What if God wants to change his mind about something?

God can do whatever he, she or it wants to, I would think. And I would suspect that if there is a God, he she or it would want to tell us all that he, etc. had nothing to do with the Bible.

There was the Old Testament. It changed with Jesus and the New testament.

I dont think God has regrets, but She does know when its time for Change. and She does understand about time moving on…..

So history will be looking for another Jesus, the end of the world, or whatever is going on these days….to change things up. AMEN

and there will be a brand new testament for the things we messed up…simpler. Love!!

It wasnt God who messed things up, its the people who interpret, write and live the Bible.

If there was a god, he/she/it/they would have far greater things to worry about than people misrepresenting them. There is no known way to communicate a message without it being misinterpreted.

God did change his mind. He said “Bugger this – I am going on vacation.” And he went.

God doesn’t exist…

Doesn’t God say in Genesis that He grieved that He ever made man on Earth and then that’s when the flood and Noah and all that other bullshit happened?

I am paraphrasing here.

He’ll have to file his paperwork in triplicate with the InterGalactic Federation.

If your god is omnipotent, then there is no need to “communicate” any kind of change. He can change the memories of every human, to make them think as if there had been no change at all.

God is infallible, apparently, so it doesn’t matter.

He gets to.

But if God does change His mind, it means He is fallible, is not prescient, and so not omniscient, and so not God.
But if that means He can never change His mind, it means He is not omnipotent, and so not God.

Perhaps all things are relative, and Godliness actually implies near-limitless power within this Universe; ultimate compared to us, but imperfect nonetheless…

It’s a moot point: God is unchanging.

@The_Idler Suppose He is bound not by capacity, but principle?

@Nullo It’s a moot point: God is unchanging.

Which is probably why it was mooted. The word moot primarily means “Subject to debate.”

God is perfect. He has no need to change his mind because he never makes mistakes.

God must be a fucking woman then!! An elusive one at that.

@DarkScribe Usually when someone uses “moot point” the legal definition is inferred:

Law:
1. Without legal significance, through having been previously decided or settled.
2. Of no practical importance; irrelevant.

@Theby Perfect by what standard?

The mind of God is a perfect mind and God himself.
All the changes needed to be done have already been accomplished when he attained perfection.

If therefore The mind of God still changes then God has changed and is no longer the one true living God.

There are many other gods, but since they change often they are unlike that one true living God.

If you likewise make the necessary changes to attain that perfect mind, then you have the mind of God and you are His son.

@Theby
There is a perfection which leads to life and there is the radical opposite which is death.

Strive for the perfection of life then you will know the God standard perfection.

Others are not able to tell you my friend, it you establish your standard, the one standard will become plain.

I suppose that would depend on the omnipotence and infallibility of god.

If god knew a change was necessary I would suspect he/she/it would communicate that change in the means most effective to the situation.

Your last question is purely human.

I agree with @The_Idler. I believe that if god is omniscient, he would never make a mistake and if he was omnipotent, he can do anything. Therefore god can’t be both because these qualities would constantly fight within his personality.

For us that would be a good thing because god would be preoccupied and leave us alone.

@thriftymaid
Usually when someone uses “moot point” the legal definition is inferred:

No, it has nothing to do with law.

How would we know either way?

God is not bound by time. He knew 3000 years ago what would happen today.

@filmfann He knew 3000 years ago what would happen today.

Is that why he decided not to hang around?

He is everywhere. He is even with you, though you deny Him.
Gosh, He is even with dpworkin.

@Nullo

Does it matter whether He is bound by capacity or by principle?
The suggestion that He is bound by anything puts His omnipotence into question.

@filmfann If DP were here, he’d resemble that remark.

i believe the bible says he regretted making man.. Genesis 6:6

@filmfann He is everywhere. He is even with you, though you deny Him.

Dirty old pervert. My wife and I just had a shower.

There is an account of Moses talking with God where God has a change of mind: Exodus 32:14

I suppose this could be taken to show that if God desires to change their mind, then God does, and sometimes even thinks it is a good idea to do so.

How that gets communicated is a very good question!

Good Point @liminal
@jazzjeppe To answer your question, I would think he would communicate through the Holy Spirit. It is how we understand God. Although in the Bible it is often through Prophets or Angels that changes come about. Or perhaps not really changes but rather clarification of how God expects us to live our lives.

@Pandora do you notice that there are not a lot of old time prophets around these days? Maybe that is because there is less access to hallucinogens, we have more interesting things to do than listen to the deranged, or they are supplanted by god’s will being revealed by the multimillion dollar mega-churches.

@Pandora How exactly would God communicate His corrections and amendments to the Divine Word “through” the Holy Spirit?

You’ll have to forgive my basic questions, but it’s been a while since I read The Bible thoroughly, and I seem to have forgotten the exact mechanics of it.

