It's All About Interacting/Interlocking Relationships
Of all the presented (20 of them, including Pascal's Wager) arguments for the existence of God, the most persuasive, and therefore could stand on its own, is the "Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole."
As presented by Norris Clarke, a philosopher/metaphysicist, the argument goes this way: The world/Universe is an ordered system of many active component elements. Their inate or natural properties are ordered to interact with each other in stable, reciprocal relationships which we call physical laws (or Laws of Nature), thus as per the Law of Gravity, all particles with mass are ordered to move toward every other according to proportions fixed by that law. The "Law" of Reciprocal relationships orders every hydrogen atom to combine with every oxygen atom in the proportion of 2:1. The "Law" of Opposites attracts orders an atom with a positive valence to combine with an atom with a negative valence, to create a stable molecule.
Empirical evidence reveals to us that our world-system is not merely an aggregate of many separate, unrelated laws, but rather a tightly interlocking whole, where relationship to the whole, structures and determines the parts. The parts can no longer be understood apart from the whole; its influence permeates them all. Thus in such a system no component part or active element can be self-sufficient or self-explanatory. One part can not act unless the others are there to interact reciprocally with it. Any part could be self-sufficient only if it were the cause of the whole rest of the system---which is impossible, since no part can act except in collaboration with the others.
Since the parts make sense only within the whole, and neither the whole nor the part can explain their own existence, then such a system as our world/universe, requires a UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE to posit it in existence as unified whole.
A UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE, i.e GODInteresting theory. Because Hydrogen is one electron short of filling it's outer shell and oxygen is 2 electrons short, and because mass exhibits a force we call gravity, there is a god required.
Not. This is as bad as Pascal's Wager, where he begins with the assumption of a god and goes on to "prove", using that assumption, that we should all believe in the one he thinks exists.- doesn't it just make sense that some force is running the show?
Yes. The "force" you refer to is called "natural laws" in the common language.
And who/what do you think created those laws... Not nature itself because a non-sentient entity (which nature is) could never create anything by itself ...the least of which are those laws... except when Laws are ordered by a sentient entity (God) to regulate the interacting/interlocking mecahnisms of the parts that makes the whole of nature , functional in an orderly manner.
"Not nature itself because a non-sentient entity (which nature is) could never create anything by itself "
Your proof (or even evidence) that your statement is true? Or are you just spouting off out of ignorance - "I don't know so my ignorance proves a god!"?...whats wrong with that?
There is a way to perceive God, but it takes intuition. Until you are that finely tuned, you'll have to surmise… Surmise toward truth.
Here is a question: You really do not believe Jesus came with the truth?As intuition is based on past experience, and you have never seen a god, I can only surmise that you don't "perceive" one, either.
Jesus came with a message on how to live a "good" life. Beyond that we have no way of knowing. The tale of his "father in heaven" may be just that; a tale without substance (of which man has certainly produced a plethora of). Or it could be absolute truth. We can't tell, can we?I can. I have intuition. (Meditation brings results.)
If Jesus as you stated " came with a message to live a good life", I can fully surmise that you DO believe in the historical veracity of his existence. So if his message was as non-threatening as that, why was he ordered to be crucified by Pontius Pilate, but of course with the persistent urging of the Jewish religious authorities at that time?
Taken in the above context, your next statement, " beyond that we have no way of knowing" was perplexing to say the least.
Of course we have a way of knowing, unless of course you are questioning the historical veracity of what is written in the New Testament porition of the bible. This to my thinking clearly reveals the dis-congruence and dissonance of your interpretation of historical facts.
Are you saying or even implying that nature is sentient? ....that it could create things on its own, specifically, as is the topic of this discussion, laws that governs its operative functionality? Or that it could create material or physical entities all by its lonesome self with out the imposition and direction of those laws that governs its existence? WOW... now that's what I would call "shooting from the hips."
Ever seen a stalactite? The Grand Canyon? A redwood tree?
Sure, nature creates things all the time; beautiful, wondrous, awe inspiring things.
But that's not what you're claiming is it? You're claim the laws required a god to create them, but don't seem able to show that god. What else do you have that such an entity was necessary for the "creation" of natural laws? Do you have a full and complete understanding of the Big Bang that you wish to contribute, or are you using your (and everyone else's) ignorance of the details to claim a god was necessary?Ignorance you say? Well let me see now....You are one who believes that the creation of the universe did not necessitate the presence or existence of a Supernatural/Existential force, a lot of folks have termed or named GOD. And if I recall correctly, you stated that you have no idea as to how the universe was created, and whyever/however/whatever was involved in its creation, but absolutely a GOD IS NOT IT. How you traveled the distance from ignorance (I didn't know how the universe came into existence) to absolute blissful belief that GOD IS NOT THE REASON FOR THAT EXISTENCE, was to say the least, done in warp speed.
The only time you will ever see me make such a foolish statement is in reply to the equally foolish statement that someone knows that a god did it. Just a small statement that opinions are a dime a dozen; evidence is needed.
But you failed (again) to respond as to just why you are so sure a god was necessary. All I've seen so far is the eternal "I dunno, so goddunnit".Wilderness: I have evidence of Creator on a Universal level and on a Personal level.
Just In Case You or Anyone Else is Interested.
But, I will not try to prove it.
Not my Job.
Whomever does not comprehend that all life is evidence of God...
O h W e l l !
So you have claimed numerous times. Without evidence, though, no one believes it.
...don't care. Why should I? There's enough evidence to go around. Everyone can do their own gathering according to what they want or don't want to gather.
Each To Their OwnSo you have claimed numerous times (that there is plenty of evidence). Without such evidence, though, no one believes it - searchers have never found anything like what you claim is everywhere.
Life itself is proof enough to me. The miracle is all around us. Sentience within and without.
TWISI
Each to their own.
Then it needs proof. Negatives are notoriously difficult to prove - it's like saying there is no god - but proof is still necessary. A simple statement of opinion, even if based on limited experience, is insufficient.
In a discussion people will bring whatever it is to the table and people will discuss and some might agree and some might disagree and give rebuttal that actually come with sound arguments. Then others will just take the opportunity to put people down, because they usually don't understand the argument or other reasons.
I like the post because it reminds me of synergetics or emergent behavior.Yes, they will absolutely bring whatever it is to the table. Including unsupported opinions that they will present as factual.
That is always the problem with discussions of god, at least with a non-believer. The first opinion presented is the existence of god (always a specific god) which is always questioned with nothing coming back in the way of fact. Just opinions, questions or statements of ignorance.
And it is always seen as a put-down when the opinion is not accepted as factual. It's seldom meant that way, but that's the way it's always taken. Of course, it's always easy to take offense, particularly when dearly held opinions are rejected. Like comments on "emergent behavior", which could very easily be taken as offensive (I'm better than you because I am more developed than you are, you emergent creature!).
But what else is new? That's been going on since gods (actually language) were invented, and it isn't likely to change in the near future. I just find it rather sad when a thought process is questioned rather than an opinion and offense is immediately taken because of a strongly held belief system.No its not a difference of opinion. It is a matter of civility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SynergeticsThat's what I said: "emergent behavior" could be taken as a slap: "I am more complex and have a more complex (and better) brain than you do so I can understand such things while you, the lower life form that is still emerging, are still incapable of it".
That is not emergence or emergent behavior. It is a "more than the sum of parts" concept or study.
I understand that. Can you understand what I'm trying to say? That people can (and will) take it as affront because they are being told they are still a monkey? Too many people, all too often, almost seem as if they are looking to be offended and will become so at the slightest opportunity. The "chip on the shoulder" syndrome, in spades.
emergent creature!?
Yea, I dont know what that means
Emergent behavior - Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.
Emergence is central in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon life as studied in biology is commonly perceived as an emergent property of interacting molecules as studied in chemistry, whose phenomena reflect interactions among elementary particles, modeled in particle physics, that at such higher mass—via substantial conglomeration—exhibit motion as modeled in gravitational physics. Neurobiological phenomena are often presumed to suffice as the underlying basis of psychological phenomena, whereby economic phenomena are in turn presumed to principally emerge.
In philosophy, emergence typically refers to emergentism. Almost all accounts of emergentism include a form of epistemic or ontological irreducibility to the lower levels.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
In some theories of particle physics, even such basic structures as mass, space, and time are viewed as emergent phenomena, arising from more fundamental concepts such as the Higgs boson or strings. In some interpretations of quantum mechanics, the perception of a deterministic reality, in which all objects have a definite position, momentum, and so forth, is actually an emergent phenomenon, with the true state of matter being described instead by a wavefunction which need not have a single position or momentum. Most of the laws of physics themselves as we experience them today appear to have emerged during the course of time making emergence the most fundamental principle in the universe and raising the question of what might be the most fundamental law of physics from which all others emerged.
This is what reminds me of the OP.@phoenix:
From simplicity to complexity. The nature of reality was ordered as such, so the trajectory from the simple to the complex is inevitable. Even the simplest of bio-organism are made of more simple or basic but stable molecules, that themseves are made of the most fundamental formulation of matter...the Higgs-boson.
@wilderness:
Everything that is in the visible (and still to be visible or never would be visible) universe is part of that created and organized entity we call NATURE. The nature of the universe is such that some parts are inert, but are made to interlock/interconnect with other parts that are equally inert and more importantly also with parts that are active (whether sentient or non-sentient), by the Laws of Nature. Whoever/Whatever created the universe also created those Laws that now control/regulate everything in that creation. To say that Nature self-created and the Laws of nature were inevitably created by that self-creating NATURE, is illogical to say the least. The nature of reality imposes causality to its core, and what undergird existence is the reality of that causality.I know you keep saying that - that the laws of nature cannot come into existence via nature, but all you can ever produce as evidence is that you don't see how it could happen. Which, as I said, means that "I dunno, so goddunnit". It takes a little more than a statement of ignorance to produce factual truth, don't you think?
"So protons behaving unhindered by the "laws of Physics"..." and
"The nature of reality imposes causality to its core" (both from you)
seem contradictory. On the one hand is agreement that not everything follows the laws we know of, then a statement that one law (conveniently, the one you like to use to prove a god) is inviolate. The point being that you haven't the faintest idea if the second statement is true in every environment. That of the quantum world, for example, or the one of the singularity that preceded the big bang.Just from memory, based upon various posts in diverse places, where unabashedly 1.) you wrote an entire paragraph about how Roger Penrose brings mythological characters to all of his arguments, because, according to you, he is biased towards them, as is the norm for theology, you said, and how you were mistaken, because Penrose is an atheist and that was 2.) only because you did not like him critiquing a book and author, of your next 3.) unsupported claim of having knowledge of something that is not even remotely known, because of exotic theories, and how 4.) you suggested that emergent behavior is a potentially pejorative phrase about monkeys or something and how 5.) you do not seem to know a contingency argument from a teleological argument, 6.) All of which is demonstrably invalid, and only because you continue, unchecked, with disproportional impunity, appeals to ridicule, I am now wondering if you have ever considered that you may be wrong about all of your unfounded, unsupported, tightly held beliefs?
None of which has anything to do with assuming that physical law apply to circumstances that we either don't know or know that they don't. So, your point?
And absolutely yes, I may be wrong with unfounded, unsupported tightly held beliefs. Which is why I don't present them as truth and factual.I am convinced wilderness wants to meet God face to face in a concrete way more than any of us. I believe the intensity of that sort of demanding can bring about results...provided one has the ears to hear, the mind to recognize and the eyes to see. I hope he will let us know when it happens.
That would be something, wouldn't it? And I promise to let you know if it happens.
But here I'm more interested in the thought process and trail that leads to a belief.Well, I have said before that children believe in God quite easily/naturally. Would you say adult believers are like children then?
(But no, I do not believe in the Easter Bunny, as I saw my father hiding eggs when I was ten.)
The fact is, nothing has disproved God for me.
When I see a butterfly, a baby, a puppy, a sunset, the grand canyon, ETC, ETC., I know there is God.
I believe that human beings have to prove their existence to God, otherwise they are indiscernible from reality as a whole, by their own choice. There is a difference between, I think therefore I am, and I think therefore I am transcendent of reality. Dogmatic physicalism argues itself out of identity.
Edit:
i.e.
I exist, makes for a quaint epitaph.@phoenix:
I fundamentally disagree with Rene Descarte's formulation ie "I am, therefore I exist." From my perspective, one should be able to think(thus know) that one exist before one could factually and in reality say "I exist". For if one does not know that one exist, do you truly exist? Existence depends upon in the knowing, rather than the actual existing.
Existence (as is true in the quantum world) is observer dependent. Thus the trees exist because there are sentient observers that perceive that they exist, but do the trees themselves know that they exist?I assure you that bacteria exists; my wife has some of the wrong type in her right now. Likewise the stars that we couldn't see until Galileo came along existed; for some of them their light has been travelling since before the sun formed.
@wilderness:
The bacteria exists because as the observer, you have perceived and interpreted its existence, but the more important issue is, does the bacteria know that it exist. It is in knowing that it exist, that reality becomes unto itself. In the same way that if humans or any other earthly specie did not have the sentience to know that they exist, do they really exist? In the same way that if there is no sentient beings in the cosmos, would it matter much if the cosmos exist. I don't think so.
Thus from the point of the reality of existence, it should be perceived, and finally interpreted, by a sentient observer. Thus the necessity for whoever created the universe to absolutely make sure that sentience or sentient beings are included in his creation.
Would a@janesix:
Objective reality exist in so far as whoever caused that objective reality to exist knows that he is responsible for that existence. Existence unobserved by anyone else can not exist in reality because reality is dependent on perception, and interpretation of those observers. God having created the cosmos without also creating a sentient entity that will observe that the cosmos exist, is if I may say so, the ultimate act of futility, albeit divinely inspired.
2wilderness:
The evidentiary veracity/factuality of what I write in these forums are not to be interpreted with the same security as let us say that of A. Einstein or S. Hawking.. But what I write I base on my perceptual recollections of materials read, and subjects debated, and essays accumulated over the years. I keep in touch with current thinking on this and that topic, but my writings are almost always constant on one thing....logic.Logic, yes, but logic that as far as I can see is based on premises that are unsupportable. The logic then may be correct but the conclusion cannot be relied upon.
The reason I say this is that the basis of your arguments seems to be that there is a cause for everything that happens, in any circumstances. Yet we know that to be false in the quantum world and have no idea whether it was true at the instant of the big bang, when there were no laws in effect at all. Whether the logic is correct or not, the result is GIGO because of false assumptions being used as a premise.
And yes, we all use past information and observation to come up with conclusions. We also are often unable to document those things, and I am certainly no different. That makes those things and thoughts a discussion point, then, and something to be explored in depth - the "why" of an opinion must be investigated, always.@wilderness:
The premise that God or a supernatural force created the universe was and continues to be supported by the 20 Arguments for God's Existence that I referred to in the OP. Granted , we do not have the physical evidence of God's existence which you are so determined to demand ie God showing himself to you and other non-believers, but as I have stated before evidentiary methodologies do not apply to the supernatural realm where that supernatural force exist. IMO the premise that God exist is supported by those 20 arguments, even Pascal's.
Those 20 arguments were culled from the logical and realistic interpretation of why existence exist. Empiricists are mostly concerned with the HOW of existence, and that is absolutely essential. But to stop from the How of existence, and not ask the more important question of the Why of existence is foolhardy to say the least.
Now you mentioned the quantum world ie sub-atomic particles..... a world that theoretical and experimental physicists call "weird as weird can be" mostly because in the realm of sub-atomic particles, the mathematical calculations or formulations of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity fall flat on its face... formulations that has been proven time and time again to be aptly applicable and fully functional in the larger cosmological world.
Let us assumne, for arguments sake, that causality as a concept is as you stated: "false in the quantum world and have no idea whether it was true at the instant of the Big Bang when there were no laws in effect at all." What happens in the quantum world as you may be aware of , is observer dependent. If quantuim mechanics was intimately involved in the creation of
the universe via the Big Bang, when from a Singularity, space started to expand and in that expansion time started, during which the first elements (Hydrogen and Helium) appeared, then I suppose the only entity who could have observed those events was GOD Himself. We could then logically pursue the idea that since the quantum world is entropic by its nature, then God would have then decided to create those Laws that governed the infant universe, Laws that still pervade the universe today, and will pervade the universe tomorrow and thereafter. LAWS that kept and continues to keep the non-entropic non-chaotic, thus orderly progression of his creation.
@ wilderness:
Sorry to burst your bubble but Nature is not sentient....certainly not in the same sense or meaning that we apply the word to humans and the other biogenic entities that are aware of the reality of their existence. If you still insist that nature on its own could create without the input and imposition of the laws that governs the cosmos, then I suppose you are not living in the same universe that I live in, which begs the question: how and when and why did that happen. God only knows."If you still insist that nature on its own could create without the input and imposition of the laws that governs the cosmos"
Where did Wilderness, or anyone else, say that?
And you are still ignoring my question of how matter can exist prior to natural laws. Will you please answer it?Nowhere, of course, but it DOES make a great talking point to "disprove" what isn't accepted.
@jabnesix: You might want to re-read your threads and that of Wilderness on this forum. You/Wilderness may not have said it in those terms, but the implications and suggestions on those threads clearly indicate that you /Wilderness believe Nature self-created and any part of nature be they sentient or non-sentient could create on their own without the direction/imposition of sentience ie Laws of Nature/Physics.
That is flatly untrue. I can't speak for Janesix, but I have certainly maintained all along that we don't know whether nature self-created or a god created the universe. Please, try not to misquote.
On the other hand, you have consistently said that a god did it all, and said it without a shred of supporting evidence. (And no, "I don't understand how nature could do it, so because of my ignorance a god is proven to have done it" is not evidence of anything but the very same ignorance we ALL share in.)I've never said the universe could self-create without the direction/imposition of the natural laws.
I've said the universe can self-create USING the laws of nature.
YOU are the one who thinks there's an intelligence that can create without using the laws of physics. I keep asking you how, and you keep avoiding my question.
How does God hold protons together before He created the strong nuclear force?
As the laws are a major portion of nature it would seem obvious that they could have been instrumental.
But you're right - no one knows exactly how the universe was created. So why do you keep insisting that an unseen, and perhaps non-existent, god knows?Wilderness: "could have been instrumental..." is the worst kind of hedging that I have read on this thread.
"perhaps non-existent god...." is the second worst kind of hedging that I have read on this post.
But I suppose coming from a physicalist like yourself, those statements are not any more than what I could/would expect.
Of course there is no "could" in laws being instrumental....they are IN FACT INSTRUMENTAL in all that has happened and will happen in the universe.
Of course God created the universe... those 20 arguments are more than enough for me to say that proofs of God's existence do not have to go through the empirical model.*shrug* Pascals Wager about the reasons for believing in the Christian god as opposed to all others may indeed convince you that there is a god. But then you are unwilling to actually examine it (or any of the others) for both logical errors AND false or unproven hypothesis they are based on.
That's what it comes down to for you ("Of course there is a god"), and I get that. You don't need physical proof, you don't need logical thought, you don't need anything but a desire for a god.
But I'm not made that way; I want and require far more. Something more than "I dunno, so Goddunnit". More than "I say god did it so god exists". More even than "I feel God inside me".
And certainly more than "God exists because I say He does".
Why can natural entities not create? They seem to do it every day on a micro scale. I think nature is the ultimate creator on earth and natural forces are creating things all over the universe in from of our eyes from organic films on meteors to the birth of new stars.
Creation fundamentally involves purpose;purpose means intention..all purview of sentience. Nature creates only under the direction of sentience and without that imposition by sentience, could and would nature create on its own. That is the question?
The argument from truth.
“Only an infallible omniscience could absolutely establish the whole truth of a proposition.
If there is no such thing as that absolute establishment, there are no wholly true propositions.
“There exists no absolutely true proposition,” being self-refuting, is necessarily false.
Its opposite is therefore true: there exist absolutely, wholly true propositions.
There is an infallible omniscience.”
The premise is this: only a god can know the absolute truth about anything. This is assumed because we humans can’t take every detail about a thing or event into account. We are limited, but a god wouldn’t be. So only if god knows it is true can we hope to know something is true.
Further, if no god exists there are no completely true statements. In other words there is no truth.
Now, my first observation is that a thing is true or not, whether we know it to be true or not. A god knowing the entire truth about a subject we do not know is true or not, is irrelevant. It is still true or not with or without a god.
A god knowing does not alter the truth of the matter, just like our opinion on a matter doesn’t change anything from true to false , or false to true. And the argument isn’t saying that the god alters truth to it’s whim. And yet that’s the only way you could say that without god there is no truth.
Our knowledge is irrelevant to truth. Knowing and speculating are both passive, even for a god.
Saying that without a god there is no truth is absurd. The statement is opinion, not fact. The premise only points out that if there is no god, then there is no one who knows the absolute truth about everything. And even that is speculation.
The statement is, in fact “Self refuting” like saying there is no truth. If there is no god then the statement can’t be true because in the absence of a god there is no truth, making the statement false.
So truth must exist even without a god knowing about it.
And of course it does. Even the religious agree about that.
So much for that one. Think I'll do a hub on all twenty. this is fun.
I believe in a supreme being, as there are just too many coincidences explaining the very magic of just my ability to communicate and your ability to understand. There are just so many random circumstances and coincidences supporting my existence that I can accept before I have to acknowledge some pattern.
This philosophy, not politics. What the religious fanatics need to recognize is that each person must explore and discover these things on their own. It could as well be as individual as a fingerprint. As the God, specified in the Bible, gives each person a choice as to which course they may choose. Who am I, mere man, to take that away? That is the problem with religious fanatics. There are no objective way to argue with agnostics and atheists. They have just as much right to their beliefs concerning the origins of the universe as I have to mine or you to yours. After all, the world is full of religions yet people mostly do not live by the precepts that they preach about. Religion in our current world and as practiced by frail humanity is rife with hypocrisy and savagery. Not exactly a force for good. No one can make anyone believe anthing. As an objective answer to the question is not forthcoming.I keep it up because, ultimately it IS about politics!
You'll see!Religion as an institutionalized human endeavour is subject to those humans whimsical ego....thus an imperfection that only an understanding divine entity could tolerate.
Sounds kind of like emergence or Fuller's synergetics in a way.
@Phoenix :
I have always thought that the whole is more than just the sum of its component parts. In the humans or any sentient beings for that matter, what makes the above conception believable is the perception that aside from the physical parts, is the existence of a non-physical entity we call "soul", the reality of which, the non- believers, are mightily trying to deny.If someone wrote a self awareness program and put it in a robot, I would bet cash money the first thing it would do is look in a mirror and pinch itself. That is the nature of the physicalism beast. To be sure, self awareness is reducible, it was a program, written, by someone, who had an idea, who also had self awareness, who had neurons, that got born, that emerged out of abiogenesis, from the dust it came.
But why stop there. Such as your post here Mr. A.Villarasa and emergence or synergetics, reality appears deterministic, there seems to be an underlying pattern to reality, the program is running and it's genius, it is creating 3D objects with sentience and sapience. All those individuals are interacting, such as you and I are right this minute. We are from the dust and we are currently improvising each thought and word, concurrently between us. We can guess, or anticipate what each other might say, but the interaction is fluid and dynamic and could possibly create new lines of thought, we are currently more than the sum of parts, and that improvisation is yet to be realized, constantly, it is waiting to be born, now, in the future or next post. Such is creation.Creation always implies sentience. The Big Bang as labeled by empiricist, we are now fully discovering bits by bits, is the supreme example of a fully devised,coordinated, and imposed act of creation.
Of course it doesn't. Unless you think ants (anthills), birds (birds nests) and caves (stalagmites) are all sentient.
No, you're merely finding connections between parts of the universe and attributing it to an intelligence without having any real reason to do so.Parts that are interconnecting and interacting to the fullest, as per according to nature's laws
You mean like a termite mound, with dirt interacting with termites and outside atmosphere in order to give "air conditioning" for the termites? That kind of connections?
But when things interconnect and interact "to the fullest", is there any other way to interact? Given that the laws require it? If laws produce any interaction at all, it would seem a requirement that such interaction would be to the fullest extent provided by the law, not some halfway job.
Example (hopefully descriptive enough to show what I'm saying); two planets orbiting a star. One doesn't suddenly "decide" that it no longer likes the laws and suddenly ignore them and float away. The only possibility open to it is to remain in orbit - as there is only one possibility, there is no god needed to keep nudging it along. There are no "options" when dealing with natural laws, and the laws themselves dictate exactly how interactions will happen.God does not need to constantly nudge along the activities of all his creation. He formulated those Laws so he did not need to be awakend from his nap by a subordinate who is having an anxiety attack because one planet orbiting a star "suddenly decided" to leave its orbit and go trudging along a different path to orbit a neighboring star system.
"Since the parts make sense only within the whole, and neither the whole nor the part can explain their own existence, then such a system as our world/universe, requires a UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE to posit it in existence as unified whole.
A UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE, i.e GOD"
It boils down to "Because the universe exists, there must be a cause. That cause must be God"
I think there does need to be a cause, but what makes you think it must be God? There could be other, natural causes. EVEN if there is a God, a natural cause would still make sense. He has to have tools to work with.One must first hypothesis a purpose - that the purpose of the universe was to create humanity. Only then does a god make any sense at all, and then the god can be used to show the hypothesis must be true after the hypothesis is used to show a god is true.
On the other hand, if the human species just happened - a coincidence or accident, unimportant to the universe - then there was no known purpose and no god needed.Actually it makes more sense if there wasn't a God at all. Because then you have to explain where God came from. So God shouldn't logically exist.
Well, one must also hypothesize another universe, with vastly different laws from our own. Nothing is eternal here, but in that universe both god and the universe itself is. And, just like before, that there is such a universe shows that a god exists (that made this one) which then shows that the hypothesis is correct because it has an eternal god.
Easy! And very neatly takes care of where the god came from, all on one quick hypothesis, that an eternal god had a purpose in making this universe.@janesix: God is the only entity that is an Uncaused cause. He was NOT caused or created into existence by another entity, thus the concept that He is eternal. No end... no beginning
How do you know that?
