Re: Re: Can God change his/her mind?
Originally posted by Mephura
*edit=Ok, consciousness can possibly be kept, but its tricky.
Mephura, quite recently I was thinking along these very lines and I believe I have a useful conjecture.
You see, if God is omniscient to us, he must have an infinite present in the 4th dimension, implying that he perceives the entirety of time in an instant.
You know how you can look at a three dimensional object and see all three dimensions, length, width, and depth, without being forced to see only one two dimensional plane at a time?
I mean, you see the object in all three dimensions, you don't see only two of its dimensions completely and the third (depth) incompletely and progressively.
In other words, you see all 'two-dimensional slices" of that object at once, without being forced to look at one at a time. You perceive the whole third dimension of the object in an instant.
Ergo, you have an infinite present in the third dimension (also in the first and second).
However, in the 4th dimension, we have a finite present, discerning only one "three-dimensional slice" of reality at a time. We cannot fathom the entirety of time in an instant, and are limited to understading only "one present at a time."
God, unlike us, must have an infinite present in the 4th dimension, to grant him awareness of all time.
Instead of seeing a cube flying in space, whilst viewing the movement of the cube from an older present (the "past") into the current present, as we do, God would see all of the past and future positions of the cube, indicating that his "present" is basically an instant consisting of all time.
This, of course, insinuates that God has no free-volition, as he cannot change decisions which he "has made" (this is not proper wording since there is no "has" to this deity, everything in the 4th dimension simply "is").
However, if you think about the matter, to this God, changing the course of history, which he can regard in its complete form, would be like us trying to decide the shape of an object, we can't DO IT.
Take a vase for example: As you view a vase, you cannot decide whether it will thin or bulge as your view shifts progressively from its top to its bottom. It simply will do whatever it will.
You cannot "decide " what it will do since you already know what it will do.
In fact, to your mind, the vase has basically already done it. IT HAS ALREADY THINNED OR BULGED, REGARDLESS OF YOUR DECISIONS.
You, as a 4th dimensional entity, have no control over events in the 3rd dimension, since you can perceive all those events instantly. Those events are already done and over to your mind.
So, as Mephura asserted, God cannot have a consciousness in the 4th dimension, since he can't even make decisions of any sort in that dimension.
Even so, this does not preclude a divine cognizance, or awareness, since this awareness could actually have an finite present in a more advanced dimension, say the 5th.
Since we have a finite present in the 4th dimension, we could never conceive of this 5th dimension, but God, with his total awareness and subsequent lack of say in the 4th, could exist with free-will in this higher dimension.
