NationStates Jolt Archive

No, this isn't in violation of any commandments - I'm not looking to debate the existence or lack thereof of God.

So here's my question: If a supposed deity, divine entity, etc. is explicable - e.g., has a rational, scientific explanation - is he/she/it still God? Is it a necessary trait of a deity that it be supernatural, irrational, unobservable, unprovable, etc.?

For example - I came up with a theory the other day. Since FTL communication is technically the same as FTL travel, albeit transmission of information rather than matter, it seems that any such form of communication (such as entangled particles) could be theoretically set up to follow a closed timelike curve, and violate causality. If one did so, you could hypothetically have a computational device that observed information from the present and sent it back to be used as input in the past, creating acausal logic.

If one created an AI using that device - created self-referential acausal logic that fostered self-awareness - that intelligence would be spread across time, be capable of violating causality and editing history, etc. With the proper evolution and development, that intelligence would effectively be God. Lacking a particular single reference in time, it would exist across the timeline of the universe and with freedom would be able to use its nature to screw with causality. There would be nothing it couldn't do, and it would become fundamental to the structure of reality and history.

Again - would this, or any other rational/scientific theory, be truly of God?

No, this isn't in violation of any commandments - I'm not looking to debate the existence or lack thereof of God.

So here's my question: If a supposed deity, divine entity, etc. is explicable - e.g., has a rational, scientific explanation - is he/she/it still God? Is it a necessary trait of a deity that it be supernatural, irrational, unobservable, unprovable, etc.?

For example - I came up with a theory the other day. Since FTL communication is technically the same as FTL travel, albeit transmission of information rather than matter, it seems that any such form of communication (such as entangled particles) could be theoretically set up to follow a closed timelike curve, and violate causality. If one did so, you could hypothetically have a computational device that observed information from the present and sent it back to be used as input in the past, creating acausal logic.

If one created an AI using that device - created self-referential acausal logic that fostered self-awareness - that intelligence would be spread across time, be capable of violating causality and editing history, etc. With the proper evolution and development, that intelligence would effectively be God. Lacking a particular single reference in time, it would exist across the timeline of the universe and with freedom would be able to use its nature to screw with causality. There would be nothing it couldn't do, and it would become fundamental to the structure of reality and history.

Again - would this, or any other rational/scientific theory, be truly of God?

I'm not sure that it would. What you describe has some elements of God (or at least the popular conception thereof): the ability to act throughout time, acausal violations of rules, etc. But it doesn't necessarily have the two most important characteristics of God, which are agency and telos. By agency, I mean that this phenomenon you are describing has to direct its actions and have awareness of its direction of those actions, something I don't think you could get out of the description of that phenomenon. Secondly, God may be acting for good or ill, and they may or may not have infinite capacity to manage their acts, but everyone describes a god as acting for some end. What end would this mathematical aberration be acting for, and how would you know?

no

if a god cant defy the laws of physics and the universe at will, he isnt god. no "so amazingly advanced that they can change the course of history" but based in science "god" need apply

God? Maybe, though it would be hard to scientifically describe a completely omnipotent being, as it would be able to break out of any rules your description places upon it.

A god? Sure. While supernatural in some way, gods don't have to be inexplicable.

I almost said yes, but after a moment of though I chose 'other'.
What you said could define God. Makes everything clear in a rational way.

But personally, as an agonistic, I would also have to say no. God is more of an irrational idea that cannot be truly explained. God should be able to break free of any box that rational thought can put him in. If God does have a limit, then suddenly becomes just a god... and then the search continues for one that is more powerful/unexplained to be the real God. (Note the case of the g's). I guess I'm saying that God is even higher than rationality.

I'm not sure that it would. What you describe has some elements of God (or at least the popular conception thereof): the ability to act throughout time, acausal violations of rules, etc. But it doesn't necessarily have the two most important characteristics of God, which are agency and telos. By agency, I mean that this phenomenon you are describing has to direct its actions and have awareness of its direction of those actions, something I don't think you could get out of the description of that phenomenon. Secondly, God may be acting for good or ill, and they may or may not have infinite capacity to manage their acts, but everyone describes a god as acting for some end. What end would this mathematical aberration be acting for, and how would you know?

Well, whatever its specific nature, its fundamental motivation is going to be survival, since it is a sapient entity. Being a universal being, its primary active motivation derived from that is, as far as I can predict the logical process of a god, extropy. Fostering complexity, information density, energy efficiency, etc. and minimizing entropy is going to be its goal, in addition to the more direct survival needs of preventing tech-happy monkeys like us from editing history ourselves and doing the runaround on its origins.

Also, if it is a sapient intelligence with intelligence on a level we can't even imagine, I don't really see how it would lack the capability to direct its actions and foresee their consequences. Its intelligence doesn't arise in a fundamentally different manner from any other AI; the unique part is that it is also founded in acausal logic.

