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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Introducing me. There are no gods or supernatural!
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
IngoB: I'm thinking about the "explanation / possibility" direction (vertical in my diagrams). The universe could not have been. Even an endless cyclical universe could not have been. But it is. I'm asking "why?" That's not a "why" that can be answered by "has been, is, will be". I don't care whether this thing lasts for a picosecond, an eon, or indeed forever. However long it may last, this existence itself still could not have been, but is. And that requires an explanation.
I'm completely with you so far.
My position is: God could be the explanation for this, but logically He doesn't have to be. It takes a leap of faith to accept Him as the explanation (a leap I'm prepared to make).
A scientism-ist or materialist will say (I've heard this argument many times on the Ship): "Science doesn't have an explanation for this, but some day it will". That's also a leap of faith, just in another direction.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Dyfed, see this post top of this page:
Ah. I don't think I'm altogether to blame for not realising you were thinking about that post, given that the people you mentioned in your post were IngoB and Golden Key.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think it is easier to use IngoB's bottle analogue from above. Each bottle is produced from exactly the same materials.
In one sense if asked why the bottle is made of glass at time T, 'because it was made of glass at all times t less than T' is a valid explanation.
The problem is that it leaves a lingering feeling that there is another sense in which the question 'why isn't the bottle made of plastic at time T and also at all other times?' is still a valid question, and in that sense the question has not actually been answered.
(Going back to my Fibonacci series analogy, cosmology is capable of answering the questions, what are the values now? and of working out the actual rules governing the derivation of the values. The methods of cosmology are analogous to 'look at the values now', 'predict what the values will be', and 'compare the values with the predictions'. What cosmology cannot do with that tool box is work out why the series is the plain Fibonacci series rather than one of the other possible series.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
What cosmology cannot do with that tool box is work out why the series is the plain Fibonacci series rather than one of the other possible series.)
Maybe there is no reason. Maybe it is just totally random. Given that there are no other universes to compare it with, it hard to even imagine what a different one would or could look like.
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arse
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I am saying it is because it was. I agree with your other points about language, but you are asking for an explanation for something that does not need an explanation (well, not necessarily) IMO.
In terms of my discussion, "it is because it was" has no value whatsoever. Because I can equally well say "it is not because it was not." All your temporal causation does is to perpetuate the fundamental contingency through time. You are not explaining why there is anything rather than nothing. You are merely explaining why something is now, given that something was before, and why something will be, given that something is now. It is not the same concern. Your only answer to my concern so far is that the existence of the universe is a brute fact. And I'm asking you why you allow your mind to accept this as a brute fact, when this is not the sort of thing you would normally accept as brute fact. Modern science is all about rejecting brute fact explanations and finding reasons for things, and the progress of science indicates that the more fundamental things get the more a "reasonable" explanation becomes accessible. Where we use "brute facts" in real life is where we are faced with highly complex situations full of detail, and avoid reasoning about most of it to achieve a rapid pragmatic resolution. For example, when you drive a car the motions of other vehicles and pedestrians are largely just a stream of brute facts to you. If suddenly a car drifts into your lane, you have to react rather than seek an explanation. (Though even there "anticipatory driving" is basically seeking reason in the motions of key players in order to improve motion forecasting.) It is however hard to see why the simple question "why is there anything rather than nothing" deserves the same treatment.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Again, I am not a cosmologist. But I am a scientist and the things you mention here can be explained with science, deduction, observation and logic. That in-and-of itself does not mean that the ultimate reality of the universe is the same kind of thing.
I'm also a professional scientist, and I accept no special pleading for the "ultimate reality" here. Just like for any other question, we have to pick the right domain knowledge and then observe systematically and think logically. That is the meaning of "science" in a general sense. And the "science" to be applied to this kind of question is metaphysics.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
If the universe is composed of stuff constantly being rearranged from components which always existed, then the question of where the stuff came from is moot: it was always there.
No, the question is not at all moot. To use an example, I believe from Aristotle himself: Imagine a foot standing in wet sand, endlessly. It forms a footprint in the sand, endlessly. And yet we still can say that the foot causes the footprint, is the reason why the sand in a particular spot is not nice and flat but shaped like a foot. You would have us look at the footprint, shrug our shoulders and say "well, that footprint is there always so there's nothing left to say, it just is, it is a footprint as a brute fact." But saying that is simply not reasonable. The foot is the cause of the footprint, the footprint shows forth the action of the foot. We can still say that the foot is logically prior, and makes the footprint be.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But I don't accept your continued assertion that work is necessary to explain something that is eternal. You don't have to like or believe it, but an eternal thing is exactly that: eternal. Where it came from or why is answered by the simple repetition that it is eternal.
I never said that you had to do work to show that the universe is eternal ("eternal" sloppily speaking, i.e., meaning "of infinite duration"). My point rather has been that whether a universe's duration is infinitesimal, finite or infinite does not change anything concerning its contingent status and the consequent question why it would be there. It really does not matter at all how long the universe lasts, that just does not address the question I'm asking.
The only thing that can escape the question I am asking is a necessary being. And that's exactly what the metaphysical "god" is: the kind of being that is necessary.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
IngoB: I'm thinking about the "explanation / possibility" direction (vertical in my diagrams). The universe could not have been. Even an endless cyclical universe could not have been. But it is. I'm asking "why?" That's not a "why" that can be answered by "has been, is, will be". I don't care whether this thing lasts for a picosecond, an eon, or indeed forever. However long it may last, this existence itself still could not have been, but is. And that requires an explanation.
I'm completely with you so far.
My position is: God could be the explanation for this, but logically He doesn't have to be. It takes a leap of faith to accept Him as the explanation (a leap I'm prepared to make).
A scientism-ist or materialist will say (I've heard this argument many times on the Ship): "Science doesn't have an explanation for this, but some day it will". That's also a leap of faith, just in another direction.
Furthermore, there is often operating an implied claim that to "explain" something is to "explain it AWAY" … Yet the rational and experiential basis for that claim is itself never entirely "explained" …
It comes down to, "Just trust me on this …"
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In terms of my discussion, "it is because it was" has no value whatsoever. Because I can equally well say "it is not because it was not." All your temporal causation does is to perpetuate the fundamental contingency through time. You are not explaining why there is anything rather than nothing.
I have many times, you just don't accept it as a plausible idea - namely that it is cyclical and all the intrinsic building-blocks of all things are eternal.
There is also something of an irony here that it is easier for you to accept that an eternally-prexisting deity created all things from nothing than that the stuff itself is eternal. Eternal things do not need an explanation, just as one cannot try to explain the origin of the deity, he just was.
quote:
It is however hard to see why the simple question "why is there anything rather than nothing" deserves the same treatment.
Because here we are talking about something which by definition cannot be interrogated by science and which we have no way to analyse.
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I'm also a professional scientist, and I accept no special pleading for the "ultimate reality" here. Just like for any other question, we have to pick the right domain knowledge and then observe systematically and think logically. That is the meaning of "science" in a general sense. And the "science" to be applied to this kind of question is metaphysics.
