"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen." ~L.W.
— 180 Proof
"A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon." -Thich Nhat Hanh — OmniscientNihilist
You make it sound like "order" is a single event, and "chaos" is a single event that happens when order doesn't. In reality, lots of stuff is self organising on the back of this chaos. — fdrake
But lots of folks just cannot stick with that. so they say, "Because I do not know, I know. God did it. And of course God, being God, can't be detected. That's how we know he's real, and made the universe...". So what makes more sense to you, a conjecture presented as such? Or a supernatural-based fantasy presented as real? Which do you think is worse, is the more ignorant, the stupider? — tim wood
Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances, … and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.
The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned. If they find a Christian mistaken in a subject that they know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions as based on our teachings, how are they going to believe these teachings in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think these teachings are filled with fallacies about facts which they have learnt from experience and reason.
Reckless and presumptuous expounders of Scripture bring about much harm when they are caught in their mischievous false opinions by those not bound by our sacred texts. And even more so when they then try to defend their rash and obviously untrue statements by quoting a shower of words from Scripture and even recite from memory passages which they think will support their case ‘without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance.’ (1 Timothy 1:7)
And in what context, other than itself, are there computable parameters? — 180 Proof
That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. — Bertrand Russell
Sandra Faber, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, referred to the idea that there is something uncannily perfect about our universe. The laws of physics and the values of physical constants seem, as Goldilocks said, “just right.” If even one of a host of physical properties of the universe had been different, stars, planets, and galaxies would never have formed. Life would have been all but impossible.
Take, for instance, the neutron. It is 1.00137841870 times heavier than the proton, which is what allows it to decay into a proton, electron and neutrino—a process that determined the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium after the big bang and gave us a universe dominated by hydrogen. If the neutron-to-proton mass ratio were even slightly different, we would be living in a very different universe: one, perhaps, with far too much helium, in which stars would have burned out too quickly for life to evolve, or one in which protons decayed into neutrons rather than the other way around, leaving the universe without atoms. So, in fact, we wouldn’t be living here at all—we wouldn’t exist.
Examples of such “fine-tuning” abound. Tweak the charge on an electron, for instance, or change the strength of the gravitational force or the strong nuclear force just a smidgen, and the universe would look very different, and likely be lifeless. The challenge for physicists is explaining why such physical parameters are what they are.
This challenge became even tougher in the late 1990s when astronomers discovered dark energy, the little-understood energy thought to be driving the accelerating expansion of our universe. All attempts to use known laws of physics to calculate the expected value of this energy lead to answers that are 10 120 times too high, causing some to label it the worst prediction in physics.
“The great mystery is not why there is dark energy. The great mystery is why there is so little of it,” said Leonard Susskind of Stanford University, at a 2007 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The fact that we are just on the knife edge of existence, [that] if dark energy were very much bigger we wouldn’t be here, that’s the mystery.” Even a slightly larger value of dark energy would have caused spacetime to expand so fast that galaxies wouldn’t have formed.
That night in Hawaii, Faber declared that there were only two possible explanations for fine-tuning. “One is that there is a God and that God made it that way,” she said. But for Faber, an atheist, divine intervention is not the answer.
“The only other approach that makes any sense is to argue that there really is an infinite, or a very big, ensemble of universes out there and we are in one,” she said.
because they are made of something else. — OmniscientNihilist
nd if they are made of something else then they are not really themselves — OmniscientNihilist
or what they are made of was merely impersonating something else — OmniscientNihilist
fooled you — OmniscientNihilist
for example: i shape some gold into a bird and give it to you. what do you have? a bird or gold? — OmniscientNihilist
It's by no means a single event; it's an order, a pattern, that shows up in events, that in some sense 'governs' them. And 'self-organising', which is one of the questions implicit in the OP, is a vexed question in its own right. The point about the anthropic principle is that the process by which organic matter was created, required first of all that stars went through their entire life-cycle. ('We are stardust'.) — Wayfarer
Gold shaped into a bird. — fdrake
"To the Self the world is but a colorful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over." -Nisargadatta — OmniscientNihilist
A master of the non-answer to a straight-forward, direct question. — 180 Proof
How could you possibly distinguish a universe governed by necessities from one governed by the accumulation of chances? What could happen next appears retroactively as what must have happened. — fdrake
Let's assume for the sake of argument that some kind of creative intelligence is responsible for big bang. What then? — jellyfish
As long as this intelligence is something we all only vaguely assent to, how do we get more out of this than another philosopher's god? — jellyfish
It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being.
