Squeers,

I wonder what the Buddha would have made of Quantum Mechanics and notions of particle-wave duality?

Even more so, what would be God's reality prior to any creative activity? There is no other relative to the Self and there is no subjective objectification to realise states. Herein, it would have been "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14, stop) not "I will/shall be what I will/shall be", before the Beginning. Creation (ours or someone else's) would be not only a complement, but have blossoming of an Another Than, very much changing the nature of the Christian god. That is; before the Creation said (hypothetical) God was an objective reality unto itself, whereas for God to be a subject, requires a Creation.

[I guess Sells would have Persons and Dyads as subjects relative to eah Person of the Trinity].

For God, to know (every) thought suggests a process that linguists call productivity viz., 1,2 and to can be 21 or 11, and semantics in English. The paradox is that God might need the Creation to enable subjective objectification, yet before the Creation is assumed, presumably in an objective state, God knows the thoughts of subjective reality, before subjective reality allows it, via transitioning states.

Causing the World is also a bit like the Mind-Body problem, if one assumes the Mind is not physical (I don't, I believe it is physical), wherein physical responses are achieved, without a connection between an other-than domain and the physical domain, which responds if by magic to non-physical ante-actions.

George,

A few days back, I was saying that we cannot defintitely know anything beyond or before physical reality. In fact our, brains are physical. What we might learn from partical physics is how the universe was caused from inside bubble. What might find are indicators of spontaneous creation such as matter coming into existence in a Higgs field or by some other knowable means if that theory is wrong. What caused the Cause is or whether the Cause even needs to be caused, is unknowable.

What we are left with is what we can know, which is either (a) we can explain how matter came into existence and how space-time inflated the unification of the forces, together its the fuzzy stuff, during the unit of Planck time or (b) we find it is beyound us for all, because it is too hard or the evidence is not there to achieve a solution.

Our brains are physical matter capable of creating concepts which might be written down and become our philosophies. To say "there are more things in heaven and earth," assumes knowledge is limited, yet Hamlet continues, "that are dreamt of in your philosophies, Horatio".
Hamlet assumes, there is a heaven, yet his thoughts are achieved with a physical brain, which is of this-realm, which would, through the firing of neurons in his brain (physical), conceive "heaven" but cannot know there is a heaven. The brains of Tillich, Augustine or Luther are physical: They believe in heaven using an instrument (the brain) which is physical and exists in the physical world and even form concepts about spectulations of the non-physical for achieving physical existence.

Inversely, if there a ghosts and ghosts are spirit, can ghosts be poltergist.

On another topic: Do gases exist or not exist in water?

Squeers,
Thanks for the link to the paper on philosophy of mathematics. In my case it is not so much philosophy of mathematics or the content of mathematics itself that I find inspiring, but rather the practice of “doing mathematics” which is BOTH creation AND discovery (of “formal” facts); concerned with BOTH the mathematical mental world (individual as well as collective) AND with facts existing in a “Platonic world of mathematics”.

This helps me - for instance - to accept as complementary “truths” (world-view presuppositions) BOTH that “God keeps on creating (via cosmic evolution) man to His image” AND that “Man keeps on creating (ideas about) God to his image”.

relda,
Perhaps I should correct myself: I spoke to a Lutheran pastor, who never heard the name Tillich and when I mentioned this to a young priest (from East-Central Europe who studied in Switzerland) he said that they had Tillich as (mandatory or recommended) reading.

I don’t wnow whether God is “beyond essence and existence” as in your quote from Tillich, or whether God is both (aesity) as in my quote from a Thomist source. In both cases this tells me that God is a Being (being-itself) incommensurate with (particular) beings, real or imagined (including e.g. Dawkins’ Ultimate Boeing 747).

I referred to Thomism because you mentioned the pair existence-essence, although now it seems to me that Tillich was borrowing his meaning of “existence” from Heidegger rather than Acquinas. However, this is beyond my philosophical prowess to judge.

There is nothing wrong with the syllogism you quote. The problem is only with what you call “begin”, “exist”, “cause”. It is of the form
1. Whatever is A must be B.
2. The universe is A
Therefore the universe is B.

I agree that a 9-year old would not understand the possible - theological or philosophical - meanings of terms like “existence”, “cause”, “begin”. Neither would he/she understand the difference between a “being” where you can ask about its cause, and “being-itself” where you cannot, it is its own cause; at least that is how I understand Tillich’.

