in it ive been arguing with somebody for about a week now and it is very frustrating. anyways i will state some of the points i have made and a few key quotes from the argument. i would also just like to say that ive realized i should be more thorough when speaking about these things because i have been mistaken in the past my assuming that other people can follow my train of thought from what im talking about. because of this argument, i have learned that this is far from true.
firstly, we will assume for the sake of talking about it, than an ominiscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being exists and created the universe. we will call this being "god". now, there are some implications that are logically necessitated by the existence of such a being. him being omnipresent and having created the universe implies that he exists everywhere inside and outside the universe. and being that he knows everything, he must know the future which means he must also exist in the future as well as every point in time and outside of time. this is because knowledge of the future implies there is a future and time as we know it only exists inside the universe and is a result of the universe's expansion. him being omnipotent means that he can do anything. we will disregard the contradictions in the concept of omnipotence for now.
at the end i will list the problems that i encountered while thinking about this.
now the first thing i must note is that there are a lot of problems with this. im not too informed on temporality or causality and most of this is just from my contemplation and its almost all inferred. i dont think that discredits it though and i dont think it should. as far as i know, temporality is necessary for causality. in order for something to "cause" something, there must be time. if time did not exist, i assume everything would just stop. like time stops existing right now, we are all frozen and so is everything else. progression is impossible without time. thats just my thought im not sure if its correct.
we'll get back to that in a bit.
the perspective of a being who exists everywhere outside of time and everywhere at every point in time might be hard to imagine for some people so i will try to explain. but before that, i need to show why there is "points" in time. point isnt an accurate word for it because time is more like a wavelength or river as far as im concerned but thats the word im using dammit! lol. god knows everything that will ever happen in time, therefore there must be a timeline which everything is set to happen. the person i was arguing disagreed with this. this is where i learned that people may not always be able to follow my thought processes because to me, this seemed obvious. now, to elaborate further we will look at it from the perspective of somenbody who cant see time quite as well lol.
imagine there is somebody who exists within time. he can see everywhere he will ever be in the future. his knowledge is just that, knowledge. so it cannot directly affect objective reality. so his knowledge must be from the future being there and not the other way around. if the future was not there, then he could not know it. x will happen, he knows everything that will happen, therefore he knows x will happen. x happening is inferred from his knowledge of it happening. if x were not going to happen, then he would not have knowledge of it happening. now for the nitpicky faggots (not using it as a gay hating word) who would say "but people can say they 'know' something and they dont actually know it!" we will assume his knowledge is actual knowledge of fact. so, since he knows what will happen, i say that the phrase "will happen" implies its unavoidable or inevitable. i would say this proves predetermination if this were true but i'll take it further. one who knows the future would be unable to change it in my opinion and would be aware that they are not truly in control of their actions since they know what they will do before they have done it. so they must recognize that their actions were predetermined if they have not yet made the choice. so because he knows the future, that means there is a future. there are things that are going to happen which means that everything must be on a temporal path. essentially what im saying is that everything would necessarily have its own timeline which it is filling out or adhering to. here is a different way to look at it. the man is at point x or the present. in his future he knows he will be in france. that point in the future is y. this would imply that there is a timeline of things bewteen x and y that will cause him to end up at y. everything involved or contained within that timeline must also have its own timeline. if there were no line bewteen x and y, then he could not get to y. the line being a causal chain. maybe not even a causal chain is necessary, just the man has a path which will end at y. i think this proves everything must have a timeline in a world where a being has knowledge of he future.
between any two points, there is a line that must connect them in order to get from the one point to the next. in time, this line would be a causal chain, so from point a being the beginning of time and point b being the end of time, everything within time must have a line it follows much like the above example. if there are two points and one leads to the other, then the line that connects them must be. it just has to be there. it must be. point x being the beginning of time is connected and flows to point y and therefore the line, or everything within time that is between those to points must be there. this is becoming difficult for me to get into words but i'll try. im talking about line connecting the beginning and end of time must be predetermined if one knows the path leading from x to y because if the path or "line" connecting the two was not there, then one could not have knowledge of the line connecting x and y. the line of course being everything that will be between the beginning and end of time. so if a being can see the end of time from the beginning of time, then there must be a predetermined timeline for everything in between since everything in the universe is within time and therefore on the line connecting x and y.
