Omniscience and Time

[gwyn428]

Last night it came to mind: can an omniscient entity really even create the dimension of Time? This would also then include Space and we end up with our universe. I keep trying to contemplate this but I keep losing my focus.

Think about it, an entity who knows the future ad infinitum who supposedly creates one of the dimensions that make up our universe that he is outside of.

The First Law of Thermodynamics has convinced me that energy/matter is eternal; it has always existed and will continue to exist. So to me the idea of a god creating energy/matter literally out of nothing or as a transmutation of his spirit (very ludicrous!) is impossible. All what I need to do now is figure out if it is utterly impossible for an omniscient god to create Time and thus Space.

Please share your thoughts, insights, logic, etc.

[curiosityandthecat]

May I suggest...



Click the picture for the Amazon page, or read the whole book as a PDF. It's the part you said about the transmutation of the spirit being the creation that reminded me of it.

Scott Adams is the cartoonist responsible for Dilbert, incidentally.

[Miss Anthrope]

May I suggest...

(PIC REMOVED FOR THE SAKE OF EFFICIENT USE OF SPACE )

Scott Adams is the cartoonist responsible for Dilbert, incidentally.

I read that a while back, it was very interesting. I think I might re-read when I have some free time. Definitely recommened, gwyn. Also, at some point I'll comment on your OPs, just not in a thought-experiment mood at the moment.

[Miss Anthrope]

Hey gwyn, finally in the frame of mind to think about this. I actually came to a pretty quick conclusion after reading it again.

It seems to me that if there is a God, it doesn't make sense in any context for It to actually create time and space, It actually would be time and space,
i.e. a "God is All" kind of thing. Kind of goes hand in hand with my notion of god not being a conscious being. Or to connect the two concepts, not a being at all, but actually an all-encompassing manifestation of the verb "being".

[gwyn428]

For a supernatural entity to create Space-Time, it would have to be inside of it because causality (cause & effect) can only happen within Space-Time. The idea of a supernatural entity outside of Space-Time yet creating it implies that it is actually within another Space-Time. As for "God" being conscious, well, it would essentially have to be a physical entity because mind is a product of matter. The closest thing to "God" would be what you wrote about it being the verb "being" which is something I find very interesting. What then is the noun? How about we say that the universe is the noun?

There is a strange religion which says that existence is the noun while the microcosm of it is the verb.

[joeactor]

God's Debris is a very interesting book - lots of good mental gristle to chew on.
It's available for free download at:
http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/

As for god/univers/space-time/etc,

"I Am"

God (in some beliefs) "is".  That is, god was all that was before the uinverse, then created the universe, and is a part of it as well.

One of the poly-theistic religions believe that our reality/existence is mearly the dream of one of their gods.  The universe is destroyed each time he wakes, and recreated when he goes back to sleep...

Many thoughts, no human (i've met) knows,
Joe Actor

[Miss Anthrope]

For a supernatural entity to create Space-Time, it would have to be inside of it because causality (cause & effect) can only happen within Space-Time. The idea of a supernatural entity outside of Space-Time yet creating it implies that it is actually within another Space-Time. As for "God" being conscious, well, it would essentially have to be a physical entity because mind is a product of matter. The closest thing to "God" would be what you wrote about it being the verb "being" which is something I find very interesting. What then is the noun? How about we say that the universe is the noun?

There is a strange religion which says that existence is the noun while the microcosm of it is the verb.

I think the universe would be the noun as you say, but only in a sense. In a "big picture" sense, nouns and verbs are just labels we put on things becasue of our limited percpetion of time. Fourth dimensionally speaking, there's no difference. An apple is just a tangible representation of a dynamic "process", and the atoms which make up that process aren't really "objects", and then when you get down to the sub-atomic/quantum level eveything becomes even less "real" and more conceptual. I remember reading an article once about some advancements in quantum physics, and one of the scientists said "If some of the theories are correct, the philosophical implications are kind of disturbing." He didn't go into specifics, but he followed that with something like "Often when a test is successful, my colleagues and I will look at each other for a moment with mutual understanding, but the truth is we don't understand it." Very cryptic, and I remember racking my brain trying to figure out what goes through their minds. Based on some of my other reading into the quantum world, I think some of these scientists are starting to find out more and more that our brains just aren't capable of comprehending the nooks & crannies of reality, and in fact I think they kind of doubt the "reality" we percieve exists in any significant sense outside of the way we interpret it.

