I agree with most of your post. But on the narrow points in the quote: Points, Lines, surfaces and 3D volumes (which would include humans) don't exist in 10 dimensions. We exist in 4 dimensions (including time). Space-time is 4-dimensional. Therefore by definition any dimensionality beyond those 4 would be "outside space time."
First off the ten-dimensional universe is theoretical. Secondly we do not percieve the other dimensions even though we are products of a universe with ten dimensions (hypothetically) and therefore ten-dimensional ourselves. Thirdly the ten-dimensional universe theory includes folded time, which is one of the other dimensions, as is folded space. They are but extensions to the dimesnions you percieve and not seperate from them. Fourthly the concept of time is that of change and movement - flux. A God lacking temporality, being timeless, would be unmoving, innert and so unthinking and inactive and non-existent. Thinking is but the temporal succesion of sensual awareness and memory. Space is but the possibility of an active phenomenon. Therefore an inanctive God would also be spaceless; He would lack dimenson altogether, Being a singularity, and so would not exist. Furthermore a God existing within a dimension is not outside anything. He is inside and, therefore, determined and contained by it. He is no God at all; at least not a Christian or a Muslim God. Existence is characterized by Nothingness trying to become Something. This is the flux, the endless change and movement we call existence - time is this movement towards andsapce the possibility or potential of aquiring this hypotheticasl and unatainable 'I' or Absolute. The flux seeks out its own end, its own absolution, its own perfection - along the path of least resistance - trying to Be but failing to do so because this would constitute it non-existent. Existence is the imprfect, unstable, Nothing seeking its finality : identity. This is why the concepts of 'here' and 'now' and 'self' and '1' are really generalizations with no real meaning. The phenomenon moves towards a moment and a place and a self but never reaches it because this would make it a singularity, a perfection, a point, an Absolute and it would then drop out of existence. An absolute would be Absolute mass, and so would absorb existence within itself. That it hasn't happened means that there is no Absolute and that, perhaps, the Absolute is impossible. The impossible possibility - the ideal, utopia, perfection. A phenomenon is that which appears in relation to another phenomenon, thusly it is a juxtaposition, a relationship of temporality with itself. Different temporal curents moving at different speeds create the illusion of substance, matter. But matter is but an appearance - phenomenon. Hard matter is temporality moving, changing, at a much slower speed than the observing temporal unity. Life is temporality made conscious of its own Nothingness, its own state of constant Becoming. Need is the awarenes of the flux, the awarenes of emptiness and lack. Suffering is an extreme form of need. Thinking, consciousness, is a manifestation of a temporal unity in the process of Becoming, (autopoiesis) and a tool for guiding this temporal unity more efficiently through the flux. Thusly thinking is not required by what has already aquired perfection and is absolutely powerful. What would an omniscience think about when it knows everything and is everything? What would it move towards when it occupies all possibility at once and so is timeless and without dimensions? Creativity is an imperfect unity trying to complete itself and find an identity, a self. Thusly, a creator God is an absurdity, since a perfect Being would have no reason to create anything and no need to do so; it is completed and so not needing.:bawl:
The singularity at the center of a black hole lacks all 4 dimensions. Or do you deny that such singularities exist?
