Descartes' conclusion on God was right. His premises were...

Nice try. If there’s sin in me, I’m imperfect, but if there’s sin in god, god is still perfect?

I don’t think so.

Per your reply to surreptitious, actually platonic forms describe the universe better than a contradictory being. They are eternal forms in a different dimension that project from us.

You and me are both imperfect by default. Our imperfection is not because we sin, it’s because we are not perfect (infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient.)

The definition of true perfection is: that which is infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient. So long as this definition holds, there are no paradoxes.

Being in something and being something are different things. I have a liver in me. I am a human. A liver has a definition, and a human has a definition. A liver and a human do not have the same definition. Still, a liver is part of a human.

Perfection has a definition (see above). Imperfection also has a definition (Anything that lacks omnipresence/omnipotence/omniscience/infiniteness). Logically, if infiniteness/omnipresence/omnipotence/omniscience ceases to be or is altered in any way, then we no longer have perfection. So long as perfection is not altered, we still have perfection.

Perfection can’t be imperfection (as it can’t be anything other than infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient) but it can have imperfection within it. It can have imperfection within it because perfection containing imperfection does not alter perfection in any way. Perfection containing imperfection does not result in the end of perfection being infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient in any way.

So where’s the paradox?

You and me are both imperfect by default. Our imperfection is not because we sin, it’s because we are not perfect (infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient.)

The definition of true perfection is: that which is infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient. So long as this definition holds, there are no paradoxes.

Being in something and being something are different things. I have a liver in me. I am a human. A liver has a definition, and a human has a definition. A liver and a human do not have the same definition. Still, a liver is part of a human.

Perfection has a definition (see above). Imperfection also has a definition (Anything that lacks omnipresence/omnipotence/omniscience/infiniteness). Logically, if infiniteness/omnipresence/omnipotence/omniscience ceases to be or is altered in any way, then we no longer have perfection. So long as perfection is not altered, we still have perfection.

Perfection can’t be imperfection (as in it can’t be anything other than infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient) but it can have imperfection within it. It can have imperfection within it because perfection containing imperfection does not alter perfection in any way. Perfection containing imperfection does not result in perfection being any less infinite/omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient.

So where’s the paradox?

Certainly real,

Two things of note: you confuse infinity and eternity
You still use the word paradox incorrectly

So here’s you’re argument:

Everything that exists, exists in existence
Existants have the properties of knowledge, presence and power, all of which is inside of existence of which nothing is outside existence.

So, existence is doing everything that is being done in existence, and knowing everything that is known in existence. You take a further leap of logic, by defining this as perfect!

I notice you always leave omnibenevolence out when you list omnistates, probably because the argument of evil is the most damaging argument against such a being. Which by the way, is the only omnistate every being in existence cares about.

I don’t think you understand that in order for omnipresence to work, it has to be inside looking out and outside looking in.

Part of the power in the universe is murdering people, which if you do it, by definition, god, has to be doing it as part of all the power and presence in existence.

Per your argument, though we may not be god, god still commits every sin in existence.

Think of it this way. We know what a healthy liver is.
Our liver is inside of us, when it is unhealthy, we are sick.

Through this analogy … every organ in gods body is sick… except god!!!

That’s not rational.

Look into platonic forms (eternal) if you want to understand existence better.

Eternal means: never begins or ends
Infinite means: begins but doesn’t end

Definitions can be whatever we want them to be, but I’d argue that the definitions should not be as you posited because eternity is colloquially considered a special type of infinity that has to do with time. Furthermore, something that begins, but doesn’t end, doesn’t make sense to me because something cannot come from nothing, which is what would be required in order to have a something that began, but never ends.

I generally regard infinity as boundless and eternity as timeless (absence of time instead of infinite amounts of it, which is really the same thing). If there were infinite oranges, oranges would be in every location possible to the extent that there would be nothing but oranges because the condition would have to be satisfied that no more oranges could be added to the universe and that would only be possible if oranges were ubiquitous, and if that were the case, then there would be nothing that is not-orange and therefore no contrast or context in which oranges could be said to exist and therefore the oranges would not exist. So the infinite cannot be something that exists.

Hello. :obscene-drinkingcheers:

I’m not convinced you have a concept of what existence is.

This dot exists → .

The dot only exists because there is a contrasting background giving it context in which to exist. If there were no background, there could not be a dot and no dot could be said to exist.

So existence is a relation of one thing to another thing.

