k2aggie07 said:

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I need a whiteboard and about four beers.

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Yes. I'm with you. The question is basically the last part: does X exist? And if not A (math) then what is B?

I mean, B would essentially still be math. The historical example would be A is ZFC without the axiom of choice and B is ZFC with it. Of course the axiom of choice was added for reasons other than what we have been discussing, but the new axioms don't have to change anything drastically. If your work is outside the fields of set theory or formal logic, you'll probably never need to think about the axioms.

By the way, I'm back on a phone. I apologize for any egregious typos or autocorrects.

For you k2:

Awesome.



I have a thing I want to read but I don't think it's been written, and I don't know anyone who will write it for me.

I want to read a book that talks about the synthesis of St Augustine's numbers of judgment, things like Godel's infinite transfinites, and theology such as St Maximos' concept of the human capacity to supra-non-know a supranonknowable God (i.e., God is beyond transcendent yet immanent through a special aptitude of humans).

Chapter one would be a discussion of the limitations of formal procedures in math. Chapter two would explore the theology of God as transcendent. Chapter three would dig into the implications of our mathematical perception or even our ability to have intuition in a purely abstract fashion is a kind of evidence of supranonknowing.

Darg, what do you say? When can you give me the first draft of chapter one?

Sounds like you've thought up an interesting project. I'd say if the book doesn't exist you should write it

If I could write it I wouldn't need someone to write it for me.

Just looked at this thread. Lot's of fun reading and good arguments.

I have to say, personally, as I have looked more into the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics or more specifically, the Many Minds Interpretation, it really opens up a lot of cool possibilities philosophically. While there would still be determinism, the indeterminate randomness comes in which world you end up in every time.

I'm starting to like this theory more and more. Best of both worlds.

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I have to say, personally, as I have looked more into the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics or more specifically, the Many Minds Interpretation, it really opens up a lot of cool possibilities philosophically. While there would still be determinism, the indeterminate randomness comes in which world you end up in every time.

I'm starting to like this theory more and more. Best of both worlds.

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Oddly enough, I agree with you even coming from a theistic perspective. I favor Open Theism, ie God knows how the universe will turn out given every possible combination and permutation of human choices, but He doesn't actually know which choice you will make. Sort of like a game with multiple endings based on your choices. The problem is that God is not omniscient in such a scenario. He knows more than in a purely deterministic universe because (Universe! > Universe), but He is still not omniscient. However, if every possible choice is not only possible but actualized, then God is still omniscient by knowing the full history of every "alternate universe" but choice is still presevered as we navigate throught the possibilities.

That makes sense. But then any sense of good or bad people, damned or saved people all loses meaning. We would then be everything. Unless you want to say every different version of me in another universe is a seperate soul. Or unless you want to say God takes the average of our choices to determine if we are saved or "good".

If, though, God put us here, or we as gods or whatever came here to experience everything we possibly could in as short a period of time in this universe, the Many Minds theory seems to be the most efficient at doing that, assuming that in the end, all memories and experiences end up together.

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That makes sense. But then any sense of good or bad people, damned or saved people all loses meaning. We would then be everything. Unless you want to say every different version of me in another universe is a seperate soul. Or unless you want to say God takes the average of our choices to determine if we are saved or "good".

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That's a good point. Some people have said that these alternative realities are not fully real, but they continue to exist as unactualized realities even when a choice or the course of history goes in a direction. But that's hard for me to wrap my head around

Same type of reasoning leads the Physicists that buy into Multiple Worlds to think it is actually the full reality.

Now that I think about it, the idea of multiple versions of me making every possible decision is not as bothersome as I thought. I believe in annihiliation instead of hell, so the "defective" versions of me would cease to be. The others would be in a continuous process of becoming more Christ-like, or in other words a continuous process of becoming God's perfect conception of who I should be. So the non-defective versions of me would all be indistinguishable somewhere along that path anyway

Oooh, full culmination? Everything back to the source.

The problem with that though is, if you are basing your theory of that in combination with the quantum mechanical theory of Many Worlds/Minds, then anything that is possible is, in reality, going to happen in one universe or another.. So that would mean that billions of you will exist in universes where christianity, the bible, all of it is nonexistent. Some other random religions would exist instead.

Total protonic reversal

I suppose I wouldn't ascribe to that version. After all, I believe in a Creator that transcends physical law. So He would exist and be the same in every iteration of reality. So He would make creatures in His image in every iteration. Since His Son is also transcendent, Christ would live as one of those creatures in every iteration. So the differences between each iteration would be due to our will and not His. So you wouldn't really have the first split until the Fall.

I guess I could also see an instance where God wills things differently and therefore there are different realities, but that doesn't really jive with most Christian ideas about God.