I do not think changing one’s mind is necessarily a sign of imperfection, admission of wrong-doing or of making a mistake. People in relationships change their minds all the time over big and little things. Consideration is part of the evolution and process of relationships – it is acknowledging the needs, wants, desires, and ultimate good of the other person.

Changing one’s mind is also an act of mercy. Situations are fallible, situations change. This is why humans practice situational ethics all the time. If God is merciful, then He/She/It has room for changing His/Her/Its mind.

God does not change (his?) mind over time. God is not bound by time. God is outside the spectrum of time.

Some would claim, that God IS mind. So that would require God to change (its self) to suit the salty desires of a being that is bound by time.

I don’t believe a God would have any incentive to do such a thing.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies God is the I Am. Need we say more?

@lillycoyote I’d like it if you did, that phrase really doesn’t explain anything.

I Am…

Cold
Jealous
Kind
Running
Compassionate
Forgetful
Determined
Forgiving
Vengeful
Menacing
Troubled
Joyful
Fearless

Beyond all measure.

I Am Is What All Will Be
What Was All Will Be I Am
All I Am Will Be What Is
Will Be Is All I Am Was
Was What Is As All Will Be?
Will Be Is As What All Was
All Is As What Will Be Was
I Am Will Be As All Is

All Is What As Will Be Is I Am. Is Was All Will Be What I Am Is. As All Was Will Be, I Am Is What Was Will Be As. What Is, Will Be All What I Am Was, As All What I Am Is, Was As All What I Am Is, Was As What Is I Am. As Will Be is, All I Am Was As, I Am Is All, As Will Be Is What All Was. Will Be Was, As All I Am Is, What Will Be.

Who Knew?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Everyone can be any one of those things when the situation arises. It still tells us nothing unique about the nature of this God.

What uniqueness do you expect to find from a God that created you in his image?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Something definitive that will justify the Pharasees regarding Jesus’ statement that “I Am” as blaspheme. At the moment, I Am too.

The significance of I Am is in the Old Testament, in the story of Moses.
This was not lost on the Pharasees.

Still, if it is a name for God, it cannot be a name used by humans. By the interpretation that has been given, all humans can claim that “I Am” too.

The poem above puts it in a slightly different context though.

It depicts the eternal nature of “I Am”, encompassing past, present, and future as one.

Consider the ”IS-ness” of an eternal being. Humans that claim I Am for themselves are looking past the temporal nature of a “flesh only” being, realizing themselves as eternal (in the image of), like God, as well.

Simply stated, God cannot change – period. Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.” 1 Samuel 15:29 “He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.” Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change.” The Word is replete with anthropomorphisms. Why? The Bible was written by humans (inspired by the Holy Spirit) and it was written FOR humans! God is simply providing for us in our finiteness a means through which to communicate and understand who He is and what He is. Theologically, since God is eternal – more precisely, eternity Himself – He cannot change since a being who changes adds and/or subtracts from his being. If he adds to his being, he is not perfect. If he subtracts from his being, he is not perfect. Anything that changes has the potential to become better or worse. God cannot become better or worse since He is perfect.

@AmorVincitOmnia There is a biblical account of Moses talking with God where God has a change of mind: Exodus 32:14

@AmorVincitOmnia if god cannot change its mind then it is not omnipotent, therefore cannot be god.

@liminal The Exodus passage is well known, as are many others with anthropopathic representations of God. We must keep in mind at all times when reading the Word of both our finite understanding of who and what God is and that set-apart people were communicating directly with Him and those accounted communications were transcribed in human terms. There are hundreds of idioms, figures of speech, anthropomorphisms, and anthropopathisms throughout Scripture. God appears in human form (eg, Is 6:10); God has a face (eg, Rev 20:11); Eyes (eg, 2 Chr 16:9); Nostrils (eg, 2 Sam 22:16); Shoulders (Deut 33:12); God laughs and sleeps (eg, Ps 2:4, 78:65); He uses weapons (eg, Deut 32:3); He is uncertain of the future (eg, Judges 2:22); He grieved (eg, Heb 3:10); God is jealous (eg, Ex 34:14); God hates (eg, Ps 5:5); Swears oaths (eg, Ps 89:35); Repents and changes His mind (Gen 6:7, Ex 32:14, Deut 32:36, 1 Sam 15:11 & 35, Ps 106:45 &135:14, Jer 15:6, Hosea 11:8, Joel 2:13 & 14, Jonah 3:9 & 10). A good percentage of those passages are of the writers recording God describing Himself! Are we to take these literally? If we do so, we not only completely negate much of Scripture, but we also completely minimize if not strip God of every one of His metaphysical and metaphorical attributes.

@Ron_C- “if god cannot change its mind then it is not omnipotent, therefore cannot be god.”
Where does everyone get the idea that God in omnipotent? Show me in the Bible where it says that.

@Ron_C God cannot do the impossible! He cannot do anything that violates His nature. He cannot create anything that is “bigger” than Himself. He cannot not exist, neither can He destroy Himself!

