The definition of GOD

The basis for this assertion being . ? This sounds a lot like you are saying we are not the arbiters of what is or is not logical, that there is a logic that exists independent of what we are able to deduce. All of which raises the question, what makes you best qualified to determine that logic, given you have rebuffed every effort made on the thread to question your logical premises and deductions? Clearly this is a whole different area; maybe you could start another thread. I think it would generate plenty of interest, especially the notion that freedom of choice is possible without free will. Do I detect a note of scorn or even contempt in your tone here?

I think we need to remind ourselves of what you did say in your thesis, Message 179. You define possibility as something “that has a capability of being true, happening or existing.” So you suggest there are some things that have the capability of existing but at the same time cannot actually exist as a reality. No, but I give you full points for being imaginative. Unfortunately your train is itself on a planet travelling at 66,000mph through space and rotating at 330mph around the equator. As Einstein told us, speed is relative. Relative to the spot upon which you are applying your force, you are not moving, hence the term “running on the spot”. But you have chosen to call it “impossible”, which by definition gives it a 0% chance of happening.As an aside, the question has to be does your ”all powerful’ god have the ability to cause an infinite number of coins flip to be ”all heads’? If the answer is yes, then your claim that it is impossible does not stand up. If the answer is no, then your god is not ”all powerful’. Either way, this leads to an internal inconsistency within your thesis. Okay let’s go over this all again. Each and every flip is an independent event, which has a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails. Each and every sequence of 100 flips has a (1/2)^100 chance of occurring, so all outcomes are equally probable - there are no sequences that are more likely to “naturally happen without any special circumstances” than any other. There is no way of knowing in advance what the sequence will be, only that it will have a (1/2)^100 chance of occurring. Similarly, there is no way of knowing how many heads it will contain. Sure, we can calculate how many heads there might be - there is a 7.96% chance that the sequence will contain 50 heads and 50 tails for instance - which tells us precisely what exactly? Sorry, but I’m absolutely right. We saw in the above that the probability of an “even distribution” of 50/50 heads/tails in 100 flips was 7.56%. If we increase the number of flips to 1,000, the probability of “even 500/500 distribution” reduces to 2.52%. I could go on, but the bigger the sample size, the less likely does an “even distribution” become. No it doesn’t. It may explain why you have chosen to take special liberties in your thesis, but it does nothing to explain what makes your coins special. So it means exactly what I would expect it to mean. The confusion arises when you say things like, “a NO-GOD possibility could be placed ANYWHERE as it is only one possibility in an infinity of other possibilities, and this particular space wouldn't have much, if any, affect on any other space” in your thesis.Revisiting the example I used in Message 260, it’s very easy to show that the effect of one possibility, that a randomly selected adult might be pregnant, is directly affected by another possibility, the gender of that person. If you want to give these gender possibilities labels, let’s call them YES-FEMALE and NO-FEMALE.At the start, the probability that a randomly selected adult might be pregnant may be 5%. The moment we determine the gender of the adult, the starting probability becomes 10% if the YES-FEMALE possibility prevails, or 0% if the NO-FEMALE possibility prevails. The NO-FEMALE directly has directly affected adult may be pregnant possibility. Exactly the same principle applies in your scenario, despite your best efforts to claim otherwise. So how exactly are we to interpret the phrase, “a NO-GOD possibility could be placed ANYWHERE as it is only one possibility in an infinity of other possibilities, and this particular space wouldn't have much, if any, affect on any other space”? Well here’s exactly what you said in Message 253, “I mean just beacause God doesn't exist in this universe”. Perhaps the subliminal part of your mind that knows there is no god took control of your typing finger for a few moments. Don’t you ever take any time out to take yourself a little less seriously?

Dear Chiroptera,

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Actually, no. The perturbations were due to the existence of the previously unknown planet Neptune and its gravitational effects. Based on what was known before the discovery of Neptune, the seven known (at that time) planets, Newton's Laws of Motion, and the Law of Gravity, scientists logically concluded that Uranus had to follow a particular orbit. It didn't. That is because their premises were wrong: there weren't only seven planets, there was an eighth as well.