I could say the same thing for the laws of physics.@janesix: The illogicality/irrationality of the concept of a continuing regression of a God caused by another entity, and another by another, and another by another and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, is evident. One had to stop at one Uncaused entity that caused the universe to exist either via the Big Bang (the current, most popular theory) or by other mechanisms that empiricists are mightily working to come up with evidentiary data. Until that is fully and finally resolved, we can all conjecture as to how exactly the universe was created, and created it was, by an UNCAUSED CAUSE, believers call GOD.
I agree with you that there has to be an uncaused cause. But why do you think it's God? Why can't it be a natural cause?
@janesix: Your conceptualization, has to imply that the formula for creation already exist, and that nature or natural cause had the temerity and perspicacity to create the materials, then imposing the Laws that we now call the Laws of Physics on those materials that ultimately lead to the creation of the universe that we now see surrounding us. Nature is NON-SENTIENT and therefore, could not on its own decide to create the basic/simple materials that now has become the complex universe that we see surrounding us. Simplicity to complexity demands sentience.
Materials exist the way they do because of the laws of physics. The laws weren't imposed on them somehow. An atom can't exist without the laws of nature already in place.
I see self-organization daily. All you have to do is boil a pot of water, and the water will organize itself into a pattern of bubbles according to the laws of physics. A city will organize itself all on it's own, according to mathematical laws. A self-organizing universe is possible as well, it's just a mater of scale.and why do you think the water boils... not by its own accord but according to the Laws of Thermodynamics...a law that was created by a sentient being who created the Hydrogen to be attracted to Oxyden via their respective atomic weights and valences.... and when exposed to heat would buble uo to produce steam...another form of water in gaseous form.
SELF-organization. No God needed.
It all works perfectly on it's own.Really? and who decided that this natural elements, systems, configurations should and could, as you stated, self-organize? Not on their own volition, not on their own thought process, not on their own cerebration. Volition, thoughts, cerebration are all sentience mandated, be it by an Uncaused cause. In the case of humans, since we have evolved to posses free will, we could create on our own but still under the purview of those natural laws implemented by the first Uncaused Cause i.e. God.
@janesix: quoting you: "The laws of physics can exist naturally". You are now assuming that the Laws existed well before, the reason( ie the material universe) why those Laws were made to begin with. From my standpoint an unusual formulation and to say the least quite counter-intuitive.
Laws are generally and usually made after the need for it arise; thus my contention is that fore Lawshe activities of the first chemicals (hydrogen and helium) known to have formed the very few seconds after the Big Bang (ie expansion of space) would have to be regulated by Laws. Matter first then come the Laws that regulated the interaction of those elements."that fore Lawshe activities of the first chemicals"
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Is that a misspelling? I googled it and couldn't find anything.
If it is a misspelling, I'm still not quite sure what you're saying. I just want to be clear before I attempt an answer.
@Janesix: Obviously mis-spelling.
My point is Laws are made to regulate material sysrems that are already in place, not the other way around. For what good are those Laws, or why were those Laws implemented when there was not anything for them to be applied on or upon.@janesix: Entities has to be created before they could "self-organize". Creation is not the same as "self-organization", so "self-organization" in a non-sentient entity like nature or parts of nature that we all perceive as non-sentient is stretching the definition of reality.
There is no reason something has to be created in order for it to exist. Obviously you agree with this, as you have stated before that God didn't need a creator.
As for self-organization, we see it daily, all around us. Cities self-organize in the same way galaxies do. Obviously, there are natural laws at work that we haven't figured out yet. Economic systems self-organize. Flocks of birds. Swarms of fish. There are mathematical and physical laws that govern these things.
All you do when you add God into the mix is add another, unnessessary level of complexity to the mix.
@janesix: Materials should be created first before it becomes a part of a system . Laws are then created and applied, so the materials becomes an integral part of the whole. Without those Laws, the material could and would never be fully and functionally integrated into the whole system or organization. That is why oe what Laws are made of or for....to regulate the integrational functioning of the material to become finally part of the whole.
I disagree. You can't create a proton without physical laws. How would a proton hold together before the laws of physics were put into play? It wouldn't even be possible.
@janesix:
You and I can not create protons unhindered by laws of nature....but God can. And that's the reason why God is necessary in the creation of the universe."You and I can not create protons unhindered by laws of nature....but God can. And that's the reason why God is necessary in the creation of the universe."
Protons can not be created without the laws of physics to shape them. It is impossible. Even God needs a tool box. He can't just poof protons into existence. What would he hold them together with before he used the strong nuclear force to hold them together?
@janesix:
The sub-atomic realm of which protons are major "actors" in the play titled Quantum Mechanics is as weird as weird can be. Einstein's general relativity theory falls apart when applied to the quantum world. Theoretical physicists are just now barely understanding how "Schroedener's cat" could be alive and dead at the same time when viewed from the perspective of quantum mechanics.
So protons behaving unhindered by the "laws of Physics" , specifically, gravity is totally possible."So protons behaving unhindered by the "laws of Physics" , specifically, gravity is totally possible."
No one knows how or if things are effected by gravity at the subatomic level.
Matter absolutely has to have the laws of physics in play in order to work right and even exist.
Did God hold the protons together with magic before he invented the strong nuclear force?
Because an explanation, that employs causality, for why causality exists at all, is contradictory.
I don't understand what you mean. Do you mind rephrasing that in another way?
I will try. There is a "truth". There is a truth of the reason why "cause and effect" exist as opposed to cause and effect not existing. That truth stands alone and is non contradictory. ie. "It is what it is" and needs no cause or effect, because it is the truth of why there is cause and effect, instead of no cause and effect. That truth is "self existent" and "autonomous" That truth is the source of "cause and effect". Via our minds only, can we observe and attest to this self existent truth, that is the source of cause and effect. That source is also the source of our minds, that observe and attest to that truth.
truth is the source of "cause and effect"
Why does cause and effect need a source? It just exists.You cannot boil things down that change meanings.
compare
1 There is a truth of the reason why "cause and effect" exist as opposed to cause and effect not existing.
2 truth is the source of "cause and effect"
Those are not the same.
Why does cause and effect need a source?
We are not analyzing "need" we are asking why at all. "It just exists" is not a truth of, or a knowledge of, or an understanding of why it exists instead of it not existing.
-----------------------------------------------
There is a "truth". There is a truth of the reason why "cause and effect" exist as opposed to cause and effect not existing. That truth stands alone and is non contradictory. ie. "It is what it is" and needs no cause or effect, because it is the truth of why there is cause and effect, instead of no cause and effect. That truth is "self existent" and "autonomous" That truth is the source of "cause and effect". Via our minds only, can we observe and attest to this self existent truth, that is the source of cause and effect. That source is also the source of our minds, that observe and attest to that truth.
--------------------------------Yet you say God can exist without an explanation, source, or cause.
Why can't the laws of nature exist without an explanation, source or cause?
"Cause and effect" is a sort of rule, like a law of physics (I say "like" because I'm not sure if it is some sort of physical law or not).I said God can exist without an explanation, source or cause?
No, no , no , that is not what I said. Not even remotely.
I said quote:
"(There is a truth of the reason why (and that unknown= X )
that "cause and effect" exist as opposed to cause and effect not existing."
From the "unknown X " truth of the reason why cause and effect exist as opposed to it not existing, we can logically infer from this some attributes.
X It is self existent
X is the source all of causality
we are the expression of X's will.Maybe they can, maybe they can't, but I am sure there is a reason either way.
Shall I give you a reason?
"Infer nothing without ground or reason" -Hamilton
Truth is the reference of a judgment to something outside it as its sufficient reason or ground. -Schopenhauer
One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time. -Aristotle,
Each and every thing either is or is not.
A rose is a rose.
or from a Few Good Men
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZVYcpO6Mgk
Kind of like "cause and effect" are just an effect? Just an effect from a prior state where cause and effect do not exist? Some self existent, source that chose to do it maybe?
It does not boil down to that because it is not a cosmological argument from contingency, it is a teleological argument. It just got truncated.
It goes kind of like this. We have a Big Bang. This Big Banged into (conveniently for us) an operating system. That operating system is interacting and interwoven and the individual parts are all connected although independent, yet dependent on each other, an aggregate of parts that make a whole that is in actual operation. The argument concludes that to achieve a system like that, where its parts operate in a reciprocal manner, where the parts and the whole have such a tandem nature, where or how it sprang into such relationship type system that actually works, that this could only be achieved by a mind that could encapsulate that type of system. It is kind of like blowing up some canvas and paint and it came out a perfectly fitted jig saw puzzle with a picture of water lilies on it, with everyone left wondering if Monet was ever a demolition expert. It is not about the blowing up, or the puzzle, or how it all fits together, or the picture, it is all of it together, suggest a preconception of a mind."It is not about the blowing up, or the puzzle, or how it all fits together, or the picture, it is all of it together, suggest a preconception of a mind."
It suggests it to you, but not to everyone. It's a possibility, that's all.
A creative mind isn't NEEDED to make a system that works. Why can't it happen on it's own? We see self-organization on all levels, from water boiling to the structure of cities. Why not on a universe sized scale?Isn't there a better term than " preconception of a mind."?
How about "conception of a mind."
1.) preconception:
preconceived idea/notion, presupposition, assumption, presumption, prejudgment; prejudice.
VS
2.) conception
2. 2 inception, genesis, origination, creation, invention; beginning, origin.
…maybe "an inception of The Mind," would be accurate.
Is The Mind invisible????? Within our beings our minds are completely dependent on consciousness… or are they???
If we have a mind how did we get it?Perhaps the brain was MADE for the mind.
- made is not a good word either… the mind evolved the brain.
throughout time the human mind evolved the human brain. So many human minds were evolving…
like a common urge to evolve in a common direction… toward greater and greater intelligence.
The intelligence had to have been first.
A universal Intelligence had to have been First...
In other words, in existence on an invisible level in the first place.And where did the mind exist before the brain was made(or evolved)? How was it able to function?
What does a mind outside of a brain think about, without any external stimuli?What happens when a mind is left without outside stimulation for too long? It goes crazy.
Maybe what we are seeing all around us is God going crazy… mostly in a good way. LOL.
We need to be crazy... like God.
"Short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and conducive to meditation; however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations,[2] bizarre thoughts, and depression"
wikipediaMaybe a mind created a computer with a reality simulation program. Kind of like how a human mind can recreate or simulate reality to a certain degree while dreaming or thinking. Only this computer actually runs actual reality. In that reality program it creates thinking beings capable of relationship, with the original mind, so it don't go crazy. Or perhaps the computer and simulation program is created or run by multiple minds.
Interesting idea, but pure science fiction. Do you have any ideas based on the physical universe that we live in?
Maybe the physical universe is what presumably lies between all self awareness's involved. Or maybe God is dreaming, and we are living out the dream and it was a dream come true.
So you DON'T have any ideas based on the physical universe then?
Well I am kinda taking the day off and am using my imagination a little, because it is fun and relaxing and I am using it, in my own way to analyze the OP's argument presented in this thread although I cannot find the original or complete argument or if it even exists, perhaps in a book, idk. If I can accurately put it my own words, with "accurately" being a major as of yet undone part, then I can fully grasp it and reiterate it, for my own benefit, although I just saw it a day ago and it appears incomplete. That's why I was talking about how a mind is capable of simulating a pretty convincing reality in dreams etc. Because the argument in the OP is about a transcendental mind in the end, and how it would be necessary to explain a system with interconnected parts that behave in reciprocal ways and how the entire system and the individual parts, the whole and the parts have a special relationship, indivisible of each other, where one cannot be explained or the other unless it was almost explained as (now my words as I make up analogies as I go ) by behaving as more like a collective. A bee is not a colony, a colony is not a bee. In concert they produce a hive and honey etc. But what we are talking about is this same type of relationships at a fundamental level. A physical universe ie a singularity produced what amounts to an intact bee colony from the smallest fundamental level/scale to the largest. The universe did not create all honey or all flowers or just worker bees or all Queens it created them altogether, with them working in concert in mind. And an attempt at a rebuttal will go: but hey we have naturalistic examples of that already! But that only supports the argument because the entire system is working that way from the get go, out of a place where only the one-dimensional live, sprang a intact system, where too much hydrogen and not enough carbon make for a really bad day.
@janesix: The idea that the universe was "uncaused" is anathema even to the deeply rooted and unaplogetic empiricists in our midst.
Why do you think God had to be the cause of the universe, as opposed to natural causes?
Nature can not and will not cause anything UNLESS and UNTIL, it is directed by the Laws of Physics that governs all the activities (ie interactions/interconnections) of all the functional entities that are parts of the whole universe.
Very interesting. Yes, something with incredible power, intelligence and a will to put the effect we see into motion. A will, a mind, that made a choice.
I like that argument. It's good to know that established science and correctly applied logic now show that the philosophical arguments for the existence of God were correct.
I can prove a god exists in very short order.
We are alive. The human race was not always here. So something started us. If we define that which produced us as god, then god exists out of necessity.
The other factor is that if something had not always existed then nothing would exist now.
So I've proven god exists. But what is it? Nothing in logic tells us what god is in this definition.
It doesn't have to be the Christian version, and it is not out of necessity a conscious being.
Without getting into too much detail, science has shown us through the laws of conservation that energy and mass can not be created or destroyed. And it is that which forms all things.
So the nature of existence itself is a candidate for god: that which produced us and all things, no conscious god required.God was the most stupendous explosion this universe has ever, or can ever see. The Big Bang. Now if we only understood that bang a little better...
BB is a model, and as such is useful. But there are other possibilities. One such possibility was postulated by Roger Penrose a few years ago. It's pretty good, and it postulates a more static universe with many "small" bangs, as it were.
But regardless of that, BB theory starts form a singularity consisting of all the energy in the universe in a compressed form. So mom could be the BB, but god is energy and it's nature.
@slarty:
Just wondering why Einstein in all his genius did not think of the idea that you are proposing... or maybe he did think about it but decided hhhmmm NO, or maybe he said YES absolutely, but then decided that God does not play dice with the universe.
Stephen Hawking, in all his genius did propose the existence of god, but an impersonal one i.e. Gravity.
Mass,Energy, Gravity ... all by their lonesome selves creating...all suggesting non-sentience, all suggesting entropy, all suggesting incoherence, all suggesting the throw of a dice. Which are all anathema in the universe that I live in.So, Einstein said god doesn’t play dice, which means the universe is not random nor is anything random chance. The universe works by cause and effect according to surprisingly simple rules.
Remember, this quote is from a personal letter he wrote to a colleague concerning QM. It was probably never meant for the general public. To me it was obviously a metaphor. Particularly in light of other public statements he made.
Einstein was born a Jew, obviously. When asked in an interview if he believed in god he said that if he believed in a god, it was the god of Spinoza. In other words: Pantheism; the belief that the totality of existence, the universe itself, nature, is god.
So pretty much what I was talking about.
Now Stephan Hawking was basically saying what wilderness said about the BB. Have you read the book?
“Mass,Energy, Gravity ... all by their lonesome selves creating...all suggesting non-sentience, all suggesting entropy, all suggesting incoherence, all suggesting the throw of a dice. Which are all anathema in the universe that I live in.”
On the contrary, entropy is not disorder, it is absolute order and yes it is that which helps facilitate creativity. None of physics suggests incoherence, just the opposite. Einstein was right; in a cause and effect universe random does not exist.
Chaos theory shows us this time and time again. Everything operates according simple but ridged rules. One of the most basic rules is: all atoms tend toward their lowest possible output of energy. This one rule forces atoms to merge and consequently create new substances. Those substances interact causing compound substances; and all interaction follow patterns according to the nature of the substances doing the interacting.
That’s why you don’t live in a throw the dice universe.
If you are interested in entropy, I wrote a hub about it.
1. "then god exists out of necessity." -
2. "if something had not always existed then nothing would exist now."
3. "Nothing in logic tells us what god is in this definition."
4. "So the nature of existence itself is a candidate for god"
This is frank and intellectually refreshing. I think we can go further from a logical standpoint. I think it is logical to consider "god exists out of necessity" as being within
a). a set by itself i.e. an absolute necessity
b) reality is intelligible, i.e. logic math etc etc, reality I believe could be considered information.
c) An (a) absolute necessity, is providing or is the source of that information.
conclusion:
This self existent, absolute necessity, is at liberty and is the source of information.
But I agree it is difficult to define from a logical standpoint, however I do believe we can logically infer some of these attributes mentioned.
We could speculate (and I am sure some will think it is zany) that aliens are running a reality simulation program, that is holographic, 3D, and has substance, (because reality is pumping out "intelligible" information - but aliens don't fill the bill for a self existent, absolute necessity, requirement.
I think it is logical to believe there is something out there that is self existent and intelligent that is not limited by or subject to, the spatio-temporalYour simulation runner is an pimply teenaged emo kid. That's why the universe sucks so much.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I see reality as the product of pure genius. I see our world as being a perfect balance of virtue and it's unavoidable counterpart, that creates a whole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_wasp
I guess God needed SOMETHING to balance all the love in the world.
some people see this above, because that is their perspective.
I see this. They are both the same.To provide an excuse to question the integrity of a Creator? To provide material for an inquisitive mind? I cannot create a blade of grass. When or until I can, then I will show everyone else hows its done and how I can do it better. I don't think any creature would appreciate that kind of micro management. The problem with ice cream is it drips on a sunny day. Thats the price we pay.
But reality has what some might consider blemishes. Quasars, supernovas, dying stars, deserts, cactus and wasps. Or we could look at them blemishes as brushstrokes, dabs of paint. Reality is a masterpiece painted by a genius. It is not a cheap photograph.
But let us get rid of wasps and love because of the potential repugnance or heartbreak. Let us make a perfect photocopy and perfect scanners to scan them, and all automated with no room for errors, blemishes or seeming imperfections. Just photocopies and robotic scanner people, who are programmed to only know good.In the cosmic world where entropy is the general rule, those blemishes you are referring to may in fact be manifestations of greater design and purpose.
In the biogenic world (that' s you and me and all the living entities on earth) entropy do occur with some constancy and regularity, but we have been able to surmount the degrading effect of chaos by developing mechanisms that continue to interlock, integrate and interlock that results not in entropy, but harmony.Wow, you really misunderstand entropy.
Read my hub on the subject. It's too long to post.
Ok then
Entropy has often been explained in terms of the disorder of a system. This is not correct. That is to say, terms that science uses like disorder and chaos have two meanings. One is the meaning most of us put to them and the other is the meaning science uses them for. It turns out that they are often opposites.
This is not unusual. Another term scientists sometimes use is: The universe was created from nothing. But by nothing they do not mean nothing, they mean Quantum Fluctuation. Quantum Fluctuation being when potential energy seemingly spontaneously creates particles of matter and anti matter, which usually instantly cancel each other out.
I am not talking about the merits of that theory or the fact of Quantum Fluctuation here. It’s just an example of how the language of science can be very different from the language of the average person, and generate confusion over the meaning of words and concepts. The media is of no help in this case, often being the cause of these misunderstandings due to not understanding the concepts fully as well as a tendency to be sensationalist.
I’ve been saying it for over twenty five years but it is only recently that text books reflect the idea that entropy is not indeed a theory of disorder, but in factthe spontaneous production of order from disorder. I have been feeling vindicated for some time now. Scientists and teachers are finally realizing how confusing this all is for students and people in general and are correcting the problem.
There are several types of entropy from different standpoints including the fields of biology, chemistry, thermodynamics and even psychology. Our latest understanding is known as The Law of maximum entropy production, in which entropy is the reason for order.
“the world will select order whenever it gets the chance. The world is in the order production business because ordered flow produces entropy faster than disordered flow (Swenson & Turvey, 1991)
What a confusing statement for people who think entropy is disorder in a system. But it’s true. Due to what are known as the laws of thermodynamics the universe is order, and disorder breeds new order.
So how does this work? We have to go to the laws of thermodynamics, specifically those concerning the laws of conservation. One of the most important things it tells us is that all atoms tend toward their lowest possible output of energy.
However, not to confuse the issue, this lowest possible output of energy is never zero. It is just the lowest possible level of energy output. This is important because it rules the behaviour of all atoms as well as all combinations of atoms.
So the problem is that interaction with other atoms of its own kind or atoms of a different kind make it hard for it to reach its lowest possible level of energy output because those interactions increase energy levels. Entropy is a how the system reaches a final balance after an interaction.
As I said, interaction increases energy output and the atom will try to find its lowest possible level of energy output for the new situation. Once it has, that is the new order. An example would be that an atom catches a stray electron. That puts it out of balance and increases its energy output. What it does is it slings that stray electron to another atom, which promptly returns it. This bonds the two atoms together in a quantum game of hot potato.
What happens next is that energy levels of both atoms fall and balance out to a new lowest possible level of energy output. The process of reaching that equilibrium is known as entropy. That new balance is not just new order, but it is also a new substance. It is no longer one hydrogen atom and one of something else, it is the combination of the two and has different properties than either.
The first law of thermodynamics tells us energy/matter cannot be destroyed and it cannot be created. Energy may leave a system or it may be transformed into gas, liquid, solid, heat etc. The total energy of the universe stays the same.
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that usable energy in a system is converted into unusable energy. So the idea has always been that unusable energy is the deterioration of a system. But what is it really? It is a system going in to equilibrium, or perfect order. It is not the useableness of the energy that is order, it is the equilibrium the process creates which is order.
So the current way the second law of thermodynamics is broached is that: Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so.
For example, if you heat the end of a copper pipe, the heat will flow toward the colder part of the pipe. Heat flows spontaneously toward cold. If you stop adding energy, the pipe reaches equilibrium and a lower level of energy output over all.
Entropy can be shown in a cylinder of compressed air. As air is used for work the pressure in the tank decreases as energy/air is dispersed and eventually the air left in the tank is no longer under pressure and can do no more work. But as soon as you add more compressed air to the tank you are ready to go again.
This equilibrium is order from the chaos. The chaos being compressed air being forced out of the tank due to pressure differential, and order being the end result when the tank is at equilibrium and unable to change.
But the entropy most people are confused about is that of a closed system. If everything in the system reaches equilibrium or its lowest level of energy output, the system is essentially dead. But again, that only applies to closed systems. The world is not a closed system. The human is not a closed system. Energy can always be added. The sun adds energy to the earth every day in massive amounts. Humans eat which adds energy that was lost doing the work of repair and maintenance.
But was that energy lost? No. The energy that cannot be used by one system can be used by another. Energy cannot be destroyed nor created as per the first law. So no energy is lost. It just becomes unusable by a specific system. Often because it has dissipated from the system in the form of heat.
A common example these days is a hot frying pan. When you take it off the stove and stop adding energy, the heat from the pan goes away from the pan into the colder room. It never happens the other way around, ever.
Entropy is in essence this tendency toward lowest possible output of energy, or equilibrium. It is that tendency which creates all we see. Evolution is only possible due to entropy. Entropy is why things change and why they stabilize.
Again I like to use the analogy of war. War cannot be sustained forever because resources run out. That is the entropy of war. Eventually a resolution is found. It is demanded by the fact that it is a race to see whose resources run out first. That includes the resource of the will to keep fighting. When the situation finds a solution, a new order is formed, and a new lowest possible output of energy is reached. The tendency toward equilibrium is the tendency toward order.
Remember that the spread of energy away from a system is a tendency which will happen if it can. There are plenty of times it can’t. An example is if I hold a large rock over a cliff with a string. The rock has potential energy built up in it because it is over a ledge and gravity is pulling on it. But that potential energy cannot leave the system because I am bonding that energy with my string. The second I let go that energy can be transferred to the ground and the air. But not before. So not all energy in every system experiences entropy right away. Now think of all the mountains in the world and how much potential energy they hold that entropy can not reach.
So the universe is not in danger of becoming lifeless due to entropy, and never will be unless all energy were so far apart that no reactions could take place. Even in current theory where all galaxies are moving away from each other, the universe and our galaxy is expected to last for hundreds of billions of years. And even so, were the universe to reach equilibrium, how much less chaotic or disordered can it get?
But it is not an order we humans can relate to. In fact the kind of thing we consider order is actually due to disorder or conflict. Humans love the idea of creativity. But what is creativity? It is a response to conflict. Without conflict there is no change because there is no need for change. And there is plenty of conflict in nature and plenty of opportunity for creativity.
The simple laws of thermodynamics show that it is the conflict atoms face through interaction that causes mergers of atoms and new substances to form as a reaction to and a solution for conflict. If you like, conflict can be considered disorder. The nature of the atom itself is creative due to it including these very simple laws. The resolution of conflict produces order, and the resolution is demanded.
The point is that the universe doesn't scribble gibberish until it finds the right pattern. The patterns of existence are just ever more complex variations of the one universal pattern encapsulated in the basic laws of nature: The laws of conservation, thermodynamics and entropy. One layers interactions always build a new, more complex layer.
Even humans recognize this in the terms: society and culture, economy, etc. A group of people’s interactions build a new layer of reality, even though that layer is not a living entity. It is also not an imaginary one as it can be studied due to the fact that it has actions and behaviours somewhat independent of its individual parts, or in fact as a result of the culmination of all the actions of its individual parts at any given moment. . Theses layers are studied statistically in the same way QM is. These institutions can be seen to relate to entropy as they result from the dispersal of human energy. An order from our combined interactions and conflicts.
These laws show how the simple becomes complex. Not randomly or by accident, but by repeating the same pattern over and over in more and more complex layers.The Mandelbrot set comes to mind as an example of this dynamic. A simple pattern repeated over and over building layers of ever more complexity. These basic laws tell it all.
Truly a marvel to contemplate. For me, it is far more amazing than any god hypothesis.Is energy a thing? Can it exist on it's own? I think you have already answered this for me once upon a time, but doo you mind going through it again?
(Edit: I like to pick your brain when I get the chance!)lol.. Thanks. Here goes.
Ah, Newtonian physics. Energy is work. Not a thing. That’s a reasonable classical definition which in the macro world is a very usable model of energy, so we use it when appropriate.
The definition of matter most people use in conversation is: Matter is anything that has mass and volume. But to me a better definition for matter has to do with what it is made of. Matter, of course, is made of atoms. More specifically combinations of atoms that create chemicals and substances.
The biologist’s definition of matter is: The material that makes up an object. I like that one because when it comes down to it matter is material; in the same sense as building material.
Mass is often meant to give us the measure of the amount of matter in a physical object. Really it is the characteristic of matter that makes it tend to stay at rest if it is at rest, or stay in motion when it is in motion. Mass is the amount of inertia in an object. So it is relative to force and acceleration as per Newton's Second Law of Motion. Mass then is the major factor in determining an object’s resistance to changes in speed/acceleration and/or direction . But what is mass?
