goodness gracious, this is slightly overdue, but happy two-year anniversary! two years ago in texas, we were probably still talking about god.

i think a lot of people are generally comfortable with the idea of believing in god, i.e. in his existence, as opposed to in god. and i admit, this is as far as my cafeteria catholicism takes me personally. but the question i've heard less discussed is the what-then of it all. so what if he exists? the earlier philosophers who tried to approach god's existence through logic deemed him necessary as (in the order we read them, alex) a first cause, the source of the [ap]perceptions external to the cartesian ego, the being that justifies the existence of the contingent universe; god was mostly (i) a creator of the world-machine, and often simultaneously (ii) the one who keeps it running. i deviate from what the dead philosophers would have said and make the generalization that, looking at god logically gets you a logical god: in the case of (i), one who doesn't interfere with the logical ways of the world because he was only the creator*, or (ii), a pantheistic god who harmonizes.

[*a quote from a Milan Kundera character (thanks again to alex for letting me bully the book from him): "Praying to God is like praying to Edison everytime a light bulb goes out." the (i) view.]

god-(iii) is our beyond-our-logic, four-dimensional being, it seems, and what i think john means when he says "to believe in God is to believe that God can create an immovable object and an unstoppable force and have them collide without any trouble."

this is a really annoying situation, what i put in is exactly what i'm getting out, but i hope i've (somewhat) addressed adrian's original question. the question is a paradox playing off the rules of logic, and it seems that if we are to play by the same rules the answer is no. it is only when we try to resolve the paradox - the question itself - that we have to step outside the box and re-contextualize. if god is, say, four-dimensional, then the time-1 at which he creates unliftable object might be able to coincide with time-2 at which he lifts it, in the way we can fold a piece of paper to let two distinct points on Flatland suddenly become one.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [6:29 AM]

I think to believe in God is to believe that God can create an immovable object and an unstoppable force and have them collide without any trouble.

To us it would seem impossible, but to God it would be fine. I imagine it sort of like deja vu. In deja vu our senses and feelings (which are the way our bodies organize the world) tell us that something has happened before, or some such impossible thing. But we tend to trust our logic (which is how our brain organizes the world). And so what we "know" to be true conflicts with what we "see/feel" to be true. But it's not a paradox, because we just chose logic because logic has consistently been right when pitted against feelings.

Well to us it would seem the same with God's paradox, logically the collision would not be able to happen, and yet there we go, we would see/feel/know that the immovable object didn't move and the unstoppable force didn't stop and they collided anyhow.

That's the problem I've always had with believing in God. It seems that faith is throwing aside a tool that works for almost all things (logic) and picking up a tool which works for very little (faith without logic). Believing in God feels like having faith that there is someone up there who understands how it all works (supreme logic?), but believing just because we don't understand it all down here. Why can't we have faith that no one understands it all, and that logic is just how we'll have to go about life until we find out otherwise? It feels like God was invented by some Obsessive Compulisive humans who can't stand the thought of not being able to explain everything.

But why did God catch on so well? Why do I find myself believing?

I think we give into faith because no one wants to live in a world without love and supreme morality and goodness. And all of those are without real logic. We want them to be beyond logic; we want love to be beyond a tool or an emotion. We want it to be part of some supreme illogical thing.

I'm in love with a young woman here in Omaha. It feels completely illogical and makes me have faith in something that makes no sense and I love it and her and it makes me very very happy. But I'm headed to Chicago in the fall and she to Gustavus Adolphus, and at that point I'm guessing I'll lose my faith and go back to living a logical, if depressing, life. My faith is fickle I guess, based on human things. But from where I see it, all faith in God comes from humans.

I hope that's not insulting to anyone. I really would like to have a solid foundation to believe in God from, I just can't seem to build one out of logic.

posted by john owens-ream   [3:37 PM]

Good post Bryan. I agree mostly, though there surely is a difference between "has been proven/unproven" v. "can be proven/unproven."