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And this is my main point. Logic cannot lead us to specific knowledge about the world, because logic depends on the premises and we can never be certain that our premises are correct. The conclusions must always be checked against reality; the scientists of the 19th century knew this. That's why they did experiments and made observations. If they simply trusted their logical conclusions, then they would have just said, "This is what the orbit of Uranus looks like," and they wouldn't have bothered to check it. But they did check it because they realized that their logical results might be limited by their incomplete understanding of their premises, and it's a good thing that they did.

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This is why I don't trust logical "proofs" of the existence of God. I don't trust the premises. I don't trust any set of premises or theoretical framework until its conclusions can be checked by observations in the real world.

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But despite us Humans, the Universe is still always logical.

Dear Modulous,

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And you seem to rely on this conclusion as a premise to your 'proof' of the irreducible dependency of god and existence. If it isn't. Please illuminate me by showing me the premises of your argument.

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You constantly change what it is you are arguing against, your original argument was, "....I argue that you haven't shown anything of the sort. There is no reason you have provided which suggests that existence and God are mutually dependant. You started with the premise that God is the only possible possibility, which is obviously untrue". You here claim that I haven't shown anything which suggests that existence and God are irreducibly dependent, and claim I started with the premise that God is the only possible possibilty. I then went on to show you that the first premise was actually that there are an infinite number of possibiltities, and from that premise the whole of part two shows how God is maximally probable, making it the only possibility certain to exist. You have subtly changed your argument from arguing that I haven't given any reason to say that God and existence are mutually dependant, to arguing which premise came first.

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So we agree then that "God is the only possible possibility" is false? As stated above, if you could reword your argument so it doesn't contain this statement perhaps I will understand you better.

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Well on it's own "God is the only possible possibility" is a somewhat ambiguous, but then again you have taken it out of context, when it it put back into context the meaning becomes clear, "The evidence points to the fact that God is maximally probable. This means that at the most fundamental level God is really the ONLY POSSIBLE POSSIBILITY, and that any possibility that becomes actuality must therefore be a YES-GOD space by necessity".

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So you have observed the ultimate possible being?

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Indirectly yes. Because GOD, existence and possibility are irreducibly dependent, I can directly observe existence and possibilities, and therefore indirectly observe GOD. Just like you can Indirectly observe me by the words I type, because the words I write are irreducibly dependent with me.

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You haven't shown that God is actually possible in this reality.

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Yes I have, part two of my thesis shows how, "any possibility that becomes actuality must therefore be a YES-GOD space by necessity".

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How is it meaningless?

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Well I asked what do you mean by reality, and you answered reality is the reality that exists. It doesn't answer the question does it.

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God cannot create reality, because God wouldn't exist in reality if reality doesn't exist. Therefore since God does not exist in reality, God does not exist.

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GOD exists in the metaphysical realm (possibilities) that creates existence.

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If there is a metaphysical existence, it is part of reality as I defined it (everything that exists) if other entities exist (those things you call realities), then they are part of what I call reality. Otherwise it isn't real. If you are arguing that God isn't real - I agree.

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So do you accept that there is a metaphysical existence?

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If you want to concede that an infinite amount of possibilities might not actually exist, that's fine by me.

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No, an infinite number of possibilities do exist.

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Correct. So you need to show that there are no limits on those certain things.

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Let me ask you a question; Before reality existed, was there the possibility of it existing?

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What has physical space got to do with possibility space?

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Because a possibility space is anything that can include possibilities.

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And in ALL possibility spaces there is only ever ONE of TWO answers to the ONE QUESTION. The question is "when I flip a coin does it land heads up or collapse into a black hole, emit 10100100 carbon atoms at 400 times the speed of light, with a rest mass of -4tonnes whilst composing 100 years worth of European classical music?"

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One of them isn't actually possible though is it?

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Well this is just rubbish, as one is not the opposite of the other. And who are you to say that one cannot happen in the metaphysical realm?

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However, just because it is possible that a being that can influence possibility could exist, that being cannot influence possibility if it doesn't actually exist. It will only be able to do so, if it is not just a possibility but an actuality.

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So if a metaphysical realm exists, then possibilities can affect other possibilities.

