Donnadogsoth

Again, you haven't read, or haven't absorbed, what I wrote. You are tumbling down the mountain and telling the mountain that it has changed.

If a thing changes it becomes something else, except insofar as we can imagine there is a deeper layer of that thing that does not change. Is an old man the same person as the infant he once was? There we would postulate there is an unchanging "soul" that unites the two beings. So with the Universe, if it changes it effectively ceases to exist from moment to moment and is replaced by its successor; if there is any identity to the Universe in all its possible states that identity is that part which doesn't change. Such changeless things we call æternal.

I don't think you read what I wrote. The navigation by man (free will) of the unchanging terrain of God's mind (God's will) means that man, as through prayer or action, can change his relationship to God and thereby change how God will react to him. God's will and other qualities remain the same, it is man who can change his fate through invoking different aspects of that will. E.g., a man who saves life, will be reacted to by God differently from a man who murders life. God's "rules" remain the same, it is only man's behaviour that changes and therefore man himself chooses whether he will climb the mountain or dash himself upon the rocks.

Changing location is still a change. An æternal substance by definition needs no creating. It exists because nothingness is impossible.

I'm not arguing here for the existence of God, I am merely arguing that God's existence is not irrational.

God is omniscient (knows everything there is to know), omnipotent (can do anything it is logically possible to do from his perspective), and outside of time. He does everything from his perspective, instantaneous. It is only humans etc. who experience time as such. Furthermore, he does not "change his mind" but rather has different reactions to different people, people who can change their relationships toward him and therefore change his reaction to them. Imagine God as a giant whetstone with horrible rough ragged patches alternating with smooth patches. Humans are a knife to be sharpened. If the knife is placed against the smooth patch, it will be sharpened. If the knife is placed against the rough patch, it will break. The wheel doesn't change, the human response to the wheel does.

I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you rephrase that?

So, you're saying God puts himself into situations of extreme terror and pain, for the sake of fun. Technically that's called "masochism." God is the Great Masochist. But why is God masochistic if he has no preferences? Why does he feel the need to play with himself?

Matter can change into energy and vice versa, and both matter and energy can change location. The Creator does not need to create himself, because he is outside of time, or, as it were, behind all times at once. My point is any constant we find for the Universe outside of its changeable nature is essentially the Creator.

In order to be æternal, a thing must retain an unchanging substance. Yet the Universe we see around us is, as Heraclitus said, defined by change. "Change is the only constant (in the Universe)." Is there anything that doesn't change? Your desk will be dust in a thousand years. The landscapes where you live will change. Given enough time, the very constellations will rearrange themselves. What is constant? "Change is the only constant." Then, there is a constant, and that constant does not change, even as it defines change for the changing Universe. Here we can describe a difference between what Plato called the Becoming, the world of change, and the Good, the unchanging perfection at the heart of reality. Thus, Becoming | Good The implication of this is that the Universe--the Becoming--which embodies change, cannot be æternal, cannot have "created itself," or "have always been here". A changing universe requires a Creator, one that does not change and so is æternal.

If our true identity is God, why aren't we born this way? Why does God play tricks on himself?

Very well, allow me to riposte. 1.Everything that is not purely an extension of my own mind (e.g., an optical illusion, a colour, a sound) must be a monad because (a) nothing unintelligible can exist, because (b) unintelligibilility violates the principle of sufficient reason (namely that all things must have a sufficient reason to be the way they are and not another way), and (c) “nothingness” is inconceivable and therefore unintelligible. It is like imagining my own deathly non-existence; it is unthinkable. And if my own non-existence is unthinkable, (d) everything's non-existence is unthinkable as well, meaning (e) all things must have mental processes unless, as stated, they are merely extensions or parts of my mind. 2.Our experience itself is an aspect of reality that is neither matter nor energy. Science cannot explain where consciousness comes from, calling it the “Hard Problem of Consciousness,” it can only acknowledge (and some don't!) the brute fact of consciousness's existence. So our subjective experience grants a different, empirically proven (by every glance and breath we take) aspect to reality that is not in of itself material or energetic. That said, an objection might be: consciousness might be related to matter and energy intimately, so that matter and energy contains small elements of consciousness which, when brought together in a brain, form a fully conscious mind. This is panpsychism and is the same as what I talk about in 1, above. 3., I didn't say reality is simply an aspect of a monad, I said material reality is merely an aspect of a monad. Reality as a whole is the collection of all monads, as overseen by God. 3b.The ontological paradoxes are part of a mind's self-development and interaction with other minds. The Universe needs figuring out and mastering if humanity is to survive and develop. The essence of such self-development of the mind is in the mind's creativity, or ability to conceive of creative, non-logical hypotheses which can be tested empirically for their validity. By way of analogy, imagine you knew nothing of water but its liquid state. Boiling it produces steam, but this steam can in no way be logically deduced from one's experience of liquid water. It would require a creative, non-logical hypothesis to “bridge” that gap. Thus we get Kepler's hypothesis of the principle of universal gravitation which is not a logical extension of previous astronomical knowledge but a creative “jump” across a gap to the needed principle. This is the highest level of human knowledge because this is the basis for power, specifically power to survive as a species. 3c.Sense data is our “interface” with other monads and with our own mind. 4.Free will faces more than dualism, it faces trialism because experience is composed of concepts, emotions, and sensations. I don't see how this affects free will. The monad is not “material” in any way but rather material is an experience it is having, just as it experiences emotions and conceptions. They are not three separate metaphysical realities but one.