The mass of an object is not dependent on gravity, so it is not weight. However, the weight of an object is determined by how gravity interacts with matter. Even though your weight and mass are the same number or close on earth, in space you don’t weigh anything but you still have the same mass. On another planet your weight might change depending on the gravity of the place, but your mass wouldn’t change. Neither would your matter.
The problem in the early part of the twentieth century was, photons have no rest mass or volume. All “things” have mass and volume, right? So light must be an illusion then? Just a concept perhaps?
Probably not. So what is it?
We equate energy with movement even in classical physics. Quite so. Photons, for one, obviously travel at the speed of light, and can’t sit still. No thing with matter or mass can do that. The closer an object gets to light speed the more mass it acquires and the more energy required to get it going even a little faster, until the object acquires so much resistance that it could never reach the desired speed no matter how much energy you add to propel it. Remember that: the more energy added when accelerating the more mass is acquired.
Electrons get close but never reach it. In physics an electron is considered an electromagnetic wave.
So what are photons then if not matter? Energy? That’s all I know of that exists, matter and energy, right? That’s why I’m a materialist.
But that’s a different use of the word energy from the classical use. We always assumed that matter itself had this ability to do work. Humans push a rock around, they are doing work. Work is defined as: moving objects., exerting force in order to accomplish a task. Of course exerting force expends energy.
Now matter is material. How is this material formed? As I said: All material things are made of atoms. All of these atoms interact producing different types of material. The materials interact to produce compound substances.
All of these interactions are the result of the rules of physics.
Well what are atoms? Are they matter?
We said early on that matter has mass and it takes up space. Certainly atoms have mass and they take up space. So they are matter. But experiments have shown that they can be both particle and wave, depending what you are looking for.
That’s a bit odd, isn't it? So what does that mean? It means that it isn't as simple as saying they are matter. There is more to it than that.
Big bang theory had a problem in the beginning too. That problem was that according to the math the subatomic particles like quarks which make up protons etc, would not have had mass to begin with. So where does mass come from?
Higgs and a team of others developed the idea of an energy field that actually slows most other forms of energy down to below light speed. It was based again on mathematics done from the consequences of the Big Bang and it fit. But until recently it had never been found in any experiments, and of course it is hard to find because it’s a field, not just the odd particle or wave here or there. Have they found it? Possibly. They certainly found something that looks like it.
The Higgs field would lend mass the same way running in water slows you down considerably, as opposed to running on dry land. Interactions between quarks etc that create atoms would have a hard time happening at light speed. These reactions happen in condensed states, which in turn happen below light speed.
So that’s were mass comes from then, but does mass actually create matter? No, it’s an aspect of matter.
According to relativity, rest mass itself doesn't constitute the amount of matter in a system: the energy–momentum tensor does. In other words: The density and momentum of the energy in a system is a way to determine the amount of matter in a system. He’s saying in essence that compressing energy allows material to form.
E=Mc squared has consequences which tell us that mass and energy are the same thing.
E stands for energy, M stands for mass and C stands for the speed of light. So energy is equal to the mass of an object times the speed of light squared. You can convert units of energy to units of mass, But we can’t convert mass to energy of course, and the reasons for that should be obvious: Mass is already energy. It’s kinetic energy.
You can, in principal, convert matter to energy however, just like you can turn water to ice or vapour, but it remains h2o. A dramatic example is an atomic explosion where in massive amounts of energy is released from a relatively small bit of matter. The matter is all but gone but its energy and mass are conserved in the by-products of the blast.
So what then is the difference between energy and matter? Mass? No. You can’t have mass without energy, but you can have energy without mass. So which is the base? Which came first?
When you can’t have one without the other, but you can have that other without the one, which is the stand alone? Mass is a consequence of the nature of energy. A consequence of relativity is that: matter is a product of energy, not the other way around.
There is really nothing but what we call energy: that which is animate. As I said: according to relativity, rest mass itself is not matter. Energy under specific conditions creates matter. Energy is certainly not just work: whatever it is, it seems to be the default state. Matter is condensed energy at its root.
It gets more interesting. The laws of conservation tell us that energy cannot be destroyed or created. But it also tells us that mass can’t be destroyed either. Both are conserved no matter what transformations they go though. Energy is mass, and mass is energy in a specific state. They are the same thing.
Material /matter /a specific system or configuration, can be destroyed because it is made by a specific configuration of atoms, but the energy and mass of those atoms can’t.
What shows us that matter is not exactly mass is the fact that adding 90 mega joules of any form of energy at all to any object increases its mass by 1 microgram even though no extra matter gets created.
So no extra atoms have been added, but the mass increases as energy is added. This tells us that matter is the material created by energy/mass.
Protons are made of gluons and quarks. Like photons, Gluons have no rest mass. The mass of a proton is 99 percent more than the mass of all three quarks that make it up due to the energy of the gluon field that binds them together, creating more kinetic energy.
So kinetic energy is mass, but gluons, like photons, have no rest mass. Where does the extra mass come from?: The energy of the gluons and quarks produced by their movement within the proton account for all the extra mass. The energy–momentum tensor.
In our definition of matter, one of the requirements is that it takes up space. Protons do take up space. But quarks and gluons don’t.
So protons are the first form of what we define as matter. It has mass and volume. Subatomic ‘particles” don’t fit our definition of matter as some have no mass and others no volume.
It’s probably not a completely Newtonian world, as good as it’s arguments sound. The problem for them is that Relativity has not been proven wrong, and has proven correct in its predictions and applications in the real world time and time again. As has QM. Why not use the model s that work? We do. And when we do, a sign that they work is the new tech and new discoveries their use brings.
We have a very different view of energy in the macro world as opposed to the micro world, and while the macro world is based on the micro world, the two layers behave differently. Or so it seems. In this layer of reality classical physics and deductive reasoning are fine for most applications. We can get to the moon with Newtonian physics alone, no problem.
But the micro layer is not so approachable by common sense deductive reasoning. Science these days relies on math and testing. Many of the major findings of physics in the last 100 years or so were very counter intuitive.
It might help some people to know that Einstein considered energy like photons to be a form of matter even without mass or volume. Perhaps it’s a good time to revisit common definitions of matter? Or those of energy? After all, according to modern science they are the same thing, whatever that may be.
And I say whatever that may be because things don’t have explanations of what they are attached to them. Best we can often do is talk about something in terms of how it behaves, and give a name to that pattern of behavior. The name is, of course, nowhere near as important as the package of information it represents.Thank you! That actually really helped me understand things a little better.
Are you a physicist?Glad it helped. I'm a philosopher of physics, which means I have to know my subject.
I am curious what part of Avillarosa's understanding you think is in error. Why does he have to go and pick it out from a huge post or hub, when you could simply quote the erroneous part and correct it? Then we can all see how you are right and he is wrong, as we are all interested in this topic.
Wow. You are picky. I thought it was great Slarty took the time and effort to help us understand how entropy works. I thought it was excellent, well thought out,and informative.
I don't don't know that disagree it was well thought out and informative. I disagree, I'm not being picky at all. Careful and fair, yes. Any of us could look up things in searches and in books, and I am not discounting anything Slarty has said, notice. In other words, its not for lack of good articles on Hubpages and by other authors. I am asking him to defend his statement that another person has it wrong, as you did with Phoenix with more than just an opinion.
We could sit here all day and say, "I am right and logical, and you are wrong and illogical." I think we all consider this topic of high value, of even great importance. It deserves fair treatment is all. I am encouraging discussion that is helpful and beneficial. If any of us are wrong, its good to show how, and why. Don't you?
Edit: For instance, if I thought Slarty misunderstood something he had spoken on, I would address it directly. I am doing my best to be fair this way also.I didn't realize you and phoenix were defending your statements with something other than opinion.
Well that is unfortunate, because we have both been giving many. Phoenix has given numerous examples beyond his original points even, to make the issue clear. Reason, logic and science are excellent things to esteem in discussions like this. I am of the thinking that the most reasonable idea is a better one than that isn't reasonable. Same with logic. Since we are delving into areas that can be tough to navigate, reason and logic are highly helpful. I think Wilderness would agree, and I thought you would too even, based on some comments I have seen.
Edit: I also am less impressed with opinions. Opinions are not as helpful as making a case. As you see in my latest comments, I am asking people to use more than opinions to back up their statements. So you and I are at times, on the same page on this one.
Pretty much his entire understanding of entropy is wrong. That's not unusual because it's been taught wrong in schools for years and has been butchered by the religious for just as long. They are always quoting second law to mean without a god everything would fall apart, which just isn't the case.
What's wrong with large posts? It's a complex subject.
@ slarty:
Thank you for the extensive explanation on entropy, which if I am not misreading your post basically confirms what I am proposing...that entropy leads to harmony. What you are implying is that harmony is produced ( despite the tendency of matter and energy to disperse, thus potentially resulting in chaos, disorder, entropy) not by any other mechanism other than what the second law of thermodynamics impose on atomic interactions. But along with entropy, there are other mechanisms that creates and sustains an orderly and non- chaotic world, namely natural selection and Galileos brilliant concept of " frames of reference" which he applies so as to clarify the physics of motion.I certainly agree with you. And no you didn't misinterpret what I was saying.
The question doesn't make sense to ask. You are presenting the problem of evil in a way I have seen many times by atheists. There is some suggestion inherent in the question that is supposed to put believers or a god on some hook. Yet that doesn't make sense. A case has to be made why that would work in the first place. I thought both of the answers made a lot of sense, and answered the point, and elaborated beyond even.
The problem of evil doesn't make sense to bring up from an atheistic standpoint. Regardless, the problem of evil is made more sense of from a Christian worldview than any other I have seen.You mean the problem of good? God allowed too much good in the world, in my opinion and we took it for granted. There is no problem of evil.
The Christian answer on the evil of creating the spider wasp is that HUMANS brought evil into the world via original sin.
Your "logic" says it's because of US that spiders have to suffer that horror for days on end.
EDIT: Sorry for disrailing this thread. I started an new one on this subject if anyone want to continue the discussion over there.
you see a world in conflict. And that conflict is creativity. Without conflict there would be no creativity because there would be no need for it.
I can't help but wonder why some people get away with stuff like this, while others can't. I think it brings down the level of discussion and debate on a site like HubPages. We could be having a great discussion instead.
“This self existent, absolute necessity, is at liberty and is the source of information.”
That’s probably the only statement I’d have to disagree with up to here. It’s a leap that doesn’t necessarily follow. Specifically the at liberty part. There is no evidence of that.And on the contrary, it seems to run by strict rules, which are its nature.
You are astute in realizing that everything is information in its own way.
The rest of what you say is as you stated: speculation. And while fun, it doesn’t really get us anywhere.This thread did not always exist. The OP created it. The OP chose to provide information. Is it logical for me to assume he is mechanical? The OP did not have to, but he did. Or, let's assume it is true that this thread always existed as opposed to never existing. A mechanical, thread-post producer, that always has a prior post, but never a first post? Why a thread at all? Why this thread? At the end of the contingency road is an absolute necessity. It is providing information. A purely mechanical/physicalism/contingent/naturalistic, either or, or all, or combination thereof is not a logical stance. Such as this thread, such is reality, the most logical conclusion is an independent, not contingent, source chose or from our perspective is choosing to provide information. A naturalistic, mechanical, explanation to me is like saying a busted watch tells the correct time twice a day.
No, but you know already that a person started the thread. I see a watch in the forest and know someone made it exactly because I know nature doesn't create things like that. But If I look at and study nature I can see the things it creates and how. But I don't see or know of any being that can create exactly like nature does. So you assume an intelligent being is behind it but that's pure speculation.
I can show you nature creating, where as you can't prove god exists let alone show that it can do anything.Your overall stance, as I see it, is that to explain the reason for causality, reality, big bangs, multiverses, string theory, anything and everything contingent, and everything else: logic, mathematics, information etc etc equals "natcha dunnit". Only the real difference between my beliefs and your beliefs, is that I can make an actual logical argument, whereas, your stance has provided nothing of substance in the form of an argument.
Why is there something than nothing? What is the reason? Why is it expressing itself? I have a logical answer.Well you think you have a logical answer. But of course you don't. No one does.
"God created the Universe because it started and everything that starts needs a cause" is not in any way logical. Because of course, you would then have to explain where God got his creative abilities, and there is no logical explanation for that.That sounds a lot like a kalaam/ quote from Oceansnsunsets. So, if you are going to claim that I do not have a logical answer, then my rebuttal is please make sure you actually quote me to show that you can differentiate between posters and arguments made.
I would love to see your logical answer. You have not shown one here yet, so you must be finally ready to share.
Can you show how and what parts of his argument are illogical? Just saying so isn't so helpful, and to me, what Phoenixv has said seems very logical. The different reasons matter. I think our discussion can be furthered and we can all learn more and where errors lie when you point out something someone says is actually illogical. People in the forums can just say all kinds of things, and are on differing sides all the time. But we already knew that.
I'm not going back through 15 pages to find you a quote to comment on, sorry. I will wait for Phoenixes response, if he chooses to respond.
You commented he was being illogical, and I thought you could back up your statement by showing how. I think that is very fair. We can assume he is being logical then, unless it can be shown how he isn't. You don't even need a direct quote. With respect, sometimes I think people are just wanting to say others are wrong without showing how. I think this makes the other person look like they are actually probably pretty close to the truth, when it can't be shown how they are wrong. I think this is a logical way of thinking this through, for instance. If you disagree, you could show how the opposite is more logical, and I would take it very seriously in that case. Hope this helps in clearing up why I am asking people to back up what they are saying.
Please go back and reread the thread. I said he was illogical yes, but he disagreed that I had his argument correct. I may have. So I am awaiting his response. It is possible I will have to go back and reread the entire thread, but I don't really want to do that, so I am hoping he will be kind enough to just restate his argument.
I wonder if we can all just read through things really quickly in these threads. I know I have been guilty of it. Perhaps where you first responded to him that he was being illogical, in the post you were responding to, point out just the illogical points in just that one? I am trying to be helpful, so you don't have to go back and read all the posts. If we post things that aren't read carefully, but take time to carefully repost everything, what assurance do we have they will be read carefully and rebutted fairly at that point?
Do we go on precedence, and give up? I am for promoting good and fair discussion. I hope my efforts here are seen for what they are.
I think he was saying you were rebutting my argument, but to his points.
Sorry but I deal only in fact. You start from a premise you can't defend. Prove a conscious god exists and you have a logical argument. Without that you are guessing based on your bias. That's not an answer and it's not good enough.
I want facts and real answers or they aren't worth my time. I base my opinions on fact but I don't marry my opinions, they change as new information arises.why something and not nothing?
The simple answer is, why not? There is no reason to think a state of nothing is more natural a state than there being something. Besides which if there ever a time there was nothing at all, there would still be nothing at all. You can’t get something from nothing.
So the default seems to be existence.
Can nothing exist even as a state? No. Nothing is not a state. It does not and cannot exist by definition. Therefore the state of existence is the default state. We exist which means there has always been something. Had nothing existed the question would not be possible.
It is a difficult idea to talk about with current language. How can we even make sense of saying if there were ever a time that there was nothing? Of course if there were nothing there would be no time. The question is in a literal sense meaningless.
We may ask will it always exist? There is always the possibility that at some point nothing will exit at all. But if that is the case, nothing will exist again.
The answer is: there just is something and always has been. We may argue about what, but we cannot argue the fact that there always has to have been something. What, at this point, is almost irrelevant to the specific query.
It is not as if at some point nothingness decided to become something. So there can be no starting point, no anthropomorphic reason for existence to come in to being. It just always has been. There is no alternative.
We may ask specifically why we as humans came into being and we may argue about that. But not about the fact that something has always existed.
Now those who know my writing know that I am fond of the laws of conservation. Energy/mass cannot be created or destroyed. So the obvious candidate for the source of all this, that which always was and likely always will be in one form or other is energy/mass. Even if that energy/mass is in a state of potential.
The laws that govern energy/mass are the reason we humans exist. Some would ask where such laws come from. But again this is an almost meaningless question because the laws are not laws, they are the nature of the source. The limitations on how things can react with each other is the reason for order. Without order/limitations the source itself could not exist.
All things are energy/mass in different configurations and transformations. Humans are no exception. We are perhaps special among biological creatures because we can think about how the universe really works and actually have a chance of finding out. But we exist because through cause and effect according to the nature of energy/mass we were inevitable.
It is no good to try to lay odds on how improbable existence is because it is a certainty. We do exist. To speculate and say if we started the universe again would it produce life again is meaningless. We cannot run the universe back. We cannot start it over. We do not even know for a fact that there was a beginning to this universe.
This question of why something instead of nothing is what has spawned a scientific debate called the anthropomorphic principal. To me this is clearly a non-starter that stems from the misconception that it takes more work for something to exist than it does for nothing to exist. Also and more to the point that the universe is set up to fit our existence.
But clearly the idea that nothing ever existed as a state that something can emerge from is an absurdity and highly illogical. It is also far more logical to conclude that we fit the universe because it produced it, not the other way around.
My conclusion is that existence is the default. There can be no reason for there being something if there was always something; and there can never have been nothing at all or there would still be nothing at all.
This essay should be considered an add-on to the first essay I did for Hub Pages called: Observer driven reality check. I may add to it at a future time.So begging the question and circular reasoning is your conclusion? In your opinion It just is and and in your opinion since it just is, [and since that fallacy presents a problem] there has always been something? You are supporting one fallacy with another. That is not a logical argument, it is blind faith, supported by a couple of fallacies.
Why not? Is not a reason or an answer. If I asked a millionaire for a million bucks and he asks: What for? Should I say, why not? Hey, giving me a million dollars is just the default? Intellectually speaking there is a difference between building a toy Taj Mahal out of tinker toys compared to falling asleep amongst a bunch of tinker toys and claiming I am an engineer. Why is the tinker toy Taj Mahal there? Why this particular Taj Mahal? Why is the earth flat? Hey, why not? Its just the default, its always been flat. And that line of reasoning works for you?[
"So begging the question and circular reasoning is your conclusion? In your opinion It just is and and in your opinion since it just is, [and since that fallacy presents a problem] there has always been something? You are supporting one fallacy with another. That is not a logical argument, it is blind faith, supported by a couple of fallacies."
Hardly.You aren't following the logic. This is a philosophical argument. You have no clue as to why everything is as it is. Your blind faith is that it must have been done by someone. But that's just a guess based on the fact that humans create by manipulating matter, but we did not create the matter we manipulate. We have intent when we do things, so what ever creates has to have intent.
That is just not the case. You jump to the conclusion that something must have created this so your premise is based on an assumption, not a fact. There fore even if your logic from then on is flawless your conclusion can not be anything more than an "if" proposition.
I don't claim certainty on how it all came to be and I'm not assuming anything when I say nature creates,seemingly without intent. Science and common sense tell us the universe works/creates through cause and effect according to what we call rules of physics.
"Why not? Is not a reason or an answer."
No. It is a question. Do you have an answer?
" If I asked a millionaire for a million bucks and he asks: What for? Should I say, why not?"
You might if he refuses you, but right off the bat doesn't seem like good timing.
"Hey, giving me a million dollars is just the default?"
That would be silly to say since it obviously isn't true.
However, what I said is sound logic. The default state has to be existence,because if it wasn't nothing would exist. Do you have an argument that counters the axiom: you can't get something from nothing?
If not, and I'm sure you don't. then the statement I made follows. If you can't get something from nothing then existence has to, by necessity, be the default state. Things exist,and that's the proof of the argument. It's almost a tautology.
"Intellectually speaking there is a difference between building a toy Taj Mahal out of tinker toys compared to falling asleep amongst a bunch of tinker toys and claiming I am an engineer. Why is the tinker toy Taj Mahal there? Why this particular Taj Mahal? Why is the earth flat? Hey, why not? Its just the default, its always been flat. And that line of reasoning works for you?"
No it does not, and your analogy doesn't work either.
Now, when I say it just is, I mean that if nature itself is the cause as I suspect, then there may be no reason other than this is the way things work. There certainly may not be a conscious reason or intent. I know that's an upsetting thought for you, but's perfectly plausible and has a good degree of probability of being right.
I Don't see what you're upset about anyway. When asked why god exists, a theist will say: He just is. Or: he always was and always will be. Yet when I say the same about nature, and to be specific, the nature of energy, Christians balk at the idea. Why? Are those just things Christians say because they don't really know?
When I say it I come from the standpoint that what we and all things are made of cannot be created or destroyed. So nature already fits the bill on that score and we know nature exists. We cannot be certain a god exists. We can't even know whether it does or not. A theist is lying if they say they are certain god exists, just as an atheist would be lying if they said they were certain it doesn't. There is no way to be certain either way. It is a matter of belief or lack of belief.
I deal only with facts. I can put no faith in speculation.Well which is it? I am "not following the logic" or I am not following the "philosophical argument"? Your statement is neither a logical argument or a philosophical argument because it just consists of two fallacies and that is all.
I jump to the conclusion? "You jump to the conclusion that something must have created this so your premise is based on an assumption..."
No, absolutely not. That is your 3rd fallacy, a strawman. Ironically that is exactly what you are doing. Nature must have done it, that is illogical, so nature just must have been around all along, is begging the question and circular reasoning.
Your 3rd fallacy is a strawman (something must have created this ) because I am not arguing a cosmological from contingency, never have, never will. How do you reconcile committing a strawman fallacy? You saw me allude to ex nihilo nihil fit and you made assumptions from that. I did point out that the OP created this thread, and how that it was illogical to assume it was a mechanism or to assume a naturalistic explanation. That is what you are doing. Assuming a mechanical or naturalistic explanation. I partially reiterated my actual stance of there is an absolute necessity, being an independent "source" providing information, that is not contingent, independent, etc as an example of how the "nature done it " is an assumption and fallacy. Being an independent non contingent absolute necessity "source" is not the same as "something must have created this" strawman. It may be a negligible or misunderstood difference to you, but it is the difference between night and day.
Previously
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whatever the truth may be, it is the source of all knowledge, known, unknown and/or unknowable. It has always been that way and will always be that way and is only dependent upon being true to it's nature of being the truth. Whatever the truth may be, it is independent, autonomous and at liberty, and everything that is, was, or will ever be, is derived from that truth. Whatever the truth may be, it is expressing itself in an intelligible fashion and to deny that would be illogical. If we claim that it is not expressing itself in an intelligible fashion, by what method can we prove our claim?
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Regarding causes. Is determinism, determinism if it only becomes deterministic but always in the future? Is reality probabilistic or deterministic or both or neither, or contain unknown hidden variables? Is reality reality or is reality becoming reality concurrently? Regarding the unknown or infinite and or unknowable, causes, effects and causes of causality, we can advantageously avoid it all with a more pure formulation that takes into account unknown or the unknowable, inconsistencies, paradoxes, redundancies or the circular. There is a truth to it all. That, we can logically know. Within that truth, outside that truth or coexistent or variations of a union with that truth, or with the truth as it transpires etc etc is a source. It is a self existent, free, source of everything including the systematic process that produces rationality and logic capable by humans, that can analyze the systematic process itself. The source is intelligible by it's own nature.
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You wrote: "I don't claim certainty on how it all came to be and I'm not assuming anything ..."
But before you wrote: "We exist which means there has always been something."
So which is it? "You don't know how it all came to be" or "it means there has always been something"?
That is a contradiction. You don't know how it all came to be? But there has always been something?
Yet you deal with facts?
You wrote:" if nature itself is the cause as I suspect, then there may be no reason other than this is the way things work."
I thought you did not speculate?
Nature caused it and there may be no reason, other than it works?
I see.
The truth of the matter is existing. Knowledge does in fact exist. I don't see any logical or philosophical argument or whatever you want to claim it is. Three fallacies and several contradictions are not a logical argument or a philosophical argument. In fact, as I demonstrated your fallacies, they did not work anywhere else either.Too bad you are so confused. We might have had a decent conversation.You have shown zero contradictions in my argument and no fallacy, but you are doggedly holding on to your untenable position.
You have yet to produce a single rational rebuttal and instead continue to accuse me of things you obviously heard from others but don't understand. Or you hate the idea that I may be right so much you can taste it.
You say it is illogical that nature itself did it without outside help?. Not good enough. Show us why. Give me a logical reason to say that. Can you? I doubt it.
Surprise me."there is an absolute necessity, being an independent "source" providing information, that is not contingent, independent, etc"
Explain why. Making dumb statements isn't enough. You have zero evidence for this stance, do you? It just fits your desires?.You have brought nothing to the table. The logical arguments I made in my last post, derived from posts in this thread stand.
I didn't think you had anything to back yourself up and I was right it seems.
When I've made an argument it had science to back it up. Sorry you couldn't surprise me.I think if you showed how science showed another person to be wrong in actuality, like if it contradicted something they said for instance, then that would help a great deal. Like in the post with A Villarosa, you asked if anything was wrong with long posts. I would answer no, unless you aren't addressing what you are saying is wrong, head on. (Yet thinking a long post on a subject directly shows how, what another person said was wrong, and that long post did not.) This could lead to tricking oneself into being right, that another person is wrong, but without showing how.
If a person that you disagree with is so wrong, and you are right, it would be very easy to show how they are wrong. Sharing large post with information and your thoughts in general on a topic, doesn't show how another person is wrong unless you make that connection. People do it all the time, but some do not.
I do see this a lot in these forums, so this isn't addressed just to you either. Phoenix has taken a great deal of time to show why and what fallacies were in play, to show why he disagreed with you. He has not resorted to ad hom attacks either. Those aren't needed one bit, to easily show how another is wrong. As one looking in, I have not seen you show how Phoenix is wrong, with science or philosophical arguments. Just saying or asserting things, doesn't make a case, nor does putting people down. This is what I have seen. I think that is fair.Yes, I know you side with Phoenix on this. No surprise there.
I'm sorry you didn't catch where I laid it all out for him. Perhaps you should read all the posts again.
Better yet, why don't you explain to me how Phoenix proved any of my arguments were fallacious and explain what kind of fallacy I was guilty of. Please. I'd love to see it.Edited: You see, I don't side with people "just because". I side with the best arguments, no matter who makes them. I do see a lot of side taking in these forums though. Phoenix hasn't even been using the same arguments as me either.
