Oddbean

well, there's some really basic semantics, that can be summed up in the most fundamental equation of arithmetic and the root of algebra: 1 + 1 = 2 change it to symbols: a * 2 = b b = a / 2 and because of these, this also holds: a != b you literally can't write software if you are wishy washy about whether a = b in this case, because the program above it implies it absolutely is not one is related to the other not equal to the other you can't be related and equal at the same time, or you deny the very principle of identity, which is central to arithmetic and algebra if a can be anything, why waste time trying to figure out what it is no, we have another concept for that, it's called a "wildcard" and is generally represented in algebra as X

Ah. Well, God is infinite, so anything that can be said about him is a form of a violation of the totality of God, since a definition is a limitation. God can peel off a piece of himself, of any size, and not reduce the magnitude of his infinitude... because infinite is boundless, unending, a fractal and multidimensional cornucopia of grace. When Muslims declare "god is one!" they are setting a limitation on him, which is blasphemy if your version of God is a punisher. Same for when Catholics say that God is a Trinity. The closest to truthful definition I've heard of God comes from Buddhists, because they assert nothingness. Nothingness is at least boundless. But the best definition of the Spirit I've heard was in the Dao de Jing, where is uses koans to pin the meaning between negations, and say "from the one came the three, from the three came the ten thousand things." Or something like that.

you can't compute with something that is not a number infinity is not a number, so you can't subtract from it, or add to it at all infinity is the Goedel flaw in computation, you can't have computation without infinity as a possible result or factor, but when it appears, you can no longer perform a computation singularity, on the other hand, is an identity, and the entire race of integers is based on singularity yet, it is also indivisible, like infinity, and subtracting from it can only yield nothing and then we can proceed to the matter of ordinals nothing is the first, that's why it got assigned that equivalence by computer scientists, and the length of nothing is a singularity, which is also called "nil" which is just a short way of saying "nihil" which is also nothing. you can't do computation with infinity or nothing infinity in computation tends to spring from trying to divide nothing, which is a problem that you work with integers, and you have formed an equation that got values assigned to its fields that produces a zero, and zero is nothing, and you get its identity when you multiply it, and infinity when you divide it i'm not really sure that any of this proves anything exactly but the point is that if God is related to numbers, then he is the Infinity, AND the Nothing or Zero both the content and the medium, at the same time we can't have finity without infinity and nothing, that's just the nature of reality, really, it's the end of the story, and the beginning at the same time reminds me part of the basis of my personal theory of physics is the idea that space (nothing) is constantly being divided (which ultimately leads to infinity) space itself must therefore be units of the singularity as we have in this moment and then it divides, and we have more units of singularity, and we therefore must send it into the void in order to maintain the geometric relations of matter and my assertion is that matter's properties arise out of the fact that it must disperse space, and space is not zero, it's 1, and it pops out of infinity every time the clock ticks

for me, arithmetic is the root of everything, God is a mathematician, and the many wonders that spring from mathematics are his many children, and our entire universe is one of them as well, and we are children of Him and also of our universe even if the universe is actually something else, we cannot think about it except as some form of arithmetic logic itself is an arithmetic that is based on that whole nasty infinity zero singularity countable problem as well if i can't think about it, can i know it? even if it exists, if i can't know it, i don't actually know it so it may as well not exist if it has an impact on me, then it must have a flux into substance somehow and thus it can be known, if it is observed long enough... even if all you see right now is entropy, that is entropy in THIS time scale that you have KNOWN, you can't be certain and thus it is an infinity and a nothing that is a beautiful singularity that you have no way of knowing

Reminds me of Socrates at the Oracle - "I know that I know nothing" - going by memory, I'm almost certainly got it wrong... But close enough. This was part of how I realized that God must exist. That and him yelling at me, but I still had to be sure I wasn't crazy. Its impossible to know anything in fullness. Take gravity - we have great equations to describe the behavior of gravity, and we've never found an instance of gravity violating the equations, at least not since Einstein adjusted for relativity. (actually we might have, I'll get to that) But we can still can't claim to know the perfect equation for gravity. There could be some conditions, in magnitude or scale or something else that we haven't seen, where we would need to add some little constant to keep the equation working, and at every scale we've measured the constant would have no effect, but at the right circumstances, like the size of a universe, it makes a difference. Then suppose we make those observations, fix the equation, but there's still something we didn't think of... That would go on forever. So the thing to realize is, gravity is not the gravity equation. The real thing is separate from our description of it. The map is not the territory. But that's true of everything. Everything you see and touch, is just a representation of the real thing. The reason scientists think there's dark energy is because the milky way rotates in a way that they can't get out of the gravity equations. So we have evidence of... something. An unknown. Maybe its energy, but it could just be that we don't quite describe gravity in our equations accurately enough. So, this is what I say in my bio : knowledge approaches the limit of Truth asymptotically. We refine and refine forever, but the real world, the whole Truth of reality, is always beyond us. And not just a little beyond us - infinitely beyond us. In the context of an asymptote approaching its limit, any imperfection is infinite imperfection. But if we are infinitely away from Truth, then we can say that Truth is infinitely perfect in all things. This may seem like a leap, but I don't think it is. A real thing, as opposed to its symbolic representation, *exists*. I'm being redundant because its honestly like a zen koan. It doesn't make sense to describe a real thing because the real thing describes itself - it is the map and the territory. So a zen teacher points at a duck and says "what's that?" And the student answers, "a duck" and gets whacked for being wrong. The correct answer, although still a symbolic representation, is "quack quack quack!" Now if the thing is the thing, and it's infinite and enduring, can you subtract one thing off of it and make it less? Nope. Infinity minus one is infinity. Infinity minus an entire personality is infinity. Infinity minus a divinity is infinity. Infinity minus a pantheon of divinities is infinities. Who are you? I am. Says everything in the universe. I got carried away. I hope it was a good read.

