Is Your "God" a Model or an Hypothesis?

[Sunstone]

Please Note: This is a DISCUSSION thread.

State your views. Ask respectful questions. Compare and contrast. Deliver pick-up lines. Jest. Flirt. Arrange elopements.

But do NOT attempt to prove someone wrong.​

Is your concept or idea of god (as distinct from the reality of god) a model or an hypothesis? It seems to me that some of humanity's god-concepts are models and some of them are hypotheses.

An hypothesis purports to tell us that something exists. "My cat is furry." I am claiming that the nature of my cat includes fur. i.e. Fur really exists.

A model merely asserts that something is in at least one way like something (else). "My cat is like a child." I am in no way claiming that the model (a child) is what I literally mean by "my cat". I am only claiming that my cat is in at least one way similar to a child.​

Hypotheses can be thought of as either true or false. If they are true, then what they hypothesize to be the case really is the case. They cannot be proven true but they can be proven false. To prove them false, you deduce from them predictions that, depending on whether they come true or not, prove the hypotheses either "false" or fail to prove the hypothesis false (but never prove it true).

Suppose you had a trinitarian god consisting of Godel, Boole, and Euclid. If you asserted that Godel, Boole, and Euclid were literally three persons in one godhead, that would be an hypothesis.​

Models are not usually said to be true or false. Rather, they are thought of as in at least one way or another useful in making reliable predictions. The model of my cat as a child might be used to predict that my cat will be as demanding as a child. If that does indeed prove to the case, then the model is thought of as useful in predicting that sort of thing.

Suppose you had a trinitarian god consisting of Lana del Rey, Tan Weiwei, and Billie Eilish. If you asserted that it was like Lana, Weiwei, and Billie were three persons in one godhead, then you would have a model.​

So, is your god-concept a model or an hypothesis?


_______________________________

 

[Sp0ckrates]

Hi! Great topic!

My concept is an unproven hypothesis, which differs somewhat from your example: God is one what in three whos. I believe Latter Day Saints hold the opposing position that God is three whos in one what.

Not so sure there’s a way to prove either position false or illogical, though one might try to prove either position isn’t explicitly taught in the Bible.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I'm not sure Nirguna Brahman (Ultimate Reality) would qualify as a god-concept in this context or not. If so, then Nirguna Brahman, by the definitions in the OP, would be a hypothesis.

Though I do know of some goddesses that could probably get hired on as models.

 

[Vouthon]

Hmm, the philosophspeak has reached a fever-pitch of ingenious speculative theorising today, I see, on yet another early afternoon when my poor brain remains mentally fatigued from the humdrum concerns of tax law....

All I can offer for the moment is that God, as postulated in Catholic theology, definitely appears to be a hypothesis as opposed to a model under your definitions; only not a scientific hypothesis that can be empirically falsified through either direct observation of some prediction of the "theory" or indeed a testable consequence therefrom.

My justification for saying this, consists of the simple belief - which every Catholic theologian I've ever read shares, it's doctrinal really - that the Creator is not an entity in the universe - this space of observable stuff within the particle horizon that we can detect - nor even a superior agent whose existence we can postulate in order to explain some natural phenomenon - testable consequences - but rather, Being Itself, that upon which contingent existence depends for....well, its existence.

If that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to you, then please blame the fact that I've only had one coffee this morning and cannot clear my mind of the horrors of indexation allowance and capital trading losses in a chargeable gain calculation.

 

[Secret Chief]

Though I do know of some goddesses that could probably get hired on as models.

I can't make a reasoned judgment on that without some evidence on your part i.e. pictures.

 

[Vouthon]

Though I do know of some goddesses that could probably get hired on as models.

Some Jesus statues and paintings are pretty beefcake as well. You ever seen Salvador Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross? Now, there is some serious definition in those shoulder muscles that could rival a Calvin Klein underwear model. Arguably, no god has ever wore a loincloth better.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I can't make a reasoned judgment on that without some evidence on your part i.e. pictures.

The Eros Room would likely be a more suitable forum for such pictures.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Some Jesus statues and paintings are pretty beefcake as well. You ever seen Salvador Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross? Now, there is some serious definition in those shoulder muscles that could rival a Calvin Klein underwear model. Arguably, no god has ever wore a loincloth better.

I just Googled the image. He certainly looks pretty ripped in that depiction.

 

[Secret Chief]

The Eros Room would likely be a more suitable forum for such pictures.

My mum says I can't go in there.

 

[SalixIncendium]

My mum says I can't go in there.

I forgot to ask mine.

 

[Sunstone]

I'm not sure Nirguna Brahman (Ultimate Reality) would qualify as a god-concept in this context or not. If so, then Nirguna Brahman, by the definitions in the OP, would be a hypothesis.

