Why not? I can draw a direct line from me to the Big Bang moment. Puts me as much at the center of the universe as it does anyone else. I though you were into cosmology?
Why not? Can you explain. Please be specific
I dare you to come up with something more fundamental.
You still haven’t done a very good job of defining that this non-relative infinitude.
I’m just a simple citizen so I’m left to gathering information via google. Have you ever tried googling “non-relative infinitude”, see what you find. Endless drivel about Absolute and Relative Infinity and what god has to say about it, but god is a product of the human mindscape, so it’s pretty meaningless in the context they’re playing at.
Relative infinity, therefore, is for anything which can be apprehended as a kind of infinity, as something which can be shown to have no end in a particular form of measurement, which nonetheless is closed in an itself and so has a limit as to what it contains. When speaking of something as being finite, then, the notion is that it has a limit. It does not mean it is something which cannot be shown to contain some notion of unlimited measure, that is, some form of relative infinity. When speaking of the absolute and its infinitude, this infinitude must not be seen as the same as the relative infinity of something which is limited, but as something which has no limit in any positive conceivable fashion. When some philosophers and theologians say that only God is being infinite, what they mean is that only God is said to be this absolute infinitude. Yada, yada, yade.
This is an example of what I call getting lost within one’s own mindscape.
So it’s your turn, how would you describe your “non-relative infinitude” and what does it have to do with our actual lives as they unfold day to day?
I’m glad you stated that this is the conversation that hasn’t happened. I think I’ve been saying that since it started up again this year. There is no implication that will dawn on me to get it going. There is nothing on the table. As Dan Barker said, he threw out the bath water (of religion) and found there was no baby.
Nothing. There is nothing wrong with asking someone to define their terms using terms that are defined.
You can neither agree or disagree with what you have not yet understood. Am I right?
You are annoyed that I’m always telling you that you have not understood. What else should I be doing? Certainly not run off on unrelated tangents. What would that serve?
Now we have citizenschallengev4’s litany of ridicule, over my use of “non-relative infinitude” to provide an example of someone else’s version of “Yada, yada, yade”. Perhaps now you will see it from my perspective.
In the mean time I’ll make another pass at triangulating on the mystery of Reality-as-it-actually-is.
Non-Relative Infinitude being the absolute Singularity of all phenomena and the potential for phenomena. No inside or outside, i.e. Nothing and everything.
The relative infinities are sets and subsets of each other. All emergent qualities of the Whole. (i.e. non-relative infinitude)
The Whole is not the physical universe divorced from consciousness. Our sentience and cogitation are as much expressions of universal law as time and space. It is we who make distinctions and categorize. None of which has a greater or lesser degree of existential significance than gravity or electromagnetism.
Consciousness is something that the Universe does.
In the context of Reality’s non-relative infinitude, all phenomena are in co-arising in synchronistic interdependence. The Whole being greater than the sum of its parts. (and in this case “greater” means boundless to the Nth degree)
“annoyed” is not quite the right word. I don’t mind not understanding you, I mind that you are so certain that what you are saying is understandable. And I don’t think we are responding with ridicule, rather comparing to what we do know of similar treatises.
You didn’t compare yourself to Spinoza, so I’ll follow the word “singularity” over to Teilhard de Chardin. Philosophy builds on earlier philosophy, moved along by scientific discovery. Philosophers that move human thought forward compare themselves to their predecessors and peers. As Medawar points out in the link, Chardin writes philosophy-fiction.
This, lack of comparing, of putting their ideas in the context of other ideas, is a common error of those who believe they have invented some form of worldview when they didn’t. They absorbed the world around them and may have even came up with something unique, but don’t ask if that uniqueness is simply a rearrangement of words? Are those words so similar to earlier versions of how humans thought of themselves, that they can be critiqued in the same way more recent critiques have? Critiques that build on observations and confirmed conclusions that didn’t exist before.
Chardin speaks of science in similar terms as brmckay, as Medawar summarizes Chardin sarcastically, “Scientists have not been able to spot it, for they are shallow superficial fellows, unable to see into the inwardness of things.”
This critique of Chardin is a classic, and it was worth it to review.
If we adhere to the notion that the BB is not a result of “irreducible complexity”, the beginning must have been a infinitesmall singularity emerging from nothingness.
citizenchallengev4 - "Like the non-relative singularity before the Big Bang?"