opa, i started writing a response to that i'm just gonna summarise it: the biggest error in thinking and the flaw that evil people exploit is that singularities can be both qualitative and quantitative when you confuse the two things, you end up with an impossible equation and your brain ceases to funciton properly, and you lose some part of your ability to apprehend reality but it's really simple, you have nothing, you have everything, and in between you have something that is divided into value and type if you relate that to computer programming, you can see exactly what i'm saying types are a kind of data, that is kinda invisible to the code, which acts upon values and a subset of values called references if you can't discern the distinction between quality and quantity, you can't make sense of the data coming to you something cannot be infinity, or nothing, and a quality cannot be counted, bit it can be differentiated and qualities and quantities merge in an awkward way with "real" numbers, which are not really real, they are ratios, they have some aspects of quantitative - they can be summed, subtracted, multiplied and divided, but they are similar to qualities in that they can be infinitely elaborated, combined, and then divided again and merged again forever but in reality, on your computer, 0.11111111 = 0.11111111 except when it is 0.11111111112 but you ran out of bits that's why you didn't know that hm not sure where i'm going with this but the point is that arithmetic is the concrete, and the infinite is qualitative and arithmetic on it fails in its lack of precision

i have a very concrete way of thinking, always have people say i'm unsophisticated but i say they are hiding their equations i literally have recurring nightmares about how people hide their equations, they are like treadplates hidden under rubble that you have to pass through to rescue the princess... they manifest in my dreams as giant 20 foot tall skulls and the jaws are hidden under the ground and you never know where they hid the treadplate it's an impossible conundrum, unless you first agree to always allow the consensus to be elaborated and it's a toxic relationship if the changes that are permitted are redefinitions only psychopaths redefine terms only psychopaths ultimately want to munch you

With this talk of identities, are you familiar with the concept of divine simplicity? Many philosophers have held that God must be identical with each of his attributes, so that He is wholly one, and not composed of parts. This makes God the ultimate identity.

putting identities on infinity is like saying that 1 equals ONE MILLION yes, it is true in one very very singular narrow sense see how important nothing, singular and infinite are to arithmetic? i assert that the very basis of folly is exactly extending the singular relation of two concepts beyond their actual relation

there is a linguistic equation in this too singularities are like adjectives, and nouns at the same time what sense are you equating two things together is quite crucial, is it qualitative or quantitative? if Jesus is literally God then I can stop using Jesus as a word because that is a redundant and subordinate adjective or synonym (noun with the same referent) the difference between the two is clearly Qualitative and therefore their equality is narrow

yes, it is an AND God is a number - infinity, and a quality - uncountable we use that word "uncountable" in the sense that we would require infinite time to count all the attributes mathematicians play with this nonsense all the time with their "real" numbers but that's something a mathematician can never show you a "real" number, that is not an integer or a limited precision representation.

Can't be both, that is a contradiction in terms. Something that is one is not composed of parts, and something that is composed of parts is not one. Deny that, and you have to throw out all of logic. Y'all are denying the law of non-contradiction.

you can relate infinity and nothing but you can only relate finitude with other finitude when you relate finitude with infinity or nothing you get infinity or nothing, they are special identities they even can be categorised: countable and uncountable ironcially, "real" numbers are literally uncountable when it comes down to it, any number you can represent is finite and singular, and thus it can be related to any other finite and singular value infinity and nothing are qualities, not numbers it's not that God is not composed of many parts, it's that He's composed of infinite parts, so you can sit there listing them until you drop dead, and still not even touch a fraction because there is no fraction of infinity

the real question is, can you equate the parts with the whole? obviously not! thus you can't say infinity = 1 but you can assert a relation between infinity and nothing, that's a separate thing, they are the boundary conditions of counting infinity is endless counting, nothing is not counting

That is, I think, missing the point. If God is identical with his attributes, and we can say God is infinite, then it is also true the infinite is God. God has to possess all objects and categories in Himself in some way, or He could not create all of them. Yet His creations are distinct from Himself. Perhaps that's a more philosophical way to state what you've been trying to talk about mathematically?

the proper name for it is ontology relates to set theory as well, you could use set concepts to explain it God is the infinite set all things are members of the God set equality in set theory means the identical set, obviously this means no subset of the God set can be God The trinity itself is a subset of the God set, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are subsets of God ah yes and the last one that makes it all the best fun Any infinite set can contain another infinite set i was reading about this a few weeks ago, how there is many kinds of infinity... i suppose there must be infinite kinds of infinity, ultimately in my opinion, to know mathematics, arithmetic, set theory, algebra, physics, and to not have an inkling of the God set is wanton blindness