@AmorVincitOmnia @AstroChuck I thought that god could do anything. That’s what omnipotent means. If he cannot do something he does not fit the normal description of god. If he can change his mind then he is not omniscient because he would have known before hand and wouldn’t have had to change his mind. You can’t have it both ways.

@Ron_C As I explained above, God cannot do what is impossible. First, arbitrarily, omnipotence means ‘all powerful’. Second, theologically, omnipotence means God can do all that is possible to do. Again, as I explained above, God is immutable; He cannot change – period. Therefore, He cannot change His mind.

@AstroChuck The Bible does not use the word ‘omnipotent’, true enough. However, keeping in mind that it means ‘all powerful’, both the Hebrew (shadday) and the Greek (pantokrator) translate to ‘all powerful’. I would add this: God’s necessity, His pure actuality, His non-potentiality, His aseity, His simplicity, to mention some of His metaphysical attributes, are not directly referred to in the Bible. One, our finite, imperfect minds cannot comprehend His infinite, perfect characteristics. Two, the first purpose for the Bible is to show us the way to Jesus Christ. When that happens, our minds desire to be His mind. And by God’s grace and love are we then more able to understand these higher things. Because one doesn’t “see” a specific word defining a specific attribute of God, doesn’t mean it’s not discoverable, nor does it mean that God is not omnipotent, et al.

@AmorVincitOmnia said: “God is immutable; He cannot change – period. Therefore, He cannot change His mind.”

prove it.

@AmorVincitOmnia- “One, our finite, imperfect minds cannot comprehend…”

Speak for yourself. My perfect mind knows no bounds.

@AstroChuck Just like your hair, you’ll lose it when you get older.

@AstroChuck I agree, I am perfectly capable of understanding the concept of a god, along with all the reasons why it is unlikely to be a realistic concept.

We are unwise to confine a God being to the same dimensional limitations that humans endure in our finite space/time existence.

There are numerous philosophical and mathematical theories to suggest the existence of higher dimensions, and in these dimension, the paradox of our realm may indeed be met with perfectly sound logic and reason of higher dimensions.

One such benefit to higher dimensional possibility is the concept of Middle Knowledge. We must not presume a God being as limited to the same supposed Laws of Nature that we are. That falacy negates the premise of a God being just by presuming it.

My dog is a faithful friend and extremely intelligent. Yet he would be unwise to assume that my logic and his are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Interesting link, but Middle Knowledge is irrelevant if there is no being to inhabit those extra dimensions. It can be fun to theorise about the characteristics of a god, but it is all irrelevant unless that god exists.

I will not deny a god the ability to know so much, even though it exceeds the energy content of the visible universe, but I will hold the concept to be subject to logic and reason.

@ninjacolin Explanations I gave above notwithstanding, since change necessitates adding to or subtracting from, perfectness cannot, also by definition, change.

@AmorVincitOmnia Perfection also cannot exist. Perfection is always relative to a standard, and since people are so diverse that no common standard can be found, perfection is an elusive concept.

@FireMadeFlesh ”...it is all irrelevant unless that god exists.”

Well sure. But allow me to put forth for your consideration, that if indeed a God does exist, then it is perfectly natural for it to be that way.

You see, I don’t believe in the supernatural. So from my point of view, the existence of a God, and the powers that it would encompass, would be perfectly natural, if and only if, that being truly existed.

I don’t see the problem as being one of necessitating a belief in the supernatural. I see the problem as one of humanity’s ability and willingness to expand what the word natural is set to define. We’ve done this before by discovering the realities behind brainwaves, electromagnetism, solar eclipse’s… But for some reason we insist upon God and miraculous intervention as reserved for a mythical supernatural realm.

I truly suppose that God is nothing more than an extremely unimaginably advanced being that may be beyond the realm of our physical existence. A being inferred to exist by the evidence of smoking guns all around us. Exactly the same inference as science gives the benefit of the doubt to Dark Matter, Multiverse, and even Gravity for that matter. None of which can be physically proven to exist. Inference is a valid mechanism for allowing scientific progress. The undetectable is commonly inferred in the most stringent disciplines.

To my personal satisfaction, I feel there is enough evidence and precedent to infer the existence of a creator God like being. One that is beyond finite human notions of beginnings, ends, and first causes. There are numerous logical reasons to infer such a being, not the least of which is my rap about codes, the genetic code, and the necessity for original sentient authorship.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies That is fair enough, and truth be told is the most likely interpretation of the concept in my opinion. The supernatural does not exist, because ‘nature’ encompasses all that does exist. If there were such a being, it would be labelled supernatural until such time as we could account for its existence, at which point it would be labelled natural.

However I know of no theory (although they doubtless exist) that posits these other dimensions to be an alternative to ours rather than just in addition to. A being that existed in multiple dimensions would still be subject to our four, and therefore exists subject to time. This would mean that such a god must have evolved, since it cannot be the eternal god referred to in so many cultures. What would it have evolved from? Could it possibly be only a future direction for us to evolve towards?