Dear Stile,In number 2 you say "the ultimate being can simply remove confusion of it's existence from those who want such confusion to be removed." So this must mean that confusion will still exist, and that God only needs to remove it if someone wants it removed.1, 2, 3 and 4 only apply to people who are confused and are searching for the ultimate possible being and want the confusion removed?In light of your first 4 answers the rest of your answers don't follow, for example it is still not required that God would need to prove himself.Now onto the other section of answers;

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No. Power can be measured in many different ways. The most power at anything isn't always the best. The most powerful tractor is useless in making the best tasting ice-cream cone. Being the most powerful of everything is useless if the goal is to do nothing.

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Power means energy, not tractors.

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Yes. Being the most powerful evil force in the world certainly conflicts with absolute love and supreme justice. Being the most powerful force of removing freedom of choice certainly affects freedom of choice.

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Power is neither evil or good, but it can be used for both.

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No. There's no requirement for us to know that God is all powerful or not because there's not even a requirement for God to be all powerful. As shown by many Gods people believe in who are not all powerful.

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Why are you talking about other gods, none of them can equate to GOD.

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There's no reason why a God of ultimate power would be better than a God without it. We need to identify a goal first. If the goal is to be the strongest and fastest, or containing the most energy, then a God of ultimate power would be better. But if the goal is to be the smallest and slowest, or contain the least energy, then a God of ultimate power is the worst thing desired.

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The "Goal" is that this being needs to control all possibilities.

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No. Infinite power does not exist in this reality, as shown by the impossibility of perpetual motion machines.

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Nice word switch, the word is ultimate, not infinite. Who says perpetual motion doesn't exist in the realm of metaphysical reality?

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Don't you see that these arguements are all subjective? The very fact that we're arguing over them proves that they are subjective. There is no reason to suggest one over the other. It's the same about arguing over our favourite colours. Without observations of the real world, we cannot show or prove attributes of the real world, including existence.

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It's only your answers that are subjective, some of them are contradictory. Some don't even answer the actual question, and many other problems.

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I didn't answer because the answer is obvious. Of course the possibility existed. We are here now, obviously. But it's also obvious that this possibility wasn't a part of reality (because reality didn't exist yet) and there's no requirement for it to be a possibility in any being's imagination.

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So do you agree then that there is a metaphysical realm of existence?

Dear dogrelata,

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The basis for this assertion being . ?

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Mathematics.

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This sounds a lot like you are saying we are not the arbiters of what is or is not logical, that there is a logic that exists independent of what we are able to deduce.

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Everything is based on some form of mathematics, mathematics is the most logical of all the sciences.

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Clearly this is a whole different area; maybe you could start another thread. I think it would generate plenty of interest, especially the notion that freedom of choice is possible without free will.

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But it's so simple to demonstrate. We all NEED to breathe air, we have no free will in this case, but we can choose to try stop breathing, but if we actually did stop breathing we would die. We can choose to do certain things but we are limited in the things we CAN do. So we don't have free will to anything and everything we want to do, but we have freedom of choice within the limits we have.

Dear dogrelata,

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You define possibility as something “that has a capability of being true, happening or existing.” So you suggest there are some things that have the capability of existing but at the same time cannot actually exist as a reality.

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I was demonstrating an impossibility. An impossibility is a possibility that may or may not exist in the metaphysical realm, but cannot exist in our physical existence.

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No, but I give you full points for being imaginative. Unfortunately your train is itself on a planet travelling at 66,000mph through space and rotating at 330mph around the equator. As Einstein told us, speed is relative. Relative to the spot upon which you are applying your force, you are not moving, hence the term “running on the spot”.

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But that's the thing, you set the rules I just found a way to break them. If speed is relative, them I am really running at 100mph relative to me, just not to you. I could be running up and down the train carridge as well.

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But you have chosen to call it “impossible”, which by definition gives it a 0% chance of happening.

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NO, look if we were talking about a limited number then yes, but you cannot give a percentage to infinities.

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As an aside, the question has to be does your ”all powerful’ god have the ability to cause an infinite number of coins flip to be ”all heads’? If the answer is yes, then your claim that it is impossible does not stand up. If the answer is no, then your god is not ”all powerful’. Either way, this leads to an internal inconsistency within your thesis.

