Originally posted by Evensong:
...unnecessary hypothesis of a creator God?
LOL. Since when is cause unnecessary?
Unless you believe its turtles all the way down of course.
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quote:Just a young guy! And a fun guy, not a fungi. Ungi mungi chiki chiki fungi alligator ungi ooooh
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I'm 60 next year
quote:And yet if we view innocence not as a naivete to be lost but a virtue to be gained, then regaining our sense of wonder can be part of that process.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Tortuf, you're going to love this-- at one school I worked at, I would come into the playground early to scrawl "power words" on the concrete. One of my favorites was "Wonder." Just to make the kids, you know, wonder.
There is innocent wonder as a child, there is a point when you become an adult, need to lose your innocence, and have to realize all is not wonderful, but yes--if you are going to have a realistic view of the world, you cannot do so if you ignore those things around you that are wonderful, and acknowledge that they are just as meaningful and truthful as the harsh things.
quote:It's funny, I was thinking about this very thing yesterday - specifically the 'losing a sense of wonder as we learn how things work' bit. I think this is behind some people's objections to enquiring too closely into things, whether they be the nature of the Trininty or the nature of the atom - it 'destroys the marvel of it'. Well, there must be two kinds of people out there. For me, knowing HOW things work often increases, rather than decreases, the wonder of them.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
I do not believe there is an intrinsic need of adults to lose their sense of wonder. We all do as we learn how things work, and what is a fable versus real. That does not mean we ought to lose a sense of wonder about what is real.
quote:Moo
Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.
quote:I dunno-- the more I learn who things work, the more fascinating the world seems. every real question usually leads to more questions.
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:It's funny, I was thinking about this very thing yesterday - specifically the 'losing a sense of wonder as we learn how things work' bit. I think this is behind some people's objections to enquiring too closely into things, whether they be the nature of the Trininty or the nature of the atom - it 'destroys the marvel of it'. Well, there must be two kinds of people out there. For me, knowing HOW things work often increases, rather than decreases, the wonder of them.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
I do not believe there is an intrinsic need of adults to lose their sense of wonder. We all do as we learn how things work, and what is a fable versus real. That does not mean we ought to lose a sense of wonder about what is real.
quote:Er - yes. This is what I was saying.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:I dunno-- the more I learn who things work, the more fascinating the world seems. every real question usually leads to more questions.
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:It's funny, I was thinking about this very thing yesterday - specifically the 'losing a sense of wonder as we learn how things work' bit. I think this is behind some people's objections to enquiring too closely into things, whether they be the nature of the Trininty or the nature of the atom - it 'destroys the marvel of it'. Well, there must be two kinds of people out there. For me, knowing HOW things work often increases, rather than decreases, the wonder of them.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
I do not believe there is an intrinsic need of adults to lose their sense of wonder. We all do as we learn how things work, and what is a fable versus real. That does not mean we ought to lose a sense of wonder about what is real.
quote:The devil's French?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Boredom is from God, ennui from the devil.
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quote:Yes. For me that's been the main point of learning to be an artist - not the doing, but the seeing. And the seeing is the wonder.
Originally posted by Crazy Cat Lady:
I think when you are Art trained some of that wonder comes back, as you are taught to see the world as if with new eyes.
quote:People have this odd idea that all wonder must spring forth at the same time from the same thing in all thinkable ways, or something is hindering the wonder. Well, no. Wonder usually comes through a channel, and other stuff then mostly disrupts this channel. If someone is talking to you about the proton-proton chain reaction while you are trying to take in the sunset, then it is perfectly reasonable to tell them to shut up (for a while). Likewise, if you are about to understand the proton-proton chain reaction and leap to your intellectual "eureka" moment, then (somewhat ironically) the best place for that might be a quiet office lit only by neon light. And if you want to be moved deeply by a poem about a sunset, then probably both the proton-proton chain reaction equations and an actual sunset would get in the way of savouring these words. (*)
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm one of those people for whom science actually switches off the wonder.
quote:I don't think so, because there's nothing propositional about wonder. If a person of faith is moved to wonder, and then moved to praise God, then I thing however closely the one follows after the other, those are quite different things. Also, I can wonder at a great work of fiction, but that doesn't mean I hold it to be propositionally true. (Part of my wonder might be about the fact that it tells truth, but that's something very different.)
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
But does the wonder without the knowledge that there is a physical, chemical make-up become a delusion?
quote:Thank you; interesting. A sort of separation between wonder and worship; yes, I think I can see that.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I don't think so, because there's nothing propositional about wonder. If a person of faith is moved to wonder, and then moved to praise God, then I thing however closely the one follows after the other, those are quite different things.
quote:Why does something become a delusion if there is a non-scientific explanation for it?
SusanDoris: As soon as anyone thinks there is a non-natural, non-scientific explanation, for it, (even if that isn't known, or might not be known for a long time), then it becomes a delusion, I think.
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:Er - yes. This is what I was saying.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:I dunno-- the more I learn who things work, the more fascinating the world seems. every real question usually leads to more questions.
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:It's funny, I was thinking about this very thing yesterday - specifically the 'losing a sense of wonder as we learn how things work' bit. I think this is behind some people's objections to enquiring too closely into things, whether they be the nature of the Trininty or the nature of the atom - it 'destroys the marvel of it'. Well, there must be two kinds of people out there. For me, knowing HOW things work often increases, rather than decreases, the wonder of them.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
I do not believe there is an intrinsic need of adults to lose their sense of wonder. We all do as we learn how things work, and what is a fable versus real. That does not mean we ought to lose a sense of wonder about what is real.
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quote:What non-natural/scientific answer would there be?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Why does something become a delusion if there is a non-scientific explanation for it?
SusanDoris: As soon as anyone thinks there is a non-natural, non-scientific explanation, for it, (even if that isn't known, or might not be known for a long time), then it becomes a delusion, I think.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Because Susan Doris has the delusion that science can answer all questions.
No, no delusions here!! Having learnt how Science has solved so many questions up to the present time, I think it is a very reasonable assumption that they will go on finding non-God/god/s answers to life's unanswered questions!quote:I admire your faith in what has yet to be proved. Irrational as that faith clearly must be according to your own creed.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
They have, I am very confident, and delighted to say, found out how to repair hearts!
quote:Now I'm the one who's wondering: do you really not see the contradiction in your position?
SusanDoris: What non-natural/scientific answer would there be?
quote:Yes, science cannot answer that question: 'what non-natural/scientific answer would there be?'.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Now I'm the one who's wondering: do you really not see the contradiction in your position?
SusanDoris: What non-natural/scientific answer would there be?
Your claim is "Everything can be explained by science."
Your proof for this claim is "What other answer would there be?"
That's not a very scientific proof. In fact, it is a bit of a circular argument.
quote:I'm not quite sure I'm understanding you here. I should have been more specific. The success in heart surgery these days is evident, and I don't think I am being irrational in having faith in it!
Originally posted by Anselmina:
quote:I admire your faith in what has yet to be proved. Irrational as that faith clearly must be according to your own creed.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
They have, I am very confident, and delighted to say, found out how to repair hearts!
quote:Oh dear! It seems that, in trying not to be too wordy, I haven't used enough words! My question was posed so that perhaps you would give me your answer, whichI thought might be with an 'isn't it wonderful what God can do' theme, and I can assure you I would be interested to hear what you thought about this. Maybe I should know already and apologise for not remembering !
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Now I'm the one who's wondering: do you really not see the contradiction in your position?
SusanDoris: What non-natural/scientific answer would there be?
quote:Not 'can be' at present, but probably 'will be eventually' (although there will still be other questions to take future people on into further study). I think it is logical to think that.
Your claim is "Everything can be explained by science."
quote:That's not a proof, although it seems it came across as such; it's a question as I'm always interested in what people say here, even if I know I'll disagree!Please see above.
Your proof for this claim is "What other answer would there be?"
quote:If my words here make me sound even more unclear, then just pat me gently on the shoulder and I'll go and sit down with a nice cup of tea!!
That's not a very scientific proof. In fact, it is a bit of a circular argument.
quote:But do you admit that 'Everything will be explained by science eventually' is a claim for which you don't have scientific proof?
SusanDoris: Not 'can be' at present, but probably 'will be eventually' (although there will still be other questions to take future people on into further study).
quote:I'd suggest "Science will continue to find answers to the questions it's paid to ask."
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:But do you admit that 'Everything will be explained by science eventually' is a claim for which you don't have scientific proof?
SusanDoris: Not 'can be' at present, but probably 'will be eventually' (although there will still be other questions to take future people on into further study).
quote:I'm the other way. Scientific explanations for complicated things fill me with a sense of awe and delight at the way man can use his wonderful faculties to illuminate the world he perceives with the beautiful light of truth.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm one of those people for whom science actually switches off the wonder.
quote:You'd like the T-shirt I saw at Greenbelt the other year:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:I'm the other way. Scientific explanations for complicated things fill me with a sense of awe and delight at the way man can use his wonderful faculties to illuminate the world he perceives with the beautiful light of truth.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm one of those people for whom science actually switches off the wonder.
Beats mythology and fairy tales hands down.
quote:For you. I happen to be very interested, excited, and awe-inspired by mythology and fairytales.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Beats mythology and fairy tales hands down.
quote:It does in mine. Last week, a rock 1.7 miles wide passed 3.6 million miles from Earth. Scientists discovered that this rock has a moon, another rock 2000 feet across circling the bigger one. I think that's awesome!
Adeodatus: But I really do wish scientists would get over the idea that what they do is a source of wonder, or entitles them to be treated as cultural heroes. It really isn't, and it really doesn't - not in everyone's eyes, at least.
quote:"Religion too hard? Never mind, try some idiotic and childish straw men about it."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:You'd like the T-shirt I saw at Greenbelt the other year:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:I'm the other way. Scientific explanations for complicated things fill me with a sense of awe and delight at the way man can use his wonderful faculties to illuminate the world he perceives with the beautiful light of truth.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm one of those people for whom science actually switches off the wonder.
Beats mythology and fairy tales hands down.
"Science too hard? Try religion!"
Far too often superficial understandings of religion and its relationship to science make that slogan sadly true.
quote:These discoveries fill me with awe, both with the capabilities of man to be able to perceive and explain these things, as with the workings of Nature itself.
Yorick: Scientific explanations for complicated things fill me with a sense of awe and delight at the way man can use his wonderful faculties to illuminate the world he perceives with the beautiful light of truth.
quote:Of course what science finds is a major source of human wonder, and of course scientists are entitled to be treated as cultural heroes - as much as any other culture producer (i.e., in accordance with their cultural achievements).
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
But I really do wish scientists would get over the idea that what they do is a source of wonder, or entitles them to be treated as cultural heroes. It really isn't, and it really doesn't - not in everyone's eyes, at least.
quote:I began a Biological Sciences degree because I was awed and amazed by what I learnt about God's creation.
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:I'm the other way. Scientific explanations for complicated things fill me with a sense of awe and delight at the way man can use his wonderful faculties to illuminate the world he perceives with the beautiful light of truth.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm one of those people for whom science actually switches off the wonder.
Beats mythology and fairy tales hands down.
quote:I'm not a philistine, but when the likes of Brian Cox stare misty-eyed into the wide blue yon and expect everybody to fall in adulation at their feet because they're, gosh, just so clever, frankly I want to hurl.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Of course what science finds is a major source of human wonder, and of course scientists are entitled to be treated as cultural heroes - as much as any other culture producer (i.e., in accordance with their cultural achievements).
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
But I really do wish scientists would get over the idea that what they do is a source of wonder, or entitles them to be treated as cultural heroes. It really isn't, and it really doesn't - not in everyone's eyes, at least.
If you disagree, then frankly you are a philistine (about science).
It's entirely different matter if science is not a particular source of wonder to you, and if scientists will not become your personal cultural heroes. That's a matter of taste.
quote:And children's own questions are far more original and interesting - last week my 8 year old asked me why flowers are all different colours.
Originally posted by Truman White:
I remember - some years ago now when we were all really, really, young - a pal of mine relaying a scene she saw involving a dad and his small child. The kid was looking at a flower in a pretty cool and splendidly laid out flower garden. The dad was asking kiddo questions like "What colour is the flower?" "Now how many leaves does it have?" "Is it taller or shorter than the flower next to it." My friend had to restrain herself from going up and whispering in the guy's ear "Why not just let her enjoy the flower!"
Analysis can be wonderful - sometimes, you just need to sit back and drink the wonder in.
quote:Out of curiosity, what answer did you give?
Heavenly Anarchist: And children's own questions are far more original and interesting - last week my 8 year old asked me why flowers are all different colours.
quote:Out of even more curiosity, what answer would you give? I can think of at least two scientific answers which are quite different, before going into philosophical or religious answers.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Out of curiosity, what answer did you give?
Heavenly Anarchist: And children's own questions are far more original and interesting - last week my 8 year old asked me why flowers are all different colours.
quote:"Well, Junior. Some plants like to receive a visit from the bees or from other insects from time to time. That's because they bring the seeds from one plant to the other, so that little plants can grow. That's why the plants have all these flowers, with different, beautiful colours. Because the insects like them, and might come by for a visit.
Karl: Liberal Backslider: Out of even more curiosity, what answer would you give?
quote:Oh, I see what you mean; thank you. Not being a dogmatic kind of person, (no, really, quetzalcoatl!
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:But do you admit that 'Everything will be explained by science eventually' is a claim for which you don't have scientific proof?
SusanDoris: Not 'can be' at present, but probably 'will be eventually' (although there will still be other questions to take future people on into further study).
)I wasn't thinking of it as a claim, more of a comment only. Can't think of a better word at the moment.
quote:The problem is, phrasing your response in a way that doesn't ascribe intentionality to the flowers (or to the bees). This is a problem scientists have all the time - viruses "want" to do this, planets "try" to do that, genes are "selfish". Any sense of wonder that comes from such anthropomorphisms is founded on bad science.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
"Well, Junior. Some plants like to receive a visit from the bees or from other insects from time to time. That's because they bring the seeds from one plant to the other, so that little plants can grow. That's why the plants have all these flowers, with different, beautiful colours. Because the insects like them, and might come by for a visit."
quote:Ah, so then your comment is duly noted.
SusanDoris: I wasn't thinking of it as a claim, more of a comment only.
quote:I'm not sure if ascribing intentionality when discussing things with a 8 year old is necessarily a problem.
Adeodatus: The problem is, phrasing your response in a way that doesn't ascribe intentionality to the flowers (or to the bees).
quote:I started flailing around with physics, discussing optics (which I am woefully under qualified to discuss and which my husband, who has an Optics MSc, failed to assist me with), and moved on to biology, with insect attraction and photosynthesis. I then moved on to philosophy and aesthetics, of which I was far more comfortable
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:Out of even more curiosity, what answer would you give? I can think of at least two scientific answers which are quite different, before going into philosophical or religious answers.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Out of curiosity, what answer did you give?
Heavenly Anarchist: And children's own questions are far more original and interesting - last week my 8 year old asked me why flowers are all different colours.
quote:So yes, I covered both of those and these would have been the most fascinating to my eldest child, who is a scientist like his father. But the child who asked the question was my youngest who wants to be an artist and he got far more involved in the philosophical discussion (though he did like the optics).
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The two scientific answers I'd give aren't in competition.
One is "because they contain different pigments that reflect different colours back to your eyes."
The other is "because it gives them the ability to attract particular pollinators and therefore they have more success in reproduction".
Knowing my kids these'd be the answers they were interested in.
quote:Well, it is hard to be exact about what we said, we discussed the concept of nature and beauty and what we think is beautiful. Earlier in the day I had shown them some aquilegia and we had admired their unusual shapes. My husband is very into the philosophy of Dooyeweerd, his father used to lecture on it and it heavily influenced his own approach to life (he is a inventor for a technology firm), and this emphasises the importance of meaning as a fundamental property of things so it is quite normal in our house to look at nature from a range of perspectives. But I won't pretend to be an expert at philosophy. I am a textile artist though, so I like discussing colour and texture.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Excuse me my continued curiosity, but I'd be interested to have an idea of how you discussed the aesthetics and the philosphy of flower colours with an 8 year old.
quote:And what has that to do with science? Or even, I suspect, with Brian Cox as working scientist? The BBC markets the guy in just the way that they think science can be sold to the masses. Apparently the BBC does reasonably well with him on the selling side of things...
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm not a philistine, but when the likes of Brian Cox stare misty-eyed into the wide blue yon and expect everybody to fall in adulation at their feet because they're, gosh, just so clever, frankly I want to hurl.
quote:This is not a problem. This is not a problem scientists have all the time. This is not indicative of "bad science". And this does not affect the wonder of science at all.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
The problem is, phrasing your response in a way that doesn't ascribe intentionality to the flowers (or to the bees). This is a problem scientists have all the time - viruses "want" to do this, planets "try" to do that, genes are "selfish". Any sense of wonder that comes from such anthropomorphisms is founded on bad science.
quote:He's a grown-up, allegedly. He doesn't have to be marketed in any way he doesn't want to.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:And what has that to do with science? Or even, I suspect, with Brian Cox as working scientist? The BBC markets the guy in just the way that they think science can be sold to the masses. Apparently the BBC does reasonably well with him on the selling side of things...
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm not a philistine, but when the likes of Brian Cox stare misty-eyed into the wide blue yon and expect everybody to fall in adulation at their feet because they're, gosh, just so clever, frankly I want to hurl.
quote:You're wrong. Telling lies for the sake of easy communication is wrong. Viruses do not "want". Planets do not "try". Genes are not "selfish". To assert otherwise is a lie, and contrary to science. If you need to twist words to mean something they don't otherwise means, then you would do better to invent some new words.
quote:This is not a problem. This is not a problem scientists have all the time. This is not indicative of "bad science". And this does not affect the wonder of science at all.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
The problem is, phrasing your response in a way that doesn't ascribe intentionality to the flowers (or to the bees). This is a problem scientists have all the time - viruses "want" to do this, planets "try" to do that, genes are "selfish". Any sense of wonder that comes from such anthropomorphisms is founded on bad science.
I would argue that final causes need to be reintroduced to science (or in the case of the life sciences, to be recognised as never having been eliminated in fact). But even if they were merely a means to make science intelligible, then employing them to communicate the wonders of science would not make these wonders false.
quote:I haven't explained myself very well, have I? What I mean is we discussed how insects are attracted to flowers and how this fits into pollination. But flowers don't just have worth in this sense, they have meaning in many other ways. So we discussed the beauty and originality of flowers, and yes, a creator God. My son currently is growing flowers and veg in his own patch so is very interested in plants growing. Nature is great for developing a sense of wonder.
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
quote:Well, it is hard to be exact about what we said, we discussed the concept of nature and beauty and what we think is beautiful. Earlier in the day I had shown them some aquilegia and we had admired their unusual shapes. My husband is very into the philosophy of Dooyeweerd, his father used to lecture on it and it heavily influenced his own approach to life (he is a inventor for a technology firm), and this emphasises the importance of meaning as a fundamental property of things so it is quite normal in our house to look at nature from a range of perspectives. But I won't pretend to be an expert at philosophy. I am a textile artist though, so I like discussing colour and texture.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Excuse me my continued curiosity, but I'd be interested to have an idea of how you discussed the aesthetics and the philosphy of flower colours with an 8 year old.
quote:He gets good money, he gets flown to all sorts of interesting places for free, and his "public engagement / impact" sections for grant applications and the REF write themselves. You could say that he has "sold out", but his pop science stuff is at least not wrong (much). Furthermore, as a former (music) pop star he's probably not too worried by scientific purists demanding that he does the equivalent of presenting Arnold Schönberg at Top of the Pops. Frankly, I think you are simply jealous of the man's good fortune.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
He's a grown-up, allegedly. He doesn't have to be marketed in any way he doesn't want to.
quote:No, you are wrong. And since I'm the professional scientist and you are not, in the end you get to suck it... But apart from this beautiful fact of life, I will repeat my argument so that you can engage with something, if you so choose: 1) Formal and final causes anyhow belong back as fully accepted part of science. That is my opinion, and a defensible position on the philosophy of science once more these days (thanks to "new essentialism" and like movements). Practically speaking, the life sciences are basically impossible to talk about without these. 2) Even if 1) is bunk, communicating about science was, is and ever will be a less exact art than science itself. Modern science is defined operationally however, and hence it is entirely licit to talk about "selfish genes" as long as that brings about successful conceptualisation. 3) There is no "lie" involved in adapting words to do somewhat unusual business. That's simply jargon formation. In the diamond-hard science of quantum physics, for example, we were reminded with some frequency that "(mathematical) operators are hungry". Yet nobody had the idea to invite his equations to McD.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
You're wrong. Telling lies for the sake of easy communication is wrong. Viruses do not "want". Planets do not "try". Genes are not "selfish". To assert otherwise is a lie, and contrary to science. If you need to twist words to mean something they don't otherwise means, then you would do better to invent some new words.
quote:That's a bit daft, like saying that "humans are the top predators of planet Earth" is falsified by dumping a middle-aged New York office worker somewhere in the African savannah, naked and without any gear, and timing how long it takes until he gets eaten by lions or hyenas. There's a time for simplification and "take home" messages, and there's a time for complexity and detailed modelling.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Mary Midgley took science to task on this, but I can't remember in which book. She pointed out all the gee-whizzery that went with the discovery that DNA is "self-replicating" (a lie you'll often still see in the popular science media). The truth, as she pointed out, is that you can have a bucket of the stuff in you're lab and it won't replicate itself the least little bit.
quote:Modern natural science is not philosophy, not even natural philosophy. It has its own means and criteria of truth and precision, and while they sometimes concern language usage, this is hardly always the top concern. Modern science is largely about collecting and managing empirical data, proposing and testing relationships between these data (and assorted theoretical constructs), often of a mathematical kind, and thereby providing simplifying descriptions and in particular predictions. Conceptual accuracy and precision of language is subservient to that purpose, but usually more an outcome than a precondition of the process. By the time science really knows what it is talking about, and how to talk about it, it has become mostly stale and boring to scientists.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Precision of language is of paramount importance in a discipline that claims as strong a commitment to truth as science does.
quote:I take it you're forgetting I used to be a professional scientist, before I found something better to do. Furthermore, your invitation to "suck it" lacks precision. What, exactly, would you like me to suck?
