RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 19, 2011 at 7:37 am
(This post was last modified: July 19, 2011 at 8:18 am by Anomalocaris.)
The fact that a certain trait is used to evaluate an entity, like mass, doesn't mean it's not quantifiable. You may say whether some thing is heavy or light, massive or insubstantial, but that does not change the fact it is 53 grames. It is true that trait depends on perception, but that does not change it's quantifiability. No matter how fickle perception might be, all the fundamental factors governing perception, from the mass of the entity in the example above, to the gravity that allows you to perceive the mass as weights, to the neurological state which caused you to regard that weight as light, are in principle quantifiable. Complexity of a thing can be quantified by many different ways. Some example includes the theoretical minimum amount of data required to predict the behavior of the thing to a given degree of precision.
The amount of data required to predict the behavior of the entire universe, or "Entire creation" as Christians would yokelishly put it, is potentially vast but finite by understanding of modern physics. The fact that physical universe might be infinite does not necessarily make the amount of data required to predict all arbitrary parts of it infinite as well. So long as there is ultimately an consistent set of rules governing it's behavior, a finite set of description of the rules would suffice to describe an infinite universe, or even an infinite number of individually infinite universes. So there is no need to postulate infinite complexity for purpose other than airy theological sophistry, much less need for any infinitely complex god.
However, what is certain is if the universe were created by god, god can not less complex than the universe, since predicting the universe is necessary to predicting that which created it, thus god can not be predicted by less information than required to predict what he created. So god can not solve the complexity paradox, which is the original thrust of this thread.
You can look up complexity on Wikipedia if you wish to genuinely begin to explore complexity as a specific, meaningful term capable of setting your statements above airy talk.
The amount of data required to predict the behavior of the entire universe, or "Entire creation" as Christians would yokelishly put it, is potentially vast but finite by understanding of modern physics. The fact that physical universe might be infinite does not necessarily make the amount of data required to predict all arbitrary parts of it infinite as well. So long as there is ultimately an consistent set of rules governing it's behavior, a finite set of description of the rules would suffice to describe an infinite universe, or even an infinite number of individually infinite universes. So there is no need to postulate infinite complexity for purpose other than airy theological sophistry, much less need for any infinitely complex god.
However, what is certain is if the universe were created by god, god can not less complex than the universe, since predicting the universe is necessary to predicting that which created it, thus god can not be predicted by less information than required to predict what he created. So god can not solve the complexity paradox, which is the original thrust of this thread.
You can look up complexity on Wikipedia if you wish to genuinely begin to explore complexity as a specific, meaningful term capable of setting your statements above airy talk.