That would be like the relative infinities, since there is a before and an after. All states included is the definition of Totality. So Totality’s nature is non-relative infinitude.
If there are multiple universes and multiple Big Bangs, Reality is all of it. All distinctions between this and that, Reality is all of it.
And most all of it is beyond our reach. Assumptions built upon assumptions built upon evidence and speculation, built upon philosophical foundation. Unfortunately that philosophical foundation was the religiosity of the Abraham mindset, which is absolutely focused on egotistical human needs - so much so they’re convinced everything is here for specifically for us and are consequently rather blind to what’s in front of our faces.
Oh, and incidentally, this can more easily (realistically) be defined simply as Physical Reality.
What does this “non-relative singularity” have to offer a regular person trying to make sense of their existence? Beyond an impressive sound phrase that requires mathematical genius to play with?
For that matter what does Write’s Math as God, have to offer a simple person trying to make sense of their place in an incomprehensible universe?
I think the basic difference between my approach and others is that it’s our human understanding, appreciation, philosophical foundation that I’m focused on, and not in finding an ultimate answer to the Universe or GOD, in whatever guise one fancies.
I tried working through your triangulating, and it brought together your terms better than most of your posts, but there too many problems with it. We could talk about them all day, and find some agreement in some areas, but when your reasoning goes off the rails, it really flies. I think what this comes down to is the difference between trying to reconcile religion to science, and trying to find spirituality using science. Whatever influence mythology, meditation, and all the other musings of people once had on finding truth, well, that’s past. It has been usurped.
The methods of sharing knowledge, being open to letting the world show you what it is, did not leave spirituality behind, however. A new word might be in order, but I’ll use that one. Science has a lot to say about “no time”, origins, connectedness, feelings driving thoughts, and lots of other non-material things. It also knows what it doesn’t know, something I find much easier to engage with than anything defined as ‘absolute”.
I guess you put me in the “relative infinities” section. But I tried to imagine a model of your three points and there was too much cross-over, too much of one thing being needed to define the other. Just a couple points of mine; I never said the physical is divorced from consciousness, of course it’s we who make distinctions, but the Universe doesn’t “do” consciousness.
Your final point, that the whole is greater to the Nth degree, implies something that is possibly our biggest divergence. It implies you know something about this Whole, or maybe CAN know. I accept that there is more to reality than I will know in this lifetime. It’s nice to think I’m wrong about that, but odds are against it.
[quote=“brmckay, post:274, topic:4333”]
That would be like the relative infinities, since there is a before and an after. All states included is the definition of Totality. So Totality’s nature is non-relative infinitude.
And that would be David Bohm’s “Wholeness”
If there are multiple universes and multiple Big Bangs, Reality is all of it. All distinctions between this and that, Reality is all of it.
In recent years, Bohm attempted to explain an ontological basis for quantum theory. The basis of quantum theory can be summarized in three propositions:
1.) In the subatomic world, few things can be predicted with 100 percent precision; however, accurate predictions can be made about the probability of any particular outcome.
2.) One has to work with the probabilities rather than certainties, because it is impossible (for an observer) to describe all aspects of a particle at once (speed and location).
3.) Electromagnetic energy (such as light or heat) does not always behave like a continuous wave–rather it is grainy, because energy can be transferred only in quantum packages. Therefore, light has a dual character. Under certain circumstances, it may display wavelike aspects; and in other circumstances, it may have the characteristics of particles.
Referring to quantum theory, Bohm’s basic assumption is that “elementary particles are actually systems of extremely complicated internal structure, acting essentially as amplifiers of information contained in a quantum wave.” As a conseqence, he has evolved a new and controversial theory of the universe–a new model of reality that Bohm calls the “Implicate Order.”
I’m curious how does the quantum reality inform us about our human condition or living constructive fulfilling lives, within a complex biosphere and society that exists in the middle ground realm of matter, as we experience it?
It allows us to predict with some measure of certainty that the addition of 2 + 2 will in fact result in a sum of 4.
4 is implied in the function of 2 plus 2.
It allows for the calculation by exponential function.
A mountain lake has an implied use for energy generation via kinetic gravity force.
I though you were into cosmology?