I think the key term in both ancient philosophy and religion was that we ourselves are related to that intelligence. And again that is existentially significant, don’t you think? — Wayfarer
You believe in love as a divine attribute because you yourself love, and believe that God is a wise and benevolent being because you know nothing better in yourself than wisdom and benevolence.
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The predicates have a reality of their own, have an independent significance; the force of what they contain compels man to recognise them. They prove their truth to man directly through themselves. They are their own proof and evidence. Goodness, justice, and wisdom do not become chimeras if the existence of God is a chimera, nor do they become truths simply because the existence of God is a truth. The concept of God depends on the concept of justice, kindness, and wisdom – a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. — Feuerbach
In any case, from a very high level, what theistic philosophies are seeking is congruence or relationship with the source of that order. — Wayfarer
For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being. — Wayf's quote
From the standpoint of a later religion, the earlier religion turns out to be idolatry: Man is seen to have worshiped his own essence. Man has objectified himself, but he has not yet recognised the object as his own essential being – a step taken by later religion. Every progress in religion means therefore, a deepening of man’s knowledge of himself.
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And our task consists precisely in showing that the antithesis of the divine and human is illusory; that is, that it is nothing other than the antithesis between the essential being of man and his individual being... — Feuerbach
Maybe the problem is thinking consciousness comes from a brain rather than the other way around? Brains are found in consciousness, but how do we really know that is what exists out there - material brains? What does it even mean to say it's "material" and to imply that consciousness is something different than material? Implying that consciousness and brains are somehow different substances creates more problems, like how do they interact?Can followers of Marx be right that this could have really happened from a purely materialistic perspective? If consciousness can come from a brain, why can't the universe move itself into the big bang? Can the singularity be it's own causality without making it spiritual? — Gregory
No, I am God, and you are merely scribbles on a computer screen that I am the actual author of. It seems that you just explained yourself out of existence - or at least the existence of a human being that can type posts on a forum and submit them. From my perspective you only exist as scribbles on a screen with no cause. If I am the primary cause, then "your" posts are actually my posts - it's just that I don't remember typing them.Can something come from nothing? Logically speaking no...
Can the universe create itself from nothing? no.
Can a God create a universe from nothing? no.
Can consciousness create itself from nothing? no.
Can the brain create consciousness from nothing? no.
Can consciousness ever be certain anything beyond itself (e.g. brain or universe) even exists? no.
Does consciousness have any real evidence for anything other then qualia, which is itself. no.
End result: Consciousness concludes itself to be the eternal spiritual creator of everything within/of itself, which is all that exists. I am God. — OmniscientNihilist
Also true If you get into a car accident and loose your memory and login under a different account and reply to your old posts, haha.No, I am God... From my perspective you only exist as scribbles on a screen with no cause. If I am the primary cause, then "your" posts are actually my posts - it's just that I don't remember typing them. — Harry Hindu
Secondly, the cultural disdain of religion drives the attitude that 'well, speculative mathematical physics may be completely untestable and a total fantasy, but at least it's not religious. Therefore no matter how outlandish mathematical physics is, it's scientific - whereas, this is the very point that is being called into question about string theory, etc. — Wayfarer
A master of the non-answer to a straight-forward, direct question.
— 180 Proof
You think the ‘fine-tuning argument’ is a straight-forward question? — Wayfarer
Wayfarer -
Saying the universe is unlikely is not even wrong.
Compared to what is it unlikely? And in what context, other than itself, are there computable parameters? — 180 Proof
What is "substance"?Firstly:
big bang creating/causing itself,
god creating/causing universe,
brain creating/causing consciousness,
mind creating/causing choice,
is all predicated something coming from nothing and are therefore impossible. Therefore I do not need to waste my time reading any books based on those illusions, and getting lost in details that are all based on false beginnings, like you have.
-We currently have substance therefore it must be uncreated and eternal.
-We currently have motion therefore it must be uncreated and eternal.
-We currently have order, therefore it must be uncreated and eternal.
Build your conclusions or science from and within those absolute starting points. — OmniscientNihilist
And you created the universe just so you could argue with yourself? Great show!Secondly:
Don't assume the universe or the brain continue to exist when you're not looking at them. The only thing that's proven is this consciousness here now, as it is here now, and nothing else. Any other belief just happens in consciousness here now. A belief in the universe, the brain, matter, all happens in and of consciousness here now and therefore proves nothing except for consciousness here now.