@FireMadeFlesh I was speaking of God. But our (my) perception of perfectness is imperfect, necessarily so. And human comprehension of the concept of perfectness is elusive, true enough. However, simply because a concept may be thought of as such, does not mean it does not exist or “cannot exist”.

@FireMadeFlesh “A being that existed in multiple dimensions would still be subject to our four, and therefore exists subject to time.”

Not necessarily so. 4th Dimension 101

Perhaps Carl Sagan explains it better. Notice when he begins speaking of shadows. We cannot detect 4 dimensional realities in our 3D realm. But we can detect their “shadows”, so to speak.

In that light, consider this HyperCube Tesseract as a shadow of a 4th dimensional object that encompasses all possible configurations of a standard 3D cube. Obviously, to illustrate this, we must incorporate the notion of time in order for us to observe the phenomenon. But in the 4th dimension, it would be all possible configurations at once, sans time. Consider that all possible configurations are just as much of a HyperCube as any other configuration. So in effect, we in the 3D realm never actually witness the truest essence, the qualia, the quint-essential nature of what a Tesseract actually is.

But for a being that is beyond the constrictions of a space/time existence, that being beholds the truest essence of a thing, or a concept, for what it actually is whole unto itself, rather than the small slice of a time/clip frame that we as humans would observe it.

Imagine this object, as all shapes at once. The real object is all of these conditions, and not just one of them that seems to manifest at any one particular space/time coordinate.

Another simple example

These 3D objects are not reducible to any one configuration. I draw comparisons to these all possible conditions to the capacity to know of all possible conditions of Middle Knowledge.

Just a few things (among many) to consider.

@AmorVincitOmnia I believe that science has taught us enough about relativism for us to reject absolutism in abstract senses too. There is no absolute point of observation in any other realm, so I don’t see why it would exist for morality.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I’ll answer your points when I have the time to do so properly.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies While these are all very interesting (and I watched a few more on the fourth dimension while I was at it), it does not refute my point. Which ever 3D universe(s) this being’s 4D travels take it to, it is still subject to the laws of the three (or four, including time). It may be only partially in ours, but that part will be subject to our time.

The apple floating above flatland still has coordinates in the two dimensions that flatland has, but his third dimension coordinate takes the apple outside of it. A 4D being still has coordinated in reference to our three, even if its fourth dimension coordinate means it is not presently inhabiting our three. It still cannot escape time, any more than we can escape up/down and live on a piece of paper.

Our perception of it is the only thing that is “subject to the laws of the three”.

It is not of our realm. We should not hold its essence accountable to our realm.

The limitations are ours.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies nice bit of logic until you got to the smoking guns part. Evolution and natural selection can easily explain the complexity of genes and even the process in which they are added to the DNA string. In fact the DNA string indicates the connected of all of us down to the lowest bacteria. It also reflects the problem of “who created the creator?”

You seem to slip back into the Intelligent Design mode. For me, ID is just lazy science. When you can’t explain something, instead of exploring further, you just give up and say “God did it”.

Yes Ron, I am often accused of promoting ID by those who do not understand Information Theory.

I don’t accept ID in its commonly asserted incarnation. ID is, as you say, “lazy science”... and that’s being kind. I completely agree with you. But I’ll go so far to say that ID isn’t really science at all. It begs philosophy for assistance, and that just doesn’t count until there is hard empirical evidence to philosophize about.

My hypothesis is based upon Information Theory. There is nothing speculative about it at all.

My hypothesis rejects the supernatural, as noted above in my comments to @FireMadeFlesh…

“I don’t believe in the supernatural. So from my point of view, the existence of a God, and the powers that it would encompass, would be perfectly natural, if and only if, that being truly existed.”

“I truly suppose that God is nothing more than an extremely unimaginably advanced being that may be beyond the realm of our physical existence. A being inferred to exist by the evidence of smoking guns…”

Therefore, my hypothesis does not require a traditional God concept nor belief in the supernatural or miraculous intervention. How then will anyone claim that I “slip back into the Intelligent Design mode”?

@Ron_C suggests,
“Evolution and natural selection can easily explain the complexity of genes and even the process in which they are added to the DNA string.”

I agree with you completely, and have not suggested otherwise. If you think I waver, then you’ve missed my point. I’m not arguing against the “complexity of genes”... but I’d wager we differ in our perceptions of “how they are added to the DNA string”.

Genetics is an Information Science. It cannot be reduced to simple chemical reactions. If you do not accept this, then there is some major new science that you should be made aware of.

I never claim that “God just magically did it” any more than I would allow my Dog to claim that “My Master just magically fed me”. I suppose there are very good reasons/mechanisms behind our existence every bit as much as there are very good reasons/mechanisms behind how I opened the tin can and spooned it out for my dog.