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Well my definition and my thesis never call GOD "all powerful" anyway. So there's no inconsistency.

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Okay let’s go over this all again. Each and every flip is an independent event, which has a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails. Each and every sequence of 100 flips has a (1/2)^100 chance of occurring, so all outcomes are equally probable - there are no sequences that are more likely to “naturally happen without any special circumstances” than any other. There is no way of knowing in advance what the sequence will be, only that it will have a (1/2)^100 chance of occurring. Similarly, there is no way of knowing how many heads it will contain. Sure, we can calculate how many heads there might be - there is a 7.96% chance that the sequence will contain 50 heads and 50 tails for instance - which tells us precisely what exactly?

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Oh Boy, you really have no idea what you are talking about do you. Let me try to explain a bit about probability.Lets just flip 1 coin 4 times, now there are 16 possible sequences, these are;HHHH HHHT TTTH HHTT
THHH TTHH TTHT HTHT
HTHH THTH THTT HTTH
HHTH THHT HTTT TTTTThe chance for all the coins to be the same is 2 times out of 16 or, 1 in 8 or 12.5%
The chance for 3 coins to be the same is 8 times out of 16 or, 1 in 2 or 50%
The chance for 2 coins to be the same is 6 times out of 16 or, 3 in 8 or 37.5%So here we can see that a sequence of 3 coins flipping the same is more likely than any other sequence. And conversely the sequence of all the coins flipping the same is actually less likely than any other sequence.Clearly then, all outcomes are not equally probable.

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Sorry, but I’m absolutely right. We saw in the above that the probability of an “even distribution” of 50/50 heads/tails in 100 flips was 7.56%. If we increase the number of flips to 1,000, the probability of “even 500/500 distribution” reduces to 2.52%. I could go on, but the bigger the sample size, the less likely does an “even distribution” become.

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Hold on a sec. Could you please go through exactly how you calculated the even distibutions, as in the previous paragraph it was 7.96%, and now it's 7.56%.I was searching the interweb and came across another forum that was discussing probabilities one of the comments was, "Sometimes people refer to "the law of large numbers" when dealing with probabilities. Only if you flip the coin a large number of times can you be certain of getting 50% heads and 50% tails. If you flip it just once, obviously you don't -- you get either 100% heads or 100% tails. Only if you flip the coin an infinite number of times, in fact, are you guaranteed of getting 50% heads and 50% tails".I also found a website on probability and margins of error that said, "Suppose you flip a coin ten thousand times. How many heads will you get? On each flip, the coin has equal probability of coming up heads or tails. So, on AVERAGE, you will get five thousand heads and five thousand tails. On the other hand, it doesn't seem likely that you will get EXACTLY five thousand heads -- rather, you will get "about" five thousand heads".How did you calculate the probability?

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but it does nothing to explain what makes your coins special.

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"Any NO-GOD possibility space has little bearing or influence on any other possibility space, certainly not in the way God would have. But JUST ONE YES-GOD possibility space, will by default totally NULL AND VOID ALL NO-GOD possibility spaces".

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So it means exactly what I would expect it to mean. The confusion arises when you say things like, “a NO-GOD possibility could be placed ANYWHERE as it is only one possibility in an infinity of other possibilities, and this particular space wouldn't have much, if any, affect on any other space” in your thesis.

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Revisiting the example I used in Message 260, it’s very easy to show that the effect of one possibility, that a randomly selected adult might be pregnant, is directly affected by another possibility, the gender of that person. If you want to give these gender possibilities labels, let’s call them YES-FEMALE and NO-FEMALE.

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At the start, the probability that a randomly selected adult might be pregnant may be 5%. The moment we determine the gender of the adult, the starting probability becomes 10% if the YES-FEMALE possibility prevails, or 0% if the NO-FEMALE possibility prevails. The NO-FEMALE directly has directly affected adult may be pregnant possibility. Exactly the same principle applies in your scenario, despite your best efforts to claim otherwise.