Originally posted by IngoB:
No, you are wrong. And since I'm the professional scientist and you are not, in the end you get to suck it...
quote:I did forget, if I ever knew. I'm sure science also found someone better to do it.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I take it you're forgetting I used to be a professional scientist, before I found something better to do.
quote:Your left pinky.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Furthermore, your invitation to "suck it" lacks precision. What, exactly, would you like me to suck?
quote:Good, another perspective to wonder at. I shall bring this up next time I discuss the beauty of flowers with Elijah (perhaps I can try to explore with him why I have always felt there is something wrong about blue roses
Originally posted by no prophet:
BTW, the flowers in the discussion above, unless pure wild flowers and not escaped from gardens, are the colours they are because people selected them and propagated them. Bees have little to do with their colours or size. I have a biologist for a child, who specialises in botany. We have some orchids on the Canadian prairies. They are tiny and colour variations very unimpressive. The search for blue roses and red-ist tulips come to mind as well.
)
quote:First, scientists divide roughly into (pure) theorists, phenomenologists and experimentalists - and what they do all day is not really all the same. Second, in some sense all science is indeed about discovery (and the cataloguing / systematising of discoveries). However, that hardly implies a lack of creativity. Rather, scientific creativity is precisely about making discoveries. Just as engineering creativity is about finding technological solutions.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
One of the reasons science fails to impress me is that it's about discovery far more than it's about creativity.
quote:really is abject nonsense. There is next to nothing that will get reported in any scientific journal of any standing this year that simply got "stumbled across". There are occasions of "accidental discovery", of course, but they are almost always of the "sailing to Asia one stumbles upon America" kind. Without the setting of sail, no America.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
If something is there to be discovered, somebody's bound to stumble across it sooner or later.
quote:One showery afternoon I went from Matarangi into the (small) town to shop at the supermarket. And there opposite the shops was a huge, perfect rainbow – and yes, even a faint outer one. I stood gazing before I could go into the shop, and again for even longer on my way out, sometimes making a comment to other shoppers who looked as if they might miss it. How could they? Well, some did bustle to their cars with their eyes down, their thoughts on their concerns, and did see nothing.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:(*) One's appreciation of a sunset perhaps can be enhanced by reading a poem about a sunset. But I think that this is mostly a sequence of the mind's focus, in which one part enhances the next in a subtle flow. And this is different from integrating for example nature's sounds with the visuals from the sun into one experience. We have genuine multimodal perception, but are rubbish at paying attention to multiple things...
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm one of those people for whom science actually switches off the wonder.
quote:Cool it you two.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:I did forget, if I ever knew. I'm sure science also found someone better to do it.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I take it you're forgetting I used to be a professional scientist, before I found something better to do.
quote:Your left pinky.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Furthermore, your invitation to "suck it" lacks precision. What, exactly, would you like me to suck?
quote:Exactly: big gaseous planets far away from their star (where water stays frozen) are much easier to find, so of course we'll find more of them. Yet, in spite of this, some rocky planets have already been discovered within the zone where liquid water is possible.
Penny S: Mind you, the features of a system like ours would be hard to find with Kepler.
quote:Well yes, a bit like having something that can find elephants and does and then complaining it hasn't found any mice so mice must be extremely rare.
Originally posted by Penny S:
Mind you, the features of a system like ours would be hard to find with Kepler.
quote:Exoplanets aren't just discovered by transiting in front of their star. Even if they don't transtit, their gravitational pull can be measured.
Penny S: Further out, they are more likely not to transit the star.
quote:May I present to you KOI-1686.01. Rocky, 1.33 times the size of Earth, within the zone where liquid water exists. There are a couple more like this one.
Penny S: Everyone wants an Earth type, Earth sized planet in the Goldilocks zone, and there hasn't been one yet.
quote:You're moving the goalposts here. First you say "we only find gassy planets outside of the Goldilocks zone" and when I do show you a rocky planet within Goldilocks (there are several) you say it's too big. I guess that when they find one that's 1.00 Earths, you'll say that it's too yellow?
Penny S: 1.33 Earths is too big.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:So I responded to the first part:
big gaseous planets far away from their star (where water stays frozen) are much easier to find, so of course we'll find more of them. Yet, in spite of this, some rocky planets have already been discovered within the zone where liquid water is possible.
quote:because I was thinking of the layout of the systems I am aware of with regard to those planets - and I know that there is an issue with them not being like ours with the gas giants in the outer parts, which challenges the usual interpretation of how our system formed. I wasn't responding to the rocky planets part. I know some are in the Goldilocks zone.
It's the big gassy planets close into the stars that are the easiest to find, and which we have found many of.
quote:Ah, I have a better idea of what you're talking about now. I understand that our solar system might be a bit of an anomaly, in the sense that the big gaseous planets are at the outside, whereas around other stars we find them more at the inside of the system. There are also indications that these planets might move around within the system during their existence, going from the inside to the outside for example.
Penny S: because I was thinking of the layout of the systems I am aware of with regard to those planets - and I know that there is an issue with them not being like ours with the gas giants in the outer parts, which challenges the usual interpretation of how our system formed.
quote:I agree, although some of the things you are saying here are still a bit speculative until we know more.
Penny S: There's another point - a number of these planets are going round red dwarfs, which means the Goldilocks zone is closer in than it is with a G-type star like ours, and that means that they will probably be in locked rotation, as people used to think Mercury was, showing only one side to the star. This would have implications for the position of continents, oceanic circulation, atmospheric ditto - not impossible for life, but not as nice as our Earth by any means. And they'd need good atmospheric shielding for stellar flares.
quote:Yes I have, it's absolutely wonderful.
Penny S: Have you seen they've just published an actual image of a super Jupiter!
quote:Not confirmed? I guess it depends on what you mean by confirmation. I understand that planets by Kepler-62e have been confirmed already.
Penny S: And I agree that there is a strong suggestion that there are many Earth sized planets out there - but not yet confirmation, which is what concerned me originally.
quote:Ah, you have a very strict definition of 'Earth-sized'. In that case I agree, none have been confirmed of Earth size yet.
Penny S: Super Earth, not Earth, radius 1.61 Earth. I was going for actual close radial measurements, whch I thought you were predicting.
quote:Yes, I agree with you about the locked rotation thing. But what you are saying about the effects this may have on continents, oceanic and atmospheric circulation, and their implications on the existence of life, there are still a lot of things we don't know about that.
Penny S: Locked rotation - look at work by Joshi, Haberle, Doyle, Heath. I suppose it is speculation, but it is peer reviewed speculation with the maths done and everything.
quote:One factor is that Earth has what is, probably, an untypically large moon for a small, rocky Goldolocks planet - resulting from a collision with another planetary body early in the solar system's history - and which stabilises our orbit, thus ensuring a stabler climate than would otherwise be the case. So yes, finding an earthlike planet in the right zone isn't sufficient to presume that life is likely there. But in the vastness of the universe, it would be rash to presume that our situation is unique, or even uncommon.
Originally posted by Penny S:
Going back a bit, the Kepler project has not been showing us how many earth-type planets there are, but the opposite. Everyone jumps up and down at each new discovery, shouts "Goldilocks zone" "Earth size" "may have water" and then go very quiet. Everything is too big, far too close to its sun, gaseous, and totally, totally wrong. And, to our eyes, weird.
The wonder is the system we live in. So far, it is unique. Its big planets are a long way from its Sun, and shield the inner zones from impacts. All planets are far enough out for none to be extremely affected by the Sun's gravity and driven into chaos. (Mercury does show some Einsteinian effects, but not huge ones.) We are remarkably tidy. We are the weird system. As far was we have found so far.
Mind you, the features of a system like ours would be hard to find with Kepler.
quote:Hmm, there's probably a lot of speculation in the stuff about Earth having an untypically large moon. Pluto has a moon that is relatively larger than Earth's (although admittedly Pluto isn't a planet anymore), and we know nothing about the sizes of the moons that exoplanets may have.
argona: One factor is that Earth has what is, probably, an untypically large moon for a small, rocky Goldolocks planet - resulting from a collision with another planetary body early in the solar system's history - and which stabilises our orbit, thus ensuring a stabler climate than would otherwise be the case.
quote:With this I agree.
argona: So yes, finding an earthlike planet in the right zone isn't sufficient to presume that life is likely there. But in the vastness of the universe, it would be rash to presume that our situation is unique, or even uncommon.
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
The combination of conditions that have allowed life to flourish on the Earth on which we stand are so infinitesimally small it makes our very existence miraculous .
No – life on this planet is as it has to be (with minimal variation) to fit the environment we exist within. If the conditions were different life would be different, or non-existent. What would be miraculous would be the existence of life in defiance of the laws of physics – and that doesn’t happen.
... we live out the majority of our lives focused on trivia and experiencing small ripples of excitement against a backdrop of the seemingly mundane .
I have no idea as to why this should be either. Its simple – the prime concern of humans (as of all life) is to survive. To survive we handle what we can and make up stories about what we can’t. Trivia and the mundane we can understand and sometimes affect, if we could understand and affect the fundamentals we would have no justification for religion. The way to understand the fundamentals is through the scientific method. We will probably never impact some things even if we understand them, therefore superstition will probably survive in some form or another.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The two scientific answers I'd give aren't in competition.................Knowing my kids these'd be the answers they were interested in.
Although the pollinator may detect a very different pattern to that which we see – bees can distinguish
UV light
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
So we discussed the beauty and originality of flowers, and yes, a creator God. My son currently is growing flowers and veg in his own patch so is very interested in plants growing. Nature is great for developing a sense of wonder.
If nature is great for developing a sense of wonder (and I suspect it can be) why risk diluting it by introducing the unnecessary hypothesis of a creator god?
quote:Some things get more beautiful when you take a risk. In my case, it's been worth it.
HughWillRidmee: If nature is great for developing a sense of wonder (and I suspect it can be) why risk diluting it by introducing the unnecessary hypothesis of a creator god?
quote:as opposed to gods all the way down perhaps?
Originally posted by Evensong:
...unnecessary hypothesis of a creator God?
LOL. Since when is cause unnecessary?
Unless you believe its turtles all the way down of course.
quote:Did you know that when the Big Bang theory was first formulated, alot of people didn't like it because it seemed to agree to much with the creation stories in Genesis? The previous cosmology rested on the idea that the universe was eternal (based on Aristotelian philosophy), whereas the BBT implied it had a beginning and therefore accorded with Genesis 1 and Jewish/Christian cosmology.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The truth is that we don't understand what caused the singularity to expand rapidly some 13.73bn years ago; we do understand (with a suitably great degree of certainty) what happened thereafter and there is neither necessity nor evidence for supernatural/divine involvement.
quote:That is interesting, but it does not negate the current thinking on the Big Bang theory, which is constantly being looked at, revised and tweaked as more knowledge becomes available.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Did you also know that the original founder of the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic Priest?
quote:Joshi's work in particular has run things through simulators of the sort used by the Met Office.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Ah, you have a very strict definition of 'Earth-sized'. In that case I agree, none have been confirmed of Earth size yet.
Penny S: Super Earth, not Earth, radius 1.61 Earth. I was going for actual close radial measurements, whch I thought you were predicting.
quote:Yes, I agree with you about the locked rotation thing. But what you are saying about the effects this may have on continents, oceanic and atmospheric circulation, and their implications on the existence of life, there are still a lot of things we don't know about that.
Penny S: Locked rotation - look at work by Joshi, Haberle, Doyle, Heath. I suppose it is speculation, but it is peer reviewed speculation with the maths done and everything.
quote:No it doesn't negate the thinking of the Big Bang Theory.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:That is interesting, but it does not negate the current thinking on the Big Bang theory, which is constantly being looked at, revised and tweaked as more knowledge becomes available.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Did you also know that the original founder of the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic Priest?
quote:Quite right. You can't.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
quote:I think lots of people are confused about this. But it does depend on how you define 'evidence'. If you define it as scientific evidence or naturalistic evidence, then there cannot be any for God, unless you think God is a sort of big ugly bloke.
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:No it doesn't negate the thinking of the Big Bang Theory.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:That is interesting, but it does not negate the current thinking on the Big Bang theory, which is constantly being looked at, revised and tweaked as more knowledge becomes available.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Did you also know that the original founder of the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic Priest?
Which is precisely my point.
quote:Quite right. You can't.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
Atheists are a bit confused about this tho. They essentially have problems with their methodology when it comes to evidence. They seem to be able to prove what they have not tested.
quote:And here is the thing. Science and religion are working on two different things. Attempting to combine is, ultimately, ridiculous.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
quote:Just as well; it's currently pissing down.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:I think lots of people are confused about this. But it does depend on how you define 'evidence'. If you define it as scientific evidence or naturalistic evidence, then there cannot be any for God, unless you think God is a sort of big ugly bloke.
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:No it doesn't negate the thinking of the Big Bang Theory.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:That is interesting, but it does not negate the current thinking on the Big Bang theory, which is constantly being looked at, revised and tweaked as more knowledge becomes available.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Did you also know that the original founder of the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic Priest?
Which is precisely my point.
quote:Quite right. You can't.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
Atheists are a bit confused about this tho. They essentially have problems with their methodology when it comes to evidence. They seem to be able to prove what they have not tested.
But you might define evidence just as anything which supports an argument, in which case it's more complicated. I tend to call this 'grounds' to avoid ambiguity. Thus a nice sunny day might be grounds for believing in God, but it's not evidence.
quote:I think things are changing though. On the blogosphere, there is a lot more stuff about this now, that is, discriminating between science and religion. I think the effects of Dawkins' crappy efforts at philosophizing are wearing off, and many writers and thinkers are taking it in, that, for example, talking about 'the probability of God' is just incoherent.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:And here is the thing. Science and religion are working on two different things. Attempting to combine is, ultimately, ridiculous.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
No necessity to understand cause and purpose?
That's a very trusting, accepting and pacifistic position to hold. Not very inquiring or scientific at all.
Why, some might even call it a faith position.
Some might be in danger of being considered coquettish then mightn’t they?
In terms of why there was a singularity;-
As to its cause – Since there is no possibility that I could work that out it is currently irrelevant to me.
As to purpose - it was a singularity – it can’t have purpose.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Did you know that when the Big Bang theory was first formulated, alot of people didn't like it because it seemed to agree to much with the creation stories in Genesis? The previous cosmology rested on the idea that the universe was eternal (based on Aristotelian philosophy), whereas the BBT implied it had a beginning and therefore accorded with Genesis 1 and Jewish/Christian cosmology. and, to exactly the same extent, also accorded with virtually every other creation myth ever invented by mankind – how is this relevant?
Now however, it seems to be used AGAINST the idea that God created the world. The idea that the universe was created by a conscious act is a hypothesis. There is no evidence to support this hypothesis. There are no places in the equations where we have to put a large set of brackets and fill them with the words then something supernatural/miraculous occurs. The idea that God made the world/universe is the unnecessary hypothesis of a creator god . Since it cannot be proven wrong there is an infinitesimally small possibility that it might be right – so what?
Did you also know that the original founder of the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic Priest? Plenty of very clever people are religious – though, I understand, very few who are professional cosmologists, physicists or biologists. Degrees of intelligence may inform the style of that religiosity but it seems to be some other factor(s) which enable faith.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
Different tangent but how could something non-physical affect things that are physical? Matter is affected by four forces – gravity, electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Those four forces account for every effect and there is no room for any other. Additionally – were there a fifth we would detect its effects and be able to measure it.
“My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.” population geneticist J. B. S. Haldane
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Atheists are a bit confused about this tho. They essentially have problems with their methodology when it comes to evidence. They seem to be able to prove what they have not tested. Sometimes a proof can consist of rational deduction from known facts – Known facts NOT wishful thinking.
However – I think you are failing to differentiate between we do not believe and we can prove to be untrue. It is not possible to disprove the existence of god but since the concept is both unsupported and unnecessary the burden of proof is on you. I’m sure you’re familiar with Russell's teapot (if you check Wikipedia - Garvey is trying to redefine atheism, Wood relies on his peculiar interpretation of “reasonable”, Reitan’s “difference” is irrelevant and Chamberlain thinks he can equate Winston Churchill with said teapot).
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But you might define evidence just as anything which supports an argument, in which case it's more complicated. I tend to call this 'grounds' to avoid ambiguity. Thus a nice sunny day might be grounds for believing in God, but it's not evidence. But only to the same extent as it is “grounds” for believing in Thor, Minerva, Ganesh or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
quote:I see no reason why I would want to prove the existence of God.
HughWillRidmee: It is not possible to disprove the existence of god but since the concept is both unsupported and unnecessary the burden of proof is on you.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It is not possible to disprove the existence of god but since the concept is both unsupported and unnecessary the burden of proof is on you.
The concept of God is extremely well supported unless you discount all of history and personal experience as fiction. Which is acceptable but completely unreasonable.
The concept is not unnecessary. First cause is very necessary. The fact that you're not interested in it is irrelevant. But logically, it is necessary. God creating the world is the more reasonable option than nothing creating the world and it's all a matter of chance.
So the burden of proof lies on you.
Oh dear – all of history? – including the seventy-thousand years or more of modern humanity prior to the concept of a single god developing out of a plethora of gods, goddesses, demons, spirits, earth-mother etc. Many people have believed in some sort of supernatural power(s) – even if you consider them all to be ideas of god it doesn’t mean that they were right. Until a few hundred years ago people knew that the sun went round the earth – they could see its path during the day and there it was, back at the start again, the next morning. Does the fact that it was widely accepted (and taught by the christian church) make it true? Does belief in Odin or Oceanus, Gaia or Ganesh support your concept of god? Lots of people got it wrong, lots of people still get it wrong – but most religious people, whatever their belief, reckon they’ve got the true deal - do you? Why should your experience be valid whilst Mohammed’s or Brigham Young’s, Ceasar’s or Epicurus’s (where it differs from yours) is not?
Personal experience as fiction. Well yes actually it probably is. We know that memory is not like a video, it’s more a few bullet points which we weave into a guesswork story when we “remember” – that’s why eye-witness testimony is the worst possible evidence in terms of the judicial process. What we call memory is easily modified by suggestion – students who can’t recall being abused as children when questioned about it gave graphic accounts of the abuse six months later when re-questioned etc. etc..
I don’t know whether there was an external cause to the Big Bang or not – I don’t see that it’s likely that I will ever know if there was let alone, if there was, what it was. Are you defining god as the cause, if so where did the cause come from? You say first cause as if your god did not have a cause - yet you say that cause is logically necessary. Either keep your cake or eat it, or explain to me how you can do both simultaneously.
Even if we found that the universe had been created it wouldn’t be evidence for your god – it might, based on exactly the same evidence (it’s here), have been coughed up by a diseased eight foot high rabbit in a slaughter house in another of the eleven dimensions that string theory predicts (though eleven is a consensus – some say fewer or more). Difference is, I don’t actually think it was an eight foot rabbit so I don’t have to prove it was, you on the other hand........
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I see no reason why I would want to prove the existence of God.
Comment was addressed Evensong.
quote:I know, I just wanted to say that. By all means go ahead.
HughWillRidmee: Comment was addressed Evensong.
quote:Oh I see. You believe the fact that their is no historical uniformity in belief in God/gods that it therefore cannot be true?
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Oh dear – all of history? – including the seventy-thousand years or more of modern humanity prior to the concept of a single god developing out of a plethora of gods, goddesses, demons, spirits, earth-mother etc. Many people have believed in some sort of supernatural power(s) – even if you consider them all to be ideas of god it doesn’t mean that they were right. Until a few hundred years ago people knew that the sun went round the earth – they could see its path during the day and there it was, back at the start again, the next morning. Does the fact that it was widely accepted (and taught by the christian church) make it true? Does belief in Odin or Oceanus, Gaia or Ganesh support your concept of god? Lots of people got it wrong, lots of people still get it wrong – but most religious people, whatever their belief, reckon they’ve got the true deal - do you? Why should your experience be valid whilst Mohammed’s or Brigham Young’s, Ceasar’s or Epicurus’s (where it differs from yours) is not?
quote:Right. Discount all personal experience and observation!
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Personal experience as fiction. Well yes actually it probably is. We know that memory is not like a video, it’s more a few bullet points which we weave into a guesswork story when we “remember” – that’s why eye-witness testimony is the worst possible evidence in terms of the judicial process. What we call memory is easily modified by suggestion – students who can’t recall being abused as children when questioned about it gave graphic accounts of the abuse six months later when re-questioned etc. etc..
quote:First cause is one of the primary definitions of God. God created time and existed outside our concepts of time so asking what created God is redundant and not using the word correctly.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QB]
Are you defining god as the cause, if so where did the cause come from? You say first cause as if your god did not have a cause - yet you say that cause is logically necessary. Either keep your cake or eat it, or explain to me how you can do both simultaneously.
quote:Sure it would. As above. It's the definition of God.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QB]
Even if we found that the universe had been created it wouldn’t be evidence for your god
quote:The whole burden of proof thing is actually a red herring IMO. It assumes that human beings are some kind of neutral tabula rasa and exist in a state of objectivity. Which is rubbish of course.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QB] Difference is, I don’t actually think it was an eight foot rabbit so I don’t have to prove it was, you on the other hand........
quote:I found a lovely blogpost/article on The Problem of Evidence in Atheism.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:And here is the thing. Science and religion are working on two different things. Attempting to combine is, ultimately, ridiculous.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't see how there could be evidence for divine involvement, since 'evidence' generally refers to naturalistic stuff. How can you find physical evidence for something non-physical?
quote:and a bit of explanation:
To make the conclusion that God does not exist, when God has not been factored into the experiment in the first place, makes an inconsistent leap. “Methodological atheism jumps to ontological atheism with no explanation.”
quote:
what would count as evidence of the supernatural or of God? And if it turns out there is not any sort of event, fact, datum, or combination of facts that would count as evidence of the supernatural or of God, then how is this stance distinguishable from a priori atheism, rather than a result of a survey of the pertinent evidence? And if it is indistinguishable from a priori atheism, why countenance the objection seriously at all?
quote:This.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee: I don’t know whether there was an external cause to the Big Bang or not – I don’t see that it’s likely that I will ever know if there was let alone, if there was, what it was. Are you defining god as the cause, if so where did the cause come from? You say first cause as if your god did not have a cause - yet you say that cause is logically necessary. Either keep your cake or eat it, or explain to me how you can do both simultaneously.
quote:<snort> No cleverness necessary, which is a good thing this time of day. No coffee here yet!
Originally posted by Yorick:
Could some clever theist offer an answer to this? I’ve often wondered about it, but don’t recall ever seeing a satisfactory answer. I’ve got my pain au chocolat and coffee, and it would be nice to have this sorted out whilst I enjoy them.
quote:Thanks. I think you’re simply asserting that the universe had a cause (God) but God doesn’t, ergo causality doesn’t exist because it’s paradoxical. Is that right?
