philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 09, 2018, 09:45 (2020 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: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? […] 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's bold)

DAVID: Did you ever consider God as selfless? You can only think of Him as similar to you.

Did you ever consider that your God might have thoughts and feelings similar to ours, which is why he was able to create creatures with thoughts and feelings similar to his? Why do you tell us he wants a relationship with us, wants to prove himself to us, enjoys creation, watches us (and all the other humans in all the other universes you think he has created) with interest if you don’t think of him having these thoughts and feelings? What sort of God are you now trying to conjure up? A vast blob of conscious energy that has no feelings, no identity, no self? All this because although you constantly insist on how purposeful he is, you cannot stand the thought that his purpose might have been to keep himself occupied.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Pure humanizing of God. The concept of pass-timing in psychology is useless filling of time, and we all do it!

It is you who have introduced the term “pass-timing”, you have not told us your criteria for usefulness, you have ignored the whole argument above (that your God was not born into a world already filled with purposes and occupations), and you refuse to acknowledge that all your own interpretations of your God’s purposes are pure humanizations. And you still haven’t explained why the hypothesis I have offered is illogical. Your only objection seems to be that it doesn’t fit your personal image of your God.

DAVID: You still haven't taken your human concept of God to understanding that while He fully understands our lesser way of thinking his purposeful thoughts are on creation of universes. Our similarity is only a tiny portion of His mentality.

And yet again you use the word “purposeful”. So yet again, tell us what you think was/is his purpose in creating universes?