Present Evidence Here II

[Baruch]

Still thinking in terms of cause/effect?  Non-temporal logic solves that.

Explanations are ape problems .. nature itself, doesn't require consciousness, let along explanations.  Nature is like the bandits at the end of The Treasure of Sierra Madre ... "We don't need no steenkin' explanations!"

[Drew_2017]

Still thinking in terms of cause/effect?  Non-temporal logic solves that.

Explanations are ape problems .. nature itself, doesn't require consciousness, let along explanations.  Nature is like the bandits at the end of The Treasure of Sierra Madre ... "We don't need no steenkin' explanations!"

I'll assume your responding to me...I allow natural forces need no explanation and always existed. That just imbues nature with divine properties...

[Mike Cl]

I'll assume your responding to me...I allow natural forces need no explanation and always existed. That just imbues nature with divine properties...

All natural forces have always existed?  Really?

[Hydra009]

All natural forces have always existed?  Really?

Yeah.  I coulda sworn there was a Grand Unification Epoch, then Electroweak Epoch, etc.

[Baruch]

I'll assume your responding to me...I allow natural forces need no explanation and always existed. That just imbues nature with divine properties...

Correct, before Galileo et al, we had Aristotelian teleology.  Science was based on biology, which is living, conscious and purposeful.  The purpose of the acorn is to make more acorns, using oak trees as the means ... not just the purpose of the oak tree is to make more oak trees using the acorns as the means.  Then we moved the paradigm to physics and astronomy ... not living, not conscious, without purpose.  So I would still threaten Galileo with the Inquisition, for that!  Nature wasn't formerly considered to be lifeless, now it is.  The real basis of human culture is psychology, not even biology.

[Baruch]

Yeah.  I coulda sworn there was a Grand Unification Epoch, then Electroweak Epoch, etc.

Undemonstrated by direct evidence.  We know nothing before the first 300 million years after the Big Bang.  It is assumed by particle physicists, that their experiments (and by reductionism) show what happens to very early times, before the first one second.  I find this claim to be ... marginal.  We kind of know what a tiny plasma ball or quark plasma behaves like .. but is that what a really big ball does?

[Hydra009]

In my opinion, the nature did it explanation is far more miraculous than a Goddidit explanation.

Yeah, well, lots of people have lots of opinions.  Sometimes very strong opinions.  It doesn't really have much of a bearing on what's real and what's not.

First it requires naturalistic explanations 'all the way down' or that the naturalistic forces and matter we observe came into existence un-caused out of nothing, a magic act at best.

That's weird, I could've sworn the theistic explanation was more magical.  So on one hand we have naturalistic forces that we don't fully understand eventually giving rise to everything we know.  On the other hand, we have an uncaused anthromorphic God figure (who is also eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent) literally speaking the universe into existence from nothing.  Hmmm...I wonder which explanation sounds more plausible?  *puts hands to his sides, mimicking balancing scales*

If its natural causes infinitely all the way down we would never reach this time because we'd have to cross an infinitude of events to arrive at this time.

I've heard that argument before.  I can't quite pin it down, but I believe it was a Way of the Master video.  Great stuff.  Very convincing.

Now, infinity is a strange term and difficult concept to understand, but it seems reasonable to trust one's intuition and decree that infinite time cannot exist.  Normally, the only other explanation would be God, but I'm going to try a strange new thing here:  a third option.  What if the universe isn't eternal?  What if the universe had a beginning?

Lets skip all that and assume that somehow naturalistic unguided forces caused the natural universe to exist. If so such forces without plan, intent, desire or a degree in physics caused something completely unlike itself to exist, life and mind. Life and mind came from mindless lifeless forces by happenstance.

That would seem pretty miraculous to someone completely unaware of the concept of emergence.  Relatively simple interactions can cause some pretty neat stuff:



Moral of the story:  just because it looks like it a giant built it, doesn't mean a giant actually did build it.  Just because it seems miraculous doesn't mean it was actually a miracle.

[Blackleaf]

First things first, it's not really known how life started or what conditions led to life. The only life we know of adapted to the conditions on earth we have yet to observe other life adapting to the conditions of their planets. If we did that would be powerful evidence life can adapt to a variety of conditions. The only life we do know of requires a host of conditions.

1. A Universe
2. Stars
4. Planets
5. Stars that go super nova and create the stuff planets are made of. This is not trivial a host of exacting conditions cause stars to go super nova and a host of laws of physics allow new more complex matter to be created when a super nova occurs which is essential to life.   
6. Gravity at a certain strength so that stars occur, super nova's occur and subsequently planets occur.
7. Black matter and black energy are critical to the existence of life. Without the existence of black matter galaxies would fly apart.
8. The ratio of matter to anti matter at the beginning of the universe. Had it been the same all matter would have been annihilated.