I don't accept your definitions of science, I'm sorry. Nor do I accept that all things are capable of being interrogated by the schematics of the forms of science we commonly use in the linear world in which we live. The proper term for this is actually philosophy.
quote:
]No, the question is not at all moot. To use an example, I believe from Aristotle himself: Imagine a foot standing in wet sand, endlessly. It forms a footprint in the sand, endlessly. And yet we still can say that the foot causes the footprint, is the reason why the sand in a particular spot is not nice and flat but shaped like a foot. You would have us look at the footprint, shrug our shoulders and say "well, that footprint is there always so there's nothing left to say, it just is, it is a footprint as a brute fact." But saying that is simply not reasonable. The foot is the cause of the footprint, the footprint shows forth the action of the foot. We can still say that the foot is logically prior, and makes the footprint be.
Well, there isn't anything I can say to you that will persuade you that it is reasonable to say that stuff exists because it has always existed. Why it is this rather the other than could, as I said, be entirely random.
quote:
I never said that you had to do work to show that the universe is eternal ("eternal" sloppily speaking, i.e., meaning "of infinite duration"). My point rather has been that whether a universe's duration is infinitesimal, finite or infinite does not change anything concerning its contingent status and the consequent question why it would be there. It really does not matter at all how long the universe lasts, that just does not address the question I'm asking.
The only thing that can escape the question I am asking is a necessary being. And that's exactly what the metaphysical "god" is: the kind of being that is necessary.
Again, the irony abounds. Whatever - if it is good enough for you to believe that a deity created all things from nothing, that's fine. In my view it is equally, perhaps more, believable that the matter itself is eternal. No creating from nothing is then necessary.
[ 23. March 2015, 19:05: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
I am pleased to see where this conversation has headed, with a frank concession that the old materialist-atheist objection, "If God created the universe, then who created God … ???" gets us nowhere, or at best, to the same spot as the notion (claim) that the universe itself is eternal (uncreated) …
IOW, Aristotle's question is still a really good one ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
There is also something of an irony here that it is easier for you to accept that an eternally-prexisting deity created all things from nothing than that the stuff itself is eternal. Eternal things do not need an explanation, just as one cannot try to explain the origin of the deity, he just was.
But God is not simply declared to be eternal. God is necessarily existent, and therefore eternal. There is a reason given why God has to be eternal. You give no reason why your building blocks should be eternal. You simply assert this as a "brute fact".
It is like saying "1 plus 1 in the decimal system necessarily equates 2" on one hand, and "2, brute fact" on the other hand. The former gives a reason why "2" is the answer, the latter just asserts it without further ado. Can you not see that there is a difference?
If you want to put your building blocks on the same footing as God, then you have to declare that the universe must necessarily exist. Do you wish to claim that?
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Because here we are talking about something which by definition cannot be interrogated by science and which we have no way to analyse.
I assume by "science" you mean here something like "modern physics"? I would agree that modern physics is limited in what it can say about all this. But it does not follow that we cannot analyse the situation. This would only follow if "modern physics" was the only "science". It is not, certainly not in the general sense of the word.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't accept your definitions of science, I'm sorry. Nor do I accept that all things are capable of being interrogated by the schematics of the forms of science we commonly use in the linear world in which we live. The proper term for this is actually philosophy.
It is not my definition of "science". It is the formerly common definition of "science", which now is regrettably falling into disuse as "modern science" dominates language usage. However, you still find the old usage explained in for example the Oxford English Dictionary (Mac version):
- a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject: the science of criminology.
- archaic knowledge of any kind. his rare science and his practical skill.
Indeed, the particular name of the relevant science is "philosophy", or more accurately, "metaphysics". I already said that... My basic point here is that there is proper observation and analysis beyond the realm of the modern natural sciences. "Philosophy" is not equivalent to "sophistry and opinion", or at least it does not have to be.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well, there isn't anything I can say to you that will persuade you that it is reasonable to say that stuff exists because it has always existed. Why it is this rather the other than could, as I said, be entirely random.
If you say that there is some kind of cosmic die roll that decides whether there is an eternal universe, or not - whether all your eternal building blocks are there or not - then I do not argue about the universe and its building blocks any longer, at all. Rather I point to the cosmic die roll itself and ask "why does that cosmic die roll exist then, rather than nothing?" Do you get it? Whatever wild and wonderful thing you can imagine as ultimate support of the world's existence, I can always imagine just as easily that this support is lacking. With a single exception - if there is a thing that must exist, then I cannot imagine that it does not exist, because then my imagination would contradict itself.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Whatever - if it is good enough for you to believe that a deity created all things from nothing, that's fine. In my view it is equally, perhaps more, believable that the matter itself is eternal. No creating from nothing is then necessary.
Do you think that matter is the kind of thing that has to be eternal? For otherwise I can reasonably ask you why it is, according to you. And yes, God is the kind of thing that has to be eternal. That's precisely the reason why one can reject modern process theology as nonsensical. (I could also stick a bit closer to physics and ask you in what sense you believe that matter can be eternal, given that you propose a cyclical universe wherein matter regularly gets destroyed and formed again at a universe scale.)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But God is not simply declared to be eternal. God is necessarily existent, and therefore eternal. There is a reason given why God has to be eternal. You give no reason why your building blocks should be eternal. You simply assert this as a "brute fact".
It is like saying "1 plus 1 in the decimal system necessarily equates 2" on one hand, and "2, brute fact" on the other hand. The former gives a reason why "2" is the answer, the latter just asserts it without further ado. Can you not see that there is a difference?
No.
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If you want to put your building blocks on the same footing as God, then you have to declare that the universe must necessarily exist. Do you wish to claim that?
Why not? What is the problem with that?
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I assume by "science" you mean here something like "modern physics"? I would agree that modern physics is limited in what it can say about all this. But it does not follow that we cannot analyse the situation. This would only follow if "modern physics" was the only "science". It is not, certainly not in the general sense of the word.
That's an assertion, based on the idea that the tools we have developed to analyse the world in space and time also function in the same kind of way outside of time. We cannot possibly know that, and there is no particular reason why it should.
quote:
It is not my definition of "science". It is the formerly common definition of "science", which now is regrettably falling into disuse as "modern science" dominates language usage. However, you still find the old usage explained in for example the Oxford English Dictionary (Mac version):
- a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject: the science of criminology.
- archaic knowledge of any kind. his rare science and his practical skill.
Indeed, the particular name of the relevant science is "philosophy", or more accurately, "metaphysics". I already said that... My basic point here is that there is proper observation and analysis beyond the realm of the modern natural sciences. "Philosophy" is not equivalent to "sophistry and opinion", or at least it does not have to be.
Yeah, but philosophy is also not about logic. See Kierkegaard. I know that you regard true religion to be science, I regard it to be an entirely different thing to science.
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If you say that there is some kind of cosmic die roll that decides whether there is an eternal universe, or not - whether all your eternal building blocks are there or not - then I do not argue about the universe and its building blocks any longer, at all. Rather I point to the cosmic die roll itself and ask "why does that cosmic die roll exist then, rather than nothing?" Do you get it?
No, because you are continuing to remake the process in the way you are comfortable with understanding it - namely that for something to exist, something else must have caused it or created it.