"it may simply be that we, as creatures with finite senses, with finite understanding, with finite knowledge, cannot comprehend the true logic and thus, have developed our own finite logic to make sense of our world. this doesn't mean that what is not logical cannot exist or that which is logical must exist."
I agree, though I question the phrase "the true logic" since it implies a higher logic as opposed to a simpler series of forces.

on a side note- When you said flatland, the first thing I thought of was a story by Larry Nivven. Flatlanders are people from at the bottom of a gravity well (like earth) while Spacers lived most of their lives in freefall. see Tales of Known Space.

posted by Adrian   [10:34 AM]

I wanted to post a silly little article called Is God Four-Dimensional?, in a book I own entitled More Joy of Mathematics that I used to carry around with me back in middle school but the habit had been extinguished a long time ago by my embarrassed friends, so the book's back at home. :( But if anyone else happens to come across the book I urge you to look it up. And if Bryan just recommended Flatland, I second it, and I know Jacob does too. It's the only book I've read written by a square.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [2:30 AM]

ah... to all this, i have but one question.
"we will never actually achieve the necessary evidence without breaking the rules of existence."

what are the rules of existence?

- you have to think carefully about your answer, because what may seem like a simple answer of existence may very well be misleading. for example, as in Flatland, a zeroeth dimensional being understand the existence of the first dimensional being? could the first understand the second? the second the third? and the third... the fourth?
What may seem illogical to us may very well be obeying the laws of "nature" or "god" or whatever it is that is the definer or creater. it may simply be that we, as creatures with finite senses, with finite understanding, with finite knowledge, cannot comprehend the true logic and thus, have developed our own finite logic to make sense of our world. this doesn't mean that what is not logical cannot exist or that which is logical must exist. If you assume so, you yourself are commiting a logical fallacy of assuming something to be true or untrue simply because it hasn't been proven or disproven.

where does that leave us?

it leaves us as beings who must admit that our understanding, our logic, everything we believe in to truly exist, may actually be "wrong" in the true logic of things... or perhaps there is no true logic of things and it is simply that which is... nevertheless, we must use our logic, must use our understanding, because without it, we are lost, and have no means by which to analyze, examine, reflect, think about ourselves and our world.

posted by Bryan Lee   [8:37 PM]

this took a while so you'd better like it. 

posted by Adrian   [9:56 PM]

That's what Eli said also. I'd like to point out that a triangle on a sphere is not a two dimensional object because it has become a 3-dimensional shape, and isn't really a triangle anymore. If it does still count as a triangle then;

Could God create a rock so heavy that he could not lift it?
(Eli said lift is relative to center of gravity, and everything orbits--which I liked, so)

Could God make a Round Square, or cube a triangle?

If he can, the shape is no longer itself, meaning that it can't be, and if he can't do this, he isn't omnipotent. The problem is with having definitions. You could either say this is a proof against logic or a proof against omnipotence, but the two are mutually exclusive. If you disagree, ask Descartes. He disagrees. Though his definition of omnipotence is logical only in terms of being a play on words. It would be good to have ideas without words. They are so misleading.

SO, Arguments about this sort of thing-"what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object"-can't be real. *

Can we establish a system of logic that couldn't be swayed by the Sky God or Brahma or The Father? I think so, simply because logic isn't real anyway.
I mean; 2+2=4, right. That has become a "fact" somehow, but "2" and "2" and "4" are only dots on a screen or lines on a page or sounds in your ear. They are not real and thus unlike the universe, exist within a system of laws all thier own. If "4" represented five objects, than 2+2=4 would be idiotic, but once the rules are established, they are real in a way that real things are not. They stand on their own and do not exist at all simultaneously. The are processes in our wet little 3-lb computers.


Can an omnipotent being establish a system of logic and then violate that system?
I don't think so, but that's because you can't furnish objective evidence for the existence of any such thing. why? because any evidence would have to be outside of said logical system, and as long as we are in said logical system (and it appears that we exist in a system for which logic stands), than we will never actually achieve the necessary evidence without breaking the rules of existence.

*Also, "if by immovable object, you mean that girl over by the bar, and if by unstoppable force you mean Brian, than clearly when you say "a logical paradox ensues" you mean "they do it."

posted by Adrian   [8:38 PM]

i would just like to point out that even man can construct a triangle whose angles add up to greater than 180. if you put a triangle on a spherical surface, for example, all the angles are right-angles and the triangle's interior angles add up to 270. (uh... 90* 3... phew)

if man can, one would think god could too. lol.

posted by Bryan Lee   [9:38 AM]

Since the definition of a triangle is set by man, am I extrapolating correctly when I say your question is really "Can the word of God override the word of man?"

ok.

posted by Eunice   [12:50 PM]

I know most of you will have come across a similar paradox before, but I want to see what everyone thinks about this (since whenever I've heard people argue, everyone likes to talk, and no one ever really wins):

Could God construct a triange for which the sum of the internal angles was greater than 180 degrees?

posted by Adrian   [11:19 AM]

Some people write beautifully constructed, self-contained posts that read like essays. I'm not one of those people.