I saw how you responded the first time you were shown how, and I don't tend to engage with people that use ad hom attacks as a form of rebuttal. If I copy pasted the points he made to you, why would I expect a different result the second time? Do you see the problem? Ad hom attacks, and assertions, don't make the cases. This is actually done by many very bright and well known people, who write books, have doctorates, and debate publicly. The same frustrations occurs for them, and they often respond in like manner. I think many people that side with their beliefs and conclusions, think its okay to act in such manner, but it isn't. In my experience, if someone is wrong, they can be shown how they are wrong. This has been what I have been asking both you and Jane to do with those you disagree with. As for reading posts carefully, it wasn't me or Phoenix not reading posts carefully, because you were addressing my points very often, and not his.
For instance, some assumptions have been made on what PhoenixV even said, what his views even are. So why do you think he has to show how you are wrong, or Jane, when it wasn't his error? This isn't fair. If you go back to the recent posts where you see Phoenix showing how you make a contradiction, etc, , perhaps you can show how it isn't actually a contradiction.
Its really simple. If you think people are wrong. Show how. Others here are doing that. If you can't show how they are wrong, please don't use put downs, or denial as a response. That just looks like arguing, fighting, or petty bickering. If you notice, I am constantly trying to encourage all to treat each other in ways that are promoting the opposite of that, AND ideas that will help us all actually learn something. Since we aren't all right, one side might be wrong. We should all want to know.You always side with other theists. That's just the way it is. I expect nothing less.
As for my attacking him, again, I give what I get. Had he been able to discuss things without trying to belittle me, I would have continued in kind. It's just the way things go around here. Grow a thick skin or don't get in the fray.
My observation of your posts is that you on the other hand don't seem to express an opinion of your own except where it concerns the way people here communicate. Your not a moderator I take it?
As for misunderstanding him, all he had to do was tell me how I was misunderstanding him. I take it he believes in ID, obviously. That's usually just a code for Christian trying to come at it from an other vantage point. Your god another god, it makes no difference. You all believe a conscious god created all this one way or the other.
Here is my argument again. I started with the premise: We exist. we and most things did not always exist. Therefore we were either produced or created by something or some process.
IF you define the word god as meaning that which created us or produced us, then there is a god of some sort.
What part of that is fallacious and why?
I went on to say that it is obvious that something, it could be your god, has to have always existed, or there would not be anything that exists now, because You can't get something from absolutely nothing.
Later I said that the above formula tells us that existence is therefore the default state.
What part of that is fallacious, contradictory. or begging the question? And again explain why.
So then I explained that no where in the formulas I gave does it tell us or allude to what kind of god we might be talking about. So, we have two basic choices. Either god is an intelligent being, or it is a process.
Anything wrong yet? I'll even entertain other alternatives if you can think of any.
Traditionally there no alternative to a conscious being because it would of necessity be uncreated and have always existed.
But, as I explained, now we do have a good alternative to a conscious god since science tells us that energy/mass can not be created nor destroyed. That's the first law of thermodynamics. So we have something eternal, the very substance according to science, that all things are made of.
BB theory tells us that the singularity that is said to have expanded contained all the energy of this universe in a compressed form. So even here science does not see energy being created.
So that's at least some of the science that backs me up, but there is lots more like chaos theory which explains how the simple becomes the complex.
So my conclusion is that an alternative to the conscious god no one can prove exists, is something we have shown exists, which is the nature of energy/mass itself. We see it creating all the time.
So all of my opinions here are based on sound logic based on scientific fact.
I'm not even saying this is the way it is, although I think it's the best explanation/model yet. Should evidence to the contrary emerge I'll be happy to amend my formulas.
ID is also still a possibility, but it lacks proof of any kind. It can't unless they can produce the consciousness they assume must be there. they are guessing. They may be right in the end, but they are still just guessing, just like all theist are.
I prefer to work with truth and facts, so until someone shows a conscious being that created all this, My opinion will remain that a natural process is likely what produced us. No conscious god seems to be required.
Amendment: I did find one place where I said he believed something created this and so was guessing, where as it should have read: someone.
My mistake. I am sorry I didn't notice that even when it was pointed out to me.For the record, I don't always side with other theists. I think in general we tend to agree with the people who are of like mind, but I don't as much as I see others do. The simple and quick side taking I often observe, derails what could often be good conversations, because people side with those they think are on their "team", agree with and defend them before fully realizing all that they have said in a thread. But then equally often can't support the view their friend holds or held, and get all the more frustrated at theists very often. I can't count how often I have experienced this, and so know to avoid doing the same, though I don't out of principle for the reason I stated. I hope to side with the truth, as we all do, and the view closest to the truth will need the least defending and tactics. I hope for an environment where ideas can be exchanged in a pleasant atmosphere that promotes learning and thinking.
As for your observation of my posts, you must not see a lot of my posts. You can go back through my profile activity for multiple thread interactions over the months, and even in this thread. I am all about ideas. As of the last few months and weeks, the HP moderation had gotten a bit better, and I appreciate that, and this place is better for it. One need not be a moderator to point out possible ad homs or logical fallacies. I am interested in good discussion and even debate, and see those things as impediments. I am also interested in people in general and that they believe and think what they do for what turns out often to be very poor reasons and then can't defend them well, and then resort to tactics of various possible kinds. If people can fairly point out tactics, then people might want to rethink some things. This is for their benefit, and my own when it applies to me. Its not pleasant, because people aren't usually fussing over evidences and what is most reasonable. This is why I think we see what we see so often. Since this is getting so long, I am going to respond to your argument in a following post after looking it over some. I do think it is going to be the same strawman and contradictory statements that have already been pointed out, but I will take some time. I do wonder at your denial of those points, and worry at my attempt to just repeat what has been pointed out already, since you didn't accept it the first time. Thanks for reiterating your ideas again.well if I have you all wrong I'm sorry. But reading your previous post again I noticed that you said I was responding to things you said by mistake thinking Phoenix said them. But that's not possible as I wasn't reading your posts.
Oh, ok. Well even if you hadn't read my posts on my ideas on cause and effect, that argument which many theists hold, I was the one expressing some of that in this thread as much as anyone else I think. Regardless, his argument is rather nuanced and different from that argument, and the one often seen from theists, wasn't one he was making. I think you responded to that other argument, in general, for whatever reason you did. That was one of the things I had to agree with him on, that the certain points were addressing another argument he wasn't making. I am still fully getting the other argument myself. Its very interesting to me though and I want to understand it. He seems to think its better than the one I often revert back to in conversations like the ones in this thread, lol.
I think the problem with feeling belittled is you expect to make your assertions without being questioned. You don't have the credentials or the argument, in my opinion, to rate that. You do not like people pointing out your contradictions and fallacies, but that is how a debate rolls and it is nothing personal with me. On the other hand you make obvious indisputable ad homs. Again, I do not care, it is nothing personal with me. When you say personal things like "you always side with the theists, and you expect nothing less and : "just guessing, just like all theist are" - are nothing but generalizations without actual rebuttals. Saying I am "Making dumb statements" is an ad hom without actually bringing an argument. This is demonstrably true. Putting all that nonsense aside:
Slarty - "We exist which means there has always been something."
Slarty - "I don't claim certainty on "how it all came to be"
That is a contradiction. Two contradictions really. 1. A claim and a disclaimer. ( which means and I dont claim" and 2 "Always been something and "it all came to be".
Then you seem to do it again:
Slarty - So we have something eternal, the very substance according to science, that all things are made of
Slarty - We exist. we and most things did not always exist. Therefore we were either produced or created by something or some process.
Eternal /or produced or created?
Now.
Today exists. So today has to have always existed because if today did not always exist, it would be yesterday or tomorrow. Yesterday and tomorrow are not today, therefore, today lasts forever. So this is an example of circular reasoning.
Something exists. So something had to always exist, because if did not always exist, nothing would exist. Nothing produces nothing, something exists. so this statement is circular reasoning.
As you say your default is nature, that is your conclusion and then you work backwards from that, to one, say nature, energy or whatever is 1) eternal, and then the contradictions of -1) created by something, 2) "always been something" and -2) how it all came to be"
Its like a tennis match or ping pong game of contradictions, perhaps it is problem with semantics or in dire need of clarification or just sticking with one or the other?
I am not interested. That time has passed.
I do not have the patience or inclination to go through someone posts and point out all the problems and then when I make an argument or whatever, I just get one word rebuttals like " your guessing or "making dumb statements. " You know? Who has time for that? It's kind of pointless to debate that, those are not rebuttals.
.
My arguments are bound by logic and laws of thought from a rationalists standpoint. I do not assume anything, nor do make any conclusions from the get-go, nor do I willingly contradict myself.
There is a truth out there. A truth about anything, everything or nothing, all together. A final truth. A source is expressing it's will. (determinism) It is self existent. (absolute necessity) therefore, It is at liberty. It is expressing its will in an intelligible way. It is genius.
Get off the reality merry go-round, but you cannot. It is not your will. When your self awareness stops existing, that source, your source, will still be there amongst the truth. Although biased at being a part of a whole, of that will, you see glimpses and understand a little. But there is much more, known, knowable unknowable, vast undeniable creativity, undeniably intelligible.
But you have to hear, see or understand with your mind. You see pine trees and mountains I hear Chopin. You see urban blight, I hear Frank Zappa. You like Frank Zappa?"A source is expressing it's will"
That is you ABSOLUTELY making an assumption.
If you disagree, please provide evidence.Create your own reality and do something in it. Otherwise you are just along for this ride.
That something exists is not evidence that it's existence is due to a source that is "expressing it's will'.
Try again.As I understand the argument it is that: "I don't understand how the universe can be so perfect without an intelligence to make it, therefore an intelligence made it and everything in it. Everything that has come about since the big bang is a direct result of that intelligence".
In other words, "I dunno, so goddunnit".There are many atheists and probably others, that have that belief about theists, even when they haven't expressed that. The words, "god dunnit" are a favorite of atheists it seems, but its almost never (really almost never ever) what the person has expressed in an argument or when making a case. So I view comments like that as an expresssion of one of many of the beliefs I observe that atheists have. It is just expressed and said too often to not assume its a belief, and without warrant that I can see.
Right. He can't so he changes the subject and advocates you delude yourself. Nice.
I did and he did too. I showed how its the most reasonable. He used another example, through a suggestion, this what he was saying was the most logical, and reasonable.
That comment, "Create your own reality and do something in it. Otherwise you are just along for this ride," is meant to make a greater point I think. If you and Jane think he is wrong, then the suggestion is to try creating your own reality rather than the one we live in, and do something in that new reality. The truth is, we can't, and that we are along for this ride.
It wasn't changing the subject. Its expanding te current subject to help people understand. Not being dishonest.It didn't seem to have much to do with the subject at hand. I am still confused by it.
"It wasn't changing the subject. Its expanding te current subject to help people understand. Not being dishonest."
In what way was it an expansion of the subject? I don't see a connection.I see . Ok. But she asked a direct question, which as usual was ignored, and instead answered with something absurd. Of course you can create your own reality. It's called living a fantasy. But even had he like you said "You can't" It might have helped and not sounded like he was advocating she live in a fantasy of her own making just to not be along for the ride. No wonder people misinterpret what he says.
It still had nothing to do with what she askedI do appreciate when people keep asking. I think you perceived it as ignored, or didn't like the manner of answer. Was it actually ignored though? He keeps on posting.... I know I am learning more by all here.
We each have unique ways of communicating, and Phoenix is no different. Keep on asking. It's what I do. Its what I see Jane doing. Its how I am learning more. Its my number one go to "thing to do" in these forums, so I don't assume anything about people, otherwise I get into trouble. Just sharing what works for me.I replied to the first part, now to the last sentence.... Jane asked,
"A source is expressing it's will." Is not based on known facts, and is thus an assumption.
If she can back that with facts, then it is not an assumption.
Can you back it with one fact?"
Its a form of a strawman question, lol, or a broken question because she isn't operating within the idea in only quoting one part. I posted the full quote and then explained why. So of course it looked like an assumption because of the way she phrased it, and asked for a fact to back it up. She was asking for a fact for something he didn't say, ultimately. In the original context communicated, it totally is backed by fact, and if one disagrees, they just need to show how what was originally communicated is not true based on other facts. Truth is hard to deny. So it works, at least to me. The source of that truth, seems to be successful at allowing for this incredible, genius reality. The question to me becomes, can he back his points, which is what I think you guys are after too. With patience with our varying types of communication, I think we can get there, if truth of these items are what we are after."A source is expressing it's will"
She Said That is you ABSOLUTELY making an assumption.
If you disagree, please provide evidence.
He said: Create your own reality and do something in it. Otherwise you are just along for this ride.
What is it I or she need to prove? That he is assuming "A source is expressing it's will"?
On the contrary he needs to prove his claim. Without that he is guessing.
Give him time? Sure. Lets.I quoted only one part, because that is the exact part I say is an assumption.
An assumption that is not based on facts that support it in anyway.
That's why I singled it out.
Where were the facts that back it up? They certainly weren't in the rest of the paragraph or surrounding paragraphs."There is a truth out there." Fact
"A truth about anything, everything or nothing, all together." Fact
" A final truth." Fact
"A source is expressing it's will. (determinism)" Assumption that the three facts do not support.
"It is self existent. (absolute necessity) therefore, It is at liberty." Another assumption
"It is expressing its will in an intelligible way." Assumption
"It is genius." An opinion (edit)I appreciate your thoughts and opinions Jane. In the posts I have read, (and I haven't even caught up fully), and in the answers to direct questions, I think he has defended his ideas as rational, reasonable, and logical. I disagree that all the things you call assumptions, are just assumptions. He showed, by questioning you for instance, that you indeed aren't expressing your own ultimate will like this other truth is. Something much bigger is going on. This truth doesn't seem to be bound to anything, it exists before and will long after anyone alive now is. This makes rational, logical sense to me.
I know I have discussed at length why it makes sense that this truth has a will. You disagree. We part ways there. You have an opinion on it all, so do I. Sometimes, we seem to be interested in why the ones with opposing views feel like their ideas win out over other ideas. Why is one idea more reasonable than another?
As for liberty, does this truth seem constrained by anything that you know of?
As for the last two "assumptions", I am not sure how you can say truths aren't understandable, when you yourself have talked about natural laws. It makes me think you understand them. The ultimate truth, whatever it is, has allowed for that truth to be known to us, and you apprehend it/know it.
As for genius, you don't think this universe with all its intricacies is genius? That makes me wonder how you define genius then, because I am sure you believe some people are geniuses. Not one of them can deliver the same genius as this truth has. We have a glimpse of the depth of the genius, that is all. So I would have to disagree that its just assumption, but like you said, you are still coming to an understanding of what he has even said. I think you are getting closer though. I just hope some don't want him to be wrong, and discount because he is a theist. He isn't even talking about a for this discussion to be had."I disagree that all the things you call assumptions, are just assumptions"
They are either facts, or assumptions.
You don't agree they are assumptions, so it's in your court to prove they are facts."As for genius, you don't think this universe with all its intricacies is genius? That makes me wonder how you define genius then, because I am sure you believe some people are geniuses"
Genius IMPLIES intelligence. That the universe is created by an intelligent being is not a proven fact. Thus this is just another assumption. Perhaps I should have used the word assumption, in the first place.It would appear that you are owning it
There are no assumptions, only self evident, a priori knowledge. Categories and semantics aside, we have an unknown, X - call it truth, source, reason, explanation etc. and we see it's self evident, a priori - results. It is deterministic. It is self existent. It does not rely on anything, Its very nature is being true to its nature of being the truth, such as the absolute truth on your question, the truth is not a lie and adheres to, a is not, not a, law of non contradiction, it is self evident. Can we deny it is intelligible? Any argument that opposes it refutes itself out of the gates. Is it creative? Hey look around us. Is it genius? Exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability?
The full quote, (or more of it anyway), is, " There is a truth out there. A truth about anything, everything or nothing, all together. A final truth. A source is expressing it's will. (determinism) It is self existent. (absolute necessity) therefore, It is at liberty. It is expressing its will in an intelligible way. It is genius."
The parts you left off help to explain the part you seem to be wondering about. If you disagree with the idea, maybe you could share how truth doesn't exist out there. It seems you would have to show that before you would say that the truth isn't expressing itself, in our reality. Its what is most reasonable to believe truth exists, and that it is playing out in our lives as we see in various ways including natural laws. We don't make that happen, but we abide by it, etc. It is expressing itself in an intelligible way, and it is genius. Much more so than we are, and we can't begin to duplicate it. So I think it makes the most reasonable sense over the alternative. It doesn't seem to be an assumption at all, but I am open to seeing why you would think so, if you still do.I was pointing out the part of her theory that is an assumption. The rest fails if she is basing it all on that assumption.
The part you quoted, to me, doesn't make the point without the rest. (It doesn't and can't express the idea correctly that you are seeming to disagree with.) With respect, this seems like an easy way out to discount the idea, and claim it fails. I am just pointing out why it still stands unless you can show why it is an assumption in its own context. You might even be missing the point by only doing a partial quote. More context helps so often I find, and it does to a large degree in this particular case.
"A source is expressing it's will." Is not based on known facts, and is thus an assumption.
If she can back that with facts, then it is not an assumption.
Can you back it with one fact?I already did. You seem to enjoy questions.
When did you decide to be born? Why did you choose this reality to be born in?You did not back it with facts.
Your questions are meaningless, as I cannot make decisions before I exist.You exist now though? Why not choose another reality to go live in? Seems like you are stuck in this one, whether you can make decisions or not.
Ahh life is a pinball game. Lots of bumpers, lots of flippers, almost an illusion to deciding things. But the only real decision is get on board or deny the reality of it. You are a living expression of the source.So you advocate delusion now as well? Wow...And what source are you talking about, as if we didn't know? lol... Still selling speculation as fact? Aren't you ashamed?
Only one reality exists that can be proven. I still don't see what that has to do with your argument though. I am honestly trying to see your point, and I think I am missing something perhaps.
"You are a living expression of the source." Another assumption, a lot like the last one. You have to prove there's a "source" in the first place, and in the second place, that it is alive and is capable of expression, and a will.
What in nature points to that? I am not trying to argue with you here. I simply don't see where the idea is coming from in the first place.
I am pretty open minded. I don't just disagree because I don't like an idea. I need to see what an idea is based on.
Slarty - "We exist which means there has always been something."
Slarty - "I don't claim certainty on "how it all came to be"
“That is a contradiction. Two contradictions really. 1. A claim and a disclaimer. ( which means and I dont claim" and 2 "Always been something and "it all came to be".”
Sorry. You still don’t know the difference between opinion and fact. And you are taking my words out of context in order to create what you think is a contradiction. However it clearly is not because I’m talking about two different things here.
The first statement is logical fact and doesn’t say what or how we came to be.
The second is the fact that I put forth an opinion based on the facts but there are alternatives, so I am not trying to sell my opinion as fact, just as a logical alternative.
So again, no contradiction.
“Then you seem to do it again:”
Slarty - So we have something eternal, the very substance according to science, that all things are made of
Slarty - We exist. we and most things did not always exist. Therefore we were either produced or created by something or some process.
“Eternal /or produced or created? “
Once again you take unrelated phrases and try to say it;s a contradiction. I am saying energy is eternal, and it produced us, in fact it is us. Where is this contradiction besides in your mind?
“Something exists. So something had to always exist, because if did not always exist, nothing would exist. Nothing produces nothing, something exists. so this statement is circular reasoning.”
Wrong. But even if it was, it wouldn’t mean it wasn’t true. You have no clue about logic do you?. Sorry.
“I do not have the patience or inclination to go through someone posts and point out all the problems "
Nor the ability, I’m afraid.
.
“My arguments are bound by logic and laws of thought from a rationalists standpoint. I do not assume anything, nor do make any conclusions from the get-go, nor do I willingly contradict myself. “
Good attitude. Now make it real.
“There is a truth out there. A truth about anything, everything or nothing, all together. A final truth. A source is expressing it's will. (determinism) It is self existent. (absolute necessity) therefore, It is at liberty. It is expressing its will in an intelligible way. It is genius.”
Yes there is truth. The rest of your claims are guesses.
“Get off the reality merry go-round, but you cannot. It is not your will. When your self awareness stops existing, that source, your source, will still be there amongst the truth. Although biased at being a part of a whole, of that will, you see glimpses and understand a little. But there is much more, known, knowable unknowable, vast undeniable creativity, undeniably intelligible.”
Evidence please. Guesses don’t count.
“But you have to hear, see or understand with your mind. You see pine trees and mountains I hear Chopin. You see urban blight, I hear Frank Zappa. You like Frank Zappa?”
I love Zappa. At least we have that in common.Earlier I posted: I just get one word rebuttals like " your guessing or "making dumb statements. " You know? Who has time for that? It's kind of pointless to debate that, those are not rebuttals. Have a nice day
PS. I hate ZappaI notice you left out the rest. Must be nice to be satisfied with lying. But that said, you are not worth much more then a few words. What more can I say but that you are guessing, and trying to sell speculation as truth. That's dishonest if you know that's what you're doing. And I think deep down you do. Enough people have told you in the past. must at least make you think... a bit?
You have a nice day too
@slarty:
To quote you: "So we have 2 basic choices. Either God is an intelligent being, or it is a process.
I subscribe to Webster' definition of process as a forward or onward movement towards an objective or goal; a phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result. As fas as I can gather the only entities that are purpose ( objective, or goal or result) driven are the sentient ones.
Thus God =process= sentience.
Can you actually envision non- sentience, as you are proposing, creating a process that for all intent and purposes led to Homo sapiens, a specie whose existence is filled with " intention and purpose"?
Or are we, as the atheists would argue, just the accidental and inconsequential result of atoms interacting with each other and maintaining just the barest minimum of energy expenditure to maintain those interacting and interlocking relationships? That IMO should be anathema to all of us."As for the last two "assumptions", I am not sure how you can say truths aren't understandable, when you yourself have talked about natural laws. It makes me think you understand them. The ultimate truth, whatever it is, has allowed for that truth to be known to us, and you apprehend it/know it."
I never said truths aren't understandable.
We don't know the truth. We don't have all the facts, so the truth is unknown to us at present.
I don't claim to know the truth, I can only make assumptions.“Can you actually envision non- sentience, as you are proposing, creating a process that for all intent and purposes led to Homo sapiens, “
Yes, Though not exactly as you express it. I can envision a non-sentient process creating sentience as an emergent property.
By sentience do mean all biological life or just humans? We are perhaps the most self aware but even slime mold is amazingly intelligent. Single cells joined together acting as one. Put them in a maze with food at the entrance and exist, and they find the shortest route to both every time.
Sentience as we call it is evolved from basic self awareness. That evolved from basic awareness, which in turn was the result of the advent of biology and its needs and limited sensor array at least but is rooted in the quantum’s auto response. That last bit would take a lot of explaining. But suffice it to say, so below so above. We are a reflection of the quantum and work by the same rules. The quantum makes more and more complex replicas of itself. One of the results is us.
To me, it's a bottom up universe, not as theist see it, a top down universe. As a metaphor only: it seems almost like the universe is trying to create a god state or state of perfection which it can probably never reach.
But because I have a great imagination I could begin to assume a lot of things like we weren’t created by a god, we are creating a god with every interaction. Energy has awareness inherent in it. I can say thats what ID is really about but no one knows it yet.
So I prefer to leave out the truly speculative and imaginative. If it is discovered that what I said after saying it was a metaphor, has some truth then that’s cool. But I’m not counting on it.
I am an atheist so the only alternative to a created universe is a produced universe through natural cause and effect. Or at least it is an alternative according to the findings of science.
The universe is the most amazing mystery of all, even for me, an atheist. And I don’t see an outside speculative consciousness adding to it, on the contrary. But that’s just me.
To me it seems more insane to think that an outside consciousness would bother. Certainly if it were perfect it would have no needs and no need to create all this. And when you think of it, a god that creates disease suffering, killing so we can eat, etc, etc, seems like it is cruel or inept. That all goes away if “nature” (to stay brief) did all this without ill intent, but the only way it could.
Then it’s all understandable. But I don’t think any sentience that created this could be forgiven, unless it had a very good explanation. And then there is the problem of its absence
“Or are we, as the atheists would argue, just the accidental and inconsequential result of atoms interacting with each other and maintaining just the barest minimum of energy expenditure to maintain those interacting and interlocking relationships? That IMO should be anathema to all of us.”
Well again you suffer from the same misunderstanding most theists and many atheists have, there is no accident in a cause and effect totality
."and maintaining just the barest minimum of energy expenditure to maintain those interacting and interlocking relationships” is the wrong way to look at it. The actions required to find a lowest possible output of energy across the board is what caused those relationships."I subscribe to Webster' definition of process as a forward or onward movement towards an objective or goal; a phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result."
Sure. But understand that dictionary definitions are common use. That's not always sufficient. But as it goes it's fine.
" As fas as I can gather the only entities that are purpose ( objective, or goal or result) driven are the sentient ones. "
And this definition may have them in mind. But what about processes of nature which have no sentience behind them, like pregnancy, for instance? Sure people engaged in the act perhaps with the intent to have kids, but most animals probably don't. They go in heat which is another automatic process sentience has nothing to with, and the process itself has no outside help.
Water erosion is a process, but doesn't exactly fit your definition. At least not the intent part.
Most processes, in fact, have no sentience behind them, but they produce results none the less. And the same results every time under the same conditions.
I told myself I wouldn’t bother, but what the hell? Why not?
“Well which is it? I am "not following the logic" or I am not following the "philosophical argument"?”
Both
“Your statement is neither a logical argument or a philosophical argument because it just consists of two fallacies and that is all. “
And so show how they are fallacies.
“I jump to the conclusion? "You jump to the conclusion that something must have created this so your premise is based on an assumption..."
Hardly. It’s deductive reasoning.
“No, absolutely not. That is your 3rd fallacy, a strawman. Ironically that is exactly what you are doing. Nature must have done it, that is illogical, so nature just must have been around all along, is begging the question and circular reasoning. “
It does not beg the question, is not a straw man, and it’s clear you need to find out what those words refer to.
“Your 3rd fallacy is a strawman (something must have created this )
How was that a straw man again? Care to look it up before you reply?