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Whatever wild and wonderful thing you can imagine as ultimate support of the world's existence, I can always imagine just as easily that this support is lacking. With a single exception - if there is a thing that must exist, then I cannot imagine that it does not exist, because then my imagination would contradict itself.
Then you are limiting the whole universe by the standard of what you can imagine, which as I've shown above is rather limited.
quote:
Do you think that matter is the kind of thing that has to be eternal? For otherwise I can reasonably ask you why it is, according to you. And yes, God is the kind of thing that has to be eternal. That's precisely the reason why one can reject modern process theology as nonsensical. (I could also stick a bit closer to physics and ask you in what sense you believe that matter can be eternal, given that you propose a cyclical universe wherein matter regularly gets destroyed and formed again at a universe scale.)
I have no idea. I cannot see a reason why God has to be eternal whereas matter cannot possibly.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
So, again …
If an eternal (uncaused) universe is not a problem (for faith or for science), then an uncaused (eternal) "God" is not a problem either …
True ... ???
"Take it from me, Babe … You can't have it both ways …"
-- "Jane," to "Jonas," in "Leap of Faith"
[ 23. March 2015, 21:13: Message edited by: Teilhard ]
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Interesting, but I don't understand the problem with imagining a mathematician engaging with an infinite series somewhere in the middle. This is the nature of biology (and essentially any observed science), isn't it?
Yes – but that isn't the problem. The problem is having a series that is infinite in extent in both directions not beginning in the middle.
I'll try an illustration – have you have played the Minecraft computer game? It has a character exploring a computer-generated enviroment, and involves (so I'm told) a rather clever algorithm that can extrapolate terrain indefinitely from a short string of characters as a 'seed'. The extrapolation isn't random – the same starting point will always produce the same world, and no matter how far the player explores, he or she will never reach the end. But having said that – the computer has not actually generated an infinite world – in principle it would be possible to say what lies a billion blocks to the left of the player's current position, but no one has yet done the calculation and actually drawn that terrain.
An infinite mathematical sequence is like a Minecraft world. It is theretically possible to extend it infinitely backwards, but that does not imply that anyone has actually counted that far back. Postulating an actually infinite universe goes one step further – its saying that those endless past events have all actually happened, not merely that they can be extrapoloated. It's like suggesting a Minecraft world that has been fully explored. It's a different sort of conceptual claim altogether.
I can easily imagine a Minecraft world that is infinite in principle – my computer can generate hundreds. I can't imagine fully exploring one. There will always be one block more to go. The claim that we are living in an infinitely old universe is the same – obviously we can't ever have reached the 'end' that's forward in time, because it can never happen – there's always one more block – but somehow I have to imagine that the 'end' infinitely extended back in time has happened, even though it is just as infinite, and therefore just as inaccessible, as the one still lying in the future.
I don't say that's impossible – just that I can't imagine what it would be like if it were possible.
Your cyclic universe is different if you mean it to be truly cyclic. In that universe, we're not playing Minecraft, but Pac-Man, where going too far left takes you back to the extreme right-hand edge. The universe is 'endless' (you can't fall off the screen) but not infinite – a sufficiently big but not infinite computer could draw the whole map. I think that is an important distinction.
quote:
I don't understand this. What are you saying about the person of the deity that is different to cosmology? Why is it harder to believe that all things (in the universe) are eternal rather than that an individual is eternal? Maybe you'll explain more below.
IngoB's already said it better than I could. The point is that neither he nor I are seeing God (for this purpose) as “an individual” but as “necessary being”. If we are right that this sort of God exists, then everything else depends wholly on him and could never account for or explain him. We aren't just talking about a universe that happens to contain a vast and immortal mind but something utterly different in nature from anything alse we can think of.
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I don't understand why 'what happened at the Big Bang" is a meaningless question.
You misunderstand me – I think it is a meaningful question. My point was that the question isn't invalidated by pointing out (correctly) that it would have been an event impossible to witness.
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OK, I appreciate the honesty - basically you are saying (I think) that it is easier to put the creation of the universe onto an incomprehensible deity rather than accept it is all a merry-go-round which functions on its own.
Not quite – I'm saying that there is good reason to see why God (the sort of God I am talking about must be incomprehensible, and if I'm faced with some measure of incomprehensibility on any fully considered world-view, I prefer one that explains why the incomprehensible is what it is.
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Time was, apparently, started at the Big Bang, so we have all kinds of problems using terms like 'before' the existence of time. Maybe the point before the Big Bang was the crunch of our own universe. Think donut.
I think the donut (Pac-Man) universe is different to the infinitely extended (explored-Minecraft) one. I think I agree that it might be easier to conceptualise if we had any reason to think that time is genuinely cyclic – that the butterfly hatches from the egg which it will itself lay – rather than merely repetitive, which as far as I can see we do not. But it still runs into the issues of causation that IngoB is setting out. Unless you are saying that the universe has to be this way for a specific explained reason you are proposing something bafflingly odd as “it just is”. Theism has thought deeper than that about what sort of being “just is”, and there are rational grounds to prefer it to an attempted explanation that goes no further than a self-contained cycle of physcial events that “just are”.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Interesting, but I don't understand the problem with imagining a mathematician engaging with an infinite series somewhere in the middle. This is the nature of biology (and essentially any observed science), isn't it?
Yes – but that isn't the problem. The problem is having a series that is infinite in extent in both directions not beginning in the middle.
I'll try an illustration – have you have played the Minecraft computer game? It has a character exploring a computer-generated enviroment, and involves (so I'm told) a rather clever algorithm that can extrapolate terrain indefinitely from a short string of characters as a 'seed'. The extrapolation isn't random – the same starting point will always produce the same world, and no matter how far the player explores, he or she will never reach the end. But having said that – the computer has not actually generated an infinite world – in principle it would be possible to say what lies a billion blocks to the left of the player's current position, but no one has yet done the calculation and actually drawn that terrain.
An infinite mathematical sequence is like a Minecraft world. It is theretically possible to extend it infinitely backwards, but that does not imply that anyone has actually counted that far back. Postulating an actually infinite universe goes one step further – its saying that those endless past events have all actually happened, not merely that they can be extrapoloated. It's like suggesting a Minecraft world that has been fully explored. It's a different sort of conceptual claim altogether.
I can easily imagine a Minecraft world that is infinite in principle – my computer can generate hundreds. I can't imagine fully exploring one. There will always be one block more to go. The claim that we are living in an infinitely old universe is the same – obviously we can't ever have reached the 'end' that's forward in time, because it can never happen – there's always one more block – but somehow I have to imagine that the 'end' infinitely extended back in time has happened, even though it is just as infinite, and therefore just as inaccessible, as the one still lying in the future.
I don't say that's impossible – just that I can't imagine what it would be like if it were possible.
Your cyclic universe is different if you mean it to be truly cyclic. In that universe, we're not playing Minecraft, but Pac-Man, where going too far left takes you back to the extreme right-hand edge. The universe is 'endless' (you can't fall off the screen) but not infinite – a sufficiently big but not infinite computer could draw the whole map. I think that is an important distinction.
quote:
I don't understand this. What are you saying about the person of the deity that is different to cosmology? Why is it harder to believe that all things (in the universe) are eternal rather than that an individual is eternal? Maybe you'll explain more below.
