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Thread: God(s) and Mathematics

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    Inactive Account Loddfafner's Avatar
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    Default God(s) and Mathematics

    If there are any gods out there, they must, almost by definition, exist outside of the framework of space and time. If so, then are they also outside of the framework of possibility laid out in mathematics?

    Many of the effects attributed to deities as well as the expectations people hold of them are matters of probability: for example improving the odds of surviving a severe illness, or communicating with humans through highly improbable events.

    If god(s) exist outside mathematics, however, consider this implication: that it does not matter if there is one god or many as that is merely mathematical question.

    Anyways, that was my thought for the day as I was walking home from work.

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    Mystic Oracle of Nordicist Purity ikki's Avatar
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    Either its measurable, and therefore subject to mathemathics... or its existance/nonexstance utterly meaningless.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Loddfafner View Post
    If there are any gods out there, they must, almost by definition, exist outside of the framework of space and time. If so, then are they also outside of the framework of possibility laid out in mathematics?
    Why would they necessarily be extra-mathematical?

    Different theologies have been reconciled with what was considered contemporary mathematics in their day. I'm thinking of Leibniz (reconciling monotheism and calculus) and Whitehead (panentheism and mereology) in particular. A certain forum member is currently working in this direction in regards to polytheism.

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    Endure To Be Man Liffrea's Avatar
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    I think before that question can be answered you need first to define God(s).

    Our scientific knowledge is at the level now where we could be reasonably confident in saying that there are no such thing as Gods within nature i.e. the physical universe we live within and as we understand it. Pythagoras spoke of numbers within harmonies as the basis of existence (not a million miles away from the outer edge of theoretical physics).

    If you are inclined to believe that only the physical universe exists then you would probably be correct in asserting that God(s) do not exist, so much that was credited to God(s) from human creation to thunderstorms are now understood in far more mundane scientific processes (admittedly science by it’s nature is a subject working from ignorance to theories that may or may not be true, but it is hard to see what would cause the demise of the Newtonian-Maxwellian-Einsteinian universe or of Darwinism). Then again there are many things within the physical universe we don’t understand, we can explain how DNA encodes for amino acids that encode for proteins that make a human but we are looking at the building material, so far nobody understands how the plan came together, there is no explanation of the form of man or of a leaf.

    However if you believe in metaphysical concepts and the somewhat crude division of Descartes between mind and physics then you would perhaps be more open minded, personally I believe the physical universe is only one layer of reality and that there are many more, I believe that the God(s) didn’t come to be shepherds or wipe our noses they came to be teachers and to give us a gift to use or abuse. I don’t think mathematics has much place in that side of things. Plotinus believed a man could understand God (he meant the first cause or the “One”) by his intellect, that we could reason, we could see the pattern (who knows our physical knowledge may lead us to an inescapable conclusion of purpose and intent) but to know God was to know him from the depth of our soul that which is largely indescribable and that connects in a way beyond intellect.
    I believe that legends and myth are largely made of
    “truth”, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.

    J.R.R. Tolkien

    Indeed it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the “truth” one could still barely endure-or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.
    Nietzsche

    To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.
    Heraclitus

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    Quote Originally Posted by Liffrea View Post
    I think before that question can be answered you need first to define God(s).
    Would you really have to? Unless you could isolate one of them in a lab, I don't see how you're ever going to figure out for sure what they're "made of". If anything, Husserl's phenomenological method of inquiry has shown that more can be gleaned from the way in which things are perceived, present themselves and relate to us than from any kind of metaphysical theorizing. This quote from Sokolowski's Introduction to Phenomenology (p. 127):

    The self recognized in phenomenology is not a point that stands behind or outside its perceptions, memories, imaginations, choices, and cognitive acts; rather, it is constituted as an identity through such achievements.
    could easily be altered to suit our current discussion:

    The deity recognized in phenomenology is not a point that stands behind or outside its being-perceived, its being-remembered, its being-imagined, its being-chosen and its being-cognized; rather, it is constituted as an identity through such achievements.

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    The earless Dionysus Lutiferre's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psychonaut View Post
    Why would they necessarily be extra-mathematical?

    Different theologies have been reconciled with what was considered contemporary mathematics in their day. I'm thinking of Leibniz (reconciling monotheism and calculus) and Whitehead (panentheism and mereology) in particular. A certain forum member is currently working in this direction in regards to polytheism.
    Not to mention Kurt Gödel (possibly one of the greatest mathematicians of all time) and his modal logic version of Anselms ontological proof.
    Quote Originally Posted by Loddfafner View Post
    If there are any gods out there, they must, almost by definition, exist outside of the framework of space and time. If so, then are they also outside of the framework of possibility laid out in mathematics?
    Mathematics is not a framework of possibility. Mathematics is dealing numerically with quantities. Mathematics does not prescribe reality. Logic rather, is a framework of possibility, or at least closer to it, but does not prescribe reality, either; reality and coherence already exisiting, it simply defines some principles on which all thinking about that reality and coherence must operate, and according to which all coherence in reality is founded on and applies to, but is not thereby the prescribor of reality or coherence but rather a reiterator of it for our abstract conceptualization.
    Quote Originally Posted by Loddfafner View Post
    Many of the effects attributed to deities as well as the expectations people hold of them are matters of probability: for example improving the odds of surviving a severe illness, or communicating with humans through highly improbable events.
    But that has nothing to do with the deity in se, but only with what the deity does in our observation.
    Quote Originally Posted by Loddfafner View Post
    If god(s) exist outside mathematics, however, consider this implication: that it does not matter if there is one god or many as that is merely mathematical question.
    God exists outside mathematics, because mathematics is a descriptive, and not prescribing, human discipline and science.

