The Big Bang, not a single point in time.

[ambush80]

Maybe because we commonly take "feel" as an emotional response, we'd also probably agree to its more basic application in the tactile of the material, no?
Do a warm set of flannel sheets in winter "feel" better for sleeping than a slab of steel?
But what if we use feel in its broadest application to sense things?
We might even have some agreement as to the influence of the former upon the latter, and vice versa.
I'm hiking and see a bear with cubs approaching and I may feel fear.
Likewise, I was once bitten by a dog, and so now, even when I see a leashed dog...I sense an uneasiness about myself, I may even tell myself it's irrational..."it's a puppy, it's leashed, it's going the other way, half way down the block...but..."

(Now, we could add a myriad of additional things to complicate "I'm hiking with a Grizz's 45-70 and I have been waiting for this all day, and I don't care at all about leaving some cubs motherless..." And so now I feel hope and anticipation of a trophy.)

Which now, if introduced makes the whole matter quite different "in observation". I think this may be close to what we do with one another, introducing "but what if's".

But I am at fundament now, at least to myself, a sensing device. I can't deny it. If you will, even, a "feeling device" in that broad application. I can't deny emotional responses, nor physical, light upon cones and rods, or compressions of air upon a tympanum transferred via structures to a wire to my brain. And if I awake with a sudden pain across my chest in the night, I may be at a loss to this sensation...is it merely my straining at having lifted heavy boards that day in building the new porch...or...is it something else?

I only know there is a feeling of pain, but what to "make of it", and here is where the sticky wicket is introduced...why do I even "feel" I need to make anything of it, at all? I can't deny there is a sense of compulsion to know, a feeling of need to know. And those abdominal pains...is it gas, or something we would call more sinister? A loud long CensoredCensoredCensoredCensored ensues, pains subsides...and I now take comfort at being lactose intolerant with yet a weakness toward eating three slices of cheese laden pizza at 9pm.

The really smart could say "wait! having gas does not exclude the possibility of..." But for me, replicating or intensifying my chest pain by stretching may tell me something, and a CensoredCensoredCensoredCensored may allow me to drift peacefully back off to sleep. Others may require different evidence of how they "feel" about things "I'm running for a stress test in the morning" or a CT of my abdomen".

But...is it not a sense we have (a feeling) when speaking about what we may all call "truth", all of what suffices to any particular individual must be off the table, experiences, personal knowledge, even of oneself...it must therefore, in that "sense" to a something that recognizes that sense...be able to stand alone, universal?

If you're interested in Universal Truth you will need to rely on more than feelings, indeed you may need to dismiss them altogether.

 

[Israel]

If you're interested in Universal Truth you will need to rely on more than feelings, indeed you may need to dismiss them altogether.

Yes, very much...yes.
I hope you were able to see that in my fumbling. Things influence every which way...from emotions affecting seeing, seeing affecting emotions...etc.
But...in that now realization comes also an unsettling of sorts in the "truth" sensor...how can I know truth, if I am subject to inputs affecting perspective, perspective affecting view? How, if tabula rasa is only seeming possible recourse left for "true" knowing...can this be possible?
So now...my "truth" sensor is recognized as askew...and that (I think some can relate)...becomes most troubling of all.

It, in some ways, goes back to what Drippin' expressed about religion, and science, and egos. And although I don't think if asked he would deny the also assumption "and I too, have an ego (or am an ego)" it was not explicitly stated. It seems we are more inclined to almost lean toward the assumption that everything, or at least, everyone else may present things colored to some extent by self interest...but that in some way, I am "more free" of that in my seeking. But once a man realizes this coming to me is colored with ego, and is received likewise of same, like light hitting prisms, the issue of "purity"...or universality comes glaringly into play as something approaching zero possibility.

And here is where I have found Jesus saying something most salient regarding that: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." It's not as if Jesus were ignorant of this interplay of light among us "who has the truth?" One might even see he well understood the "next thought" of some of those who heard his bold pronouncements "how can I even begin to tell if this guy is telling the truth?"

