I still don’t see a contradiction. I’m working on how God could interact with me and require a different definition than other matter interacting with me. Be patient, I am thinking on my keyboard again. Okay, he appeared before me, floating in the air, appearing to defy gravity. I can see him, so light is refracting off of him. He seems to defy gravity, but he is there, so he is by all appearances using some level of gravity. He cannot come to me without an awareness of me, so is dependent on physical matter, reguardless of his actual unknown physical makeup. Say he appears in voice or thought only, he still must be aware to do this and he is using electrical and chemical reactions in my brain, so still doesn’t require a different method of interaction. If there were no way for him to interact on a physical matter level, then he would not exist. If he affects my thoughts or my senses, he has interacted in a physical way. If God were capable of choosing whether or not he is affected. Choose, means aware. Aware is affected. That is still an awareness or interaction. If he were off somewhere else and he lacked awareness of us and we knew nothing of him, he would not be defined and therefore wouldn’t exist. I still believe it’s an unnecessary variable. We don’t need two kinds of interactions. Am I missing something? I still agree with TVAA.
JThunder
Keep in mind being wrong is usually how I learn. Being right teaches me nothing more than what I already know. Could you clear up this point for me. I’m not saying God has to be a physical thing. But when he interacts with me and I become aware of him, isn’t the process of becoming aware a physical thing? Which means he is interacting on a physical level? He cannot interact with me on anything but a physical level?
If he has to remain supernatural, then he does. He has to interact with matter without getting affected in return.
No. He has interacted with physical matter, not necessarily in a “physical way”. Reciprocity is not required. This is where the special kind of interaction comes into play.
Awareness, yes. Interaction, not necessarily the same as physical. Maybe God can sense the force fields without actually being affected or interfering with their normal world interactions The photons can pass through him (if we consider God as localised) , yet he can sense their energies and other parameters via the second type of special interaction.
No, because that’s not how physicality is defined. As I’ve said, physicality refers to matter and energy. Awareness has nothing to do with it.
Yes. That doesn’t make him physical, though. As I’ve said, physicality is not defined by interactions, contrary to the claims made earlier.
Of course He can. In principle, a spiritual entity could interact on a spiritual level – indeed, Judaism and Christianity teach that He does. That doesn’t preclude him from interacting on a physical level, nor does it dictate that he must interact in that way.
No, because that’s not how physicality is defined. As I’ve said, physicality refers to matter and energy. Awareness has nothing to do with it.
Now, your example shows that *you[/i[ are affected physically, insofar as awareness does entail a physical, neurological response on your part. This does not mean that God is a physical thing, though.
Yes. That doesn’t make him physical, though. As I’ve said, physicality is not defined by interactions, contrary to the claims made earlier.
Of course He can. In principle, a spiritual entity could interact on a spiritual level – indeed, Judaism and Christianity teach that He does. That doesn’t preclude him from interacting on a physical level, nor does it dictate that he must interact in that way.
** The definition would once have been “that which consists of matter”, things like light and such being seen as non-physical.
We know better now. There’s no reason we couldn’t add another fundamental force to our current list of four, or find new and unusual “stuff” that didn’t fit into our categories of mass-energy, but it’s the interaction between something and the rest of the world that allows us to call it physical.
Neutrinos are part of the physical world, even though their properties are unlike almost everything we’re familiar with. They interact so weakly that they could pass through lightyears of solid lead before hitting anything. Yet they still interact.
Something which didn’t interact at all with the physical world cannot be said to exist, and it cannot be said to be physical. We can postulate something “made out of matter and energy” that didn’t interact with the physical world. Is that thing physical? Of course not.
Oh, please. There is no ultimate distinction between the two any more than there is a distinction between information and the world that embodies it. Without the “physical”, there is no “intellectual or spiritual”.
Nothing can interact on a “spiritual” level without interacting on the physical level. Don’t be stupid, please – our time is valuable, and we don’t like it to be wasted.
But there is literally a physical response to awareness, which makes the interaction physical. We could not be affected by God without our own physical response.
I don’t believe it does either.
I don’t get this at all. Doesn’t interacting on a spiritual level create awareness and a physical response is necessary to create awareness. Could you define interacting on a spiritual level? I know what it feels like, but don’t know what it is.
ILWN, I think you’re missing the point.
YES, there is a physical response. YES, there is an interaction with the physical world. Nowhere did I deny that.
The point is that this does not make God physical. It merely demosntrates an ability to influence the physical world. There is nothing in the definition of physicality which dictates that this necessarily makes him a physical object.
And that is the matter under debate. The question of whether God induces a physical response in you is simply irrelevant.
You know what, TVAA, I was in the middle of posting a detailed reply to your points when I read your most recent snide dismissal.
Never mind. I do have answers to the points that you’ve raised, but I’ve got better things to do than flaggelate a deceased equine.
One point you raised does interest me, though. Your response to my point about entropy was something I’d never heard before. Could you possibly suggest a good reference which offers this elaboration on the subject?
