Philosophy Now Forum

Tell me what's wrong with this interpretation: I have two dice in a can and am rattling them around just before throwing them down on the table. The possible outcomes are 2 through 12 dots showing as the future observation, when the dice come to rest on the table, with various probabilities. Concept...

Gustav: I've been away from the forum for awhile, due to family medical issues, but I congratulate you for this topic, and I'll try to contribute something. I'm a skeptical Christian at best and often just a straight doubter but nevertheless have tried on many occasions to defend it. But I've come t...

V of Time, thanks for your modesty and honesty concerning your interesting idea. About your term, "fantazillion". Presumably this is a huge but finite number. However, even infinity and the different types of infinity have been dealt with to some extent by mathematicians. Many infinite sum...

Interesting, Kuzetzova! The phrase, "goes out of synch", especially. Is it possible to pause just one of the characters in the video game, let the game go on with the others, and then reactivate the paused character?

Thanks, chaz! Your information about Spinoza agrees well with what I picked up in a class this semester. It would be a stretch to view nature as a single, grand conscious entity, even though nature apparently contains conscious entities, such as people and apes. Ants and bees? Not sure, but they app...

V of T, you wrote: Figuring out the average, the one average location, of the entire universe, does not yield much, because the usefulness of finding an average is not in the location, but in its comparison to other locations (think objects or processes if that helps), because when you find a good a...

If I define "god" as "nature", as apparently the philosopher Spinoza did, I still don't think anybody knows very much about god. If someone claims a belief in God and asks me if I believe in God, too, I feel justified in asking for their definition. People used to "know"...

chaz, you wrote: Nature is everything that humans can come to know as well has all those things that are hidden, much that will remain hidden. To attach a word that implies a conscious entity is foolish and without merit. I restricted "nature" to everything that humans can come to know. If...

Thanks again, V of T! I appreciate your patience. The "process the universe is focusing on" -- does this refer to the basic "engine" that is powering or causing the unfolding of the universe? There are the processes that define the birth, life, and death of stars and galaxies, wh...

Hi again, Voice of Time. You wrote soooo, ever read the thing thoroughly? problems getting through it? I did just read it again, and I confess it's not all clear to me. It did remind me, however, of special photographic techniques. In time-lapse photography, photos of an object are taken only every ...

Thanks, Gee! If I had a concept of God, believed in it, and was happy because of it, I might want to share it with other people. I might write a book or talk to people. I would want to reach as many as I could. This would entail attempting to characterize the God I believed in, in a way to appeal to...

How about Nature is what it is. I can go with that. Nature might be defined as everything that human beings can come to know, through the five senses, aids to those senses (e.g. radio telescopes, geiger counters, microscopes, blood hounds, etc.), and with the aid of the scientific method. I believe...

theodoc, you wrote: The real difficulty is that some try to define God, and by defining, limit God. I guess definition is only needed if I'm actually trying to find God or show God "exists"-- so that I'll know God when I run across Him/Her/It, or so that I have a clue of where and how to l...

May also depend on how you define "God".

"Finding a balanced view on faith" is not quite the same issue as "Finding different points of view", is it?