To be sure, I was saying in the OP that concepts of gods could be divided into two sorts: Hypotheses and models. The gods themselves cannot be sorted into hypotheses and models. Since Nirguna Brahman the god is beyond all concepts, Nirguna Brahman the god cannot be sorted into an hypothesis or a model. But I can sort my notion of Nirguna Brahman the concept into either a model or an hypothesis. And, as it happens, it is a model.

Your notion might be an hypothesis (though I doubt it, knowing you), but mine at least is a model. I am modeling Nirguna Brahman the god as an erotic dancing girl something that in reality is like my concept of "distinctionless". Why do I not hypothesize that Nirguna Brahman the god is distinctionless? Because that would be like saying my idea of god is spot on, with the implication that my puny brain has somehow grasped the ineffable. I know I am the smartest stable genius on the North American continent except for Donald Trump, but I am not THAT smart.

Put differently, if my concept of god corresponds one-to-one with god, then my concept is an hypothesis about god.

But if my concept of god is merely a suggestion that god is like (in some key way or ways) my concept of god, then my concept is a model.

At least, that's how I see it. Then again, I am seldom right about anything.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

At best, it's a provisional inference.

FWIW, I found this interesting.

 

[Sunstone]

At best, it's a provisional inference.

That is precisely correct.

 

[Left Coast]

Please Note: This is a DISCUSSION thread.

State your views. Ask respectful questions. Compare and contrast. Deliver pick-up lines. Jest. Flirt. Arrange elopements.

But do NOT attempt to prove someone wrong.​

Is your concept or idea of god (as distinct from the reality of god) a model or an hypothesis? It seems to me that some of humanity's god-concepts are models and some of them are hypotheses.

An hypothesis purports to tell us that something exists. "My cat is furry." I am claiming that the nature of my cat includes fur. i.e. Fur really exists.

A model merely asserts that something is in at least one way like something (else). "My cat is like a child." I am in no way claiming that the model (a child) is what I literally mean by "my cat". I am only claiming that my cat is in at least one way similar to a child.​

Hypotheses can be thought of as either true or false. If they are true, then what they hypothesize to be the case really is the case. They cannot be proven true but they can be proven false. To prove them false, you deduce from them predictions that, depending on whether they come true or not, prove the hypotheses either "false" or fail to prove the hypothesis false (but never prove it true).

Suppose you had a trinitarian god consisting of Godel, Boole, and Euclid. If you asserted that Godel, Boole, and Euclid were literally three persons in one godhead, that would be an hypothesis.​

Models are not usually said to be true or false. Rather, they are thought of as in at least one way or another useful in making reliable predictions. The model of my cat as a child might be used to predict that my cat will be as demanding as a child. If that does indeed prove to the case, then the model is thought of as useful in predicting that sort of thing.

Suppose you had a trinitarian god consisting of Lana del Rey, Tan Weiwei, and Billie Eilish. If you asserted that it was like Lana, Weiwei, and Billie were three persons in one godhead, then you would have a model.​

So, is your god-concept a model or an hypothesis?


_______________________________

In my experience, folks with a more fundamentalist bent tend to view God as a hypothesis. Atheists also often criticize God-as-hypothesis (Victor Stenger wrote a book called, "God: The Failed Hypothesis"). Folks with a less rigid view tend to see God as a model, a lens through which they view the world, but one which they can only really describe by analogy ("the kingdom of heaven is like...").

 

[Sunstone]

In my experience, folks with a more fundamentalist bent tend to view God as a hypothesis. Atheists also often criticize God-as-hypothesis (Victor Stenger wrote a book called, "God: The Failed Hypothesis"). Folks with a less rigid view tend to see God as a model, a lens through which they view the world, but one which they can only really describe by analogy ("the kingdom of heaven is like...").

That strikes me as an excellent point! And so well said. Thank you much!

 

[Sunstone]

If one's god concept is an hypothesis, then there can only be one true hypothesis. Put differently, your "god" and my "god" cannot both be true at the same time in the same way.

But if one's god-concept is a model, then you can have any number of models, all of them useful in one way or another. Put differently, your "god" and my "god" can both be useful. (Remember, truth or falsity does not apply to models.)

 

[Vouthon]

Put differently, your "god" and my "god" can both be useful. (Remember, truth or falsity does not apply to models.)

But doesn't a "model" - in conventional scientific terms - imply the ability to test a prediction? (i.e. almost all scientific models 'predict' at least in the weak sense of being used to calculate or compute some result).

I mean a pretty barebones usage might be along the following lines (pulled from the web):

Scientists use models to make predictions and then carry out critical tests to check whether those predictions were accurate.

