PeterJ

Well, I think if you interpret the Upanishads as theism then you're going to have trouble with atheists whatever other words you use. It's an issue on which I cannot really agree with you, the use of this word 'God'. But I really do want to stay out of this if you don't mind. Given where we are, I'm not very happy coming at things from this angle. I would agree with the scientists that some predictions are required, or some solutions to problems. Otherwise your view will seem ad hoc, if not New Age folk-pseudo-psychology. This is not my own view, obviously, but I can see why someone would hold it. I'm afraid that my chosen speculation goes along with the Buddhists, who say that God is a consequence of misintepreted meditative experience. It all depends what we mean by 'God', of course, but the word carries so many connotations that you can be sure everyone will think you mean something other than what you do mean when you use it. Also, I would disagree that the Absolute or the 'Real' is dimensionless. Rather, I'd say that a nondual view states that we cannot assign positive or negative properties to 'God', but must say that it is dimensionless from one point of view and infinitely dimensioned from the other, neither being quite the correct way to look at it. To put is theistically and more traditionally, God would have all properties and no properties. He would lie beyond the coincidence of these contradictories. I'll PM you rather than get involved here if that's okay.

Had to comment on this Chandra. Would it not be more rigorous to say that it is as if the universe were a dream of God, or that this would be a way of putting it? We should be careful not to encourage literal interpretations end up in a pointless battle with the atheists.

No you don't. Can we not be serious?

As I am a Christian apologist, I hope you'll understand that I see that as a childish remark.

Agreed. Sorry if I seemed to be suggesting otherwise, and my apologies for thinking you were suggesting otherwise. My point was a slightly different one, that space-time would not be equivalent with the set of all sets, as I think someone suggested it was, and for just the reason you give. YdoaPs - I doubt philosophers of science often argue that science would be pointless without our assuming an ultimate organising mind behind the order of the universe. Could you point us at one or two examples of someone who argues that science would be pointless in these circumstances? It would be very strange to say that science is pointless unless we make an assumption, and I'd be intrigued to see how such an argument might be made. Is this exactly what you meant to say?

I meant that there is no parallel. to see. Your house exists within a larger space. The set of all sets does not. There is nothing paradoxical about your house.

I fail to see any parallel between 'my house' and the set-of-all-sets. Either way, I tend to follow Russell on this, who felt that the solution to this problem was given by G.S. Brown. Okay, the theory of types is a practical work-around, but it's not a solution just a moving of the goalposts. The solution does away with the need for a theory of types. Back to the issue. If we define 'God' as the origin of all that exists, then clearly He cannot exist. This is consistent with the widespread view that the origin of all that exists is umnanifest and is not properly called God. The proof given is sloppy, but there seems to be some sense in it.

"An hours contemplation is worth a year's worship" A saying of the the Prophet Mohammed.

I know what you mean John, but to me it seems just a matter of logic. The universe does not get more complicated as we delve into its origins. A theory of everything would have to be stateable as a metaphysical theory, and as these deal with first principles they are inevitably simple. Not simple to understand or simple in their ramifications, but simple to state. For example, my own theory of everything could be summed up as 'the universe is a unity'. From this axiom all else would follow. An extended theory quickly becomes very complicated, but I don't have to make anyone read a book to get to the point.

True. I hadn't thought of that. Personally I cannot see the point of a lengthy and complicated proposal for a theory of everything. A good theory of everything should be capable of being summarised in 100 words, and if even these few look complicated then I would not expect it to be profound let alone fundamental. It should all come down to a brief axiom from which the rest of the theory can be derived as required. Just my view.

It seems to me that we don't see a 3D image, we construct it out of two 2D images. Not the same thing.

Is it possible that pi is irrational because in real life the 'point' at which a radius meets a circumference is not in fact a point, and cannot be defined accurately until the two lines are infinitely thin and therefore not there anymore? Iow, Pi is an approximation to an impossible perfection.

In his unfinished book A Guess at the Riddle C.S. Peirce notes, 'We can easily recognize the man whose thought is mainly in the dual stage by his unmeasured use of language.' It is a very obvious misunderstanding of the advaita doctrine to state that it deals with the noumenon where science deals withe phenomenon. It is a wildly incorrect statement that should be struck from the records in case anyone imagines it is true. It is utterly misleading and bordering on meaningless. This is not a matter of opinion. For the sake of my sanity I will not be taking part in any discussions that include Immortal. From experience I know they would be a waste of time. He is altready omniscient. So I will take my bat home for now. I'd like to start a dedicated thread on these topics but it seem pointlesss under the circumstances.