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Let's invert the argument. Assume that there must be a cause to everything. At some point on the chain, I don't care where, designate one cause as "god." Fine. Now go a step backward. Oh, another cause! We must have designated the wrong thing as god. Keep going back... and back... and back... until you find an uncaused cause you can designate as "god". But wait! We can't do that, because we've already postulated an endless chain of causes! ("a cause to everything"). The argument disintegrates.
The problem is this: if everything has a cause--strictly everything--then there IS no first, uncaused cause, and therefore nothing worthy of the name "god/God". Either causality ends up being a vast Moebius loop, or ... well, as far as I can make out, it can't exist. Because how could the whole train of causes ever have gotten started? Eternal regression. And the Moebius loop idea forces the question of how the whole loop got there in the first place--which leads us back to the idea of a creator-of-causes who is somehow outside of that loop of causality.
quote:Well that’s a pretty Just So answer.
Originally posted by Evensong:
First cause is logically necessary in a time/space universe.
God created time/space.
First cause no longer applies to eternity.
Easy
quote:I'm curious what you think of my post about explanations not requiring explanations. You said that you were interested in an explanation of this, so what do you think of that one?
Originally posted by Yorick:
Meh. I think the problem here is that, as we emerged from our cave one day and saw lightning set a tree on fire, we invented God to explain it, and ever since then we’ve been doing all kinds of silly intellectual cartwheels to make ourselves not look like arses for continuing to believe it.
quote:Why?
Yorick: You don't need to posit a cause for gravitation or the mass of a hydrogen nucleus or the value of fundamental constants. They just are.
quote:So why are some atheists unhappy with the idea that God just is?
Originally posted by Yorick:
I think it's a good question, Q, that you answered yourself. It's the third lemma of your Munchhausen trilemma. Scientific fact is axiomatic. You don't need to posit a cause for gravitation or the mass of a hydrogen nucleus or the value of fundamental constants. They just are.
quote:One reason is that you will end up with an infinite regress, if every term has to be explained, since the explanation itself will need to be explained. Hence, the Munchhausen trilemma as above. It is OK to start with an unexplained term, or axiom.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Why?
Yorick: You don't need to posit a cause for gravitation or the mass of a hydrogen nucleus or the value of fundamental constants. They just are.
quote:I don't believe in the First Cause as a convincing argument for the existence of God, but I find 'it just is' an unsatisfactory answer too.
quetzalcoatl: One reason is that you will end up with an infinite regress, if every term has to be explained, since the explanation itself will need to be explained. Hence, the Munchhausen trilemma as above. It is OK to start with an unexplained term, or axiom.
quote:Well, I agree with the first bit. I'm just amused that atheists often complain about God being uncaused, when in fact, there have to be uncaused things in science and mathematics all over the place.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I don't believe in the First Cause as a convincing argument for the existence of God, but I find 'it just is' an unsatisfactory answer too.
quetzalcoatl: One reason is that you will end up with an infinite regress, if every term has to be explained, since the explanation itself will need to be explained. Hence, the Munchhausen trilemma as above. It is OK to start with an unexplained term, or axiom.
quote:To the question "Why does the light have the speed it has?" the answer "It just does" is unsatisfactory to me.
Yorick: Do you need to be satisfied with the value of the speed of light?
quote:Really? Crikey.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:To the question "Why does the light have the speed it has?" the answer "It just does" is unsatisfactory to me.
Yorick: Do you need to be satisfied with the value of the speed of light?
quote:But that isn't the answer to the question.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:To the question "Why does the light have the speed it has?" the answer "It just does" is unsatisfactory to me.
Yorick: Do you need to be satisfied with the value of the speed of light?
quote:Four. But I don't see why that is relevant?
Yorick: I wonder what you make of the answer to the question, 'what's two and two?'
quote:Exactly. You just shifted the question to another fundamental constant.
Karl: Liberal Backslider: Now, you could then ask why μ0 has the value it has.
quote:Truly? It would appear to be a fundamental human attribute. If we humans did not have this drive to understand, we would not be having this Internet discussion. We would still be just another food source for leopards.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the problems here is apparently the idea that every explanation must also have an explanation. I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but it seems quite an odd one to me.
quote:True, but as I pointed out, the answer to that is not "it just is"; it's "we don't know". "We don't know" is a bit annoying, but there's plenty of things in that category. Science is full of 'em.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Four. But I don't see why that is relevant?
Yorick: I wonder what you make of the answer to the question, 'what's two and two?'
quote:Exactly. You just shifted the question to another fundamental constant.
Karl: Liberal Backslider: Now, you could then ask why μ0 has the value it has.
quote:Of course, but what science does in these occasions, it looks for answers.
Karl: Liberal Backslider: True, but as I pointed out, the answer to that is not "it just is"; it's "we don't know". "We don't know" is a bit annoying, but there's plenty of things in that category. Science is full of 'em.
quote:It's a matter of satisfaction, isn't it? You say you find the fact that the constant c is 'just what it is' to be unsatisfactory when this doesn't answer why it is what it is. But that's a different question altogether.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Four. But I don't see why that is relevant?
Yorick: I wonder what you make of the answer to the question, 'what's two and two?'
quote:Nonsense.
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:It's a matter of satisfaction, isn't it? You say you find the fact that the constant c is 'just what it is' to be unsatisfactory when this doesn't answer why it is what it is. But that's a different question altogether.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Four. But I don't see why that is relevant?
Yorick: I wonder what you make of the answer to the question, 'what's two and two?'
2 + 2 = 4. It just is, mathematically speaking. Why doesn't come into it.
quote:Yes it does, and it has an obvious answer. 2 + 2 = 4 because mathematics is a human construct, and humans have decided that it has this answer.
Yorick: 2 + 2 = 4. It just is, mathematically speaking. Why doesn't come into it.
quote:The standard atheist comeback "if God caused the universe, what caused God?" to the cosmological argument is plain ignorant, because the classical cosmological argument in its many iterations has never claimed that everything has a cause. The claim rather always has been that everything that comes into being or is contingent has a cause. God does not come into being (is eternal) and isn't contingent (cannot not be), hence He requires no cause. Or better, cannot have a cause. Actually, the cosmological argument is really about showing just that: that there must be something that cannot have a cause, hence does not come into being and exists necessarily, and this something we call "God".
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:This. Could some clever theist offer an answer to this? I’ve often wondered about it, but don’t recall ever seeing a satisfactory answer. I’ve got my pain au chocolat and coffee, and it would be nice to have this sorted out whilst I enjoy them.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I don’t know whether there was an external cause to the Big Bang or not – I don’t see that it’s likely that I will ever know if there was let alone, if there was, what it was. Are you defining god as the cause, if so where did the cause come from? You say first cause as if your god did not have a cause - yet you say that cause is logically necessary. Either keep your cake or eat it, or explain to me how you can do both simultaneously.
quote:The Mandy Rice-Davies riposte is apposite here, as it would be for my contention that between them, Hume, Kant and Russell blew the cosmological argument out of the water, and that Feser is a tiresome arse.
I consider this argument to be valid, i.e., I consider the existence of the (metaphysical) God to have been proven by it beyond reasonable doubt.
quote:Yes, but if you do it systematically - that is explain every explanation - you end up with an infinite series of explanations. Most people think this is undesirable, as we don't live an infinitely long time.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Truly? It would appear to be a fundamental human attribute. If we humans did not have this drive to understand, we would not be having this Internet discussion. We would still be just another food source for leopards.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the problems here is apparently the idea that every explanation must also have an explanation. I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but it seems quite an odd one to me.
We are as we are because we* have this desire to learn.
*"we" as a function of species. There are obviously individuals who benefit from group membership.
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
Yesterday I was driving in the rain, thinking mostly about how wet I was going to get going into the grocery store.
Then it occurred to me that I live in a world where water is purified by evaporation, driven hundreds of miles by winds that seem to come out of nowhere, and then released on a landscape that needs that water to sustain life. All of that happens without us doing anything.
That same system can also cause the pitiless demons straight out of Hell known as tornadoes.
It is fantastic, miraculous and complex beyond our wildest imaginations and it is happening all around us all the time. And yet when it rains all we think about is are our windshield wiper in need of a change.
I think if we saw the world that God created for us as the miracle it is we would have more respect for it. We might even be more willing to see God here with us instead of locked away in a church and only let out on Sundays.
quote:Such Bulverism, name dropping and argument ad hominem are just defensive rhetoric. If you can prove the cosmological argument wrong, then go ahead.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
The Mandy Rice-Davies riposte is apposite here, as it would be for my contention that between them, Hume, Kant and Russell blew the cosmological argument out of the water, and that Feser is a tiresome arse.
quote:A perfect summary!
Originally posted by Yorick:
Meh. I think the problem here is that, as we emerged from our cave one day and saw lightning set a tree on fire, we invented God to explain it, and ever since then we’ve been doing all kinds of silly intellectual cartwheels to make ourselves not look like arses for continuing to believe it.
quote:Would it be more satisfactory if God set the speed of light, I wonder? If so, why?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
[To the question "Why does the light have the speed it has?" the answer "It just does" is unsatisfactory to me.
quote:God exists outside of time. Time is required for change. A timeless God therefore cannot change. Thinking and doing anything require change, which requires time. Therefore a thinking and doing God cannot be timeless.
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, the classical cosmological argument is to atheism a lot like the problem of evil is to theism. It is a very real and fundamental challenge, it simply refuses to go away across the centuries, most things said in answer to it are just evasive crap, and facing it head on - as one must to remain intellectually honest - leaves on in a place where one likely did not want to be.
quote:Well, it's a perfect just-so story, and there are certainly plenty of them. I suppose they are entertaining, but not really serious ideas about the origin of religion.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:A perfect summary!
Originally posted by Yorick:
Meh. I think the problem here is that, as we emerged from our cave one day and saw lightning set a tree on fire, we invented God to explain it, and ever since then we’ve been doing all kinds of silly intellectual cartwheels to make ourselves not look like arses for continuing to believe it.
quote:That's one possibility, there might be others. I'm not IngoB, I'm not using this argument to prove the existence of God.
SusanDoris: Would it be more satisfactory if God set the speed of light, I wonder? If so, why?
quote:God exists inside time too. God made the stuff remember? God is not restricted by time or space or whathaveyou.
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:God exists outside of time. Time is required for change. A timeless God therefore cannot change. Thinking and doing anything require change, which requires time. Therefore a thinking and doing God cannot be timeless.
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, the classical cosmological argument is to atheism a lot like the problem of evil is to theism. It is a very real and fundamental challenge, it simply refuses to go away across the centuries, most things said in answer to it are just evasive crap, and facing it head on - as one must to remain intellectually honest - leaves on in a place where one likely did not want to be.
quote:I like what you did there - complain about defensive rhetoric in a post composed entirely of rhetoric.
Such Bulverism, name dropping and argument ad hominem are just defensive rhetoric...
... must to remain intellectually honest - leaves on in a place where one likely did not want to be.
quote:But would you personally find it more satisfactory to believe that God set the speed of light?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:That's one possibility, there might be others. I'm not IngoB, I'm not using this argument to prove the existence of God.
SusanDoris: Would it be more satisfactory if God set the speed of light, I wonder? If so, why?
quote:Well, of course, there are a great many things that Science has not explained, but bearing in mind the steady increase in the number of things it has explained, there is reason to think that it will work through a great many of the unexplained questions during the next hundred years. The faith required here is based on past evidence, I think.
But what it does show is that the argument "God isn't necessary because science can explain everything" is problematic. There are some pretty fundamental things that science hasn't explained. And believing that it can is a big leap of faith.
quote:Correct.
Originally posted by Yorick:
God exists outside of time. Time is required for change. A timeless God therefore cannot change.
quote:It is correct that God cannot think or act like we do. For that matter, he is not alive in the sense that we are. All talk about God as thinking, acting, living, loving, ... is strictly analogical - and as I believe the Fourth Lateran Council says, more wrong than right (analogies about God capture less truth than they miss). However, analogies can make reference across different levels of being: "my computer refuses to work ever since I fed it that piece of software." My computer is not alive, much less able to make a conscious refusal, yet my analogy to the higher realm of living things conveys meaning.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Thinking and doing anything require change, which requires time. Therefore a thinking and doing God cannot be timeless.
quote:Or so you assert, without anything resembling evidence or argument.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Nothing proves deity, Nothing disproves deity.
quote:I had already delivered the goods (a discussion of the cosmological argument) and I continue delivering the goods (see my response to Yorick). And my "rhetoric" (I would consider it more a discussion of my experiences and beliefs, but hey...) had a focus on issues, not people. From my rhetoric, you could have come back saying "well, I have wrestled seriously with the cosmological argument, and here is where that has left me..."
Originally posted by Grokesx:
I like what you did there - complain about defensive rhetoric in a post composed entirely of rhetoric.
quote:Nothing stops you from employing your own mind to this, and finding out whether in fact you remain unchanged by the argument. I doubt it.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
If I make a Bulveristic assumption about an argument that has rumbled on for centuries with many fine minds coming down on either side, it is that it does not have a universally agreed conclusion and that what we bring to it is pretty much identical to what we take away.
quote:Ah, the the potted rehash of, "You can't can't have an infinite chain of causes, but you can have an uncaused cause because, well it's obvious." Followed by a video of Doctor Feser and the revelation that you consider God to have been proven beyond reasonable doubt. I'm sending those goods back, mate, they're not as advertised.
I had already delivered the goods (a discussion of the cosmological argument)
quote:Delivering a bunch of assertions about what God is. I'm sending those back too, there's a part missing. The "How I know all that" part.
and I continue delivering the goods (see my response to Yorick).
quote:Better minds than mine, and maybe even yours, have wrestled seriously with it and apparently the results are evasive crap. FWIW, I am at the "Not proven" stage.
From my rhetoric, you could have come back saying "well, I have wrestled seriously with the cosmological argument, and here is where that has left me..."
quote:The goods that I was delivering are actual arguments. If you are sending such goods back, then I don't know what you are doing here. This is a place for argument. The proper way to deal with arguments you disagree with is to argue against them.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Ah, the the potted rehash of, "You can't can't have an infinite chain of causes, but you can have an uncaused cause because, well it's obvious." Followed by a video of Doctor Feser and the revelation that you consider God to have been proven beyond reasonable doubt. I'm sending those goods back, mate, they're not as advertised.
quote:Yorick was making an argument that the classical Christian conception of God is self-contradictory, namely by claiming that God cannot be both eternal and thinking / acting, as Christians would have it. My counter-argument consisted in showing that this is not self-contradictory (because "thinking / acting" does not mean the same in the case of God as for us). It is entirely irrelevant for this how I know anything about God. The attack was that God cannot possibly be as Christians describe. The defence was that God can possibly be as Christians describe (namely understood in a specific way). That is a discussion of principle, not of fact. Of course, I believe that God in fact is as I have described. But as far as Yorick's argument goes, it is merely important that God could be as I have described. And, as a derived issue, it is important that Christianity historically indeed has claimed that God is as I have described. Because then Yorick's argument fails in both significant ways: neither can it be shown that the attacked claim fails in principle, nor can it be shown that historically Christians have claimed something else that might fail.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:Delivering a bunch of assertions about what God is. I'm sending those back too, there's a part missing. The "How I know all that" part.
Originally posted by IngoB:
and I continue delivering the goods (see my response to Yorick).
quote:It is simply the case that many attacks on the cosmological argument ignore the actual scope and structure of the classical argument, and instead attack basically a straw man. I originally responded to a post by HughWillRidmee, which commits the two most common errors: assuming that the cosmological argument relies on the premise "everything has a cause" and that it is about a temporal beginning like the Big Bang. I don't care how much better other minds may be, as long as they tilt at windmills their refutations are evasive crap. One has to apply one's mind to the actual argument, or all its greatness will go to waste.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Better minds than mine, and maybe even yours, have wrestled seriously with it and apparently the results are evasive crap. FWIW, I am at the "Not proven" stage.
quote:I think you are misunderstanding the word 'satisfactory' that I was using, and I admit that it is a bit vague. It isn't really about my personal satisfaction, I don't care much about whether God set the speed of light or not.
SusanDoris: But would you personally find it more satisfactory to believe that God set the speed of light?
). It is simply meant as a stop-gap explanation for something you really can't explain.quote:Do I detect a little 'f' word here?
SusanDoris: The faith required here is based on past evidence, I think.
quote:Why is SusanDoris' TV switched to channel 3? The answer "it just is" seems unsatisfactory because that TV could be switched to many other channels, or indeed simply be turned off. Maybe the TV just randomly turned on and switched itself to channel 3. Maybe the TV blaring on channel 3 is just a "brute fact". But maybe everything is just random and/or a "brute fact". We always need to make judgement calls about what is valuable to investigate further. It is an essential part of our intellect to judge what merits further attention, and what not. As it happens, SusanDoris switched on her TV and since channel 3 is currently showing news, we can have a reasonable guess why she did so. So our investigation paid off by providing us with additional understanding about that TV, and even to some extent, SusanDoris.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:Would it be more satisfactory if God set the speed of light, I wonder? If so, why?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
To the question "Why does the light have the speed it has?" the answer "It just does" is unsatisfactory to me.
quote:I think this is like the seventh time I've read you explaining this concept and I still don't get it.....
Originally posted by IngoB:
By the way, the theologian most commonly associated with the cosmological argument - St Thomas Aquinas - is also well-known for rejecting the claim that one can prove philosophically that the world had a beginning. He maintained the theoretical possibility of an eternal world forcefully against other scholastic heavyweights, like St Bonaventure . There is no contradiction, because the classical cosmological argument is not about the "Big Bang". It is about God keeping everything in existence all the time, whether that time is finite, has a start but no end, or has neither start nor end.
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quote:Or so you assert, without anything resembling evidence or argument.
Originally posted by IngoB:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[qb]Nothing proves deity, Nothing disproves deity.
quote:If that's what you heard, then Susan's signature applies to you big style. What I actually said was that for me, Hume, Kant and Russell blew the cosmological argument out of the water. The arguments are sufficiently well rehearsed for any interested parties here - if there are any, which I doubt - to find them on the intertubes if needs be.
All I have heard from you so far is that because Hume didn't believe it, you won't. OK. But that's simply faith, and blind faith at that, or can you actually reproduce Hume's reasoning?
quote:Okay. Just as a matter of interest, can you think of a word to use here instead of 'satisfactory' in this context?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I think you are misunderstanding the word 'satisfactory' that I was using, and I admit that it is a bit vague. It isn't really about my personal satisfaction, I don't care much about whether God set the speed of light or not.
SusanDoris: But would you personally find it more satisfactory to believe that God set the speed of light?
quote:But who is it who does this, without the disclaimer that of course they would have to change their theories if better information became available? Non-scientists like me can leave out the disclaimer since we do not hold positions of authority.
It is more a reaction to people who claim "Science can give an explanation of the Universe, removing the need of a God", ...
quote:they would, though, say, 'we don't know', wouldn't they, rather than 'it just is'?
...while at the same time answering some fundamental questions about the Universe with "It just is".
quote:Sounds like a very useful phrase!
There is a beautiful word in the Dutch language: omtoch. You won't find it in any official dictionary, but all Dutch children know it. The word doesn't have an easy translatable meaning (and I wouldn't try to pronounce it
quote:Well, you can substitute 'confidence', for 'faith' but that's got three syllables instead of one and in today's fast-moving world....!
quote:DoI detect a little 'f' word here?
SusanDoris: The faith required here is based on past evidence, I think.
quote:, Yes, I'm sure that nearly all members of the SofF have far more in common than not!
...Because that's what it comes down to: you have faith that Science will one day work out these questions. That's great, but this doesn't make you that different from me.
quote:Only humans have developed this desire to have every single why and wherefore answered though. I suppose this could be irritating for some, but it really doesn't bother me at all nowadays. However, humans have achieved far more by having this ability to question so thank goodness for our evolved brains enabling us to do so.
But even this wouldn't answer some basic questions. Why are these formulas the way they are? Where did they come from? Why is there something instead of nothing?
quote:I prefer answer four. Thing is though, that there is such a strong wish to have an answer that a God-of-the-gaps has filled in the need. Do you think this could be so?
I have heard several answers to this question:All of these answers come down to omtoch.
- There just is.
- The question isn't valid.
- The question has already been answered by showing how the Universe works.
- If there was nothing, we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
quote:In what way are religious answers not omtoch answers?
I have heard several answers to this question:
There just is.
The question isn't valid.
The question has already been answered by showing how the Universe works.
If there was nothing, we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
All of these answers come down to omtoch.
quote:But they are. I believe in God omtoch, I have no problem in admitting that.
Originally posted by Grokesx: In what way are religious answers not omtoch answers?
quote:Apart from the fact that my TV is only on very rarely,
Originally posted by IngoB:
Why is SusanDoris' TV switched to channel 3? The answer "it just is" seems unsatisfactory because that TV could be switched to many other channels, or indeed simply be turned off.
the difficulty with using any example like this is that the item used in the analogy exists, whereas God can never be shown as existing. quote:Of course, there are some things that appear too be random, but I'm trhying to think of a random act where an attempt at explanation simply cannot be found, even if a complete answer is not currently available.
But maybe everything is just random and/or a "brute fact".
quote:Yes, definitely agree but am pleased that, at this end of my life, I do not have to make any such decisions!
We always need to make judgement calls about what is valuable to investigate further. It is an essential part of our intellect to judge what merits further attention, and what not.
quote:No, investigation is not required, but such is the way we humans have evolved, that they just had to find out how it all worked.
Is the speed of light something random, a "brute fact", or something that requires further explanation?
quote:Not quite sure what you mean - do you mean a judgement call on whether to investigate or not?
There is no a priori information on that, we have to make a judgement call.
quote:Why do you say'nothing but'? That sounds just a tad dismissive maybe. Surely, the more investigations are carried out, the more knowledge will be acquired, which is an important something, since it might come in useful one day. I listened to an excellent biography of James Clerk Maxwell a while ago and some of his work had to wait a hundred years or so, didn't it,before it was found to be just what was wanted.
However, we have made a general judgement call about nature which says that any regularity we find in it merits further serious attention. This general judgement call we call "natural science", or more specifically in this case, "physics". It is a perfectly fine question of physics to ask why light propagates with a specific speed. That current theories generally treat light speed as a "natural constant" that is not explained by, but used in, the theory is neither here nor there. Scientific progress is nothing but going beyond current theories.
quote:But that's no reason to cease the activity.