He recommends an experiment, but it will only be an invitation to those who are convicted truth (as in concept of "God") is both knowable and also as knowable, may be aligned to. Here I seek to place no restriction, as I do not see any "in the Lord" against any inclined to take on the experiment. But it does demand of itself, an inward honesty...at least as regards pursuit, it cannot work any other way.

If we enter the arena of seeking to know the truth (and who, we might ask...hasn't at least dipped their toe?) I am convinced even more here of "non restriction". I can offer no help, except perhaps in this single thing of recognition of a deep commonness we either do, or do not share. The recognition of our relationship to "things".

Like words, ideas, car keys (made perhaps exquisitely clear when we cannot find them), guns (perhaps when they misfire at a ten pointer), dust (when it so cakes our computer parts to make it unbootable)...cold viruses...dogs and cats...wives...and each other. Everything is fair game so to speak unless we deny a relationship. If we don't deny these, "truth" easily fits in among them. Even if we may presently have some difficulty, reluctance, loathing to say "god"...(but, by the which difficulty, reluctance, and loathing, also testify to a relationship) but do not deny us entrance to this experiment.

 

[ambush80]

Yes, very much...yes.
I hope you were able to see that in my fumbling. Things influence every which way...from emotions affecting seeing, seeing affecting emotions...etc.
But...in that now realization comes also an unsettling of sorts in the "truth" sensor...how can I know truth, if I am subject to inputs affecting perspective, perspective affecting view? How, if tabula rasa is only seeming possible recourse left for "true" knowing...can this be possible?
So now...my "truth" sensor is recognized as askew...and that (I think some can relate)...becomes most troubling of all.

It, in some ways, goes back to what Drippin' expressed about religion, and science, and egos. And although I don't think if asked he would deny the also assumption "and I too, have an ego (or am an ego)" it was not explicitly stated. It seems we are more inclined to almost lean toward the assumption that everything, or at least, everyone else may present things colored to some extent by self interest...but that in some way, I am "more free" of that in my seeking. But once a man realizes this coming to me is colored with ego, and is received likewise of same, like light hitting prisms, the issue of "purity"...or universality comes glaringly into play as something approaching zero possibility.

And here is where I have found Jesus saying something most salient regarding that: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." It's not as if Jesus were ignorant of this interplay of light among us "who has the truth?" One might even see he well understood the "next thought" of some of those who heard his bold pronouncements "how can I even begin to tell if this guy is telling the truth?"

He recommends an experiment, but it will only be an invitation to those who are convicted truth (as in concept of "God") is both knowable and also as knowable, may be aligned to. Here I seek to place no restriction, as I do not see any "in the Lord" against any inclined to take on the experiment. But it does demand of itself, an inward honesty...at least as regards pursuit, it cannot work any other way.

If we enter the arena of seeking to know the truth (and who, we might ask...hasn't at least dipped their toe?) I am convinced even more here of "non restriction". I can offer no help, except perhaps in this single thing of recognition of a deep commonness we either do, or do not share. The recognition of our relationship to "things".

Like words, ideas, car keys (made perhaps exquisitely clear when we cannot find them), guns (perhaps when they misfire at a ten pointer), dust (when it so cakes our computer parts to make it unbootable)...cold viruses...dogs and cats...wives...and each other. Everything is fair game so to speak unless we deny a relationship. If we don't deny these, "truth" easily fits in among them. Even if we may presently have some difficulty, reluctance, loathing to say "god"...(but, by the which difficulty, reluctance, and loathing, also testify to a relationship) but do not deny us entrance to this experiment.

Part 1 Designing a Scientifically Sound Experiment

1. Pick a specific topic. ...
2. Isolate your variable(s). ...
3. Make a hypothesis. ...
4. Plan your data collection. ...
5. Conduct your experiment methodically. ...
6. Collect your data. ...
7. Analyse your data and come to a conclusion.


Hypothesis: "God is"

Help me with the rest.