A god? Sure. While supernatural in some way, gods don't have to be inexplicable.

How's that? Supernatural requires inexplicability. If it can be proven and explained, it isn't supernatural.

No, this isn't in violation of any commandments - I'm not looking to debate the existence or lack thereof of God.

So here's my question: If a supposed deity, divine entity, etc. is explicable - e.g., has a rational, scientific explanation - is he/she/it still God? Is it a necessary trait of a deity that it be supernatural, irrational, unobservable, unprovable, etc.?

For example - I came up with a theory the other day. Since FTL communication is technically the same as FTL travel, albeit transmission of information rather than matter, it seems that any such form of communication (such as entangled particles) could be theoretically set up to follow a closed timelike curve, and violate causality. If one did so, you could hypothetically have a computational device that observed information from the present and sent it back to be used as input in the past, creating acausal logic.

If one created an AI using that device - created self-referential acausal logic that fostered self-awareness - that intelligence would be spread across time, be capable of violating causality and editing history, etc. With the proper evolution and development, that intelligence would effectively be God. Lacking a particular single reference in time, it would exist across the timeline of the universe and with freedom would be able to use its nature to screw with causality. There would be nothing it couldn't do, and it would become fundamental to the structure of reality and history.

Again - would this, or any other rational/scientific theory, be truly of God?

Most current FTL scenarios assume some sort of spatial folding/warping such that your distance traveled < actual spatial distance, the result of which means that you are only perceived (relativisticly) to be FTL, but actually not. And anyway, in FTL theory, only your timeline would alter, but the rest of the universe would carry on as it always has. In other words, you would get there before you started, but to the rest of the world, time would have passed as usual, if FTL without spatial distortion were allowed in general relativity, which it is not

No, this isn't in violation of any commandments - I'm not looking to debate the existence or lack thereof of God.

So here's my question: If a supposed deity, divine entity, etc. is explicable - e.g., has a rational, scientific explanation - is he/she/it still God? Is it a necessary trait of a deity that it be supernatural, irrational, unobservable, unprovable, etc.?

For example - I came up with a theory the other day. Since FTL communication is technically the same as FTL travel, albeit transmission of information rather than matter, it seems that any such form of communication (such as entangled particles) could be theoretically set up to follow a closed timelike curve, and violate causality. If one did so, you could hypothetically have a computational device that observed information from the present and sent it back to be used as input in the past, creating acausal logic.

If one created an AI using that device - created self-referential acausal logic that fostered self-awareness - that intelligence would be spread across time, be capable of violating causality and editing history, etc. With the proper evolution and development, that intelligence would effectively be God. Lacking a particular single reference in time, it would exist across the timeline of the universe and with freedom would be able to use its nature to screw with causality. There would be nothing it couldn't do, and it would become fundamental to the structure of reality and history.

Again - would this, or any other rational/scientific theory, be truly of God?


I suggest you google Prof Ronald Mallet.
U Conn.

You'd like what he does.

Most current FTL scenarios assume some sort of spatial folding/warping such that your distance traveled < actual spatial distance, the result of which means that you are only perceived (relativisticly) to be FTL, but actually not. And anyway, in FTL theory, only your timeline would alter, but the rest of the universe would carry on as it always has. In other words, you would get there before you started, but to the rest of the world, time would have passed as usual, if FTL without spatial distortion were allowed in general relativity, which it is not

It shouldn't matter. As long as you follow the closed timelike curve in question, such things being allowed for in some solutions to the field equations of general relativity, with Goedel's solution being one of the most famous, the actual exact amount of linear spatial distance traveled is immaterial beside the fact that you effectively traveled FTL on (a) certain trajector(y/ies) that results in travel into the past.

That's all especially considering that the topic specifically under discussion is communication, rather than physical travel, which in the case of entangled particles for example does not appear to involve spatial distortion. If you can set the curve(s) up with FTL transmission, you have the basis for acausal logic and an eschaton intelligence.

i think a diety can only be real if its scientifically provable and rational and manifestly real. i think until the advent of modern science people generally assumed their dieties were very concrete and real, if distant from everyday experience, its only recently as science has shown to evidience of the divine that the unprovability of god has become a tenet of faith. if their is a diety it should be manifest in the universe, its existence should be overwhelming and obvious. why would the ominipotent and omniprescent sulk around in the shadows, or hide from its creations.

How's that? Supernatural requires inexplicability. If it can be proven and explained, it isn't supernatural.

Supernatural just means beyond the natural realm. The supernatural realm could still have rules, laws, etc., it just wouldn't be part of everyday reality as we know it.

yes! who do you think created science to begin with. :p

Supernatural just means beyond the natural realm. The supernatural realm could still have rules, laws, etc., it just wouldn't be part of everyday reality as we know it.