“ because I am not arguing a cosmological from contingency,”
Never thought you were.
“ never have, never will. How do you reconcile committing a strawman fallacy? You saw me allude to ex nihilo nihil fit and you made assumptions from that. I did point out that the OP created this thread, and how that it was illogical to assume it was a mechanism or to assume a naturalistic explanation.”
And I agree which is why it’s a bad analogy. Things made by humans are different from things made by nature. Since you like this kind of thing you are comparing apples and oranges.
“ That is what you are doing. Assuming a mechanical or naturalistic explanation.”
Not assuming; postulating based on scientific fact.
“ I partially reiterated my actual stance of there is an absolute necessity, being an independent "source" providing information, that is not contingent, independent, etc as an example of how the "nature done it " is an assumption and fallacy. Being an independent non contingent absolute necessity "source" is not the same as "something must have created this" strawman. It may be a negligible or misunderstood difference to you, but it is the difference between night and day. “
So what besides your say so backs up your statement? Nothing. You are guessing.
“whatever the truth may be, it is the source of all knowledge, known, unknown and/or unknowable. It has always been that way and will always be that way and is only dependent upon being true to it's nature of being the truth. Whatever the truth may be, it is independent, autonomous and at liberty, and everything that is, was, or will ever be, is derived from that truth. Whatever the truth may be, it is expressing itself in an intelligible fashion and to deny that would be illogical. If we claim that it is not expressing itself in an intelligible fashion, by what method can we prove our claim?”
Guessing.
“Regarding causes. Is determinism, determinism if it only becomes deterministic but always in the future? Is reality probabilistic or deterministic or both or neither, or contain unknown hidden variables? Is reality reality or is reality becoming reality concurrently? Regarding the unknown or infinite and or unknowable, causes, effects and causes of causality, we can advantageously avoid it all with a more pure formulation that takes into account unknown or the unknowable, inconsistencies, paradoxes, redundancies or the circular. There is a truth to it all. That, we can logically know. Within that truth, outside that truth or coexistent or variations of a union with that truth, or with the truth as it transpires etc etc is a source. It is a self existent, free, source of everything including the systematic process that produces rationality and logic capable by humans, that can analyze the systematic process itself. The source is intelligible by it's own nature.”
How do you come to this conclusion? Show me the deductive process.
You wrote: "I don't claim certainty on how it all came to be and I'm not assuming anything ..."
But before you wrote: "We exist which means there has always been something."
“So which is it? "You don't know how it all came to be" or "it means there has always been something"?
I base my opinions on facts. Deductively I’ve been through this with you several times so I won’t bother again as you ignore it. That there has always been something should be obvious to you. Even were that something what you describe. So why you are fighting the obvious is beyond me.
I do not claim certainty, it is my opinion based on scientific fact and logic that nature is a good alternative to a conscious god we can’t show exists.
That there has always been something is the conclusion of sound deductive reasoning. That nature is a good candidate for the source is opinion based on science.
So two different things. No, no contradictions.
“That is a contradiction. You don't know how it all came to be? But there has always been something?”
No contradiction. .Just your misinterpretation of what I said.
“Yet you deal with facts? “
Yes.
“You wrote:" if nature itself is the cause as I suspect, then there may be no reason other than this is the way things work."
“I thought you did not speculate?”
Opinion based on facts. Notice the “if” I’m not selling speculation as fact.
“Nature caused it and there may be no reason, other than it works?”
“I see. “
I doubt you do.
“The truth of the matter is existing. Knowledge does in fact exist. “
Won’t argue with you there.
“I don't see any logical or philosophical argument or whatever you want to claim it is. Three fallacies and several contradictions are not a logical argument or a philosophical argument. In fact, as I demonstrated your fallacies, they did not work anywhere else either.”
To others who also don’t know what those words mean, I suppose. Lol...
@Slarty:
Events/Happenings like your example ie water erosion, that do not have purpose or intended goal are by definition, just events and NOT processes. And BTW you analogyzing water erosion with the creation of the universe is stunningly inchoate, if not incomprehensible.@Slarty:
Addendum to the above post----I just have to state my take on the process called pregnancy, since I deal with its ultimate goal, another human being albeit a baby, in my day to day practice of Pediatrics. Pregnancy and the event that led to it ie sexual intercourse has sentience written all over it. If not, why would sex be so sensually gratifying as an activity if it was not sentiently invented and imposed? Granted that the ultimate goal of having a baby is to propagate your own genes, thus the specie, it makes a lot of sense that sex be so gratifyingly fulfilling; otherwise if it were not sentiently planned or ordered to be gratifying, would we or any other animate entities be doing it at all?
Sounds counterintuitive that the process that leads to the propagation of the specie would not be sensually gratifying."Sensual gratification" is just chemical reactions in the body and brain. It's not even necessary. A Flower doesn't have it, although it reproduces sexually. It's just an adaptation, like any other.
Being a health professional of some sort I know you’ve heard of natural selection, so needn’t remind you that the higher the sex drive the more likely to procreate. This is illustrated by the fact that I believe it’s millions of people in the far east included the genes of Genghis Khan. The reason being that he fathered hundreds of children through rape.
Jane made some good points I want to expound on.
Emotions and feelings come from the subconscious instinctive side. They emote us, force us to do things that will solve or meet our needs.
We do nothing without stimulation. We wouldn’t even blink if our eyes didn’t need moisture.
The body sends messages all the time. Cells actually communicate with each other. But messages about needs get sent to the subconscious, which translates them into feelings which are sent to consciousness.
There we feel hunger, pain, the need to go to the toilet, an itch and anything else you can think of to do with the state of the body. We know what these feelings mean and we do something about them.
Most needs feel strange or bad. An itch is a strange feeling with urgency about it. Scratching feels really good, and relieves the itch. The need to go to the toilet often feels bad, and urgent. Going is a relief and feels good.
Even if it doesn’t feel bad, you feel the needs your body has and the feeling of having a need is always met with some sort of action which attempts to resolve the need. When that is done the feeling of relief tells us the need has been met. We categorize that as a good feeling.
All of this is done by chemical triggers’. That is what the brain evolved to do. It evolved to coordinate a large body of cells in the form of organs etc, to satisfy their needs and help them survive as a unit.
Sex is no different. A body of chemicals are released that tell the brain it’s time to procreate. It feels strange and urgent, uncomfortable, etc, until the process is started and ended, all of which feels great because a need was resolved.
All feeling is mental. When you hurt your leg, contrary to common sense, there is no pain in the leg, it’s in the mind and comes from the subconscious. This has been shown time and time again. If the nerve which sends damage signals to the brain is cut or blocked, there is no pain. No feeling what so ever.
People who lose a leg often feel the missing leg because the brain actually stores an inventory of your parts. That inventory isn’t altered by the severing of the limb, so parts of the subconscious “thinks” it’s still there. Other parts of the subconscious know it isn’t which causes conflict, and conflicting signals which translate to the conscious as feelings.
All of these processes are out of conscious control.
Sorry but erosion is a process. Your definition is but one common use. A process is also defined as "A
natural series of changes. The ageing process, for example. And I think you responded to the wrong post. Just fyiI was showing that not all processes have sentience behind them. Unless of course you claim god created the process.But then there is no argument to be had as you have to show a god exists before I can take your word for it.
@Slarty:
What you term "speculation" are actually arguments... 20 arguments that are based on or undergirded by philosophical/rational thinking that from my point of view tangentially touches the empirical as well.I haven't seen them then. Could you point me to them or lay them out for me here? Perhaps someone already has but I missed it. Thanks.
For your elucidation here are the 20 arguments (1) from Change, (2) from Efficient Causality, (3) from Time and Contingency, (4) from Degrees of Perfection, (5) from design, (6) from Contingency, (7) from The world as an Interacting Whole, (8) from Miracles, (9) from Consciousness, (10) from Truth, (11) from the Origin of the Idea of God, (12) from Conscience, (13) from Desire, (14) from Aesthetic Experience, (15) from Religious Experience, (16) Kalam Argument, (17) Ontological Argument, (18) Moral Argument, (19) Common Consent Argument, (20) Pascal's Wager.
My favorite is as you already know is #7. I am assuming that Phoenix'es favorite is #10.
One of your cohort in the non-believers camp, Wilderness, just hates Pascal's Wager... I suppose because it predicts fire and brimstone to those who do not believe.Ah yes. I've seen them all and have logical rebuttals for each.Nothing new there. I thought these were twenty augments you had devised.
@Slarty: Me devising on my own these 20 arguments? Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not as philosophically keen and astute as you might be beginning to think.
But do humor me with your "logical rebuttals". I might yet learn a thing or two from that dissection and discussion.
Well I was hopping for something new. None of the ones you mentioned are very convincing and some are downright illogical.
For example, Rene Descartes had the idea that perfection is something so far beyond our experience that for us to conceive of it without it being implanted in us by god would be impossible. But that's absurd because we as humans are always thinking of how to meet or solve our needs. We can imagine how life could be better, and then move on to the next problem, etc. In the end when your problems are all solved and you could wish for nothing else, you achieve the concept of perfection.
And that's just one contemplative rout, there are others. No god required.
That little wager.. Well, he mustn't have thought his god was too bright. What he is asking the atheist to do is hedge his bets and believe just in case. What a ruse. Doesn't he think god could see through that? And if it is the Christian god then as far as I know from the bible that might get you in world more trouble then just not believing it exists. There is of course more, but I'll let that suffice for now
Is god perfect? No. Because a perfect thing has no needs, and hence no need to create us or anything else. If it has needs it is tied to them as we are. That's just one reason. Creativity is always a response to conflict/need. Is god messed up? does it require creation to fulfill itself or solve a problem? Why would a perfect thing create imperfect things?
And the idea that we made ourselves imperfect is absurd because it would mean we were never perfect to begin with, or we wouldn't have done what ever we are supposed to have done..
Absolute objective Perfection isn't even possible. Only relative perfection is, and that is subjective.
Any argument in particular you'd like me to deconstruct for you?
@Slarty:
Your statement "I can show you nature creating" should be revised to include the fact that what you term "creating" is actually "changing" i.e changes imposed on natural entities by systematic forces that are outside and/or inside those natural entities that are themselves the result of changes imposed by some other sytematic forces... in a long string of sytematic forces acting on natural entities that leads to changes until stability is achieved or disolution completed.And which leads us to a closely related argument for God's existence, i.e. The Argument From Change, which briefly stated goes this way: IF, there is nothing outside the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change. BUT it does change, therefore, there must be something in addition to the material universe. Additionally, the universe is the sum total of all matter, space, and time--- these 3 things depend on each other, thus this being/entity outside the universe is outside matter, time, and space. It is not a changing thing; It is the unchanging Source of Change.
"And which leads us to a closely related argument for God's existence, i.e. The Argument From Change, which briefly stated goes this way: IF, there is nothing outside the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change. BUT it does change, therefore, there must be something in addition to the material universe. Additionally, the universe is the sum total of all matter, space, and time--- these 3 things depend on each other, thus this being/entity outside the universe is outside matter, time, and space. It is not a changing thing; It is the unchanging Source of Change."
Now lets look at this argument for a second. Premise: “IF, there is nothing outside the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change.”
Is that true? Where does someone get such an idea? The material world changes due to the nature of what it is made of. There is nothing but change going on in the universe through the interactions of all things.
Interaction within the universe effects the universe and changes it. No outside force is required.
Since the premise is wrong the entire argument is void.
But let’s look at the rest anyway.
“these 3 things depend on each other, thus this being/entity outside the universe is outside matter, time, and space. It is not a changing thing; It is the unchanging Source of Change."
“these 3 things depend on each other, thus”
So because those three things depend on each other we suddenly discover the being is outside the universe and unchanging. How does this follow? It doesn’t. By follow I mean how do you deduce from the dependence of things in the universe what a being outside the universe must be?
There is a step or two missing in the reasoning, and frankly I don’t think there is a logical deductive way to get to what a being outside the universe must be, from the dependence of things in the universe.
At any rate a lot more work needs to be done for this argument to fly. Can you tell me the source you used?@ slarty:
The premise is derived from the fact that we ca not explain the change based on the changing thing alone, because other things are also involved. Nothing can give itself what it does not have, and the changing thing cannot have now, already, what it will come to have then. The result of change cannot actually exist before the change. The changing thing begins with only the potential for change, but it needs to be acted on by other things outside if that potential is to be made actual. Otherwise it cannot change.
Nothing changes itself. Are the other things outside the changing thing also changing? Are its movers also moving? If so all of them stand in need right now of being acted on by other things, or else they cannot change. No matter how many things there are in a series, each one needs something outside itself to actual ice its potentiality for change.I seem to be missing something in this argument that nothing ever changes itself.
A long time ago, there was a comet in the solar system, out past Pluto. Now it is literally inside Jupiter, in pieces. The solar system changed without any outside force.
There was also a bare patch of ground, on earth, some 2000 years ago. Now there is a redwood tree there. The solar system changed itself, and with negative entropy.
There is more helium in the sun than there was yesterday, and less hydrogen. The solar system changed itself.
Likewise, the universe changes itself all the time; one day Andromeda and the Milky Way will become one, and without influence from outside the universe.
You say the universe changes, but WITH an outside force; can you list some of those changes? I'm just not thinking of anything that came from outside our universe and that has changed it.“ The premise is derived from the fact that we ca not explain the change based on the changing thing alone, because other things are also involved. Nothing can give itself what it does not have, and the changing thing cannot have now, already, what it will come to have then.”
With you so far. Things change each other through interaction. A person can’t fulfill their potential to be a doctor without interacting in the process, for example.
“ The result of change cannot actually exist before the change”
Sure. Goes without saying.
” The changing thing begins with only the potential for change, but it needs to be acted on by other things outside if that potential is to be made actual. Otherwise it cannot change.”
Yup.
“Nothing changes itself.”
Nothing even moves without stimulation internally or externally. We’re good so far.
“Are the other things outside the changing thing also changing? Are its movers also moving? If so all of them stand in need right now of being acted on by other things, or else they cannot change.”
We’re almost there and so far we agree.
“No matter how many things there are in a series, each one needs something outside itself to actual ice its potentiality for change.”
You got it. The universe is a system with an abundance of energy and matter. It can keep changing as a system as well as in parts indefinitely. So what is your point really?
Obviously you are saying that for this to exist something stable outside it had to start it. Right?
Why? Again there are plenty of models including BB which don’t require an outside force.
A universe that goes from BB to big crunch eternally doesn’t need anything else.
If energy is god, for example, it’s eternal so always was in one form or other.
A Black hole muliverse doesn’t need one Penrose’s Aeons don’t need one. And there are a dozen more.
The point being you can offer your god as a model but it’s only one of many for the same facts. These facts don’t prove your model is correct.The point is the universe (including your "black hole multiverse or Penrose Aeons") is the sum total of all moving things, however many there are. The whole universe is in contant flux i.e. changing. But we have already seen that change in any being/entitiy requires an outside force to actualize its potential for change. The force outside the universe, is some real being transcendent to the universe... thus your idea that mass and energy initiated the whole process of creation is counterintuitive because mass and energy are part and parcel of the material universe.
The universe is a system made up of various forms of energy. It is self sustaining and ever changing because that’s the nature of energy. It is stimulation in and of itself. Light, for instance, cannot rest. That’s a stimulant in and of itself.
Atoms try to find their lowest possible output of energy, but even under peak conditions that output is never zero. What creates us is naturally energetic No god is required for things to change. All things have more than enough internal and external stimulus to change. In fact change in all things is inevitable.
You don’t mean god is doing everything do you?
What you mean is something had to start the chain, and we’ve established that’s not necessarily true.
The "Argument from Contingeny" is a corollary argument in the sense that it simplifies the idea of a transcendent being.
So if something exists, there must exist what it takes for that thing to exist. You and I and all the other sentient beings on earth could attest to the fact that the universe (ie collections of beings in space and time), so there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist.
What it takes for the universe to exist CANNOT EXIST WITHIN THE UNIVERSE, or be bounded by SPACE and TIME. Thus what it takes for the universe to exist MUST TRANSCEND both space and time.
A transcendent-sentient being... GOD."What it takes for the universe to exist CANNOT EXIST WITHIN THE UNIVERSE, or be bounded by SPACE and TIME. Thus what it takes for the universe to exist MUST TRANSCEND both space and time."
Sorry, that doesn't fly. Again you assume "What it takes for the universe to exist CANNOT EXIST WITHIN THE UNIVERSE" Of course it can and must. The universe is energy. Energy has created everything from self. That's Science, not just philosophy. No outside force required.And by the way, even if you proved that something outside the universe had to exist, it would tell you nothing about what that thing would be. Could be other universes. Could be anything. Right now outside the universe is a completely speculative concept. There may not be an outside.
So even were you to prove the theory itself, you still have to prove that there is an outside to the universe, a god/conscious being is the culprit, and then that it is the Christian variety.
Good luck with that.
@Slarty:
Luck has nothing to do when trying to prove that a BEING or ENTITY exist outside of the universe, thus beyond the purview of TIME and SPACE. If you are looking for empirical evidence, then you do need not a lot of luck.
If we assume that the Big Bang was the moment when our universe (at least) began to exist in TIME because SPACE expanded and mass/energy began to create the material objects that now populate the universe, then the necessary conclusion of that assumption is that at the moment the universe began to exist ALL BEING, must trace its origin to some past moment before which there existed-literally- nothing at all. BUT from nothing, nothing comes, so the universe could not have begun. Let us suppose the universe never began, then for the infinitely long duration of cosmic history, all being had the built-in possibility not to be. But if in an infinite time that possibility was never realized, then it could not have been a real possibility at all.
The conclusion then becomes: There must exist something which has to exist which cannot NOT exist. A necessary BEING.
Either this necessity belongs to the BEING in itself or it is derived from another. If derived from another, there MUST ULTIMATELY exist a BEING whose necessity is NOT derived, that is an absolutely necessary BEING.... GOD.Well you have a slight problem. The BB postulates a singularity which consisted of all the energy that now exists compressed to the size of a golf ball or smaller. Not nothing. Sorry about that.
Also you still have the same problem as before. Even were you correct in thinking BB was something from nothing, which it isn't, then this thing that stimulated its existence could be anything. A god is no where near a forgone conclusion.
But as it turns out you weren't correct.
Just another note: The singularity is considered the universe in a highly dense state. It didn't begin with the expansion. However time and space probably began with the expansion. That's not entirely clear as we don't know exactly how compressed it was. Most scientists think many of the laws of physics we have now didn't apply in the singularity. But that doesn't mean there were no laws of physics at all. They would have been different according to the exact nature of the state, but we have as yet no way to know what laws it operated by pre-expansion.
BB is but one model, and it's a good one. There is another which talks about gigantic black holes swallowing universes, compressing them and spewing them out the other end where they expand again. Big bang by gigantic black hole.
No, I don't know if the hypothesis is correct and I'm not endorsing it. Just pointing out that there are plenty of alternatives to a god even outside the universe, were an outside of the universe a reality.Bad enough that I am but an insignificant speck in the universe, but to think I am but an insignificant speck of...waste, shall we politely say, of a black is outrageous. I reject that possibility as obviously impossible.
lol... The Egyptians thought god masturbated us into existence. Better than black hole poop? But then my father did... well never mind. Guess the Egyptian idea wasn't so far fetched after all.
I found this writing to be the most interesting, well written piece I have seen on these Pages in a long time. I have read minimal comments.
Your extrapolation of Norris Clarke’s philosophy is stimulating and concise. I too, perceive a world whose Laws are not random occurrences but interconnected, working within a framework of universal intent. The following was written in response to the leap from Nature to God you stated in your last paragraph.
A UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE, i.e GOD
A UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE, i.e Nature i.e., the World as an Interacting Whole under the Laws of nature
The more poignant questions beyond the observation of Nature; is there an intelligent Architect who created Nature? Did this creator design this universe with purpose, aforethought and attention? Does that force exist to this day and if so, what relationship does this force have on individuals?
To me, the beauty of Nature and God’s hand in its creation is evident every day, but the observation of the interrelations between living things beyond the physical, the sometimes uncanny synchronicity of thoughts and movements, indicate to me a connection with a higher, unseen power on an individual basis. As electricity, radio and TV broadcasting bands, ultrasound and other undetectable to the unaided eye waves and currents flow thru and around us, so then I believe does the shimmering wave of The Creator, the Life Force, The Alpha and The Omega, The Beginning and The End, The Ever-present Now, i.e. the eternal GOD, flow through and around us.
Access to this wave is something-+
that each individual possesses.
like a river of light given as a birthright.
I have come to realize that it is each individual’s task (like it or not) to rediscover and reconnect with God. This is the primal law. All living things are on the same journey of which mankind is the crown of creation. The laws of Nature guide us on our way. The laws of Man not so much, and have often gone far astray of both Nature and God.
Science discovers little, the major breakthroughs are merely rediscovery of what has always been here, the science is in creating applications that put these breakthroughs to use. Darwin, Newton, Tesla, Einstein – Rediscoverers; important work yes, but let us lay importance on that which is most important. God. Of each individual’s most important concern (like it or not); our purpose in God’s plan.
Thanks for a thought provoking post.@elenin:
Your post is as thought provoking as the idea that man's destiny,since he's been made witness to God's creation , is to try to untangle and discover the mysteries of the universe, and in so doing, get closer to the creator of that universe.
This is obviously the one you like best so let's look at it this way.
In my alternative: energy is god. It is that which all things are made of. It is immortal, as in: always was in one form or other. It's nature are the laws of physics, which as you say are nothing but order. It's interactions are all with self creating interconnected systems within systems that all work as a unit in some ways, but as individuals in others.
In this sense there is nothing but god. However there is no need for it to be intelligent in the way we humans think of it.
It doesn't have to explain its existence as it is eternal. No beginning to explain. Just like the Christian god, so no middle men required.
It creates from self. It is light.
All the religious metaphors fit. It created the earth, and it was void and shapeless. It then populated the earth, made rain, created light/photons and bunch of types of light we don't see. It is the stars, the planets. It is everywhere and everything at once.
There is nothing else. And best of all, we know it exists.
But don't worry, you not believing in it won't piss it off. But my advice is: live by the rules of cause and effect. Learn them well. Because if you mess with it, it'll slap you down so hard.A lot of what you say, seems absolutely true to me too. When you say: "All the religious metaphors fit."
I wonder how you cannot make the connection.
I guess some 3,000 year old sheepherders got lucky?Or had good imaginations. Those things were there in the sky, a moon, stars, the sun. Questions like where did we come from asked abundantly
Some ask why they know water was created before man kind? Well water is essential to us. No water, no air, no sky no land, no us. They weren't stupid. They knew what they could observe, made some pretty good deductions about some things and didn't do so well on others.
The garden story tried to explain why life was hard. We pissed off god. Ok, that explains it... to a guy 5000 years ago and present day believers. Doesn't wash with logic or reality though..
And I did make the connections. I'm pointing out that energy is exactly like your god in all ways but human style intelligence and human attributes. It doesn't need them itself. It has us for that.
By the way,the last post and the above describe a religion called Scientific Pantheism.So are your religious beliefs scientific pantheism? I am a Scientific Methodist myself, with a website about it, currently in the wings. It is interesting that you say that reality or all energy is kind of like God, but doesn't need human intelligence, because it has us for that.
Well congratulations. You must tell me about it in detail.
You asked if I’m a Pantheist. Sorry, but that’s a long post. Ready? Here goes.
My relationship with Pantheism is complicated. In the late 1990s Paul Harrison contacted me to see if I’d be interested in putting together a religion/world view for atheists with numinous feelings.
Atheism means only one thing, the person does not hold a belief in gods. It doesn’t tell you anything else about them or they might feel or believe or not believe.
I had a web page at the time called the Heretic’s home page, and he knew that my opinions on that page reflected his.
He had already chosen the name for it because it actually almost mirrored Spinoza’s Pantheism, but we would get our information about the world through science.
The difference between Spinoza’s Pantheism and ours is that Spinoza postulated a completely connected though still separate god. All things together are god, but god itself is somehow more than all things. Not a personal god, of course: nature.
Scientific Pantheism is like the Brahman. There is nothing but god. All of nature is god, or all of nature qualifies as god, though we generally don’t call it god because a god is generally above all else and since all is god, nothing is objectively above or below, so there is no god in the traditional sense, and we’re back to being atheists.
After we started getting a great deal of interest we started a debate list so people could voice their opinions on Pantheism. Later we created a credo and formed The World Pantheist movement, not to convert people, merely to let them know about us.
We don’t have anything to sell, like salvation. People call themselves Pantheists because it was always their world view and they didn’t have a name for it.
Our membership grew all over the world, but especially in Italy where a real time pantheist communities sprang up in short order.
But I’m a heretic at heart. I can’t stay in one place intellectually; I always want to know more. One of my first personal tenets was: learn from everything, fall to nothing. I was beginning to formulate new Ideas about the Pantheist god, to try to nail it down to one thing or aspect of the totality.
I don’t feel comfortable when Pantheists say the universe is god, because while it might be the case in one sense it isn’t the source. So once I had pinned down energy as the source I revised my Pantheism and changed the name of my world view to Rational Pantheism.
I left the WPM around that time for that reason as well as other differences with Paul.
In almost all other respects our world views are the same.
Since then I’ve also taken on a new philosophical position: non-belief. I actively try to live without belief or faith in anything at all. Reason being: There are only ever three options. Something is fact, or it is speculation. The third option is deception, but I give most ideas the benefit of the doubt on that score.
Facts do not require faith or belief. They require acceptance once known to be fact. And even then acceptance always depends on them remaining facts. Speculation should not be believed because to do so can be foolish, dangerous at times and heartbreaking if proven false.
In any case there is never a need for belief or faith. Wait and see or I don’t know are perfectly acceptable positions to hold on all speculative claims.
What I’m advocating is the incorporation of the scientific method into the way we think and run our lives. Particularly for people looking for truth.
My target audience is mostly the seekers who are looking for a place to start, which is why I wrote a book called The Seeker’s Guide.
So am I still a Pantheist? Yes, but I’ve moved on from basic Scientific Pantheism, to an expanded version. A world view of one, that I know of. It’ll probably always be that way."It is interesting that you say that reality or all energy is kind of like God, but doesn't need human intelligence, because it has us for that."
