I was pretty nervous about it but I thought I did pretty good. What do y'all think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs-cK5oTkf0
What point were you trying to make?
I don't know if you did a good job or not because I just can't justify wasting another twelve minutes on WLC crap, even someone really laying into him.
Jeez, hate to say it but if I had to pick a winner I would have to pick WLC on this one....
The Big Bang banging for absolutely no reason and being cause by absolutely nothing, would be a mystical explanation for the existence of the universe. This is why scientists can only say, "we don't know," when questioned with how the singularity got there or what caused it to bang. Anything beyond "I don't know" is unjustified. "Science says give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest." - Terrence Mckenna
The thing about time and laws of causality is that they are always local. Time passing in the universe of Skyrim or World of Warcraft has nothing to do with our time. The information processing of the CPU that creates a simulation is not subject to the time and causality of the virtual reality it is simulating. If characters in Skyrim became conscious and self aware, they might get very smart and calculate how their physical universe got started, but they will have no way of ever understanding our physical reality, and no way to comprehend that their time has nothing to do with our time. To characters in Skyrim, we would all be existing in "eternity." We existed before their big bang banged, and will persist after their time comes to an end. We are essential "eternal" beings relative to their universe. We are the personal agent that existed in the changeless eternity that decided their universe should exist. We are the uncaused cause relative to their universe.
You can extrapolate this scenerio out and apply it to our situation. We are self aware conscious characters in an elaborate and extremely detailed high resolution virtual reality that is computed outside of our virtual-space-time. WLC is right that the only solution to the existence of our universe is personal agency which exists in what we can only refer to as "eternity" which just means "outside of our space-time". But I whole heartedly disagree with his conclusion that this personal agent must therefore be Yahweh as described in the Judeo Christian religion's holy book. I would press him hard on how he justifies making such a specific connection.
Quote from: Casparov on May 12, 2014, 04:18:28 AM
We are self aware conscious characters in an elaborate and extremely detailed high resolution virtual reality that is computed outside of our virtual-space-time.
And, once again, you spout unsupported assertions. How novel.
Quote from: Casparov on May 12, 2014, 04:18:28 AM
The Big Bang banging for absolutely no reason and being cause by absolutely nothing, would be a mystical explanation for the existence of the universe.
Bullshit. It's an unknown. It's only mystical to you, because anything your pea-brain can't understand has to be mystical. Then, having misunderstood and redefined something unknown as mystical, you reject the mysticism on the grounds that it's unscientific. From there you select another mysticism, but for some reason accept it's unscientific explanation as true.
Quote from: Casparov on May 12, 2014, 04:18:28 AM
This is why scientists can only say, "we don't know," when questioned with how the singularity got there or what caused it to bang. Anything beyond "I don't know" is unjustified.
That is correct. Anything beyond "I don't know" is unjustified, and science makes no claims beyond "I don't know", and you should drop your double standard and refrain from making unjustified claims beyond what you don't know, as well.
Quote from: Casparov on May 12, 2014, 04:18:28 AM
"Science says give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest." - Terrence McKenna
Bullshit. Science says no such thing. Terrence McKenna, a wacko stoner who predicted the end of the world in 2012 said that. Stop lying, making up bullshit, and implying that science says what it does not.
I dunno, I always had a day dream that there was no beginning, it always existed. Time is relative right? I'm also partial to the eventual compaction of the universe, then the explosion.
So the universe compacts, and another big bang happens, the cycle of rebirth.
I might throw in a Reaper quote, but no time right this minute
The cosmological argument is (like every argument I have ever heard for gods) utterly pathetic, with premises that cannot support themselves and conclusions that in no way follows the premises. As WLC appears to be a smart man he has to be a liar when using this argument, because it's demonstrably useless. This man should receive no respect what so ever.
As for the video, I only watched the 5 first minutes, and so far we do not appear to be discussing the premises of the cosmological argument, which is the easiest to defeat.
He is wrong in his reply here though. Regardless if something is sentient, the eternity paradox still isn't solved, because it would exist infinitely in the past, causing time to be an irrelevant factor, making it impossible for anything to occur. This is the impossibility of infinity when discussing it within a realm of time - which is the only way we can discuss infinity - it being meaningless otherwise. It's only if it started existing, and will exist for infinity, that actions can be made.