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What is your point? I have not claimed that possibilities can not affect other possibilities. From what I can see the no-female possibilty has a negative affect, going from 5% to 0%. I am talking about possibility spaces not individual possibilities.

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So how exactly are we to interpret the phrase, “a NO-GOD possibility could be placed ANYWHERE as it is only one possibility in an infinity of other possibilities, and this particular space wouldn't have much, if any, affect on any other space”?

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It needs no interpretation.

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Well here’s exactly what you said in Message 253, “I mean just beacause God doesn't exist in this universe”. Perhaps the subliminal part of your mind that knows there is no god took control of your typing finger for a few moments.

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I was merely pointing out that if this universe was a NO-GOD space how would that effect any other universes. I find it interesting that you entirely miss the point and avoid the actual issue.

Well, we can continue to dispute that later, but right now I want to focus on the main point.You have presented what you claim to be a proof of God's existence. (At least that's what I think you're claiming.) But in science, or even in the real world, logical proofs mean nothing until they are verified by experiments or observations of phenomena in the real world.So your efforts are kind of quaint (especially since I don't really think you proved anything at all, as the other correspondents are trying to tell you), but I still see no real reason to take the idea of a god seriously. If you want to demonstrate God's existence, then you're going to have to present physical, solid, verifiable evidence.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

I'll let the lurkers decide over who is arguing over which premise came first. All I care about is for you to illuminate me on the details of your argument, that doesn't (at any point, first or last) include the premise that god is the only possible possibility. It is clear to you, but I don't have the ability to read your mind. Let me see if I get this straight. God exists, therefore god and existence are irreducibly dependent therefore the problems with the premises are solved by this conclusion?You earlier argued that the fact that god is irreducibly dependent was some kind of solution to the problem with your premises regarding the ultimate possible being. Message 227, I'm having difficulty reconciling your position. But you haven't made any observations that confirm this dependency? And I also said: "I use reality to encompass all that exists". If God exists he does so in reality. Does god exist or not? He cannot exist in a realm that creates existence because to do so, he'd have to exist - which would make him part of existence. What would give you that idea? My statement was preceded by the word 'if'. So then you have to both show that this is so, rather than just asserting that it is with reference to non-real entities that you cannot know can all actually exist or not AND that one of those possibilities is God, which is also not necessarily the case. Since when did questions have to have opposite answers? The point is that if one of the proposed answers is not actually possible, then it will never be more than a hypothetical possibility. Only if they are the rules of this metaphysical realm. Why would we assume that to be the case? Inventing a hypothetical realm where possibilities can hypothetically affect one another is not really going to prove anything.

This is a completely circular argument. You previously claimed that “the universe is always logical it has nothing to do with us”. But now you tell us you know this because human mathematics tells us so. So the logic you claim underpins the universe is best defined by human mathematics, which makes it entirely to do with us and entirely at the mercy of human subjectivity. Thank you for pointing out to me that the limitations of free will are exactly as I understood them to be when I used the term.

I think you must have missed my question in Message 271 when you formulated your reply in Message 276, so I’ll ask it again.Do I detect a note of scorn or even contempt in your tone here? I think we’d all be interested to find out what the author of a ”scientific’ proof really thinks about science.

Dear Chiroptera,

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You have presented what you claim to be a proof of God's existence. (At least that's what I think you're claiming.) But in science, or even in the real world, logical proofs mean nothing until they are verified by experiments or observations of phenomena in the real world.

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So your efforts are kind of quaint (especially since I don't really think you proved anything at all, as the other correspondents are trying to tell you), but I still see no real reason to take the idea of a god seriously. If you want to demonstrate God's existence, then you're going to have to present physical, solid, verifiable evidence.

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The problem is that as you have admitted you "see no real reason to take the idea of a god seriously", any evidence I have you will not accept, because you don't take God seriously. I have already told you that the whole of existence can be used for experimentation.Anyway, here is an experiment that can test the relationships between possibility spaces and also the relationships between God, possibility and existence.Take any number of boxes of various types, some can be translucent, some can be open boxes, some can be closed. Place an animal like a mouse into each box, and then observe what happens.This simple experiment can show how possibility spaces affect other possibility spaces, and notice the experimenter plays the role of God, so we can test that relationship towards the experimenter and the experiment.