Satyr, As a mental mathematical exercize. Imagine a sphere in the center of a universe that is not moving. It exists but is not changing and therefor is timeless. Mathematically,while it does not change, it is in existence in this imaginary universe. Correct? Michael
I deny that they are complete, absolute singularities. Becoming aproaches the absolute but never reaches it. This is like the phenomenon of the Big Bang. The Big Bang is a near perfection fragmenting again and flowing towards itself. It is incomplete nothingness. This fragmentation appears as an explosion eminating from the near singularity, as an event horizon. An existing mind, becoming aware looks back on this event horizon and percieves it as eminating light, energy before it tumbles back into nothingness; it is Nothingness streaming towards Somethingness but never attaining it. In fact Something and Nothing are both concepts denoting the same thing: an absolute. An unnatainable absolute. There are no abolutes because an absolute would be a complete singularity possesing infinite mass and would absorb everything within itself. A Back Hole appears to drop out of the temporal continuum because it is nearer to the absolute than the background, due to special circumstances. a phenomenon appears more massive or more hard when it is closer to the absolute than what is observing it. Life is also the reaching for completion so, in essence, it is the reaching for its own obsolescence and non-existence. If we study utopian ideals, such as paradise or nirvana they are defined as lacking suffering and need and temporality. therefore they describe non-existence - Freud's death wish. A weak mind dreams of non-exisence because it cannot tolerate or cope with it. It's own nothingness frightens it and it seeks identity and substance in imaginaton, escapism and in the other. A strong mind accepts life and suffering as essential to its existence. Nieatzche's 'resentiment' is this hatred of one's own temporality. The overman is defined as the man that has accepted time as his own essence, as necessary. Life is need; need is suffering. Therefore to embrace life and existence you must accept the suffering - which is nothing more than matter becoming conscious of the flux or of its own temporality (time discovering itself). suffering is the universal flux being percieved by a conscious temporality. To end suffering is to end time, existence, or to end one's own awareness of it, death. Michael Well, space is temporality projecting itself into posibility; in relation to other temporalities or the background flux. Life is a piece of time attempting to subtract itself from the flux and achieve order in the disordering; it is a cutting away - a Becoming. This cutting away can then percieve the rest of the flux as an otherness. Space is the temporality moving in relation to this otherness; it is possibility. In fact there is no 'here', as there is no 'now', as there is no 'self'. If there were they would be absolutes. Everything is possibility and potential. Space has no points. Man imagines a point to make space comprehensible and to map it and to plan movement. In fact all memory and perception is a simplification and a generalization of what has already occured - even while we believe we are looking forwards we are looking back. A point is a generalization, as the # 1 is; a projecton of possibility that can never be attained. This is why there is no Being but everything is a Becoming - temporal. When you say I will move from here to there, you are Willing a direction since you can never will the end of movement but only gain control over where you direct your movements and energies.You will be moving and changing no matter what, as everything, including unconscious dead matter does. This movement through unnatainable possibilities is space. What you describe here is an absurdity, a self-contradicting undefined nothing. It is like the idea of an intelligent God. How can there be an intelligent omniscient God when intelligence is a survival tool meant to facilitate and to guide and to help the orgnism live? What would an imaginary, absurdity, such as a God need with intelligence when it occupies all possibilities and is everything all at once? Why would such a creature create? Let us not mention all the other absurdities connected with this idea of God. God is a projection of the absolute by a creature that lacks it; God is an ideal. To imagine this sphere of yours you use your temporal and spatial experiences and then you just add that it is not moving. But you have no experience with not-moving, timelessness, since everything moves/changes, slower or faster in realtion to you. what appears stationary to you is just moving at a slower speed in relation to you and in the direction you are heading. See relativity. The speed of your movement is the increase of temporality towards one dimensn, which is accompanied by a decreae in every other dimensional direction. In other owrds your spatial dimension increase or decrease, as possibilities, when you increase one temporal dirction (speed) and decrease another. This is why a singularity is characterized by a decrase in temporality in all diections, since it is reaching a near absolute state and dropping pout of the temporal continuum, in relation to the observer. But a sphere not moving is non-existent, you cannot imagine a Nothing. a spere is a temporal phenomenon. To imagine it lacking temporality is to speak of something you cannot define. ****Sorry for the spelling****
Sir, you are asking me to imagine an absurdity. Okay, I imagine a shpere, a timeless sphere. Already it has ceased to be one. Dear sir you are using the real world to project a hypothetical self-conrtadicting alternate universe. Let us imagine a square shere, while we are at it. How about an alternate universe where 1+1=3. Okay, I'll play along. I'm imagiing it. A sphere with no temporality, an innert, perfectly still shere. Then it has no spatial reality. Proceed.
So you are not in agreement with contemporary physics? This post began as a debate between science and religion. In accepted science, we are unable to perceive in greater than 4 dimensions. So saying that God exists beyond space and time does not create any empirical contradictions that I am aware of.
Apparently some of our previous discussion has inexplicably disappeared from the forum. I don't know how this happened. I am saving this copy for my records. Previously, I responded to this message by pointing out that a Black Hole does not possess all four dimensions of space-time. I recall that you responded by denying that black holes were spatially one-dimensional, as is accepted in contemporary physics. My counter-response was to point out that the original post was about a Science vs Religion debate, and that in science, we beings in 4-dimensios (spacetime) do not perceive a 5th dimension. This is consistent with Collins' original point about God being "outisde time and space." I am not taking Collin's side in this debate. But I don't think that his point is logically absurd either.