However, there is a catch. As we push ahead with physics, and the natural sciences in general, we find that reason generally out-speeds empirics.
quote:I think in the context you describe in your original post:
The problem arises when you use an omtoch answer and claim that it is a scientific answer. It isn't.
quote:...any answer is metaphysical rather than scientific, since you're talking about a hypothetical future. It doesn't seem to me that there is anything unusually problematical with them over and above ordinary disagreement. The "universe just is" might be unsatisfactory, but in that it is sitting in a lot of good company. To me, "The question isn't valid" is a clumsy way of saying that it may turn out that we discover the universe contains no examples of what a particular philosopher defines as "nothing" and therefore our understanding of the universe/multiverse/reality may not require an answer to that question. Similarly, a theory of everything might well provide answer, so to presuppose that the question will still be there is being a bit previous. I'll give you the "We wouldn't be here" one though, it really is a bit shit.
... And what's more, suppose that Science one day will come up with a unified model, with beautiful equations of what happened from the Big Bang onward, explaining all the forces in the Universe, and without any outside input. They might achieve this one day, maybe even in our lifetimes...
quote:What are you complaining about? You and I are active Christians, Noble prize winning theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg is an active atheist. It is almost certain the Prof Weinberg is smarter than you and I, as far as one can say such a thing objectively. And yet, the Christian truth has been hidden from him, and if he ever finds it, then probably not by an exercise of the smartness that won him a (deserved) Noble prize.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Seems rather useless to have an explanation if it's too damn complex for normal people to understand. Whatever happened to ‘I thank* you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will?
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quote:Well, if your assertion is that most people are so hardened in their positions that they will simply refuse to engage in any meaningful discussion of proofs of God, then I agree. That does not say much about those proofs of God though. It says something about people.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
For starters, much of this thread backs my statement.
quote:One can however potentially disprove proofs of God. For example, most people on either side would agree that Anselm's ontological proof of God does not succeed. (They may differ on how badly the proof fails, but that's a different issue.)
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
One cannot disprove God(s) as proving a negative is fairly futile.
quote:Are you aware of and do you understand the classical cosmological proof of God? If so, then to say what you just did implies that you can demonstrate that this proof fails. It could fail in a variety of ways, including being based on "axioms" that cannot be maintained apart from faith. But to go beyond mere assertion, you need to argue so. You are still failing to do so here.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Perhaps, one day, a proof for God(s) might exist, but I have yet to encounter it. People give their reasons why they believe what they do, but this hardly constitutes proof.
quote:If indeed you are so informed on how Hume, Kant and Russel blew that argument out of the water, then I'm sure that you can reproduce that for us here in a discussable form; and if you were so impressed by their arguments, then I'm sure that you will want us to share your enlightenment. Otherwise all I hear is in this is kowtowing to alleged authorities, which we are supposed to consider as indication that you know what you are talking about. (And yes, I practice what I preach there. I'm quite happy to present and defend the arguments of the authorities that I consider relevant. And that I can do so and am willing to do so is exactly what I mean when I say that I have understood and accepted those arguments.)
Originally posted by Grokesx:
What I actually said was that for me, Hume, Kant and Russell blew the cosmological argument out of the water. The arguments are sufficiently well rehearsed for any interested parties here - if there are any, which I doubt - to find them on the intertubes if needs be.
quote:This is simply false. Classical theism considers a wide range of Divine attributes (like omnipotence, omniscience, ...) to be derivable in a strict philosophical sense for the entity that one has identified as "uncaused Cause". Thus if you simply posit "the universe" as the "uncaused Cause", then as far as classical theism is concerned you are either attributing all those Divine attributes to the universe, or claiming that those derivations are false. Since I doubt that you can make sense of the former (that gets really New Age), you simply now have moved your goalposts to asserting without argument that classical theism got its derivations of Divine attributes wrong.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
But, personally speaking, "The universe (or multiverse, reality,whatever) just is" is just as good an explanation as "The first sustaining cause", since as far as I can see the only difference between the two is a bunch of the arbitrary attributes such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenovolence, immutability etc that classical theism ascribes to the latter.
quote:How anyone can take Hume on causation seriously is a deep mystery to me. How anyone into natural science can do so is a deeper mystery still. However, that is a different discussion, since you appear to appeal to Hume in a way that has nothing to do with the classical cosmological argument. That argument does not at all conclude from the parts to the whole, and hence cannot be stymied by "emergence". The only sense in which that argument applies to the whole is that we can find (hierarchical) causal chains for everything. But the argument itself is discussing only one such chain. Thus if there was only one tiny part of the universe to which it applied, and to none of the rest, it would still prove the existence of an uncaused Cause. (Admittedly, that hypothetically limited uncaused Cause would then not be a good fit to the classical Christian God. But in fact we can find hierarchical causal chains wherever we look, hence the actual uncaused Cause is a good fit.)
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Hume's contention that there's no reason to think the causal principle holds everywhere and everywhen (I'm interpreting loosely) is a deal breaker for me and the idea that if we explain the parts, the whole will take care of itself survives if we factor in emergence. Big job, though.
quote:It is depressing that Kant's claim is hard to resist for you because you consider the ontological argument to fail miserably. That is simply admitting that you let a wanted conclusion lead your judgement of the argument. If you found Kant's claim hard to resist as such, then that would be more respectable. In particular if you could then explain why you consider Kant's claim to have merit. For frankly, this claim is rather weak. Aquinas for example explicitly rejected Anselm's ontological proof. And I don't consider that proof to be compelling either (though it may "work" in some ways). But Kant simply fails to establish any serious connection between these proofs, in my opinion and in that of many others. Hence you would need to discuss why in your opinion he does succeed. And simply saying that you would like this to be the case does not count as an argument.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Kant's objection that the Cosmological Argument fails because it rests on the defective Ontological Argument is hard to resist for me, because well, the idea that you can whoosh a maximal being out of your head is appealing, but bollocks, scientismicist as I am.
quote:As a matter of fact, science and empirics never prove anything in a formal sense. This is, I'm sure, a truth you are most happy to agree with when Popperian insights suit you more. So why would I look towards that for proving something here? Of course, we can be operationally certain about some things that science claims, in the sense that the empirical evidence and its interpretation appear overwhelming (and advantageous to accept). The proofs that philosophy provides are of a different kind. They are more like mathematical proofs. Given certain premises, certain conclusions can be shown strictly to hold true. It's a different question to discuss why one would consider the premises to be true. An amazing amount of discussion can typically be had about such premises, in spite of them supposedly being "self-evident". It is here that the similarity to scientific "certainty" emerges. For in a fairly similar way, one can also be operationally certain about certain philosophical premises.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
If you are a sufficiently rigorous thinker, then yes, maybe you could, but in the absence of the empirical confirmation that our sensory experience, or its formalised version, experimental science, gives us, what takes this internally consistent construct to the level of certainty implied by the word proof? In other words, you might get valid answers, but how do get sound ones in the absence of empirical data?
quote:That's a very dogmatic pronouncement you are making there... Do you have any kind of evidence or argument to back this up? I would contend to the contrary that not only can the existence of God be demonstrated, this in fact has been achieved already. In fact, it has been achieved already a long time ago. That some people do not accept this (or these) proof(s) is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Apart from the fact that my TV is only on very rarely,
quote:If you are indeed nearing the end of your life, then I would say that the necessity for making such decisions is becoming really, really urgent for you. It is the young that likely can get away with carelessness and procrastination, the old are running out of time.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Yes, definitely agree but am pleased that, at this end of my life, I do not have to make any such decisions!
quote:Thanks, lilBuddha, for putting in to words what I've been thinking as this thread wends its tendentious way far from the original question raised by Tortuf.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Nothing proves deity, Nothing disproves deity. The more smug one's attitude, the more foolish one appears
*Though feel free to wear the shoes, should they fit. And they do seem quite accommodating in size.
quote:Wonder, unfortunately, is hard to capture and hold in the mind, and harder to put into words. Doctrinal contortions and nit-picking -- whether of the Thomist or atheistic variety -- seems to come much easier.
I think if we saw the world that God created for us as the miracle it is we would have more respect for it. We might even be more willing to see God here with us instead of locked away in a church and only let out on Sundays.
quote:But then, of course, wonder can be induced with a suitably large dose of LSD...
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I agree with that. The nit-picking is so arid, and the wonder is not arid.
(I hope I'll have another eight -en years but that will be thanks to medical care.)
quote:How convenient. Then what are those non-nit-picking activities of the intellect in matters of faith that you approve of?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, I didn't say 'intellect'; I said 'nit-picking'. I don't think they're the same thing.
quote:You cannot know that there is nothing after death. That is necessarily a faith position.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
When one knows,, as I do and happily accept, that there is nothing after death, then I would consider any time spent in worring about it as wasted time!
quote:True. LSD can also give one the impression that one's own arguments are brilliant, compelling (to all but dunces), and irrefutable.
But then, of course, wonder can be induced with a suitably large dose of LSD...
quote:
I hate this playing out of wonder against intellect. Both have their rightful place, neither in fact hinders the other. If you prefer one and/or cannot deal with the other, then humbly admit your own limitations and leave it to others to appreciate those things you can't.
quote:This is quite possible, I agree. But I want to respond to that final zinger -- "even if that means engaging the intellect". I expect that just about everyone here is engaging our intellect on this thread. Some of us, however, may possibly not feel the need to parade it in great detail, and as often, as others.
Perhaps it is possible to accept that some people find the appreciation of theological complexity wonderful, even if that means engaging the intellect?)
quote:
then I'm sure that you can reproduce that for us here in a discussable form; and if you were so impressed by their arguments, then I'm sure that you will want us to share your enlightenment.
quote:OK, I regurgitate Hume, Kant and Russell badly, you precis Aquinas et al well and you win. Therefore God exists. Have a banana.
This is simply false. Classical theism considers a wide range of Divine attributes (like omnipotence, omniscience, ...) to be derivable in a strict philosophical sense for the entity that one has identified as "uncaused Cause"
quote:The stuff about the whole and parts was a more general point. Many supporters of various versions of the Cosmological Argument in my experience appeal to a Le Roc style assertion that even if the universe were explained, the cause would still need explaining.
How anyone can take Hume on causation seriously is a deep mystery to me. How anyone into natural science can do so is a deeper mystery still. However, that is a different discussion, since you appear to appeal to Hume in a way that has nothing to do with the classical cosmological argument. That argument does not at all conclude from the parts to the whole, and hence cannot be stymied by "emergence".
quote:you are assuming the past predicts the future. The fact it often does is a good basis for hypotheses, but "proves" diddly squat. An argument for the application of facets of the universe to the universe or reality as a whole is not a deductively valid one.
But my certainty about this premise is operational: the universe has never failed to obey this principle (to the best of my knowledge), it seems eminently sensible to me and it is practically advantageous to adopt.
quote:I can live with that.
It is depressing that Kant's claim is hard to resist for you because you consider the ontological argument to fail miserably
quote:I would need to do that if I were writing a philosophy paper about the Cosmological Argument. I'm not, I'm on a forum where strict philosophical practice is optional. Where you for instance, can move effortlessly from claiming a metaphysical proof to talking about operational certainty in a premise you can't support.
Hence you would need to discuss why in your opinion he does succeed. And simply saying that you would like this to be the case does not count as an argument.
quote:No shit Sherlock.
The proofs that philosophy provides are of a different kind. They are more like mathematical proofs. Given certain premises, certain conclusions can be shown strictly to hold true.
quote:I'm back to the bit I actually wanted to talk about, but it's late. Laters.
It's a different question to discuss why one would consider the premises to be true. An amazing amount of discussion can typically be had about such premises, in spite of them supposedly being "self-evident". It is here that the similarity to scientific "certainty" emerges. For in a fairly similar way, one can also be operationally certain about certain philosophical premises.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Oh I see. You believe the fact that their is no historical uniformity in belief in God/gods that it therefore cannot be true?
I think there's a name for that logical fallacy. in this part of the world we have scarecrow events. Villagers dress up full size replicas of people and leave them around the village – sweeping the road, thatching a roof, tending a garden , lounging in hammocks etc.. You should visit and find out how proper strawmen are made.
For the severalth time you are ascribing to me views I have not stated and do not hold.
Whether there is, or is not, historical uniformity is irrelevant to whether god(s) exist and, dim as I may be, I’m bright enough to know that.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Personal experience as fiction. Well yes actually it probably is. We know that memory is not like a video, it’s more a few bullet points which we weave into a guesswork story when we “remember” – that’s why eye-witness testimony is the worst possible evidence in terms of the judicial process. What we call memory is easily modified by suggestion – students who can’t recall being abused as children when questioned about it gave graphic accounts of the abuse six months later when re-questioned etc. etc..
Right. Discount all personal experience and observation!
Dear oh dear. Discount history and human experience and you are left with precisely nothing.
Nothing on which to create a worldview.
I believe that's called Nihilism.
And nihilism is awfully boring.
You’re predictable – I’ll give you that. You’ve just added in ”observation” and “human history” from nowhere and made it seem like I said things I didn’t, then compounded it by suggesting I said discount all of this imaginary grouping – rather than treat memory with caution as we know it to be of dubious quality.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Are you defining god as the cause, if so where did the cause come from? You say first cause as if your god did not have a cause - yet you say that cause is logically necessary. Either keep your cake or eat it, or explain to me how you can do both simultaneously.
First cause is one of the primary definitions of God. God created time and existed outside our concepts of time so asking what created God is redundant and not using the word correctly.
So god is, but you have no idea how or why but that's OK because if you knew how or why it wouldn't be god.
You’re guessing and/or hoping – with not a shred of evidence other than circular logic to support you.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Even if we found that the universe had been created it wouldn’t be evidence for your god
Sure it would. As above. It's the definition of God.
Whether its my limited understanding of God or not is irrelevant. If I found (say at death?) it was a diseased eight foot high rabbit I would indeed have to acknowledge it as God.
I thought you believed in something that cared about you, that involved rules, morality, perhaps eternity in its presence, needs money and blind faith, organised a blood sacrifice because it went ahead with a creation it knew was going to go wrong.
If you believe that something that made the universe is god – OK – that makes you a theist. And, owing to the lack of evidence, probably wrong.
quote:removed duplicate word
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Difference is, I don’t actually think it was an eight foot rabbit so I don’t have to prove it was, you on the other hand........ The whole burden of proof thing is actually a red herring IMO. It assumes that human beings are some kind of neutral tabula rasa and exist in a state of objectivity. Which is rubbish of course. Assertion is not argument and your opinion is just that – care to explain your reasoning?
quote:Why is your tone so unpleasant? It seems pointless to discuss stuff in this way.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:How convenient. Then what are those non-nit-picking activities of the intellect in matters of faith that you approve of?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, I didn't say 'intellect'; I said 'nit-picking'. I don't think they're the same thing.
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:A perfect summary!
Originally posted by Yorick:
Meh. I think the problem here is that, as we emerged from our cave one day and saw lightning set a tree on fire, we invented God to explain it, and ever since then we’ve been doing all kinds of silly intellectual cartwheels to make ourselves not look like arses for continuing to believe it.
I always imagined it as some little guy avoiding a beating by threatening his tormentor with retaliation from his mate the imaginary superbeing just before a massive clap of thunder. Said little guy recognised his luck and rode it. And yes, the reason religions are so diverse and full of convoluted concepts is because the original basis was so readily disproved that those with the investment did what many people still do – winged it until their opponents gave up (original sin/plenary indulgence/marriage-is-only-between-one-man-and-one-woman anyone?)
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The best line:
quote:
To make the conclusion that God does not exist, when God has not been factored into the experiment in the first place, makes an inconsistent leap. “Methodological atheism jumps to ontological atheism with no explanation.”
Pity they didn't understand the meaning of “atheism” before attacking something else isn't it?
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Why?
Yorick: You don't need to posit a cause for gravitation or the mass of a hydrogen nucleus or the value of fundamental constants. They just are.
Because every time they were different it didn’t work? Or did work (at least sometimes) but we can’t interact with them because they are fundamentally different? Not offering solutions, just suggesting that there are more questions.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
God does not come into being (is eternal) and isn't contingent (cannot not be), hence He requires no cause. Or better, cannot have a cause. Actually, the cosmological argument is really about showing just that: that there must be something that cannot have a cause, hence does not come into being and exists necessarily, and this something we call "God".
I think there is a danger of confusing the idea of a “creator” with the idea of a “god”. In common parlance “god” refers to something that has attributes other than “it created something 13.8bn years ago” and since then - zilch.
Deism is still a possible position – though still one of faith only.
quote:Let me have another try at answering this: If someone's evidence, when set out and followed exactly by each nenber of a group of people, with no communication between individual members and without prompting by the writer of the test as to what theythink the result is, and a large number of said group found that the evidence led to only one, repeatable conclusion that it was a god, then there just might be grounds for further tests.. Since no such test already exists, then I am, not surprisingly, still a sceptic!
Originally posted by Evensong:
HughWillRidmee . I'm not going to bother continuing the conversation because we're obviously operating under different frameworks.
A phrase you continuously repeat is that their is no evidence for God.
I think there is, you just don't like that evidence.
The more interesting question is what kind of evidence would you accept?
quote:Instead of 'unsatisfactory', maybe I should better use 'below the standards that Science sets for itself'.
SusanDoris: Okay. Just as a matter of interest, can you think of a word to use here instead of 'satisfactory' in this context?
quote:You did, a couple of times in this thread already. In fact, you are trying to reatroactively amend your original claims a bit now, but I guess that's ok.
SusanDoris: But who is it who does this, without the disclaimer that of course they would have to change their theories if better information became available?
)quote:I don't have a problem when a scientist says "We don't know" to this question.
SusanDoris: they would, though, say, 'we don't know', wouldn't they, rather than 'it just is'?
quote:Some more than others
SusanDoris: Yes, I'm sure that nearly all members of the SofF have far more in common than not!
quote:I agree.
SusanDoris: Only humans have developed this desire to have every single why and wherefore answered though. I suppose this could be irritating for some, but it really doesn't bother me at all nowadays. However, humans have achieved far more by having this ability to question so thank goodness for our evolved brains enabling us to do so.
quote:I have no problem that you choose answer for to this question, as long as you don't claim that this answer is scientific.
SusanDoris: I prefer answer four.
quote:The 'God of the gaps' argument works a bit like this:
SusanDoris: Thing is though, that there is such a strong wish to have an answer that a God-of-the-gaps has filled in the need.
quote:I have the feeling that we are in more agreement than you think. What you call metaphysical I call an omtoch answer (I'm starting to like my term for it more and more
Grokesx: ...any answer is metaphysical rather than scientific, since you're talking about a hypothetical future.
), but I agree with you: discussions about the different omtoch answers we use come down to ordinary disagreement.quote:I'm not sure about this. The way it looks, a unified Theory of Everything will be a bunch of formulas, joining gravity, Quantum Mechanics, the four fundamental forces... together. This still leaves the question open: where did this come from? Why are these formulas the way they are? Why is there something in the first place?
Grokesx: Similarly, a theory of everything might well provide answer, so to presuppose that the question will still be there is being a bit previous.
quote:Thanks, I'll try to read it this evening.
Grokesx: BTW, there's a discussion in the Grauniad pertinent to the physics/metaphysics, science/not science debate.
quote:I take it that you are proposing a Multiverse solution now. While I don't have a problem with the idea of a Multiverse, it just pushes the question back one level. This Multiverse will still be described by some constant of which we can ask "Why does it have this value?" Or, simpler perhaps: "Why is there a Multiverse?"
HughWillRidmee: Because every time they were different it didn’t work?
quote:But that's what I mean by being a bit previous. You are simply assuming there's stuff out there that can't be detected by physical means and explained by rational analysis. This is what I was talking about in the somewhat flippant comment to Ingo B. What we take away from these questions is largely determined by the baggage we bring to them.
I don't think that Science will ever answer these questions, it is outside of its scope, and it doesn't have the tools for it.
quote:But my views do not count at all !! I was thinking about any scientists, preferably those with published, respected work who do not add a disclaimer! Okay, Science does not have a theory about why there is something instead of nothing yet, but, hey, give them a chance! They've only been working on it for a comparatively short time! No they don't say we'll change our theories, they say that the current theory is the best they can do at the moment, but they hope it will betested to the limit, and if someone can find a mistake and take things a step forward, then that's excellent.
You did, a couple of times in this thread already. In fact, you are trying to retroactively amend your original claims a bit now, but I guess that's ok.
quote:Yes I personally assume this, but that is not the argument I was making here.
Grokesx: You are simply assuming there's stuff out there that can't be detected by physical means and explained by rational analysis.
quote:I guess I answered this above. I'm glad you had a good time at Winchester Cathedral.
SusanDoris: Okay, Science does not have a theory about why there is something instead of nothing yet, but, hey, give them a chance!
quote:None whatsoever, now. But the questions we consider and the means we employ to answer them are dependent on the state of knowledge at the time of asking. We have no way of knowing yet what the future holds in this regard. "Why is there something rather than nothing" may well turn out to be like, so 21st Century - as much a live question as why do we get those big bangs and flashes in the sky sometimes.
What kind of scientific experiment would you propose to answer this question?
quote:But with the bangs and the flashes, it was clear what Science should do: investigate them, do experiments... I don't see what the Scientific Method or any other scientific philosophy of your liking can do about "Why is there somthing instead of nothing?"
Grokesx: "Why is there something rather than nothing" may well turn out to be like, so 21st Century - as much a live question as why do we get those big bangs and flashes in the sky sometimes.
quote:I guess that in this case mathematicians would have to abandon the empty set (∅).
quetzalcoatl: My fantasy is that some brilliant mathematician will discover some dazzling theory which shows why there cannot be nothing.
quote:Pretty clear in hindsight. But in all the time up to 1752 when Franklin braved the elements with his kite, most of humanity's investigation of lightning consisted of thinking hard and making shit up, much the same as the something and nothing question nowadays.
But with the bangs and the flashes, it was clear what Science should do: investigate them, do experiments..
quote:That didn't get them very far, did it?
Grokesx: But in all the time up to 1752 when Franklin braved the elements with his kite, most of humanity's investigation of lightning consisted of thinking hard and making shit up
quote:Exactly what I'm talking about. Aristotle was possibly the cleverest man that ever lived, the ways of thinking he set in motion have rippled down the centuries, but vast swathes of what he actually thought about the universe turned out to be incorrect and he didn't have the conceptual apparatus to think about, say relativity or quantum physics. That had to wait. Other people moved things along. In the future, it is possible that our descendents, should there be any, will look upon our big questions, like why there is something rather than nothing, in much the same way as we look at Aristotle's works, as a stepping stone towards greater knowledge.
I vaguely remember the text where Francis Bacon basically says, FFS, stop going on about Aristotle, and use the senses. Novum Organum, I think, c. 1620.
quote:But I hope you'll admit that they had to make some great paradigm shifts to do so.
Grokesx: Other people moved things along.
quote:Of course. And it will take more to shift things along. That's the nature of the business of acquiring knowledge.