Chaim Mattis Keller
Irrelevant. ILWN asked if physical interaction was the only way by which God could interact. It isn’t. The question of whether spiritual interaction also entails physical response is simply irrelevant.
Oooh. Big talk.
Do you hold yourself to the same standard, pray tell? Then please answer my previous challenge. Please cite some authoritative text which supports your assertion that physicality is “defined by interactions,” i.e. that whatever interacts with the physical is automatically defined to be physical as well.
Since this is the core of your argument, then please support it. Please provide the relevant definition. Otherwise, it seems to me that you’re the one who is “being stupid” and wasting our time.
Give me an example of a non-physical thing that interacts with the physical world.
“Spiritual” interaction requires physical interaction. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to think about, remember, discuss, or be aware of it, and it couldn’t be said to be a part of the universe.
Any interaction with the physical world is physical, because the label “physical” is how we reference the set of interactions that makes up the world.
Texts are irrelevant if you can’t apply basic logic to the problem. Any entity that wasn’t part of the system that the physical world exists in couldn’t affect it, because “affecting part of the system” is how we determine whether something is part of the system.
** Then your good deed for the day was sparing us from further exposure to your points.
Any decent text on probability, thermodynamics, or the Theory of Eternal Recurrence?
Sheesh. How we can enlighten the ignorant if they’re ignorant of their ignorance?
And I’ve repeatedly asked you to provide an authoritative cite which shows that this is how physicality is defined. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re dodging this question.
Which is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Let me remind you that you are the one who is saying that by definition, interaction with the physical world automatically renders something physical. All this talk about neutrinos is simply irrelevant.
You have yet to cite any definition which supports your claim.
Nonsense. This is simply an assertion on your part. “Proof by assertion” is not a valid form of argumentation.
Moreover, it’s (again!) irrelevant. Yes, something which never interacts with the physical world cannot be called physical. However, the converse its not true; it does not mean that anything which *does interact with the physical must be physical as well.
Nonsense. You are postulating a self-contradictory condition, whatever is made out of matter or energy is part of the physical world, according to the definitions which I cited.
Mere empty assertion, devoid of substantiation. I have already cited the revelant definitions, and you have yet to substantiate your claims in response.
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A completely unproven assertion. Please prove that it is impossible to have a spiritual being with no mass or energy. You have yet to do anything of the sort, apart from the empty, unsubstantiated claim that “whatever interacts with the physical must be physical as well.”
Which, as I’ve pointed out several times already, is irrelevant.
Again, an unsubstantiated (yet oft repeated!) assertion on your part.
You claim that this is how physicality is defined. I am asking you to cite the relevant definition. Merely repeating this claim ad nauseum does not make it valid.
Would you care to count how many times I’ve asked you to cite the relevant defintion which supports your case? Or shall we take this as a tacit admission that you have no such definition, apart from having cooked it up yourself?
Wait a minute. YOU are the one who said that only physical objects can interact with non-physical objects. The burden of proof rests on you, especially since you have repeatedly insisted that it’s true “by definition.”
** I don’t have a cite. The point requires you to put two and two together to make four.
** There are no other grounds for deciding whether something is physical. “Physical” is just a conceptual set that we put “things that interact with each other” into.
** If it interacts, then it follows the same rules that the physical world follows. If it follows the same rules as the physical world, it is physical. The rules determine what we label as physical.
Not at all. Physicists can think about “dark matter” which interacts with normal matter only through the gravitational force. It interacts with the physical world, thus it is physical. By your reasoning, we can consider matter that doesn’t interact with our universe at all – it’s “matter”, right, so that means it’s physical! But of course you’ll claim that matter isn’t really matter, so the question them becomes “what is matter?” And it’s stuff that interacts in certain ways – physics no longer distinguishes between energy and matter any more. It’s matter-energy. Just as water and ice are both collections of molecules with certain properties.
** What do you mean by “spiritual”? Perhaps some stuff can be found that is neither matter nor energy in any meaningful sense. But if it interacts with the material world, we conclude that it’s a special case of something even more basic that makes up the world. When we found that matter could become light, we realized that light was material – we didn’t claim that we’d found a way to make things nonmaterial.
I’m going to agree with that.
I don’t think God is necessarily literally physical, although I don’t have that information yet. I’m not arguing this point, but if he is some sort of benevolent energy or whatever, I’m not sure we can totally take him out of the physical realm anyway. Since there is no real true definition of God, I don’t think we can argue whether he is or isn’t physical. Anyway, I didn’t perceive that to be the real point. I may have missed something else.
I thought the real point of this was because he is interacting with us on our physical level, he can in some way be considered physical. Not literally, but in order to deal with us, he is approaching us on our physical plane, in a physical manner.
I do see it as relevant. The part I don’t see as relevant is defining whether or not the literal God is physical. His actions are physical, so on some level he is in effect physical. I think I’m still siding with the infidel:eek:, but then again I am several posts behind, so that could change. You guys are too fast for me. I still have to muse and ponder things.