This is my favourite way to put it.

If there is/was any sort of creator, the chances of it having any relation to the comic book anti-heroes featured in religion is as close to zero as makes no difference.

We have no way of learning anything about it, if it exists. Until we do, it's irrelevant.

(July 23, 2015 at 11:39 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: That physical reality exists (is really real) is a premise, not a conclusion. It's a brute fact which one can accept but not prove.

It's an extremely convincing premise, in that it seems to be built into us from birth. But one thing we forget is that well everything we perceive, at least beyond thoughts, is external and apparently objectively real, there is nothing, ever, that has been perceived without mind. There's nothing in the universe that we know exists without having consciously perceived its existence, or at least having had the experience of having it reported to us by someone/something else.

100% seems non-trivial enough to me to allow that mind might be intrinsic to the makeup of the universe. And if so, then either the universe itself or whatever quantity or entity that made the universe could also be mindful-- and that would be reasonably called a god.

(July 23, 2015 at 11:39 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: That physical reality exists (is really real) is a premise, not a conclusion. It's a brute fact which one can accept but not prove. We can't know we're not immaterial minds baking in an illusion of physical reality.

I do realize that and apparently I did not make it clear enough when I said physical reality or the 'appearance' of physical reality.

(July 23, 2015 at 2:22 am)robvalue Wrote: Yeah There are a few little errors. It would be interesting to see if any theists have learned enough to be able to spot them. Let's see if they have!

I hope you don't consider it rude IATIA? I'm not making fun of you, just responding to ignor's idea. It gives the theists a chance to interact in a non-preachy way.

Absolutely not, that is what discussion is all about.

Gotta go, still at work.

(July 23, 2015 at 10:32 am)mh.brewer Wrote: Help me out here. I though that there was (at least at one time) a religious sect that believed something similar to the statement. What we experience now on earth is the dream/fantasy and reality begins after death. I could be wrong.

I do not recall which one that was. It is not a mainstream view and it seldom pops up. There is probably a religion for any line of thought.

(July 23, 2015 at 2:02 am)bennyboy Wrote: What IS physical reality, actually?  It is the relationship among properties of things, and those properties are related in consistent and reliable ways.  In fact, as far as we know, we don't even need the things-- because we only interface with physical reality through properties.  So the universe is a kind of arena in which a set of principles and properties interact through time.

If I were a god with a lot of free time on my hands, then that's just the kind of thing I'd do.

(my bold)

That is only because you are thinking like a human and not a god.

As to what reality really is, I have no better idea than any other. It could be 'real' or it could just simply seem 'real'. The point, however, is that this 'reality' would be beneath any god and certainly superfluous at best.

A god would have knowledge beyond anything I could even imagine, let alone comprehend. The knowledge of a god would make the comprehension of infinity simple child's play. Why would it be necessary to create these physical attributes of our present existence when a god could do so much more. Even if, as you say, this god just wanted to create some toys to fuck with, would not a real god be able to do this on a scale beyond our present comprehension?

This reality that we perceive is so beneath the powers of a god that I cannot imagine one that would even bother.

(July 23, 2015 at 11:39 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: That physical reality exists (is really real) is a premise, not a conclusion. It's a brute fact which one can accept but not prove. We can't know we're not immaterial minds baking in an illusion of physical reality.

I understand the philosophical point being made, but it's meaningless for the same reason everyone ducks when something is hurled at their face. Even if we knew we were immaterial minds and that physical reality was an illusion we would still have to navigate it as if it were not an illusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0zjorR68A

(July 23, 2015 at 6:27 pm)IATIA Wrote: That is only because you are thinking like a human and not a god.

As to what reality really is, I have no better idea than any other.  It could be 'real' or it could just simply seem 'real'.  The point, however, is that this 'reality' would be beneath any god and certainly superfluous at best.

A god would have knowledge beyond anything I could even imagine, let alone comprehend.  The knowledge of a god would make the comprehension of infinity simple child's play.  Why would it be necessary to create these physical attributes of our present existence when a god could do so much more.  Even if, as you say, this god just wanted to create some toys to fuck with, would not a real god be able to do this on a scale beyond our present comprehension?

This reality that we perceive is so beneath the powers of a god that I cannot imagine one that would even bother.

Yeah, it's probably moot anyway. Even if such a god existed, to US, it would probably just look like nature. My main philosophical issue, which persists across threads, is that the existence of mind is suspicious to me in a physicalist worldview. It seems to many that there is mind in very few places, and this makes it almost infinitely likely that the universe was created (if it was created) by a non-mental process. However, I see the other side of the coin, too: everything any person has ever known required perception by a mind-- literally 100%, by definition, since that's what "know" means; so it seems to me a reasonable candidate for reality (i.e. a good guess) that the universe could have been created by a mindful entity or quantity.

(July 23, 2015 at 6:58 pm)bennyboy Wrote: However, I see the other side of the coin, too: everything any person has ever known required perception by a mind-- literally 100%, by definition, since that's what "know" means; so it seems to me a reasonable candidate for reality (i.e. a good guess) that the universe could have been created by a mindful entity or quantity.

A single cell 'knows' the difference between food and not. Time has the advantage of trying everything. The rest is simply evolution. Evolution is simply the product of what works. No intelligence needed for creation.

(July 23, 2015 at 11:39 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: That physical reality exists (is really real) is a premise, not a conclusion. It's a brute fact which one can accept but not prove. We can't know we're not immaterial minds baking in an illusion of physical reality.

I may have already responded to this statement, so just call me Randy ... Uhh ... Redundant.

Anyway, I do not profess to know anything about what 'real' reality is, except that we are technically 'brains-in-a-vat' and can never know. However, we do need some common ground for discussion.

Mister Agenda Wrote:Also, the argument presumes understanding of what such a being would want or do.

I agree wholeheartedly, but one has to assume that a god would be so far beyond our comprehension that our 'reality' is too simplistic for such a being. Then there is always the, "Why would a god want in the first place" argument, but that is not what this thread is about.

Mister Agenda Wrote:The odds that your conclusion is wrong are pretty slim though, in my estimation.

Thank you.