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

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

#351

Post by wruza »

toolz wrote: post #340
darkerside wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see why you're offended now. It was not my intention. I don't think I can describe it in words. Like I said, our egos stop us from taking the idea too seriously, perhaps out of a survival instinct. There are some drugs that will cause "ego death". The part of your brain that distinguishes between the self and the other literally ceases to function. It sounds metaphysical and silly, but when it happens, you understa…

I've tried basically every ego-death drug that exists (or that I'm aware of) and I've still not felt the need to assert to people that they have a non-functioning part of their brain they aren't using to understand "intimacy" with inanimate objects. I've had intimacy with a lover because the lover is participating in the intimacy. I've never had it with an instrument, I have felt it with a musician. Again, intimacy r…

I did no ego-death drugs, but I definitely can feel how the complexity of things I interact with reacts to my changes and approaches. It is animate, and intimate to my understanding of that word (I can’t even describe it to the others). One may say thay it’s all in my head, and in a sense would be right, but it’s all in your head as well. Were you a rock, you couldn’t feel it. Were your lovers p-zombies, you couldn’t tell it. But on the other hand, despite having relationships in my life, I can’t tell that they were more intimate than that, so that I could somehow choose one over another if asked to. Maybe I cannot feel intimacy it at all? Another possibility is that neither of us are wrong, stumbling on a definition of a rock. Any phenomenon is complex enough when you dig deeper, and the complexity is never inanimate, it interacts back.

Also, I too didn’t want to sound condescending or superior, and more importantly do not feel that way, but I understand the initial comment you replied to. One issue with this subthread is it never defined rocks or intimacy, which I tried to explore but then left.

it's an active relationship where both parties involved do something to foster or maintain the intimacy

Both yes and no. At wake up in the morning level, it is correct, but when you get into something deep/high enough, lines start to blur. Is a human the most complex being? Is he really what we think it is? Are we objects and not parts of something more sophisticated as a whole? Being non-religious non-esoteric I’m not speaking sprirituals here, these are physical questions you have to ask yourself anyway. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28870858

Edit: and if you feel that these comments are quite delusional, it’s fine, because problems of consciousness (which intimacy fully bases on) live exactly on that level. The more you think about it, the less ground you feel.

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

#352

Post by simondotau »

bytelines wrote: post #350
simondotau wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words don't exist only to "contribute to the argument" but also to summarise, to express emotions, as rhetorical flourishes, or simply to amuse. In this case, the last sentence is the conclusion of my argument. If you disagree, well, you disagree with my argument. And with that you've just demonstrated my point. By focusing on an aesthetic component of my rhetoric rather than the substantive, you have chosen to steer…

Your argument is ill conceived, pedantic, and seeks desperately to justify previous positions. But you are not someone who makes ill conceived, pedantic, or desperate arguments to save face. That would be nonsense. It does not follow. Don't be so quick to tie your identity to the pedantic arguments you've made.

* be kind

* do not sneer

* do not call names

* respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize

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

#353

Post by simondotau »

bytelines wrote: post #349
simondotau wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Straw man arguments are a fallacy, not a "rhetorical device". It's an error we're all prone to doing at some point, unintentionally. I would argue that it's only unethical if it's done intentionally—and while you can guess at someone's intention, knowing is usually impossible. So unless you can literally read minds, only the author can truly know if they were being unethical or not.

> Straw man arguments are a fallacy, not a "rhetorical device" They're both? But agree with everything else

It is not both. Only a fallacy. A straw man is an attribute of an argument which is completely independent from the language used to convey it.

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

#354

Post by achillesheels »

tomrod wrote: post #319
achillesheels wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sir, we are experiencing light through our senses when we touch the ground. Are you familiar with how our bodies sample piezoelectrically?

Piezoelectricity is not photons. It may generate photons, but is not created by photons.

And isn’t this generation the only photons that we can experience in the mind with the brain?

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

#355

Post by mrkramer »

Retric wrote: post #128
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…

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…

>Existence had a beginning, it was formed by something, that thing didn’t need to be formed by anything

Energy can not be created out of nothing so something had to exist before "existence". My assumption is that every universe collapses and then new universe emerges through something like Big Bang.

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

#357

Post by mbrodersen »

3pt14159 wrote: post #276
kmmlng wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, this line of thought seems compatible with the description of God in the bible to me. If you put aside all your preconceived notions of some dude in the sky and simply read the bible for what it is, you'll find things like "I am what I am", "I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end", etc. The Cristian God is called the Father. And what is a father but a source? The first link in a causal…

I generally don't like discussing religion on HN, so apologies if I decline to respond to a reply, but the description of God in the Bible doesn't really fit with Spinoza's God for the mere fact that evil is wholly set apart. It exists within demons and humans but it does not exist within God. The logic of an entity with infinite attributes being God is true, but just as the natural numbers are infinite but do not co…

I am not religious however I find religion fascinating because it clearly has had a massive impact on the history and evolution of humankind. Understanding why that is the case (independently of whether you believe in a God or not) makes it something worth discussing I think. Unless of course the discussion diverges into a “here is proof that what I believe is true” argument which is a waste of time.

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

#358

Post by mbrodersen »

libertine wrote: post #317
Claude_Shannon wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defence, that is not the idea of God many people would grow up with. I'm a Pole, even during "religion" classes or in church during preparation to baptism, the idea of God they would try to show us WAS the "man in the clouds" one, not philosophical one.

You're baptized while you're a child, and the use of tales and short stories is pretty common for plenty of subjects when ever you want to teach children. The main idea is to pass down moral values. I can't speak for others but I find it very hard for people to hold on to the literal content of the bible with today's education. Some might believe in the man in the sky, others might stand by just doing what they think…

> The main idea is to pass down moral values.

I am not sure that is true. You can absolutely pass down moral values without involving a God. That is what happened to me. It seems to me that the goal of a lot of religious teaching is to use a bogeyman (God) to scare little children into doing what you want instead of teaching the children why it makes sense to do the right thing.

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

#359

Post by mbrodersen »

anomosmarxist wrote: post #232
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…

here is a quote: "from the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways-that is, all things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect"

What is the meaning of no meaning?

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

#360

Post by mbrodersen »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #328
jl6 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a mathematical model and doesn’t necessarily reflect the physical universe, similar to how a perfect sphere doesn’t necessarily reflect the shape of the Earth.

You allude to a physical universe which has some properties though (laws).

“Laws” are human constructs. Mental models of how we think the universe works. Models might be useful but they are not reality.
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