God's knowledge?

[Dontaskme]

The idea is that information has to have a form whether you define it as something which carries a meaning or not so the rest of argument doesn't fall apart.

Information doesn't have a form. Information is that which gives form to what would otherwise be formless...or without identity.
Form is just an identity / concept given to that which is nameless. The giver of identity is not the form it gives. No thing has any form in reality, 'things' are empty images of imageless consciousness. Appearances are deceptive.

For example: A mountain is not a mountain.A mountain is only a mountain because it is given that form in the form of information..aka concept.

Knowledge informs illusory reality. Wisdom understands reality as illusory.

[Justintruth]

The idea is that information has to have a form whether you define it as something which carries a meaning or not so the rest of argument doesn't fall apart.

Information does need a form because its symbolic. But knowledge does not need to be symbolic. How to you conclude that there is information in God's knowing? How do you know that he knows by virtue of having stored symbols in him?

Look, if you take any continuous quantity and sample a variable there is no information in it - and yet you have sampled the quantity and know the value of your sample.

The key is to see that there does not need to be a discretation that would allow the sample set to be finite, and if you do not have a finite set of possibilities in the spectrum of the measurement and you make it, and find the value, you still have no information.

Do you think that "God's knowlege" was gained by a perception that occured in time? Or even that "God's knowlege is a representation?" If so what you are considering is only a powerful creature of God's, not God.

God's "all knowing" is more like the reality on the back of the moon. It exists in all its specificness and that presence is in the mind of God. There is no representation of the back side of the moon in "God's knowlege" that is distinct from His knowing.

We "know" when a signal enters our senses and carries information that is approximate, or resembling, into our brain. But God is neither twmporal nor material. Just try to conceive of what knowing that is not temporal or material could be and read Shannon so you know what information is.

[Immanuel Can]

God has no form since It is spiritual...

This is an Eastern assumption, I think. As I said before, in the West, God is said not to be "all things" (and hence of no particular form), but "personal," so to speak, with a definite character and nature, and hence has a "form " in that sense...

...it's just not perhaps what you were thinking of...maybe you were thinking of a kind of physique, physical structure, or something anthropomorphic, like the pictures of Brahman or Buddha or a big guy with a beard, floating in space, in children's religious books?

I don' t know: you'd have to tell me what you meant by "form."

[Immanuel Can]

People exist as an awareness of thought, in this case the conceptual thought of ''person'' - that is how 'person' is known. But Awareness has never actually seen a person, because a person is just an empty thought known by awareness...

Yeah, I've read a lot of this "gnostic" style of writing, particularly in relation to Buddhism, but also in other Eastern religions. I've never been given a reason to think any of it is true, though. And that's the point: by taking itself out of the "reasoning" game (by unilaterally declaring reason invalid) these mystical writers save themselves from being exposed by their contradictions.

But contradictions are still contradictions. Even if we write off all science, data and empirical observation, as mysticism encourages us to do, and just say "OM" a lot, the contradictions in the mind remain. Some things just aren't simultaneously true; "one hand" is by definition, not "clapping." We step into "the same" river twice, even if it flows, because that's straightforwardly how we speak of "rivers." So there isn't a deep truth there, just a lot of double language, I find. And being somewhat of a specialist in language, I'm not easily deflected by how people use it, nor impressed when they contradict themselves. It doesn't strike me as "wise" and "subtle," just confused, in most cases.

Zen strikes me that way a lot. Honestly, it appears to me as a colossal, convoluted bluff or deflection, not an expose of truth.

[bahman]

Information does need a form because its symbolic. But knowledge does not need to be symbolic. How to you conclude that there is information in God's knowing? How do you know that he knows by virtue of having stored symbols in him?

Knowledge is mental state. Mental state has form otherwise mind cannot differentiate and comprehend knowledge.

Look, if you take any continuous quantity and sample a variable there is no information in it - and yet you have sampled the quantity and know the value of your sample.

That I agree but you always sample same quantity so the sample cannot hold knowledge.

