God the middleman

[Ed1wolf]

Christians say that this is a reasonable statement which explains existence:

The universe exists because it was created by a God who exists for no reason and with no cause.



But that this is not a reasonable statement and it explains nothing:

The universe exists for no reason and with no cause.

The problem is that science has shown that the universe DOES have a cause.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

How is "<" and ">" defined?

It is defined in terms of subsets. We construct the natural numbers, N, as follows:

Ø=0
{Ø}=1
{Ø,{Ø}}=2
{Ø,{Ø},{Ø,{Ø}}}=3

You can see the nesting set containment by which we define 0<1<2<3<...

We define the integers, Z, as N×N such that (a,b)=a-b. If b>a, this defines a negative number. A lexicographical ordering of the equivalence classes of Z formed by this rule is possible. Then Q is formed by valid ratios of integers and again assorted by equivalence classes, and R is the set of all possible equivalence classes of limits of infinite sequences of rational numbers. C=R×R.

I can follow what you say above, but I can't follow how that ties in to your original quote:

"The problem with using imaginary numbers to denote a system of time is that the ordering relation is lost. i<-i is false, as is i≥-i."

I was speculating on the reason for which there is no ordering of imaginary numbers.

Without knowing the details of imaginary numbers, I would guess that -i < i.

Suppose that's true. We will derive a contradiction.

-i<i
+i +i

0<2i
÷2 ÷2

0<i
×i ×i

0<i²

0<-1

Also, intuitively it seems to me that addition rather than multiplication would be more directly connected to ordering.

I can see where you're coming from, although multiplication is just iterative addition.

It's all interesting, but I suppose I'm not going to understand it no matter how much effort is expended explaining LOL

Nah, you're just being humble as always.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The problem is that science has shown that the universe DOES have a cause.

 

[disciple Clint]

Not if you don’t need to account for God.

And your explanations for the existence of the universe would be:

 

[cloudyday2]

While some physicists do get more towards the more formalistic math stuff, many instead use math more like a box of greasy tools, and it's more like, "hand me that little wrench with the red handle. Yeah... Ok, now the blue long needle nose pliers..." and so on, more....promiscuous might be a right metaphor. Not quite a string of one night stands exactly. Maybe more like...just loose standards, will hop into bed quick, and only stay as long as it's paying off.... So, it's a set of tools, and they grab and use as useful. And dump the greasy tool (math stuff) back in the box as soon as it's usefulness seems to be done for the moment.

Not that the math tools are unimportant. They are loved. And greasy.

Ok, maybe the metaphor is a little too far, but you might get the idea. Most don't really care much about whether a mathematician would have done it more formally or such.

Here is a thought: For the physicist math is a source of inspiration for a hypothesis that is tested experimentally, and also a language for describing physical idea, and so forth. The ideas of physics are usually expressed as equations that apply to a sweeping range of scenarios even though the experimental tests are merely a finite number of dots on a curve that is being claimed.

In other words, it is an article of faith among physicists that the physical world conforms to mathematical equations, and of course that faith seems to be well-founded.

So maybe math is even more fundamental than time to our universe, and we might wonder "what is math?" and "does God transcend math?". Of course there are all sorts of math, and physicists normally only use a tiny sliver of all the things that have been dreamed-up by mathematicians. So maybe we only need to consider the math that physicists have found to be applicable to the physical world.

The same might be asked about philosophy. I have difficulty distinguishing philosophy from math. They seem so entwined. But if there is a difference then we might wonder "does God transcend philosophy?", "what would it mean to exist without philosophy?", etc.

 

[gaara4158]

And your explanations for the existence of the universe would be:

The same as your explanations for the existence of God. If you’re going to have an exception to the “all things have a cause” principle, there’s no reason it can’t be the universe.

 

[disciple Clint]

The same as your explanations for the existence of God. If you’re going to have an exception to the “all things have a cause” principle, there’s no reason it can’t be the universe.

except for the fact that the universe is known to have a beginning and God does not.

 

[cloudyday2]

I wonder if there is something so fundamental that it is impossible for it to not exist?

Also, I would it be a problem if God was created by something else such as certain fundamental concepts before He created our universe? So God would be the supreme personality/intellect and creator of everything EXCEPT for certain fundamental primitive concepts from which God arose?