But I hope you'll admit that they had to make some great paradigm shifts to do so
quote:I disagree. I think we are closer than we have ever been. We have a clearer idea, for instance , of what nothing isn't. That's a start.
But we cannot say that we're getting any closer now,
quote:I didn't actually do that. What I did do was challenge your assertions that science can never answer the question. Not the same thing at all.
...and that getting the answer is inevitable. That is just wishful thinking, very wishful thinking
quote:With this I agree.
Grokesx: We have a clearer idea, for instance , of what nothing isn't. That's a start.
quote:I didn't make this assertion. But I do challenge the assertion that it's inevitable that it will answer this question some day.
Grokesx: What I did do was challenge your assertions that science can never answer the question.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
HughWillRidmee: Because every time they were different it didn’t work?I take it that you are proposing a Multiverse solution now. While I don't have a problem with the idea of a Multiverse, it just pushes the question back one level. This Multiverse will still be described by some constant of which we can ask "Why does it have this value?" Or, simpler perhaps: "Why is there a Multiverse?"
Mentioning – not proposing. I think, perhaps, that I’m suggesting we don’t really know enough about what we’re questioning to be able to propose definitive answers – or something like that.
quote:Let me have another try at answering this: If someone's evidence, when set out and followed exactly by each nenber of a group of people, with no communication between individual members and without prompting by the writer of the test as to what theythink the result is, and a large number of said group found that the evidence led to only one, repeatable conclusion that it was a god, then there just might be grounds for further tests.. Since no such test already exists, then I am, not surprisingly, still a sceptic!
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Originally posted by Evensong:
HughWillRidmee I'm not going to bother continuing the conversation because we're obviously operating under different frameworks.
A phrase you continuously repeat is that their is no evidence for God.
I think there is, you just don't like that evidence.
The more interesting question is what kind of evidence would you accept?
quote:I can definitely live with that.
HughWillRidmee: I think, perhaps, that I’m suggesting we don’t really know enough about what we’re questioning to be able to propose definitive answers – or something like that.
quote:So the only evidence you would accept for God is God was evident?
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Thus I accept that, when I suggest that there is no evidence for a god or gods I’m simplifying slightly. At one level dreams and hearsay can be considered as evidence but the way I’m using it is in the sense of something being
evident
quote:The reason no such test exists is because the empirical/scientific method tests the natural and an attempt to test God would be would be testing the supernatural.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:Let me have another try at answering this: If someone's evidence, when set out and followed exactly by each nenber of a group of people, with no communication between individual members and without prompting by the writer of the test as to what theythink the result is, and a large number of said group found that the evidence led to only one, repeatable conclusion that it was a god, then there just might be grounds for further tests.. Since no such test already exists, then I am, not surprisingly, still a sceptic!
Originally posted by Evensong:
HughWillRidmee . I'm not going to bother continuing the conversation because we're obviously operating under different frameworks.
A phrase you continuously repeat is that their is no evidence for God.
I think there is, you just don't like that evidence.
The more interesting question is what kind of evidence would you accept?
quote:There is no empirical/scientific evidence because there can't be.
If ‘science’ is that certain sort of investigation of natural phenomena via a particular systematic method of observation and experiment, then immediately one must ask why this criterion for knowledge should be adopted to answer a question necessarily outside its purview i.e. the question of the existence of the supernatural. Could the supernatural theoretically exist and never be isolated and observed in material phenomena, with conditions necessary for repeatable, controlled lab experiments? Not only could this be the case, but if anything supernatural did exist, then this would necessarily be the case: science as traditionally understood and practiced, could not be performed on said phenomena. So we are left with no sensible, justifiable reason to think that the scientific criterion for knowledge is capable of addressing the question of whether anything supernatural exists. Anyone who demands ‘scientific evidence of the unscientific (or a-scientific)’ makes a nonsensical demand.
]quote:OK then, I was addressing whatever it was you were doing when you said:
Grokesx: What I did do was challenge your assertions that science can never answer the question.
I didn't make this assertion.
quote:
What I am saying: whatever we detect by physical means and explain by rational analysis will not be enough to answer questions like "Why is there something instead of nothing?
quote:I haven't read that Dawkins considers that God is 'a scientific question'. Rather, he suggests that theists cannot hide God in mysticism or NOMA and thus remove Him from scientific scrutiny IF the claim is that He's involved with and part of natural reality. In other words, if God is of our physical world He must be available to science.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...Dawkins' claim that God is a scientific question is nonsense, and confuses science with philosophy.
quote:That reasonable assumption probably has to do with these people first responding in a forum dedicated to serious debate, but then refusing to follow up on their claims.
Originally posted by roybart:
There seems to be an unwarranted assumption here that those who don't wish to engage in certain kinds of debate are incapable of doing so.
quote:That's pretty much the long and the short of it. The problem is precisely your banana block. Actually doing philosophy can force you to expose your banana block, but it cannot remove it.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
OK, I regurgitate Hume, Kant and Russell badly, you precis Aquinas et al well and you win. Therefore God exists. Have a banana.
quote:And that's sort of correct. However, this does not mean that the argument relies on the whole universe. It merely means that even if causations within the whole universe are "taken care of" in some sense, the argument still applies.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Many supporters of various versions of the Cosmological Argument in my experience appeal to a Le Roc style assertion that even if the universe were explained, the cause would still need explaining.
quote:Once more, the argument is not applied to the "universe or reality as a whole". It is being applied to one hierarchical causal chain. The universe as a whole comes in only as an infinite repository of such chains. Next, the metaphysical claim is universal, even though its observational basis is of course finite and historical. There's nothing mysterious about that, the same is true for any natural law of science. If you do not allow for the ability of human beings to inductively reason to universals from individual observations, then science is as dead as metaphysics.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
The fact it often does is a good basis for hypotheses, but "proves" diddly squat. An argument for the application of facets of the universe to the universe or reality as a whole is not a deductively valid one.
quote:You appear confused. All metaphysical proofs rely of first principles ("axioms", if you will) that cannot be proven but are considered to be self-evident. ("Self-evident", by the way, is not the same as "evident to everybody immediately".) My point was simply that I can achieve "operational certainty" in the particular premise used here by the fact that all observations I have ever made are compatible with it. In other words, this first principle is "self-evident" to my mind not by some abstract considerations or inner convictions or whatever, but simply by having been evident in my environment always and everywhere.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Where you for instance, can move effortlessly from claiming a metaphysical proof to talking about operational certainty in a premise you can't support.
quote:I'm happy to defend all these, but that seems rather besides the point. They have not been advanced to deflect the refutations of some imaginary triumphant atheist. Perhaps you could argue some stone age believer into the ground, perhaps you could strip him off his faith by judicious use of your "magical" technology. But this proves nothing but that progress has occurred since the stone age and that people are impressionable. We knew that already. Faith has come a long way, too, and while you perhaps would be a super-prophet of atheism if you could walk among stone age people, you are not much of one here and now. So how about you face up to the fact that the original basis of faith of your actual peers isn't particularly easy to disprove at all?
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
And yes, the reason religions are so diverse and full of convoluted concepts is because the original basis was so readily disproved that those with the investment did what many people still do – winged it until their opponents gave up (original sin/plenary indulgence/marriage-is-only-between-one-man-and-one-woman anyone?)
quote:The conventional deistic god (the one that creates a self-sufficient mechanism "universe" and then goes fishing) is disproven by the classical cosmological argument. The conclusion of this argument is that for anything to be caused, the First Cause has to keep causing. An upgraded deistic god (one that acts as a kind of "battery" to power the mechanism "universe" continuously, but otherwise is not engaged with it) is compatible with it. Nobody has ever claimed that metaphysical arguments are sufficient to prove the totality of God-beliefs. Rather, they can prove certain things that we naturally associate with Divinity. If you are the only person in the world with purple eyes, and I prove that something could only be done by someone with purple eyes (and it has in fact be done), then I can say that it was you who has done it. That does not mean that I thereby have said all there is to be said about you...
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I think there is a danger of confusing the idea of a “creator” with the idea of a “god”. In common parlance “god” refers to something that has attributes other than “it created something 13.8bn years ago” and since then - zilch. Deism is still a possible position – though still one of faith only.
quote:First, what sort of test do you imagine could be done to determine the existence of God? Second, the very existence of many religions everywhere and at all times, in spite of lack of communication between many of these groups of humans, seems to answer this. Third, science is not in fact democratic and not simply based on a large number of people agreeing. So if I for example initiate such a test by re-stating the classical cosmological proof for people to think about, it is not clear what agreement I must be getting back before this is "grounds for further tests."
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
If someone's evidence, when set out and followed exactly by each nenber of a group of people, with no communication between individual members and without prompting by the writer of the test as to what theythink the result is, and a large number of said group found that the evidence led to only one, repeatable conclusion that it was a god, then there just might be grounds for further tests.
quote:Metaphysics is not omtoch-ness. At all. It is about the principles behind all arguments about nature that we make.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What you call metaphysical I call an omtoch answer
quote:I for one am not simply assuming anything here. I may do so in other contexts, but here, no. You may wish that it were so, because that would allow you to set my claims aside as assumptions that you do not share. But no, I am claiming that you are not being rational since you do not follow physical observations and their analysis to their logical conclusions. I say that you fall short on using your reason on available data, by arbitrarily denying a valid form of reasoning. Whether I am right or wrong, I am playing a seriously different game to LeRoc here.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
You are simply assuming there's stuff out there that can't be detected by physical means and explained by rational analysis. This is what I was talking about in the somewhat flippant comment to Ingo B.
quote:Actually, that question was answered by Plato and Aristotle several centuries before Christ, and was done and dusted by Aquinas in the high middle ages. We already know the answer, by straightforward application of human thought based on natural observations. It is just that you are suffering from a cultural environment which has throw out the baby of Aristotelian metaphysics with the bathwater of Aristotelian physics, and are now incapable of dealing constructively with an entire sector of human intellectual engagement with nature.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
But the questions we consider and the means we employ to answer them are dependent on the state of knowledge at the time of asking. We have no way of knowing yet what the future holds in this regard. "Why is there something rather than nothing" may well turn out to be like, so 21st Century - as much a live question as why do we get those big bangs and flashes in the sky sometimes.
quote:Sigh. Aristotelian physics is not Aristotelian metaphysics (much less Aristotelian logic, ethics, ...). Newton made quasi-religious "calculations" about geometric objects inscribed into heavenly spheres and whatnot. Do you therefore throw away Newtonian mechanics? That Aristotelian physics has been bettered does not mean that Aristotelian metaphysics has become superfluous. It is a different matter, and in fact, if you are so impressed by Aristotelian thinking you should just a tad worried about throwing out what Aristotle thought about how we think about nature (rather than what we find in nature).
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Aristotle was possibly the cleverest man that ever lived, the ways of thinking he set in motion have rippled down the centuries, but vast swathes of what he actually thought about the universe turned out to be incorrect and he didn't have the conceptual apparatus to think about, say relativity or quantum physics. That had to wait. Other people moved things along.
quote:This is true for "science" understood in a classical sense, in which case metaphysics and for that matter theology are of course sciences. This is abject bullshit for science understood in the modern sense. God is not an entity existing in this universe, much less one that has strict regularities that can be repeatedly observed or elicited by experiments. Hence God simply is outside of the scope of modern natural science.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Dawkins writes, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims."
quote:This seems reasonable to me, and raises the question of exactly what difference Christians think God makes in the world today. Mind you, there are also the questions around the alleged historical events of Jesus' life, death and resurrection - those can be answered using historical analysis but not really using the scientific method, AIUI.
Originally posted by Yorick:
I haven't read that Dawkins considers that God is 'a scientific question'. Rather, he suggests that theists cannot hide God in mysticism or NOMA and thus remove Him from scientific scrutiny IF the claim is that He's involved with and part of natural reality. In other words, if God is of our physical world He must be available to science.
quote:The quote I remember from TGD is 'Either he exists or he doesn't. It is a scientific question'.
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:I haven't read that Dawkins considers that God is 'a scientific question'. Rather, he suggests that theists cannot hide God in mysticism or NOMA and thus remove Him from scientific scrutiny IF the claim is that He's involved with and part of natural reality. In other words, if God is of our physical world He must be available to science.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...Dawkins' claim that God is a scientific question is nonsense, and confuses science with philosophy.
Dawkins writes, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims."
quote:Bazinga.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:This is true for "science" understood in a classical sense, in which case metaphysics and for that matter theology are of course sciences. This is abject bullshit for science understood in the modern sense. God is not an entity existing in this universe, much less one that has strict regularities that can be repeatedly observed or elicited by experiments. Hence God simply is outside of the scope of modern natural science.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Dawkins writes, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims."
quote:I think 'egg-timer for the numinous' is a top phrase, and I may well purloin it, always giving due deference to its honourable origin in your mind, sorry, your meat-mind.
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
It seems completely unrealistic of Dawkins to think that people are going to play along with his rules so he can 'beat' them. Is it likely that people who have something called 'faith' (clue is in the question) will decide not to believe in God any more if nobody can come up with an egg-timer for the numinous? As usual in his latter-day, post-science career, this stuff is designed for the comfort of atheists.
quote:If one's idea of God is the deist, never intervening in the cosmos, kind of god then I agree, it's a bizarre question.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I went off to check the reference in TGD, and I'd forgotten that Dawkins goes even further, and actually states:
"the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other." (p. 72 in the Black Swan ed. 2007).
This is staggeringly bizarre, and qualifies as not even wrong.
![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
quote:
“But this research is in stark contrast to claims in recent years by prominent authors like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris that imply the opposite. After reading their works, you’d swear that religion made you immediately abandon rationality to become an inward looking extremist, more bigoted, more selfish and most interested in infecting the community with something sinister. What Putnam’s book does at the very least is to bring a bit of balance into the conversation.
quote:Hmm, I did say something of this form, didn't I?
Grokesx: OK then, I was addressing whatever it was you were doing when you said:
quote:
What I am saying: whatever we detect by physical means and explain by rational analysis will not be enough to answer questions like "Why is there something instead of nothing?
quote:Not really. Some people say that it is impossible to define in scientific terms what 'nothing' means, but I don't agree with them. In fact, I find it quite easy to make this definition. So, the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?" is a valid one, even within Science. It just seems to be outside of the scope of Science to answer it. Which means that we have the freedom to postulate our own answers.
quetzalcoatl: That seems to show that talking about nothing is mainly a philosophical issue, rather than a scientific one, doesn't it?
quote:Well, I had an interesting personal experience with this, in a discussion about the after-life, when a friend said, 'of course, oblivion cannot exist'. After I had recovered from the shock, I could see what he meant. But it still shocks me, I suppose.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Not really. Some people say that it is impossible to define in scientific terms what 'nothing' means, but I don't agree with them. In fact, I find it quite easy to make this definition. So, the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?" is a valid one, even within Science. It just seems to be outside of the scope of Science to answer it. Which means that we have the freedom to postulate our own answers.
quetzalcoatl: That seems to show that talking about nothing is mainly a philosophical issue, rather than a scientific one, doesn't it?
quote:The funny thing is that in most of the cases, oblivion is where these same people say we go after we die
quetzalcoatl: Well, I had an interesting personal experience with this, in a discussion about the after-life, when a friend said, 'of course, oblivion cannot exist'.
quote:To be honest, when I'm discussing whether Science can explain the Universe, I try to avoid the word 'oblivion'. I prefer the much more neutral 'nothing' which can be scientifically defined.
quetzalcoatl: Well, you should try saying to people 'oblivion cannot exist', and see what reactions you get. Many people obviously believe that it can. I suppose they haven't really thought about it at length.
quote:But that causal chain winds its way from a pale blue dot with some clever animals on it, through time and space to the big bang and beyond. Its links may well be tugged at by facets of reality those clever animals on their pale blue dot have never encountered and cannot envisage. What lies at one end of the chain may not necessarily be anything like what lies at the other.
Once more, the argument is not applied to the "universe or reality as a whole". It is being applied to one hierarchical causal chain.
quote:No it isn't. Anyone who read that link I posted about the overreaching of string theory can spot that for the bollocks it is. All the inductive reasoning stuff is necessary for natural science, obviously, but it isn't sufficient. Without making testable predictions, scientific hypotheses are worth shit. If string theory hangs around for another 700 years or so and gets no further than some elegant maths and predictions that start off by saying, "Imagine you had a particle accelerator the size of a galaxy..." it will have proved to be as useless in describing the universe as the Cosmological Argument has been.
There is no science apart from people thinking about the universe. In particular, the principle I have been using is not only key to Aquinas' argument. It is also key to the very working of natural science, in fact, it basically is natural science.
quote:Someone should tell those idiots at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, whose article on nothingness has over fifty post 1950 references. (I dare say you think that they actually are idiots, along with all of us who aren't the old Pope or Edward Feser).
Actually, that question was answered by Plato and Aristotle several centuries before Christ, and was done and dusted by Aquinas in the high middle ages.
quote:Not actually saying that. But hey ho. Aristotle's problem is best illustrated by his insistence that women have fewer teeth than men. The mind is a wonderful thing, but without the senses and a willingness to use them, it can get things wrong.
It is a different matter, and in fact, if you are so impressed by Aristotelian thinking you should just a tad worried about throwing out what Aristotle thought about how we think about nature (rather than what we find in nature).
quote:No, it does not! See, you have still not even understood the actual cosmological argument, as it has been historically presented by all its major proponents. You are still attacking a complete straw man. Go back and read my point about the difference between "temporal" and "hierarchical" causation. Or actually listen to Feser's video, for he does go on about this at one point.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
But that causal chain winds its way from a pale blue dot with some clever animals on it, through time and space to the big bang and beyond.
quote:Maybe, but this induction is happening right here and now, not through time (see previous point). So what you are de facto saying is that all around you things pop into existence without a cause, and stuff assumes its properties without rhyme and reason. If so, then I suggest to go easy on the LSD. Though in fact, LSD then is the cause. See, I cannot actually do it, I cannot even really imagine the crazy universe you implicitly claim to live in. If I say it is a madman's world, I assume the cause is a malfunction of your brain. I cannot get rid of this "cause-finding", it is what my mind does. And that is just what establishes the metaphysical principle. It's not something alien or artificial. It is a simple abstraction from how we in fact consider the world.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Which is just a poncy way of saying the problem of induction is a bigger problem than you give it credit for.
quote:I have a PhD in quantum chromodynamics, and I have had a standing bet against supersymmetry (and hence string theory and the like) with former colleagues for close to 15 years now. However, that a bunch of theoretical physicists are playing mathematical games with no empirical test in sight has exactly and precisely fuck all to do with what we are discussing here. Really. They are not doing metaphysics, at all. If you want to be kind, you can say that they are doing speculative theoretical physics, just like Einstein invented General Relativity well ahead of anything resembling experimental tests. If you want to be unkind, you can say that they are doing mathematics and are cleverly syphoning funds out of the much larger physics budget. At any rate, they are not using metaphysical arguments in the slightest as tools of their trade - other than exactly in the sense as all scientists do, namely by the way they approach nature as "explainable".
Originally posted by Grokesx:
No it isn't. Anyone who read that link I posted about the overreaching of string theory can spot that for the bollocks it is. All the inductive reasoning stuff is necessary for natural science, obviously, but it isn't sufficient. Without making testable predictions, scientific hypotheses are worth shit.
quote:The cosmological argument is not describing the universe like string theory claims to do. For better or worse, it simply plays on a different turf to string theorists. Or for that matter geneticists, material scientists, oceanologists, ... Your attempts to project the cosmological argument onto scientific investigation is a necessary failure. It is not like the worst of science, it is not like the best of science, or anything in between. It is something different. If you want to reject it, you can try, but if you try doing so by making it a piece of regular science then you have already failed.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
If string theory hangs around for another 700 years or so and gets no further than some elegant maths and predictions that start off by saying, "Imagine you had a particle accelerator the size of a galaxy..." it will have proved to be as useless in describing the universe as the Cosmological Argument has been.
quote:First, why are we talking about "nothingness" now? The classical cosmological argument does not even mention "nothingness". It tracks a hierarchical causal chain of "thingness", noting that it cannot originate in "thing". You keep dragging in popular cosmological "arguments", here presumably "why is there anything rather than nothing." But I'm not defending those here (even though they may be quite defensible). I'm sticking to the classical cosmological argument. Second, a discussion of what happened to philosophy in the enlightenment period, and what effect bringing philosophy into a "publish or perish" university environment had, would be interesting but is a bit off-topic here. Suffice to say that professional philosophers make a living out of disagreeing with each other... Anyhow, the status of the classical cosmological proof in the philosophical community pretty much tracks the appreciation of Aristotelian philosophy (and its distant relatives). And since the fortunes of "Aristotle" have been rising once more, philosophers will not really serve as authorities any longer for a refusal to take this argument rather seriously.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Someone should tell those idiots at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, whose article on nothingness has over fifty post 1950 references. (I dare say you think that they actually are idiots, along with all of us who aren't the old Pope or Edward Feser).
quote:Perhaps Aristotle said that, perhaps not. It helps to provide sources for one's claims. However, this is quite meaningless anyhow. For this is Aristotelian physics, or rather, Aristotelian biology. So he got some biological facts wrong. So what, precisely? I repeat, biology, physics, etc. are not metaphysics. And metaphysics is not tied to empirical observations in the same way as biology, physics, etc. There is a qualitative difference between saying "this piece of matter is red" (realm of physics) and saying "I attribute certain characteristics to matter, like colour" (realm of metaphysics). It is not the same thing, and if you mistakenly attributed the colour red to a blue thing, then you have not invalidated the metaphysical statement at all. Aristotle may have made many errors as a scientist in describing nature scientifically. A fate that he incidentally shares with every scientist that has ever lived. It does not follow that he has erred in his metaphysics. He also did that in my opinion, by the way, but in minor ways. His status in metaphysics is in my opinion roughly that of Newton in physics. He got some crucial things right first, and some of his core approaches retain their functionality to this day.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Aristotle's problem is best illustrated by his insistence that women have fewer teeth than men. The mind is a wonderful thing, but without the senses and a willingness to use them, it can get things wrong.
quote:Great! Glad to be of service.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think 'egg-timer for the numinous' is a top phrase, and I may well purloin it, always giving due deference to its honourable origin in your mind, sorry, your meat-mind.
quote:God is not an entity existing in this universe. Really? I was taught that God is universally manifest. Is that just silly religious nonsense then?
Originally posted by IngoB:
God is not an entity existing in this universe, much less one that has strict regularities that can be repeatedly observed or elicited by experiments.
quote:A chess player is not a chess figurine on the chess board, even if they never move without him. A writer is not a character in his story, even if he writes explicit comments as author into the story. A painter consists not of oil paint on canvas, even if he is paints a self-portrait in a corner of the painting. A playwright does not appear on stage, even if he is praised for having expressed his very soul with that play. Etc.