It turns out our solar system itself is very atypical, most solar systems have giant gas planets that wind up flinging the inner rocky planets out of their orbit. If by your own admission 99% of the universe is inhabitable how can you claim life adapts to prevailing conditions? Evidently it doesn't.

You think that our universe of 100,000,000,000+ galaxies only has one solar system like ours? You do not know that 99% of the universe is inhospitable, but even if it was, 1% of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 is still 100,000,000,000,000,000,000.

[Cavebear]

Are you the only one who reads my posts?  Might not have meant a particular reader but a class of readers, of which you are unlikely to be ... given you are even older than me ;-)

I might be. Others tell me to ignore your posts as meaningless. Sometimes I agree.  But sometimes you offer interestingly odd references.

Personally, I suspect there may be more to you than meets the eye.  Fewer posts and more thought to them might serve you better.

[Solomon Zorn]

Okay, once again, I am just an uneducated hick. But I don't get it. Why do you guys insist on giving in, to this "alternate laws of physics" crap? Surely the mathematics are unchangeable. What is, results from what was, and all of the cause and effect relationships, all of their proportions and ratios, and uniform interactions, are the simple extension, of something basic, or the equivalent of 1+1=2. It just works that way. There are equations which work, and any which won't, never take shape. They can't exist.

We don't yet have all of the math to describe the earliest interactions perfectly, but that doesn't support the contention that God spoke it into existence. Such a premise requires a whole magnitude of greater complexity, ending in some very similar unresolved questions.

[Cavebear]

Okay, once again, I am just an uneducated hick. But I don't get it. Why do you guys insist on giving in, to this "alternate laws of physics" crap? Surely the mathematics are unchangeable. What is, results from what was, and all of the cause and effect relationships, all of their proportions and ratios, and uniform interactions, are the simple extension, of something basic, or the equivalent of 1+1=2. It just works that way. There are equations which work, and any which won't, never take shape. They can't exist.

We don't yet have all of the math to describe the earliest interactions perfectly, but that doesn't support the contention that God spoke it into existence. Such a premise requires a whole magnitude of greater complexity, ending in some very similar unresolved questions.

For whatever it is worth (not being a physicist), I trust maths, trust results from careful experiments, and trust accuracy and facts.

But I do wonder at the idea that only results arrived at with current maths are all that is true.  That would leave us at Newtonian equations, for example.  Who knows what equations will be developed in the future?

I suspect that our current thoughts of spacetime are going to seem archaic in the next century.  There should be sensible logic to the universe, and spacetime just seems to make illogical paradoxes. Paradoxes seem like a proof of error. 

[Baruch]

A change of pace ... regarding demigods ... are all demigods sociopaths?
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-10-16

And what does that tell us about G-d? ;-)

[Mike Cl]

Okay, once again, I am just an uneducated hick. But I don't get it. Why do you guys insist on giving in, to this "alternate laws of physics" crap? Surely the mathematics are unchangeable. What is, results from what was, and all of the cause and effect relationships, all of their proportions and ratios, and uniform interactions, are the simple extension, of something basic, or the equivalent of 1+1=2. It just works that way. There are equations which work, and any which won't, never take shape. They can't exist.

We don't yet have all of the math to describe the earliest interactions perfectly, but that doesn't support the contention that God spoke it into existence. Such a premise requires a whole magnitude of greater complexity, ending in some very similar unresolved questions.

Yeah, I've wondered that myself.  I conclude that it is simply easier to not approach the math.  Math requires from most of us concentration and the application of our mind and attention that is not easy for us to achieve.  The more complex the '1 + 1=2" becomes, the easier it is to simply say, 'yeah, god did it' and go do something else.

[fencerider]

all psychopaths are sociopaths, but not all sociopaths are psycopaths. Sociopath is a less severe form of mental illness

Sociopath: inability to follow laws and social norms, deceitfullness for personal benefit, irritability, aggressiveness, impulsive, reckless, using or abusing other people with no ability for remorse for personal benefit, no ability to empathize.

what does that tell us about G-d? ;-)

.... so a demi-god is half human and half god; and this makes the entity sociopathic.

I suppose that if you are a full blooded god you have a superiority-complex, definitely arrogant. You would not have any remorse for injury to humans because they are below you. Maybe you feel like you have the right to use them any way you want...

I guess a god would show sociopathic behavior to humans in the same way that humans show sociopathic behavior toward chickens and cows.... briquettes warmin up the grill

[Baruch]

By the ancient definition of a demigod ... a demigod is a super-person, like Caesar Augustus etc ... we aren't talking Hercules here.  We still have that same definition, we worship the wealthy, powerful and famous, just like our Greco-Roman ancestors.  I just democratize it, not just priesthood of all believers, but demigods of all the demos.