Is god. Well it was just a way to put it, but yes. We have a specific kind of intelligence which I think is unique to sufficiently advanced biology. But most animals get along just fine without our kind of intelligence.
Our subconscious is really wh at drives us and sustains us. What we call intellect is a tool. Unfortunately, in some ways, it is also the seat of self identity. We place most importance on that aspect of mind. But again not everything even needs a brain. Plants do really well without them. They don't need them.
In fact the brain is only useful for things that move. A Sea Squirt is a plant that reproduces via small tadpole like creatures. They have a brain and use it to find a good spot to dig in. Then while they wait to root and for food, they eat their brain. They no longer need it.
Energy works by its nature. It has no need to think. It's not biological.But we do have to think, and we are energy, and thus we get to contemplate and learn. What does energy need to learn?
It's fine without human intellect, it creates human intellect, that's one of its forms. Why? Obviously as a consequence of its nature.
And so it goes....a total eclipse of the mind that has become darkened by so much exploration and extrapolation of the physical and material that then leads inevitably to the total elimination and rejection of the spiritual foundation of sentient existence. A pity really, to think about it, and yet despite Pascal's wager of eternal damnation of folks who do not believe in a supernatural force...that supernatural force is more than willing to forget and forgive because he loves all of his creation
That's an interesting word: Sentient:
sentient |ˈsenCH(ē)ənt| adjective
able to perceive or feel things:
sentience noun , (My use of noun in a sentence: I am a drop of sentience in an ocean of sentience.)
sentiently adverb: Dictionary
sentient
sentient adjective
(capable of) feeling, living, live; conscious, aware, responsive, reactive. ThesaurusOdd - I still don't see any evidence from you.
Pascals Wager - he never did indicate just why his god was the right one, you know. Just assumed, with the same appalling lack of logic his "proof" shows, that it was.
Perhaps that is a good thing - with the thousands upon thousands of claims, all totally unsupported, maybe it is best we just forget about the mythical "spiritual" world. All we ever get is claims, approximately as many as there are people, and that does no one any good at all.The only evidence that might sway you that God exist is when he presents himself to you in all his glory and splendor....but that would be too late, since by then you would be devoid of all your 5 senses....something that you valued so much while you were still living your earthly life.
Shall I then conclude that you really cannot support any of your opinions? If you can't, why put them out, then? Why would anyone simply accept your word - the word that is obviously based on ignorance rather than truth?
You can conclude whatevet strikes your fancy.
A divinely inspired human once said: "Don't be afraid.... the truth shall set you free."
As I see it you are so afraid , the truth has no chance of ever setting you free....from a life so totally tethered to the physical and material... a life lived in utter futility.As you see it. And what do you see that I'm so afraid of? Certainly not truth, as desire for truth would be a reason for requesting supporting evidence, while other fears could act in opposition to an active, questioning search for truth. What then?
Evidentiary interpretation and conclusions only happens in the physical world... a world that the supernatural force is not a part of, but the creation of which he was intimately involved in and to which he ordered laws to be applied to its orderly existence
Which does nothing to answer the question, does it?
But if evidentiary rules are not applicable to your supernatural world, how DO you find truth there? Just declare it is so without ever attempting to verify that the claim is true? How do you determine which opinion/claim/declaration is true, or do you just assume that anyone that makes a claim about the supernatural both knows and is telling the truth?You are also free to believe whatever you want to not believe,
but freedom has its cost made more severe, if that non belief restricts your in ate ability to perceptual I've and conceptualize and perpetualize and ultimately actualize thougts.Sounds like you're saying there is a cost to restricting the imagination to only what is real. This I would agree with, but absolutely draw the line when you think you can force imaginative thoughts automatically become real just from want. Or that deciding imagined things are real is the only way to "conceptualize and perpetualize and ultimately actualize thougts".
But I notice you declined to describe how truth is found in the "supernatural" world if evidentiary rules cannot be used. Care to expound on that now? Or, back to several posts ago, what you think I'm afraid of?Arguments (20 of them so far) for God's existence could be become instructive, thus ultimately constructive in building a case for what I am arguing for. Now you are arguing against God's existence solely on the basis of non-physical proof. I say those arguments make un-necessary those physical proofs you are adamantaly demading. Physical proofs that in the supernatural world is superfluous to say the least.
You can say that logically fallacious arguments make physical evidential arguments unnecessary all you please, but that doesn't make it so. It is just another way of saying "I can't prove anything at all but you should believe me anyway because I want to be right". And that no one in their right mind will ever swallow.
Yes, I find arguments for a gods existence to be instructive or I wouldn't be here. I believe you have misunderstood all along: I do not argue against any god's existence. I argue against using false claims as "proof" or even "evidence" of that existence. It is thus the reasoning process to get to the god that I disagree with, not the god itself. After all, the Christian god is defined in such a way as to be impossible to either prove or disprove. Pascal apparently realized this, and instead of trying for a proof tried for a reason to believe without that proof. He failed miserably, but that he did not try to prove the existence of his god is instructive.
I assume you have given up on explaining how truth is found in the supernatural world you propose to exist. But if you can't tell truth from fallacy in that world, how do you know your god is not a powerful but evil ET that murdered the creator and stepped into His shoes to create havoc in His creations? That created the lie of Satan to cover its own evil deeds? God knows ( ) there is enough evil in the world to make that scenario possible.The evil that you are so upset about are all man made. Having been given free will man is free to do whatever he damn pleases.... or believe whatever decides to believe in.
I don't know about the "given" part, but I do agree that it is from man.
I AM a little surprised to hear it from you, though. How can you be sure it isn't from the supernatural world - the place where you cannot differentiate good from evil or truth from lie? Is it because you have simply decided to believe it comes from man, without ever knowing whether it did or not?
The 20 arguments for God's existence that I referenced in the OP, are from my perspective, not logically fallacious arguments. If you review them carefully, you will find nuggets of persuasive truths scattered along a logical discussion of all these arguments in varying degrees of validity. Taken together, theses arguments, can persuade the most open mindedness nonbelievers. Apparently you are not one of them.
<"Jesus came with a message on how to live a "good" life.">
"And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."
Why did he say that do you suppose?
To me, God is Universal Spirit.
If we tune into Universal Spirit and become one with it, (or Jesus who was one with it,) in consciousness, (through intuition,) we become good.
It works scientifically, in my understanding.
I am just sharing possibilities based on ideas I have been exposed to and which make sense to me.
(...and based on results from meditation.)
Just Sharin'.Hey, A.Villarasa,
Happy eclipse/blood red moon:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31965456
Some say it will bring forth greater enlightenment. Thanks for ALL your contributions!<"But if you can't tell truth from fallacy in that world, how do you know your god is not a powerful but evil ET that murdered the creator and stepped into His shoes to create havoc in His creations? That created the lie of Satan to cover its own evil deeds? God knows ( smile ) there is enough evil in the world to make that scenario possible.">
What evidence would there be of an evil ET causing the havoc when clearly ONLY MEN & WOMEN create it?!!?
None.
There is evidence, however, that a Creator created all the good, (and strange… like mosquitos, cockroaches, vampire bats and snakes, etc., including bigfoots perhaps if they exist…) What is the evidence? Nature.
PS
Q. How is truth is found in the supernatural world
A. Since the parts make sense only within the whole, and neither the whole nor the part can explain their own existence, then such a system as our world/universe, requires a UNIFYING EFFICIENT CAUSE to posit it in existence as unified whole.
Not by positing? Then by observing.By the definitions that have come out in this thread, none whatsoever. The exact same evidence from the supernatural world that a god did it or that it was good rather than evil.
But you cannot observe the supernatural world. You cannot tell, there, the difference between good and evil, right and wrong or truth and lie. What comes from that world, then, can be either of those things, or neither - as it may be lie we can't even tell from the events it causes as we cannot determine the ultimate goal OR the path being used to get there. Again, from the discussion in this thread, anyway....what if you consider that this IS, (edit: or an extension of,) the supernatural world? and IT IS! I am a supernatural being in a (pretty much) supernatural world.
Supernatural refers to that which is not subject to the laws of physics or, more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature. I think scientists would agree, they sure don't understand it all!
- right?I see. Our world, an extension of the supernatural world, does not follow the laws of physics. Not sure where you get your information, but you need to find another source.
Yes, you can consider such a thing. Does it make it true, that you consider it so? Well, no. That takes evidence, evidence which you decline to supply.
No, scientists don't understand it all (and never will). Is that a reason to postulate another universe, just to answer questions science hasn't answered? More importantly, is it a reason to declare that other universe exists? Well, no. Ignorance is never a reason to make up answers without knowing if they are true.Is that a reason to postulate another universe?
I did not postulate another universe. I am saying the meta-physical and the physical worlds are, in all actuality, one and the same in essence. The physical world is slowed down; it is way way slower.Is it a reasonable to postulate a much faster world as being the same thing as the slower one we inhabit?
You know, changing the word from "universe" to "world" doesn't actually change the rationale behind the statement. And no, if the "essence" of one is to obey physical laws while the other does not, that's a pretty big difference. Far too much to be saying they are of the same "essence".One is fast one is slow… they (world/universe, whatever,) are of the same essence. God "became" (my interpretation of "created",) "light…" according to the Bible… what is "light" in all actuality? The source and essence of ALL that exists.
http://www.ps.uci.edu/~superk/neutrino.htmlLight is a photon. Obviously the bible is wrong (again) as god does not reside in this universe - He had another one to live in while forming this one. Claiming light is the source and essence (there's that "essence" again) of all is once more unsupported and without evidence. Matter is not light, atoms are not light and YOU are not light.
But why would you post a link about neutrinos? They are not light.because neutrinos are also God manifesting. it is ALL God manifesting. what you see and observe all around you is not evidence… it IS God: The Slowed Down version.
Neutrinos are a bit faster, I would guess.
"How particles acquire mass is one of the deepest unsolved mysteries of elementary particle physics."
http://www.ps.uci.edu/~superk/significance.htmlNo it isn't. No god there to be manifested.
There. I made a foolish statement, too. And if you will provide proof of yours I will do the same.
But you would guess wrong. Einstein showed that long ago; nothing travels faster than light.God = death.
- but gee, there is life
See? I can make unsupported statements, too!No, you are just not getting it.
No God = no life OR death.
- obviously.
Are you a subjective reality, wilderness?
No.
So you are god, slowed down (not God speeded up.)Democracies require the morals and values which come about with the belief in a creator.
More importantly, without a Creator who gave us our human rights, we wouldn't know what they are.
- we wouldn't have any.
The laws of nature and the laws of nature's God are the basis for our human rights.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--"
It is really in our best interest to believe in Creator/Father/God/MTO…even if one can't identify god/God as one's own existence/awareness/objective reality.
Someday all will be able to. Meanwhile, I, for one, am encouraged by discussions like this one.
TWISIMr. A.Villarasa - More than the sum of parts:
I look out at reality and I see an orchestra, improvising as they go, a new song, right now. I do not know how many band members there are: 1, 2, 3, 5 or an infinite number. I see the song with my eyes or mind. Reality is their song, the song resides within the parameters of fundamental frequencies possible, (physicalism) so it has those limits, but the improvised melodies/chorus/timing are unlimited (ineffable) (more than the sum) because of the style. I am just a fan of the band.I like this. The song is limited in many ways - by the number of people in the orchestra, the possible frequencies, the number of different instruments used, the abilities of the players (novice, expert and so on) and other factors as well.
Just as the universe is changing. It, too, is limited - by the natural laws of physics, chemistry, etc, by the number of atoms, by the energy available, by the time since creation and so one. Different sections show different development stages, from old, dead stars surrounded by cold, dead planets to stars just being born or just dying in a super nova. Life perhaps arises here but not there simply from statistical coincidence. A continually changing, growing universe without the need for human approval (unlike the orchestra).
I like it.Possible frequencies, a mind operating within the range of its perceptions, (however much or little), a bias towards physicalism, empiricism, a posteriori. Here is what ya get:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0I4mTEdAf8
Possible frequencies, a mind operating within the range of it's perceptions, (however much or little), a bias towards rationalism, a priori. Here is what it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TmxfHbd-M0Although reality contains both:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0I4mTEdAf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TmxfHbd-M0
I speculate that if your perception of reality was actually true we would not be having a discussion, because we would be here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0I4mTEdAf8
But it is self evident that we are here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0I4mTEdAf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TmxfHbd-M0
But this is where we are now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TmxfHbd-M0
Otherwise, like I said, we would not be having this discussion.I think you have a very skewed concept of what the term "rationalism" actually means.
"rationalism
[ ˈraSHənlˌizəm, ˈraSHnəˌlizəm ]
NOUN
a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response:
"scientific rationalism"I have been a rationalist for over 30 years.
rationalism, in Western philosophy, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical structure, the rationalist asserts that a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly. There are, according to the rationalists, certain rational principles—especially in logic and mathematics, and even in ethics and metaphysics—that are so fundamental that to deny them is to fall into contradiction.
Rationalism has long been the rival of empiricism...
empiricists <---- you know the type, they're always comically running around wanting proof of yesterday and everything else.
Phoenix V wrote : Evidence and or empiricism is only as good as the logic that upholds it. Why drink from a puddle when you can drink from the source. page 2 on the it certainly is reasonable to believe that God is "existing" thread.But then we come to that belief in a god from another universe. Rational? No, of course not - only ignorance coupled with a desire for answers can produce such a belief. Never "reason and knowledge rather than religious belief or emotional response".
Do not confuse "rationalize" with "rational"; they are the antipathy of each other. "Rationalize" results in the statement that "reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" without regard to the reality of the premise(s) being used and can very seldom be used as a test of knowledge. That comes from observation and physical testing, used to determine if the reasoning process was correct or simply the result of GIGO.
As an example, consider the reasoning that dark matter is exists and is the force driving the universe apart. We could stop there, having reasoned our way to such a concept, but we aren't. Great effort is being put into testing that conclusion, and only when that testing is positive can we actually say we have expanded our knowledge base and that dark matter/energy exists. Not when we have "reasoned" our way to it's existence.Well, I am sure you would agree that understanding information is different than a google search or copying out of a text book and floating it past an indifferent teacher. I have studied the classic Rationalists for over 3 decades and even blogged about them for a decade at least. So I am pretty sure I know what I am and what it actually means.
That's fine and good, but when you use professional jargon to the population in general, and when it is not the same meaning as that general population assigns to it, there will be a problem.
How so? Unless you are referring to the decision to appeal to emotionalism in declaring a god rather than reason?
A question cannot be a strawman argument; it cannot be an argument at all. Or are you just flinging out terms that have nothing to do with anything?
All that has been presented including this thread are various cosmological arguments, as opposed to your suggestions of red herrings, which are many. Instead of actually rebutting them with arguments you say things like "spouting off out of ignorance" or " only ignorance" or they are just emotional appeals and these responses are allowed to be pawned off as actual rebuttal.
That's correct. The accumulated knowledge that we have of why the big bang occurred , plus unsupported claims that there is a god that did it. The rebuttal consists of knowledge that contradicts the necessity of a god (repeatedly claimed); the ignorance refers to claims based on lack of knowledge.
Do you have something else to add, or will it be one of those "rational" claims that need no support because the massive brain power that produced it is always right (if I'm reading your rationalist arguments correctly)?Your rebuttal consists of a claim of knowledge you nor anyone else has.
"knowledge that contradicts the necessity of God" even though and (more importantly I have to guess because it lacks any real substance ), because you just throw it out there as if it actually means something other than a superficial, allusion to I suspect a book, about unproven, unobservable theories, among countless theories, is a non sequitur. I may or may not do the dishes If I don't or I never did, do I stop existing? What I do or don't do is irrelevant. Deists or really pantheists, might suggest that, all is God. Now, many cosmological arguments (contingency) are presented, but there are others such as ontological and PSR and many more. These are not arguments based on ignorance or lack of knowledge. Far from it. What is lacking is an ability to understand them. They are based upon arguments made using logic by people that invented logic. These kinds of arguments come from Aristotle to Leibniz, formalized by Godel, debated by Descartes and Spinoza, pondered by Boole and they are all rolling in their graves.The OP is not a cosmological argument from contingency. It is considered a teleological argument, but I think an unsupported ontological argument.
" a god that did it" shows a lack of ability to understand any of the arguments.Negative - the "arguments" are well understood. Outside of Pascals Wager (which has nothing to do with the existence of a god) they all boil down to "I don't understand, and don't think it possible any other way without knowing if that is true or not, so there has to be a god". A simple statement of "Order cannot make itself" simply does not lead to "There is a god", except in the mind of someone that has already determined that they wish the god to exist.
But you cannot seem to differentiate the arguments. But it is an intriguing argument brought to us by Mr. A.Villarasa. It is a shame that he seems to have truncated the best parts in my opinion. But I think I can put it in a country boys language because it sounds kind of familiar to what Abe Lincoln or someone once said: You see a bunch of hammers and saws laying around, some nails and planks, bunches of shingles and bricks and it don't take too much intelligence to figure out someone is building a cabin. But what we have here is a a bunch of trucks loaded with pre-fabricated parts, that all fit together, and construction workers all putting it together, don't take too much intelligence to figure out that there exists a blueprint out there. Kind of a jump to a conclusion of a God, but sure points to a designer.
First, we may as well go ahead and name the designer "God" - we all know that is intended to be the end result.
But have you looked at an ant hill? Or did god make that, too? How abut a birds nest? A difference only in degree and in time necessary to complete the task.
The premise is still "I dunno how it happened, but don't understand how it could be natural, so goddunnit". Prettying the language with "don't take too much intelligence to figure out that there exists a blueprint out there" doesn't change a thing (at least until that blueprint is found on God's desk and examined). It's still "I dunno, so goddunnit".I once ordered a kit plane online for 20k. Big truck delivered it, it was in a bazillion prefabricated parts from the tiniest piece imaginable to the largest piece imaginable. It all snapped itself together and flew off. Biggest waste o' money I ever spent. I don't not have enough faith for stories like that I guess.
And if your story were true, would you then declare a god put it together and made it fly? Or would you look for the computer with arms that was hidden in the stack? Would you find the special (very special!
) magnets that drew it together in such a way it would fly? Would you look for the sneaky SOB that did the work at night while you were asleep (I once convinced a friend his new truck was getting 50 MPG by adding a little gas to his tank each day)? Would you triple check the date to make sure you weren't asleep (or drugged) for a week? Would you check your paperwork to verify you didn't dream or hallucinate the whole thing?
Or would you just say "I dunno - must have been a god!"?
I am currently building a chicken coop. (seriously) the blueprint is entirely in my mind. I would let you examine it, but no telling what else you might find, while you are rooting around in there.
@Phoenix:
In whatever language, musicality, would still smell as sweet. God in his repose is obviously enjoying the musicality of his creation.
It's pretty simple for me really. We live in a deterministic reality. We have one freewill choice. It created that one freewill choice. I can get on board with it or I can jump off a building and deny the reality of sidewalks. Regardless, calmly, quietly, it will impose its will for all to see. You can bet your bottom dollar.
All of which (model, chicken coop and sidewalks) have nothing to do with the big bang. The statement that we live in a deterministic reality does, but you can offer no evidence that that reality then (I know, poor choice of words when there is no time) was the same one the big bang came from. It is supposition only, based on experience of a very (very) different reality.
But this is getting interesting. If I'm understanding you correctly all that is needed for a correct conclusion that matches reality is cerebration. Rational thought will always produce a correct answer if carried out properly.
Yet, rational thought (knowledge the earth was the center of everything) produced stars and planets that rotated around earth. Rational thought told us humans could never fly and that the earth was flat. Rational thought told us black holes could not exist. And rational thought is telling us that because everything we are familiar with is deterministic (with cause), then everything we aren't familiar with and have no experience with is the same. Yes?
I think jumping to a "god" makes sense for some people. I suppose it isn't necessary for it to be god for all people, but it does need to be something that can be highly intelligent, have a will, a mind, and be capable to create laws of nature, and much more. So what are some other options? This is a discussion that should be had I think, especially for atheists, but really for all of us. The problem becomes what seems to be almost an avoidance of the point, which then opens the door for simple dismissal and maybe denial. It hasn't been shown to be warranted though. If there is a god, this is precisely the kind of thing that rightly would point to his existence. It would be fair too, if he is the cause, that he gets this kind of "coverage", lol. If its an ET of some kind, then it deserves the credit, etc.
Its not really reasonable to assume its ok with the rest of all history till now, that we can expect causes for effects, EXCEPT for what seems to be the biggest event of all time. The beginning of all we know, which resulted in things like laws of nature, and more wills and intellects that can ponder such things. For me the question becomes, why NOT ask for the reason for this biggest question with the biggest repurcussions for all time for all of us?If God doesn't need a cause, then why does the universe?
I thought God had a cause: He wanted to focus on something outside himself…therefore the universe...
?Oh yes, well I can see that being reasoning for a cause to create the universe. Makes sense to me.
I guess the issue is cause vs. no cause. Cause being proof of God. Everything is proof of God, cause or not, I say.
Can you elucidate on that cause being proof of a god? As we don't know of any cause, or what it might be, it could very well be a natural thing, without any interference from a god.
Yes, some attribute everything to a god, using it as proof of a god, without ever knowing if it was a god or not.@wilderness: Humans having the cerebral capacity, coupled with an almost insatiable desire to discover and investigate, may one day come to a point in their trajectory towards their specie's destiny, when they would untangle and therefore understand 99.9% of the mysteries of the cosmos. The 0.1% will always be a mystery and truly beyond human's capacity to untangle and understand, thus the veracity of this statement: "God dunnit" will never be questioned even by anyone....in the same manner that the veracity of the statement: "I think, therefore I exist", will never be debated.
By "cause" I mean by what means did God come into existence. But I think you already knew what I mean.
Why, uh yes, I most certainly did! Because the cause of something indicates that the need of something plus the result of something is equal to the sum of all the parts required to operate both visibly and invisibly. And the parts of the whole are ever interlocking as evidenced by cells, organisms, systems, and other functioning wholes... and black holes, as well!
Obviously.
Just kidding. I have no idea what I just wrote.
Pheonix made a run-on look easy.
Edited:
Fair question, and one that I see often on HP and elsewhere in this kind of discussions.
Answer, the universe began to exist, for one. Things that begin to exist point to a cause. They have a cause. Since we are talking about a sufficient cause for that effect, God would fit that bill.That's only a theory. And not a very well supported one at that.
I haven't seen a case made that the universe is eternal. I have seen cases made that it had a beginning. So I guess we each have to study up on those topics to our own satisfaction.
I don't think that what we observe in our universe from its beginning until now, is sufficiently accounted for by random, naturalistic processes. I find that a lot of faith and belief of another kind comes into play for those that hold to views like that. So it begins to be about what warrants such faith and belief at some point, to me. It seems to all boil down to "can the cause be sufficient for the effect we see?"
If simple dismissal is allowed, of the kind that simply won't allow for a view to possible because it isn't preferred, then it becomes more of a game to me, than a search for truth of what really explains our reality. I am not saying anyone is doing this, but I have seen it done. To be fair, I don't believe that a naturalist/physicalist view can achieve what we see, but I am totally open to listening to how some might think it could be a sufficient cause for the effect of our universe.I am personally open for many possibilities, including God. I just don't think God can be argued for logically. I think if someone has to convince themselves that God logically exists, then they are having problems with faith in the first place. I know, I've been there.
I have seen many excellent, and highly logical reasoning given here by believers that have not been rebutted in a logical way. I can appreciate that you have/had your own experience in doubting your faith in the past. To be fair though, this doesn't necessarily mean that is the same reason for all people that are trying to discuss God logically. For me, it is the only and most logical conclusion, and it can be discussed as such. This is my own experience, and it is more firmly concluded in the process. Some people MIGHT be wanting to convince themselves, but this is to assume they need to do that in the first place.
As for people here discussing why a god makes the most logical sense to them, this is something also commanded in the scriptures for them to do. Its not a practice of them trying to justify their faith in a god. I Peter 3:15-16
"but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame."
This is hard to do, and not always easy, but I do see many people giving great reasoning with logic and rationale, for the reason they believe, and it doesn't have to do with doubting. I think a lot of "anti" belief is out there, and it is easy to make some people doubt, and deal with the ridicule that comes with it. (That was even predicted.) My hope is to do it with gentleness and respect, even when its hard. I hope to be better at this over time.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-universe-b … scale.html
There is new evidence that supports an eternally expanding and contracting universe.Theoretical evidence I might add, but nonetheless intriguing. As a subset of this scenario, a very provocative astrophycisists theorized that the Big Bang was not what we think it is or was ie the creation of the whole universe albeit our universe, but rather just a fluctuation from an already existing universe... thus the concept of a multiverse.
Yes, lots of interesting theories, and we really just don't know. One idea I think is funny is that the evidence can also point to the Earth being the center of the universe, because the universe is the same distance in all directions. (Not that I believe that, of course:)
I have found the link below to be a great and fairly concise resource for what we are touching on here, regarding the standard cosmological model, vs other models. Here is one quote from it, but know that after the quote much more is shared about these other models, one of which you talk about there.
J. Warner Wallace: "All of us, regardless of worldview, are looking for the first, uncaused, sufficiently powerful, non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial cause of the universe. From this description you can see how dangerously close this cause sounds to a theistic description of God. Perhaps this is why many researchers and cosmologists seek to find a cosmological model avoiding a cosmological singularity (a model denying the beginning of space, time and matter). A number of models have been offered, but none have the explanatory ability to supplant the Standard Cosmological Model."
He goes on to share what some are, including the Steady State Model, the Oscillating Universe Model or Cyclical (like what you mentioned, would be a contracting and expanding model), and a Quantum Gravity model. He shares the problems inherent with those models, for anyone seeking to learn more or confirm or deny what they are thinking about better models than the standard cosmological model includes. (The one where the universe has a beginning.)
http://www.str.org/blog/is-there-a-way- … Rsb0OH-6SoHere's my way of thinking, which may or may not be logical. I suppose I have my own set of "beliefs". Like for instance, I think everything has to be logical, and has to have a cause.
It makes more sense to me that NOTHING should exist. But as things do exist, I have to try to figure out what the most rational explanation might be, based on the scientific facts I know.
To me, God is unlikely to exist, as I don't see where the intelligence and will would come from. But I can imagine the laws of nature existing, because the all fit together in a logical way.