But when you say, “Evolution and natural selection can easily explain the complexity of genes…”…

You’re leapfrogging over an extremely important issue. That being, Where did the Information come from to begin with? And if you don’t understand the foundational mechanisms behind Information Theory, then you should know that there has NEVER been a discovery to account for Information ever arising by chance… Never. Not once in 6,000 years of written language, or 30,000 years of spoken language.

And yet, in all that time, and upon noting that all Information is only detectable upon a code that adheres to Purlwitz, Burks and Waterman’s definition, and also noting that we have billions upon billions of hard empirical evidence to suggest that ALL CODES HAVE AUTHORS… then and only then, WE MUST infer Sentient Authorship as a valid mechanism behind the genesis of the genetic code.

Once the Information is input, then indeed it may reprogram itself based upon the interaction of external stimuli. Robotics, A.I., Computer Sciences will confirm this in spades… Yet in all cases, the functionality to reprogram is determined by a Sentient Author WHO instructed it to do so.

The Genetic Code was not assigned as a code. It was discovered to be one by Yockey and Gamov. You can read all about it on Google Books. Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life.

It will explain why DNA is not a pattern, not a template, and not a blueprint. It will also explain the extremely specific reasons why it was discovered as a Genuine Code that conforms to Purlwitz, Burks and Waterman’s definition of Probability space A mapped to probability space B.

does this sound like any Intelligent Design theory that you’ve ever considered before”

As I said, I don’t believe in I.D.

I believe in Intelligent Evolution. And only I.E. explains the mechanism behind ”...the process in which they are added to the DNA string.”

It is certainly not because of Random Mutations. Anyone who still believes in that antiquated pseudo science is putting a lot of faith in out dated dogmatic Neo Darwinism. There is new science upon us @Ron_C. And it is freeing us from the chains of hard dialectic Marxist Materialism… whether we like it or not.

Here’s a clue… Mutations are not random. They are quite controlled and specific.

The term “Random Mutation” is on its way to Extinction

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
“Therefore, my hypothesis does not require a traditional God concept nor belief in the supernatural or miraculous intervention.”

How do you suppose a sentient author came to exist, within our Universe, if not borne out of life-consciousness – a product of code – as every single other sentience ever observed has been?

You say theories based upon life-codes without sentient authorship are reliant upon the supernatural, I say theories based upon sentient authors without life-codes are equally reliant upon the supernatural.

What explanation can you give for the existence of this Sentient Author, that does not require “belief in the supernatural or miraculous intervention”?

You have two possibilities:
The Sentient Author was borne out of Chaos. (do you often listen to Whispering Streams?)
The Sentient Author ‘entered’ the Universe (if that’s not a miraculous intervention, Abiogenesis sure ain’t, neither.)

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies “It is not of our realm. We should not hold its essence accountable to our realm.”

That can only be true if it can separate itself from our dimensions to exist solely in the fourth. It is like saying we can choose to live in up/down, left/right and time only, and not be a part of forward/back. If we must live in all the dimensions available to us, surely the same would be true for a four dimensional entity?

@FireMadeFlesh @The_Idler

This is difficult to understand, challenging to accept, and nearly impossible to explain. I appreciate the opportunity to have my theories critiqued by others who find this subject as interesting as I do.

When discussing these issues, the problem we face is with the languages we have available to describe the theoretical phenomenon. We may in fact need new words to depict the notions before us. I ascribe to the belief that consciousness is limited to the degree of an entity’s descriptive tools, that being language. And in this case, our available language breaks down and fails miserably to depict this concept.

For instance…

If I claim that the AG (Alien God) does not reside within our realm, then that automatically leads us astray to suppose that the AG does reside somewhere else.

But that defeats the premise from the beginning, by assuming there is in fact a somewhere else. What I encourage you to consider with open mind, is the potential for somewhere else… to actually be nowhere.
__________________________________

The realm of AG is not a place in time.
__________________________________

Atheist and Theist alike may be suffering from the very same God Delusion. If the Atheist insists there is no potential for a traditional Theistic concept of God, then they should not automatically reject other concepts sans the white bearded man hurling lightning bolts from the clouds.
__________________________________

For lack of a better word, I offer the concept of ISness. Beyond time, beyond place, ISness depicts the state of a system that is beyond depiction, for it cannot be detected with physical tool sets.

But one clue, I hope you will agree, but one clue to the state of ISness, is the impossibility for human consciousness to conceive of nothingness. For even if we imagine within our minds a pure vacuum sans all energy and matter, we are still left with the vacuum as the very state of ISness that we might otherwise overlook as BE-ing.

We are forced to admit there is always Some Thing. But here, our language fails us once again, for the word “something” has been reserved to depict physical objects or concepts that are located at a specific space/time coordinate (within our realm of perception). What ”in the world” shall we call the Things that are NOT physical Things?

If only for the sake of discussion, try to conceive of an entity that is pure bodiless consciousness. A being Who’s consciousness is not dependent upon descriptive language tools because that being IS Language. That being IS Syntax. That being IS Pun. That being IS Semantics. That being IS pure quintessential Information sans codification.

