Philosophy Discussion Forums

To paraphrase Bertrand Russell belief is the antithesis of knowledge and thus knowledge is inversely proportional to belief. Russell held the view that believers are scared of knowledge, which they regard as their biggest threat.

A contemporary philosopher who is also a close friend once said to me. "It is utterly impossible for any human mind to both believe in god and understand the Mandelbrot set".

The Mandelbrot set is the most complex mathematical entity ever invented by a human mind and yet it is an entity of the most exquisite simplicity and very easily understood. A child can understand the Mandelbrot set.

I won't post a link because I don't know how to but there is plenty of source material online. If knowledge doesn't scare you look it up.

Regards Leo

"It is utterly impossible for any human mind to both believe in god and understand the Mandelbrot set".

How so? I don't see why the two positions should be mutually exclusive. And perhaps my God is the original Mandelbrot set.

Felix wrote: And perhaps my God is the original Mandelbrot set.

Naturally you'll be aware that the notion of "my" god is not a theistic one which means you're in good company. Spinoza and Einstein defined "god" as synonymous with "universe". Although I shudder at the teleological implications of such a form of language I'm quite happy to go along with this myself. I would simply say that the universe is the over-arching or all-encompassing Mandelbrot set.

Naturally the Mandelbrot set can't disprove the idea of a god but it shows that a creator is unnecessary which means our primitive notions of god need to be rethought. Spinoza's god was both creator and created, in that his god both created the universe and was created by it. This wasn't the first time the self-causal universe was seriously considered in metaphysics but it was the first time it could be thought of in terms of the new paradigms which began with Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Einstein could see immediately that it must be a natural conclusion from relativity.

Regards Leo