Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 8:40 am
In this case, God is merely a
thought, an
idea never a real physical entity.
For theists this idea or thought is reified as real and it works for them.
If we define God as a collection of positive qualities, then God is a Platonic abstraction.
If we define God as the creator of the heavens and the earth, then God is a Platonic abstract being.
Religion teaches both views simultaneously.
We can develop the understanding that this universe is just one of the universes in a multiverse by picking up subtle hints. We can see it from "Platonic shadows".
In the allegory, Plato describes people that have spent their lives chained in a cave facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected onto the wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and they give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality but not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason.
It is a similar situation as in Ancient times when people somewhat suspected that the earth was round, just by picking up subtle hints:
7 ways to prove the earth is round
1. Watch a ship sail off to sea
2. Watch a lunar eclipse
3. Climb a tree
[4. Travel through, or even within, different time zones]
5. Watch a sunset
6. Measure shadows across the country
[7. Google "International Space Station photos"]
From these hints -- except for hint 4 and hint 7 -- even people in the Stone Age could actually figure out that the earth was round.
Concerning our universe, if free will exists, then this universe is not the only universe that interprets its theory.
We can see this subtle hint, i.e. this Platonic shadow, by looking at the natural numbers. Since there are facts about the universe of natural numbers that cannot be explained by arithmetic theory, we know that there exist nonstandard universes/models of numbers that interpret the same theory. Hence, the natural numbers are part of a larger multiverse.
If a fact cannot be explained by its theory, it means that this fact is true in one universe that interprets this theory, but not in other universes that also interpret it.
In religion, the nonstandard universes that interpret the same theory as our universe, are called "heaven" and "hell". From the structure that we can glean from the natural numbers, our free will, i.e. our own unpredictability from theory, is equiconsistent with heaven and hell.
Located as we are, in some very small part of our enormous universe, we can only see the subtle Platonic shadows of the remainder of our transcendental multiverse. Don't expect to see more than that. Furthermore, it is also very easy to just ignore these Platonic shadows.