It just so happens that for us to detect the AG, that we must Codify it into our realm. Yes that’s right. With every word from our mouths, we invite the AG into our physical realm. We manifest it into a physical reality locatable at a specific space/time coordinate. That’s the only mechanism available for us to detect it.

Consider that we, as humans, are the physical AI expression of a non physical AG. This AG simply IS. But saying that IT Was, or that IT Will Be, fails miserably at describing That which is Eternal.

We fool ourselves by attempting to describe Eternity with concepts of space/time. Eternity is beyond space/time. It’s not a really really big space, and it’s not a really really long time…

Eternal ISness does not fit into the box of space/time. It’s the other way around, space/time fits within Eternal ISness. And yet here again, our language breaks down to describe the phenomenon… For Eternal ISness is not a box to fit things within. Eternal ISness does not have a within, or a without… IT just IS.

and there is nothing miraculous or supernatural about that

An eternal conscious being that exists in no time or space, but at the same time is all time and space, which wasn’t borne out of information as all other observed consciousnesses were, yet which authored all known information in the Universe?

I’m trying really, really hard, but I can’t think of anything more supernatural than that.

Give me some other examples of such consciousnesses and I’ll accept your theory as more than the supernatural, hypothetical Black Swan, far more of a “leapfrog” than abiogenesis ever was, that it appears to be right now.

But Idler, if by chance, by some crazy unbelievable chance that it actually is that way…
then it’s perfectly natural for it to be that way…

…if and only if… it is that way, then it’s not supernatural.

The first step in accepting this premise is the hard swallow of acknowledging an immaterial realm, beyond our physical realm.

And if you can get there, then we must ask…
What can decay in an immaterial realm?

And if you can get there, then we must ask…
What can be borne in a realm that does not decay?

I propose the answer is: NOTHING… (no physical thing)
___________________

I did not claim that AG “is all time and space”

I claimed that AG is “Language”.

And I must retract.

When I say that AG is Language, I really need to qualify that statement.

To us, language is a physical tool used for expressing non physical thoughtful information. Language is a mechanism, a lens so to speak. A lens that allows us to interact with the immaterial realm of Information.

AG is actually the Pure Quintessential Information. It is the (non physical) structure of language.
________________________

Another place where you and I probably differ, I gather from our previous conversations, is that You believe that everything is information. Do I represent you correctly?

My position notes that Information is not everywhere or everything in the universe. My position holds that Information is the underlying essence of our codified descriptions of everything we observe.

Our description is Code… just like you see on this thread.

Our thought is Information… the part you cannot see because it is immaterial.

The code points to Information, but the code is not equal to Information. The code you see before you is not equal to my thoughts. This code only represents my thoughts.

_________________________________

And no, our individually authored Information is not the AG. It is merely our ability to become like the AG. Perhaps to form union with AG. We are authors ourselves, and since codified Information transcends space and time, it is not such a conceptual leap to consider that we as the authors of it may also do the same.

“But Idler, if by chance, by some crazy unbelievable chance that it actually is that way…
then it’s perfectly natural for it to be that way…”

But @RealEyesRealizeRealLies, if by chance, by some crazy unbelievable chance that it actually is that my left testicle created the entire Universe, spoke to Moses, turned Lot’s Wife into a pillar of salt, etc. etc…
then it’s perfectly natural for it to be that way…

it’s still “some crazy unbelievable chance”, because there are no such similar accounts or any observations past or present to suggest any plausible natural mechanism for such a happening, hence such theories being referred to as “super”-natural.

————————————————————

So let’s just confirm, you reckon that the root source of all information, and hence the root cause of all life, in the Universe, is an Alien God, the Sentient Author, a conscious Being of pure information that exists eternally in a state of unchanging, unchangeable ISness that actually contains/transcends all the space-time of the Universe?

And you think this is a more plausible explanation for Life than abiogenesis, because:
“noone ever heard of a Code without an Author”
&
“noone ever heard of Information borne out of Chaos”
...?

Well I think abiogenesis is a more plausible explanation for Life, because:
“noone ever heard of a consciousness that IS without an existence within space-time and a code upon which it is based”
&
“noone ever heard of a conscious Being of pure information that exists eternally in a state of unchanging, unchangeable ISness that actually contains/transcends all the space-time of the Universe… full stop.”

————————————————————

You’re saying it is absurd to accept the idea that DNA is an unauthored code, because no such thing has been observed in human history, and then you are suggesting that a more plausible idea is that it was authored by an eternal consciousness that exists without any creator or code upon which it is based, that somehow operates in our space-time, but does not exist there, and so has some kind of mechanism for transferring information across the boundary of the Universe.

I mean, abiogenesis sure is a Black Swan, but a Black Swan is something I can imagine.
Your idea is like a x-ray glowing Swan that is 1,000,000,000,000,000 times the size of the Universe but also in every atom but also nowhere and nowhen but also eternal and, well, you get the picture.