I'm not trying to belittle your thought experiment at all, I think it's a really good one and it had me thinking a lot, but I keep re-reading it, along with my own words, and the wall I keep hitting is our language itself. All of our words (time, space,universe, being, inside,outside) are just used to refer to concepts which have no meaning outside of objective reality. For instance, even consciousness is kind of a vague term, I've read some theories that suggest sub-atomic particles might be "conscious", so our minds might be the product of matter, but we can't really say for sure that something else's consciousness is dependent on matter, only consciousness the way we collectively understand it based on our own subjective experience. Ugg, I'm losing focus. Let me try to frame it all with another thought experiment about time: there's no universal "now", past, present and future aren't really separate. In the "big picture", I'm not born yet, I'm still being born, I'm alive, I'm dying, i'm already dead, my body has "already" decomposed,etc. Imagine the entire life of the Universe as one big "now", and (now i'm about to go far outside the box, hell, i'm practically about to ravage the box) collectively all of the little sub-atomic things have communicated in a way that would be "outside" of the rules of our time-space, perhaps even collectively forming a weird type of concsiousness of which matter has nothing to do with. Cause and effect at this macroscopic and yet simultaneously sub-microscopic level really have no meaning, even my "being" example doesn't have any meaning anymore, because the act of being or state of being is reliant on time, matter, and space. joeactor put it the best with "is", though what I've written kind of alters the meaning of "created" and turns into more "back and forth" act. Oh, man, my mind is going all over the place, I gotta make my way back to shore before I damage my cognitive functions.

So what I'm saying is I think you're right about it not making sense for this being to exist outside of space-time and creating it from anothre space-time (unless we're in a simulation, which might be likely, in which case our "god" might be some programmer running a history simulation, but then of ocurse he might also be a aprt of simulation, etc etc; yeah, i'm a Nick Bostrom fan), so if we limit ourselves to talking about the traditional primtive gods, then your thought experiment already accomplished what is what meant to do, which is why I'm not refuting it, I just can't think of anything more to add to it, so i started thinking beyond words and space-time.

As for god/univers/space-time/etc,

"I Am"

God (in some beliefs) "is". That is, god was all that was before the uinverse, then created the universe, and is a part of it as well.

One of the poly-theistic religions believe that our reality/existence is mearly the dream of one of their gods. The universe is destroyed each time he wakes, and recreated when he goes back to sleep...

Many thoughts, no human (i've met) knows,
Joe Actor

I agree, if there is a God, it transcends anyhting our thougth processes can concieve, that's why I'm agnostic, though on the atheistic end as far as the traditional gods. I like your note about the dreaming god, it kind of makes the concept a little more easy to grasp since I'm a vivid dreamer. A few times I've suddenly become lucid, and the "detail" (lighting, shadows, texture,motion) of a person I was talking to in the dream would become amped up, almost more "real" then when I'm awake if that makes any sense, and the people will kind of smirk not-threateningly while I'm trying to get a handle on the sudden lucidity, and then I just "panic" and wake up. I can't bring myself to take these subjective experiences as evidence that the dream characters are "real", but at the same time I can never shake the feeling that they were smirking becasue I "went through the looking glass", so to speak. What's strange is that when I try to think about a "holistic" god, I get the same whimsically "creepy" feeling as those lucid experiences give me.

I'm curious, what is your stance on God. I know you're an agnostic-theist and that means yu don't know but think there probably is (at least that's the defintion I've read), but I'm just wondering what insights you might have that lead to your beliefs (well, beleif isn't the right word for agnostics, so I should say philosophy)

[X1L]

Hi all, I've just joined this forum and followed this thread with interest. I have a few points to make that I hope may clear things up.

Regarding time and space - Current scientific thinking is that the Universe (or more precisely our visible Universe) began about 14 Billion years ago. This brings up the question of what happened before that. Many scientists believe this is a meaningless question, but there is a growing number that believe that there are multidimensional fields of probability where different Universes (each with their own laws) float about, and it was the collision of two neighbouring Universes which caused our own to come into being.

Second point is regarding a supreme Omnipotent and Omnicient being creating the Universe - Let's assume there is a being who can both observe everything past present and future in existense, and has full freedom to act at his own discretion. Now if this being can see everything in existense, then he can see the result of his actions which means he can’t act outside of what he has observed. If however he is able to intercede contrary to thea way forseen, then he is not Omnicient. Therefor no being can be both Omnipotent and Omnicient.

Hope this helps

All the best

Chris

[gwyn428]

X1L, thank you for the post.  