so if one can see the future at all, then there is a future. so there must be a line that connects the present to the future and therefore there is a line connecting all points in time. the line is everything that happens between the two points. if one can see line connecting x and y while they are at x, then the line is predetermined. therefore, everything within time is predetermined if one could see the future because the line (everything in between the two points) is already there before one has gotten to point y. so, a predetermined timeline for everything within the universe would be true if one could see even 5 seconds into the future from the present.
just to clarify, im only talking about predetermination being true of one could see the future. because the line is already there and we would just be following it. i think it would also imply that there is something outside of time and ergo outside the universe but that is one motherload of a complicated abstraction of this philosophical discussion. i might get to that at the end of this post.
so given that predetermination is true from the "anything that could see the future from any point in time" thing, the existence of a god would even further prove predetermination true., he can see time from inside and out. i will try to help you imagine that. god created the universe and so he must have designed it. time is part of the universe, ergo he must have also designed time. he exists everywhere at every point in time and he exists everywhere outside of time. but we will be using the outside perspective as proof for predetermination under the assumption that god exists. picture this, you take a piece of paper and draw a timeline on it. now metaphorically, you are god creating the universe and time. it would be somewhat different for god because the timeline would have just been on the paper as a result of the paper existing but lets move on. its the timeline of the universe. if you look at a timeline, everything on there has already happened from your perspective. you looking at the timeline you drew on the paper is like god looking at the timeline from outside the universe. from the very moment that he created the universe and time started, he immediately knew everything on the timeline from beginning to end. now there has to be a timeline because god also exists in every point in time so therefore he can see the future, ergo timeline existing must be true given the thing above. so hes looking at time from the outside, everything from beginning to end must be true. im using true because future and past dont apply to the outside of time perspective so saying "he already knows whats going to happen" or "to him everything has already happened" arent accurate statements. within the timeline, he already knows everything that will happen from any point and everything that ever will happen from after the beginning already has happened from his perspective inside time. this alone proves predetermination but again i go further. so everything that will ever happen to you in your life he already knows and it already has happened from his perspective inside time. this means from his outside time perspective, everything on the timeline must be true given that everything within it has already happened from an inside perspective. this means that everything that would ever happen since the beginning of time was already pre-determined given that there was a timeline and that everything within the timeline was true. even further proof of predetermination is god knowing everything that everybody will ever do.
1. the inevitable happening of x means its predetermined
2. god knows everything we will ever do, and everything we will haver do has happened already from his perspective inside time.
3. if everything we will ever do hadnt already happened from the perspective of god at or near the end ot time, then it couldnt have happened for god in that perspective.
4. given p2 and p3, everything that will ever happen including everything that anybody will ever do will inevitable happen aka is predetermined.
now back to the metaphors. given the above. now that we have established predetermination as true if god exists or any knowledge of the future is possible. either god drew every event on the timeline himself or every event was just part of the timeline as a result of the line being drawn. either way it doesnt matter much.
im here to continue it now lol. okay so here is the endgame argument we had. this was just after he got done reading this blog post up to the above "either way it doesnt matter much" post because its all i had until today. today being saturday august 7, 2011.
im justtrollinalong, he's ireakhavoc
@JustTrollinAlong As I've been reading your post, I notice you mention a line between point A and B. I don't necessarily see it strictly as a line - but as a web. There are an infinite amount of other lines that can connect point A with point B - not just one. God also knows those other infinite possibilities for you to get from point A to point B, but you don't follow those, do you? So why would it be logical to assume because God knows 1/∞ - you're predetermined to follow that one?
@1r34kh4v0k youre making a categorical error. i agree, god knows the infinite possible lines that could connect them. but there is ONLY ONE WHICH DOES thats the key to your misunderstanding. god exists at the beginning and end of time. so from beginning perspective, he knows everything that will happen, from end everything he knew would happen has already happened. ergo, there is only one line which does connect the two. if that was your only objection then this one argument should be over
@justtrollinalong But there isn't only one... there is an infinite amount. You only follow one because that's all that is possible for you to choose. From the beginning, there is an ∞ amount because you have not made any choices. From the end, there is only one because there is that one way that you took to end up where you are. Take this example if you were in a maze. There are a few possibilities to get to the end; You could go L,R,L; or you could go R,L,R From the beginning, there are two choices you could make (resembling the ∞ possibilities). However, once you reach the exist - there is only one way how you could have gotten there - either L,R,L or R,L,R. From the beginning, there are two choices you could make (resembling the ∞ possibilities). However, once you reach the exist - there is only one way how you could have gotten there - either L,R,L or R,LR. It's going to be "one way" simply because that's the only one way you could have taken to end up where you are.