Here we go.

Oh dear. It seems we nothing to argue about. Good to meet you though. Not many people delve into these issues.

You, me and Schroedinger then. It's a start. I'd attempt to develop this idea into something that makes predictions if I could just check my ideas without always getting bogged down in hopeless arguments about religion. It's a perfectly scientific idea and testable up to point, but I'm unable to find a serious scientist who wants to talk about it. It is assumed that if physics cannot understand the world, the nature of Nature, then nobody else can. But not by my hero Erwin Schroedinger. He saw that the advaita view makes sense in physics, and that it would make sense that it should have been known to the writers of the Upanishads and throughout the wisdom traditions. This is one of the hardest things to explain to someone for whom the world is merely physical, or merely psycho-physical. I expect these writers would have fascinated by quantum mechanics. It is truly amazing that it is possible to come so close to actually seeing with our physical instruments what they were talking about. My guess is that their view would fascinate a lot of scientists despite themselves if they looked into it. The trouble is that there is, as far as I know, not one good book exploring the ramifications of this view for physics. I'm trying to write something modest, but before I go any further I need to find a competent physcist who will help me ensure that I don't make a damn fool of myself in the process. So I keep trying to interest someone. In the war between science and religion Schroedinger's view is the collateral damage, being the reconciliation of the two and thus judged by both sides to be the enemy.

No, do difference. They are equally absurd ideas. There is a reason why there no set of all sets in naive set theory. The idea is paradoxical. If this problem is solved as easily as you suggest then Russell and Frege were fools.

Universal - Because I have spent a lot of time on these issues I can see where you're coming from. But it is very unlikely that may people will. It all needs translating into a common language. Believe it or not I can logically prove what Mohammed says about opposites. There are actually a few proofs. The most famous is the series of tetralemmas by which Nagarjuna reduces them all to absurdity in his Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way. There is an excellent book on this in English by Jay Garfield. Much simpler is 'The Sun of Wisdom' by Khempo Tsultrim Gymatso. Buddhism's 'Middle Way' doctrine, and nondualism generally, states that the world is made out of contradictory and complementary pairs of conceptual opposites. If we interpret Mohammed as sharing this view then we get Sufism, whose exponents call themselves the 'true followers of Mohammed'. Just shooting the breeze...

Great. I thought we'd end up agreeing It seems to me you are talking about nondualism.

So why argue with me then? I never said otherwise. Why look for trouble where there needn't be any? There is nothing silly about those two statements. Anybody can see that. Maybe he is claiming too much. I would say so. But I see no need to entangle the discussion in petty nonsense because of it.

Fair enough. Dimensionless awareness makes sense, as opposed to a 'dimensionless point'. There is same experience during an orgasm as well, so they say. For 24 hour a day awareness a lot of practice would be required.

I see no trolling myself. But the set of all possible sets is equivalent to Rucker's 'Mindscape', the set of all possible ideas, and this is just as impossible an object as the set of all sets. It is not solved by saying that the container contains itself. Your house is presumable not infinite, in which case it has a boundary and there is something on the outside of it. For spacetime this is not the case. I think Villain has a point.

Yes. To the extent a point exists it requires a place to exist. If we say it is unmanifest then no void is required. It can. as you say, exist as an idea, albeit that it is a self-contradictory one, but not as a real thing. I think we agree.

I think maybe Miser is heavy-handed, but he is not claiming much. It would be extraordinary of it made no difference to a person whether he or she indulged moderately, immoderately or not at all in sex. In fact it would beggar belief. There is always a trade-off. I have no idea what the effects might be but it's interesting to wonder. It is a strictly scientific question if we stick to physiological effects. Do I? I was pointing out the the question was about abstinence as contrasted with sex of any kind, and so the type of sex was a side issue. But as you ask I think it is not to do with evolution. We have evolved to be efficient at having sex, and seem to be improving all the time. We have also evolved to be good runners. Yet we know that both over-indulgence and under-indulgence in running may cause health problems. It seems sensible to wonder what they are in the case of sex. Maybe Miser does push his luck sometimes. But what is silly about these two statements? They seem perfectly sensible to me.

I'm on Miser's side. He has not made any silly claims that I noticed but has sometimes repeated the claims of others. He himself has said there is not enough research. Some people just seem to want to ruin threads for the sake of it. We can't accuse someone of not being able to produce evidence when they're arguing that there isn't enough of it. Why the attacks? Why can't we discuss the issues instead? We do not have to distinguish between real sex and masturbation to address the OPs question. That would be a different discussion. Here they can be lumped together and constrasted with abstinence.