IngoB's already said it better than I could. The point is that neither he nor I are seeing God (for this purpose) as “an individual” but as “necessary being”. If we are right that this sort of God exists, then everything else depends wholly on him and could never account for or explain him. We aren't just talking about a universe that happens to contain a vast and immortal mind but something utterly different in nature from anything alse we can think of.
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I don't understand why 'what happened at the Big Bang" is a meaningless question.
You misunderstand me – I think it is a meaningful question. My point was that the question isn't invalidated by pointing out (correctly) that it would have been an event impossible to witness.
quote:
OK, I appreciate the honesty - basically you are saying (I think) that it is easier to put the creation of the universe onto an incomprehensible deity rather than accept it is all a merry-go-round which functions on its own.
Not quite – I'm saying that there is good reason to see why God (the sort of God I am talking about must be incomprehensible, and if I'm faced with some measure of incomprehensibility on any fully considered world-view, I prefer one that explains why the incomprehensible is what it is.
quote:
Time was, apparently, started at the Big Bang, so we have all kinds of problems using terms like 'before' the existence of time. Maybe the point before the Big Bang was the crunch of our own universe. Think donut.
I think the donut (Pac-Man) universe is different to the infinitely extended (explored-Minecraft) one. I think I agree that it might be easier to conceptualise if we had any reason to think that time is genuinely cyclic – that the butterfly hatches from the egg which it will itself lay – rather than merely repetitive, which as far as I can see we do not. But it still runs into the issues of causation that IngoB is setting out. Unless you are saying that the universe has to be this way for a specific explained reason you are proposing something bafflingly odd as “it just is”. Theism has thought deeper than that about what sort of being “just is”, and there are rational grounds to prefer it to an attempted explanation that goes no further than a self-contained cycle of physcial events that “just are”.
It sounds to me that the infinite-eternal universe -- "cycling," or not -- idea turns out to be a physics version of a "just so story," then … ???
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I've reflected on the fascinating exchanges in this thread and rather hope that Fool has at least been kibbitzing. They have done a pretty good job of endorsing deano's "invitation".
Here is the quote from the OP which is making me chuckle.
quote:
I am interested in what makes sensible grown adults believe in the supernatural despite the fact that there is not one shred of evidence to suggest that the supernatural exists and plenty of proof that if it does it has never manifested its self in any way at all beyond the imagination of its adherents.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
So, again …
If an eternal (uncaused) universe is not a problem (for faith or for science), then an uncaused (eternal) "God" is not a problem either …
True ... ???
Well yes. Nor is an invisible unicorn or Russel's Teapot. But nor are they necessary, or, the atheist would argue, evidenced.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
but somehow I have to imagine that the 'end' infinitely extended back in time has happened, even though it is just as infinite, and therefore just as inaccessible, as the one still lying in the future.
A mathematician would say that this is the same as saying that for any age you care to pick, there was an event at that time. There are no past events that are infinitely far away.
The twin primes conjecture in mathematics is unsolved: it claims that if you consider pairs of prime numbers such as 17 and 19, or 41 and 43, differing by 2, there are an infinite number of such pairs. Nobody has proved (or disproved) it; it may be impossible to prove or disprove. Yet it is either true or false. I don't think that claim is easier to get one's head around than the claim that there's been an actual infinity of past events. Yet it's fairly easy to state.
Infinities are hard to get one's head around, although often one can treat them mathematically.
[ 23. March 2015, 22:28: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
So, again …
If an eternal (uncaused) universe is not a problem (for faith or for science), then an uncaused (eternal) "God" is not a problem either …
True ... ???
Well yes. Nor is an invisible unicorn or Russel's Teapot. But nor are they necessary, or, the atheist would argue, evidenced.
Well … Except, of course … We're not talking about such "straw" questions -- Bert Russell's teapot in orbit around the Sun, or somebody's proposed invisible unicorn …
Nice try …
But the fact is that very commonly in the past, some atheist materialists used to raise an objection (posed as a question, but it was nothing of the sort) -- "If 'God' created the universe, then who created 'God' … ???" …
But now ... Instead, with no shame at all, some materialist atheists are now claiming that the universe itself is "a se," i.e., "uncaused," and simply eternal …
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
Except, of course … We're not talking about such "straw" questions -- Bert Russell's teapot in orbit around the Sun, or somebody's proposed invisible unicorn …
They're not straw questions, at least not as Russell originally proposed them: in the sense that they are questions with non-trivial answers. Namely that the question 'does God exist?' is a different sort of question to 'does a chocolate teapot exist?' or even 'does Thor exist?'; it is closer to 'is mathematical realism true?'
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
Except, of course … We're not talking about such "straw" questions -- Bert Russell's teapot in orbit around the Sun, or somebody's proposed invisible unicorn …
They're not straw questions, at least not as Russell originally proposed them: in the sense that they are questions with non-trivial answers. Namely that the question 'does God exist?' is a different sort of question to 'does a chocolate teapot exist?' or even 'does Thor exist?'; it is closer to 'is mathematical realism true?'
I am not aware that anyone has ever seriously proposed that there IS a "teapot" in orbit around the Sun (one supposes, with a matching quilted "cozy" …???)
So, yes … It IS a "straw" question (and a trivial one at that) that has nothing to do with the long entirely seriously affirmed (and sometimes EXPERIENCED !!!) Reality of the Mystery we call, "God" ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
but somehow I have to imagine that the 'end' infinitely extended back in time has happened, even though it is just as infinite, and therefore just as inaccessible, as the one still lying in the future.
A mathematician would say that this is the same as saying that for any age you care to pick, there was an event at that time. There are no past events that are infinitely far away.
Well there's no number "infinity" that you can reach by counting, so of course any particular two events that can be described will be a finite distance apart.
That doesn't resolve the problem though. If time extends infinitely in both directions then (by definition) there are hypothetical future events that will never happen because there will always be events that still have to happen. They can't be enumerated, because the event at day N, however big we make N, happens after a long finite time, we still never reach the end of the series.
However the corresponding end of the series in the past has happened, by definition, because it is in the past. The "infinitely far away" in the past has actually occurred, but the infinitely far ahead never will. Saying that we can't put a number, not even a big one, on things that must, on this world-view, have happened is basically re-stating, not solving, the difficulty, which is that we can't really get our heads round the idea of an infinite past.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
but somehow I have to imagine that the 'end' infinitely extended back in time has happened, even though it is just as infinite, and therefore just as inaccessible, as the one still lying in the future.
A mathematician would say that this is the same as saying that for any age you care to pick, there was an event at that time. There are no past events that are infinitely far away.
Well there's no number "infinity" that you can reach by counting, so of course any particular two events that can be described will be a finite distance apart.
That doesn't resolve the problem though. If time extends infinitely in both directions then (by definition) there are hypothetical future events that will never happen because there will always be events that still have to happen. They can't be enumerated, because the event at day N, however big we make N, happens after a long finite time, we still never reach the end of the series.
