Unobservability of an Uncaused Cause

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@heymike3

The massive time dilation of the rebound is enough to be a universe unto itself.

Yeah. You need to attach the fundamode to the flybodangly.

[heymike3]

@Klax

Infinity is the first absolute corollary of eternity which is axiomatic of existence.

Hmm… if I had to guess what this means, it’s that a necessary being would be infinite and eternal.

While your being is necessary with respect to your action, it is contingent with respect to your existence, or that’s what we believe and it depends (almost?) entirely on whether the universe has it’s beginning in the present or the past.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@heymike3

@Klax

Infinity is the first absolute corollary of eternity which is axiomatic of existence.

Hmm… if I had to guess what this means, it’s that a necessary being would be infinite and eternal.

While your being is necessary with respect to your action, it is contingent with respect to your existence, or that’s what we believe and it depends (almost?) entirely on whether the universe has it’s beginning in the present or the past.

That is a definition of a necessary being. So yes, existence requires that, but it doesn’t require purpose: there is no meaning in order.

Everything has its beginning in the present. Which is relative of course. From the end of the previous present: Nature has always begun universes.

[heymike3]

Now we’re talking. A necessary being doesn’t require purpose, and an uncaused cause doesn’t require that it be aware of its action.

@Klax

From the end of the previous present

This means there is merely the appearance of a past from the eternal present.

@Klax

Nature has always begun universes.

Did you say that you can cause things?

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@heymike3

Now we’re talking. A necessary being doesn’t require purpose, and an uncaused cause doesn’t require that it be aware of its action.

@Klax

From the end of the previous present

This means there is merely the appearance of a past from the eternal present.

@Klax

Nature has always begun universes.

Did you say that you can cause things?

1. Progress indeed. There is no need for atheism.

2. Yeah, time is just a dimension of spacetime, a measure of change, there is only, ever, the relative present, tending to absolute only at Planck scale.

3. All beings cause, experience change by existing.

[heymike3]

@Klax

• Progress indeed. There is no need for atheism.

Would pantheism be a better term than theism? Or is the immanence and transcendence of God a clearer statement of faith?

@Klax

Yeah, time is just a dimension of spacetime, a measure of change, there is only, ever, the relative present, tending to absolute only at Planck scale.

I once had a clever discussion with a person who believed that while it was impossible to form an infinite set through successive addition, nevertheless believed it rationally possible to have an infinite set of past events as a brute fact to which present events are then added.

@Klax

All beings cause, experience change by existing.

Not if a being is capable of affecting change without changing.

Again, if you can affect change all by yourself, then it follows that you are an uncaused cause with respect to the action you cause.

Nothing else in the observable world can do this.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Och no, panentheism. Aye, they are clearly absolute.

I like the clever brute fact. Infinity thus increases.

The being that has been doing universes from eternity cannot change qualitatively, no, whether it’s intentional or not. So I have to correct my statement, all beings except that one. The one. The monad. In fact only a purposeless being that causes all else cannot change as it is not what it changes. That being is if null then !null. A purposeful one includes what it changes.

[heymike3]

“both panentheism and classical theistic systems affirm divine transcendence and immanence” Panentheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

That’s news to me. Solipsism would technically fit in there too.

That the universe springs from the same place that your intention to act does.

Fingers snap, muscles, nerves, brain, quantum fluctuations…

I once had a guy tell me that by thinking this way he could make coincidences happen. Whether it be finding a parking space or love interest, he could get what he wanted. People also often act strange when you think this way.

@Klax

I like the clever brute fact. Infinity thus increases.

Brute facts are what you do with the symbolic representation that can never actually be. Besides, he didn’t like it when I said that you may only add to the beginning of the supposedly infinite series.

You should also know that an infinite number of things can neither be created in an instant or through successive addition.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Solipsism, speciously sophomoric as it is, does not apply except as a failed metaphor for God.

The guy was deluded, paranoid, grandiose, cold reading his own helplessly warped mindscape.