 

[Israel]

Part 1 Designing a Scientifically Sound Experiment

1. Pick a specific topic. ...
2. Isolate your variable(s). ...
3. Make a hypothesis. ...
4. Plan your data collection. ...
5. Conduct your experiment methodically. ...
6. Collect your data. ...
7. Analyse your data and come to a conclusion.


Hypothesis: "God is"

Help me with the rest.

Wow! You went right for the top. Bypassed any other notions of things called truth, rightness, reality, consciousness, congruity...even "just" perception! I am not being sarcastic at all (as writing and reading seem to leave much room for misinterpretation) and am not trying to beg off the question. Or hypothesis.

I can't help but see your invitation into "your lab" as anything other than what it is, an invitation. If I go forgetting that, that invitations are subject to revocation, I am assured that would be my first mistake.

I can't have any "rules" to bring, even if I have found some constraints through my own experimentations, for in a greater sense I am not "coming into your lab" as much as we have some acknowledgement of partnership now...more of "joining labs" together...so that we, in hopes of more than just a pre assumption of beneficial outcome...hope that something more assured might be touched. (if we are in it just for the money, well, we might get that, but my lab has seen nothing but this, and myself, experienced nothing but this...when things like money, respect (even self respect), position, power, get mixed as reagents.) So, I just want to offer that in full disclosure before we form a joint venture.
So are we "in"...or out to each other?
Cause I have little doubt I will look like this at times. If you think you can bear that...well, no matter, we'll both find out.

 

[ambush80]

Wow! You went right for the top. Bypassed any other notions of things called truth, rightness, reality, consciousness, congruity...even "just" perception! I am not being sarcastic at all (as writing and reading seem to leave much room for misinterpretation) and am not trying to beg off the question. Or hypothesis.

I can't help but see your invitation into "your lab" as anything other than what it is, an invitation. If I go forgetting that, that invitations are subject to revocation, I am assured that would be my first mistake.

I can't have any "rules" to bring, even if I have found some constraints through my own experimentations, for in a greater sense I am not "coming into your lab" as much as we have some acknowledgement of partnership now...more of "joining labs" together...so that we, in hopes of more than just a pre assumption of beneficial outcome...hope that something more assured might be touched. (if we are in it just for the money, well, we might get that, but my lab has seen nothing but this, and myself, experienced nothing but this...when things like money, respect (even self respect), position, power, get mixed as reagents.) So, I just want to offer that in full disclosure before we form a joint venture.
So are we "in"...or out to each other?
Cause I have little doubt I will look like this at times. If you think you can bear that...well, no matter, we'll both find out.

Great! Lets see where the rabbit hole goes.

 

[Israel]

We might both start, well...I can't help but start (how easily a suggestion can begin a turn to a rule!) with a confession of bias...or better...a load of biases. (I think you already know some of them?)

I have memories. Of all sorts and types...some so different in my perceptions of them, it seems I have developed a sort of filing system and a seemingly (I cannot help but resort to "seem" frequently...) good many of them come from bins labelled "good" and some from "bad". I also seem to have a tendency to be influenced...in the present by them.

If I were to believe all that my eyes and understanding tell me...they go back to certain point...or series of points as I recollect them and each has a context as an indicator of a "time line"...so that, in times past when I would bring up to a person I trusted such a memory of a thing (that person being my mother) and say "I seem to have this memory of being in a something that suddenly swung violently as I appeared to be looking up at what I now think was a car ceiling, but cradled as it were in a piece of canvas that lined my cradle...and then, the next memory was being on a shoulder holding me as a road curved around us in green grass on a sunny and warm day".

"Yes", I was told later as the recollection was shared, "our car was rear ended on an on or off ramp in the Spring." But you were(and I don't remember the age now)...but it would have been what we might call...very young.
For whatever reason that I remember that, I don't know, and for whatever reason I can't quite divine, it seems to stand as an "earliest memory". At least to me. It's not that I have a chronology I can follow, "that was the day of my 'waking up' " and I remember anything of any particular day subsequent to that for order. But I am somehow convinced at least at whatever age that was...a thing got stored.


