Thoughts on the how often god works

[DavidC]

It's late, I just got up, and I should be at the tables, so I'll make this snappy.

FWIW, I haven't got a clue how the universe actually works metaphysically / if there's a god, etc. etc.

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There's different ways of loking at the process of God working...

We could think that nothing's there, that this has all happened randomly, and that the universe is like a great machine where nothing, including ourselves, has volition. In fact, if we were to kill ourselves in order to prove we had volition, that would be pre-ordained action, that we don't really have control over.

A certain view of the universe, with everything coming to a single point, expanding outwords into something we currently recognize, and then returning to the point to repeat, means we would have killed outselves an infinite number of times, and will do so infinite more times. Eerie. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

There's also a passibilty that something created a set of rules by which everything is goverend: electromagnetism, gravity, etc. Then set this into motion from some point, and that it's a never-ending process. This doesn't entirely appear to be true, based on some physics work suggesting that things WILL end eventually (Stephen Hawking's work?). Info on this sort of thing can be learned by examining what I'll call, for lack of knowledge of the true term: binary machines. Things that look like Pascal's Triangle are what I'm talking about here, but there's an incredible book on this somewhere that my buddy has: don't know the name of it, sorry.

So, it would be possible, if this were true, that the universe was either created by something or it wasn't, and that we either have volition outside of the laws of gravity/etc, or that everything we do is preordained. If everything was pre-ordained, here's the cool part: if you knew the rules (and they weren't random-based, i.e. x% this will happen y% this will happen), then you could go backwards as easily as forwards, and you could predict the future just by knowing the rules, likewise, know exactly what happened at any point in the past, any where, as long as you knew the "total configuration" of the universe at any point.

In the bible, it tells about God making the universe, and then making us, with a soul and conscious, sending us out to make our own decisions. This is the view that the creation of the universe and rules of existence was an Act of Will and that they are forever set in motion. Afterwards when God chooses to intervene he sends angels / his son / disasters / etc.

However, something that is possible, that I just thought of when waking up today, is that the enforcement of the rules themselves: quantum physics/mechanics, gravity, electromagnetism, heat, etc, could all be continuous acts of will by a single entity.

If this were true, then the only reason we would be able to THINK would be that something, somewhere, allows our brains to operate according to "the rules", "right now". (i.e. letting electrons fire off in there and make connection between different components of the brain.)

Now, there's also a view of the universe that there's no such thing as time or location, that those are kind of illusions that we experience, but I'm not quite that advanced in my physics knowledge yet to understand how that would be possible.

So, there's my thought of the day: the basic enforcement of every-day rules could be a continuous act of will by some omniscient being. Maybe, who knows... could be kinda funky if it were true. (And probably beats the alternative, but I'm afraid I don't know for sure.)

Take care, all.
--Dave.