philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, October 08, 2018, 14:10 (2237 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I now suggest that if your hypothesis is true, and he has kept himself eternally busy with the joy of creating and watching with interest universes full of who knows what kinds of life, but apparently always containing human beings, he has done so because otherwise he would have been nothing but a great big blob of pure conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. And that would have been boring to a degree beyond our human imagination. Now please tell me why this hypothesis seems illogical to you.

DAVID: The bolded area is again your very inventive (why not, you invent life in your plays) defense of your indefensible boredom theory. He is a purposeful creator and has no thoughts about empty boredom feelings, because He is constantly busy designing and creating.

I am amazed at your intimate knowledge of what goes on in your purposeful God’s mind, while the rest of us can only speculate. But what is this purpose? Your latest "very inventive" proposal of universe after universe, full of human beings whose actions he watches with interest “to see how they will conduct themselves and approach Him”, apparently keeps him fully occupied. And I am suggesting that without such an occupation he would be a blob of conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. That is why he keeps himself occupied by creating spectacles which give him the human-like joy and interest and satisfaction you have attributed to him.

DAVID: Since you persist in staying at a human analysis level in looking at God, what do humans do when bored: they practice pass-timing, which is an inventive way to make time pass as recognized by psychologists but empty of anything useful. At the God level I would think His purposeful creations fill time, but there is another consideration: as an eternal Being, time is of no consequence to Him.

If he creates universe AFTER universe, and watches how all these different humans behave and approach him, there has to be a sequence of before and after. That I would define as time, regardless of what consequence it is to him. Unlike your eternal, bodiless God, humans and their fellow animals are born into a world which immediately presents them with occupations on which their material lives depend. As a retired doctor you are perhaps aware of this. Only when our daily material requirements are met do we have time to get bored. But then where do you draw the line between what is and is not “useful”? What are your criteria for usefulness? What “use” is philosophy, art, sport, the theatre, literature, music etc. – but all these activities take on purposes of their own, and even provide careers by which practitioners can earn their food instead of growing or hunting it. You can also argue that they broaden the mind and provide us with new experiences and give us something to think about. Your God was not born into such a world, and since according to you he was the first cause, there was nothing besides him: no material needs, no existing cultures. Absolutely nothing but himself to think about until he started creating.

dhw: Meanwhile, I don’t remember ever suggesting that an eternal and immortal mind with the power to create universes and invent life would be “us”. The significant “admission” here is yours – namely, that you believe your God may have our thoughts and feelings and logic.

DAVID: Of course God understands our level of thought. You want him to operate at our level. By definition as God, He doesn't.

Not “understands” but shares. You agreed that he had our thoughts, feelings and logic, and you are in no better a position to “define” your God than I am. “Operate at our level” is not clear. If he is capable of thinking and feeling and reasoning, and of wanting a relationship with us and of watching us with interest and enjoyment, and of wanting to prove himself to us, then he is capable of needing something to do besides thinking about himself. Of course if he exists, he operates at a different level from us. We can’t create life-bearing universes.