Whatever explanation anyone comes up with for Life, it is going to be a Black Swan, because there is only one observed instance thereof. So, it comes down to plausibility.

————————————————————

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I just prefer the idea of one “Code without an Author” to one “conscious Being of pure information that exists eternally in a state of unchanging, unchangeable ISness that actually contains/transcends all the space-time of the Universe, which is the root source of all information, and hence the root cause of all Life.”

Not that I’ve ever seen either, mind you.

There’s more to rejecting code arising by chance than simple lack of precedent. The mathematics is also against it. We now know the age and volume of the universe, and there just isn’t enough time or matter to allow it. It removes the plausibility of non authored code altogether… and it’s not even close to being possible. Thus believing such a thing is actually more mystical than believing in miracles. At least some claim to have witnessed miracles. No one has ever claimed to witness code arise by chance, proposed a mechanism for it to do so, or refuted the mathematics presented by Kittel and Kroermer.

Even if the observable universe were filled with monkeys typing for all time, their total probability to produce a single instance of Hamlet would still be less than one in 10^183,800. As Kittel and Kroemer put it, The probability of Hamlet is therefore zero in any operational sense of an event…(and)...gives a misleading conclusion about very, very large numbers.

There are only 10^80 number of particles in the entire universe. So you must understand the pure miracle of winning from odds of 10^183,800. It’s not even odds @The_Idler. It’s just flat out impossible.

Why would anyone choose to believe in the absolute impossible, especially when there is a probable and highly potential solution at hand? In the spirit of parsimony, original sentient authorship from a being that is beyond the physical realm must be considered with equal if not greater fervor than any other speculation. Science demands this of us.

Have you ever considered just how precise codified information actually is?

Type this phrase into Google and tell me what comes up as the one and only match…
“His “monkeys” are not actual monkeys”

A simple phrase, yet there is only one web page in existence with that exact match.

Even simpler, try typing “Tamron A3FH” and tell me if there is anything else on the entire web that leads you to believe that this could stand for anything other than a particular lens shade for a particular vintage lens.

Google would be out of business immediately if code could arise by chance.

Credit card companies would be out of business immediately if code could arise by chance.

SETI would be out of business immediately if code could arise by chance.

Genetic Forensics would be out of business immediately if code could arise by chance.

Encryption services and all of computer sciences would immediately cease to function if code could arise by chance.

Who’s asking for the miracle here? It is impossible.

What I present is not only possible, but highly probable.

Firstly, all your illustrations are null if code has arisen without sentient authorship perhaps 100 or 10 or 1 time(s) in the entire history of the universe.

Your argument here is like saying “All the credit card companies would be out of business if the sun expanded into a enormous, bloated red giant and engulfed the Earth.”
Well, yeah, but it’s probably only going to happen once in the entire history of the Universe.

——————————————

Secondly, who said the first self-replicating molecule would have exhibited anywhere near comparable complexity to “Hamlet”?

That would just be ridiculous õ.O

——————————————

Thirdly, theoretical mechanisms differ in probability, especially on scales such as these, essentially according to their simplicities.
Explain the simple mechanics behind the existence of this non-coded conscious being (never heard of one of them! what are the chances?) and then explain the simple mechanics of such a consciousness’ methods for causing information to traverse the boundary of the Universe/survive singularity.

Thusly, you will demonstrate the probability of such a system.

——————————————

Finally,
“original sentient authorship from a being that is beyond the physical realm must be considered…”
Oh, don’t worry, I’m considering. In fact, I have been, my whole life.

The most primitive life form is NanoArcheam (check spelling)... It’s DNA chain is 500,000 characters long. Hamlet is 180,000 characters. So I’m not really asking for much here.

Goog, CC companies, Encryption, all work with 12 characters and less… Still no random code. It just doesn’t happen. It’s more likely for a sun to explode.

My rap about ISness is as close to explaining AG as I can possibly fathom. Beyond my fondness for Info Theory, I’ve no idea how to test for such a being. All I can do is study Sentient Authors, and draw comparisons. It by no means suggests that the comparisons are valid. But it’s all I have to go on.

Keep in mind, that I have never found a code in the universe. Therefor I cannot claim that AG, or anyone else actually created the universe. There are only philosophical arguments for that, and that’s just not good enough.

Finally, let us both continue our consideration with an open mind. Perhaps one day, Theists and Atheists alike will recognize the dogma that they both suffer from, and find themselves closer to resolve, and closer to Truth.

Noone said the first instance of code was anywhere near the same degree of complexity as any present example of life.

That would be ridiculous.

Is that what you think abiogenesis proposes?

No of course not, but some viruses even have longer chains than NanoArcheam.

Abiogenesis supposes that simple replication is equatable, or somehow can lead to code authoring. That is incorrect, and it doesn’t come close to accounting for even the simplest of communication protocols that must accompany a simple code.

The problem gets bigger even if we had a natural code. How is it transmitted? What creates the receiver mechanism? Where does the second language come from to translate and manufacture into protein?