Originally posted by Yorick:
God is not an entity existing in this universe. Really? I was taught that God is universally manifest. Is that just silly religious nonsense then?
quote:
God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident, but as an agent is present to that upon which it works. ... Now God causes this effect [being] in things not only when they first begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being ... Therefore as long as a thing has being, God must be present to it, according to its mode of being. But being is innermost in each thing ... Hence it must be that God is in all things, and innermostly. ...
To be everywhere primarily and absolutely, is proper to God. ... But a thing is everywhere absolutely when it does not belong to it to be everywhere accidentally, that is, merely on some supposition; as a grain of millet would be everywhere, supposing that no other body existed. It belongs therefore to a thing to be everywhere absolutely when, on any supposition, it must be everywhere; and this properly belongs to God alone. For whatever number of places be supposed, even if an infinite number be supposed besides what already exist, it would be necessary that God should be in all of them; for nothing can exist except by Him. Therefore to be everywhere primarily and absolutely belongs to God and is proper to Him: because whatever number of places be supposed to exist, God must be in all of them, not as to a part of Him, but as to His very self.
quote:First, Jesus Christ is true man and true God, of unmixed natures, united only in the personhood of the Second Person. The Second Person as man had all the usual properties that regular items of the universe called "man" have. For example, if you nail items called "man" to a cross, they tend to die rather quickly and unhappily - and so did this one. The Second Person as God however of course cannot die, or for that matter suffer, or indeed change in any way whatsoever. Jesus Christ the man was indeed part of the "inventory" of the universe, but he isn't now. (I keep all the resurrection business out of discussion here.) Jesus Christ the God remains as present to all the universe as the Second Person has always been (not as part of the inventory, but as part of what makes the inventory be).
Originally posted by Yorick:
... I mean, Jesus was of this material reality, right? A genuine bona fide physical human being cum God. And the Holy Spirit? That’s everywhere, isn’t it? And God the Father, the Big Boss, well He’s sufficiently of our physical realm that He can interfere with real material bushes so as to cause combustion, part seas, cause global flooding, and so on and on. All three components of this God are alleged to be items within the universe in the sense that they’re real and cause real change to real things, and that is the sense we’re talking about here, isn’t it? I suppose you guys will claim mystical paradox rather than admit contradiction, and dispose of any WTFness by defining these matters to be beyond our understanding or something. Call me a pessimist.
quote:That's not quite correct. Classical (Christian) theism assigns both being and personhood to God. Just not the kind of being and personhood that creatures have. And not a "lesser" kind of being and personhood, but a "higher" one: super-eminent being and personhood. The problem with theistic personalism is not assigning personhood to God, but rather assigning the same kind of personhood that we have to God. God then becomes a super-man. But God is nothing like that, and when we talk of God being a Person we use it in a very analogical sense that only requires the following
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
As far as I can see, in classical theism, God does not have a physical nature, and in fact, is not a person or a being at all. This seems to contradict other views, e.g. theistic personalism, but again, this is straying o/t really.
quote:(from the Catholic Encyclopedia explaining Aquinas).
definition comprising the five notes that go to make up a person: (a) substantia - this excludes accident; (b) completa - it must form a complete nature; that which is a part, either actually or "aptitudinally" does not satisfy the definition; (c) per se subsistens - the person exists in himself and for himself; he is sui juris, the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts, the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes; that which exists in another is not a person; (d) separata ab aliis - this excludes the universal, substantia secunda, which has no existence apart from the individual; (e) rationalis naturae - excludes all non-intellectual supposita.
quote:Sounds reasonable to me.
shamwari: I was once told that God is not a person, but personal.
How does that grab you?
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You mean you want God to walk up to you and say "Hey, I'm God. How you doing?"
You’re highlighting another logical problem with the christian god.
The fact is that an omnipotent god who wants us all to love him could find a way to leave us in no doubt of its existence. No doubt whatsoever. But it doesn’t – thereby consigning many/most of humanity (whom it loves and wants to share heaven with) to hell/oblivion/not heaven.
Deliberately obscuring facts, then punishing people because they couldn’t know said facts is immoral/wrong and in most developed societies it’s also illegal. The word entrapment comes to mind.
However – the christian god is perfect and the source of all goodness – therefore it can’t be immoral/wrong.
But an omnipotent god....
You get my drift – is your god immoral or merely impotent?
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The reason no such test exists is because the empirical/scientific method tests the natural and an attempt to test God would be would be testing the supernatural.
So the empirical method is unable to test God. It simply does not have the scope or the ability.
The logical conclusion (special pleading excluded) of this argument is that the supernatural is unable to impact the natural – because
a) If it did we’d be able to measure said impact and
b) We can account for the natural with four forces – ElectroMagnetism, Gravity and the weak and strong nuclear forces – there is neither need nor room for anymore.
If you were right you just destroyed the claimed humanity of Jesus (amongst many other things).
You therefore cannot say there is no evidence for God. You were never able to test for evidence in the first place.
Guilty of shorthand again I confess – there is no evidence that can be discerned for god(s). there - fixed it.
The difference is irrelevant though isn’t it? There may be “god(s)” with which the natural world has no relationship. We are natural world inhabitants, they aren’t. OK. Effectively they don’t exist for us.
Nate Duffy says it better here yup - he((?) gets it wrong a tad more eloquently.
So you can't say you're an atheist on lack of empirical evidence.
To the contrary - you’ve just demonstrated that there is no discernible evidence for supernature – therefore belief in its existence is irrational and the only logical position is Absence of belief in a god or god(s). simple isn’t it.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So how about you face up to the fact that the original basis of faith of your actual peers isn't particularly easy to disprove at all?
Not you as well – I haven’t claimed to disprove it (it can’t be done) but it is perfectly possible to justify why I’m not irrational enough to believe it myself. I’m an atheist. That means I don’t believe in a god or gods. Disproval is a strawman. I can’t disprove a suitably vague and constantly moving (sorry – evolving) idea which is grounded in mental gymnastics. I don’t have to. There are many logical reasons for doubting the existence of god(s) but none can be a knockout blow – every time a new bit of wishful thinking is promoted and knocked down another will take its place.
An upgraded deistic god (one that acts as a kind of "battery" to power the mechanism "universe" continuously, but otherwise is not engaged with it) is compatible with it. Nobody has ever claimed that metaphysical arguments are sufficient to prove the totality of God-beliefs. Rather, they can prove certain things that we naturally associate with Divinity. If you are the only person in the world with purple eyes, and I prove that something could only be done by someone with purple eyes (and it has in fact be done), then I can say that it was you who has done it. That does not mean that I thereby have said all there is to be said about you...
1 – you may naturally associate something with divinity (actually, probably nurturally based on a natural vulnerability I suspect) but that is irrelevant. Just as is the fact that I don’t do so.
2 – If.......... this logic is valid but also irrelevant to god-belief since you cannot demonstrate the existence of a god let alone the results of its alleged existence as in I can prove that something could only be done...... The only hope you can have of getting away with this is to slide a bit of circular reasoning in without be caught doing so.
quote:Not all of us believe that people who doubt of God's existence will go to hell/oblivion/not heaven.
HughWillRidmee: The fact is that an omnipotent god who wants us all to love him could find a way to leave us in no doubt of its existence. No doubt whatsoever. But it doesn’t – thereby consigning many/most of humanity (whom it loves and wants to share heaven with) to hell/oblivion/not heaven.
quote:Er, because LeRoc and I were discussing the "why is there something rather than nothing" question and you interjected (not a problem in itself, of course) by informing me that Aristotle, Plato and Aquinas had answered that question.
First, why are we talking about "nothingness" now? The classical cosmological argument does not even mention "nothingness"
quote:History of Animals, 2.3. Again, my discussion of Aristotle was not directly connected to the argument we’re having. So, meh.
Perhaps Aristotle said that, perhaps not. It helps to provide sources for one's claims. However, this is quite meaningless anyhow. For this is Aristotelian physics, or rather, Aristotelian biology. So he got some biological facts wrong. So what, precisely? I repeat, biology, physics, etc. are not metaphysics.
quote:OK. Let me re-phrase slightly. For space and time, read spacetime. I'm not talking temporal, either, just as before when I said everywhere and everywhen.
No, it does not! See, you have still not even understood the actual cosmological argument, as it has been historically presented by all its major proponents. You are still attacking a complete straw man. Go back and read my point about the difference between "temporal" and "hierarchical" causation. Or actually listen to Feser's video, for he does go on about this at one point.
quote:Oh, for fuck ‘s sake. The map is not the territory. The universe is not obliged to respect our abstractions.
If I say it is a madman's world, I assume the cause is a malfunction of your brain. I cannot get rid of this "cause-finding", it is what my mind does. And that is just what establishes the metaphysical principle. It's not something alien or artificial. It is a simple abstraction from how we in fact consider the world.
quote:For as long as the assumption proves to be true. If it turned out not to hold in all circumstances, then science would have to accommodate it and parts of it would turn out to be about something else.
What I've said is that the key metaphysical principle "everything that comes into being or is contingent requires a cause" is the basic assumption of (modern natural) science. All science. You can point to the most experimental scientist that you can find, a person that does nothing but practical empirical studies day in and day out, and never allows themselves the slightest theoretical flight of fancy. That person, as long as still a scientist, will still be trying to find causes for what is coming into being or for what is contingent (could be otherwise). That's simply what the experiments are about, because that's what science is about.
quote:Science and metaphysics are both enquiries into the nature of things and they have certain characteristics in common and differ in others. In the end it boils down to metaphysics being thinking hard and making shit up, and science being thinking hard, making shit up and then thinking of ways of seeing if the shit’s correct.
The cosmological argument is not describing the universe like string theory claims to do. For better or worse, it simply plays on a different turf to string theorists. Or for that matter geneticists, material scientists, oceanologists, ... Your attempts to project the cosmological argument onto scientific investigation is a necessary failure. It is not like the worst of science, it is not like the best of science, or anything in between. It is something different. If you want to reject it, you can try, but if you try doing so by making it a piece of regular science then you have already failed.
quote:I appreciate that but I suspect that you're in a pretty small minority though aren't you?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Not all of us believe that people who doubt of God's existence will go to hell/oblivion/not heaven.
HughWillRidmee: The fact is that an omnipotent god who wants us all to love him could find a way to leave us in no doubt of its existence. No doubt whatsoever. But it doesn’t – thereby consigning many/most of humanity (whom it loves and wants to share heaven with) to hell/oblivion/not heaven.
quote:I'm not sure. The people who believe in Hell and brimstone are usually more vocal, but I think there are a lot more of us than you'd suspect. I also doubt if the official documents of a church always reflect what its members believe.
HughWillRidmee: I appreciate that but I suspect that you're in a pretty small minority though aren't you?
quote:Denying something because your particular system of evidence cannot test it is irrational.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:How?
Originally posted by Evensong:
You mean you want God to walk up to you and say "Hey, I'm God. How you doing?"
You’re highlighting another logical problem with the christian god.
The fact is that an omnipotent god who wants us all to love him could find a way to leave us in no doubt of its existence. No doubt whatsoever.
quote:How could you measure for said impact when the supernatural cannot be factored into the experiment in the first place?
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Evensong:
The reason no such test exists is because the empirical/scientific method tests the natural and an attempt to test God would be would be testing the supernatural.
So the empirical method is unable to test God. It simply does not have the scope or the ability.
The logical conclusion (special pleading excluded) of this argument is that the supernatural is unable to impact the natural – because
a) If it did we’d be able to measure said impact and
b) We can account for the natural with four forces – ElectroMagnetism, Gravity and the weak and strong nuclear forces – there is neither need nor room for anymore.
Is not the statement that we can explain everything therefore God doesn't exist a methodologically inconsistent leap in the process?
quote:No evidence you accept you mean, because it's not empiricial. There is plenty of evidence for God in history, human experience and pure reason.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
You therefore cannot say there is no evidence for God. You were never able to test for evidence in the first place.
Guilty of shorthand again I confess – there is no evidence that can be discerned for god(s). there - fixed it.
quote:I said no such thing. I said the empirical method is unable to test for God. So when you will only accept empirical evidence for the existence of God you are demanding nonsense.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
So you can't say you're an atheist on lack of empirical evidence.
To the contrary - you’ve just demonstrated that there is no discernible evidence for supernature
The story writer analogy IngoB described above works well here.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
– therefore belief in its existence is irrational and the only logical position is Absence of belief in a god or god(s). simple isn’t it.
quote:First, you assume there that if God revealed Himself to us beyond doubt, then we would necessarily love God. Christianity teaches otherwise. A large part of the angels fell away from God, in spite of standing in His presence. And Adam and Eve, the first humans (whether in a real or mythical sense) did as well, in spite of how close He was to them. Second, it is right and just for creatures to love their Creator. But God hates the wicked. If God loves you in your limitations, then He should give you opportunity to sort things out and escape His wrath. You have a lifetime for that. Third, obedience out of terrified fear is not love. Neither is sucking up to receive a reward. Consider a billionaire and a prospective partner who is poor. Does she love him or his money? Lover or gold digger? One way a billionaire could find out is if it was not clear to the partner that he is a billionaire. But simply lying about his life would start the relationship on falsity. How about stating truthfully how rich he is, but somehow leaving that questionable to her mind, questionable unless she already trusts and loves him? It would have to be done in such a way that all this does not become an exercise on betting on odds for her though. That brings us to the remarkable fact that Pascal's wager doesn't work as a conversion tool (and wasn't what converted Pascal either...).
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
You’re highlighting another logical problem with the christian god. The fact is that an omnipotent god who wants us all to love him could find a way to leave us in no doubt of its existence. No doubt whatsoever. But it doesn’t – thereby consigning many/most of humanity (whom it loves and wants to share heaven with) to hell/oblivion/not heaven.
quote:First, the claim that God "hiding" from us in this life is "immoral" is doubtful even as such, see previous point.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Deliberately obscuring facts, then punishing people because they couldn’t know said facts is immoral/wrong and in most developed societies it’s also illegal. The word entrapment comes to mind. However – the christian god is perfect and the source of all goodness – therefore it can’t be immoral/wrong. But an omnipotent god.... You get my drift – is your god immoral or merely impotent?
quote:And indeed we can. Natural things exist. Natural things change. Neither could be the case without supernatural impact. Thus all things ever observed or measured demonstrate the impact of the supernatural beyond reasonable doubt. The only reason why you can remain "within the natural" with your considerations is because 1) you take the existence of nature for granted, and 2) you stop your investigation of causation at some level of natural instrumental causes. That is of course perfectly valid if you merely try to determine relationships between natural entities, as modern science does. But such self-imposed limitations do not exclude the supernatural.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The logical conclusion (special pleading excluded) of this argument is that the supernatural is unable to impact the natural – because a) If it did we’d be able to measure said impact
quote:Speaking with my scientist's hat on: even considered as a statement of natural science, this is at best daring prophecy mildly related to the current state of the art. Most (all?) scientists would agree that there is both need and room for more in the description of nature.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
b) We can account for the natural with four forces – ElectroMagnetism, Gravity and the weak and strong nuclear forces – there is neither need nor room for anymore.
quote:The "gods" you are talking about there would be more like angels and demons in Christianity: powerful spiritual entities in the universe. Whether they are really as non-existent as you think they are is one question. But the more decisive question is whether you have made any argument against the actual Christian God. And the answer is simply: no. The Christian God is precisely not like these "gods" you imagine (and reject). God is not another thing in the universe that interacts with other things, just very powerful and incorporeal. God is in an entirely different category of being, and his interactions with this world are not "physical" but do not therefore lack reality.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The difference is irrelevant though isn’t it? There may be “god(s)” with which the natural world has no relationship. We are natural world inhabitants, they aren’t. OK. Effectively they don’t exist for us.
quote:It's more that evidence and logic pointing to God are staring you into the face, and you stare right past them. But hey, I do not have any illusions either that arguments can bring atheists to their senses.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
There are many logical reasons for doubting the existence of god(s) but none can be a knockout blow – every time a new bit of wishful thinking is promoted and knocked down another will take its place.
quote:I was raised as an apathetic atheist in secular Germany and nobody ever tried seriously to convert me to Christianity, or for that matter, convince me of the existence of God. If I'm "vulnerable", then to mystical experience, which indeed did help me along my path to Christianity. However, I consciously sought out this kind of experience, it didn't just happen to me, and I did so originally (and intensely) in the context of atheistic, or at least non-theistic, Zen.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
1 – you may naturally associate something with divinity (actually, probably nurturally based on a natural vulnerability I suspect) but that is irrelevant. Just as is the fact that I don’t do so.
quote:Sigh. You did not go back to read about hierarchical causation, and you did not listen to Feser either, right? Going from "temporal" to "spatiotemporal" does nothing here. It is entirely irrelevant for the point at hand whether the universe is "Newtonian" (spatial, with one separate "clock" timing all, and including instantaneous non-local interactions) or "Einsteinian" (spatiotemporal, with no unique "clock", and with finite speed interactions). We are looking at a different kind of sequence here. Not one that goes "first this, then that, next this, ..." in a (spatio)temporal sequence, but one that goes "this by virtue of that, again that through the agency of this, and so by the power of that, ..." in an explanatory / logical sense that can be entirely concurrent. The entire hierarchical causal chain happens at once, in any sense of "at once" that you favour.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
OK. Let me re-phrase slightly. For space and time, read spacetime. I'm not talking temporal, either, just as before when I said everywhere and everywhen.
quote:Of course we are. As you will notice, none of all that extra knowledge we have gained since Aquinas' days has touched that premise at all. Unsurprisingly, since we have collected that extra knowledge precisely by following that premise! And for the same reason, we can predict with certainty that whatever we may discover about the 95% of the universe which (according to you) we have no fucking clue about will not invalidate the premise either. Because we will continue following that premise in collecting it. In fact, try as you might, you cannot not follow that premise, as long as you try to find out anything about anything. This premise is simply a statement what "finding out" actually means. You can theoretically claim that this premise is false, but you cannot practically operate like that, there is no alternative available to you other than simply giving up. In consequence, attacking this premise is attacking the scope of the human mind. And that's precisely what I mean when I say that philosophically my theism is based on optimism about the human mind (is "rational" in the sense of affirming rationality fully), and that atheism maintained in spite of accepting the logic of the cosmological argument is based on pessimism about the human mind (is "irrational" in the sense of rejecting rationality beyond a certain point).
Originally posted by Grokesx:
The key premise of the argument, as you put it is, "everything that comes into being or is contingent requires a cause". [snip] Aquinas's logical construct must encompass all of that if it is to have any relevance today, even though he knew a fraction of what we know about the 5% of the universe we have a fucking clue about. Are we justified in assuming our/Aquinas's observations about the bit of the universe we know applies to all of it?
quote:The territory is only present to me as the map. For all intents and purposes, the map hence in fact is the territory to me, for I have no other access to the territory. I cannot not perceive and understand the world in the manner that I perceive and understand the world. The only thing I can do is to contradict or deny myself in doing so. I choose not to.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Oh, for fuck ‘s sake. The map is not the territory. The universe is not obliged to respect our abstractions.
quote:It is not an assumption. It is not a working hypothesis. It is how we work, fundamentally. The only alternative is giving up. What would you have us do instead? Finding causation by magic?
Originally posted by Grokesx:
For as long as the assumption proves to be true. If it turned out not to hold in all circumstances, then science would have to accommodate it and parts of it would turn out to be about something else.
quote:Nope, that's just plain wrong. Actually also concerning science, with a nice circularity hidden in your claim. (Note that your "thinking of ways of seeing" is merely another instance of "thinking hard, making shit up" - you cannot bootstrap reality from thinking like that, you need to make a claim about the ability of thinking to capture reality, and that would be a metaphysical claim then!)
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Science and metaphysics are both enquiries into the nature of things and they have certain characteristics in common and differ in others. In the end it boils down to metaphysics being thinking hard and making shit up, and science being thinking hard, making shit up and then thinking of ways of seeing if the shit’s correct.
quote:These are simply doctrinal statements affirming that those who die in mortal sin will go to hell (what happens to those dying in original sin would require a lot more discussion, but is irrelevant here - none of us are infants). This does not tell us who dies in mortal sin, and for what reason. Specifically, it does not tell us that atheists must die in mortal sin. In particular so because for someone to die in mortal sin it is not sufficient that they commit a grave sin (as atheism undoubtedly is), but also that they are sufficiently culpable for that grave sin and do not repent of it. Only this will make the grave sin mortal for them, and it depends on questions of consent and knowledge. It is accepted today that atheists can in principle escape hell (for their atheism) by virtue of being inculpable enough, and this teaching is consistent with historical doctrine (although admittedly there was a lot less emphasis on this possibility in the past). How high their chances are for avoiding hell is a different question, one that does not have a clear answer I would say. But it is not zero.
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I appreciate that but I suspect that you're in a pretty small minority though aren't you? Most Anglicans I knew thought so, the more fundamentalist churches do I believe and the RCC -
The Church professes her faith in the Athanasian Creed: "They that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire" (Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 10th ed., 1908, n.40). The Church has repeatedly defined this truth, e.g. in the profession of faith made in the Second Council of Lyons (Denx., n. 464) and in the Decree of Union in the Council of Florence (Denz., N. 693): "the souls of those who depart in mortal sin, or only in original sin, go down immediately into hell, to be visited, however, with unequal punishments" (poenis disparibus). from Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Hell (sorry - won't link).
quote:I have just arrived at this post after my second listen through of all the posts since my last one and I most certainly agree with what you say here!
Originally posted by Evensong:
I think you get the prize for patience, effort and meticulous posting Ingo.
I take my hat off to you.
(And I hate to say it cos you're often a shit, but I learn a lot from you. Thank you.)
quote:Whether it is concurrent or not is neither here nor there. When you say, "This, by virtue of that" etc, "this" and "that", represent things in spacetime. "By virtue of this","by the power of that", all represent conditions in spacetime. Your hierarchy of causes does not exist as a logical construct alone - the logical construct represents things in spacetime. If it doesn't, then the conclusion you draw can say nothing about the external world whatsoever.
We are looking at a different kind of sequence here. Not one that goes "first this, then that, next this, ..." in a (spatio)temporal sequence, but one that goes "this by virtue of that, again that through the agency of this, and so by the power of that, ..." in an explanatory / logical sense that can be entirely concurrent.
quote:Garbage. All I need to do is acknowledge that our rationality is bounded by the cognitive ability of human minds and the information available to them. For instance I can quite easily live a life knowing that motion in the bit of spacetime I exist in can be described pretty accurately by classical mechanics, but that in different conditions not experienced by me (except when I use GPS) that logical construct is not sufficient to explain what is going on outside my mind and relativity comes into play. Furthermore, I am aware that even key parts of that are not immutable. For instance the idea that the speed of light is invariant would have had to be changed if a neutrino had actually travelled as fast as they thought it did at CERN, rather than it being the consequence of a loose cable.
