Live data from Hacker News

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

prospectmagazine.co.uk

361–370 of 376 posts

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

#361
post #224
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature in South America's jungles, the Arctic, or Australia doesn't give a shit if you live or not. You have better chances of dyeing fast than being alive. You know, still nature. Harsh, but nature. Stack plagues, bacteria-ridden water, parasites, funghi, predators and so on, and I'd say "nature" doesn't like you at all.

Hell, a hundred people walking by a homeless guy don't give a fuck if he lives or dies. Humans are on the same level as any other bunch of atoms to nature.

I think it is more complex than that. People can 100% care about the person in the street while still choosing not to help. They might believe that the person is insane and can’t be helped, they might believe that helping encourages the person to not self-help, or they simply prefer to spend their time/energy on people they love instead of strangers.

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

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always a red flag when someone thinks they know what point I'm making better than I do.

I haven’t assumed you’ve made it, I’ve asked you what it is. That you can’t detect that from my plain language is concerning as to your capacity to parse my sentences. But if that is what you’ve concluded, why don’t you make your point then, as opposed to jumping around it as though you’ve stated it (which you haven’t) or assuming it’s blindingly obvious (which it isn’t?) it’s a red flag when someone has the arroganc…

*

1 point by seigando 1 day ago [–]

My point is that when you pair a certain perception with a certain experience, it's possible for things to seem one way or the other.

Some people are very stuck in their perceptions.

reply

robbiep 1 day ago [–]

That’s not the point you’re making,

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well things happening the same way everywhere is a sort of medium with rules.

Although, some would argue the universe would cease to exist without humans to observe it (and initiate collapse :))

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

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd agree with you if somewhere down the line the, let's call it, character of Jesus was introduced as the personification of God's ideals in a human being.

Suddenly we could move away from the "fear based framework" to the "strive to be closer to the idea of God" framework since we had someone to emulate.

In fact we can arguably say that God gave us complete freedom, and full responsibility since he died on a cross (and in that process He even doubted himself) left us with a role model.

>why it makes sense to do the right thing.

This seems like a trivial task but it's not. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't make any sense at all.

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

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't all gods unfalsifiable? And I'd be interested in reasoning behind the God-natural evil argument? I imagine a few Christian Theologians have found a way around it by now.

> Aren't all gods unfalsifiable? No, that is exactly counter to the point the person you were replying to was making. Amorphous, fluffy definitions of god can be unfalsifiable. But if you declare detailed attributes of your god, they can be in contradiction and thus the claims about that god are falsifiable. But in practice, people are terrific at rationalizing and will overlook all those contradiction and continue t…

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense that Gods can be falsifiable the same way a good scientific theory is.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well things happening the same way everywhere is a sort of medium with rules. Although, some would argue the universe would cease to exist without humans to observe it (and initiate collapse :))

We don’t know if things happen the same way everywhere. We also don’t even know what “everywhere” is. However we have mental models/laws that seems to approximate what our senses tell us in certain limited contexts. That makes the models useful.

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

#367
post #296
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a statement like this cannot be made without first giving a definition of God. Clearly, people have different ideas of what God is. So either you are saying there is no evidence for one particular definition of God, but you are not giving us the definition or you are saying there is no evidence for any of the different definitions of God that might exist. The latter is a difficult argument to make in my…

>So either you are saying there is no evidence for one particular definition of God, but you are not giving us the definition or you are saying there is no evidence for any of the different definitions of God that might exist Russel's teapot.

I don't think this is an example of Russel's teapot. In Russel's teapot, you are giving a solid explanation of what you are claiming, it just happens to be unfalsifiable.

In the example I was criticizing, the word "God" was used without any further explanation of its meaning (in a thread which hosts discussions on different definitions of the word "God" no less).

Of course, if you are a priori assuming that any definition of God is going to be unfalsifiable, you can draw the connection to Russel's teapot, but again, I don't think you can convincingly do this without knowing all the definitions.

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

#368
post #9

>For one thing, it manages to create a profound metaphysical intimacy with God without denying His transcendence. this kind of thinking which I often see when people express pantheistic views is exactly what turns me away from it. It's just as much of an anthropomorphization as the article accuses traditional conceptions of God of. I guess you can think that the universe is in some vague sense conscious, although I d…

There's a tiny part of your brain called the Ego that thinks it is human and special. The rest of your brain knows you are just part of the universe. Inextricably so, from before birth to after death. One and the same, like a drop of water returning to the ocean. What could be more intimate than that?

Have you seen midnight mass? The protaganist from that movie in the final scene, says something along those lines... as she herself is dying. She was asked earlier in the movie: "What happens when we die"... and iirc she gave a more christian-themed notion as she herself was very religious, but you can see her shift from the dogma of catholicism to one more pantheistic.

When the memory of Riley asks her what happens when we die she responds:

“Speaking for myself? Myself. My self. That’s the problem. That’s the whole problem with the whole thing. That word: self. That’s not the word, that’s not right, that isn’t — that isn’t. How did I forget that? When did I forget that? The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons. Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside, and I thought I’d despair or feel afraid, but I don’t feel any of that. None of it. Because I’m too busy. I’m too busy in this moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body, is mostly just empty space after all, and solid matter?

It’s just energy vibrating very slowly and there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I’m no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy. Not memory. Not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me. I was before them and I will be after, and everything else is pictures picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain.

And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy fighting the neurons. And I’m returning. Just by remembering, I’m returning home. It’s like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it’s always been a part. All things, a part. All of us, a part. You, me, and my little girl, and my mother, and my father, everyone who’s ever been. Every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach.

That’s what we’re talking about when we say God. The one. The cosmos, and its infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It’s simply a dream that I think is my life, every time. But I’ll forget this. I always do. I always forget my dreams. But now, in this split second, in the moment I remember, the instant I remember, I comprehend everything at once. There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It’s a wish. Made again and again and again and again and again and again and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that I am.”

This monologue gave (continues to give me goosebumps)... I'm exmormon/agnostic, but still inspired and have some spirituality...I believe there's something bigger and better and our 'energy' continues on in some respect, or we're at least in a simulation and maybe will respawn and get another chance to get life 'right'.. either way, I think death isn't the end, and this was just a very beautiful way to think of it...

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

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at your kitchen sink. On that metal lives a billion bacteria cells. Maybe some of them are even sentient. Do you even care to find out? Not really - its far beneath you. Humans are infinitely inferior to a god. We are no different to a moving rock.

a sentient bacteria? How would that work? Does the bacteria have a huge brain so that sentience can emerge from it?

The entire universe we know could be but a single neuron firing in a huge brain of something much much bigger... and they don't even realize we exist...so size is very... relative/immaterial to sentience...we could be the sentient bacteria.

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well things happening the same way everywhere is a sort of medium with rules. Although, some would argue the universe would cease to exist without humans to observe it (and initiate collapse :))

We don’t know if things happen the same way everywhere. We also don’t even know what “everywhere” is. However we have mental models/laws that seems to approximate what our senses tell us in certain limited contexts. That makes the models useful.

True, we don’t agree on what everywhere means. I guess I was confining myself to the observable limits of spacetime. Outside of that, who knows :)
Post reply on HN