Midterm Report: God and the Universe

Descartes believed that there were two infinite things that exist:  God and the Universe. 

Spinoza responded with great logic.  He said there can only be one infinite thing. Otherwise the two infinite things would limit each other and cease to be infinite.  That one infinite thing must be the universe, since of the two, it's the one we know exists. 

Descartes believed that the idea we have of God alone proved his existence.  Saying why do we have such an idea otherwise? 

There is another bit of logic that I'd like to use. 

Descartes believed that the proof of his own existence was the fact that he pondered that question in the first place.  The famous "I think, therefore, I am"  However I would like to apply this to God.  Does God think?  We think to solve problems, to reach the next conclusion, to order our ideas and knowledge into coherence.  So why would God have thought?  What use would an all knowing, all infinite being have for such a thing. 

The idea of a beginning.  This frustrates me.  There is no such thing as beginning and end, start and finish.  These are human concepts created and used to understand and control our perception of time.  But time is infinite, time exists infinitely in all directions and all planes of existence.  If an event occurs, it does not start or end at specific times, it has a span in which it occurs in time to our perception.  Otherwise, it is always happening in the realm of time. 

There is the comically dense philosophical view of time in the television show, True Detective, in which Matthew McConaughey says "time is a flat circle" 

Try not to make fun of me, but I find a bit of truth to that.  What I mean is that if you imagine a circle, or any geometric shape, there is no such thing as the beginning of the circle or the end of it.  Of course, circles don't actually exist physically in the real world, only in patterns we see in the world.  However, these patterns do exist very much to the extent of being able to predict the existence of things before we know of them.  The example I'm referring to is one in which an astronomer, Johannes Kepler, took the shapes and patterns of the geometric polytopes and predicted about where Uranus would be.  He was off by a bit, and generally, that's not how the Universe works, but the logic was there.  If you watch this Vsauce video, and start it around 7:30, you'll get the gist of what I'm talking about, however, I encourage you to watch the entire thing; it's very fascinating. 

Anyway, the point is, the Universe is the only possible infinite thing, and I think that time is the fuel of the Universe, making it also infinite by association.  I'm not making the same Descartes claim, that there are two infinite things.  I'm saying that time and the Universe are the same thing. 

There is an interesting philosophical perspective that I heard through a lecture by Alan Watts.  He said such things as "I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is."  He also says “Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”  You should know, however, that Watts is a deist.  He believed that God and the Universe were one in the same.  He believed that we are just Gods way of playing Hide and Seek with himself.  This is an interesting concept, and one that, if I were to ever proclaim myself a deist, I would take up, as it is perfectly light-hearted enough to believe in.