I can imagine intelligence and will evolving, like it has with human beings and dolphins and elephants. But not the kind of intelligence you would need to be able to come up with the staggeringly complex laws that make the universe work.
My thinking is biased to what I can and can not believe. I would imagine that everyone is biased to what they believe, and rationalize according to that.
I don't think it's even possible to tell who is being more "logical". The universe is WEIRD. It's strange that it even exists, and we have to do the best we can to figure out what's going on.What you are avidly pursuing is the concept that God does not exist because creation is so complex that even a God-like entity could not have rationally created. Reminds me of the counterintuituive idea of putting the cart ahead of the horse.
How did God get smart enough to create the universe? Did his intelligence evolve, or was it already there, eternally?
You are actually implying that where God "came from", stupidity and ineptitude exist.
Actually he did not come from anywhere, thus evolution is not in his vocabulary. He just exist.And how do you know anything at all about where God came from? Or are you just making up things to fit what your image of God is already like?
The only instance that we know of where intelligence came into being is that we see larger and larger brains evolving over millions of years. That indicates that intelligence comes in stages, over time.You are assuming and presuming that God is part and parcel of the natural world and is therefore subject to its laws. As the saying goes: not in my lifetime, or even the lifetime of the natural world.
Of course I am assuming, but my assumption is based on perceptions and ideations that have logical underpinning. Since we have not seen God intermingling with us in the natural world, my assumption is more logical than yours ie, that he is a supernatural, eternal entity, who created the universe we have been made witnesses to Its creation. Omniscience and omnipotence are attributes that does not exist in the natural world, and since he is not part of the natural world we can only logically conclude that God creating the universe from outside of that creation do involve those 2attributes.
"Since we have not seen God intermingling with us in the natural world, my assumption is more logical than yours ie, that he is a supernatural, eternal entity, who created the universe we have been made witnesses to Its creation."
Well, either that or that He is nothing but a man made story, without existence or reality outside of our own imaginations. Of the two, that he does not exist is much more logical as it does not require unknown and unshown universes or creatures outside the natural laws that, as far as we know, operate everywhere. To postulate or hypothesize either things or entities that cannot exist in the entire universe is never a logical premise to use.Yet you assume, with zero evidence, that there is a supernatural world. Where is your objective evidence that there is a supernatural world?
I can point you to loads of evidence of the natural world. But not one iota of evidence of the supernatural.
How does that make me less logical than you?
And exactly what kind of evidence are you looking for to prove that there is a supernatural world. Something akin to Einstein's mathematical formulation of the general theory of relativity.? Or Stephen Hawking's theoretical ' formulation of the existence of black holes. Or perhaps Kelvin's analytical abstraction of the Laws of thermodynamics. ?
Don't hold your breath.... Because you don't want to be cyanotic as a newborn with Tetralogy of Fallott.
@janesix
I did not infer that your ideas are illogical...what I stated was, mine was more logical than yours
Not at all. For an omniscent (which is necessary to know how to create a universe) to exist, one must postulate an eternal universe (place, space, heaven - call it what you will) with an eternal entity. The "horse" then becomes "where did that place/god come from and how?".
Your misconception and misinterpretation and misrepresentation about the nature of a supernatural entity is so stunningly insipid, it's beyond words. On the other hand it's not beyond words.....I'm actually thinking of the word washy-washy.
*shrug* It is the common conception of the Christian god, and the one I was taught as a child. That you wish it to be something different doesn't make it wishy-washy at all - it just makes YOUR concept different. One of the thousands available.
To postulate that the universe is eternal because the one who created it is eternal is to say the least a misrepresentation and misconception. The universe is not eternal... It had a beginning and will have an ending. How the universe ends.... As the commons expression would say: only God knows.
Good point - I retract that God's universe must have been eternal. He may have lived in a billion universes before creating this one, although it DOES seem obvious that at least something from the one He was created in had to be eternal. If nothing else the consciousness that is God.
But what about that "horse"? How can you postulate an eternal god without defining and showing where it came from? Simply ignoring the question (and it's ramifications) only leaves you with a "cart" but no "horse" to pull it with. The self creating universe, in other words.
Who says anything about a "Christian " God. So far the discussion on this forum have been free of religious tinting, and for you to introduce that to the discussion here and now is rather limp and flaccid.
Why? What god do YOU propose? Thor, with lightning bolts?
If we're going to discuss a god, we're going to have to either choose one or make up a new one. Or, maybe, just a god without any indication of it's capabilities, attributes or intentions. Nature would make a fine choice, I think, for the god making the universe...
"The problem becomes what seems to be almost an avoidance of the point, which then opens the door for simple dismissal and maybe denial. "
We ARE discussing the point. In great detail. It's been a really interesting a very civil discussion, I might add.
Assuming man is logical (for the most part) but knowing man does not think as God "thinks" (as the Bible agrees), it would seem that man cannot logically understand God but that God is unaffected by man's logic.
There is a standard logic on both sides which the logical worldly man refuses or is unable to accept The logical spiritual man does accept two standards. In each, there is and must be a reasoning process upon which each places their "faith."
The logical worldly man uses a margin and extension of faith in its sciences as it marches ahead in its incomplete studies. At the same time, he compiles his proofs, disregarding the spurious and tossing out the false presentations.
The logical spiritual man has completed his studies in Jesus Christ by the same process. But all else, that is further studies, is learning what to do with that which they have graciously been given.All views (from atheist to a very religious person) needs to understand there is an uncaused first cause that is eternal, has a will, is highly powerful and intelligent. This isn't a "problem" for just those that believe in a god to wrestle with. (Or to have to "prove or show" to those that don't believe in the believer's conclusion.) Its for all of us to consider what could that thing be. It has to be sufficient.
Now if a person just doesn't want to know about that thing, or avoid it for some reason, then that is at least a "response." I think this is what we are seeing in a bottom line kind of way, a lot."All views (from atheist to a very religious person) needs to understand there is an uncaused first cause that is eternal, has a will, is highly powerful and intelligent"
No, we don't "need to understand" that, because it isn't true. You just think it is. You can think up any parameters you want, it doesn't mean they are right.
You have no way to know what the parameters for the universe to come into being had to have been.
You have no problem believing a God could exist on it's own, yet you conclude that it's illogical for the universe to exist on it's own. That doesn't make sense to me.
I have no problem with either existing on their own. I have no bias.I am not just thinking up any parameters I want, as my reasoning for thinking I am right. It is because of what we know in our universe. I am not being biased, but open to being shown how, as you seem to indicate you think I am working out of bias.
If you or anyone would like to make a case why a universe like ours exists rather than nothing existing at all, if there is no uncaused, intelligent, personal (with a will) mind, then I am open to hearing about that. As of yet, I haven't seen a better explanation than an eternally existing God, a personal mind, with power and decision making capabilities.
I am speaking more about origins, beginnings, than a universe that is in existence to the degree we see it now. It makes sense to me that it will continue to exist at least a time, and would appear to do so without any "help" from a God. (Though I personally believe differently, this isn't what I am discussing here with you.) I just mean I can see why its current state would appear to go on without help. Hopefully, this addresses the part above that doesn't make sense to you. Or I hope so."If you or anyone would like to make a case why a universe like ours exists rather than nothing existing at all, if there is no uncaused, intelligent, personal (with a will) mind, then I am open to hearing about that. As of yet, I haven't seen a better explanation than an eternally existing God, a personal mind, with power and decision making capabilities."
There is no better explanation for the existence of the universe than a First Cause which is sufficient to the existence of the universe (that cause being greater than the universe itself = God). In fact a cause is a logical requirement for anything which begins to exist. In this context, atheists usually end up arguing against causality which is ironic in that they claim to be advocates of logic.How about "It just happened. With or without a natural cause, and the rest is simple coincidence"?
Perhaps atheists argue against a cause because no one (including believers) have any idea at all what went on in the singularity before the big bang. And because we now know causality does not apply throughout the universe we occupy. Far better, to the atheist, to acknowledge ignorance than to make up a story that can never be verified and call it "truth"."Perhaps atheists argue against a cause because no one (including believers) have any idea at all what went on in the singularity before the big bang."
This is what we can know from established science and correctly applied logic, Time, space, and matter (the natural realm as we know it) began to exist. Anything which begins to exist requires a cause (Principle of Causality, which is one of the First Principles of Logic). Time, space, and matter having begun to exist could not have caused themselves to begin to exist. Thus logically, the First Cause must by definition be supernatural. A cause must also be greater than it's effect. The First Cause had to be greater in information and energy that the universe itself. Proof enough for any rational person that something which could reasonably be defined as god does exist.Unfortunately for that premise, the Principle of Causality, it is known to be false in some circumstances. There is also no reason to think it was true before the natural laws we are familiar with (such as gravity) existed.
Logically, then, you are using as a basis for all your considerations a so-called "law" that may or may not be applicable. To use the logical sequence you are proposing requires that the premise be known to be true; something you cannot show, and your Proof is invalid. It may be true, it may not, but you cannot know when you base your thinking on such a premise. Any rational person knows that simply because something works (is true) here does not mean it works there and you have utterly failed to show that Causality was true before the creation of any other of the natural laws."Logically, then, you are using as a basis for all your considerations a so-called "law" that may or may not be applicable. To use the logical sequence you are proposing requires that the premise be known to be true; something you cannot show, and your Proof is invalid."
The Principle of Causality is one of the First Principles of Logic. No one can think rationally without The First Principles of Logic. They are the foundational basis of Empiricism and thus of science itself.
If something begins it must be caused. Period. To deny that is irrational."If something begins it must be caused. Period. To deny that is irrational."
Then prove it, and with something beyond your personal, but severely limited, experiences. To make the claim without proof is irrational; it becomes only a belief rather than a rational statement.Philosophic interpretations and introspection could never be proven by what you are demanding ie physical, material models that you could then see, and touch......like a car careening towards an oak tree, or an atom being bombarded to produce ionic versions of itself, that are stable enough to be used in our daily lives ie Technetium.
Somehow I don't think the statement is intended as a philosophical interpretation. It is rather intended to be a statement of fact about the real world, no different than that the earth orbits the sun.
Prove the First Principles of Logic? The First Principles of Logic are the bedrock of logic and rational thought and cannot be proven by more basic principles. In essence you're asking me to prove the need for rational thought in reaching correct conclusions.
Rational thought requires valid logical propositions, and logic is based on the presupposition of universal truth implicit in the First Principles of Logic.
The universe began to exist according to established scientific evidence. Did it magically pop into existence without a cause? I can't prove that it didn't, but if I'm to be rational I must apply the Principle of Causality. I can be rationally confident that the universe wasn't the product of magic. Thus it had a real non-physical, timeless, spaceless cause sufficient to and of a higher order than it's own existence.You're still trying to claim that the laws and conditions (if any) prior to the big bang were the same as they are now. And you are doing so without a shred of proof or even evidence, but it still doesn't work. Nevertheless, you could start by proving that virtual particles have a cause to come into existence and then pop back out. That would at least show that our current state of the universe depends on causality - something that is pretty well accepted as being not true.
Can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that virtual particles i.e. quantum mechanics, as you are implying in the above post, was involved in the early stages of the Big Bang and that they were uncaused because based on the current interpretation of quantum physics these "virtual particles" (your terminology, not mine) pop in and out of existence?
No. Does that mean you should assume they didn't, OR that however they work didn't work for the big bang? Again, no. Which means that causality may or may not have applied to that event but that either way it is not something we understand. Certainly not enough to declare that a god was necessary (or any other cause we might come up with).
(And I don't like the terminology either, but it is what I hear being used.)We do not understand enough to declare anything for certain.
But, we can imagine LIKELY possibilities...
for now.
"LIKELY: probable, distinctly possible, to be expected, odds-on, possible, plausible, imaginable; expected, anticipated, predictable, predicted, foreseeable; in the cards. ANTONYM: improbable." Thesaurus.
@ wilderness:
You perhaps might adhere to the conclusion that causality is "pretty well accepted as being not true".
A lot of folks would disagree with that conclusion , based primarily on the same explanation that Lucid Psyche is trying to impart in his posts, which to me , as arguments go, follow the trajectory of what is lucid, luminous and levitating
"Then prove it, and with something beyond your personal, but severely limited, experiences. To make the claim without proof is irrational; it becomes only a belief rather than a rational statement."
I thought that I replied to this previously but I can't find it so here goes again. The First Principles of Logic are fundamental they cannot be proven by more fundamental principles. Rational thought requires valid logical propositions of universal truth in the form of the First Principles.
If the sane may be persuaded to rationality, and if rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of anyone who actively rejects the very foundation of logic?
If sacrosanct ideology is more important than correctly applied logic and science then no argument can be made to displace that ideological stance. This seems to be the exact nature our impasse.
Okay ... just found my previous response but I'm going to leave this anyway."If the sane may be persuaded to rationality, and if rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of anyone who actively rejects the very foundation of logic?"
But questions prove nothing. It takes facts to provide proof.
"If sacrosanct ideology is more important than correctly applied logic and science then no argument can be made to displace that ideological stance. This seems to be the exact nature our impasse."
Indeed it does, and always will. The believer is seldom interested in reason and logic (although will try and twist it to prove their point) and that's all the non-believer IS interested in. That and observations, anyway.
@ wilderness:
How and when did you know that "causality does not apply throughout the universe".
Do you have any epirific proof that what you are stating is factual.?Study up on quantum mechanics. As I understand it there are quite a few particles that pop into and out of existence without a cause.
But the bigger question, unanswered, is how anyone knows that there was a cause for the big bang, before the laws of nature even existed.That is correct. I will add, however, that our ignorance is not a reason to decide that there IS a cause we cannot detect.
I think our observation of what we can see in the universe gives us great reason to think cause and effect is in play as usual, over that there wouldn't be. I think it would make logical sense that when we see an effect, there was a cause, because of how science works, our observations and experience from the beginning of human history that we know of.
Vehemently disagree. That our universe (mostly) works on cause and effect does NOT indicate, in the slightest, that the conditions in that..."place"...where the big bang happened has the same rules. It was about as different from the nature that we know and our science examines as is possible to imagine.
I was referring more to the articles you mention popping into existence and back out of it. I don't know of evidence for that, and see evidence that shows the opposite is true. As for you vehemently disagreeing, ok. I don't understand that kind of belief, personally. It would seem to amount to believing in something that isn't personal or intelligent or with a will, but also is vastly different from the universe it produced. (Something producing its opposite, and not showing how or why, that is material only, etc.) I am just looking for reasoning at least, if not evidences, to support that idea.
The idea that the "before" the laws of nature even existed, to me points to the need that I think needs to "be" to be able to produce the universe. The laws of nature didn't exist, that is exactly my point also. It would take strong belief that what we can't know, with the constraints applied of what it can't be, could produce what we see. I think what we see is meant to point to something that could allow for it, with no constraints applied of what supposedly it "couldn't be." I am not proposing a god at this point, just a mind with a will, with intention and the intellect that is above the laws of nature, but capable of causing laws of nature that can't be "broken" without consequence.It would be interesting to see what you consider evidence that all subatomic particles follow the same laws that the macro world we live in does. Conditions change everything, from the speed of light to the passage of time, yet you want to apply that single "law" to everything and under every condition.
Then you are proposing a mind, living under conditions that may or may not be the same as ours, that designed and created our laws and universe. That's fine, but I for the life of me cannot understand why it is any more likely than different laws doing the same thing without an intelligence. After all, we see our laws "building" things all the time, from stars to stalactites to living organisms. Nor can we "know" anything about either the intelligence OR the laws it operated under - why then is an intelligence PLUS it's laws any more likely than the laws without the intelligence?I haven't ever said it is a single law that applies to everything in every situation, so I don't know why you say what you do there. If you disagree with Jane and I when we are talking about natural laws (plural), then I can understand more where you are coming from perhaps. I haven't applied a single law to everything and under every condition.
I don't propose a mind that would be living under the same conditions as us. I think that before the big bang, conditions were very different, and then everything changed. Laws in place, that the universe obeys without hesitation, I think is better explained by intelligence with a will than a materialistic view could accomplish. It seems more reasonable and logical to me. I am not speaking of a time when the laws are in place and then they obey only/necessarily. I think the idea of laws coming about on their own needs more of an explanation than laws coming from an intelligence. In our own world, when new laws come into being, they come from intelligence, wills, minds, etc. (Even though in our case, I am speaking more of moral laws and codes, etc.) The laws of nature are just one kind of law we were born into, because I think we know deep down other moral laws should not be broken. Or else we feel guilt and for sure would think some things wrong if others did them to us. This should be the opposite in just a naturalistic materialistic world, yet it looks one way to me over the other. So I wonder if sometimes we accept the laws we and nature are bound to, but don't want the law giver. We want or accept one set of things, and deny the other perhaps.I think you missed what I was trying to say; that the laws under which the big bang operated were almost certainly NOT the laws we know of. It was a different "place", with (probably) laws of it's own, including laws that dictated how and what the intelligence you propose consisted of, how it operated and what it could do. To say that those laws give birth to an intelligence that could do something the laws could not does not seem reasonable - at this point in our understanding it doesn't matter how much we learn and know, we will never be able to do anything that the laws of our universe prohibit.
For those laws are not the "laws" of man, to be obeyed or ignored at will. We cannot ignore physical laws and will always be subject to them. The comparison between legal or moral laws and the laws of nature is apples to oranges - while they carry the same label ("law") they are very, very different things.Why do you think the laws of physics would be any different during/before the Big Bang? Logic tells me they would be the same.
Why would they be the same? It didn't even exist in the same universe? Are you assuming that every other possible universe will have the same natural laws? (I don't think there are any of our laws that would allow such events as the big bang at all).
Wilderness said, "that the laws under which the big bang operated were almost certainly NOT the laws we know of."
That is partly why I think and believe the way I do. That is exactly why whatever it was, needs to be more than, greater than the cause. It can't be less than. This is reasonable and logical. To believe otherwise seems opposite to reasonable and logical.
I agree it was a different place and had laws of its own. I understand that this issue needs an eternal cause, but it has to make sense, and nothing should be ruled out no matter how unpleasant the prospects may be. (For those that may be doing that.) I don't say that those laws gave birth to an intelligence that could do something the laws could not. So of course that wouldn't seem reasonable to me either. So I think you misunderstood what I was saying.
I agree we are subject to the laws of nature, and they cannot be ignored.
But that doesn't preclude cause. No theory I know of suggests no cause. However, you have to understand that scientists often use words in a different way than most of us. You may be thinking of Lawrence Kraus who wrote a book recently called: The universe from nothing.
Nothing in this case is not nothing, it is the fabric of space itself from which come quantum fluctuations which is where particles appear in empty space and since all particles are born twins,
matter/antimatter, annihilate themselves almost instantly.
When scientists say “empty space” there really is no such thing and they know that. “Apparent “empty space has been recently proven to be teaming with quantum activity in these fluctuation events. Something being “apparently” created from nothing.
However, Both Einstein and Heisenberg predicted it. Einstein in his ideas about a fabric of space, and Heisenberg within the implications of Uncertainty. No one ever said there was any indication that anything is actually without cause, to my knowledge.
QF was also what Hawking was talking about in his latest book as possibly being the reason for the BB in conjunction with quantum gravity and a bunch of string theory speculation.No of course it doesn't preclude a causal effect. It DOES, however, throw doubt on the idea that a cause was necessary. We cannot know without knowing the conditions prior to the BB, and that we do not have the faintest idea about.
Understand that particles come into space, and that it isn't "empty" as we normally use the word. But that does not indicate a cause, either.Of course the most plausible explanation is that we simply don't know yet what the exact causes are or were. But that's no reason to throw logic out the window. It is not logical to assume you can get something from nothing, which would be the prime example of a causeless event.
To me it's like jumping to the conclusion that god dune it just because finding the real answer might be hard or near impossible.
Lets stick to what we know until the evidence speaks for itself. So far there is always cause and no one to date has given evidence of causeless events.
"That is correct. I will add, however, that our ignorance is not a reason to decide that there IS a cause we cannot detect."
We can detect a cause through reason by applying the First Principles of Logic.Only with valid premises to base that logic on. Without those logic is merely GIGO, and the premises used are all too often just "I don't know". Like deciding that there was a cause for the big bang, AND that it was intelligent, just because that produces the desired conclusion.
@ wilderness. : And you have decided by your lonesome self what premises are to be considered valid and which ones are not?
What parameters do you use to label a premise valid or invalid?
Have those parameters been discussed in term not only for validity but applicability to specific points of logic such as the first principle that lucid psyche is referring to?
A@ wilderness:
What methods of detection are you referring to? The empiricist model or are you totally eliminating from the discussion, other methods of detection, or inference via reasoning ie the First Priciple of Logic?
Just because a few particles "pops into and out of existence" does not negate in any way the principle of causality.
The statement" pops into and out of existence" could also and only mean that particles are detected one second, then undetected the next, not that they come in and out of existence as they please. Which pretty much implies that our mechanisms of detecting these particles are not as accurately speedy as they should be.You seem to have forgotten to read the last part of the comment: "As I understand it there are quite a few particles that pop into and out of existence without a cause. "
It's also interesting you you can claim that they still exist, just that we aren't detecting them - can you provide evidence that that is true at all? Not just possible (with which I would agree) but that they positively still exist? "The statement" pops into and out of existence" could also and only mean that particles are detected one second, then undetected the next, not that they come in and out of existence as they please."I was wondering if you could share of your wisdom of the quantum mechanics (That you have studied and that impress you to the point you agree things pop into and out of existence without cause?)
Nope. Can't even give a link to anything saying that (though I'm sure google would help). Just something I've picked up and wondered about several times over the past decade or so. Kind of like the diffraction pattern of an electron bean passing through a gate that shows a vastly different patter depending on whether someone is watching it or not. Weird, and that left an impression.
So you'll have to do your own research - can't help you there. (Hint: research "virtual particles" as a starting point and go on from there)@ wildernss: and you're basing your statement that causality does not exist in the quantum world, on "something you've picked up and wondered about several times over the past decade or so." A statement so inchoate and incoherent as to be dismissed immediately as a non- starter in this discussion.
@ wilderness: Before the Big Bang, there was no " nature" to apply those laws into or upon. Was the singularity as you term it, material in nature. I seriously doubt that since matter ( as we know and experience it) was only formed several million years after the Big Bang, helium and hydrogen being the only atomic structures known to have existed during those several years.
Hmm. I thought I already replied to this - wonder what happened?
Although I thought heavier elements came into being, at least in small amounts, before millions of years, I agree with this. Which is why I question that we can know any form of cause, or if there was one, for that event. The rules we know almost certainly did not apply, yet we still try to apply them. I don't see that as reasonable or logical."That is correct. I will add, however, that our ignorance is not a reason to decide that there IS a cause we cannot detect."
Science itself is a search for causes. Rationality via The First Principles of Logic require a cause for anything which BEGINS to exist.
"The rules we know almost certainly did not apply, yet we still try to apply them. I don't see that as reasonable or logical."
The principles of logic are universal and must always apply if any reasoning is valid. If reason (rationality) is not valid then there is no point in scientific inquiry or discussion about it.Logic:
All dogs have four legs
Organisms with four legs are animals
Therefore, dogs are animals
Can you point out the use of your "First Principle of Logic" in that syllogism? Or does it just not apply to logic at all?
"The principles of logic are universal and must always apply if any reasoning is valid."
I know, you keep saying that, but have failed to even try to show it to be true before the big bang (or after, given that it is known to be false). And this is what you call "logic"? While the reasoning may be valid, poor choices of premises will always produce GIGO, which is what your "reasoning" is. You MUST start with a valid premise to produce a true conclusion ("Zero'th Principle of Logic").
Back up to your premise, then, (that there was a cause for the BB) and either show it to be true or discard the entire chain of thought.
"Study up on quantum mechanics. As I understand it there are quite a few particles that pop into and out of existence without a cause. "
Not knowing what a cause is ... is not the same as there not being a cause.
But the bigger question, unanswered, is how anyone knows that there was a cause for the big bang, before the laws of nature even existed."
Because the universe And the laws of nature began to exist. Answered. Again.Yep - answered with the same unsupported premise you have used from the beginning. Negating any use of logical thought - the GIGO principle will always do that to those that use a belief rather than a fact to start their logical train.
@ wilderness: if you are implying that in the quantum world, causality does not exist based on your statement that "some particles pop in and out of existence" , then I'd say that the validity of that premise has not been confirmed by empirical evidence.
@ wilderness: ignorance can only be applied to statements that have no applicability to anything that is being discussed, in this forum or any other. People have applied their arguments to solidly infer or confer validity to those arguments, and for you to on your own state flatly that one.s premise is not valid, without giving reasons or parameters for why you say those premises are invalid, just does not cut it in any debate.
Considering the suggestion, nihil fit ex nihilo, and the suggestion that causality is an effect, of a cause, and all that may or may not entail, whatever the truth may be, it is the source of all knowledge, known, unknown and/or unknowable. It has always been that way and will always be that way and is only dependent upon being true to it's nature of being the truth. Whatever the truth may be, it is independent, autonomous and at liberty, and everything that is, was, or will ever be, is derived from that truth. Whatever the truth may be, it is expressing itself in an intelligible fashion and to deny that would be illogical. If we claim that it is not expressing itself in an intelligible fashion, by what method can we prove our claim?
"Considering the suggestion, nihil fit ex nihilo, and the suggestion that causality is an effect, of a cause, and all that may or may not entail, whatever the truth may be, it is the source of all knowledge, known, unknown and/or unknowable."
Very good. And it brings up another point. Rationality and logic are also also effects of a cause greater than themselves. If naturalism were to be true we would have no reason to trust logic itself.Regarding causes. Is determinism, determinism if it only becomes deterministic but always in the future? Is reality probabilistic or deterministic or both or neither, or contain unknown hidden variables? Is reality reality or is reality becoming reality concurrently? Regarding the unknown or infinite and or unknowable, causes, effects and causes of causality, we can advantageously avoid it all with a more pure formulation that takes into account unknown or the unknowable, inconsistencies, paradoxes, redundancies or the circular. There is a truth to it all. That, we can logically know. Within that truth, outside that truth or coexistent or variations of a union with that truth, or with the truth as it transpires etc etc is a source. It is a self existent, free, source of everything including the systematic process that produces rationality and logic capable by humans, that can analyze the systematic process itself. The source is intelligible by it's own nature.