However the corresponding end of the series in the past has happened, by definition, because it is in the past. The "infinitely far away" in the past has actually occurred, but the infinitely far ahead never will. Saying that we can't put a number, not even a big one, on things that must, on this world-view, have happened is basically re-stating, not solving, the difficulty, which is that we can't really get our heads round the idea of an infinite past.
The idea that we humans can -- should be able to; someday in fact will, or least in principle could -- "get our heads around" Ultimate Reality … ??? … certainly fits the definition of "infinite" Chutzpah (IMHO) …
If only if only we can fire up the super conducting hadron collider to a high enough energy and run enough experiments and peer far far far away far far far back in time with ever more powerful telescopes … then … we can "figure it out" -- the answer to the Ultimate Question -- "life, the Universe, EVERYTHING" … (and, BTW, not incidentally, then we won't "need 'God'" any more, since "42" will be all sufficient ("42" is after all, a "math" solution, isn't it … ???)
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Well there's no number "infinity" that you can reach by counting, so of course any particular two events that can be described will be a finite distance apart.
That doesn't resolve the problem though. If time extends infinitely in both directions then (by definition) there are hypothetical future events that will never happen because there will always be events that still have to happen.
Huh? Every future event is a finite amount of time from now, so eventually we'll get there.
quote:
They can't be enumerated, because the event at day N, however big we make N, happens after a long finite time, we still never reach the end of the series.
But we don't have to reach the end of the series. There are no events at the end of the series. All the events are within the series. There is no "end of the series" at all, by definition.
It sounds like you're trying to make some kind of Zeno's paradox out of this but we're not talking about infinitely sliceable time, but infinitely extending time. If we're talking about a simple numberline-like infinite time scale, every point on it will eventually be reached (assuming time keeps going and going). There is no point on the line you can point to and say, "We'll never get here." We most certainly will.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
On this rather beautiful bit of code, wouldn't it be rather marvellous if one could go down and down and down and down and then find that the smallest components of all reality are also the biggest? Maybe if we look hard enough we'll find the universe.
But probably not, that'd be very weird.
YES! That's been my thinking, too! ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
I sometimes frame it as a Moebius strip. (But then, I'm fond of them.)
You might like the novel "A Wind In The Door", by Madeleine L'Engle.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
I am not aware that anyone has ever seriously proposed that there IS a "teapot" in orbit around the Sun (one supposes, with a matching quilted "cozy" …???)
Yes, that's the point of the question.
The argument is of the form:
You assert it is not irrational to believe in x on grounds abc.
You assert it is rational to believe in y on grounds abc (where abc are similar or identical).
Which is a contradiction.
It is aimed at the argument that you can't disprove the existence of God, so it's not irrational to believe in God. (I don't think the argument works as applied to God, but that's because of special features of belief in God. It works applied to the Loch Ness Monster.) An atheist wanting to take aim at arguments from mystical practice would need other arguments to do so.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
There is an important difference: saying that God created all things from nothing is not really answering the question of where all things came from (either), because it is a contradiction in terms to get something from nothing.
If one says that stuff is, itself, eternal, there is no need to come up with a way to get something from nothing.
All this blather about a deity still comes back to this point: whilst an atheistic system might not have all the answers you insist need to be answered (eg why IngoB's bottle is the shape it is), you are actually in no better position. In fact you are also answering the questions with 'because it is'.
In fact eternal matter and crunching and banging universes answers the questions as well as those postulating a deity - and in at least one respect answers it better.
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arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
So, again …
If an eternal (uncaused) universe is not a problem (for faith or for science), then an uncaused (eternal) "God" is not a problem either …
True ... ???
Well yes. Nor is an invisible unicorn or Russel's Teapot. But nor are they necessary, or, the atheist would argue, evidenced.
Well … Except, of course … We're not talking about such "straw" questions -- Bert Russell's teapot in orbit around the Sun, or somebody's proposed invisible unicorn …
Nice try …
But the fact is that very commonly in the past, some atheist materialists used to raise an objection (posed as a question, but it was nothing of the sort) -- "If 'God' created the universe, then who created 'God' … ???" …
But now ... Instead, with no shame at all, some materialist atheists are now claiming that the universe itself is "a se," i.e., "uncaused," and simply eternal …
My point is not to defend atheism, given that I am not in fact an atheist. I'm simply pointing out that no-one is seriously claiming that God is incompatible with the observed universe, but simply that the observed universe gives no particularly compelling reason to believe he exists; that he is "not imcompatible" is not evidence that he is real. Science does not preclude God, but nor does it affirm him either.
[ 24. March 2015, 08:50: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
My point is not to defend atheism, given that I am not in fact an atheist. I'm simply pointing out that no-one is seriously claiming that God is incompatible with the observed universe, but simply that the observed universe gives no particularly compelling reason to believe he exists; that he is "not imcompatible" is not evidence that he is real. Science does not preclude God, but nor does it affirm him either.
Precisely. It is entirely consistent to postulate a universe which needs no God. One way is to suggest it is cyclical and/or eternal (and I don't actually think that distinction makes any real difference).
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arse
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
There is an important difference: saying that God created all things from nothing is not really answering the question of where all things came from (either), because it is a contradiction in terms to get something from nothing.
If one says that stuff is, itself, eternal, there is no need to come up with a way to get something from nothing.
All this blather about a deity still comes back to this point: whilst an atheistic system might not have all the answers you insist need to be answered (eg why IngoB's bottle is the shape it is), you are actually in no better position. In fact you are also answering the questions with 'because it is'.
In fact eternal matter and crunching and banging universes answers the questions as well as those postulating a deity - and in at least one respect answers it better.
on something from nothing...
I'm not sure the 2nd Law of thermodynamics applies to the spiritual world.
Unless you're capable of weighing and Angel and determining its calorific requirement to fly from the third level of Heaven to Grimsby and back... Then the calculation just requires that some unit of distance is defined. I forsee a lot of difficulties.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
on something from nothing...
I'm not sure the 2nd Law of thermodynamics applies to the spiritual world.
Unless you're capable of weighing and Angel and determining its calorific requirement to fly from the third level of Heaven to Grimsby and back... Then the calculation just requires that some unit of distance is defined. I forsee a lot of difficulties.
You might want to discuss this with IngoB. I'm totally comfortable with imagining cosmological systems which operate outside of conventional linear time and science.
[ 24. March 2015, 09:04: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
There is an important difference: saying that God created all things from nothing is not really answering the question of where all things came from (either), because it is a contradiction in terms to get something from nothing.
It isn't a contradiction in terms. The logical problem raised by getting something from nothing is that you have to answer the question of why this something rather than that something (or within time why then and not later). The contradiction comes in when you have a implies b, and a implies c, but also b and c are mutually exclusive. That question is answered by referring it to the will of God. As soon as you can answer why b and not c, it ceases to be a logical contradiction.
Strictly the doctrine of creation out of nothing is simply to say that the question 'what is creation made out of' - i.e. does it have any properties that preexist God creating it' lacks application.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It isn't a contradiction in terms. The logical problem raised by getting something from nothing is that you have to answer the question of why this something rather than that something (or within time why then and not later).
