatable with logic.
6. I think it is not so important to point out the invalidity of unique discription of God but point out how the commonly held perceptions are invalid. Such a secondary description as you have forwarded is not of a personal nature. "The ground of being" is not someone or some concept that facilitates such things as the focus of prayer.

[Duder]

1. If God knows all of what purpose is the thinking process?

I have been involved in discussions like this before where I have asked the same question,.and it has been asserted that perhaps God, though he knows all, does not attend to all of his knowledge at once. Thus, at least there would be required of him the mental motion of shifting his attention between various facts which he retains in his mind.

My point was, this does not work if God is truly omniscient. Why? Stay tuned.

I am not sure what this is supposed to assert. Does this somehow equate to the man who sits pondering his own navel? How can he be an object of his own knowledge. That implies things that are not logical or properly described. Maybe you can attempt to do so.

I'll try.

Right now, you are no doubt aware of some things in your immediate feld of experience. The coffee cup on your desk, the computer monitor where these words appear, the sound of the window fan in the background, and so forth. In other words, the coffee, the monitor and the fan are objects of your knowledge.

You are not only aware of these objects around you, but you are aware also of yourself and your relationship to the objects. You have a concept of yourself as one object among these other objects. Thus, you are an object of your own knowledge. The set of "objects that you know" includes yourself.

This ability to "objectify" yourself means that you can, in a very curious way, symbolically seperate "yourself" from you, so that you can examine "yourself". So not only do you know about the objects around you, but you also know that you know about them. Rightly or wrongly, many thinkers have held that this is the very hallmark of consciousness.

For a truly omniscient being, this has the odd consequence of making his mind freeze. The omniscient mind must all at the same time not only possess a record of ever thing and event, but he must be aware of his knowledge of every single thing and event. There is no knowledge in his mind that is hidden from his attention in the immediate moment. For that reason, he never has to think - to move from one idea to the other - because all are ideas are given to him immediately.

And we can make it even worse, if we think about it some more. Joe Dokes might answer all this by saying, "Yes, God must have perfect self-knowledge, and he is aware always of everything that he knows. But this doesn't imply that he is frozen. For nothing says that he can't attend to some of the things he knows with a special and more focused kind of attention."

What this reminds me of is a clever limmerick I read in a philosophy book:

There was a young man who said, "though
It seems that I know that I know,
What I'd like to see
Is the "I" that knows "me"
When I know that I know that I know"

What Joe Dokes has proposed is that the only way God can unfreeze and give himself room to mentally move is to increase the abstraction by another level - to know something especially from among all the things that he knows that he knows. But if omniscient God could do that, this special attention to one idea would imply that he would not have the same, immediate fullness of knowledge about other ideas in his mind. Since this is no good for an truly omniscient God, all other ideas have to be moved up to the same level of abstraction. Uh, oh - frozen again. To move now, he's got to kick it up to another level, and know especially something that he knows that he knows that he.... you get the idea.

As you said, the truly omniscient God is caught in a hopeless situation of navel-contemplation any time he tries to think. It is a bottomless pit of regress.

How would an entity divide himself thusly? What you are describing more closely resembles the Hindu concept of multi-layered Gods who each ponder lesser levels of existence, the top one only pondering himself. A Christian claiming commonality with Hindu multilevel Godship, be careful of what you assert.

I'm not asserting it as being the factual situation. I'm asserting it as the natural consequence of the idea of an omniscient God conceived as an object. It's either the frozen God you discussed in your original reply, or else its the futile God trying to think by forever chasing his own tail.

Here is where I began this post objecting to. In order for him to know all that could transpire he would have to have more knowledge of all that would not transpire than what actually happens. Because there are infinite possibilities of ways for things not to go. For example a person making a choice. The simplest is a dual choice where one is selected and one is not. Take two sequential choices and now there is one way for it to happen but three ways for it not to happen. Now for every choice there might be not just two but multiple options lets say a vector which has 360 possible directions but only one is selected. For what you have described a God would know what transpires for all 359 alternative vectors and the one vector taken. That means for just this choice a God would know significantly more information about what doesn't happen than what actually happens. Now take every choice and suddenly the amount of information required for all those things that don't happen SIGNIFICANTLY outstrips the information of what actually transpires. To put it precisely, a God of this description would have extensive knowledge, overwhelming knowledge of what doesn't happen compared to his knowledge of what actually does happen. That is wasteful. Therefore, such a wasteful description is incompatable with logic.

Indeed. I would imagine this as the God of the Many Worlds, who has not only our universe to worry about, but a near infinity of world-lines to keep track of. It's slightly off topic, but if the the Many Worlds model turned out to be right, it would present quite a problem to mainstream Christian thought, wouldn't it? There would be a very large number of "yous", all of whom have made different choices in their respective worlds. Some of the yous can be saved, and others can be damned, depending upon their respective choices. That would mean that when all is said and done in the great beyond, you could stand in bliss on the ramparts of heaven and watch yourself sqirm in hell. How odd!

Such a secondary description as you have forwarded is not of a personal nature. "The ground of being" is not someone or some concept that facilitates such things as the focus of prayer.

Not prayer, perhaps, as most people think of it. Most "prayers" either tell God what to please do, as if he didn't know already what to do; or else they are meant to inform him about things, as if he were in need of informants. And perhaps that is all right if that's the best the praying person can manage.

My idea of prayer is more of a non-talking "drawing together" of my nature with the divine nature.

.