williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) (06/05/85)
> Actually, I thought that a lot of the humanitarian effort, > especially in third world areas, was initiated by organized > religion. You may want to claim that their reasons for > starting this action are inauthentic (ie. proselytization), > but I think there are a fair number of religious organizations > are concerned about their existence "now as a citizen". > However, shouldn't this discussion be in net.religion? Yes, but it is unfortunate that science and religion can't agree on more. Perhaps if religion saw itself more as serving people than making people serve " God ", we would all be better off. I think reform is in order. > There is an alternative here that I don't see anyone else > discussing. There is such a thing as un-dimentional, not zero > dimentional (a point), or infinitely dimentional, but a mode of > existance in which the concept is meaningless. As an example, > look at mass. When I say that a force has no mass, am I really > saying that the mass is zero? Maybe Gd exists in a > non-dimentional non-universe. How many dimentions do emotions > have? > BTW, why must there be a finite hierarchy? > Why must there be "substance"? What kind of substance, > premordial, or Gd's? I don't understand what you mean, or why > this statement nessecitates the existence of either. Undimensional is zerodimensional. ( It doesn't work like an UNcola ) Dimension is the fundamental element of existence. Substance implies some form of media. The top of the hierarchy is where the media is a relationship of dimensions. A lower level is a relationship of phenomena that are a result of the relationship of dimensions, for example, a computer program. To say that we are not on the top level hierarchy is to say that we exist in some form of mechanism constructed in a higher dimension. It is only this type of environment that would allow divine intervention. We are unable, however, to find any smallest unit of measurement, which implies that we exist in a relationship of continuous dimensions. Furthermore, the universe exhibits statisically predictable behavior, which implies that there is a uniform relationship of unknown origin, and further implies that the universe has an unsymetrical imperfection which propagates from the origin. I should clarify what I mean by origin. By origin I mean an arbitrary coordinate along a common dimension where the initial state is given as defined. As a simplified example, zero is the origin at y=0 for the relationship y=x2, although the relationship is continuous and has no actual place where it begins. I don't believe that the term undimensional has any significant difference with the term zerodimensional. What I am saying is that the dimensions are arbitrary, that they don't necessarily exist in anything, except a mathematical relationship. The function y=x2 exists, but we don't happen to exist inside of it. It is possible, however, that we exist inside a more complex function. So, it's possible that nothing is something, after all. John Williams < This symbol stands for fill in the blank >