You can theoretically claim that this premise is false, but you cannot practically operate like that, there is no alternative available to you other than simply giving up.
quote:Pity I only have the one solipsism joke. And you know that bit where you angrily tell me you are not displaying solipsism here at all, and that only a clueless ignoramus like me would even entertain the idea? Tell it to yourself.
The territory is only present to me as the map. For all intents and purposes, the map hence in fact is the territory to me, for I have no other access to the territory. I cannot not perceive and understand the world in the manner that I perceive and understand the world. The only thing I can do is to contradict or deny myself in doing so. I choose not to.
quote:I think the conclusion of the cosmological argument is closer to that than what I'm saying.
It is not an assumption. It is not a working hypothesis. It is how we work, fundamentally. The only alternative is giving up. What would you have us do instead? Finding causation by magic?
quote:Indeed, I ignored the important step. It's easy to do - you do it with every post. The final step is actually doing the tests you have thought of, making the measurements. Following the data. That is the link between the map and the territory. It might not be perfect, but it is all we have to save us from the madness of thinking we know everything there is to know.
Nope, that's just plain wrong. Actually also concerning science, with a nice circularity hidden in your claim. (Note that your "thinking of ways of seeing" is merely another instance of "thinking hard, making shit up" - you cannot bootstrap reality from thinking like that, you need to make a claim about the ability of thinking to capture reality, and that would be a metaphysical claim then!)
quote:Note: I'm not trying to convert you!
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
A couple of thoughts which have been running through my head here (and which apply to other threads over the years too) is that there seems to be a necessity for so many words to say why, who, what God is, whereas if s/he/it was so clearly true, it should be evident to those of us who no longer believe in this force/power, or whatever we thought God was; and (b) referring to the subject of this thread, that since being an atheist, I have found much greater wonder at everything about life, the universe and everything than ever I did when believing in God.
:
quote:Originally posted by IngoB:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
How?
I don’t know, I’m neither a god nor omnipotent – you think your god can’t do it?quote:
How could you measure for said impact when the supernatural cannot be factored into the experiment in the first place?
Either there’s an impact – measurable, or there’s no impact – no measurement either. If there were impacts which had no measurable effect they would be both undetectable and irrelevant. If experiments kept repeatedly coming up with inexplicable results science might consider the possibility of supernaturality. They don’t.
“My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.” population geneticist J. B. S. Haldanequote:
No evidence you accept you mean, because it's not empiricial. There is plenty of evidence for God in history, human experience and pure reason.
Only if you reduce the concept of evidence to a level which means you also have to accept homeopathy, reiki, feng shui, mediums chatting with your dead dog etc. etc.quote:
I said no such thing. I said the empirical method is unable to test for God. So when you will only accept empirical evidence for the existence of God you are demanding nonsense. It’s only nonsense if you are convinced that there is a god and can’t provide empirical evidence to support your belief. You start from “THERE IS a god”; I change the order of the first two words.quote:
Denying something because your particular system of evidence cannot test it is irrational.
1 – for the severalth time – that’s not what I said – I don’t deny it – I say that my system of testing it draws a blank and that the alternative systems proposed by believers are so lacking in rigour as to be useless.
2 – Since you are unable to test for it I presume you don’t deny the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Lord Xenu, Father Christmas, qi or Ganesh
quote:
Consider a billionaire and a prospective partner who is poor. Is this a real billionaire that she can touch, see, hear etc. or a story billionaire told to her by people who have investments in her thinking that he exists? Pascal's wager doesn't work as a conversion tool (and wasn't what converted Pascal either...). Pascal seems to have thought that either 1 - people could decide to throw the switch in their brain marked belief and believe or 2 - that god wasn’t clever enough to know when he was being conned. As I understand he was a devout RC I suspect the former – in which case he was wrong.
quote:
The only value measure of God is God, and we can evaluate God's actions sensibly only by what God tells us about His actions. which summarizes your previous paragraphs and is blatant circular reasoning. You can’t query god because god is in{?}queriable. God is moral because moral is what god is.
quote:
And indeed we can. Natural things exist. Natural things change. Neither could be the case without supernatural impact. Thus all things ever observed or measured demonstrate the impact of the supernatural beyond reasonable doubt. The only reason why you can remain "within the natural" with your considerations is because 1) you take the existence of nature for granted, and 2) you stop your investigation of causation at some level of natural instrumental causes. That is of course perfectly valid if you merely try to determine relationships between natural entities, as modern science does. But such self-imposed limitations do not exclude the supernatural. I do not exclude the supernatural – I cannot see any reason to believe it exists. You make a couple of non-contentious statements Natural things exist. Natural things change , you follow up with an unjustified claim which seems to be just plain wrong Neither could be the case without supernatural impact Errors in DNA coding are supernaturally caused?, Ice melts because of a supernatural input, I change food by digesting it because supernature? – I just don’t see how you arrive at your assertion. And then you go to a thus etc. which is totally unsupported. And indeed we can ?? not like this we can’t.
Since we agree that “miracles” are not helpful we’ll leave them out of it shall we?
quote:
The analogy to a writer and his story really helps here. You are basically asking: why can the characters in the story not detect the author through their actions and observations in the story? I hope you can appreciate that this question doesn't really make a lot of sense. Which is why I’m not asking it. The writer exists outside the work that is claimed to demonstrate his existence. The characters only exist within the author's writing. God(s) cannot be shown to exist other than through the simple fact of the existence of the story and is/are therefore only a potential author, and that only because you are assuming the story has an author. On the other hand the "characters" in the natural world have existence. Your analogy is a reversal of reality and therefore invalid. The simple truth is that we don’t know whether the universe has an author and if so whether that author has any relationship to the god you’ve been confidently detailing so far.
quote:
It's more that evidence and logic pointing to God are staring you into the face, and you stare right past them. Or perhaps I’ve learnt to ignore mirages – since your assertions are dependent upon the belief you are unable to demonstrate as valid the assertions are themselves invalid.
quote:
And if you do not want to associate for example the Uncaused Cause with God, you are free to do so. why – thank you kind sir You are however not free to deny that others can make this association, because it is simply the case that properties of an Uncaused Cause are compatible with typical statements about God. as is to be expected faced with circles within circles This is not about some semantics game, where we see how long you can avoid the word "God". just as well – I failed in my first line The philosophy proves some things that sit really well with classical Christian theism. They do not sit well at all with run of the mill materialist / positivist atheism. If you accept the philosophy, you don't have to become Christian, but you cannot remain a "standard" atheist. I’m not sure what philosophy you mean but I wouldn’t be surprised that any philosophy which is claimed to prove (really?? – prove??) some things that sit really well with classical Christian theism do not sit well at all with run of the mill materialist/positivist atheism whatever that may be.
I don't know what "standard" atheism is - but atheism is the absence of belief in a god or gods.
If you wish to inhabit what seems to me to be a convoluted complexity of assumption, guesswork, other people's opinions and unsubstantiated claims that is your choice. For some reason I don't understand you are compelled to prefer belief to scepticism. (Just as the reverse is true for me). But, to echo your post, what you are not entitled to do is pass off your belief as fact.
quote:Anything! I had no idea what 'user names' were when I first joined a message board and asked my computer teacher if my first two names would do for now - and that's about 7 years ago! I prefer not Doris though!
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Susan--
(Is "Susan" ok, or "SD", or do you prefer the whole name?)
quote:I can't think of any item of info that would:)As I have often said, though, I so much enjoy the discussions here.
quote:Note: I'm not trying to convert you!
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
A couple of thoughts which have been running through my head here (and which apply to other threads over the years too) is that there seems to be a necessity for so many words to say why, who, what God is, whereas if s/he/it was so clearly true, it should be evident to those of us who no longer believe in this force/power, or whatever we thought God was; and (b) referring to the subject of this thread, that since being an atheist, I have found much greater wonder at everything about life, the universe and everything than ever I did when believing in God.
quote:Just as we should all do throughout life. I am firmly of the opinion that all thoughts, ideas, morals, gods, etc are products of the human imagination (and, yes, that is an assertion, so I'll note that before I am picked up on it!)and may I recommend a step, however tentative, into the world of humanism via their web pages where you will see, as I do, that we humans have done everything since we evolved without any gods anyway. Try on the disguise and maybe it will make you feel, as I did, completely whole, with not even the smallest space available for God/god/s.
I'm kind of a vacationing, agnostic, wounded Christian who likes to explore and see what folks of other beliefs are up to, and draw on anything good that I find.
quote:I understand. I liked the structure, the formality and particularly the music of church services, but could no longer say such things as the Creed, since I didn't believe a word of it!
I really, really needed a long break from formal, traditional Christianity. And I realized that I was simply switching from Special Revelation (the incarnation, scripture, etc.), to exploring Natural/General Revelation--the stuff that's there in the world for the finding. Sometimes, Christians forget about that bit.
quote:Always!
It's not always easy, but it's been a huge relief.
And I see from your post that you are well familiar with 42. I trust you know where your towel is?
Thank you for interesting post.quote:Oh, blast.
Golden Key: I trust you know where your towel is?
quote:Thanks, I'll try to read it tomorrow. (That's not a lack of interest, but I admit to being slightly intoxicated after today's Brazil x Italy game
Penny S: Referring back a long way, LeRoc might be interested in this...
US gov committee on extra-solar planets
).
quote:Yes, I think they'reneurological states, and are produced by and contained in a material brain.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But the imagination itself is just a series of neurological states, isn't it? Unless you are arguing that it's somehow non-material, which I would think would contradict your view of reality?
quote:But it is a waste of time to think that - much more practical to act as if we are not illusions!
Then thoughts, ideas, morals, gods, are all illusions, aren't they? But then this discussion is also an illusion.
quote:I think I'll pass on that question, but you're probably right!
Or are you having your physical cake and eating your metaphysics as well?
quote:It's a watching thing - there's a video link to the right. It is not exciting, and goes on a while. It is a committee interrogating witnesses. Not to be watched intoxicated. Or hungover.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Thanks, I'll try to read it tomorrow. (That's not a lack of interest, but I admit to being slightly intoxicated after today's Brazil x Italy game
quote:Ah I'm sorry, I have a relatively weak internet connection, where I pay quite a lot for every megabyte. Watching video is a bit difficult for me.
Penny S: It's a watching thing - there's a video link to the right.
quote:Since free will and self etc are all humanly created words to describe aspects of an integrated whole person, then such ideas cannot exist independently from a brain. So I consider that the basic evidence to them is material. separate spirits? Anything supernatural? Any kind of intelligence outside of the universe? Etc? No, none, never has been. Everything I've ever done or thought has beenentirely without any mysterious agency. Yes, I believed there was a God, but know I was wrong in that belief. And wen I die, I'm not going to 'slip away', 'go to a better place', 'pass on' etc, I'm going to die! End of story!!
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Susan Doris
Well, I have to smile at that. When you say that it's more practical not to think that free will, the self and meaning, are not illusions, you are neatly undermining materialism itself.
So you do accept loads of stuff with no evidence!
quote:How do you know?
SusanDoris: No, none, never has been.
quote:Could you unpack this a bit? What's the problem with abstract conceptions being immaterial?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But if meanings are illusions, or at any rate, just stuff in the brain, you are on a slippery slope down to - well, nothing really. Utter nihilism, I suppose.
quote:If you believe in god, why do you reject all the other gods that were worshipped in the past and by people now? (This is not an original thought - I think it's a good counter-question though!)
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:How do you know?
SusanDoris: No, none, never has been.
quote:I didn't reject any other god, I simply don't believe in them.
SusanDoris: If you believe in god, why do you reject all the other gods that were worshipped in the past and by people now?
quote:You might know that, but you don't have scientific proof for that.
SusanDoris: I'd say I know because everything that has ever been explained as God has a natural explanation.
quote:This sounds like a sensible, natural explanation, but I've never wasted a moment of my life thinking I'm an illusion or anything like that!
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think there is also a problem with evidence, for example, if the evidence for a self is in the brain, how do you know what it means? You have to go back to your experience, but you would say that this is just in the brain in any case. So the brain is evidence for the brain. Hmm.
quote:My genes have made me an incurable optimist, so the answer is no, I am not like this! I think 'Cock-eyed Optimist' should be playing in the background when my sons arrange a buffet lunch for those who will wish to share a memory or two after I'm dead! I am of course optimistic on this too - I hope to be nearer to 90 than nearer to 80) (I'm 77 at the moment) when that time comes.
I really doubt that you live like this!
quote:*applause* Neatly put!
Originally posted by Yorick:
Could you unpack this a bit? What's the problem with abstract conceptions being immaterial?
Is it a slippery slope down to nothing when you feel exhilarated by a sunrise because your aesthetic appreciation of the scene is only a pattern of neural activity?
quote:Fair point. Well, her views seem to chop and change actually! She reminds me a lot of some Christians - awfully slippery.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I have a little doubt if what SusanDoris is going for here is really Materialism, and if she has thought through what the consequences of Materialism are.
quote:But if one has an experience and that experience is put down to a phenomenon caused by an outside agent which is an idea only, then the experience, if seen as such, could probably be counted as an illusion. However, if all experiences are acknowledged to be produced by the brain, and we know that the brain is easily able to do such things, then we can consider it slightly differently and enjoy the knowledge and the experience.*
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
A friend of mine queried my use of the term 'illusion' in relation to materialism, and I find this quite odd and interesting.
The point being that if you think that experience is neurological, basically, then to say that experience is an illusion is very peculiar.
quote:Hmmm, that seems to imply a very limited interpretation of 'illusion' I think.
For a materialist, there can't be illusions, except obviously for optical ones and so on.
quote:I think I'm on surer ground here by saying that I do not think I could possibly interpret my sense of self as an illusion. I do not question the existence of illusions though, for a start, the word has a dictionary definition!
But it's impossible to say that say, the sense of self is an illusion, since it is still a neurological phenomenon, and nothing else.
quote:But once we know that, then don't you think we can take it for granted just about all of the time?
the other odd consequence of this, is that thoughts, which are obviously also neurological events, are 'about' other neurological events.
quote:I expect you're right - and, you know, I didn't even start think in these sort of terms until quite recently in my life, I'm afraid!
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I have a little doubt if what SusanDoris is going for here is really Materialism, and if she has thought through what the consequences of Materialism are.
quote:Too right it's not a problem, because substance dualism notoriously offers no explanations. What is the non physical mind and how does it interact with the brain? Where does it reside? (The pineal gland?)
Of course, for dualists, this is not a problem
quote:This is how I normally drive when I'm in Africa
quetzalcoatl: when she hits a pot-hole in the road, she slams on the brakes, and talks about tap-dancing.
quote:Parts of London are similar, but it depends on how much money each borough spends on road fixing, so as you drive across a boundary, the roads can become noticeably worse, or better. Weird.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:This is how I normally drive when I'm in Africa
quetzalcoatl: when she hits a pot-hole in the road, she slams on the brakes, and talks about tap-dancing.
quote:No, I take it for granted the way I take it for granted that the sun will still be there tomorrow, even if too much hidden by clouds. I've been reading, and doing my best to learn, all my life but have not seen convincing evidence that I should not take it for granted nowadays..
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Susan, your point about taking it for granted that thoughts are neurological events intrigues me. Do you mean that as you potter round in your life, you continually tell yourself that 'this is a neural event', 'this is another neural event', and so on?
quote:But that I definitely do not deserve! It's really pretty straightforward it seems to me. As I say. I keep on trying to learn more about it, but it doesn't occupy huge amounts of time.
If you do do that, you have my deep admiration, ...
quote:And maintains a strong sense of wonder at how the whole thing is a result of evolution.
...as someone who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.
quote:Not sure about this, but if you mean I'm hypocritical about it, then the answer's no!
However, if you don't do that, then you are in bad faith, as you are accepting thoughts - and in fact, other experiences - as sui generis - or as is.
quote:I'm sure you're right, but I'll just stic to calling it plain old common sense, I think!
This is called having your materialist cake, and eating your immaterial metaphysics too.
quote:I don't think I'll argue with that; seems just the right thing to do and of course it can easily include the spiritual aspect of humans. I looked up the wikipedia page on illimitative materialism and listened through the first part, and gained the impression that it means everything's covered by the term materialism. As for there being 'no ideas or beliefs', well, for a start I do not think that is true. Unless they have to be concrete rather than abstract before they can be considered.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I just find eliminative materialism very interesting. For one thing, it strikes me as having the courage of its convictions - it seems to take materialism to a logical conclusion.
quote:Phew! Well that's a relief, but I don't see how I'm being inconsistent except in a very minor way.
I don't really think Susan is an eliminativist; she just sounds inconsistent, which is no crime.
quote:I am no philosopher, I'm afraid, and also cannot refer to what Ive said in previous threads etc. I do not think there can be a sort of standard materialist; Ideas can only be thought by material brains, they do not exist independently The universe is material from the smallest speck to the farthest star. I see no need to propose or believe that there is anything which cannot be tracked back to something material.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
@SusanDoris: if you don't mind, I'm trying to clarify a bit for myself what you are saying here. The thing is: sometimes in your posts you seem to embrace Materialism, sometimes you seem to deny Materialism. I guess this is what confusing us a bit in this post.
quote:Yes, could well be determined by the brain,, but only determined maybe a split second prior to the conscious brain. However, determined from an outside agent which cannot be studied by Science, then absolutely no. Illusions? That's a word to describe something abstract, but at the end of the logical trail is the brain.
I'm not an expert on Materialism (and no doubt others will correct what I'm saying about it), but in my mind Materialism holds the view that all processes in our brain are completely determined by the electro-chemical processes that go on inside it.thoughts, (self-)consciousness, emotions, free will... they are all illusions, because everything is determined by the things that happen in our brain on a molecular level.
quote:Actually, I don't think it does, becauseI need my brain for my thoughts and that includes thinking about whether I can think of myself as an illusion or not. I could spend hours thinking that, but I'd rather think about it, then put it under the heading of 'not very useful' or something!
Sometimes in your posts you seem to agree with this idea. Your statement "all experiences are acknowledged to be produced by the brain" seems to endorse Materialism, whereas statements of the form "I do not think I could possibly interpret my sense of self as an illusion" oppose it.
quote:Well, I'd rather not be completely predictable, since no-one would read anything I said!
I guess this causes some confusion among us.
quote:I'm not sure why I should need to have a list to choose from. As far as I know, no-one has come up with a bettr answer as to where all abstract thoughts originate than the brain, and that's not going to change in my lifetime. The processes will be gradually better understood, but never determined by anything other than the brain's chemicals, etc etc, and that includes emotions. If you think thoughts etc are illusions, could you please tell me more about what you think an illusion is.
I guess that philosophically, you could hold a variety of views on where our thoughts, emotions, consciousness... come from/QB]
quote:And I bet I have singularly failed to do this! My apologies! (
[QB]I guess it would help if you could clarify a bit what your position is on this scale.
)quote:And why not, indeed? You cannot be gloomy when tap dancing; and I'm far too old to play fast and loose with anything! Pity!!
Originally posted by quetzalcoat I think Susan plays fast and loose with materialism. She goes along with it, and then when she hits a pot-hole in the road, she slams on the brakes, and talks about tap-dancing. (Mixed metaphors).
quote:The second part of this doesn't follow from the first except from the perspective of a fully fledged eliminative materialist. Notwithstanding yours and Quetz's insistence that anyone who subscribes to a naturalist/materialist view should embrace eliminative materialism, it remains a very radical minority view in the field of naturalistic philosophy of the mind, and as I said before to Quetz, property dualism in one form or another is a perfectly respectable position to take, especially when the religion friendly alternative of substance dualism eschews any detailed explanation whatsoever of what a non physical mind might be.
All thoughts are completely determined by electro-chemical processes in the brain. Emotions, consciousness, free will... are illusions.
quote:Er... I explicitly presented three options to SusanDoris, of which only the first one was eliminative materialism.
Grokesx: Notwithstanding yours and Quetz's insistence that anyone who subscribes to a naturalist/materialist view should embrace eliminative materialism
quote:Except it isn't. It's materialism, of which eliminative materialism is one option. I don't really see what your option 2 is - at first blush I took it to be Cartesian Dualism. If you mean it to be some sort of materialism distinct from option 1, I haven't come across it. Are you saying that there may be something other than neurons in the brain responsible for mental events?
Er... I explicitly presented three options to SusanDoris, of which only the first one was eliminative materialism.
quote:I agree with you that our material brains are necessary for ideas.
SusanDoris: Ideas can only be thought by material brains, they do not exist independently
quote:You're completely confusing here. You say that ideas are determined by the brain (on what level?). Then you introduce a conscious brain (is that another level? and where does it come from?)
SusanDoris: Yes, could well be determined by the brain,, but only determined maybe a split second prior to the conscious brain.
quote:The list was an attempt to systematize a bit what you are saying. You are jumping so much from one idea to another that I had to try something. Obviously it isn't working.
SusanDoris: I'm not sure why I should need to have a list to choose from.
quote:Humans have the idea that we have free will, that there is an "I" that has at least some control of what we think and feel. Depending on how you think our brain works, this idea might be an illusion. If our brain is just a collection of electro-chemical reactions, then those determine us, and our idea of free will is an illusion.
SusanDoris: If you think thoughts etc are illusions, could you please tell me more about what you think an illusion is.
quote:Option 2 is an attempt to put into words what SusanDoris seems to be saying (sometimes, because at times she says other things).
Grokesx: I don't really see what your option 2 is
quote:I think I have been quite careful about not calling ideas illusions. The things I have said that might be illusions, depending on your ideas of how the brain works are (self-)consciousness, free will, emotions... Not ideas. I'm not sure if the difference between a 'real idea' and an 'idea that is an illusion' makes sense to me.
quetzalcoatl: What's puzzling me is whether all ideas are illusions, under a materialist view. If they are not illusions, what are they?
quote:And I'm no expert, either, but here's an analogy that may or may not be useful.
I'm definitely not an expert on the different kinds of duality (property dualism, Cartesian dualism...), so if Grokesx can make sense of SusanDoris' ideas then good on him/her, but they make little sense to me.
quote:No, I don't think that analogy holds at all. Consciousness is not the same as wet jeans.