The key is to see that there does not need to be a discretation that would allow the sample set to be finite, and if you do not have a finite set of possibilities in the spectrum of the measurement and you make it, and find the value, you still have no information.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

Do you think that "God's knowlege" was gained by a perception that occured in time?

No, that couldn't be true since God by definition is all knowing.

Or even that "God's knowledge is a representation?" If so what you are considering is only a powerful creature of God's, not God.

What you mean by representation?

God's "all knowing" is more like the reality on the back of the moon. It exists in all its specificness and that presence is in the mind of God. There is no representation of the back side of the moon in "God's knowlege" that is distinct from His knowing.

What is your definition of mind? This is important because mind in human experience, process mental states, decide, hold knowledge etc.

[Dontaskme]

People exist as an awareness of thought, in this case the conceptual thought of ''person'' - that is how 'person' is known. But Awareness has never actually seen a person, because a person is just an empty thought known by awareness...

Yeah, I've read a lot of this "gnostic" style of writing, particularly in relation to Buddhism, but also in other Eastern religions. I've never been given a reason to think any of it is true, though. And that's the point: by taking itself out of the "reasoning" game (by unilaterally declaring reason invalid) these mystical writers save themselves from being exposed by their contradictions.

But contradictions are still contradictions. Even if we write off all science, data and empirical observation, as mysticism encourages us to do, and just say "OM" a lot, the contradictions in the mind remain. Some things just aren't simultaneously true; "one hand" is by definition, not "clapping." We step into "the same" river twice, even if it flows, because that's straightforwardly how we speak of "rivers." So there isn't a deep truth there, just a lot of double language, I find. And being somewhat of a specialist in language, I'm not easily deflected by how people use it, nor impressed when they contradict themselves. It doesn't strike me as "wise" and "subtle," just confused, in most cases.

Zen strikes me that way a lot. Honestly, it appears to me as a colossal, convoluted bluff or deflection, not an expose of truth.

Only the mind (sense of self) is confused. The body is never confused. The body functions precisely without mind. There is no truth except the one the mind makes-up.

Immanuel Can believe what you want. Make-up your own mind about what you believe, it is your prerogative. What you believe is true for you, you have created it.

As for Zen,there are those who spend their entire lives reading into the truth of Zen and still don't get it or even begin to understand it, and then there are those who just know it instinctively. It's just the way it is.

[bahman]

This is an Eastern assumption, I think. As I said before, in the West, God is said not to be "all things" (and hence of no particular form), but "personal," so to speak, with a definite character and nature, and hence has a "form " in that sense...

That is not what I mean with form.

...it's just not perhaps what you were thinking of...maybe you were thinking of a kind of physique, physical structure, or something anthropomorphic, like the pictures of Brahman or Buddha or a big guy with a beard, floating in space, in children's religious books?

How something without any structure could be a being?

I don' t know: you'd have to tell me what you meant by "form."

By form I mean configuration. Configuration means the relative disposition or arrangement of the parts or elements of a thing. God has no parts or elements has hence cannot have any form.

[Immanuel Can]

As for Zen,there are those who spend their entire lives reading into the truth of Zen and still don't get it or even begin to understand it, and then there are those who just know it instinctively. It's just the way it is.

Then "Zen" is a mystical experience, but not a philosophy. Since it cannot have reference to reason, coherence, evidence or objectivity, it cannot have reference to what we would call "truth" either. It would be as you say -- either you "get it," or you don't...

And if I were being jocular, I'd add "kind of like heat rash, actually."

[Immanuel Can]

By form I mean configuration. Configuration means the relative disposition or arrangement of the parts or elements of a thing. God has no parts or elements has hence cannot have any form.

Well by "configuration," God is a Trinity. By "disposition," he has specific personal characteristics, desires, purposes and actions. But "elements" or "parts"? Not as such.

But as always, it depends exactly what you're expecting to find when you use those words. The Western view of "God" is not a big, cosmic blank, an "emptiness," an "Abyss" or a "Oneness" as it is in so much of the East.

[bahman]

By form I mean configuration. Configuration means the relative disposition or arrangement of the parts or elements of a thing. God has no parts or elements has hence cannot have any form.

