philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 27, 2018, 11:44 (2249 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: Perhaps I misunderstood your statement on 16 September that “His first born son was unique. He was the only thing created directly by God.” I thought Genesis told us your God created the heavens and the earth and the animals and man, and I don’t recall any mention of the son in that account, or of a construction crew.

TONY: As an author, you should know better than to judge a book by the preface. Read the book.

Firstly, it is not one book but many. Secondly, I would not expect the preface to tell me one version, and then the book to tell me another. Thirdly, why should I believe the version proposed by later authors and not the version proposed by an earlier author?

DHW: You have accepted boredom as a possible starting point, I regard life is hugely significant, I have never downgraded nature’s complexity, and theories concerning your God’s purposes do not downplay anything – they are hypothetical explanations, not judgements.

TONY: In an extremely limited sense of the word.

I don’t know which word you are referring to, but being bored with eternal isolation means being bored with eternal isolation. Significant means significant, and an explanation is not a judgement.

DHW: I’d have thought that if he’s capable of creating the universe and life (with or without the son acting as foreman), there aren’t many spheres he can’t influence.

TONY: 'Sphere of influence', expansion of power, mastery of his own abilities, whatever you want to call it.

Mastery of his own abilities and expansion of his own experience sound good to me. Excellent ways of relieving the boredom of eternal isolation.

Dhw: ...if God exists, the purpose of the universe and of the life he created may have been to provide a spectacle that would relieve his boredom (and which by the way would also increase his “fullness”, through all his new experiences). Horribly mundane, I know, but it does answer your own question concerning the purpose of everything (not just of us), and so if you reject it, perhaps you could tell me why.

DAVID: My objection to your spectacle hypothesis is you have draped God in human clothing. You don't think like God does. None of us do.

You don’t know how God thinks any more than I do, but earlier you agreed that he has our thoughts. That’s good enough for me.

DAVID: All He has done has purpose.

TONY: I don't disagree, and neither does the bible.

Dhw: And nor do I. If your God exists, I have no doubt that he would have had a purpose: perhaps to break his eternal isolation by providing a spectacle. This might provide him with new experiences from which to learn (Tony’s proposal).

DAVID: I don't think God feels any sort of 'eternal isolation'. That would clearly be only a human feeling. In my view He has been around eternally before anything else.

So you agree that he was eternally isolated, but you don’t think he felt it. I must say I’m surprised that a God “who has our thoughts” didn’t have our thoughts. I suggest that, if he exists, he felt it and that’s why he created the universe and life. At least it’s a logical progression.