Abstract existence is not anything we can conceptualize or speak about as real because it would have no contrast or context, unless you could demonstrate how nothingness can be a thing such that we could have something in the context of nothing. But if nothingness were made into a thing, then we’re back to square one because something would exist in terms of the thing that is nothing and, once again, existence is relational instead of abstract.

Infinity is that which has no beginning and no end in any dimension.
Eternal is infinity in relation to the dimension of time.

Ok, so how have I been using it incorrectly?

The argument which I laid out in premises tells me that Existence is perfect. So I’ve shown why Existence being imperfect is paradoxical. You tell/show me why Existence existing/doing perfectly, which is the same as Existence being perfect, is paradoxical. I’ve proven my point, you keep providing the same counter-arguement. I counter you argument by highlighting the fact that: Being a part of something and being something are entirely different things. Are they not? You do not say yes or no to this question. You always avoid it whereas I never avoid any of your questions.

We have had this conversation before. Look back to the first page. You said omnibenevolence was a problem in my argument, I asked you for your definition of omnibenevolence, you gave it to me, I addressed your point directly. I always address everything you say. You either forget or avoid/ignore this and then just either say something else entirely or repeat the same thing.

We’re not God and we never will be. We’re a part of God. Again, I’m gonna use your own example to directly address your point. You gave an example about a human and a liver, I will give you an example about a human and God:

Yes. We have a clear definition of a healthy liver.
Think of it this way. We know what a healthy/morally good human is.

Yes, you’re right. Now consider this:

(paradoxical version) A human is inside of God. When it is unhealthy or morally bad, God becomes unhealthy and morally bad. Do you not see how this is paradoxical? If you don’t see the paradox, consider the non-paradoxical version of the sentence:

(non-paradoxical version) A human is inside of God. When it is unhealthy or morally bad, it does not alter God’s infiniteness/omnipresence/omnipotence/omniscience

Do you think what things/beings do in Existence/God or how they change in Existence/God has any effect on the nature of Existence/God itself? Do you see how I’ve addressed every point you made directly?

Hi :obscene-drinkingcheers:

Can the concept be defined or understood as anything other than that which is omnipresent/all-existing?

That there are things in relation each other is an aspect of Existence. Denying Existence as omnipresent/all-existing is paradoxical is it not?

Paradoxes and absurdities like a square-circle are things that we cannot conceptualise or speak about. If Existence was like this, I would not be able to give a clear definition of it.

:obscene-drinkingdrunk:

How can existence = all-existence? It seems like instead of defining existence, you described an implementation of it. What does “everywhere-existing” mean if there is no spacial construct to give it meaning? Maybe you mean “spacially saturated” :wink:

I think you’re onto something, but don’t know how to put it in words. I suspect you’re driving at “objectivity”, the observerless object, the abstract existence that we know is there, because it has to be: something has to be the fundamental existence or there would be nothing to relate to in order for us “construct beings” to be able to speak about it. Unfortunately, that’s self-inspection which is like a knife cutting itself. I remember once I had a dream that a cat had its head in its mouth and, as stupid as I am, didn’t realize that was absurd until my school buddies laughed about it. Looking back I’m not sure if I was perceptive or stupid because who is really to say that absurdities are absurd?

You’re reifying existence into a thing which is then something that exists everywhere, which is also a thing (a construct of spacetime). That’s just moving the goal posts I think.

What is the heads side of a coin? Well, it’s the heads side. It’s not the tails side, it’s not the thin side, it’s not the inside, it’s not your chair, it’s not your [insert everything in universe except the heads-side]. IOW, a heads side of a coin cannot exist, or be conceptualized, except in terms of what it is not. Existence itself is a synonym for relational. Relational doesn’t have to exist before existence because it is existence. Dualities are all that we can know because we will always need a contrast in order to speak of existence.

That probably is the case since, ultimately, reality is self-inspection which is just as absurd as square-circles.

This is why some theologians surmised there was conceptual and nonconceptual knowledge. We can describe something by adding concepts like a painter paints a picture or we can describe something by remotion like a sculptor removes stone to reveal an image.

It’s all-existing as opposed to all-existence. Essentially I mean some X has to be omnipresent/omnipotent/omniscient/infinite. Some say X is energy but I doubt it. Whatever it is, it must not contradict the aforementioned definition.

Reason dictates it. We sometimes don’t immediately recognise something as amounting to a paradox because we don’t fully pay attention to the way we use semantics/meaningful words. Much like your cat example.

