Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

prospectmagazine.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 376 posts

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#151

Post by Retric »

figassis wrote: post #144
Retric wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really interesting how many assumptions get baked into beliefs like this. Existence had a beginning, it was formed by something, that thing didn’t need to be formed by anything, it’s existence doesn’t count as having existed before existence, that thing had the capacity to act, that things actions resulted in the reality we see today etc. Having convinced yourself of all of these things it then feels natural to…

I don’t think anyone is attributing any properties to God. God could just be a fundamental force like gravity. What parent comment is saying is whatever was the beginning, is God. Maybe there was no beginning, maybe time extends forever in both directions or loops on itself, or maybe some imbalance caused all this, but we just like to give things names that mean something.

I don’t see how you can think this without applying some properties to that first mover. Even when talking bout this you say “is God” or even gravity you’re assuming that it’s still around and wasn’t say destroyed in the process of creating the universe.

Which is kind of my point. Even just the word “is” is quite a large assumption that is easy to overlook. I think it’s an outgrowth of saying some thing created existence rather than saying some event created existence.

Edit: Even thinking in terms of assumptions it’s hard to list them all. We think of time as a linear progression which naturally suggests a first action. But set that aside and really strange possibilities show up. What if the universe was created at the end by something that’s yet to exist and time flowed backwards from that event? Now it’s last action that created existence. Or even in the middle with a positive time universe moving forward and a negative time universe moving backwards. Or…

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#152

Post by lostmsu »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #129
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #59

I'll try to state the thought more simply. "God" is a name we assign to the force behind the original, unexplained creation. Presently that would be the force behind the origin of this amazing universe, light, space. Maybe we push that envelope further in the future, but the boundary always exists. In our understanding there always is a 'first'. We have only the vaguest idea in a cosmic sense how that first came to b…

> cuz "nothing" sure didn't make the universe. How do you know?

How does he even know universe had a "make" point? Or that it had only one past?

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#153

Post by datavirtue »

toolz wrote: post #55
darkerside wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Only one small part of your brain finds that idea ridiculous.

Do you have intimate relationships with rocks? and if so can you describe what that relationship is like? Does your conscious self acknowledge this relationship or are you just speaking in some metaphysical sense that is completely intangible?

Can someone define "intimate relationship" so that we know what we are arguing about?

I have an intimate relationship with kaolinite, silica, bentonite, and feldspar. I could go on and on.

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#154

Post by Osiris »

The biggest problem with using the English word "God" is it is loaded with assumptions, beliefs, and huge variability from one person to another.

Just uttering the word "God" to someone will create an entirely different mental image for that person than for you (despite similarities or differences of life experience and belief).

Thus, any discussion about God starts from the beginning with a huge gulf between the parties involved.

You can see it right here in this thread and the way people are responding to the use of the word God.

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#155

Post by rsj_hn »

gmfawcett wrote: post #127
rsj_hn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The belief that one's deity chose to assume the physical form of a man: isn't that about as anthropomorphic as you can get? In my opinion, no. Anthropomorphism (as commonly understood) means to ascribe human characteristics to things not human; we don't talk about anthropomorphizing your grandma, but we do talk about anthropomorphizing a constellation. Now if you believe, like the Rawlsians suggest, that there are…

That's an interesting point of view. Thank you for sharing a well reasoned argument.

My pleasure - it's an interesting question!

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#156

Post by theroncross »

Retric wrote: post #151
figassis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone is attributing any properties to God. God could just be a fundamental force like gravity. What parent comment is saying is whatever was the beginning, is God. Maybe there was no beginning, maybe time extends forever in both directions or loops on itself, or maybe some imbalance caused all this, but we just like to give things names that mean something.

I don’t see how you can think this without applying some properties to that first mover. Even when talking bout this you say “is God” or even gravity you’re assuming that it’s still around and wasn’t say destroyed in the process of creating the universe. Which is kind of my point. Even just the word “is” is quite a large assumption that is easy to overlook. I think it’s an outgrowth of saying some thing created exist…

This. There's a reason the number 0 was only invented a couple of times. Human minds don't do well with the idea of nothing. It's not that there was nothing here - it's that there was no here.

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#157

Post by theroncross »

titzer wrote: post #66
EMM_386 wrote: post #4

I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself.

> the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself. Yes, thank you for stating what some might consider a tautology or frivolous fact, but is actually, utterly profound. Generally, people have no trouble believing that they, themselves are conscious. But what part of them is conscious? All of it? Their toes and fingers? Clearly not...they are mechanical, I/O device…

How do you know your liver isn't conscious?

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#158

Post by theroncross »

mmarq wrote: post #79

My pet theory in high school was that Spinoza lived in a time when being an atheist could get you arrested and killed, so he came up with this Deus sive natura thing, which is a good cover and in practice is not too far from atheism.

The difference between that and atheism is using a capital G.

Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

#159

Post by 50 »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #59

I'll try to state the thought more simply. "God" is a name we assign to the force behind the original, unexplained creation. Presently that would be the force behind the origin of this amazing universe, light, space. Maybe we push that envelope further in the future, but the boundary always exists. In our understanding there always is a 'first'. We have only the vaguest idea in a cosmic sense how that first came to b…

Reminds me: For a while now, I've been thinking about apophatic theology, also known as negative theology[1]. Particularly in the sermons by Meister Eckhart, the German theologian and Christian neoplatonist[2].

I wonder about the connection of apophaticism, found in Christian neoplatonism, and nondualism, found in Advaita Vedanta.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology

2. https://cac.org/meister-eckhart-part-ii-2015-07-16/

Post reply on HN