Nope. Nothing is exactly that: nothing. Making something from nothing is unknown in science. Hence it is an impossibility. Hence it is a logical problem.
quote:
The contradiction comes in when you have a implies b, and a implies c, but also b and c are mutually exclusive. That question is answered by referring it to the will of God. As soon as you can answer why b and not c, it ceases to be a logical contradiction.
Hahaha. So it is 'answered' by saying 'it just is the will of God' but not by saying that pre-existing eternal matter just is. Oookay then.
quote:
Strictly the doctrine of creation out of nothing is simply to say that the question 'what is creation made out of' - i.e. does it have any properties that preexist God creating it' lacks application.
No not really. To make something you have to have something to make it from. Making something from nothing is, in and of itself, a contradiction. For anyone, God included.
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arse
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Eliab, I think your problem is not one of relative stepping, but of absolute positioning. And I think you might have stumbled on a proof of God conditional on the existence of an endless universe.
What you are straining against is trying to measure your current point in time against some past point in time. Like we say that it is 2015 now, in (approximate) reference to Christ's birth, or we could say that we are at 14 billion years after the Big Bang. This does not work if one replaces the finite number (however big) with an infinite one - we indeed cannot imagine the meaning of that. But we do not have to, we do not need to say that "now is an infinite time after then". Because in an eternal universe there is no clock start that we would compute against.
The "correct" way of looking at time in an endless universe is to put "zero time" at the now. Then the past is "negative in time", and an infinite past is just as imaginable as an infinite future. From where we are now, we can imagine the next second, and the next one after that, and billions of seconds after that and in some limit sense an infinite amount of future seconds. Likewise, from the now we can imagine the previous second, the previous one before that, and billions of seconds before that and in some limit sense an infinite amount of past seconds. While our grasp of "infinitely past" is nebulous, it is so in a good way, just as our grasp of "infinitely future" is nebulous. It is in a good way because it is the limit of something we do grasp, namely finite relative stepping.
However, there does remain one problem in this picture, namely of absolute positioning. Faced with a universe stretching endlessly into both the past and the future, we can ask how come that our actual "now" is precisely at this particular point in time, rather than at any other of the available infinite time points along the time line. This is not about stepping backward and forward in time (possibly infinitely far), since this relative motion is not so mysterious. The question here is where we start off from, why our "now" is just this "now", not one of the infinite number of other possibilities.
I think we understand what is involved here. If you have ever drawn a number line or a Cartesian coordinate system, then those line(s) represent finitely an infinite reality (hence the little arrowheads we make to indicate endless extension). But in order to do anything with a number line or Cartesian coordinate system, you have to mark the origin. You have to make a tick somewhere and write "0" next to it. Then, and only then, do you know where "+1" or "-5" are located. Something similar applies here. If we arbitrarily consider our now as the "0" tick mark, then this origin has to be placed somewhere on the infinity in time, so that we then can consider all other time points relative to that.
And I think this is a kind of proof of God - though this one is conditional on the universe being endless, and is still a bit undeveloped. But the basic idea would be that setting the origin is not something that can come from within the time line, it must be imposed from the outside. We can step relatively from the now, even to infinity, but somehow we have to be placed at this point among all this infinity, rather than at another. And it seems impossible that this "absolute time localisation" can come from the relative stepping along the time line, i.e., physical processes. It must be imposed from the "outside", hence from God.
To put it differently, if we think that there is cyclical universe, then we are in one particular cycle. And there was a cycle before that and there will be one after that. The problem is not to point to the one before or the one after. The problem is that if we consider this endless time line of cycle, we have to decide which ones to point to. It's this cycle here which is ours, and this one is the one before, and this one the one after. But that has to be a particular cycle, and we cannot derive which one it is from stepping backward and forward. It's an extra bit of knowledge, it is the marking of an origin that allows us to convert relative stepping into absolute positioning.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I'm not sure the 2nd Law of thermodynamics applies to the spiritual world.
Unless you're capable of weighing and Angel and determining its calorific requirement to fly from the third level of Heaven to Grimsby and back... Then the calculation just requires that some unit of distance is defined. I forsee a lot of difficulties.
Do angels make that journey often? Good angel food cake and Starbuck's coffee in Grimsby? Or does a barista slip them some devil's food cake in a brown paper bag?
As to thermodynamics and the spiritual world, I just had to look that up! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) So I searched on "metaphysics law of thermodynamics", sometimes adding "spiritual". Some odd and interesting stuff out there! Samples:
Biblical evidence for Catholicism: Current Models in Cosmological Physics Concerning the Origin of the Universe (Dark Energy & Matter, Etc.), & Their Interaction With Metaphysics.
And this one is "passing strange"!
Metabolic Metaphysics--Entropy: Nature's Preferred Direction?
[ 24. March 2015, 12:03: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It isn't a contradiction in terms. The logical problem raised by getting something from nothing is that you have to answer the question of why this something rather than that something (or within time why then and not later).
Nope. Nothing is exactly that: nothing. Making something from nothing is unknown in science. Hence it is an impossibility. Hence it is a logical problem.
There are at least two logical gaps in there. Just because something is unknown in science does not logically mean it is impossible. Just because something is impossible empirically does not mean it is logically impossible.
Even if you strengthen the statement to say that certain conservation laws apply (mass-energy, for example), it doesn't follow that those conservation laws apply logically. You cannot derive which conservation laws apply and which do not by pure logic without observation.
quote:
quote:
The contradiction comes in when you have a implies b, and a implies c, but also b and c are mutually exclusive. That question is answered by referring it to the will of God. As soon as you can answer why b and not c, it ceases to be a logical contradiction.
Hahaha. So it is 'answered' by saying 'it just is the will of God' but not by saying that pre-existing eternal matter just is. Oookay then.
God is supposedly a logically necessary being: that is, supposedly it really is logically impossible for God to be other than God is. God can freely make decisions about what to create. But God's nature is logically necessary.
It might of course be true that pre-existing eternal matter-energy logically exists (or rather quantum vacuum), but that has some rather counterintuitive implications: for example, that a sufficiently good logician could deduce your surroundings reading the words simply from the basic logical axioms.
While the ontological argument for God is a bit of a stretch, the ontological argument for the location of mr cheesy's coffee cup seems a stretch too far.
quote:
quote:
Strictly the doctrine of creation out of nothing is simply to say that the question 'what is creation made out of' - i.e. does it have any properties that preexist God creating it' lacks application.
No not really. To make something you have to have something to make it from. Making something from nothing is, in and of itself, a contradiction.
Your argument is circular. If you say that to make something you have to have something to make it from, you are simply reasserting your denial of the claim 'God can create out of nothing' in different words. You're not giving any reason for me to believe you if I don't already.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
So, again …
If an eternal (uncaused) universe is not a problem (for faith or for science), then an uncaused (eternal) "God" is not a problem either …
True ... ???
Well yes. Nor is an invisible unicorn or Russel's Teapot. But nor are they necessary, or, the atheist would argue, evidenced.
