The infinitely powerful being should be able to accomplish anything, including the creation of its source, or else it is limited. A limited being cannot be infinite, as it is not unlimited. Necessary Being... more like Unnecessary Paradox.
Just popped back in to say that I'm done trying to argue against the solipsists in here, that includes pickledpie. Nothing exists.\t Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.\t Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others. Epistemological solipsism is the variety of idealism according to which only the directly accessible mental contents of the solipsistic philosopher can be known. The existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question rather than actually false. Epistemological solipsists claim that realism requires the question: assuming that there is a universe that is independent of the agent's mind, the agent can only ever know of this universe through its senses, how is the existence of the independent universe to be scientifically studied? If a person sets up a camera to photograph the moon when they are not looking at it, then at best they determine that there is an image of the moon in the camera when they eventually look at it. Logically, this does not assure that the moon itself (or even the camera) existed at the time the photograph is supposed to have been taken. To establish that it is an image of an independent moon requires many other assumptions that amount to begging the question. Claims he isn't a solipsist; uses solipsist arguments. Rationalism is the philosophical position that truth is best discovered by the use of reasoning and logic rather than by the use of the senses (see Plato's theory of Forms). Solipsism is also skeptical of sense-data.
He is who? It would seem that you've been suggested, your subjective inability comprehend the deeper nature of the universe doesn't translate to any sort of objective truth. One word of advice, blatant arrogance in the face of so mysterious a subject only makes you come off as a fool. Much love regardless, if you're open to true discourse, I'm always willing. Also. are you saying I'm not right in assuming you are close-minded? In reality humans are entirely dynamic and subject to change in an instant, including emotions, beliefs and ideas. So you may not be close-minded in the next instant, but in the recording of your thoughts in the post you just made, you've assumed the form of an obstinate fool.
Oh? Am I a solipsist? I didn't know that... and I am my self, and I believe I'm not. I wonder who here is wrong... Or perhaps you just don't want to argue... That's fine But- who was arguing? I don't believe I was. What is it you're trying to say my friend? Are you saying you are not a rationalist? For you seem to establish your world views based on senses... Or maybe not. Would you enlighten me good man?
First, what he said is that god is the culmination of human ignorance (if I recall correctly). There is plenty of evidence pointing in the direction of fantastic explanations for nature being the result of human ignorance. If you're suggesting that is not true, then where is the evidence pointing in the god direction? Right, there's nothing. Second, in the face of a mystery I experience a self-aware ignorance. If you think you know better than my self-aware ignorance and have no special information of your own to share, then it is you who are arrogant, foolish, and looking to apply labels to thoughts you don't understand. When you admit this, I will be convinced you are willing to engage in productive discourse. So...?
1.) Creation of its own source? Creating your own source implies the said thing creating precedes the source; which is nonsensical, for the thing creating is the source. God's necessity is prior to His Will and personality, i.e., God's Will is contingent on His necessity - for God can freely choose how His Will will manifest. 2.) The Eternal Paradox...
Does the cognitive agent who is positively (not an ethical term) aware of his own (conceptual) ignorance posses three dimensional extended figure - like a physical body does?
Okay, Boats, I just spent perhaps an hour taking notes on this lecture. I hope you appreciate this. Here are my notes: -Contingent thing: a thing which does not contain in itself the reason for it's existence. -A contingent thing exists necessarily by virtue of something else. -For a contingent thing to exist, there must be one non-contingent thing that existed. -Either there is sufficient reason for why no contingent thing exists, or else there is something that is God (non-contingent thing) -If we find it unacceptable that contingent things should have no explanation, we must conclude that there is a god. -There are some things in the world which are contingent. -No object of experience is non-contingent; if there is no non-contingent thing, then there is no explanation for existence. To explain existence, there must be a contingent being. Ie, there must be a thing which can not NOT exist. -For there to not be a Necessary Being is self-contradictory. -Proposition: If there is a contingent being, then there is a Necessary Being. -- Asserts that this is a necessary proposition. -Aformentioned proposition is an analyitic proposition, but [he] doesn't consider it a telogolical proposition. - Aformentioned proposition is a necessary proposition only on the supposition that there is a necessary contingent being. -If a contingent being exists, this being has to be discovered by experience. -If there is a contingent being, it follows necessarily that there is a Necessary Being. -[he] doesn't admit the idea of a Necessary Being, and [he] doesn't admit the idea that there is no particular meaning in calling other beings contingent. -Ontological argument -- there exists a being such that it essence is analytic. That seems to [him] to be impossible. -A being whom must exist and can not NOT exist must be a being that exists. -[he] doesn't think we have any intuition of God's existence. Instead we have to argue from the world of experience to God. -There is a being which essense involves existence, although we don't know that essence. We don't know the essense apriori. It is only true aposteriori to our experience of the world that we can acknolwedge the existence of that being. -Only a contingent being can have a kind of cause. -God is his own sufficient reason, but he is not the cause of himself. By sufficient reason, [he] means an explanation adequate for the existence of some particular being. -Intelligeble has to do with the thing itself and not its relations. -[he] says the existence of the world is intrinsically unintelligeble apart from the existence of God. -If you add up contingent beings to infinity, you still get contingent beings. -The series of a phenomenal cause is an insufficient reason of the series. Therefore the series has not a phenomenal cause but a transcendental cause. -The world as a whole must have a cause. -Either a series has a cause or it does not have a cause. If it is caused, there must be a cause outside the series. If it's not caused, then it's sufficient to itself. -If it is sufficient to iself, [he] calls it necessary. But it can't be necessary, since each member is contingent. -The says that we've agreed that the total is no reality apart from its members. -The physicist presupposes that there is at least some sense in nature and investigating the causes of events. -The metaphysician assumes that there is reason to assume the cause for phenomena. -[he] considers the metaphysician is as justified in his reason as the physicist. -The physicisist looks for causes; but this does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming there is gold everywhere. Maybe I will discuss it in later times...I don't know. I need to take a break. lol.
1. God's necessity is a fiction you've created. God's will is a fiction based on a second fiction which is based on the first fiction. If you make this entity eternal, you put a limit on its freedom to manifest. Is that why no one can prove it exists? Because it doesn't have the freedom to manifest? 2. There is no property you can give a god that makes better sense than the same property given to the universe itself. What I mean is that if we were to look at something like the planting of a seed, it makes more sense to suggest the seed from a previous plant dropped into the soil than it does to suggest that someone created the seed outright and then planted it. One explanation is vastly more plausible. Your confusion over how the first seed came about doesn't change this. The fact that the less plausible explanation is still plausible doesn't change it either.
1.) Necessary, i.e., analytic, existence (reality in-and-of-itself - independent of subjectivity) is not a fiction; and it definitely wasn't created by me. 2.) How so? 3.) Does "the universe" have free will? 4.) Do you understand what a contingent thing is? 5.) Everything we experience in our reality is just vestiges stemming from ONE point...
Well, certainly he presented his argument for the existence of god, but I only took notes; I did not make any judgment about his argument. I will have to analyze in totality his argument in some time later. Though I think there is a compact argument which sums his lecture up in a few statements -- the argument from contingency, right? I am not currently convinced, though of course I'm always open to learning. I don't wish to be enemies with you, bro -- I don't wish to be enemies with anyone. Though it doesn't seem likely to me that I will accept this argument. I find that our Universe could exist as the most natural state of existence, without prior cause. But I wish to with-hold judgement about any claims until I have a more firm grasp about things. My next area of study will be epistemology, so that should be interesting. Then many other areas of philosophy. Right now I just kind of with-hold from making any real judgments about the world.