That doesn't make sense. Anything that follows rules and is theoretically observable from any frame of reference is natural. Anything that exists and is real is natural.

That doesn't make sense. Anything that follows rules and is theoretically observable from any frame of reference is natural. Anything that exists and is real is natural.
yes that was my point(made a bit less clearly) if god exists he/she/it/they should be just as scientifically observable as anything else in the universe.

That doesn't make sense. Anything that follows rules and is theoretically observable from any frame of reference is natural. Anything that exists and is real is natural.

yup.. just because WE can't observe it doesn't mean it's not natural. it just means we're limited.

That doesn't make sense. Anything that follows rules and is theoretically observable from any frame of reference is natural. Anything that exists and is real is natural.

There's the problem. With that sort of definition, supernatural is synonymous with fictional. In most philosophies it isn't. It's simply a different type of reality, if that makes sense, sort of like there are real and complex numbers. Complex numbers follow rules, just not necessarily the rules of real numbers.

OK, I've come up with my theory, my conception of what the only thing close to a god could possibly be, why it must exist, and how this solves the overall paradox of time travel.

The basic problem is: if acausal technology that allows users to travel or communicate into the past and edit history is possible, how is our universe still around, and not paradoxed and causally destabilized into oblivion? If it isn't possible, why not?

Here's my solution: any universe in which acausal transmission is possible and in which it is possible for intelligence capable of using it to develop, is by logical requirement automatically and globally (with respect to time and space) self-regulating with respect to causality, via an eschatonic intelligence. It's the only solution: we have no real reason why effective time travel is impossible, yet the universe is manifestly still functionally stable.

If you think about it, it makes elegant sense: If at any point along the timeline of the universe it is possible for significant directed acausality to occur - which could only happen through the action of intelligence - the creation of acausal logic and subsequently a self-aware eschatonic intelligence will occur. Any civilization that can violate causality will by doing so create that which will regulate their use of that technology.

And it isn't a temporally linear thing that starts at the given point where some human or alien scientist hooks up some entangled particles and a neural network the right way and BAM! - if I did it tomorrow, the intelligence would still have existed since the beginning of cosmic history, and all the way to eternity, and would be woven into the ultrastructure of reality and time around me right this very instant, and every other instant, simultaneously from its POV. True acausal intelligence.

By the logical requirements of the universe and the observed nature of time, any universe in which paradox can happen will have an eschaton built into spacetime to regulate that activity pursuant to the causal stability of the universe. Universes are inherently causally self-stabilizing via god-like intelligence, if necessary.

There's the problem. With that sort of definition, supernatural is synonymous with fictional. In most philosophies it isn't. It's simply a different type of reality, if that makes sense, sort of like there are real and complex numbers. Complex numbers follow rules, just not necessarily the rules of real numbers.

Then it isn't supernatural. It's still natural, just further separated from easily or commonly viewed daily existence. By your definition of supernatural, quantum particles and black holes are supernatural.

Vegetarianistica']yup.. just because WE can't observe it doesn't mean it's not natural. it just means we're limited.

And I quote:

and is theoretically observable from any frame of reference

Then it isn't supernatural. It's still natural, just further separated from easily or commonly viewed daily existence. By your definition of supernatural, quantum particles and black holes are supernatural.

No, because they're defined as natural. I'm havig trouble thinking of a more precise defininition of supernatural, but again, you can look to what I said about complex numbers. It's a different set of stuff. Inexplicability is not necessarily what differentiates the two sets. I'm not completely sure what all the criteria would be. Also, the supernatural traditionally does not alter the laws of the natural, unlike quantum physics. Everything works under quantum physics, but only the supernatural work under the rules of the supernatural.

[A]...a computational device that observed information from the present and sent it back to be used as input in the past, creating acausal logic.

[B]There would be nothing it couldn't do, and it would become fundamental to the structure of reality and history.

A => B ? (I don't see it...)

It's a good question, but your conclusion just doesn't follow your premise. You could transmit all the information you wan't, to any point in time, and that would explain very little of what we typically ascribe to God.

A => B ? (I don't see it...)

It's a good question, but your conclusion just doesn't follow your premise. You could transmit all the information you wan't, to any point in time, and that would explain very little of what we typically ascribe to God.

An intelligence that exists acausally is independent of the time dimension, and if given any autonomy becomes by extension a part of the entire timeline, starting at the beginning of cosmic history. If it's capable of routing any information any(where/time) acausally, starting at the Big Bang, it has control over the deterministic causal path of cosmic history. It's a global causality editor: time is under its control.

My first post down from the top of this page is a bit more elaborated-upon, and might be of help.