Dear Modulous,Why didn't you answer the question,Before reality existed, was there the possibility of it existing?Answer this question please before answering anything else.

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I'll let the lurkers decide over who is arguing over which premise came first.

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What a clever way to shift the focus, I hope these "lurkers" can see how "clever" you are.

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All I care about is for you to illuminate me on the details of your argument, that doesn't (at any point, first or last) include the premise that god is the only possible possibility.

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Well how about God is maximally probable.

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Let me see if I get this straight. God exists, therefore god and existence are irreducibly dependent therefore the problems with the premises are solved by this conclusion?

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You earlier argued that the fact that god is irreducibly dependent was some kind of solution to the problem with your premises regarding the ultimate possible being. Message 227, I'm having difficulty reconciling your position.

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There is no problem with the premise, it is a problem with how YOU define reality.

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But you haven't made any observations that confirm this dependency?

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Yes I have, every single possibility space that has so far been used thoughout this topic has been dependent on a creator.

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And I also said: "I use reality to encompass all that exists". If God exists he does so in reality.

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The confusion that you are having is that you define reality as existence, and existence as reality. But if that is true then how do you answer the question I asked at the beginning.

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Does god exist or not? He cannot exist in a realm that creates existence because to do so, he'd have to exist - which would make him part of existence.

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I hate to have to repeat myself but that is why GOD, possibility and existence are IRREDUCIBLY DEPENDENT. Just like time, space and matter.

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What would give you that idea? My statement was preceded by the word 'if'.

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Can you answer the question please, do you accept there is metaphysical existence? YES or NO.

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So then you have to both show that this is so, rather than just asserting that it is with reference to non-real entities that you cannot know can all actually exist or not AND that one of those possibilities is God, which is also not necessarily the case.

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Well first please answer the first question, "Before reality existed, was there the possibility of it existing"?

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Since when did questions have to have opposite answers? The point is that if one of the proposed answers is not actually possible, then it will never be more than a hypothetical possibility.

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When flippimg a coin, there are only two sides, one side and the OPPOSITE side, therefore any questions that uses a coin as the example need to be exact opposites. It's simple common sense.

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Only if they are the rules of this metaphysical realm. Why would we assume that to be the case? Inventing a hypothetical realm where possibilities can hypothetically affect one another is not really going to prove anything.

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Well I think there are two or three options on the rules of metaphysical existence. The firt is that there are NO rules, which would make anything and everything possible. Or perhaps the rules are dictated by the possibilities themselves ie, GOD gets to decide the rules, and either an additional one to the second or a completely different one is that logic dictates the rules ie, things that are logically impossible don't even exist in the metaphysical realm.

Dear dogrelata,

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This is a completely circular argument. You previously claimed that “the universe is always logical it has nothing to do with us”. But now you tell us you know this because human mathematics tells us so. So the logic you claim underpins the universe is best defined by human mathematics, which makes it entirely to do with us and entirely at the mercy of human subjectivity.

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Excuse me? since when has mathematics been human? All humans have ever done is discovered maths, and then invented numbers and symbols to expess mathematics in human terms.For example the equation E=MC2 was discovered not invented, and look at that C squared, why should it BE squared? Pi was not invented it was discovered, and the Golden ratio, and so on.Think about it, there has always been numbers, even before we assigned specific symbols for them. One object put together with another object makes two objects, this was always the case before we came up with numbers and symbols to express the equation, 1+1=2.

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Thank you for pointing out to me that the limitations of free will are exactly as I understood them to be when I used the term.

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My pleasure.

Dear dogrelata,

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Do I detect a note of scorn or even contempt in your tone here? I think we’d all be interested to find out what the author of a ”scientific’ proof really thinks about science.

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No, I love science, it's very important to us all, however It's not the be all and end all,Scientists admit all the time that science might not be able to answer EVERY question that there is, but almost everyone else (who aren't scientists) assume that science can or will answer every question.But anyway the whole thing we were talking about is that someone can be as scientific as possible, but if the original premise or world view is wrong, then the results are probably going to be wrong.