 

[cloudyday2]

Suppose that's true. We will derive a contradiction.

-i<i
+i +i

0<2i
÷2 ÷2

0<i
×i ×i

0<i²

0<-1

Thanks, that makes sense. (I don't understand the definition of ordering using nested sets, but we won't go there LOL).

Here is a follow-up question though: I can see that applying "<" and ">" to imaginary numbers is maybe nonsense or at least very weird, but I remember two dimensional graphs with a vertical imaginary axis and a horizontal real axis. It seems to me that a graph assumes an ordering is sensible, but you showed that it isn't sensible. Maybe the two dimensional graphs for complex numbers are an imperfect and sometimes misleading way of illustrating certain things?

 

[gaara4158]

except for the fact that the universe is known to have a beginning and God does not.

If we’re making up exceptions the fact that the universe has a “beginning” doesn’t matter.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Christians say that this is a reasonable statement which explains existence:

The universe exists because it was created by a God who exists for no reason and with no cause.



But that this is not a reasonable statement and it explains nothing:

The universe exists for no reason and with no cause.

Not all Christians say this. Some just say, "I think I exist, and through my biology, I perceive that I am situated within what has been conceived by other human beings as a Cosmos or Universe, and I find the whole of existence within this complex to be a Grand Enigma ... "

 

[cloudyday2]

Coincidentally firefox has a getpocket feature that gives interesting reading. Today's seems to apply to this thread's discussion. The article reviews a book called "The Order of Time" by Carlo Rovelli.

Time feels real to people. But it doesn’t even exist, according to quantum physics. “There is no time variable in the fundamental equations that describe the world,” theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli tells Quartz.
...
From our perspective, the perspective of creatures who make up a small part of the world—we see that world flowing in time,” the physicist writes. At the quantum level, however, durations are so short that they can’t be divided and there is no such thing as time.

In fact, Rovelli explains, there are actually no things at all. Instead, the universe is made up of countless events. Even what might seem like a thing—a stone, say—is really an event taking place at a rate we can’t register. The stone is in a continual state of transformation, and on a long enough timeline, even it is fleeting, destined to take on some other form.

In the “elementary grammar of the world, there is neither space nor time—only processes that transform physical quantities from one to another, from which it is possible to calculate possibilities and relations,” the scientist writes.
...
The world seems ordered, going from past to present, linking cause and effect, because of our perspective. We superimpose order upon it, fixing events into a particular, linear series. We link events to outcomes, and this give us a sense of time.

But the universe is much more complex and chaotic than we can allow for, according to Rovelli.
...
“Time is the form in which we beings whose brains are made up essentially of memory and foresight interact with our world: it is the source of our identity,” he writes.

This Physicist’s Ideas of Time Will Blow Your Mind

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Thanks, that makes sense. (I don't understand the definition of ordering using nested sets, but we won't go there LOL).

Here is a follow-up question though: I can see that applying "<" and ">" to imaginary numbers is maybe nonsense or at least very weird, but I remember two dimensional graphs with a vertical imaginary axis and a horizontal real axis. It seems to me that a graph assumes an ordering is sensible, but you showed that it isn't sensible. Maybe the two dimensional graphs for complex numbers are an imperfect and sometimes misleading way of illustrating certain things?

C=R×R by definition, so it is correct to depict it as two axes. Establishing the vertical axis as imaginary and the horizontal axis as real is an arbitrary choice, most likely chosen that way because we think of the real numbers as independent of imaginary numbers and imaginary numbers being dependent on real numbers (just like the y=f(x) variable is dependent on the x variable). Another arbitrary choice is to set (a,b), a member of R×R, equal to a+bi.

You could define some kind of ordering on imaginary numbers but I don't know how useful it would be. I don't believe there's a way to do it that would also be consistent with the ordering on the real numbers, so effectively you'd just be redefining "<". I know it seems like you can order them sensibly since they are arranged in a plane, but the properties of i cause problems. Hence my speculation a while ago.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Not all Christians say this. Some just say, "I think I exist, and through my biology, I perceive that I am situated within what has been conceived by other human beings as a Cosmos or Universe, and I find the whole of existence within this complex to be a Grand Enigma ... "

Which specific part of the OP would you or some hypothetical Christian disagree with?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Which specific part of the OP would you or some hypothetical Christian disagree with?