But now, being almost 66 years old, and of some seemingly conscious experiences in the world, I have watched a few babies being born, birthed one of my own, (well did the hands on thing, anyway) and therefore by both observation and the words of others been convinced that's how people "come into the world", I pretty well assume it was the same for me.

So, at whatever point that memory fits on my timeline of the car accident...I am pressed to believe there were probably several months...maybe even a few years?...of which nothing I can recall entered my storage banks.
Why do I say all this?

Because...again, in observations I have seen many things directed at "babies", happening to babies, done to and with babies from the moment they hit the air. I assume the same for the me... that is me. Point being...at whatever age I can assume my own consciousness to having any measure of choice in cataloging "experience"...especially to matters of "this is true"..."that proves itself false", I am convinced a whole lot of "other stuff" was already poured in.

That I don't have it for recall in my hard drive, still kinda indicates it's probably there somewhere in the bios. I can pick and choose on the hard drive what I will revisit (it seems)...even if they are just images...but I don't seem to be able to reach into the thing that "wakes up" the OS as primary direction. But it seems something does...and I am pretty well convinced there are probably many more "biases" in the bios that I don't know...and can't account for.

I can't even remember the first time I heard or was called "Gregory"...but somehow, in a household I came to know that when I heard that, I was convinced the people there were talking to me, or about me.
See, I even have a bias toward that word when I hear it spoken in a room...now...anywhere...but I can't even begin to explain how or where it comes from. Even if someone says "no, that is attached to a someone else...to whom I am speaking, not you. You are not the Gregory I am talking to"...and somewhere deep inside a thing seems to faintly stir "OK, But I am the real Gregory".

So yeah, I got biases. But I don't think I know much about them.
They could affect our work. Because, like I said...the memories, and my biases in them affect me...seem to often affect me presently.

 

[gemcgrew]

Part 1 Designing a Scientifically Sound Experiment

1. Pick a specific topic. ...
2. Isolate your variable(s). ...
3. Make a hypothesis. ...
4. Plan your data collection. ...
5. Conduct your experiment methodically. ...
6. Collect your data. ...
7. Analyse your data and come to a conclusion.


Hypothesis: "God is"

Help me with the rest.

Providing we could get past #1, #2 can only be accomplished by omniscience.

 

[ambush80]

Providing we could get past #1, #2 can only be accomplished by omniscience.

Everybody knows that any experiment will only produce a "Best as we can tell" result. In that spirit I say we venture forth.

 

[ambush80]

https://www.thoughtco.com/science-allows-belief-god-does-not-exist-248234

"Certainty and Doubt in Science

Nothing in science is proven or disproven beyond a shadow of any possible doubt. In science, everything is provisional. Being provisional is not a weakness or a sign that a conclusion is weak. Being provisional is a smart, pragmatic tactic because we can never be sure what we'll come across when we round the next corner. This lack of absolute certainty is a window through which many religious theists try to slip their god, but that's not a valid move."

Nevertheless I'm excited to run the experiment. I don't want to simply take that author's word for it.

 

[ambush80]

"What Does "God Exists" Mean?

What does it mean to exist? What would it mean if "God exists" were a meaningful proposition? For such a proposition to mean anything at all, it would have to entail that whatever "God" is, it must have some impact on the universe. In order for us to say that there is an impact on the universe, then there must be measurable and testable events which would best or only be explained by whatever this "God" is we are hypothesizing. Believers must be able to present a model of the universe in which some god is "either required, productive, or useful.""

 

[ambush80]

https://www.thoughtco.com/argument-from-miracles-248258

Again, let's bookmark this guy's argument and start fresh with our own inquiry.

 

[Miguel Cervantes]

So, instead of calling it the big bang, y'all will have to call it the big baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.

Sounds like it was more like the walkin poots my dear departed grandmother had in her early 90's.

 

[Israel]

Providing we could get past #1, #2 can only be accomplished by omniscience.

Thanks...a little of what I was aiming for in "full disclosure".
I don't even "know" that stuff that's in me much at all...so as a detector, I am...no must...be willing to acquiesce to starting from a fault.