Some Hindus believe that it is Siva who will destroy the universe by opening up either his third eye or both of his eyes or all of them (I forgot which). As a former Gaudiya Vaishnava, I used to believe that there are millions of physical universes that are breathed out of the body of the Karanodakashayi Vishnu, who lies asleep in the ocean of primal matter. When he breathes in, the universes (depicted as bubbles) will return into his pores and then he'll breathe out and continue his breathing cycles forever.

Miss Anthrope

Ya know, I think your intense thinking has caused another singularity to go BANG!! and create yet another universe.  

Have you read about Democritus? He believed that people, animals, buildings, clouds, trees, and season 2 of House on DVD do not have any original reality in themselves, rather they are merely groups of atoms. Plato believed in Forms, which is the idea that trees, clouds, red, yellow, honor, love, chairs, and everything else are like a reflection or something of their real existence as Forms in a higher world. The keyboard under your hands is not the real thing; the real keyboard exists as a Form in a much greater place. What you are seeing is a memory because our souls came from that higher place. I think Democritus had it right that none of these things are "real" and he didn't as fudge subscribe to Plato's idea of Forms. Atoms are the truth!!! Believe in them and you'll be enlightened!!! Lol, sorry. This reminds me of the Heart Sutra that many Mahayana Buddhists recite daily. It is famous for its line "form is emptiness and emptiness is form."

[Miss Anthrope]

Ya know, I think your intense thinking has caused another singularity to go BANG!! and create yet another universe.  

Have you read about Democritus? He believed that people, animals, buildings, clouds, trees, and season 2 of House on DVD do not have any original reality in themselves, rather they are merely groups of atoms. Plato believed in Forms, which is the idea that trees, clouds, red, yellow, honor, love, chairs, and everything else are like a reflection or something of their real existence as Forms in a higher world. The keyboard under your hands is not the real thing; the real keyboard exists as a Form in a much greater place. What you are seeing is a memory because our souls came from that higher place. I think Democritus had it right that none of these things are "real" and he didn't as fudge subscribe to Plato's idea of Forms. Atoms are the truth!!! Believe in them and you'll be enlightened!!! Lol, sorry. This reminds me of the Heart Sutra that many Mahayana Buddhists recite daily. It is famous for its line "form is emptiness and emptiness is form."

I'm not sure about making a singularity go bang (though it's appealing since that would make me a god!), but my brain sure did while I was writing that. I think more visually than verbally, and as I kept writign and thinking my mind was building this messy mascropic universal "picture", it was actually usurping my external visual processes.

Never read about Democritus, though he sounds familiar. Have read about Plato's Forms; not sure about his "higher place" thing, but I think he was kind of right with some of the Forms concept, only the Forms exist in our mind. Interestingly, aside from some small details, it kind of seems like he and Democritus were just splitting hairs.

[joeactor]

I'm curious, what is your stance on God. I know you're an agnostic-theist and that means yu don't know but think there probably is (at least that's the defintion I've read), but I'm just wondering what insights you might have that lead to your beliefs (well, beleif isn't the right word for agnostics, so I should say philosophy)

Well, I have no doubt that being raised with religion (Roman Catholic) has something to do with my beliefs.
At some point in my early teens I began to look into other religions.
I decided that each of them was fascinating and different, but they also had some common themes.
That led me to consider that the truth was something at the edge of human perception... something we can only glimpse or see in a funhouse mirror kind of way.  The only way to see more of the true picture was to study other people's perspectives.
It's not precise - definitely a feeling thing rather than thinking.  But accepting that our feelings and impressions are a valid part of our own reality is important.  The tricky part is to keep an open mind, and not discard facts for beliefs.
... at least in my view of existence ;-)


gwyn428: Thanks for the info - I like the "Form" ideas too...

[Miss Anthrope]

Well, I have no doubt that being raised with religion (Roman Catholic) has something to do with my beliefs.
At some point in my early teens I began to look into other religions.
I decided that each of them was fascinating and different, but they also had some common themes.
That led me to consider that the truth was something at the edge of human perception... something we can only glimpse or see in a funhouse mirror kind of way.  The only way to see more of the true picture was to study other people's perspectives.
It's not precise - definitely a feeling thing rather than thinking.  But accepting that our feelings and impressions are a valid part of our own reality is important.  The tricky part is to keep an open mind, and not discard facts for beliefs.
... at least in my view of existence ;-)

Interesting, that's very similar to my philosophy, and it's why I have a hard time picking a label. I'm purely agnostic at heart but find myself conversely leaning in both directions from time to time, mostly the atheistic side in terms of a traditional god, but even then the question "What do I really know about anything? always nags me in the back of my mind.

Thank you for your explanation, I've never really known an agnostic-theist so I was curious.