Topic: Is god just a bunch of numbers?

[Apple of Eris]

If you believe in a god and he does not exsist you lose nothing; if you do not believe in a god and he does exist you lose everything!!

I choose to believe there is a god!

I choose to believe that God, being his Omniscient, Omnipotent, and wonderfully wrathful fellow would have less respect for someone who believed in him simply because they were hedgding their bets. I'm pretty sure that any god who as per the god of christianity is supposedly omniscient could sniff out such a scheme and would probably treat the perpetrator as kindly or quite likely less kindly than someone who denies the existance of god based on factual data.

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God as a word is an abstraction. Hell, the idea of God is an abstraction.

Numbers on the otherhand, are actually useful and can be used for practical applications and applied sciences. They are not simply 'theoretical' as calling them abstractions suggests.

On the other hand I have yet to see how the abstraction 'God' can be used in any sort of applied science.

[Oniya]

On the other hand I have yet to see how the abstraction 'God' can be used in any sort of applied science.

*link for the cartoon only*

http://mises.org/story/1966 

One of my personal favorites

[Vekseid]

All numbers are abstractions humans make to quantify the infinite.

No. There is such a thing as discrete quanta. This is false on its face.

God is the infinite so in an abstract way God is a bunch of numbers, however that means you and I, and everything is just an abstraction. Cooooool.

Infinity is not a number (ignoring some fun with set theory - which is smallest, infinity minus one, infinity, or infinity plus one?), it is a concept. I've already explained this in the previous discussion with you.

*link for the cartoon only*

http://mises.org/story/1966 

One of my personal favorites

You laugh, but it's rather painful how often in high-level math that sometimes the easiest way to get to the solution is knowing the answer beforehand.

[Oniya]

You laugh, but it's rather painful how often in high-level math that sometimes the easiest way to get to the solution is knowing the answer beforehand.

Actually, I laugh becauseI know how often that happens.

[Inkidu]

No. There is such a thing as discrete quanta. This is false on its face.

Infinity is not a number (ignoring some fun with set theory - which is smallest, infinity minus one, infinity, or infinity plus one?), it is a concept. I've already explained this in the previous discussion with you.

You laugh, but it's rather painful how often in high-level math that sometimes the easiest way to get to the solution is knowing the answer beforehand.

It still doesn't matter numbers are all abstract principles. God is considered an abstract principle. It doesn't matter how high up your math is it's still an abstract principle.

[Moondazed]

Are you saying that if I hold up one finger, then add another, it doesn't add up to two? :)  I'm not grasping where numbers are abstract.  Perhaps they become so in the higher maths, but overall?  Nope.

[Inkidu]

Are you saying that if I hold up one finger, then add another, it doesn't add up to two? :)  I'm not grasping where numbers are abstract.  Perhaps they become so in the higher maths, but overall?  Nope.

Of course numbers are abstract concepts. If I had said two plus four equals five, and everyone took it as truth. Two plus four would equal five. Any mathematician learns that numbers are abstract. Why do you think you can come up with imaginary numbers to solve problems with no real solution.

[Sherona]

Your touching on Relativism there Inkidu, not the abstract.

If I taught my kids that the dog out back was a giraffe, then they would end up beliving that Giraffes were small furry animalls that bark. Would they be correct? No, but they would be telling the truth when they answered "Thats not a dog, thats a giraffe".

[Oniya]

Along those lines, I have a friend who literally cannot see purple.  He has red/green color-blindness, and this has something to do with it.  The lighter shades are mostly 'pink', and the darker shades are mostly 'blue'.  The more red-heavy dark shades might possibly be declared 'red', and the more blue-heavy light shades might be 'blue' - I never did an empirical study.

I mentioned the Principia Mathematica earlier - and it literally goes through several hundred pages proving the existence of something called a 'one'.  I think it's a few hundred more proving the existence of 'addition', and then further on you get to 'two'.

"If a religion is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable
statements, then Godel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion,
it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one." -- John Barrow

[Inkidu]

Oops okay, my fault. ^w^;

[Vekseid]

Of course numbers are abstract concepts. If I had said two plus four equals five, and everyone took it as truth. Two plus four would equal five. Any mathematician learns that numbers are abstract. Why do you think you can come up with imaginary numbers to solve problems with no real solution.

-calling- them imaginary numbers is an abstraction. Imaginary numbers themselves are no less real than the precise description of two-phase power running to your house that they provide.

[Inkidu]

-calling- them imaginary numbers is an abstraction. Imaginary numbers themselves are no less real than the precise description of two-phase power running to your house that they provide.

You can't call something imaginary real. It's just not possible. You can call something unknown real, but not something imaginary real. That's sort of what imaginary means.

[Oniya]

The use of the word 'imaginary' to label the square roots of negative numbers was unfortunate, and possibly no more appropriate than calling a quark 'up', 'down', or 'strange'.  If only my math books weren't buried in the three-foot-deep pile of books that used to be my living room...

[Inkidu]

I thought the negative square root was impossible to work out in reality that's why they made up i to deal with it on paper.

[Oniya]

In the same way, a negative number could be said not to exist.  You can't have '-5 pieces of fruit', after all.  The term was originally a derogatory one, invented by Descartes as I recall.