... just the part about what is or is not "reasonable" for a Christian to believe. Frankly, I don't think the term should be seen an exacting synonym with "being utterly logical," especially not in some deductive way that is solely conducive to a Foundationalist endeavor that expect the Christian faith to conform to.

 

[cloudyday2]

C=R×R by definition, so it is correct to depict it as two axes. Establishing the vertical axis as imaginary and the horizontal axis as real is an arbitrary choice, most likely chosen that way because we think of the real numbers as independent of imaginary numbers and imaginary numbers being dependent on real numbers (just like the y=f(x) variable is dependent on the x variable). Another arbitrary choice is to set (a,b), a member of R×R, equal to a+bi.

You could define some kind of ordering on imaginary numbers but I don't know how useful it would be. I don't believe there's a way to do it that would also be consistent with the ordering on the real numbers, so effectively you'd just be redefining "<". I know it seems like you can order them sensibly since they are arranged in a plane, but the properties of i cause problems. Hence my speculation a while ago.

I suppose the reasoning for the two dimensional representation for complex numbers might be that we are actually depicting a pair of real numbers (x,y) rather than a complex number but that there is a reversible mapping between (x,y) and (x,iy)? So the ordering is being applied only to the real number y rather than iy?

 

[cloudyday2]

I wonder if creation ex nihilo is claimed in the Nicene Creed? It speaks of the Father and the Son having "made" "all things", but maybe the creed's language allows for some preexisting eternal stuff? Maybe the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are emergent beings (analogous to emergent properties)? I suppose the stuff would correspond to "essence" when it says about the Son: "of one essence with the Father"? When God emerges from an "essence" that simply must exist and has always existed and always will exist then I don't think you can really say that God is contingent on that essence. "Contingent" implies uncertainty. The "essence" might include things like "wisdom" or "truth" or whatever might be proven to be essential for any conceivable universe?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

... just the part about what is or is not "reasonable" for a Christian to believe. Frankly, I don't think the term should be seen an exacting synonym with "being utterly logical," especially not in some deductive way that is solely conducive to a Foundationalist endeavor that expect the Christian faith to conform to.

How do you function without having some sense of what is or isn't reasonable?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I suppose the reasoning for the two dimensional representation for complex numbers

Stopping you right here, I'd say that the integers are constructed as Z=N×N, so from the integers and onward everything is two-dimensional. We are able to collapse Z into one dimension because it can be ordered. The same holds for Q and R, but since C cannot be ordered, we are forced to express it two-dimensionally.

might be that we are actually depicting a pair of real numbers (x,y) rather than a complex number

Yes, C=R×R, so (x,y) in R×R is depicted as a+bi in C. x=a and y=bi.

but that there is a reversible mapping between (x,y) and (x,iy)?

Yes. The reversible mapping is the equality itself. We are saying that C is R×R by definition, so they are equal, and that is your mapping.

So the ordering is being applied only to the real number y rather than iy?

What ordering are you referring to? My inference is that you're saying we could lexicographically order R×R the same way we lexicographically order N×N. This doesn't work because N has a lower bound, whereas Z, Q, and R do not. There would have to be a new lexicographical ordering on R×R which is a bit different. You could try to define it and see what happens. Since R×R is isomorphic to C, and since C cannot be ordered, I'm guessing your attempts would be doomed to fail.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

How do you function without having some sense of what is or isn't reasonable?

Since the connotations of "being reasonable" imply only a subjective set of moderate connotations in any process of evaluation, it isn't required for a person to have a professional level of understanding on Christianity in order to attempt to engage it in an ongoing, intelligent way. One doesn't have to be educated at a graduate level and one doesn't have to be a genius in order to simply be "reasonable" where Christianity is concerned.

If people are expected to have the kind of intelligence that is infallibly logical in order to demonstrate that they have the kind of mental acumen skeptics prefer to see, then we'd be looking for people with only higher education and a significant proven track record for being systematically "rational." No, to be reasonable doesn't require that level of expertise.

So, from an existentially subjective point of view, I'm going to go with Pascal and Kierkegaard and say that one can believe that the God of the Bible created the universe and maintain that we're being reasonable in saying so even if, at the same time, not all aspects of being reasonable here in this context will also be seen as descriptively rational.