    This does not mean God exists outside of logic, or rather, outside of what must be apprehended by logical coherence. Because the only sense in which God is beyond that, is in his essence apart from what he does (ousia), and there he does not "exist" in any sense, since the ousia is even beyond existence; so he does not ever "exist outside of logic." But his essence apart from what he does cannot have any effects to be seen directly or indirectly (since it is apart from any activity which would result in such an effect), and has no similarity or connection with anything else which is a fact of his being respective of what he does/his activity, since we are speaking of his ousia irrespective of his act of being (essentia). The ousia is therefore beyond any numerical quantity like 1 or 2, and any other concept, like existence, which all conceptually proceed from the order of actuality/act of being. It makes no sense to speak of either one or many there; he is beyond the one and many in his transcendent ousia irrespective of his act of being, and is neither.

    In his act of being, however (his essence ad extra), he is subject to "logical truth", existence, and numericality, since logical truth is simply how we apprehend any (potentially or actually) existing or acting agent or object, and in his act of being, he is acting or existing. For a Christian, we therefore say God is one in his act, because if there were two Gods in their act of being, and they were both truly God, there would be nothing to distinguish them in their act of being, and hence they would both be the one and same God, and not two Gods, but rather two hypostases of one act of being; or else, they would not be god at all. Since God in the order of existence can only be act, pure actuality, and can have nothing of potentiality (since anything which is potential is contingent upon being actualised and that ultimately by God, and hence, is not God, but is contingent on God, and hence, falls into the created, not the uncreated order; in the uncreated order, essence and existence are without distinction) there would be nothing at all to distinguish them, then, in their being, and hence, they would be one being rather than two beings. Rather, they can be two hypostases of that one being, but that does not make them different beings, unless either one or both is not truly God. We believe the procession of the divine intellect (the intelligence/coherence/the Logos) and of the will (love/the Spirit) make for three hypostases, the one unoriginated and the two that proceed, and that after intellect and will, there is no other actual or even logically possible hypostases of the divinity.
    Quote Originally Posted by ikki View Post
    Either its measurable, and therefore subject to mathemathics... or its existance/nonexstance utterly meaningless.
    This kind of naive reductionist realism has been debunked long ago. Mathematics cannot encompass a complete representation of reality, as proven by Gödels incompleteness theorems.
    Last edited by Lutiferre; 10-09-2009 at 07:59 PM.
    A man who fights for a cause thereby affirms the cause of the fight.

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    Endure To Be Man Liffrea's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Lutiferre
    Not to mention Kurt Gödel (possibly one of the greatest mathematicians of all time) and his modal logic version of Anselms ontological proof.
    Interesting but is that really a proof for the existence of God(s) within a physical universe or the use of mathematics to argue the existence of God(s), which isn’t necessarilly the same thing?
    I believe that legends and myth are largely made of
    “truth”, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.

    J.R.R. Tolkien

    Indeed it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the “truth” one could still barely endure-or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.
    Nietzsche

    To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.
    Heraclitus

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    The earless Dionysus Lutiferre's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Liffrea View Post
    Interesting but is that really a proof for the existence of God(s) within a physical universe or the use of mathematics to argue the existence of God(s), which isn’t necessarilly the same thing?
    It's a proof strictly speaking for monotheism (the ontological argument), and entails transcendence, but also immanence in the sense of being omnipresent in it's omniscience and omnipotence.
    A man who fights for a cause thereby affirms the cause of the fight.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lutiferre View Post
    It's a proof strictly speaking for monotheism (the ontological argument), and entails transcendence, but also immanence in the sense of being omnipresent in it's omniscience and omnipotence.
    IMO, since no less than five a priori assumptions are explicit in this proof, it's quite weak (as are most ontological proofs).

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    The earless Dionysus Lutiferre's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psychonaut View Post
    IMO, since no less than five a priori assumptions are explicit in this proof, it's quite weak (as are most ontological proofs).
    It's not "quite weak" simply because there are a priori assumptions, but only weak if they are obviously or demonstrably false, which is not the case. But it's debatable, and of course you can simply deny it's veracity based on your own a priori assumptions. You could also look to Harshornes version. But I posted it more for the sheer significance that a mathematician can rationally engage in logical discourse around metaphysical questions like Gods existence.
    A man who fights for a cause thereby affirms the cause of the fight.

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