The size definitely implies it's necessary. That is absolute size would mean it has to be necessary being.
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can God exist in imagination?
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The size definitely implies it's necessary. That is absolute size would mean it has to be necessary being.
It's not an assumption, it's mathematically synonymous. Absolute life has to be necessary.
"Very big" and "necessary" are not synonymous in any sense.
I'll bite: what the heck is "absolute life?
"...by what he is?" What does that mean?
When you "recall God," you observe whatever your personal concept of God is. Different cultures and religions 'recall' different Gods.
If God were an evidenced, rationally comprehensible entity his existence and nature would be more universally agreed on, would they not?
Interpreting scripture might believer's be acting on their own version of God? The believer unconsciously deciding who God is and who God is not. And then they live out their God complex through the lens of their own experiences and perceptions.
I don't think anyone needs to live by some believer's authority on who God is and who God isn't. Through solely their conception and imagination they project God into the world and develope their influence as authoritative and expect others to follow suit with their interpretations.
On the flip side of that some believer's try to subject themselves to meanings in scripture that they are forced to interpret for themselves.
If someone claims God's truth is beyond questioning and refutation then they would be closing off their own minds to any information to the contrary. And still through it all only be following their own perceptions, and conceptions of who God is.
So unless God is clearly defined and not above questioning, then and only then can somebody be objective about God, and not fall into a God complex.
I don't think anyone needs to live by some believer's authority on who God is and who God isn't. Through solely their conception and imagination they project God into the world and develope their influence as authoritative and expect others to follow suit with their interpretations.
On the flip side of that some believer's try to subject themselves to meanings in scripture that they are forced to interpret for themselves.
If someone claims God's truth is beyond questioning and refutation then they would be closing off their own minds to any information to the contrary. And still through it all only be following their own perceptions, and conceptions of who God is.
So unless God is clearly defined and not above questioning, then and only then can somebody be objective about God, and not fall into a God complex.
So I'm to think of the biggest imaginable being?
I'm thinking of a frog so large that it occupies the entire universe and its skin presses against the outer edge of the universe, forcing it to enlarge, like the frog, at the speed of light. (Our galaxies and so on of course, exist inside it.)
You appear to be saying that this frog is not only real, but God.
Is that right?
The question is, what exactly does "greatest" mean?
It would have to occupy all possible life so this universe would not suffice.
Absolute life means has life amount to the maximum possibility. From what I can tell this implies necessary because all life in all possible worlds are included in it.
Thinking further here, the greatest thing would be a perfect vacuum, totally free not only of matter but of energy, and occupying not only the whole of our universe but the whole of any metaverse.
Therefore because we can imagine a nothingness bigger than any somethingness, it must be true that we don't exist.
Mustn't it?
But it's bigger than any real thing, so we have to imagine it to think of the biggest thing that can exist ─ namely an all-encompassing nothing.
I wasn't being silly, by the way ─ I was and am testing your claim that things can be thought into existence as Anselm suggests.
I already know Anselm is wrong, if for no other reason than that you can't show me a photo of a real God.
It occurs to me that Anselm's idea might have appeal to someone (and there were many back then) who subscribed to Plato's idea of "forms" ─ in order to account for abstractions and universals, he attributed a remote but perceptible reality to them, from where eg the "form" of the perfect circle was the template for all the real circles, the "form" of a bed was the perfect model influencing all beds, and so on. (No, I'm not a platonist. I was astonished to find that Roger Penrose is a mathematical platonist, since he's old enough to know better.)
Bird123
Well-Known Member
Yes, very good. The imagination is important, however at some point Reality must be addressed.
It doesn't matter what one Believes. If one steps off a High Rise building, the results will be the same.
We all have the ability to choose what we deem important. I have this lady friend who could never be happy with your chair. On the other hand, I would be Happy sitting in that chair with no legs or back.
So much in life we do to ourselves simply because of our choices of what we deem important.
It was so important to the True Love of my life to always have Fashion and New Fancy Outfits. It was almost like a daily fashion show. I told her many many times I would Love her the same even if she wore a old gunny sack.
What is it with women and shoes? When I found a closet full of her shoes, I asked why so many? You only have too feet. Well, here we go again about fashion and the shoes must match just right. I told her you care so much about what your feet look like but the men aren't even looking at your feet.
Yes, we all have the power to Choose what we deem important. Sometimes Math and Reason have nothing to do with it.
That's what I see. It's very clear!!
The idea of forms is correct too, and mathematics is impossible without God. Actually, without logic and math, this world can't be created by any being, and absolute infinity has to exist for math to be coherent. And if you don't go that far, at least you have to say it has to be at least possible for set theory to make sense, and there is rule in model logic, what is possibly necessarily is necessarily. That it's redundant to say "possible" behind "necessarily" since the latter is definite.
That said math wise, the greatest possible number is an infinite that includes all sets of infinity. There is infinite more real numbers then integers according to set theory.
When we think of the greatest in terms of amount of existence, this is synonymous with necessary. You can't recall God without seeing his existence covers all existence, and so that is impossible for anything to be absent from it, including our own existence and everything that exists, and so Absolute existence is proven to exist by remembering it and this trait of all existence found in it.
When you remember God you can see he is big to the extent of being necessary.
No, it's not. It makes no sense and the question of 'universals' is explained by understanding how we've evolved to think in concepts.
For that to be the case, God would have to be real, that is, have objective existence, be found in nature, where we could take photos and try to communicate. But not only is God not found in nature, but [he] doesn't even have a definition appropriate to a real being, such that if we found a real suspect, we could determine whether it was God or not.
It seems plain to me that things can exist in two ways ─ as real things, found in the world external to the self, that is, in nature; or as concepts / things imagined in individual brains.
I know of no objective test that can distinguish the 'spiritual', the 'supernatural' or the 'immaterial' from the conceptual / imaginary.
If you know of one, I'll be indebted to you.
So who you are is material or non-material?