Donna's as good as anything. Why do we need to wake up? I thought we were God and God has no preferences.

But, why should there be any such thing as a mind? Evolutionary pressure cannot account for mind's existence, for that presumes that minds exist, it doesn't prove they have to exist. This is the so-called "hard problem of consciousness," which is insoluble under naturalism because naturalism cannot account for mental substance. It is legerdemain to pretend that evolution's use of mind explains mind. Again you must be denying metaphysical naturalism in favour of either idealism or dualism.

Then you're denying metaphysical naturalism. Randomness and clockwork are the options for causation in a naturalistic universe. Free choice can only come about if there is a substance that is not beholden to metaphysically naturalistic processes. A naturalistic universe cannot "select minds" because such (metaphysically idealist) minds represent a different substance, one which is not "on tap" for the naturalist universe but transcends it. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

I know the principle but am not versed in the techniques. I am more interested in truth than in persuasion. Others on this board will know.

We're not talking about measurement, we're talking about choice. If the mind is purely natural then the mind is a slave to natural causation, which is either deterministic, or purely random, or a mixture of both, and in threither case is a mere slave to those processes.

So, why do you care about what we "need" to do? Why does God "need" to do anything?

You yourself have said that we are God, so if God has no preferences, we must have no preferences either.

Courtesy of Prager U, the answer is sixfold. Are there any other reasons?

The principle of NEGOTIATION, the idea that words and behaviour can cause involuntary neurological reactions in unprepared individuals, swaying them toward or against a particular desired outcome of speech, thought, or deed, regardless of any logical arguments anyone may put forth.

First, a system may be staggeringly, even infinitely complex but still deterministic, so the butterfly effect, etc., does not overturn determinism. Second, quantum theory rests, in popular interpretation, on statistical probabilities, which essentially say that things happen according to chance, according to luck, as if little green men were underneath the floorboards of reality rolling dice to determine what happens in the real world. Either way, saying that our decisions arise from determined clockwork effects, or that our decisions are the result of dice throws, nowhere does the mind depart, in metaphysical naturalism, from being purely and exclusively determined by the results of said clockwork and dice.

We have four bones of contention: 1.What is mind. 2.What is matter. 3.What is knowledge. 4.What sort of universe must exist to allow free will. My positions are four. Hopefully this will clarify matters and free the discussion from entanglements. 1.A mind is a monad, an indivisible unity possessing perception and desire. Everything a monad perceives is a part of its own substance, including its experience of the entire material world. It does not require anything else to exist, save its Creator, in order for it to (a) exist, (b) perceive, (c) desire, and (d) act on its perceptions and desires. Aside from the Creator, no other monad need exist for this to happen. Nothing exists except for monads and their qualities. 2.Matter does not exist except as the internal qualities of a monad. There is no “outside world” for matter to exist in, only an invisible sea of non-local, non-extended monads. 3.Knowledge, at the highest level, is the working out of an ontological paradox through the discovery of a principle or “thought object” existing in the mind from that mind's creation. 4.Free will is a quality of mind (monad) and requires no other monads (save the Creator) in order to function.

You just said "God has no preferences," so, why would those who do good be more in touch with the Godhead than those who do evil? Where are you getting your standard of good and evil from, if God has no preferences?

If you don't exist, there's no reason to talk to you. Goodbye!