@1r34kh4v0k okay so you concede on the categorical error thing or rather you recognized it. now, if you read and undertsood the rest of my post, you should see that from gods end time perspective, everything has already happened that was going to happen since the beginning of time. so every choice im ever going to make is already predetermined. true free will is impossible in tha face of predetermination.
@JustTrollinAlong I never conceded that I made an error. I just specified what I was saying and used a simple example to make more sense. There is only one way for you to get to exactly where you are; it requires you to make a certain set of choices at a very certain set of time. That doesn't mean since you've reached that point, it was pre-determined - it just means that you've made a certain set of choices and that's "The only way" how you could have gotten to this point.
@1r34kh4v0k this should be the end game. you: "there are infinite possible ways you could have gotten here but you got here one way and it was because of your choices" again you misunderstand. see my below comment. if everything i will ever do has already happened in from gods end time perspective then all the choices i will ever choose are known and inevitable and have been since before i was born and this is no different from predetermination and therefore there is no real free will. , if god exists at every point in time then he must exist near the end of time and therefore everything from his perspective in the beginning of time that he knew would happen has already happened from his end time perspective. so for him in the end time, everything i will ever do has already happened. id say that proves predetermination because if its already happened and is happening millions of times over, once for every bit of time that goes by, then i cant avoid it
@JustTrollinAlong If they have already happened in God's eyes in the future, its because you've already made your choices in the future.
@1r34kh4v0k but it means those choices are made before the me now could make them. so its no different from predetermination. and again this brings up the question "is future me already in hell?
@JustTrollinAlong "Future you" is already in Hell if you continue to walk down the path of rejecting God. "Future you" isn't set into stone. "Future you" is constantly being rearranged and redecided with each choice you make.
@1r34kh4v0k
thats impossible. your reasoning is starting to fall apart which is why i think this is the end game. i cannot change what choices i will make unless i know the future which i cannot and even then there would be know changes because whatever path i think is the alternative would have been the actual path all along given what ive said before. your counter will be "but its still you making them" well then every me that will be born is destined to end up in hell as a different person or as the same person but idk how many souls that would mean people have. its no different from predetermination because it means that every bit of reasoning i have is predtermined and every aspect of me is too which means im not making any choice because all my processes of decision making are predetermined.
my whole endgame argument: if i were to start out assuming there is a timeline that would be flawed. im not sure if this is circular reasoning but im sure you will tell me if it is. so we have to start as if the present is all. we go from there must be a future in order for god to know the future. so weve established there isnt only the present. given that there is a future, and given that god is omnipresent, we must then say that god also exists in the future and if he exists in future then he must also exist in the past and then infer that he exists at any given point in time. if there are times in which he can exist then everything in that time must exist as well. so if he exists 5 mins from now, then it would mean everything is just as real in that point in time as it is real right now. so therefore i must exist in the future and therefore i must have a future self.