Exactly what should be tested and what the results should be depends on the characteristics of the particular model. Each model should specify what physical circumstances are required and predict what data should be found as a result​

Some multiverse models in fundamental physics - for example - predict observable effects in the CMB (cosmic microwave background), that is - "bubble collisions" (in eternal inflation models) involving causally disconnected bubbles within the one space-time, which cosmologists could theoretically observe should they be happening 'out there'.

However, the idea of there being a string landscape multiverse in M-Theory - which makes it possible to conceive of higher dimensions and universes (or "vacua") with utterly different laws of local physics and constants - is not a model, because we don't even have a measure on the space of string vacua, meaning that one cannot really make any testable predictions with it all.

There is no experiment you can point to for String Theory and say, "Aha! String theorists predicted this measurement down to ten decimal places and we got this number when we observed etc. etc.".

Thus, Professor George Ellis (a South African cosmologist) deemed string-theory landscape derived multiverse hypotheses to be: "good empirically based philosophical proposals" but not strictly within the domain of science. I would describe my conception of God as being somewhat akin to this:


Opposing the multiverse

The extreme case is the multiverse proposal, where no direct observational test of the hypothesis is possible...​

Even though multiverse proposals are good empirically based philosophical proposals for the nature of what exists, they are not strictly within the domain of science. There is nothing wrong with empirically based philosophical explanation — indeed it is of great value provided it is labelled for what it is — but I suggest that cosmologists should be very careful not to make methodological proposals that erode the essential nature of science​

I do not believe I could call my God concept a "model" for the same reason, because it's not something I could corroborate or falsify through any test.

Unless, a different definition of "model" is here being used than the one I'm familiar with.

 

[SalixIncendium]

To be sure, I was saying in the OP that concepts of gods could be divided into two sorts: Hypotheses and models. The gods themselves cannot be sorted into hypotheses and models. Since Nirguna Brahman the god is beyond all concepts, Nirguna Brahman the god cannot be sorted into an hypothesis or a model. But I can sort my notion of Nirguna Brahman the concept into either a model or an hypothesis. And, as it happens, it is a model.

Your notion might be an hypothesis (though I doubt it, knowing you), but mine at least is a model. I am modeling Nirguna Brahman the god as an erotic dancing girl something that in reality is like my concept of "distinctionless". Why do I not hypothesize that Nirguna Brahman the god is distinctionless? Because that would be like saying my idea of god is spot on, with the implication that my puny brain has somehow grasped the ineffable. I know I am the smartest stable genius on the North American continent except for Donald Trump, but I am not THAT smart.

Put differently, if my concept of god corresponds one-to-one with god, then my concept is an hypothesis about god.

But if my concept of god is merely a suggestion that god is like (in some key way or ways) my concept of god, then my concept is a model.

At least, that's how I see it. Then again, I am seldom right about anything.

I suppose my answer was based on my aversion calling Nirguna Brahman a god, so I often refer to it, apparently incorrectly, as a god-concept.

However, I think Nirguna Brahman can be sorted as such and fits better into a hypothesis if one is defining a 'hypothesis' as a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.

But then again, maybe it can't.

 

[Sunstone]

But doesn't a "model" - in conventional scientific terms - imply the ability to test a prediction?

I would not say "imply" because that might be taken to mean a model must be testable to be a model. Such might be the case in the sciences, but this is not science. In other words, in the OP, I have borrowed the terms "hypothesis" and "model" from the sciences, and then applied them to a non-scientific question or problem with the consequence that they now refer to untestable things. Perhaps I should have made that explicit. On the other hand, it is rather difficult for me to anticipate then answer every question the OP raises or is likely to raise. Even attempting such a thing would take me to set aside so much time as to seriously jeopardize what little time I have left to me these days for viewing pole dance videos.

Unless, a different definition of "model" is here being used than the one I'm familiar with.

I have no problem with applying the terms "hypothesis" and "model" to distinguish between two kinds of god-concepts because I wish to discuss their possible use in perhaps shedding light on the nature of our concepts of god, not because I wish to prove or disprove the existence of deity. In other words, I am crazy, but I am not crazy enough to think that applying the terms to categorize our concepts of deity in any way shape or form changes the fact our concepts have never been proven true or false and never will be proven true or false.

 

[Sunstone]

I suppose my answer was based on my aversion calling Nirguna Brahman a god, so I often refer to it, apparently incorrectly, as a god-concept.

However, I think Nirguna Brahman can be sorted as such and fits better into a hypothesis if one is defining a 'hypothesis' as a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.

But then again, maybe it can't.

That's quite interesting! Thank you so much!