Well … Except, of course … We're not talking about such "straw" questions -- Bert Russell's teapot in orbit around the Sun, or somebody's proposed invisible unicorn …
Nice try …
But the fact is that very commonly in the past, some atheist materialists used to raise an objection (posed as a question, but it was nothing of the sort) -- "If 'God' created the universe, then who created 'God' … ???" …
But now ... Instead, with no shame at all, some materialist atheists are now claiming that the universe itself is "a se," i.e., "uncaused," and simply eternal …
My point is not to defend atheism, given that I am not in fact an atheist. I'm simply pointing out that no-one is seriously claiming that God is incompatible with the observed universe, but simply that the observed universe gives no particularly compelling reason to believe he exists; that he is "not imcompatible" is not evidence that he is real. Science does not preclude God, but nor does it affirm him either.
Yes … The natural sciences aren't about "God" … They're about measuring the velocity of light in a vacuum, determining the mass of a proton, studying and understudying the fossil record, etc., etc. …
Some harsh critics of "God," however, do indeed claim that the observed universe is incompatible with "God" (as Creator) … (How they determine that is an interesting question in itself…)
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
My point is not to defend atheism, given that I am not in fact an atheist. I'm simply pointing out that no-one is seriously claiming that God is incompatible with the observed universe, but simply that the observed universe gives no particularly compelling reason to believe he exists; that he is "not imcompatible" is not evidence that he is real. Science does not preclude God, but nor does it affirm him either.
Precisely. It is entirely consistent to postulate a universe which needs no God. .
As a postulation I agree with you. But what about the universe in which we find ourselves? Given that, in this discussion at least, we are comfortable with the notion that God exists is it more or less likely to conclude that our observed universe is the result of an act of God?
For me, I'm attracted to the proposition that it is more likely when I think of what the universe is, and why anything might exist in the first place. I think it's reasonable to say that anything that begins to exist has a reason for its existence. The reason is either that what exists does so necessarily (it has to exist) or that it is contingent (some other factor led to its existence).
By "the universe" I mean all matter, and all energy. If the universe is "essential" then it needs no cause other than itself. But it would seem that the universe isn't essential at all. If, for example, the forces of gravity and expansion were different, we could have a formless mass of matter, or a universe that didn't exist any longer because it would have imploded on itself. So if the universe is contingent, then the reason for its existence must, I think be something other than matter and energy - in short, it would need to be immaterial and all powerful. And if the universe began to exist, then the cause can reasonably be considered personal. If the cause was impersonal, then there would be no reason for it to have caused the creation of the universe at any particular point. As long as the cause existed, so would the effect, unless the cause had some power of autonomy.
Now, Mr Cheesy, if we take your cyclic universes, I think we still have to answer the question of the reason for the existence of this cycle and whether that reason is necessary or contingent.
What do you think?
Hatless - I accept your pint above. If we change the proposition from our observable universe being compatible/incompatible with the existence of God to one in which the existence of God is more/less likely how does that sit? [B][/B]
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mr cheesy
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:
I agree with you. But what about the universe in which we find ourselves? Given that, in this discussion at least, we are comfortable with the notion that God exists is it more or less likely to conclude that our observed universe is the result of an act of God?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:
For me, I'm attracted to the proposition that it is more likely when I think of what the universe is, and why anything might exist in the first place.
I'm sorry, you are saying that it is more likely that God exists than doesn't..? Or something else?
quote:
I think it's reasonable to say that anything that begins to exist has a reason for its existence. The reason is either that what exists does so necessarily (it has to exist) or that it is contingent (some other factor led to its existence).
By "the universe" I mean all matter, and all energy. If the universe is "essential" then it needs no cause other than itself. But it would seem that the universe isn't essential at all. If, for example, the forces of gravity and expansion were different, we could have a formless mass of matter, or a universe that didn't exist any longer because it would have imploded on itself. So if the universe is contingent, then the reason for its existence must, I think be something other than matter and energy - in short, it would need to be immaterial and all powerful. And if the universe began to exist, then the cause can reasonably be considered personal. If the cause was impersonal, then there would be no reason for it to have caused the creation of the universe at any particular point. As long as the cause existed, so would the effect, unless the cause had some power of autonomy.
Now, Mr Cheesy, if we take your cyclic universes, I think we still have to answer the question of the reason for the existence of this cycle and whether that reason is necessary or contingent.
What do you think?
I think you are still trying to bang the drum of a linear universe. I get it that others do not like it as an explanation, but it is simply a truth that in an infinite and/or cyclical universe with matter which is eternal, the reason it exists today is because it existed before. There is no need to explain the existence of the cycle, it just is.
Just as you might not want to explain the existence of a deity: he/she just exists, has and will do forever.
Beginning clearly has no meaning whatsoever if the thing has been existing for eternity and will exist for eternity.
I don't know what else to say.
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arse
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Eliab
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Huh? Every future event is a finite amount of time from now, so eventually we'll get there.
Once a particular future event is given a place on the time line, it happens at that time, of course. It’s a finite distance away. If time keeps going, we get to it eventually.
However if time is infinite, there will never be a point at which all future events have happened. There will always be events still to come. The future will never be fully explored.
On my Minecraft analogy, you can ask what’s a billion, ten billion, one hundred billion… blocks East, and in principle there’s an answer. You can’t ask what’s “infinity blocks East”, because infinity isn’t a number like that. The concept of infinity isn’t there to define the map coordinate of the furthest block – it’s to indicate that there is no furthest block, the map goes on and on.
quote:
But we don't have to reach the end of the series. There are no events at the end of the series. All the events are within the series. There is no "end of the series" at all, by definition.
[…]
If we're talking about a simple numberline-like infinite time scale, every point on it will eventually be reached (assuming time keeps going and going). There is no point on the line you can point to and say, "We'll never get here." We most certainly will.
That’s exactly the point my argument relies on. There is no end to the series, which is why we never get there. As far as future events are concerned this presents little conceptual difficulty.
The problem arises once it is claimed that the universe has already been going on forever. Then it’s not just a claim about events that could in theory be extrapolated indefinitely, it’s a claim about things that have actually happened. Specifically, it’s a claim that all past events have happened – that the past has been fully explored in a way that the future cannot be. It’s a claim to have already explored all the blocks to the West on the Minecraft map, even though it is obviously impossible to go on to explore all the blocks to the East, and the map is just as infinite in both directions.
As long as we’re in the realm of the purely theoretical, saying that there are infinitely many positive numbers and infinitely many negative ones, are exactly equivalent and exactly as unproblematic. The problem comes from relating the infinite series to actual history.
Putting it another way, I do not think that there is a comprehensible answer to explain why “I’m just going to start from zero and count for so long that I’ll list all the positive numbers” is an ambition that it is impossible to achieve, but “I have been counting for so long that I listed all the negative numbers and have just reached zero” is plausibly true.
The mathematical model assumes that the “positive” and “negative” sides of the number line are symmetrical. However in reality “the past” and “the future” are not symmetrical. The past has actually happened – all of it. The future hasn’t all happened, and, obviously, never will all have happened. Conceptually extending time infinitely far backwards is therefore more problematic that doing the same thing forward.