We rationally distinguish between things in Existence and Existence itself. We know Existence is omnipresent and infinite. We know rejecting it would be paradoxical. These are things we know for certain.

What do you mean? If non-conceptual amounts to the negation of meaning, then there is no such thing. There’s no such thing as a square-circle or a married bachelor because the way those words/semantics have been used is such that it generates absurdity. It negates all meaning. It’s like non-existence. Impossible and absurd.

Surreptitious, infinity of oranges could mean one orange on an infinite number of planets, your example was omnipresent oranges.

Certainly real,

You’re not using paradox correctly, you have only used proof through contradiction, to which it must be established whether the premises are correct.

Answer me this, an argument you did avoid, I can address all of your replies, but I want your answer to this.

God has never known what it’s like to not know someone’s middle name. Every being besides god, which is probably infinite in number, has known what it’s like to not know someone’s middle name.

This means that there are an infinite number of subjective states that god, by definition, has no access to.

This is the same as the liver argument.

Your replies are circular, and these facts make them false.

Platonic forms explain existence better with the facts, than god .

That makes no sense since perfection by definition has to be free of all imperfection no matter how tiny
How much imperfection can perfection have before it becomes imperfect ? Logically it can be any at all

Temporal infinity can have either a beginning with no end or no beginning with an end
And it can of course be infinite in both directions though this is not actually necessary

I mentioned omnibenevolence but he ignored it because it is not compatible with omnipotence
A perfect being can conceivably be one or the other but not both as they contradict each other

But omnipresent in what? All-existing in what? If you say something exists everywhere, then you have to define what “where” is, and so something else must exist first (ie spacetime fabric, aether, xyz coordinates).

I see what you’re saying and it’s sensible, but sometimes I wonder. I mean, we have quantum superposition where one thing exists in two positions, which is absurd; we have quantum tunneling where one thing travels through another thing; Michio Kaku gives his phd students the absurd problem of calculating the probability that they will vanish and reappear on the planet Mars viewtopic.php?f=4&t=193940

It seems as if the designation of logical impossibility is not sufficient to relegate something to truly being impossible. Heat can also flow from the cold to the hot, but as a matter of odds, it practically never does.

Existence in this case would be a concept rather than a thing. And we still need to define what omnipresent means outside of the spacetime construct.

What I mean is the universe is trying to figure itself out and it can’t because an object cannot be subject to itself. One point cannot inspect itself and infinities result from trying, like the infinite regression seen from pointing a camera at its own monitor.

Yes that’s true from within the construct of language and logic, but the nonconceptual is the set of things that are not conceptualized, which would (presumably) include absurdities. I’m not saying absurdities exist or are possible, I’m just not sure that they aren’t… because ultimately, at least one absurdity has to be or we wouldn’t be here.

That was me, the other S-man :slight_smile:

We can’t have infinite planets if there is room for one more planet. To say there are infinite planets means infinity has been realized/actualized and that could only happen when infinity found a boundary (the extents of the universe) which would make it impossible to add one more.

I was listening to Bart Erhman the other day where he was describing the argument that the Father God could not have created the Jesus God because that which is perfect cannot change or it would either have not been perfect before the change or it would not be perfect after the change and therefore the Jesus God would have to have been eternal. Kinda clever. I don’t remember his rebuttal to it :frowning:

I disagree. I don’t think a timeline can have a start and no end. First of all, what started it and why should the starting point be an arbitrary demarcation in causality? Second, there would never be a point in time where we could say it is infinite because we’d have to wait for the end to do so, but the end never comes. However if time had no beginning, then it would always be infinite and infinite time cannot end lest it have a boundary and therefore not be infinite. Eternity can’t have a beginning.

What the human mind deems absurd or logically impossible is not absolutely reliable. The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to us. There will always be gaps in our knowledge and some of those gaps will contain things that are initially at least beyond comprehension. That though is a problem for us not the Universe
If something exists it should be acknowledged. Understanding will probably take longer but our natural curiosity does not mean we have a right to know and we can
not always be certain anyway

What does omnibenevolence mean? Good and bad are relative and codependent. Good cannot exist without bad and love cannot exist without hate. The being that loves must also hate that which threatens what he loves.

What does omnipotence mean? How can something have all the power? Can he be both big/strong and small/nimble at the same time? Every advantage is also a disadvantage in other contexts and there is no way to be all-powerful.

Both of those concepts are not possible unless absurdities are possible.