Two things:

Eunice: I haven't read too much Banana Yoshimoto, mostly because I get the hunch that a lot of her works will tend to read the same, but I really liked Kitchen when I read it. It's a collection of two novellas; Kitchen is the better of the two, and the other one (the title slips my mind - it's two words, but the first of them is 'moonlight' so you can probably get a feel of the kind of story it is) is decent. I'd ask someone to second the recommendation though, as I read it six years ago and my then-tastes had been severely tainted by my insecure middle school mentality.

and now everyone:
[a poet is] "anyone who makes the language live and who knows that the affair at Babel was both a disaster and - this being the etymology of the word 'disaster' - a rain of stars upon man."
- George Steiner, After Babel

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [4:05 AM]

Call me stupid-with-math, um, but why must life always follow theory? I feel that only life is real, and despite the theoretical possibility of a curve of root negative 1, the idea of such a curve makes no sense. Real curves exist. Irrational curves are irrational, so may theoretically exist, but are about as real as "negaive time." ?idunno.

posted by Adrian   [9:02 PM]

Reading? I started brothers K, but then ended up reading The Life of Pi, which, is amazing. The Pan-theism of Pi Patel (protagonist of life of Pi) is comical and touching while the ending of the story is somewhat disturbing and will stay in your thoughts for days. really. Read it, everyone. I am currently in the middle of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris.
also,
Back in New Haven, which is clearly not New Zealand, but what can you do.

What is everyone else reading? Is anyone doing anyting really interesting?

May The Gods Be With You
Logos Uranus.

posted by Adrian   [8:25 AM]

Where is that picture from? It reminds me of the tommy bologna (was that it?) doodle on the wall of some bubble tea shop on Guadalupe.

I'm currently reading Bryan's recommendation: We, by Zamiatin. Here's an interesting excerpt, for possible discussion/dissection/general pique-ing of interest:

"In our superficial life, every formula, every equation, corresponds to the curve of a solid. We have never seen the curve or solid corresponding to my square root minus one. The horrifying part of the situation is that there exist such curves or solids. Unseen by us, they do exist, they must, inevitably; for in mathematics, as on a screen, strange, sharp shadows appear before us. One must remember that mathematics, like death, never makes mistakes, never plays tricks. If we are unable to see those irrational curves or solids, it means only that they inevitably possess a whole immense world somewhere beneath the surface of our life."

Next up: Banana Yoshimoto (which of hers would you recommend, Tae-Yeoun?) or the Book of Job.

posted by Eunice   [3:43 PM]

Adrian, how long has 'Trilobites' been up on the 'recommended for discussion' list?
543 million years ;)
Also, Eunice, this is a bit late, and I never properly apologized but Kevin did pass on your message as I was leaving Boston. I bow my head in shame.

So what's everyone reading?

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [3:23 AM]

well, after TASP I wrote morning pages for about three days before it stopped being a morning activity. Nonetheless I kept writing in streams of consciousness at varying hours of the day until I used up the notebook, then I stopped.

Now the black moleskin the Boston TASPers gave me (thank you!) has taken its place. I keep it as my "creativity/mystery" notebook where I write notes about anything relevant to our TASP topics.

A confession - during TASP, Olga and I had separate "actual diary" writing sessions in the evening.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [10:07 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. CHAPPELLE!

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [10:01 PM]

Does anyone still do morning pages? Or did anyone continue them a really long time, or start them up again?

(sorry to just interject that into the conversation, but it seemed like we were drifting in summer plans anyway)

I just started doing the morning pages thing again, and I'm finding them more rewarding than even at Tasp. Summer can really slow a person down, I find, make them less productive. I think morning pages will help me stay on track, and get the things done I want to do. I'd love some feedback from anyone else who has used them recently, or anyone with comments about them from way back when in austin.

There's something really comforting even about writing "wake up, wake up, wake up" over a whole page.

posted by john owens-ream   [4:10 PM]

Fascinating discovery...the friendliest department in Harvard is the math department. Only there do graduates, faculty, and squatters mingle 24/7.

posted by Eunice   [1:26 PM]

[ website ] :: [ contact ] :: [ home ]

XML