 

[ambush80]

Thanks...a little of what I was aiming for in "full disclosure".
I don't even "know" that stuff that's in me much at all...so as a detector, I am...no must...be willing to acquiesce to starting from a fault.

We can adjust for our "faults" later. Should we start by calibrating our equipment? No. I think we have the topic. We need #2 (as best as we can determine). I think you've started that process already.

I'll keep this up, like a Post It note so we don't get sidetracked:

Part 1 Designing a Scientifically Sound Experiment

1. Pick a specific topic. ...
2. Isolate your variable(s). ...
3. Make a hypothesis. ...
4. Plan your data collection. ...
5. Conduct your experiment methodically. ...
6. Collect your data. ...
7. Analyse your data and come to a conclusion.

 

[gemcgrew]

Everybody knows that any experiment will only produce a "Best as we can tell" result. In that spirit I say we venture forth.

I can't. I recognize the flaws in the method, so my knowledge is greater than the experiment. I would have to limit my knowledge in some way. I would have to unknow things.

 

[Israel]

I can't. I recognize the flaws in the method, so my knowledge is greater than the experiment. I would have to limit my knowledge in some way. I would have to unknow things.

We might still have a "lab of three" if there were any way of discovering something that could allow for, while not simultaneously hobbling investigation, admitted fault in either method or detector/interpreter/data recorder.

But, likewise we might also see...(am I understanding rightly?)...if the parameters of method for coming to a conclusion do indeed require omniscience (and I am not reluctant to agree)...what has been described in the "method" could only be rightly attributed/exercised by a being, inclined (if desiring) to perform such an experiment.
So "our" lab...might (only perhaps to this point) actually be in a greater lab. While we think we are the "experimenters"...something might be at work upon us...as part of a "greater" enterprise.

But would it be right to say "greater experiment"? I don't believe it could be...
For, likewise, then, omniscience would obviate the need for any experimentation.

He could experiment in some sense of that word (like me holding a magnifying glass on an ant hill, saying "I am conducting an experiment")...but to what end? And to whom would it need be said?

(As that infantile statement is now both viewed as lie and even in my own examining is seen to have been serving something else than "gathering info"...about ants. It was plainly an exposition of info...about me.)

 

[ambush80]

I can't. I recognize the flaws in the method, so my knowledge is greater than the experiment. I would have to limit my knowledge in some way. I would have to unknow things.

If you mean that you know that you'll never have complete information that's no reason not to investigate....to the best of your ability.

Maybe we can start on a theory that might be easier to examine. Like a practice run.

Theory: "There is a God in my oak tree".

Can we run that experiment?

 

[ambush80]

We might still have a "lab of three" if there were any way of discovering something that could allow for, while not simultaneously hobbling investigation, admitted fault in either method or detector/interpreter/data recorder.

But, likewise we might also see...(am I understanding rightly?)...if the parameters of method for coming to a conclusion do indeed require omniscience (and I am not reluctant to agree)...what has been described in the "method" could only be rightly attributed/exercised by a being, inclined (if desiring) to perform such an experiment.
So "our" lab...might (only perhaps to this point) actually be in a greater lab. While we think we are the "experimenters"...something might be at work upon us...as part of a "greater" enterprise.

But would it be right to say "greater experiment"? I don't believe it could be...
For, likewise, then, omniscience would obviate the need for any experimentation.

He could experiment in some sense of that word (like me holding a magnifying glass on an ant hill, saying "I am conducting an experiment")...but to what end? And to whom would it need be said?

(As that infantile statement is now both viewed as lie and even in my own examining is seen to have been serving something else than "gathering info"...about ants. It was plainly an exposition of info...about me.)

To come to the absolute truth would require omniscience. Check.

Let's mark that off as a variable that we can all agree on. I think we can still run the experiment and see what we can discover to the best of our woefully insignificant understanding.

Let's also agree that omniscience would negate the need for experimentation.

 

[Israel]

If you mean that you know that you'll never have complete information that's no reason not to investigate....to the best of your ability.

Maybe we can start on a theory that might be easier to examine. Like a practice run.