So let’s pretend that all of these mechanism might form in advance, by chance. But natural selection would never allow them to sit around and wait for the initial code to arise.

It seems, to me that you guys @RealEyesRealizeRealLies and @The_Idler are arguing that the code for humans or animals popped into existence. Dawkins argues that the process was gradual and selective. All that was necessary to start was the right combination of proteins that formed the basis for DNA. Viruses are known to cut and paste sections of genes to protect themselves and propagate. Viruses are as near as possible to non-living things yet the constantly evolve. You can see the evolution every flue season.

Every living creature on earth shares a DNA relation to all others. This would be expected if our common ancestor was a chance combination that evolved by natural selection and grafting one bit of information with the other.

Evolution and natural selection works very well without a creator. Even then, the question is what created the creator?

@Ron_C “All that was necessary to start was the right combination of proteins that formed the basis for DNA.”

That is equivalent to Code arising by Chance. And that’s exactly what I’m arguing against as there is absolutely NO precedent to support such a hypothesis. And the mathematics are stacked against it so much that it is considered impossible. Accepting that theory is like begging for a miracle. That would be quite supernatural indeed.

And it’s more than just needing a code to arise. We also need a full communications protocol with transmitter, receiver, syntax, semantics, redundancy and noise reduction to miraculously pop into existence as well.

Nothing has ever been demonstrated to allow for this. There is no precedent, and our modern lives are based around the fact that code does not and cannot arise by chance or accident.

But, it can indeed evolve, if and only if it is designed to do so by the original programmer. There is precedent for this in computer science, A.I., and robotics.

And, pseudogenes have been discovered to be legacy files. Primate olfactory genes have been discovered in our so called “junk dna”. But this fits the sentient author model better than neo darwinism. Every good programmer keeps a copy of his original files for reference, comparison, and security. Neo darwinism claims “use it or lose it”... So, why would our pseudogenes keep legacy information if it’s already been selected against?

not true code starts with a 1 and a 0. You get enough of them together and they start to mean something. I submit that code can be self replicating and add to itself not by writing itself but by adding fragments from other bits of code.

This information is organic, therefore it is not only digital it is analog so there are many more combinations available to the code and the readers.

The “junk” DNA is not a indicator of good coding practice (I never kept a copy of old, useless code., in a new program. The currently useless bits are exactly what you would expect to find in a naturally evolving DNA string.

The least important thing to organic code is security. The code actually benefits if others copy and change it around. There are no universal copyright laws.

@Ron_C “not true code starts with a 1 and a 0”

Code starts with a desire to codify. 1’s & 0’s are just a medium. The medium is NOT the message. The message comes from mind. The medium could literally be any object from drum beats, color, mercury heating, or dead dung gnats. The medium is irrelevant.

And no matter how many dead dung gnats randomly assemble in a stagnate pool, it will NEVER mean anything at all unless a Mind gives meaning to it.

@Ron_C “This information is organic, therefore it is not only digital it is analog…”

The Medium is organic. The information is not reducible to the medium that expresses it. Information is NOT a physical thing…

“Information is information. Not energy and not matter. Any materialism that does not allow for this cannot survive in the present day.”
Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics p147

@Ron_C ”...so there are many more combinations available to the code and the readers.”

Existence of multiple available mediums does not explain duplication without an established encoding/decoding mechanism. Without an encoding/decoding mechanism, a rock is just a rock and nothing more. It will never say anything unless a mind arranges it such to mean something and another mind agrees on the communication convention.

And you must see the irony in this. Claiming that code can arise by chance is literally claiming that mute nature can somehow speak. Code must say something meaningful. This unwittingly lends credence to mystical tales of talking trees, whispering streams, and burning bushes that give instructions to birth a violent nation.

Are you ready to turn science into a parody of the religious fanatic that it mocks?

@Ron_C “The currently useless bits are exactly what you would expect to find in a naturally evolving DNA string.”

Sans programmer, why should I expect Natural Selection to keep anything around that it doesn’t need any longer? That flies in the face of Evolutionary Theory. How could it keep it around if it didn’t select for it?

@Ron_C “The least important thing to organic code is security.”

Do you want anyone tampering with your DNA? Transcription is an extremely precise process, and it is this way to ensure that no code gets corrupted. When security does break down, it produces cancers, tumors, and all forms of abnormality.

@Ron_C “The code actually benefits if others copy and change it around.”

Depends on the change. There are two kinds. One change is copying error, and that never benefits the organism. The other change is Controlled Mutation, and precisely what Barbara McClintock, James Schapiro, and many other geneticists have discovered as the beneficial change. They demonstrate that the genome can sense danger, respond, and act accordingly. There is nothing accidental (or random) about it.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I think I can do a point by point rebuttal of your arguments but I am in the process of starting a trip to Mn. and a long project. I will have to get back to this very interesting thread in a day or two. I believe that you are wrong and am looking forward to discussing this.