Build your conclusions around that absolute starting point.
Consciousness is not in the body the body is in consciousness,
Consciousness is not in the universe, the universe is in consciousness,
and it must be eternal.
So you see my good sirs I AM the creator of the universe. — OmniscientNihilist
From the standpoint of a later religion, the earlier religion turns out to be idolatry: Man is seen to have worshiped his own essence. Man has objectified himself, but he has not yet recognised the object as his own essential being – a step taken by later religion. — Feuerbach
Schopenhauer believes that a person who experiences the truth of human nature from a moral perspective — who appreciates how spatial and temporal forms of knowledge generate a constant passing away, continual suffering, vain striving and inner tension — will be so repulsed by the human condition, and by the pointlessly striving Will of which it is a manifestation, that he or she will lose the desire to affirm the objectified human situation in any of its manifestations. [This corresponds with the Buddhist 'nirodha' meaning 'turning away' or 'revulsion'.] The result is an attitude of denial towards our will-to-live , that Schopenhauer identifies with an ascetic attitude of renunciation, resignation, and willessness, but also with composure and tranquillity. In a manner reminiscent of traditional Buddhism, he recognizes that life is filled with unavoidable frustration [the 'first noble truth'], and acknowledges that the suffering caused by this frustration can itself be reduced by minimizing one’s desires. Moral consciousness and virtue thus give way to the voluntary poverty and chastity of the ascetic. St. Francis of Assisi (WWR, Section 68) and Jesus (WWR, Section 70) subsequently emerge as Schopenhauer’s prototypes for the most enlightened lifestyle, in conjunction with the ascetics from every religious tradition. — SEP
Appeals to the nature of the divine that attempt to escape this contingency are betrayed by that word 'nature.' If the divine has a nature, it is subject to some law or order which is itself unexplained. — jellyfish
Therefore no matter how outlandish mathematical physics is, it [string theory] is scientific. Yes! Exactly! Precisely so! If it's science, then it's science. — tim wood
But, for example, consider, say, so-called creation science. — tim wood
But maybe belief is not enough for you. You need to push and shove (and as history shows, much, much worse) to get your beliefs into the rooms and onto the tables reserved for the real and for science, but with that you cross important boundaries and become little more than a pig in the parlor, and not a nice pig. — tim wood
That's the 'who made God?' objection. But the answer to that from the perspective of theistic philosophy, is that 'necessary being' is the terminus of the enquiry 'why does anything exist?' in the same way that '4' is the terminus of the enquiry 'what does 2 + 2 equal? — Wayfarer
But transcending religious dogma is different to simply abandoning it. — Wayfarer
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. — Romans 7:14
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? — Matthew 27:46
Every limitation of reason, or of human nature in general, rests on a delusion, an error. To be sure, the human individual can, even must, feel and know himself to be limited – and this is what distinguishes him from the animal – but he can become conscious of his limits, his finiteness, only because he can make the perfection and infinity of his species the object either of his feeling, conscience, or thought But if his limitations appear to him as emanating from the species, this can only be due to his delusion that he is identical with the species, a delusion intimately linked with the individual’s love of case, lethargy, vanity, and selfishness; for a limit which I know to be mine alone, humiliates, shames, and disquiets me. Hence, in order to free myself of this feeling of shame, this uneasiness, I make the limits of my individuality the limits of man’s being itself. What is incomprehensible to me is incomprehensible to others; why should this worry me at all? It is not due to any fault of mine or of my understanding; the cause lies in the understanding of the species itself. But it is a folly, a ludicrous and frivolous folly to designate that which constitutes the nature of man and the absolute nature of the individual, the essence of the species, as finite and limited. — F
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.
Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use--or rather abuse--of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds. — Kant
No, I don't. I equate false claims of truth out of belief with ignorance, then stupidity, and finally vicious fraud. Often enough, the religion itself makes no such claims, or does so with care as to exactly what is being claimed and why.What I'm saying is that you automatically equate any kind of religious philosophy with 'creation science'. ( — Wayfarer
Not so. Speaking of Christianity, it did so itself, and correctly, with the "We believe." Nor is this any kind of firewall, it is rather a posted notice that the religion concerns beliefs.Religious philosophies have been firewalled off behind the boundary of 'personal belief', — Wayfarer
but in a liberal fashion, recognising the importance of personal choice and conscience, so will tolerate religion on those grounds. But I'm questioning that, and I think it's a perfectly legitimate question. — Wayfarer
What I'm saying is that you automatically equate any kind of religious philosophy with 'creation science' — Wayfarer
No, I don't. I equate false claims of truth out of belief with ignorance, then stupidity, and finally vicious fraud. Often enough, the religion itself makes no such claims, or does so with care as to exactly what is being claimed and why. — tim wood
You can say you don't know - I sure don't. But lots of folks just cannot stick with that. so they say, "Because I do not know, I know. God did it. And of course God, being God, can't be detected. That's how we know he's real, and made the universe...". So what makes more sense to you, a conjecture presented as such? Or a supernatural-based fantasy presented as real? — tim wood
Religion is supposed just "personal belief"? By whom? — tim wood
Profession of belief as belief, imo, is pretty close to an absolute defense. That is, you get to believe what you like (not to be confused with being able to do what you like). — tim wood
If you have any substantive argument for its extension into science, or any other area outside that of mere belief, then please make it. — tim wood
Let's grant that there is a God. If 'He' is intelligible at all, he has a structure or nature. Why does he have that nature and not some other? — jellyfish
Note that we are all here appealing to reason, our own human reason, in order to determine the divine more exactly. — jellyfish
What is man, in the end? — Wayfarer
A creature, a phenomenon, a 'moist robot', a gene-carrier? What end are we trying to achieve? Interplanetary conquest? Fame and riches? Master of arts and sciences? — Wayfarer
So the secular~scientific attitude of mainstream culture does not preserve those ancient insights which are still even preserved (as you know) in the German idealists - Fichte, Schelling, et al (as you know). — Wayfarer
The history of Being is now conceived as a series of appropriating events in which the different dimensions of human sense-making—the religious, political, philosophical (and so on) dimensions that define the culturally conditioned epochs of human history—are transformed. Each such transformation is a revolution in human patterns of intelligibility, so what is appropriated in the event is Dasein and thus the human capacity for taking-as (see e.g., Contributions 271: 343). Once appropriated in this way, Dasein operates according to a specific set of established sense-making practices and structures. In a Kuhnian register, one might think of this as the normal sense-making that follows a paradigm-shift. — SEP
The Medium here is not the message, quite the opposite: the very medium that we use -- the universal intersubjectivity of language -- undermines the message. — Zizek
The implicit lesson of Plato is not that everything is appearance, that it is not possible to draw a clear line of separation between appearance and reality (that would have meant the victory of Sophism), but that essence is "appearance as appearance," that essence appears in contrast to appearance within appearance; that the distinction between appearance and essence has to be inscribed into appearance itself. Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, insofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing. — Zizek (emph. added)
I am appealing to the 'fine-tuning argument', which has precedents in philosophical theology. — Wayfarer
we misrecognize that our scientific models & philosophical concepts work because we "fine-tune" them to anthropocentricize life, earth & the universe — 180 Proof
But here's what we know: there is a universe. — tim wood
It seems to me that order would just be the opposite side of the coin of chaos and doesn't exist on an absolute level. Order and chaos would be mental categories dependent upon the existence of the other, like hot and cold, small and big, etc.. It seems that the universe is simply eternal, not chaotic or orderly as those would be anthropomorphic projections based on our current view or understanding of the eternal.chaos is a relative and pragmatic term only. it doesnt exist on an absolute level.
"randomness is just a pattern to big to see" -unknown
there is no choas, only order, and it must necessarily be eternal. because something cannot come from nothing. sure we see entropy but we also see emergence, so its just an eternal ying yang going around in circles. perfection.
an eternally looping pandeism of sorts — OmniscientNihilist
"Universe" is to say all is one. "Multiverse" is to say all is a multiplicity. The two are incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's why there's a gap between quantum principles and general relativity ... — Metaphysician Undercover
"But here's what we know: there is a universe."
— tim wood
This is doubtful, and that's what multiverse speculation makes evident. — Metaphysician Undercover
fine tuning — Wayfarer
π was created and fine-tuned so we can have circles?
This is doubtful, and that's what multiverse speculation makes evident. "Universe" is to say all is one. — Metaphysician Undercover
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