Yeah I really do like the Alexandrian brute fact sword and the way it cuts through Gordian knots of symbolic representations that can never actually be.

You should know: where does one add to the supposedly infinite set of positive integers?

[heymike3]

Events are added in the way you snap your fingers. And the events in the universe correspond to numbers only by way of their determinate relationship.

Brute facts can be like married bachelors, sayable but unthinkable.

That guy is to be pitied. We all suffer delusion and grandiosity to some degree, but some of us find grace, even the grace of shame and suffering, or we meet the one who suffered to the fullest.

Chuck DeGroat has a unique book about narcissism in the church. It’s remarkable how often broken people hurt other people in the name of God. How rare is a trusted brother or sister.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

You don’t snap your fingers before you snap them.

And I think the brute fact of eternity all the time.

There is no grace in pathological shame and suffering. But there can be along side it. With Jesus. Who suffered briefly as bad as many of us.

The rarity is because we’re not nakedly accountable.

[heymike3]

@Klax

You don’t snap your fingers before you snap them.

Freedom of Choice - Mind Field shows pretty clearly there is a moment in-between your intention to act and the action itself (it starts around the 14 min mark):

Freedom of Choice - Mind Field (Ep 5)

@Klax

And I think the brute fact of eternity all the time.

I think you’ve mixed up an infinite being with an infinite number of things.

@Klax

Who suffered briefly as bad as many of us.

For him who knew his father from all eternity to have suffered a mere moment of separation from him, it’s inconceivable the pain.

@Klax

The rarity is because we’re not nakedly accountable.

We become comfortable with our masks, afraid to share the gold of our wound, preferring the image in the pool. Like Narcissus we become trapped and grow numb.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Yeah I know that of course. Which isn’t what we’re talking about.

No I haven’t.

We endure it for life. He endured it for moments in solidarity with us. In His 33 years. You’re not including the infinitely big eternal picture.

That’s how we survive.

[heymike3]

@Klax

We endure it for life. He endured it for moments in solidarity with us. In His 33 years. You’re not including the infinitely big eternal picture.

He who knew no sin, became sin. Not sure what you mean by what you think I’m not including. But it was on the cross that the father turned away from the son in derision.

“Which isn’t what we’re talking about.”

Did you mean you don’t intend to act before you intend to act?

“No I haven’t.”

I think you just haven’t realized it yet. Not even God can create an infinite number of planets in space or universes in meta-space.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

I know you can’t, won’t internalize the fact of eternity.

[heymike3]

“Being there not as oneself, this objectless place where an absolute unity is found.”

[heymike3]

@Klax

I know you can’t, won’t internalize the fact of eternity.

And then to read Dionysius saying “Here of course I am in agreement with the Scripture writers. But the real truth…” And what does he say next, “But the real truth of these matters is in fact far beyond us. That is why their preference is for the way up through negations, since this stands the soul outside everything which is correlative with its own finite nature. Such a way guides the soul through all the divine notions… Beyond the outermost boundaries of the world, the soul is brought into union with God himself to the extent that every one of us is capable of it.” (The Divine Names 13:3).

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Nothing changes either way.

[heymike3]

Would you like to continue this discussion?

I’m not sure if that’s your way of saying you’ve had enough, or it’s a response you’re interested in further explaining. There’s a lot I can read into it, but would like to have a better explanation of what you mean before I respond

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@heymike3

@Klax

And I think the brute fact of eternity all the time.

I think you’ve mixed up an infinite being with an infinite number of things

@Klax

No I haven’t.

@heymike3

I think you just haven’t realized it yet. Not even God can create an infinite number of planets in space or universes in meta-space.

@Klax

I know you can’t, won’t internalize the fact of eternity.

@heymike3

But the real truth of these matters is in fact far beyond us.

@Klax

Nothing changes either way.

Eternity of nature, alone or in God, is the brute first fact, probability one, after existence. It doesn’t matter how we feel about that in our calcium hydroxyapatite and collagen boxes. Actually we feel it in our gut. Straight down the cognitive dissonance elevator shaft.