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echo: philos
to: WILLIAM ELLIOT
from: MARK BLOSS
date: 1998-03-02 11:26:00
subject: `Existence Exists`

>
>William Elliot wrote to Mark Bloss about "Existence Exists"
 >>> Mark Bloss on "Existence Exists" 
 
 MB> Well, the attributes of extremely omniscient beings are also hard to
 MB> keep  track of.  Usually they end up being regarded as approximately
 MB> 10^100  attributes of something or anything that could ever exist in
 MB> the universe. 
 WE> An omniscient being is just a know it all.  That's the only thing it
 WE> can do.  Are sure you don't mean omnipotent beings that can do
 WE> unimaginably numerous things? 
 
 Sure; and since they know infinite things, then whatever they do would
 be just precisely what is needed, when its needed, as its needed.
 MB> Not only that but if you added a million more attributes
 MB> to a deity, the  number will remain the same, approximately the
 MB> hugest, biggest,  extraordinarily largest possible number which is of
 MB> any use, that there is: 10^100.  
 WE> Naw, I have use of 100^100 which is a hundred magnitudes larger.
 WE> So there, my number is bigger than yours. -)
 Oh yeah!  Well, I just left 4 zeros off my number - it was a typo -
 I meant 100^100000, so there! Nyah nyah Na nyah nyah... pfft.
 
 MB> Most attributes of omniscient beings have never been used, named,
 MB> notated, discussed or even individually imagined.  That is most of
 MB> them have never been imagined, are beyond imagination.  
 
 WE> There's a proof that there are no uninteresting integers.  Can you
 WE> prove that there are no boring attributes of an omnipotent being? 
 
 I suppose.  You tell me your proof and I'll tell you mine... ;-)
 WE> think that the same proof for proving all integers interesting can be
 WE> use to prove they are all imaginable.  So it appears that there is a
 WE> difference between integers and deities. 
 
 Sure there is - but there are differences between some integers and other
 integers, and differences between one deity and another - so obviously
 there has to be _some_ differences between integers and deities too.
 WE> Theologians
 MB> who are also mathematicians, and especially those on television,
 MB> imagine that they can  imagine the whole infinite bunch of omniscient
 MB> being's attributes.  On the other hand, most people are content with
 MB> the few that they know. 
 
 WE> Convince me that there are at least 10^10.
 
 Okay, you can always add one deity to any previous deity, to create a 
 new deity, regardless of how many deities there are already.
 
 MB> So, in conclusion, beyond the obvious point that there is effectually
 MB> the same number of atoms in the universe as there are attributes of
 MB> God, one can demonstrate, and prove mathematically, that we don't know
 MB> very much about mathematics, or gods, anyway; and 
 
 WE> Ever hear of Dirack's law of very large numbers.  To wit, any two very
 WE> large numbers that are merely several orders of magnitude different
 WE> are actually the same number.   
 
 Actually, any sufficiently large number is indistinguishable from
 any other sufficiently large number - because our brains are finite.
 
 MB> very, extremely huge, enormously large, bigger than can be imagined,
 MB> symbol for something really really big.
 
 WE> It's a googol.  A googolplex is very much much larger.  Look in a
 WE> dictionary to find out how much larger.  What to bet any number that
 WE> you can imagine, I can conjure a larger.  I raise you a googolplex. -) 
 
 Gee, I don't know if we have enough space in fidonet to post it.  ;)
 
... Get nowhere: Sit on your butt feeling sorry for yourself.
--- GEcho 1.11++TAG 2.7c
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