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
The idea that we humans can -- should be able to; someday in fact will, or least in principle could -- "get our heads around" Ultimate Reality … ??? … certainly fits the definition of "infinite" Chutzpah (IMHO) …
Is anyone arguing for that idea? I’m certainly not. I think any explanation of the universe is going to come up against something beginningless, or uncaused, or both, and that this something is going to be inherently incomprehensible. My preference is to locate that incomprehensibility in a God whom I can see has to be incomprehensible, beginningless and uncaused if he exists at all, and while I’m not going as far as to claim that this is a proof of God (though it might be) I do claim that it is a rational ground for entertaining the notion that there might be a God.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Teilhard
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Posted
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
The idea that we humans can -- should be able to; someday in fact will, or least in principle could -- "get our heads around" Ultimate Reality … ??? … certainly fits the definition of "infinite" Chutzpah (IMHO) …
Is anyone arguing for that idea? I’m certainly not. I think any explanation of the universe is going to come up against something beginningless, or uncaused, or both, and that this something is going to be inherently incomprehensible. My preference is to locate that incomprehensibility in a God whom I can see has to be incomprehensible, beginningless and uncaused if he exists at all, and while I’m not going as far as to claim that this is a proof of God (though it might be) I do claim that it is a rational ground for entertaining the notion that there might be a God. [/QB]
The problem -- at least part of the problem -- is the misunderstanding of "God" as an explanatory "hypothesis" … (Obviously, devising the experiments and agreeing on the correct observations to test such an hypothesis is a daunting challenge in itself.)
But, yes, there are some scoffer-skeptical materialist atheists who float the claim that at least in principle, all of life, the universe and everything -- including the vagaries of history -- can eventually be reduced to an equation or set of equations …
Such a claim IMHO is not only unrealistic, it also hobbles freedom of thought and inquiry ...
[ 24. March 2015, 15:35: Message edited by: Teilhard ]
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Drewthealexander
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# 16660
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Posted
@Mr Cheesy. Then if I understand you correctly, the universe is either "brute fact" or exists necessarily. The former view allows you to avoid finding an explanation of any description. As I said, I don't think we can say the universe is necessary in the same way that God is - the universe doesn't have to be there. But as you say, you can take the view that it just is.
I trust my drum banging wasn't too cacaphonic ![[Biased]](wink.gif) .
On a slightly different tack - and without prejudice to your conclusion above - how would you account for the existence of spiritual beings in the universal order (angelic beings and such like)?
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LeRoc
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Posted
quote:
Teilhard: But, yes, there are some scoffer-skeptical materialist atheists who float the claim that at least in principle, all of life, the universe and everything -- including the vagaries of history -- can eventually be reduced to an equation or set of equations …
Then they still would need to explain where these equations come from.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Teilhard
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Teilhard: But, yes, there are some scoffer-skeptical materialist atheists who float the claim that at least in principle, all of life, the universe and everything -- including the vagaries of history -- can eventually be reduced to an equation or set of equations …
Then they still would need to explain where these equations come from.
It comes back to Aristotle's incisive question, yes … ???
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:
On a slightly different tack - and without prejudice to your conclusion above - how would you account for the existence of spiritual beings in the universal order (angelic beings and such like)?
I have never seen any evidence that such beings exist.
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arse
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Teilhard
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# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:
On a slightly different tack - and without prejudice to your conclusion above - how would you account for the existence of spiritual beings in the universal order (angelic beings and such like)?
I have never seen any evidence that such beings exist.
But you haven't directly*personally "seen" the Earth in orbit around the Sun, either …
For good reasons, you accept that understanding as consonant with direct personal experience(s) you have had …
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
But you haven't directly*personally "seen" the Earth in orbit around the Sun, either …
For good reasons, you accept that understanding as consonant with direct personal experience(s) you have had …
Er.. there is a lot of good evidence that the earth orbits the Sun, and I happen to believe it is the best explanation of various seasonal effects. There could, I guess, be some massive conspiracy hiding me from the truth, but I choose to believe that as highly unlikely even though I have personally not been in a position to witness the earth orbiting the Sun.
I do not see that this has anything at all to do with any experiences I have not had with angelic beings. As I said, I happen to believe that there is zero evidence that such things exist. That I have or have not experienced them is not, in itself, evidence in either direction.
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arse
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Teilhard
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# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
But you haven't directly*personally "seen" the Earth in orbit around the Sun, either …
For good reasons, you accept that understanding as consonant with direct personal experience(s) you have had …
Er.. there is a lot of good evidence that the earth orbits the Sun, and I happen to believe it is the best explanation of various seasonal effects. There could, I guess, be some massive conspiracy hiding me from the truth, but I choose to believe that as highly unlikely even though I have personally not been in a position to witness the earth orbiting the Sun.
I do not see that this has anything at all to do with any experiences I have not had with angelic beings. As I said, I happen to believe that there is zero evidence that such things exist. That I have or have not experienced them is not, in itself, evidence in either direction.
Yes …
For various reasons -- philosophical, scientific, rational, emotional, social, religious, etc. -- each one of us gives more or less credence and weight to particular ideas, explanations, claims, understandings, authorities, etc., in our own personal search for patterns to existence and to ways of getting knowledge of reality …
I happen to be both scientifically trained and experienced and also a person of deep religious faith, and I have no difficulty with affirming both the natural sciences (as a way of getting information about how the universe works) and also traditional religious faith (as Ultimate Reality orientation) …
I have not had direct personal experiences of angels, but some of my friends and congregants have recounted such to me so I am not inclined to *dismiss" angels as -- "no evidence for them" ..
[ 24. March 2015, 20:30: Message edited by: Teilhard ]
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Jack o' the Green
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Teilhard: But, yes, there are some scoffer-skeptical materialist atheists who float the claim that at least in principle, all of life, the universe and everything -- including the vagaries of history -- can eventually be reduced to an equation or set of equations …
Then they still would need to explain where these equations come from.
As a Divine Conceptualist, I would have to argue the mind of God. Atheists would also need to explain how these equations have a creative rather than merely descriptive power.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
I happen to be both scientifically trained and experienced and also a person of deep religious faith, and I have no difficulty with affirming both the natural sciences (as a way of getting information about how the universe works) and also traditional religious faith (as Ultimate Reality orientation) ...
Fair enough, I also believe there are different types of truth other than things which are capable of being interrogated by science and logic. I'm certainly not dissing your belief, I just don't believe it.
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arse
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Dafyd
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
But you haven't directly*personally "seen" the Earth in orbit around the Sun, either
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Why did people use to think the Sun went round the Earth?
Elizabeth Anscombe: That's the way it looks.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: How would it look if the Earth went round the Sun?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Teilhard
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# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
But you haven't directly*personally "seen" the Earth in orbit around the Sun, either
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Why did people use to think the Sun went round the Earth?
Elizabeth Anscombe: That's the way it looks.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: How would it look if the Earth went round the Sun?
And now that we understand (or think we understand) that time and motion are "relative," the notion that the Sun is in a *fixed* central position, with the planets in orbit around it … is … well … not exactly set*in*stone any more, either ...
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