Grokesx: Substitute molecules/atoms/electrons with neurons and wet jeans with consciousness
quote:I don't know what most materialists think, but I don't see why ideas should be thought of as illusions by anybody, materialist or not. We know when a magician performs a trick, we know it as an illusion, same with mirages, because our education has taught us those facts. We can easily (well, not me, the older I get) bee deluded by any number of ideas, words, scams, tricks, etc, but it's always the brain that is doing the thinking about it. In the same way we can suspend our disbelief and thoroughly enjoy an infinite number of stories.
What's puzzling me is whether all ideas are illusions, under a materialist view. If they are not illusions, what are they?
) )quote:I have neverheard of either, so I shall go and look them up in wikipedia!
PS I had both the banana tapioca and the coconut tapioca
quote:I'm glad that you understand a bit better now what I'm trying to say, but I'm afraid you still haven't answered my question:
SusanDoris: Thank you. Very interesting post - completely scientific and logical and I think I agree with the whole thing, since a supernatural element was not included anywhere.
quote:I guess most people in the North-East of Brazil would say: "You shouldn't think to much about a banana tapioca, you should eat one!"
quetzalcoatl: I'm not even sure that there is banana tapioca, under a view of consistent materialism, since this is a perception, isn't it?
quote:
quetzalcoatl: You have to admire Susan - if you ask her, well, do you think it's X or Y, she replies with great cheer, yes, of course!
quote:These are not mutually exclusive.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Do you believe that everything that happens in our brains is caused by electro-chemical processes that are determined by the laws of physics (the eleminative materialist view) or do you believe that we have things like a choice, free will and consciousness?
quote:Thank you lilBuddha. I was just wondering whether to plead for time out to give my brain a rest now, or to say, 'Well, I don't know'!.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:These are not mutually exclusive.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Do you believe that everything that happens in our brains is caused by electro-chemical processes that are determined by the laws of physics (the eleminative materialist view) or do you believe that we have things like a choice, free will and consciousness?
quote:Yes they are. If we are completely determined by the electro-chemical reactions in our brain, then we don't have free choice. I accept that there might be other forms of materialism, but as long as it isn't clear it becomes quite difficult to discuss things.
lilBuddha: These are not mutually exclusive.
quote:I think this is a misinterpretation of the studies.
Originally posted by DouglasTheOtter:
I think that science is revealing how little free will we do actually have and how much we're a product of our genes, as though many things, from addiction to hair colour, were fixed and irreconcilable at the moment of our birth.
quote:Certainly. Who made the spam/tofu?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Response to quetzalcoatl
LeRoc's statement, with my comment, does not inherently exclude a deity.
quote:This is the problem at the intersection between philosophy and reality.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Yes they are. If we are completely determined by the electro-chemical reactions in our brain, then we don't have free choice. I accept that there might be other forms of materialism, but as long as it isn't clear it becomes quite difficult to discuss things.
lilBuddha: These are not mutually exclusive.
quote:Evil, evil people.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Who made the spam/tofu?
quote:If they aren't pre-programmed, then there is something else. My question would be: where does this something else come from?
lilBuddha: Your thoughts are electrochemical signals. This does not mean they are random or completely pre-programmed.
quote:False. The models of AI we have (neural nets, Markov chains, symbolic learning...) are completely determinable and controllable. Confront them with the same input, and they'll give the same result. This is because everything we program is reducable to operations on the bit level.
lilBuddha: It is not dissimilar to Artificial Intelligence. Should we develop a true AI, it does not mean the design and programming control its thought, quite the opposite. Influence, yes. Control, no.
quote:Science attempts describe the how. Or an how. Philosophy, and its sister religion, attempt to describe the why.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's also the intersection between philosophy and science, for science describes observations made about appearances, but does not declare that these are reality.
quote:Why?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:If they aren't pre-programmed, then there is something else.
lilBuddha: Your thoughts are electrochemical signals. This does not mean they are random or completely pre-programmed.
quote:At the moment, but just you wait. Bwa Ha Ha!
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The models of AI we have (neural nets, Markov chains, symbolic learning...) are completely determinable and controllable. Confront them with the same input, and they'll give the same result. This is because everything we program is reducable to operations on the bit level.
quote:Faith position bolded and the last question is just religion 2.0
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Of course, you might dream that some time in the future we'll develop an AI that isn't controllable, but that's just wishful thinking. And it will give rise to the same question: where did its uncontrollability come from?
quote:This is proof that, if the devil exists, you are his minion.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
PS I love tofu.
quote:And there's a gap between atoms and wetness.
It's just that there's a gap between neurons and experience
quote:Glad we agree on something, at least. All I'm saying is that the relationship between atoms and wetness is analogous to that of neurons and consciousness, the sense of self, and emotions (I'm leaving out free will here because that is a larger topic altogether).
Consciousness is not the same as wet jeans.
quote:
For instance, metaphysical naturalism states that while matter and motion are all that comprise man, it cannot be assumed that the characteristics inherent in the elements and physical reactions that make up man ultimately and solely define man's meaning; for, a cow which is alive and well and a cow which has been chopped up into meat are the same matter but it is obvious that the arrangement of that matter clarifies those different situational meanings.
quote:Because you can't hold all of these positions together:
lilBuddha: Why?
quote:I thought that no proof of that was needed?
lilBuddha: This is proof that, if the devil exists, you are his minion.
quote:I already included electro-chemical processes in my definition of the physical brain. A dead cow has the same matter as an alive cow, but it doesn't have the electro-chemical processes.
Wikipedia, quoted by Grokesx: for, a cow which is alive and well and a cow which has been chopped up into meat are the same matter but it is obvious that the arrangement of that matter clarifies those different situational meanings.
quote:Still a philosophical position. Still forcing unnecessary parameters.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Because you can't hold all of these positions together:
lilBuddha: Why?Something has to give here. And each of our theories on how the brain works depend on which of these three statements we are prepared to alter.
- The electro-chemical processes in our brain are determined by natural laws that leave no room for free choice.
- Our brain consists of gazillion chemical elements and the electro-chemical processes between them.
- We have free choice.
quote:No, just plain old logic.
lilBuddha: Still a philosophical position. Still forcing unnecessary parameters.
quote:So far, I haven't said anything about my logic or my position yet.
lilBuddha: See? This is the problem.
Logic =/= correct.
Whilst your logic might be internally consistent, it is still a faith position.
quote:I thought I shouldn't have to, but here goes.
lilBuddha: If you wish anyone to consider those statements as logically incompatible, you should reveal said logic.
quote:That makes no difference to the argument. The situation we are talking about is whether the arrangement of matter in a living human brain, with all the trillions of synaptic interactions between the neurons can give rise to emotions, a sense of self and consciousness. (I'm leaving off free will, because, frankly, I can't be arsed to get into compatibalism). The fact that a these processes in isolation could not give rise to them, says nothing about whether the whole arrangement could.
I already included electro-chemical processes in my definition of the physical brain. A dead cow has the same matter as an alive cow, but it doesn't have the electro-chemical processes.
quote:So, where is this room for free choice then? If I let go of a rock, there is no free choice in this process: the rock follows the path determined for it by gravity and falls to the ground. The same thing for the electrons in your brain: they follow the paths that are determined to them by physics.
lilBuddha: The supposition that because our mental process are natural that this leaves no room for free choice.
quote:But this still leaves you with the burden to explain how.
Grokesx: The fact that a these processes in isolation could not give rise to them, says nothing about whether the whole arrangement could.
quote:The paths are variable depending upon one's experiences. In other words, the path of a rock is predetermined, the path of the LeRoc, is not.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:So, where is this room for free choice then? If I let go of a rock, there is no free choice in this process: the rock follows the path determined for it by gravity and falls to the ground. The same thing for the electrons in your brain: they follow the paths that are determined to them by physics.
lilBuddha: The supposition that because our mental process are natural that this leaves no room for free choice.
How do you get from there to free choice?
quote:Now you're the one who's talking philosophical gibberish
lilBuddha: The paths are variable depending upon one's experiences. In other words, the path of a rock is predetermined, the path of the LeRoc, is not.
What is the difference between a rock and a LeRoc, that makes that the path of the former is predetermined and the path of the latter isn't?quote:No no no. My purpose was only to demonstrate that a materialistic/physicalist view of the mind does not entail accepting eliminative materialism. A whole bunch of cognitive scientists, AI researchers, psychologists, neurologists and philosophers of mind are working on explanations within a materialist framework. On the non materialist side, well I'd wager the literature's a bit thinner.
But this still leaves you with the burden to explain how.
quote:Not determined, influenced. You are forcing a false dichotomy.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Now you're the one who's talking philosophical gibberish
lilBuddha: The paths are variable depending upon one's experiences. In other words, the path of a rock is predetermined, the path of the LeRoc, is not.
If anything, you've only replaced the problem: instead of my choices being completely determined by the movement of the electrons in my brain, they are now determined by my experiences (which in this model are the electro-chemical inputs of my senses). No free choice for me there either.
quote:This seems to be a blog, with a lot of information (some of it seems to agree with me
Grokesx: Edited to add this link for anyone interested in the major theories of consciousness.
)quote:So, so far we have:
lilBuddha: Not determined, influenced. You are forcing a false dichotomy.
quote:Actually, I've tried out many things.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:Just as we should all do throughout life. I am firmly of the opinion that all thoughts, ideas, morals, gods, etc are products of the human imagination (and, yes, that is an assertion, so I'll note that before I am picked up on it!)and may I recommend a step, however tentative, into the world of humanism via their web pages where you will see, as I do, that we humans have done everything since we evolved without any gods anyway. Try on the disguise and maybe it will make you feel, as I did, completely whole, with not even the smallest space available for God/god/s.
I'm kind of a vacationing, agnostic, wounded Christian who likes to explore and see what folks of other beliefs are up to, and draw on anything good that I find.
I take a "don't know" attitude to most of life. I've found *that *very* freeing. (Had a fun discussion of that on the "Come On Down, Trisagion" thread in Hell (now in Oblivion), about a year ago. quote:Well, if there *is* anything beyond this life, perhaps we can expect Douglas Adams to be both exploring and writing about it, in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Heaven"? Perhaps with a comforting "Don't Panic!" on the cover! When I go, I'm tempted to have a good, sturdy towel cremated with me.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:quote:Always!
Originally posted by Golden Key:And I see from your post that you are well familiar with 42. I trust you know where your towel is?
quote:Why does there have to be 'something else' and why does this 'something' have to 'come from 'somewhere? Why can't it be part of the evolutionary process?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If they aren't pre-programmed, then there is something else. My question would be: where does this something else come from?
quote:If they're part of the evolutionary process, then they're pre-programmed.
SusanDoris: Why can't it be part of the evolutionary process?
quote:But you do not explain the why of this statement.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:If they're part of the evolutionary process, then they're pre-programmed.
SusanDoris: Why can't it be part of the evolutionary process?
quote:I don't think I agree that stochastic processes are non-deterministic. To me, they are deterministic processes, just ones that we know less about.
quetzalcoatl: Although determinism has been partly rejected in many areas of science, hasn't it? Stochastic processes are also referred to, for example, in the field of evolution, in relation to genetic drift.
quote:Yes, it can be part of the evolutionary process. (But like I said in my last post, we're lost in semantics again.)
lilBuddha: But you do not explain the why of this statement.
quote:The trouble is, if we talk about genetic drift, somebody is bound to get out those bloody coloured marbles again, in glass jars, and insist that I keep taking one out at a time, and put it in a bowl. But I don't want to play marbles! Can we have a drink instead?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I don't think I agree that stochastic processes are non-deterministic. To me, they are deterministic processes, just ones that we know less about.
quetzalcoatl: Although determinism has been partly rejected in many areas of science, hasn't it? Stochastic processes are also referred to, for example, in the field of evolution, in relation to genetic drift.
(PS I just wanted to say that I find it increasingly difficult to discuss things with SusanDoris if she keeps on not responding to my questions, but singling out words of my posts and starting semantic debates about them.)
quote:I need a stiff one.
quetzalcoatl: Can we have a drink instead?
quote:Interesting post , thank you. I'll go and have a look at that link later. I think your idea of a towel in with me at cremation is an excellent one!!
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Susan--
Sorry for the delay!
Actually, I've tried out many things.
From past experience, I think an "absolutely no God/god, no way, no how" approach will never work for me. But I do readily acknowledge that She may not exist. Maybe we're truly on our own. or perhaps Ambassador DeLenn on "Babylon 5" was pointing in the right direction with "We are star stuff--we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out". All kinds of possibilities to play with.
I think I skimmed some humanist sites, long ago. Will take a look again, when I get the chance. Thanks for the suggestion!
Well, if there *is* anything beyond this life, perhaps we can expect Douglas Adams to be both exploring and writing about it, in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Heaven"? Perhaps with a comforting "Don't Panic!" on the cover! When I go, I'm tempted to have a good, sturdy towel cremated with me.
quote:Yeah, it is a blog, but the most interesting parts are the links on the right hand side, where he discusses the ideas of the biggest players in the consciousness game. What makes it more interesting is that each discussion has two viewpoints, one with a standard materialist view and the other more sceptical of reductive materialist ideas.
This seems to be a blog, with a lot of information (some of it seems to agree with me [Biased] )
Do you have an example of a non-elimitive materialist theory, so that we might discuss it?
quote:I'd say I am a compatibilist regarding free will, in that I believe determinism and any meaningful definition of free will are compatible. And then I'd ask you how you avoid your horn of the dilemma of determinism?
So, what can we do? Could I ask you to answer the question I put to you here?
quote:Ok, I'll try to have a look there.
Grokesx: Yeah, it is a blog, but the most interesting parts are the links on the right hand side, where he discusses the ideas of the biggest players in the consciousness game.
quote:I'm reading the Wikipedia article on Compatibilism right now, I'll get back to you on that. For the moment, I'm afraid that I'm going to agree with Immanuel Kant that this is all 'word jugglery'.
Grokesx: I'd say I am a compatibilist regarding free will, in that I believe determinism and any meaningful definition of free will are compatible.
quote:That's easy. I believe that our thoughts are neither completely determined by lawful nor by random events.
Grokesx: And then I'd ask you how you avoid your horn of the dilemma of determinism?
quote:Sounds like word jugglery to me. So what are they determined by?
That's easy. I believe that our thoughts are neither completely determined by lawful nor by random events.
quote:For me personally, they are determined by something that Science can't describe, and that is connected to God.
Grokesx: Sounds like word jugglery to me. So what are they determined by?
quote:Could you unpack that please? Imposing limits on what?
lilBuddha: Once again, you are imposing limits that do not necessarily exist. You have no more reason other than you cannot accept that they do not.
quote:This limit.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The electro-chemical processes in our brain are determined by natural laws that leave no room for free choice.
quote:Do you think that an electron has a choice when it's moving through an electrical field? Do you think that when a piece of RNA encounters an amino acid, it has a choice "Hmm, shall I connect to this molecule or not?"
lilBuddha: This limit.
quote:(You didn't finish this sentence. Are you ok?)
SusanDoris: I am definitely not going to come to a conclusion that there is anyy
quote:Heisenberg (and quantum mechanics more generally) says that the electron, if not exactly "choosing" anything doesn't necessarily behave in a deterministic manner. Good thing, too, or these wouldn't work.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Do you think that an electron has a choice when it's moving through an electrical field?
lilBuddha: This limit.
quote:Yes, definitely. (Just for information, I have a post-doctoral degree in Theoretical Nuclear Physics, but my life took a different path after that.)
Crœsos: Heisenberg (and quantum mechanics more generally) says that the electron, if not exactly "choosing" anything doesn't necessarily behave in a deterministic manner. Good thing, too, or these wouldn't work.
quote:I don't know. In my non-representative experience, it seems to be the other way around. When I studied Physics/Mathematics, I didn't have any Christian fellow students. When I became active in the University Pastorate in my city, there were a number of biologists there, but no physicists.
quetzalcoatl: Is it true that there are tons of physicists who are religious, but few biologists?
quote:Only if humans have free will.
Do you think that an electron has a choice when it's moving through an electrical field?
quote:Heh, this theory also recognize that there is a problem with the elementary particles in our brain who don't have free will, and we who do. I don't agree with their solution though.
Grokesx: Only if humans have free will.
quote:Glad you're ok. For a moment I was afraid that you'd been Raptured
SusanDoris: Oh dear, too late to delete the last meaningless line on my last post!
quote:I'm pretty sure that's a textbook example of the fallacy of division.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Heh, this theory also recognize that there is a problem with the elementary particles in our brain who don't have free will, and we who do. I don't agree with their solution though.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Glad you're ok. For a moment I was afraid that you'd been Raptured
SusanDoris: Oh dear, too late to delete the last meaningless line on my last post!
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
You wicked thing, LeRoc!
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Glad you're ok. For a moment I was afraid that you'd been Raptured
SusanDoris: Oh dear, too late to delete the last meaningless line on my last post!
I clicked on the video too, to see if there was a person managing to say all that with a straight face! But all Vivaldi instead!quote:No, it isn't. It would be a fallacy of division if I would say:
Crœsos: I'm pretty sure that's a textbook example of the fallacy of division.
quote:That conclusion only makes sense in terms of the fallacy of division.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What I'm saying instead is:
- We have free will.
- Our brains consists of electro-chemical elements and processes.
- Therefore, if these electro-chemical processes don't have free will, we need an explanation why we do.
quote:Ok, let's go with the example of the fallacy of division that's in the Wikipedia article:
Crœsos: That conclusion only makes sense in terms of the fallacy of division.
quote:It sounds like you're still trying to figure out which specific component of a 747 can fly across the ocean by itself. If we accept that things in aggregate can have properties that none of their individual components possess, why the continued search for the specific part(s) of the human where free will is located?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If the electro-chemical processes in our brain don't have free will, this leaves the question open "Why do we have free will?" Well, because of the electro-chemical processes in our brain, but also because ...
quote:No, I don't. Explicitly so.
Crœsos: It sounds like you're still trying to figure out which specific component of a 747 can fly across the ocean by itself.
quote:I'm fully prepared to accept that things in aggregate can have properties that none of their individual components possess, but this will never suffice as a scientific explanation.
Crœsos: If we accept that things in aggregate can have properties that none of their individual components possess, why the continued search for the specific part(s) of the human where free will is located?
quote:If that's the case, then why the repeated assertions that at least one component of a human must have its own free will in order for a human to have free will?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:No, I don't. Explicitly so.
Crœsos: It sounds like you're still trying to figure out which specific component of a 747 can fly across the ocean by itself.
quote:In none of these posts I have asserted that at least one component of a human must have its own free will in order for a human to have free will.
Crœsos: If that's the case, then why the repeated assertions that at least one component of a human must have its own free will in order for a human to have free will?
quote:That's wishful thinking. "We don't know" is the only honest answer Science can give right now.
SusanDoris: and Science will do better than that, but give them time! In the meantime, it's a 'don't know'/
quote:None of your posts on the last page make sense without that implicit assumption. For instance:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
In none of these posts I have asserted that at least one component of a human must have its own free will in order for a human to have free will.
quote:The clear assumption being made here is that if no individual component has free choice, the larger assemblage cannot have free choice either. If that's not what you're trying to say in the above post, what was your point?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Because you can't hold all of these positions together:Something has to give here. And each of our theories on how the brain works depend on which of these three statements we are prepared to alter.
- The electro-chemical processes in our brain are determined by natural laws that leave no room for free choice.
- Our brain consists of gazillion chemical elements and the electro-chemical processes between them.
- We have free choice.
quote:If no individual component has free choice, then we need an explanation of why the larger assemblage can have free choice.
Originally posted by Crœsos: The clear assumption being made here is that if no individual component has free choice, the larger assemblage cannot have free choice either. If that's not what you're trying to say in the above post, what was your point?
quote:Your conclusion does not flow naturally from your premise. We don't want an explanation because our expectations are premised on the fallacy of division. We want an explanation because we're curious. Your concentration on whether or not individual electrons exercise free will seems an exercise in artificially creating an intellectual difficulty in order to "solve" it with your preferred solution.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If no individual component has free choice, then we need an explanation of why the larger assemblage can have free choice.
quote:You were the one who introduced the fallacy of division here, not me. But I agree with the last part: we want an explanation because we're curious. I guess it's also an answer to claims by SusanDoris that Science can explain the working of our brain.
Crœsos: We don't want an explanation because our expectations are premised on the fallacy of division. We want an explanation because we're curious.
quote:No. If we are curious about the working of the brain, then "Why can the brain exercise free will while its individual electrons can't?" is a perfectly valid —and even necessary— question.
Crœsos: Your concentration on whether or not individual electrons exercise free will seems an exercise in artificially creating an intellectual difficulty in order to "solve" it with your preferred solution.
quote:No, that was you. I just pointed out that it was being used.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You were the one who introduced the fallacy of division here, not me.
quote:Only if we buy into the fallacy of division and find it remarkable that assemblages have properties that their individual components don't.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:No. If we are curious about the working of the brain, then "Why can the brain exercise free will while its individual electrons can't?" is a perfectly valid —and even necessary— question.
Crœsos: Your concentration on whether or not individual electrons exercise free will seems an exercise in artificially creating an intellectual difficulty in order to "solve" it with your preferred solution.
quote:No, I'm afraid that you don't understand the fallacy of division. The fallacy of division doesn't take away the necessity to explain why a specific assemblage has properties that its individual components don't.
Crœsos: Only if we buy into the fallacy of division and find it remarkable that assemblages have properties that their individual components don't.
quote:Yes, and I admit that. Science isn't giving an answer here, so I'm free to personally choose my own answer.
lilBuddha: It is a perfectly valid question, my objection is you seem to have factored in a conclusion based more upon want than result.
quote:But it does take away the assumption or expectation that an assemblage should have the same properties as some or all of its components. That's an assumption that seems implicit in most of your posts on why it's such a problem that humans have free will when none of their components seem to.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:No, I'm afraid that you don't understand the fallacy of division. The fallacy of division doesn't take away the necessity to explain why a specific assemblage has properties that its individual components don't.
Crœsos: Only if we buy into the fallacy of division and find it remarkable that assemblages have properties that their individual components don't.
quote:ETA: response to LeRoc.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And I have no problem with that.
I admit I get a bit frustrated with the desired outcome being offered as conclusion. This is often the core of atheist v. theist debate.
quote:Aargh... no it doesn't. The only assumption is that if an assemblage does have different properties from its components, Science cannot claim to have explained the assamblage without having given a explanation of why its properties are different from its components.
Crœsos: But it does take away the assumption or expectation that an assemblage should have the same properties as some or all of its components.
quote:I completely agree.
lilBuddha: And I have no problem with that.
I admit I get a bit frustrated with the desired outcome being offered as conclusion. This is often the core of atheist v. theist debate.
