Talk:Incompatible-properties argument

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Contents 1 Definition of time 2 Time and God 3 I'm confused 4 Morality and possibility 5 Bits

[edit] Definition of time

The following paragraph seems awkward: One example of incompatible properties is the idea that God has a will, goal, plan or purpose, combined with the idea that God exists outside of time. A will, goal, plan, or purpose (hereinafter referred to as "purpose") implies an inclination or tendency to steer events toward some state that does not exist. That implies a privileged direction, which must be either what we call "time" or the direction of causality. The two are not necessarily identical, but time exists in any world that is not at equilibrium. Since direction is the significant property, we can define "time" as the direction of causality if God is at equilibrium. The choice between two directions may be arbitrary, so select whichever places the goal in the "future." Given this nomenclature, purpose implies time.

I would rewrite along these lines, but wanted to make sure the original meaning was more or less intact before I edited the article: One argument based on incompatible properties rests on a definition of God that includes a will, plan or purpose and an existence outside of time. To say that a being possesses a purpose implies an inclination or tendency to steer events toward some state that does not yet exist. This, in turn, implies a privileged direction, which must be what we call time, the direction of causality or the direction of increasing entropy. While the three are not necessarily identical, time must exist in any world that is not at thermodynamic equilibrium. Since, among the three possibilities, direction seems to be the significant property, we can define time as the direction of causality or the direction of increasing entropy (see arrow of time) and thereby unify all three possibilities. As can be seen, purpose seems to imply the existence of and participation in time.

I like your rewrite for the most part. It is probably a good idea to list the direction of increasing entropy as a separate concept from time, since no one seems to know what time is. Maybe it is the direction of increasing available microstates. My version was confused at the end and perhaps wrong (if I could figure it out), but yours is definitely wrong. Time is certainly not necessarily the direction of causality since that is quite likely not true in our universe. When local entropy decreases, does local time go backward? If not, then the direction of time is not necessarily the direction of increasing entropy. Thus the concepts cannot be unified, but any could emerge looking like our time if not masked by another. You last sentence is good.

The direction of increasing entropy is often cited as one of those few situations in physics where time actually seems to have an arrow, and I think that the idea is one of generally increasing entropy, ignoring brief localized decreases. I'm not sure what you mean about time certainly not necessarily being the direction of causality. Do you mean to suggest that events now can cause an effect in the past?

[edit] Time and God

Here is where I ran into real problems: we can define "time" as the direction of causality if God is at equilibrium. The choice between two directions may be arbitrary, so select whichever places the goal in the "future."

1. What can a statement like "God is at equilibrium" possibly mean?
2. The choice between two directions is not arbitrary when the property of entropy is considered, but this almost necessarily places the goal in the future.

I assume an omnipotent being could be at thermodynamic equilibrium. Entropy is not increasing at equilibrium.

I think that most Theists and probably even a lot of Atheists would suggest that this is nonsense. God is not a physical being, and therefore there is no reason to suggest he has any thermodynamic properties.

That is just plain silly, of course. Physical or otherwise, whatever exists must be composed of interacting things. Any active God would be in disequilibrium, but I was trying to cover all bases.

[edit] I'm confused

This paragraph just doesn't make sense: In general, God's time would not be related to our time. They must have the same direction only if human activities are relevant to God's purpose or if God affects or is affected by events in our world. Since God is usually assumed to exhibit one or more of those properties, God must experience human time. In a relativistic universe, presumably this means -- at any point in spacetime -- time measured from t=0 at the Big Bang or end of inflation.

1. God is often stated to exist "outside of time" - whatever this means, it does not seem to be the same as saying that God has His own time which may or may not be related to our time.
2. Experiencing "human time", whatever that may be, is not the same as being subject to it, if that is what is being suggested.
3. The last sentence is totally unclear as is. Combined with the previous sentence it seems to be saying something like, "God has experienced human time since the beginning of the universe", which is fine but doesn't really suggest anything other than God may be able to experience time in the same way that we do, which is completely in keeping with the idea of a transcendent God (in fact, according to the most common interpretation of Biblical myth, God absolutely did experience time as a human when he became incarnate in Jesus), and it is unnecessarily verbose and technical.

We just showed that a God with a purpose cannot exist outside of time. If God is not subject to human time, then God's purpose is not related to our future. I suppose if God's time is skewed somehow relative to ours, then God might know more about our past than our future, but that is a minor detail. It's weird, but that's God for you. It does not matter whether the hypothesized God could experience human time without being subject to it, but it would just be a game of no significance.

We just showed that a God with a purpose must be aware of and able to operate in time. That is all.