Mathematically, they are needed to make the number set complete under exponentiation (roots being the same as raising a number to a fractional power.)  However, imaginary and complex numbers actually do have very real-world applications, though, just as -5 dollars could have an application in ones bank records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number#Applications_of_imaginary_numbers

(Apologies - I am a math geek. ^^; )

[Inkidu]

Thus all numbers are abstract concepts.

[Vekseid]

You can't call something imaginary real. It's just not possible. You can call something unknown real, but not something imaginary real. That's sort of what imaginary means.

...did you just utterly miss the point?

"Imaginary number" is just a term for a mathematical construct. They exist, are a part of mathematical lexicon, and can represent real-world phenomenon. Likewise, 'real numbers' do not necessarily represent real-world phenomenon, even though they can.

Imaginary numbers are used to represent many things in the real world, including electrical power, time, and so on. Claiming otherwise is ignorance at best and lying at worst.

Thus all numbers are abstract concepts.

Do us a favor and start backing up your statements without semantic dodging, please.

[Inkidu]

Very well you can't touch two, you can't smell, or taste two, you can't really see two as an idea. You see the quantity of two (Two apples, two, oranges, but never two.), or the symbol used to represent two, so two and all numbers are abstract.

However, in interest of getting this back on topic. Does the some of all things in the universe equal God? No. That is like saying all the words in a book add up to its author. No they add up to the authors work but not him as a being. I can write a book with its own universe laws, boundaries. I am obligated to work within that universe's laws, and boundaries but it is not me.
So adding up every quark in the universe isn't going to let you see God. It will let you see the whole of His creation but you're not going to see Him. You might see the house in which he dwells. Just like a creator likes to use the houses they build to live in, but you're not guaranteed to se the creator himself. 

[Valerian]

I think I might see the problem.  Using the word 'three' to refer to the numerical concept is, of course, completely arbitrary and made up.  The concept of three stays the same no matter whether it's being described with the word three or drei or trois or whatever.  So the word could be called abstract, but not the idea which it describes.  Is that the disgreement here?

[Inkidu]

I think I might see the problem.  Using the word 'three' to refer to the numerical concept is, of course, completely arbitrary and made up.  The concept of three stays the same no matter whether it's being described with the word three or drei or trois or whatever.  So the word could be called abstract, but not the idea which it describes.  Is that the disgreement here?

I think I may have made an error in the last post.
Ideas are always abstract. They can be applied to concrete things, but you can't call the idea concrete. Not really.

Numbers are abstract because you cannot feel, smell, taste, touch or really see them. You see what the represent. You don't see hear smell or taste the wind, but you can feel it. That's why wind is concrete the concept of numbers is like, pride or love, friendship. You really don't feel it in a concrete way. 

[PhantomPistoleer]

Hi!

Thread generator, when you began the discussion, you mentioned something very interesting.  Particles.

Now, I do not think that God is mathematical principle, and if I did accept that to be the case, I would say that God = A = X, with means that at any variable, God is any variable.

I come to this conclusion simply by an example, but you must first accept one condition as true:  God, as we know him, is true.

If and only if God does exist (something I nor the argument I am about to propose do not dispute), then he must be everything.

Premise One:  If God exists, he must be all powerful, omnipresent and all good, or at the very least, all powerful and omnipresent.
Premise Two:  If God is omnipresent, that means he must be in a given room (i.e., my room).
Premise Three:  If you divide that room in half, God would still be in that room (and in the other half, too!).
Premise Four:  That room could be divided infinitely, and God would still be in that room.
Premise Five:  We could go into the subatomic level and still have a room, in which God would be present.
Conclusion:  If God is in a room the size of an atom, or a quark, or whatever a quark is divisible by, then it MUST be the case that God IS the atom, or a quark, or whatever a quark is divisible by.

Conclusion 2:  God is everything.
Mathematical principle that represents that:  A = X.

[Inkidu]

Hi!

Thread generator, when you began the discussion, you mentioned something very interesting.  Particles.

Now, I do not think that God is mathematical principle, and if I did accept that to be the case, I would say that God = A = X, with means that at any variable, God is any variable.

I come to this conclusion simply by an example, but you must first accept one condition as true:  God, as we know him, is true.

If and only if God does exist (something I nor the argument I am about to propose do not dispute), then he must be everything.

Premise One:  If God exists, he must be all powerful, omnipresent and all good, or at the very least, all powerful and omnipresent.
Premise Two:  If God is omnipresent, that means he must be in a given room (i.e., my room).
Premise Three:  If you divide that room in half, God would still be in that room (and in the other half, too!).
Premise Four:  That room could be divided infinitely, and God would still be in that room.
Premise Five:  We could go into the subatomic level and still have a room, in which God would be present.
Conclusion:  If God is in a room the size of an atom, or a quark, or whatever a quark is divisible by, then it MUST be the case that God IS the atom, or a quark, or whatever a quark is divisible by.

Conclusion 2:  God is everything.
Mathematical principle that represents that:  A = X.

Christians have known that for centuries. Of course that is assuming X>0

[PhantomPistoleer]

If Christians knew that, then they wouldn't believe what they believe.

If God is everything, then they would understand that you can't venerate him in such a limited way.

If it is the case that they know that and do not act upon it, then it is treasonous to their beliefs.

If it is the case that they know that and believe that they are acting upon it, then it is stupidity on their behalf.

[Inkidu]

That God is everywhere? All you did was prove it. I guess.

[PhantomPistoleer]

Not everywhere.

Every thing.