There is at least one simply way out of the infinity paradox however, and that is that time is an illusion/attribute existing in this reality, but not necessarily for what initiated this reality (or what initiated that, etc.)
Quote from: La Dolce Vita on May 12, 2014, 07:42:36 AM
There is at least one simply way out of the infinity paradox however, and that is that time is an illusion/attribute existing in this reality, but not necessarily for what initiated this reality (or what initiated that, etc.)
Prior to General Relativity, one could think of a possible universe with matter and no space/time, or think of a universe with space/time and no matter. With GR, that is no longer a possibility. Where there is matter, there must be space/time, and vice-versa. If time is an illusion, then matter would also be, and Casparov would be right... Yikes!
Quote from: josephpalazzo on May 12, 2014, 10:49:06 AM
If time is an illusion, then matter would also be, and Casparov would be right... Yikes!
:eek: :axe:
What about imaginary time?
Quote from: Contemporary Protestant on May 12, 2014, 11:45:06 AM
What about imaginary time?
What about it?
If you are referring to WLC's use of the fact that General Relativity uses imaginary numbers to represent time, it doesn't mean that time is imaginary. That is a gross misunderstanding from WLC as he is obviously clueless about physics. In GR, we deal with non-Euclidean geometry, and in that regime, assigning time with imaginary numbers is perfectly legitimate. We do something similar in QM in regard to the wavefunction, which a fundamental object that allows the calculation of probabilities. Imaginary numbers are as legitimate as real numbers. But to the ignoramuses like WLC, who can't wrap their minds around that concept, they see that as an argument against science.
Quote from: SGOS on May 12, 2014, 05:45:27 AM
Bullshit. It's an unknown. It's only mystical to you, because anything your pea-brain can't understand has to be mystical. Then, having misunderstood and redefined something unknown as mystical, you reject the mysticism on the grounds that it's unscientific.
Any sufficiently advanced (or noisy) Big Bang is indistinguishable from mystical crap. Arthur Not Clarke.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on May 12, 2014, 10:49:06 AM
Prior to General Relativity, one could think of a possible universe with matter and no space/time, or think of a universe with space/time and no matter. With GR, that is no longer a possibility. Where there is matter, there must be space/time, and vice-versa. If time is an illusion, then matter would also be, and Casparov would be right... Yikes!
General relativity is based on the rules of our existence though, it may not apply to other variations of existence that may potentially exist outside ours. Such a "universe" could have variables we have never encountered.
Anyhow, even if matter somehow could be categorized as an illusion, Casparov still wouldn't be right. If you recall he needs said matter to be controlled by a mind, i.e. his god.
:hand: :wall: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: More fallacies from ignorance, therefore philosophy is right. This is why, when I first heard that the big bang was the moment of creation I knew religion would show it is proof of a God, a non sequitur in logic. Spacetime is eternal and caused the bigbang, because it is always changing. Change is the measure of time and space. Space is not a complete vacuum, and has fields of energy---particles. Solitary
Quote from: josephpalazzo on May 12, 2014, 10:49:06 AM
Prior to General Relativity, one could think of a possible universe with matter and no space/time, or think of a universe with space/time and no matter. With GR, that is no longer a possibility. Where there is matter, there must be space/time, and vice-versa. If time is an illusion, then matter would also be, and Casparov would be right... Yikes!
Joseph, just stop it! I can't take my jaws hurting anymore from laughing. Solitary
Craig made the point that time HAS to have a beginning. That depends on your viewpoint. In Hinduism, if I'm not mistaken, time is perceived as circular, not linear, and therefore has no beginning and no end. Events happen in cycles, or ages, that are referred to as yugas, and these repeat themselves over and over and over. What if both the universe and time had no beginning? If Christians can claim God had no beginning and is eternal, I don't see why someone else can't make the same claim for the universe. We can at least SEE the universe, and that is more than can be said for the mystical sky-genie.
Quote from: Casparov on May 12, 2014, 04:18:28 AMTime passing in the universe of Skyrim or World of Warcraft has nothing to do with our time.
It has everything to do with our time. In fact, time passing in those two games is contingent on "our time".
The passage of time in those games is part of the larger game engine that runs it, and that game engine, at it's very basic underpinnings, is dependent on CPU cycles which are a measure of, you guessed it, time.