Oliver,

Thanks you continuing to challenge me. As to your first two paragraphs, I do not understand most of the contemporary theories (cosmological models) that you hint at, and I sincerely doubtn you do. Besides, the jury is still out on which one of them, and to what extent, is adequate in describing (modelling) physical reality or at least some features of it. “Creatio ex nihilo” or any other explanation of “why there is something rather than nothing” is a problem, but that is a metaphysical problem, not one that science can answer, as I already wrote.

>> brains of Tillich, Augustine or Luther are physical: They believe in heaven using an instrument (the brain) which is physical and exists in the physical world<<
So is mine, and it also exists in the physical world, nevertheless this did not prevent me from trying to understand and work with all sorts of (pure-)mathematical concepts and relations that do not exist in the physical world (see my recent post addressed to Squeers). The same about many other physical brains, much greater than mine.

There are arguments for and against Sagan’s world-view presupposition or belief (see my http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9389#150883), however, I think, the fact that our brain is physical is irrelevant here.

Oliver,
I like the Buddhist texts for their disinterested philosophy/psychology. Of course these texts were passed down orally for hundreds of years before they were written down, so for sure they were embellished---and then bowlderised as Mahayana and Zen. Yet the Buddha inspires with his renunciation of the material "and" the transcendental. I wonder whether our concepts of reality at the quantum level mean anything to most of us "today"?
I think there is room for a "somewhat" spontaneous self without the need of a God. I get the chicken or egg logic you're running (which is not to deprecate it), but I prefer the concept of the singularity, ala the cosmologists. I prefer to see the self as the aftermath of a singularity--that way I don't have to explain what went before---at which point limited self-determination may ensue.
The mind/brain seem inseparable, yet the latter "projects" the former. The brain "represents" a self to itself, it projects a virtual third person onto reality, into the world; the body is corporeal but the self or "mind" is an abstraction, a hypothetical being, a virtual interface. In this sense the mind is a non-physical extension of the physical brain. The brain steps outside itself via this ID-non-entity.
This needs far more elaboration but no room here.
One can see how the notion of the soul developed.
Conversely, assuming this representational software "evolved", what drove that existential evolution?
I don't "believe" the mind is physical or non-physical. Experiential evidence seems to be that the human being "wants to" and/or perhaps "can" transcend itself. Why does it want to? What forces initiated this human drive?
As for God--I know as much about her as I do about mathematics :-)

George,

Explaining the creation of matter from nothing is of considerable interest to scientists. I have seen/heard a demonstration and read a little on the Higgs field, yet you are correct, I understand Higgs less than say, the internal combustion engine or a cathode tube. But, I would like think I have some idea of what particle physicists are trying to achieve: i.e., to see if matter that otherwise would flicker in-and-out of existence via quantum fluctuations gaining a level permanence in a “thick” field. Yes, I know that is simplistic. Again, I appreciate transitioning from a metaphysical problem to a physical/material investigation can be problematic: e.g., Marx with Hegel. Yet, if science can demonstrate matter “pops” into existence and becomes stable, the finding would be important. “In the beginning the unified forces were physically created from nothing by the process of … .”

Hamlet usinf his brain. So we can say:

-(a) Hamlet thinks of heaven.

Otherwise,

-(b) God lives in heaven,

Bertrand Russell would note both above sentences are grammatically correct, yet only (a) is both grammatically and logically correct. Both sentences are molecular propositions, wherein to the lay eye, we have two simple sentences. Yet, propositional logic would have it that molecular forms are most properly built on from atomic forms. Hamlet, in the sentence is a true atomic subject, whereas God is a subject-predicate form (in philosophy) and not atomic and therefore no logical. God is not atomic because of how strongly “God [is ….]” is denoted in the word. “Hamlet” is clearly a noun. “God” is a value laden pronoun (in philosophy). Squeers might know more.

Changing the topic, to the earlier discourse, we know brains have thoughts. Thoughts are the product of the physical brain. A “thought” is reducible to a physical event. Plato’s thoughts on perfect forms were physical. Physically derived thought is dissimilar to the thought of Spirit achieving a physical consequence. What is thought need not be real.

“Relatedly, I believe in God,” is claimed. Asked,“Why”? My beliefs are divinely inspired”. The physical brain assumes petition principii.