So given that all of time is known by god and anything that happens had already happened from gods perspective inside time and was going to happen since the beginning of time. Your counter is “but the future you is only going to hell if you continue to make these choices” this is absurd. As I demonstrated before, the future me must be as real as the present me and also, if im a past me to my future me then wouldn’t there be an innumerable number of me’s across all of time which would mean there is a past me to my now present me? And by your argument of “my future me is only going to be doomed if you continue rejecting god” then wouldn’t that mean my future me’s future is determined by what I do? So that’s predetermination to my future me and predetermination doesn’t just apply to a me in the future. It cant work like that. Im the only me whos actions aren’t predetermined? I say bullshit for two reasons. God exists in all points in time or everywhere in time and therefore there would have to be a past me to this me and a past me to that me ad infinitum. So therefore every me’s actions are predetermined by a past me and even if that weren’t the case, isn’t everything causally influenced by everything else? How I develop in the womb, how im raised, my genetics, nature and nurture determine how I will behave and everything around me at any point will determine what I do so there are two ways predetermination is proven here. One being that every nature and nurture can be traced back to adam and eve in your theology right? And even if that’s not that case there was some original humans. If its adam and eve then they were designed by god and there environment was made by god so both nature and nurture (their environment and genetics) were gods responsibility and since god knew what they would do in any given nature and nurture, and since their actions were determined by both of those, god therefore was responsible for what they did. And don’t say satan because god must have let satan into the garden knowing what would happen. Besides satan would be part of the nurture. And so their actions were determined by god and therefore their childrens actions were determined by adam and eves n and n so so on and so forth so therefore so were all of humanities. The same would go for the original humans because the basic point im demonstrating is that every action or event is determined by the previous circumstances. God designed the universe he knew everything that would ever happen as a result of the previous thing and therefore the first event he caused lead to everything else and so since he knew what event would lead to what, he therefore must have chosen all our choices for us in effect. The big bang caused stars and galaxies to form which eventually caused chemicals to form which formed life and so the exact way and those chemicals are what determined how that life would behave and evolve and so on and so forth t basically all our actions are were determined by what came before the action and therefore are predetermined so since god caused the big bang he must have determined our actions for us given that he knew what every possible variation of big bang would result in with regard to our actions so whatever way he caused it to happen, he must have chosen our actions for us given that he knew what big bang would result in what actions we would do. Also, god knew from the beginning of time what I would do and so from the beginning of time all my actions and thoughts that would ever take place were already known. They couldn’t be known if I wasn’t going to make them. Therefore I was going to make them. That’s predetermination. Im going to die. That was predetermined since the beginning of time. Im going to do x, that was predetermined. Im going to think and choose x, that was predetermined. Going to happen and predetermined are the same thing in the way that im using them. Im god in 1000bc and I know a man named john wilkes booth will shoot another man named abe Lincoln. I know its going to happen. Im also in 2011 ad and that’s already happened from my perspective there. Since its already happened here and I know its going to happen, then its predetermined, because essentially, its already happened. In the overall scheme of things its already happened, you cant avoid whats already happened if you don’t yet know and since from our human perspective, we cant know what has happened, we cant avoid doing it so its inevitable aka predetermined.
i wasnt able to post my whole endgame argument but he gave up im assuming because he realized i was right or maybe he just thought i was an idiot.
here are some of the contradictions and problems i encountered while i was arguing with him. the problems being within the realm of what we're talking about here.
we will assume predetermination is true given that i just demonstrated that it is if a theistic god exists or even if somebody who can see the future exists.
a personal side note first though. i often find it hard to contemplate unless there is a reason to, i need a base first. like i could see something on tv and it would send me on a path of contemplation or somebody could say something. in this case, it was arguing, as i tried to argue my point i kept trying to better articulate it and as i tried to do that my path of thought led me to some problems within what we were talking about. all of my blog posts come from my contemplation.
heres the first problem i encountered. again we're assuming that predetermination is true since we are speaking as if the judeo-christian god exists. the problem arose when i went to talk about im already in hell or im predetermined to go to hell. i thought "wait a sec, that would mean hell would have to be in time and so would heaven because im in time and i cant go somewhere if there is no time there because i would just be frozen as soon as i stepped out of time" and then it came to where i was also confused because if god does things in time then all his actions in time must also be predetermined. the heaven hell thing would be solved if they were different dimensions or planes of existence within the universe. like imagine pieces of paper stacked on each other but separated by something. and all of these were in a folder. so a folder with seperaters. the folder being the universe, paper being dimensions or planes of existence, and the seperaters being the thing that keeps the planes separate. i stopped there because i dont know if dimensions could exist in that way and it is just a pure speculatory bullshit way to escape the problem and has no real logical basis. just something to think about.
i also have a problem with causality and temporality. i have thought for a while now that temporality is necessary for causality. if time dissapeared then i thought we would all just freeze. nothing would be able to do anything. this confuses me though because then all explanations for how the universe came to be would not work and im pretty sure the leading theory is that time only began to exist once the big bang happened. if somebody could clear this up for me then that would be great. i doubt anybody will though since nobody reads this shit lol.
the things i do to keep myself distracted from insanity.
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