If God were not constrained by time, the outcome of any temporal events would be irrelevant because the result is known without playing the game. I am assuming the purpose is outside the game, in God's domain rather than ours. You are correct if the purpose is within the game, ultimately meaningless to a timeless God. How a timeless world would be anything except static is incomprehensible, but that is typical religious escapism.

[edit] Morality and possibility

This statement is just untrue: In any case, even the actual potential to create all possible worlds would mean God is not inherently "good." Being able to do other than what is good and choosing to do good is what makes someone good. In fact, if a being can do nothing other than good, then it itself is not actually good - only its actions are. Further, there is nothing implicit in any definition of God that I have heard that suggests that God is incapable of evil, just that god is not evil (read: chooses good, as it were).

If God has the potential of being ungood, It cannot be inherently good. You obviously believe in some magical ultimate free will that operates with neither sufficient reason not random selection. Regardless of that, however, it is simply false that what never exists is possible. Sound familiar?

"You obviously believe in some magical ultimate free will that operates with neither sufficient reason not random selection" isn't a sentence, doesn't make sense, and is classically straw man. Now, if what you mean to say is that I believe in free will, then I would agree that in a sense I do. If you mean to say that I think that the argument that one cannot create a universe that is 100% good and allows for free will because it is logically impossible is a reasonable one then yes, I do. I do not, however, think that free will or autonomy or anything of the sort requires some magical property, defies reason, etc.

Now... None of that addresses the point which is that the very essence of goodness is in the capability to do otherwise combined with the choice to do good. To say that God is good doesn't mean that He must always be good because He has no choice, but that His choice is to do good because He is a good being. See the subtle difference?

There is no difference, but I changed "could" to "would" somewhere because you mystical types think there is one. Perhaps I changed the Godel proof article, so I must check this article.

[edit] Bits

The final paragraph is similarly obscure: Another pair is simplicity and omniscience. God's memory alone vastly exceeds the terabytes in our computers, and bits (or bytes) are the fundamental mathematical units of information. Information is not "ineffable" and cannot be reduced to something simpler. Furthermore, God must live forever and therefore must have a deterministic processing unit or infinite error correction mechanisms. The simplest implementation is deterministic and quite unconscious, seemingly incompatible with an intelligent being.

1. There is no suggestion that God must be simple.
2. It is not clear that human memory, much less God's memory, can be rendered, in its entirety, in bit units.
3. Omniscience does not necessarily mean "possessing all information".
4. "God must live forever" should be "one property of God is that He is eternal" or something like that, and neither statements leads to the conclusion that He must possess a deterministic processing unit or infinite error correction mechanisms. It is not clear that the human mind, much less the mind of God, operates in such a way as to be comparable to a "deterministic processing unit" or, as most of the world referrs to them, "a computer".
5. Re: the last sentence. The simplest implementation of what? Why should the simplest implementation be the actual implementation? Where did consciousness enter the picture?

Simplicity is an oft-claimed attribute of God. Without it, the origin of God even more wildly improbable because the most probable state is maximum entropy. Thus it is essential to the God conjecture.

I have been studying comparitive religion and theology for a long time and have never come across that one. Of course, that doesn't mean that it isn't often claimed that simplicity is an attribute of God, but I find it questionable.

All information can be rendered in bits. Information can be stored indfinitely compactly in the absence of uncertainly, but retrieval becomes more difficult. What else does omniscience mean? No mechanism can operate forever unless it is deterministic or can correct random errors.

A bit is the (I'm pulling this out of my memory as I don't have much reference material at my current location) amount of information in a system having two equally probably states, correct? Information theory and the bit unit are necessarily linked to probability theory. Can it actually be correct to suggest that there is such a thing as a probablity or improbablity in the mind of an omniscient being? Wouldn't the only properties of such a mind be what in fact is? What I mean to get at here (and I'm tired, so bear with me) is that Shannon defined information as something that can only exist when there is uncertainty. If God were in fact omniscient there would be no uncertainty and therefore no information, in a sense.

Information has several meanings, one of which is the (log of) the number of bits required to represent a string or, more generally, a set of facts. Omniscience would require an enormous database.

Simplest implemantation of the God database. Any God that could exist in any possible world could be a simple as possible, but no simpler (to paraphrase Einstein). No cosmic consciousness if God is simple.

A database can't create a universe, interact, become incarnate, die and be resurrected, etc. Therefore, God must be more complex.

The Abrahamic God never died and thus was not resurrected. As I said, It would require minimally a deterministic processing unit.

SethMahoney

Fairandbalanced 05:21, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)