@Phoenix:
When it comes to human affairs, determinism just doesn't have any place of imposition, because as well all agree, humans have "free will".
Now some people have denied the existence of free will, but if you eliminate free will from the equation of human decision making process, then the existence of good and mostly evil becomes really problematic.Not all of us believe we have free will. It hasn't been proven that the universe isn't deterministic.
I have probably a rather unique view of free will and determinism etc. and these are just my personal opinions.
Here are some questions to clarify my position.
What is not God's Will? Is there anything that is outside of God's Will?
I think that reality is entirely deterministic and all Gods Will. I think that God created human beings so that they could have relationship and freedom, in a deterministic reality/God's Will. It would appear an impossible contradiction. Yet I believe it is happening. For me there is only one actual freewill choice. Choose God's Will or deny God's Will. And that is what we observe all around us."I think that" is pure belief. Would you agree?
"And that is what we observe all around us"
I don't observe that. Where do you observe that?No I disagree, it is a colloquialism. And I absolutely observe it 24/7/365.
" I think that reality is entirely deterministic and all Gods Will."
" I think that God created human beings so that they could have relationship and freedom, in a deterministic reality/God's Will"
If these two statements are not beliefs, then what are they, facts?I was giving my opinion to A.Villarasa on how I viewed freewill and determinism, in relation to my viewpoint on God and my worldview. I was hoping for an exchange of substance with A.Villarasa on his views or remarks in regards to those points.
That's fine.
I realize you don't like it when your assumptions and beliefs (that you tend to claim are "truths") are challenged.I figure when I preface my statements with " Just My Personal Opinion", that A.Villarasa with his exception ability at reading comprehension, could discern whether I making absolute claims or just giving " Just My Personal Opinion", like I did. As I said I was hoping for a response from A.Villarasa, but perhaps you would like to speak for him and give your opinion on determinism and freewill in regards to the concepts of good and evil.
As you are known for claiming assumptions are facts on a regular basis, how are we to know when you are just expressing your opinion?
When I say so? Like I did?
Regardless do you have an actual opinion on determinism, freewill and the concepts of good and evil? If not, have a nice day.
I back my claims up with actual arguments when I do."Regardless do you have an actual opinion on determinism, freewill and the concepts of good and evil"
I think, based on the evidence of ordered natural laws, that there is a pretty good chance that the universe is deterministic. Thus free will would only be an illusion.
However, I see circumstantial evidence that there is free will, at least to some extent. For instance, twins are a good example. Born with mostly the same genes (there are tiny genetic differences found in twins) twins will choose some of the same things even being raised apart, but not all.
As I believe everything has to have a cause and effect, it is hard to determine how free will can come into play.
All that said, I still BELIEVE that I have free will. I live my life by it. I'm not sure I would easily change my mind, even given evidence to the contrary.Well thanks for your thoughtful, well expressed opinions. Do you have an opinion on the correlation between determinism, freewill and the concepts of good and evil? Now I cannot know what A.Villarasa is suggesting yet, because he hasn't had a chance to reply, but I can speculate, that he's sees a problem with determinism that eliminates freewill, contradicts a human beings capacity to know good and evil or to be able to differentiate the two, or be responsible for, etc etc etc ( and it is hard to say, since, he hasn't had a chance to respond.) What do you think about that? Hypothetically, If it is absolutely true, that reality is entirely deterministic, can it be shown that human beings have freewill to choose good over evil, or vice versa? And how can that be shown.
If the universe is absolutely deterministic, then I don't think that anyone could really be responsible for their actions. If they never had a true choice to begin with, the there would be no responsibility. I don't think I can show why I think that though, because I don't think I can personally make a "logical" case(I don't really know the rules of logic in anything more than just a "common sense" way).
I think that the universe COULD be "semi-deterministic" though. There could be an "ideal" kind of end result that everything is moving towards. That the laws of nature are pushing the universe in a certain direction. More like a mold to be filled, although the exact details might vary. Kind of like a river flows through a channel, but the individual molecules of water are all over the place, but moving in the same direction, and following the same rules.
I'm not sure how good and evil fit in there, only that I think in all cases, good and evil would be subjective. I'm not sure I have a logical reason for that either. There could be an ideal of what's good, like the least amount of suffering for the greatest amount of people.An excellent reply.
The way I look at it is this.
1. Human freewill
2. Concept of good and evil
3 Deterministic reality.
Just out curiosity, do you think reality could have been doing something different in the past or present or do you think reality will change what it is doing in the future? And on a side note. How do you think the future comes into being?"Just out curiosity, do you think reality could have been doing something different in the past or present or do you think reality will change what it is doing in the future?"
I think the laws of nature stay the same throughout, always. No real reason to believe that, though, It may be that it just makes more sense to me.
" And on a side note. How do you think the future comes into being?"
My favorite idea is that the universe grows like an embryo. That it has a plan or blue print that it follows, although not "exactly". More of an ideal form. Laws of nature first forming particles, to atoms, to molecules, to chemical systems, to biological system, to eventual conscious biological systems. One thing inevitably leads into another.
One reason I think this way is because of convergence in evolution. Like marsupial and placental dogs. Their skulls look almost exactly the same, yet they went through completely different paths to get there. I think there are ideals, and basic models all throughout the universe. Like two different types of lizards can have totally different genetic changes to get to the same exact adaptation. Although there are problems with my idea (like the fact that there were several close calls to humans even getting here) I still think something "pushes" evolution in certain directions. That's why lots of different smart monkeys. One of them eventually gets where we need to be. It just happened to be humans, while it could have been Denisovans or Neanderthals. Higher consciousness, I think, is probably the goal. I don't think we're the end product.
There is no such thing as free will. There of course plenty of will. Will is a manifestation of conditioning, both genetic and environmental. We will to do the things we like, but we do not choose what we like. You like ice cream or don’t, but you never chose to like it or not.
However your will is unique, as is your conditioning. making you unique.I have to disagree. I take the theory that free will is the ability to go against instinct. And also to choose to NOT do something, even if we like it. Like I have the ability to not indulge in chocolate ice cream, even if I love it (and I agree, that's not something we can control, whether we like it or not.)
Do something outside instinct? Hard to do. Lets look at instinct
We all agree that instinct is a basic function in man kind as well as all the other animals we share the earth with. But what is it? Perhaps the best way to pin it down is to say that it is a programmed or hard wired behaviour. We humans, of course, can think for ourselves. So most of us wouldn’t argue too much with the idea that thought takes over from instinct, leaving us better than just a fight or flight response for any given unknown situation. But that isn’t really an accurate picture of what is happening at all.
Consider for a moment how it is you learn to do something well, and it becomes evident what’s really going on. Learning to ride a bike is a good example. But we could be talking about performing surgery and the same process would apply. When you first learn to ride a bike there is so much information you have to cram into your head and process that more often than not you end up on the ground for the first little while. You have to concentrate on finding your balance as well as how to move your body to pedal or reach for your break. You are learning a new skill and it takes a lot of thought. There is trial and error involved. You experiment, dissect the information, and process it; and then there is much that your body learns to adapt to that you don’t control directly at all.
As you learn more and more, thought itself becomes a hindrance. That too is a little counter intuitive, isn’t it? But think about it. You can’t think about every movement or every breath and expect a smooth performance. Thought is too slow. In fact, doing so consciously would probably lead to another fall. The idea is to get to know the bike so well that it becomes part of you. When that happens our mind is free to watch the road, take in the sights, or correct for small errors. The brain doesn’t have time to think about every movement the body makes. Automatic response is much faster.
So what has happened? Suddenly the bike has become an extension of the body. This is what I call educating the instinctive. Just like when riding a bike, if you have ever learned to drive a car you know you are not consciously controlling every foot or arm movement. You have to have that down pat before you can be a safe and confident driver. The conscious part of the brain needs to be free to watch the road and determine the next course of action. Everything else has to be automatic or you become prone to hesitate or overcompensate.
For any musicians reading this, the same holds true for playing an instrument. There is a great deal of thought and effort put into reading music, the right fingering, training the hands to do acrobatics without missing a beat. If a musician by the stage level had to think through every note, they would be paralyzed. The musician or artist more than anyone perhaps, is heard saying that the words or the music or the art: “just come out as if from someone else.” It’s automatic.
Does anyone imagine that any martial arts expert has to deliberate before executing his moves? I would say not. In fact, the martial arts world is built on educating the instinctive. You can’t be a martial arts expert until you have made martial arts part of who you are.
So educating the instinct is how we learn. We don’t deliberate a great deal once we know what we are doing. Thought becomes secondary. So thought then is a tool for educating the instinctive. Then when it has done its job it is set aside. Thought is not the be all and end all of a human mind. It’s just a tool. The instinct is the real pinnacle here. Everything goes back to instinct.
It starts as instinct, gets educated through thought and deliberation, and then reverts to instinct, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.
But there is something else going on. I am saying that in order to understand something really well we have to make it part of us. What is the definition of empathy? We step into someone else’s shoes and try to feel what they feel. In a sense we try to make them part of us.
And this is what humans do. When we like something we try to make it an extension of ourselves. We include it in self. In fact, anything we do well we make part of us. But it doesn’t just apply to things or skills.
What is love? A lot of people will tell you it’s just a feeling or we can describe it as a set of chemical reactions to do with child rearing and procreation. But what is really happening, and the best way to explain love, is to understand that when we love, we try to make that person part of us. We want to include them in self.
So empathy is the highest form of love. Empathy is also the highest skill level we can reach. Isn’t it strange how intimately connected love, empathy, and instinct are? I said in another hub that there is no such thing as a selfless act. In fact, love and empathy and instinct are not selfless. They are inclusions into self.
And yet, when we include things in ourselves, we also become part of them. This is why inclusion is the answer to so much suffering. When we do not include others we shun them or we don’t care. Exclusion makes it possible to make wars and kill. We demonize the “others” or make them sub human so we can justify our actions. Because if we didn’t we couldn’t do the things we do. If something is part of you, you aren’t as likely to hurt it. You would be hurting yourself.
The Beatles said: “all you need is love.” But more to the point, all we need is inclusion. If we have that, love comes naturally.
Now, why would someone not want to eat something they love? Is that doing something outside instinct? No. Not really. The reason you don’t want to eat it becomes the dominant consideration. That is how choices are made. We can’t always choose what we want, but the dominant factor, what result you want most becomes what you decide to do.
So not choosing to do something like that is again, educating the instinct. Doesn’t mean you won’t want it, because that could be coming from your biology, like cravings, but it will modify your will so you can achieve something you want more.
@phoenix:
My view of determinism and free will is a bit more nuanced and therefore non-simplistic as your view ie. it's all God's will and you either do God's will or you go against his will.
My perception of determinism follow the most widely accepted view that radically states that all of reality, is already in a sense "pre-determined". This interpretation obviously has far-reaching implications for morality, science, and religion. Specifically, if determinism is to be followed to its logical conclusion, the concept of morality and personal responsibility is put asunder; and the concept of evil-doing and punishment goes by the wayside. Thus philosophically, we must agree to the concept of free will, because if we don't societal structures crumble.
When applied to religious beliefs, as is happening now in the Middle East, where the exponential growth of terroristic activities by groups whose interpretation of their sacred texts involve following their prophet's invocation to follow and do "Allahs will", determinism has led to societal chaos and destruction/extermination of human lives.
I have never thought of the existence of free will as also having scientific perseveration. Philosophically, morally we all must believe in its existence, for reasons I have detailed above. But now, empirical evidence is starting to grow that support the idea that the existence of free will is primary and necessary. As explained and elucidated by an essay on the subject: "The theory of Relativity and specially Quantum Mechanics require that our worldview be based on critical (scientific) philosophy, according to which all our theories and mental pictures of the world are ONLY devices to organize and foresee our experience, and NOT the images of the world as it "really" is. Along the specific discoveries in the physics of the micro-world, we should consider the emergence of a properly critical philosophy as a scientific discovery. Specifically, we now know the notion that 'the world is "really" space in which small particles move along definite trajectories" ,is illusory: it is contradicted by experimental facts. We also know that determinism i.e. the notion that in the last analysis all the events in the world must have specific causes, is illusory too. The mechanistic worldview saw that laws of nature as something that uniquely prescribes how events should develop, with indeterminancy resulting only from our lack of knowledge; on the other hand, contemporary science regards the laws of nature as only restrictions imposed on a basically non-deterministic world. It is not an accident that the most general laws of nature are conservation laws, which do not prescribe how things MUST be, but only put certain restrictions or constraints upon them."
Some scientist if now most, subscribe to the idea that there is GENUINE FREEDOM in the world. When we observe it from the outside, it takes the form of quantum mechanics unpredictability; when we observe it from within, we call it FREE WILL. We know that the reason why our behavior is unpredictable from the outside is that we have ultimate freedom of choice. This freedom was given to us as the first element of the world we came into."My perception of determinism follow the most widely accepted view that radically states that all of reality, is already in a sense "pre-determined". This interpretation obviously has far-reaching implications for morality, science, and religion. Specifically, if determinism is to be followed to its logical conclusion, the concept of morality and personal responsibility is put asunder; and the concept of evil-doing and punishment goes by the wayside. Thus philosophically, we must agree to the concept of free will, because if we don't societal structures crumble."
I don't think it would because just because you have no god given free will doesn't mean you didn't do the act. The universe is action and reaction. We all still have self interest. If someone commits murder there is no use saying it was predetermined, That's beside the point. We can next say his sentence was also predetermined. Who cares? We don't want him doing it again. We can't predict the future with any accuracy, but we are forced to react to it.
A mad dog isn't considered "responsible" for biting a child but we still don't allow it to roam the streets.
Knowing it for certain one way or the other would just add to our knowledge of how things work.
If the universe is completely predetermined, then nothing changes if we know it. It is predetermined or not whether we know it or not. That doesn't change the human condition nor how we react to events that happen nor to natural morality.
The question is not " what could that thing be."
The question is what do we do with that "thing." Luke 1:35.Side Bar questions ... related to postings here
I note at times comments seemed to be changed or edited after a rebuttal is made. The rebuttal then seems out of place or not related to the comment. How does one locate the original posted comment? I have seen this down with "URL" addresses.
How does one answer multiple comments at one time. I have seen "green" boxes with several different screen names all in the same reply "box."
Is there a "help" page for these?Just can't help it, I have to say the user name makes me smile in nostalgia... "Spock, a heading for Jane 6, ... Sulu, take the con ... phasers on full ... Scotty, get ready to beam Bones and I onto Jane 6 when we are in range ... But Jim we must realize that Jane6 is in the neutral zone ...
Just reading that name gives some psuedo-reality to some otherwise mundane debates!
But your question is valid. The lack of objective reality has been a bane to Christianity. It was this tact that was and is used by many gnostics, past and present to confuse the non-thinking, non-reasoning believers and unbelievers alike.Thanks again.
I don't have a hub that explain's fields, I'll have to think about adding one. But think of them like the air around you. There are different kinds of fields. The air field permeates the earth and is made of oxygen and other gasses. Some fields take up small areas like the strong and week forces in atoms, and others permeate the universe like the Higgs field.. No one calls it an air field, of course, but it works for the example.
What specifically were you interested in?Mostly, I'm trying to figure out if it's a "thing" Like you can see the shape of an magnetic field with iron filings. And, can they exist alone?
Just trying to get a batter grasp on it, like with energy.I’d answer consciously that a field is a thing like a body of water is a thing made up of many small things. But there we get stuck defining what a thing is. We’re back to common definitions that say a thing has mass and takes up space. All fields take up space but not all have mass .
How do you define thing?
Energy is the stand alone as all fields are made of it.
Not sure that helps.
What else do you mean by standalone? Everything is connected. Nothing really stands alone, as were.This is very frustrating. I'm not even sure of what I'm trying to ask.
How are all things connected?How are all things connected? Well first off by the fact that we and all things are made of the same substance. Secondly all things are systems within systems. Nothing exists on its own, everything relys on its environment, everything shapes its environment. Everything interacts, forms mergers. Societies, economies, ecosystems etc, out of need.
Fields co-exist, interact, create new states.
Weather is again a perfect example. It depends on all the events of the world culminating in what you get. Lorenz remarked that a thousand buterflys flapping their wings in south America could result in a snow storm in Europe. Not directly, but the cause and effect that goes out from that event accumulates and causes small changes which continue to grow culminating in your weather.
Bell discovered that “locality” fails at the quantum level. That just means that causes are not always local, as we used to think. Again, a monk sitting on a snail on mount Fuji may contribute to an election in Spain just by knocking a few stones down the mountain.
So everything that happens everywhere effects what you are experiencing right now and your actions go on for ever in the chains of cause and effect they create.
I could go on but I think you get the pictureI was thinking more along the lines of all fields/energy being physically connected. I know at least the Higgs and the gravity fields are supposed to permeate everything. That's what I thought you meant by "everything's connected".
That too in many ways.
And we are still looking for a complete unified field theory.And until such time that the unified theory of everything is empirically discovered, physicists, and other folks like you and me will just have to be happy with the knowledge that the macro world is so predictable, but the quantum world is as unpredictable as ever.
Coming right up! I'll have it ready for ya in the morning!
Until then, we'll just have to assume God done it.
Which to my mind is an excellent assumption based on rational and logical arguments.
Not to my mind, it isn't logical.
We only see intelligent minds evolving. Where did God's intelligence evolve from, and when? Did it just spring into existence? Did it exist eternally? Neither of those seem logical to me.
That God's intelligence evolved, would make logical sense to me.Let's see here. 100% (not 99 or 99.99 or even 99.999999%) of all living things are mortal. It is thus "logical" to extend that knowledge to an unseen, undetectable entity of which we know nothing about.
Logically, this means the god was created, and as logic dictates that all things require a creator we can deduce there is a super god that created God.
Similarly, we can deduce that there is a super, super god that created the super god. And so on, ad infitinum.
Of course, the necessary corollary is that all those gods died out billions of years ago as no life form lives beyond a hundred years or so. Logic tells us so.
GIGO. Logic does not, and cannot, apply to the supernatural.As something real, not it isn't. As an imagined concept, existing only in the imagination, it may be logical but logic cannot be applied to it. If that makes any sense - what I mean is that, given that people imagine almost anything, so to imagine the supernatural is logical. But also that logic cannot be applied to what imagination produces.
@Wilderness:
So sorry to read a post so bloatedly silly,and gaseously insipid, that the moment it was written and submitted for everyone's peroration and consideration it immediately went poof into the ether and thankfully disappeared without a trace.But it's not morning yet! You must have faith...that even Wilderness is not ALWAYS serious, that sometimes a little humor seems in order.
Ah, but the quantum is predictable through QM and relativity combined, and since chaos theory we've discovered that some of that quirky nature of the quantum does show through, making this far less of a Newtonian clock work universe even in the macro levels..
1.) "Can we deny it is intelligible?" No.
2.) "Is it creative?" ("Hey look around us.") Uh, Yes.
3.) "Is it genius?" (-an understatement.) Yes.
4.) Is it "exceptional intellectual power?" Yes.
5. Is it a "creative power?" Yes.
6. Is it some "other natural ability?" Yes.
7. Is it okay/appropriate to call "it" God? Yes.
I just had to answer these questions, PV, since I know the answers.to refresh:
PV wrote: <"we have an unknown, X - call it truth, source, reason, explanation etc. and we see it's self evident, a priori - results. It is deterministic. It is self existent. It does not rely on anything, Its very nature is being true to its nature of being the truth, such as the absolute truth on your question, the truth is not a lie and adheres to, a is not, not a, law of non contradiction, it is self evident.">
That's what we are talking about, is it not?
Just Chiming In Per Usual.
1.) "Can we deny it is intelligible?" Sure
2.) "Is it creative?" That would imply intelligence, so No
3.) "Is it genius?" That would imply intelligence, so No
4.) Is it "exceptional intellectual power?" Yes.
5. Is it a "creative power?" Same as 2
6. Is it some "other natural ability?" Don't even get that one
7. Is it okay/appropriate to call "it" God? Sure, you can call it whatever you want@janesix:
IMO, to think that the universe was not created by sentience is more illogical than to think that it was.
We've been discussing the issue of causality, so the question needs to be asked: could a non-sentient entity truly create us, the ultimate effect or result of that creation, who are admittedly and beyond reasonable doubt, sentient beings?
Slarty posited that in fact us and the universe are the effects of a cause, either via sentience, or via what he terms "a process". My contention is sentience and process flows from the same cause, because process implies, direction, intention, goal.Our intelligence was the result of billions of years of evolution. It evolved.
It almost didn't. Chordates barely made it out of the Cambrian. Mammals would still be mice if a comet hadn't destroyed the dinosaurs.
So now you have to show that intelligence was in fact the result of a "process", that it was designed that way, and not just an accident of nature.
(I don't necessarily believe it was an accident, but these issues need to be resolved, at least in my mind)Not billion, but million of years. The hominid specie as per the fossil record did not make its appearance until approximately 5- 7 million years ago. Man's Evolutionary pathway, as per natural selection, is a process, slow and gradual as it was, but nonetheless sentience driven because implanted in our DNA are the structures and mechanisms that WOULD LEAD TO THAT GOAL OF BEING SENTIENT. Obviously environmental impositions had a lot to do with how our specie evolved, natural selection being a process that allows for the "survival of the the fittest" , not only physically, but most importantly , mentally.
I consider "evolution" to start at the beginning of life, which is about three and a half billion years. But that's not important. The point I'm trying to make is that the fossil record shows we nearly didn't make it. If the chordates died out like they almost did 540 million years ago, we wouldn't be here. Etc.
What I'm saying is, it's not an obvious progression from bacteria to humans. It's more like a forest of bushes.The fact is we made it.... which in terms of perspicacity and temerity has found no equal in the natural/sentient world.
@janesix:
If you think my equation has mathematical value or application (as Einstein's equation does), you are sadly mistaken. Now philosophically, I think I am making a good point with that equation.
You got it wrong... Intelligence is not the result of a process... process is the result of intelligence. In Einstein's elegant equation E=mc2, energy and mass are one and the same thing. In my equation I=PnL wherein Intelligence(I) equals process(P) multiplied or imposed upon by natural laws(nL)
Sorry, you don't get to just make random things up.
Are these natural laws then imposed upon the intelligence?
@slarty: The Causative Intelligence ie God that created all the sentient beings that we are aware of, and still to be aware of, by his Supernatural nature was and will never be subject to natural laws. By definition natural laws are only applicable to the material world, including us, the ultimate expression of intelligence in that material world.
All complex system always start out as simple systems, and evolve from there. Therefore, your omniintelligent creator would have had to evolved from simpler systems.
What did God evolve from?Your formula say otherwise so you may want to revise it or scrap it. Intelligence = process governed by natural laws means intelligence is the same as process governed by natural laws and the other way around. Process governed by natural law is the same as intelligence. So you are making my case for me.
Really... I don't see it that way. Be that as it may, I just listed for you, in another post, all the names of the 20 philosophic ideas that argue for the existence of God. They are obviously not based on empirical evidence, but some do touch tangentially on empirical considerations.
You can start dissecting any one of those as you please.When you put an equal sign in a formula it means "is the same as" And one of the proofs of the formula is that it works backward as well. After all, one side is said to equal the other.
6.) Is it some "other natural ability?"
I would assume "supernatural."
YES
7.) Is it okay/appropriate to call "it" God? <"Sure, you can call it whatever you want">
Mighty Triple OI think once you said there were supernatural laws? What are they?
The laws of nature reveal a supernatural basis.
basis |ˈbāsis| noun
The underlying foundation (cause) of a process:
"the underlying support or foundation for an idea, argument, or process." Dictionary
supernatural |ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl| adjective
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature:
noun ( the supernatural )
manifestations or events considered to be of supernatural origin, such as ghosts.
Dictionary.As above, so below. (Fractals, scalar laws)
This is the type of thing I mean.I believe we are witnessing the manifesting of God here, (and in the universe.) God must equal life and the processes that are evident to our five senses. "I do not believe in God."
You do not see, hear, feel, taste, touch… anything?
Maybe the Fibonacci series and how ALL nature is based on it is an example / evidence of supernatural law.
<"As above, so below. (Fractals, scalar laws)"> I would agree.
Take a butterfly.
all butterflies emerge out of a cocoon. Definite stages of growth create a butterfly. First, it is a caterpillar… nature guides it to become a cocoon and then it comes out... according to genetic instructions. Those instructions reveal something really supernatural. Something invisible directed the course of its evolution/creation.
Take a human child
It goes through definite stages which are universal to all children. The child is created stage by stage according to a preset mode of unfoldment. Just like a butterfly.
What emerges in six years is nothing like the infant at birth. The laws of nature are at work from birth on... directing the formation of a human child.
TWISIrepeating: Those instructions reveal something really supernatural. Something invisible directed the course of its evolution/creation.
"supernatural |ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl| adjective
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature:" DictionaryEdit: MY conclusion:
Mighty triple O is the cause of all that manifests and IS all that manifests.
Is there some problem with that understanding?No problem, I just don't share that understanding.
I am only sharing MY understanding.
What is yours?That everything has a rational answer.
But the Universe may be a living entity, unfolding like a developing embryo, starting from the big bang,and ending with some form of higher consciousness.- so God is the universe, unfolding? I agree with that. I like that.
Everything needs a name. You can call it that.
I like this too, I genuinely do, it is very thoughtful. I agree with you 100% that everything should have a rational answer, and we have to just keep inquiring. Sometimes I feel like to find out about things, for myself, anyway, I have to create a holographic outline of an unknown, or unknowns/unknowable by tracking the trajectory of what can be known, inferred or deduced. Kind of like metaphorically putting my hand on a piece of paper and dobbing a magic marker all around and hopefully, using reason, I am left with a blank space, that is shaped as my hand i.e a solution, if any. Is there a blank spot picture of a hand or is it just random dobs of magic marker, If any of that makes sense.
Your thoughts remind me how I have read about the large scale structure of the universe on wikipedia and how it consists of superclusters and filaments. I remember an article where it compared pictures of stars/galaxy/structures and I guess neurofilaments from a human brain and how similar they looked. I am not saying the universe is a big brain or anything, but it was interesting, they seemed to be similar structures.
The presence of God is felt as peace and joy within us
and manifests as life on the physical plane all around us.
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