If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by -1- »

How big, how great a thing can you imagine?

I take "imaginable" as "what a person (such as I and you) can imagine." If you can't imagine it, it is not imaginable.

I propose that what a human can imagine is not too big, not too complex. An ordinary person can't imagine how automatons work, how wide the known (observable) universe is, how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall in London, England.

I daresay the best of humans can't conceptualize the width of our visible universe.They can say "Fifteen point seven-one-two light years" or similar, but they have no tangible or even approximate concept how long that is.

Anselm's theorem starts with "imagine the greatest thing there is". I suggest that humans are not capable to imagine big, very big things, never mind the biggest. We can't even imagine the planet Jupiter. Sure, we know it's there, we know its size, its distance, its specific gravity. Many more things. But we can't imagine many more details, in fact, there is relatively very little we know of it, and no power of imagination can make an exact mental replica of Jupiter.

And that is just one little planet in a known universe of quatrillion planets.

If you accept Anselm's theorem, then god is a pretty small player in the scheme of things, since its size, power, influence and complexity are each very primitive... the sophistication we can imagine at maximum. And that is pretty small.
Logik
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Logik »

1x Total Perspective Vortex required.

I thought I could get it on Amazon, but I was rather disappointed.

https://www.amazon.com/Total-Perspectiv ... B07B3BNZ21
Walker
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Walker »

The snake is a snake even if you think it’s a rope.

Making the reality of the imagined
dependent upon an imagining (small and lame)
which is independent of the actual reality of the imagined
just doesn’t make a whole lick of sense, unless,
the total is greater than the sum of the parts,
which then makes small and lame superfluous to meaning.

There's always, back to the drawing board.

:wink:
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by -1- »

Walker wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:43 pm The snake is a snake even if you think it’s a rope.

Making the reality of the imagined
dependent upon an imagining (small and lame)
which is independent of the actual reality of the imagined
just doesn’t make a whole lick of sense, unless,
the total is greater than the sum of the parts,
which then makes small and lame superfluous to meaning.

There's always, back to the drawing board.

:wink:
Wow. I can't understand any of this, Walker. You beat me.

I mean, the entire text makes no sense to me.

You lost me there.

If you really scrutinize your text, are you saying "What you imagine is an object, and it exists, your imagination does not have to match it, just refer to it." Is that what you are saying? When you go into the "greater than the sum of its parts" I am totally lost as to the relevance and connectedness of the parts of your thesis; its parts are not connected, in my reading, and the sum can't be inferred.
Walker
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Walker »

-1- wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:13 pm
Walker wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:43 pm The snake is a snake even if you think it’s a rope.

Making the reality of the imagined
dependent upon an imagining (small and lame)
which is independent of the actual reality of the imagined
just doesn’t make a whole lick of sense, unless,
the total is greater than the sum of the parts,
which then makes small and lame superfluous to meaning.

There's always, back to the drawing board.

:wink:
Wow. I can't understand any of this, Walker. You beat me.

I mean, the entire text makes no sense to me.

You lost me there.

If you really scrutinize your text, are you saying "What you imagine is an object, and it exists, your imagination does not have to match it, just refer to it." Is that what you are saying? When you go into the "greater than the sum of its parts" I am totally lost as to the relevance and connectedness of the parts of your thesis; its parts are not connected, in my reading, and the sum can't be inferred.
Can’t your imagination find a way to make it work?

Keep in mind peer reviews allow for the filling in of blank spaces with dark matter to make the big picture copacetic.
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by -1- »

Hehe. It's actually not blank spaces that need to be filled. It is connectedness between thoughts that I can't see.

Do I need new glasses?
Walker
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Walker »

-1- wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:20 pm Hehe. It's actually not blank spaces that need to be filled. It is connectedness between thoughts that I can't see.

Do I need new glasses?
You could shift from snifter to tumbler but I advise the sobriety of cool water from a jelly-jar glass after the diuretic of morning coffee, one of modern civilization's true shapers along with spice, tea, and sugar.

Let not dark matter be the limit of your mind even though the current dark hurricane may be the hidden cause of the magnetic north drift, and the actual disruption link for connectors after the long parched search for truth, that may seem elusive at first glance.
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by -1- »

Walker wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:38 pm
-1- wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:20 pm Hehe. It's actually not blank spaces that need to be filled. It is connectedness between thoughts that I can't see.

Do I need new glasses?
You could shift from snifter to tumbler but I advise the sobriety of cool water from a jelly-jar glass after the diuretic of morning coffee, one of modern civilization's true shapers along with spice, tea, and sugar.

Let not dark matter be the limit of your mind even though the current dark hurricane may be the hidden cause of the magnetic north drift, and the actual disruption link for connectors after the long parched search for truth, that may seem elusive at first glance.
Hm. Aha. :-)
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

We can image as big as possible as long as it can be observed [at least partially] together with being able to be speculated as empirically possible via thought.
Note we can imagine the Big Bang pictorially, e.g.

Image

Whatever is empirically based can be imagined.
Whatever is not empirical, e.g. transcendental cannot be imagined but can be thought, i.e. using the thinking mind.
A WHOLE, COMPLETE universe cannot be empirically possible, therefore cannot be imagined but can only be thought of.


Note my other post related to the above on why St. Anselm's argument is logical but not tenable.
viewtopic.php?p=391126#p391126
Dapplegrim
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Dapplegrim »

Walker wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:38 pm
-1- wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:20 pm Hehe. It's actually not blank spaces that need to be filled. It is connectedness between thoughts that I can't see.

Do I need new glasses?
You could shift from snifter to tumbler but I advise the sobriety of cool water from a jelly-jar glass after the diuretic of morning coffee, one of modern civilization's true shapers along with spice, tea, and sugar.

Let not dark matter be the limit of your mind even though the current dark hurricane may be the hidden cause of the magnetic north drift, and the actual disruption link for connectors after the long parched search for truth, that may seem elusive at first glance.
Maybe you need to check your meds...
Walker
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Re: If God is the greatest imaginable, He is pretty small and lame

Post by Walker »

Dapplegrim wrote: Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:36 am
Walker wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:38 pm
-1- wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:20 pm Hehe. It's actually not blank spaces that need to be filled. It is connectedness between thoughts that I can't see.

Do I need new glasses?
You could shift from snifter to tumbler but I advise the sobriety of cool water from a jelly-jar glass after the diuretic of morning coffee, one of modern civilization's true shapers along with spice, tea, and sugar.

Let not dark matter be the limit of your mind even though the current dark hurricane may be the hidden cause of the magnetic north drift, and the actual disruption link for connectors after the long parched search for truth, that may seem elusive at first glance.
Maybe you need to check your meds...
Here’s what you do, Inspector.

Type “ how … changed the world,” into you favorite searcher.

In place of the three dots, type in either spice, tea, sugar, or coffee.

Thus begins your education into a realistic history of the belly as world shaker.

Within just that brief posting there are also other avenues of thought other than nein to stroll.

:)

Flipping poles sounds serious, maybe even as deadly a threat as climate.

Do facts even matter to Pole-Deniers?
https://www.livescience.com/64486-earth ... oving.html

Since no scientist has ever seen dark matter or the core field, don't be so certain about imagined causation.
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