Well by "configuration," God is a Trinity. By "disposition," he has specific personal characteristics, desires, purposes and actions. But "elements" or "parts"? Not as such.

But as always, it depends exactly what you're expecting to find when you use those words. The Western view of "God" is not a big, cosmic blank, an "emptiness," an "Abyss" or a "Oneness" as it is in so much of the East.

The attributes you mentioned (personal characteristics, desires, purposes and actions) are related to mental states. Any state has specific form otherwise one cannot distinguish states from each other.

[Immanuel Can]

The attributes you mentioned (personal characteristics, desires, purposes and actions) are related to mental states. Any state has specific form otherwise one cannot distinguish states from each other.

We're in danger here of making a false analogy between "human being" and "Supreme Being," and trying to draw conclusions based on human normativity. But if there is any analogy between the former and the latter, it's the Supreme Being that is the pattern and the human that is the pale replication; so such analogies would be strained at best, misleading at worst. So I have to say what I say tentatively...

...but it does not seem apparent to me that "mental state" is a "physical state." Rather, it seems clear to me that we have a correspondence (in the case of humans) but with no clear idea of causality. Do physical states cause emotions, or do emotions cause physical states, or are both caused by a third thing? We simply do not know, even in the human case. So how on earth are we going to make a jump to saying that we know about God that what is necessary for Him to have "knowledge" is a physical state?

That seems far too much to suppose...at least without any evidence it's true.

[bahman]

The attributes you mentioned (personal characteristics, desires, purposes and actions) are related to mental states. Any state has specific form otherwise one cannot distinguish states from each other.

We're in danger here of making a false analogy between "human being" and "Supreme Being," and trying to draw conclusions based on human normativity. But if there is any analogy between the former and the latter, it's the Supreme Being that is the pattern and the human that is the pale replication; so such analogies would be strained at best, misleading at worst. So I have to say what I say tentatively...

I think you need to explain how those attributes can be real if they are neither physical nor mental.

...but it does not seem apparent to me that "mental state" is a "physical state."

It depends. Mental state are only physical under materialism.

Rather, it seems clear to me that we have a correspondence (in the case of humans) but with no clear idea of causality. Do physical states cause emotions, or do emotions cause physical states, or are both caused by a third thing?

I think they are working in a feedback loop.

We simply do not know, even in the human case. So how on earth are we going to make a jump to saying that we know about God that what is necessary for Him to have "knowledge" is a physical state?

I didn't say that those attributes in the case of God are physical state. I mentioned that those attributes are mental states in the case of God. Mental states are not physical except in materialism. Those attributes exist because they are the result of something. They couldn't be the result of pure vacuum.

[OuterLimits]

1) Knowledge is a sort of information which is comprehensible for a person
2) Information can be hold in something which has form (a brain for example) same for knowledge
3) God has no form since it is purely spiritual
4) We can deduce from (2) and (3) that God cannot have any knowledge

If God is a mystical principle or being, and is non-dual, pervading all times, places, and things, then there will not be power or knowledge since both of these are dualistic concepts.

[bahman]

1) Knowledge is a sort of information which is comprehensible for a person
2) Information can be hold in something which has form (a brain for example) same for knowledge
3) God has no form since it is purely spiritual
4) We can deduce from (2) and (3) that God cannot have any knowledge

If God is a mystical principle or being, and is non-dual, pervading all times, places, and things, then there will not be power or knowledge since both of these are dualistic concepts.

What do you mean with both dualistic concepts?

[OuterLimits]

1) Knowledge is a sort of information which is comprehensible for a person
2) Information can be hold in something which has form (a brain for example) same for knowledge
3) God has no form since it is purely spiritual
4) We can deduce from (2) and (3) that God cannot have any knowledge

If God is a mystical principle or being, and is non-dual, pervading all times, places, and things, then there will not be power or knowledge since both of these are dualistic concepts.

What do you mean with both dualistic concepts?

A has knowledge of B - then A is different from B. If god pervades everything, then there is nothing separate from itself to have knowledge of or power over.