It’s a psychological expediency. It’s a way of deciding between alternative theories when we have no way of knowing which one is correct. We might as well choose the one that’s easiest to digest - the simpler one.
Either way, you’ve got something that’s self-causing. If we slice God out from the picture, we are left with only the universe, and so the picture is simpler.
Interesting… and it may contend with Occam’s razor. He says we should aim for conceptual expediency, but why not conceptual delight - love for the idea as you put it? I guess there might arise an issue over the subjectivity of delight - Occam seems to insinuate that complexity of an idea - that is, the number of assumptions that go into it - is a more objective matter, and thus more effective at bringing us into agreement - but who says we need to agree (things could get boring )?
I’m still liking your idea of choosing our beliefs. I would add that there will probably be a certain level of doubt at first, but this can be overcome. If we actively seek out strong arguments and solid evidence for the beliefs we wish to adopt, then the more we succeed, the less we’ll doubt.
a, awareness is within the infinite environment, thus, that we have awareness naturally follows. Perhaps even that infinity is the dimension of awareness ~ which is primal.
A solution without awareness being within the infinite, can only lead to more complex answers such as; how does awareness form from a place that does not possess it!
Surely environments must be conducive to the product thereof. Anything else seams impossible to me.
b, if we add ‘god’ then we have to qualify that, I am of the opinion that even if we could it would involve a hugely complex process. Surely better to work with the bare bones of the matter, then if eventually we arrive at god fine.
Hmm… what you’re suggesting is that we take a statistical approach to evaluating theories. If, say, the more complex theory turned out to be true 75% of the time, we might use that as the basis for prediction. Do you think we can do this? Keep in mind that although I did say that the answers often turn out to be more complex than we anticipate, this doesn’t mean more often than not. To prove otherwise, you’d have to collect an enormous amount of data, carefully defining your terms, knowing how to measure ‘complexity’, etc. Furthermore, you would surely want to put an upper limit on how complex you expect the surviving theory to be, for certainly we can always imagine more complex theories than those which turn out to be true. And most importantly of all, your prediction (that the most complex theory has a better chance of turning out true) has to live up to its claim far into the future - the record has to show that the more complex theory usually turns out true.
If you can meet these conditions, then you might be on to something.
Yes, at this point, ‘God’ can only be an extraneous assumption. I don’t see any other way around it (well, I do, but I don’t even want to begin to assess the complexity of that view).
The universe could’nt be conscious of it’s own “coming” into existence. As the word supposes something coming, being there before it’s there. The universe is either there or not there. If the universe were aware of itself it would’nt know that when its coming into existence as there would be no universe in the coming. It’s could only be aware when it does infact exist. It might be something like saying your aware of yourself before you exist.
Lets assume everything need’s a cause. What can we deduce from that. That nothing has been here forever in the past untill now. And that there must be an “infinite” amount of previous causes. As every cause needed a cause. This leads to a confusion.Such as infinity canot be counted therefore how does it exist. The question is why do we get confused by this. Why? Because only amongst things with a count do we see seperate things, that is we see things. Why do we assume this.Becasue every time we see things they have a count therefore we assume that all things must have a count. This is why we get confused when we there is the statement “an infinite amount of things” cause we assume things always need a count but here are things that do not have a count. But here’s the thing if there was infinite causes before this point in time we would need infinite time to get here, and how can you “cross” infinite time. how can you walk past it. Perhaps were gettin two types of infinity confused. What if the problem is this. Say you could walk back in time. If it went on for all infinity could you reach the end. No. Conversely if this is so you could never have a beggining to walk back from as there is no beggining. It’s a difficult question. What do you think?
I’m not really suggesting what you say mate, I’m simply saying simplicity and complexity are no indicators of truth.I’ve never understood the logic of Occam’s thingamajig.
I think it may be the case that God is an inevitable consequence of eternity/infinity, after all it appears that the universe forms laws, it is not totally chaotic.So i’m saying maybe God is a consequence of other factors, but He is the cause of His character.
Occam never intending for his razor to be a guide to truth. It’s simply a guide for choosing a theory when we have no guide to truth. He says that if we have no crtieria for deciding the truth, then we might as well pick the theory that’s easiest to believe - not because it’s more likely to be true but because it’s easy.
Well, if God is an inevitable consequence of something that we all naturally or inevitably believe anyway, then it doesn’t count as an extraneous assumption, so Occam might smile upon you in that case.
That’s actually a beautiful thought. The universe being conscious of its own coming into existence. Is a child’s being conscious of its own coming into existence?
The only question I have is can a universe be conscious of itself when there is no one there to see it. Well, if god truly caused the universe into being, might it, the universe be conscious of itself? Are we conscious of ourselves as we are ever changing and evolving, becoming? Yes.
So perhaps the universe was conscious of itself as it was becoming - even now - as it becomes - I would take a leap and say that the answer to the question is Yes.
Actually thinking about it, how could the universe not be conscious of itself as it was being brought into being?
Of course I realize that my thinking might be flawed, but my answer remains yes.
My thoughts on this are somewhat biased because I’m a panpsychic and pantheist. I think of consciousness as such an intricate and fundamental aspect of the universe, particularly of any physical system undergoing some kind of activity or change, that it ought to be thought of along the lines of mass, extension, position, or any of the other most basic and indispensible elements that make physical existence possible. Therefore, I don’t consider the assumption that the universe could be conscious as something added, making for a more complex theory. If I were a dualist, I may not be so justified in saying this, but I believe consciousness to be so deeply intertwined in physicality and existence in general, that it ought to be understood as something we can’t do without.
Now, it is another question entirely what some physical system, or the universe overall, would be conscious of - what it would be experiencing that is - and although I won’t go into my answer to this in any great detail, I’ll just say that I don’t believe any one system, which includes the universal overall, experiences anything exactly as any other system, and for the most part, most systems experience things dramatically differently from other systems.
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