Theory: "There is a God in my oak tree".

Can we run that experiment?

To come to the absolute truth would require omniscience. Check.

Let's mark that off as a variable that we can all agree on. I think we can still run the experiment and see what we can discover to the best of our woefully insignificant understanding.

Let's also agree that omniscience would negate the need for experimentation.

Might we not run into the same issue?

If we have agreed that omniscience is a real thing...even if we have no understanding of it, no perception of "how" that would appear to us (and as importantly...perhaps ...the effects that would have upon any of us...) but in word and concept it is now a (to us) real thing that has been logically introduced (even as manifest defect in our method of pursuit...or at least one that if recognized we find we have no way to account for) ...what's happening here?
If we start out saying "a thing can be known", do we all agree (I think we might...even must assume that is the only basis for investigation according to the method proposed we might call "scientific") must it not then follow that "if any single thing can be truly known...there likewise exists a state of knowing all things" For if one thing can be known...can two...be known? Three...etc...? And thence ...unto all things?

Is this a correct question?

For what if we answer the question this way?
"No"

"Not even one thing can be known."

Then...how could we know that? Even state that?
Isn't that a logical fallacy?


To us then, this matter of "omniscience" has been thrust upon us as more than mere notion...it is assumed to us...even in the method we may have once thought of some utility. Is this a valid/true understanding of where we find ourselves?
If we start from claiming we know anything (in hope of progress) we are immediately hamstrung by not knowing everything.
If we claim we know nothing..."I know nothing can be known"...we are liars?

I am not proposing an end, but have we come to a place of something? Not something necessarily (or even provable by previous method) we might all even agree to...but being made aware (are we?) of, for want of better words we might call "states of being"?

Am I hearing us rightly?

The liar then becomes self negating in any claim.
But is there allowance to "know a thing" while simultaneously embracing the knowing of not knowing all might also include that in the "knowing of all" what is presently perceived as knowing is entirely all of not knowing? For even what appears as knowing, when in the light of the "knowing of all", might be shown to be something other? We might agree it may not have to be so...but does it not at least, include that?

 

[ambush80]

Might we not run into the same issue?

If we have agreed that omniscience is a real thing...even if we have no understanding of it, no perception of "how" that would appear to us (and as importantly...perhaps ...the effects that would have upon any of us...) but in word and concept it is now a (to us) real thing that has been logically introduced (even as manifest defect in our method of pursuit...or at least one that if recognized we find we have no way to account for) ...what's happening here?
If we start out saying "a thing can be known", do we all agree (I think we might...even must assume that is the only basis for investigation according to the method proposed we might call "scientific") must it not then follow that "if any single thing can be truly known...there likewise exists a state of knowing all things" For if one thing can be known...can two...be known? Three...etc...? And thence ...unto all things?

Is this a correct question?

For what if we answer the question this way?
"No"

"Not even one thing can be known."

Then...how could we know that? Even state that?
Isn't that a logical fallacy?


To us then, this matter of "omniscience" has been thrust upon us as more than mere notion...it is assumed to us...even in the method we may have once thought of some utility. Is this a valid/true understanding of where we find ourselves?
If we start from claiming we know anything (in hope of progress) we are immediately hamstrung by not knowing everything.
If we claim we know nothing..."I know nothing can be known"...we are liars?

I am not proposing an end, but have we come to a place of something? Not something necessarily (or even provable by previous method) we might all even agree to...but being made aware (are we?) of, for want of better words we might call "states of being"?

Am I hearing us rightly?

The liar then becomes self negating in any claim.
But is there allowance to "know a thing" while simultaneously embracing the knowing of not knowing all might also include that in the "knowing of all" what is presently perceived as knowing is entirely all of not knowing? For even what appears as knowing, when in the light of the "knowing of all", might be shown to be something other? We might agree it may not have to be so...but does it not at least, include that?

You just totally ignored the part where I said "We'll do the best we can with what we've got".

We can state things like "gravity works like this" while fully understanding that it might not work that way in some multiverse or in Heaven. At that point we can run experiments.