Why can't many (objective) realities or many gods co-exist? — EugeneW

Possibly, they do. Unless you're gonna go Thanos and find the real Dr. Strange among thousands of magic clones!

What historical elements is your hypothesis based on? — Angelo Cannata

It's not, as you suppose, a hypothesis. It's a mathematical pattern: from many to one to...zilch/nada/zip/sifr/zero/cipher!

Our friendly conversation together is part of that head. We (with our individual brains) are like neurons linked together in by English into a larger and better 'abstract' brain without a definite location, something that can correct out the malfunctions and distribute the innovations of any particular mortal brain. — lll

:ok: Nice! So, the human hive mind (network) is based on language! Didn't see that (coming)! It seems we had an www/internet long before what's-his-name invented the global network of computers using binary language.

Why is ONE god preferrable to MANY gods? Is it easier to prove one god than many? If it is, I don't see it. How? Why?

Is it that, as @Angelo Cannata thinks, the world ain't big enough for the two of us kinda thing? They must've done themselves in. Why, that cunning fox! :smile:

I gotta get to bed soon! — lll

G'nite!

Does it help if I tell you I have a nice big quad HD monitor and not a smartphone, and I used that instead? — lll

No, not really. Forget I ever mentioned it.

Wires crossed I'm afraid!

Not anything unexpected. — lll

:chin:

Swipe your fingers on the screen of your smartphone. Notice anything interesting/weird?

I also think that we've all got Caligula inside, but only a few of us know it ? — lll

What about Incitatus?

That's an opinion. What isn't, oui?

You get an F! :smile:

May be I wasn't clear enough. Oh well! Your answer is, I'm certain, a notch above the rest.

Interesting analogy. I hope you're not and, simultaneously, hoping you are, implying an egregore, because I really can't see our squid's head, just the tentacles with suckers that mean business if you catch my drift.

We're all alike (that's what keeps us together) and yet we're not (that's what gives us our individuality). Now you see it, now you don't.

You've identified one of the items that unify humanity (reason); homo sapiens (koff, koff). What makes me me and you you? Our own unique brand of unreason/irrationality? Classifed?

Well, a really terrible but cheap model is to have the program say 'yes' for collapse if the input is greater than 2000 pounds and no otherwise. (It's terrible because the 2000 pounds was randomly picked.) — lll

Differential equations will offer more interest and fun. You can solve them numerically, watch a virtual cup of coffee cool. — lll

:lol:

So, a real bridge is following instructions like in a video game?

@Wayfarer Isn't that interesting, I never thought of it that way. Not only does it seem natural to infer a sentient law-giver, the things that follow laws might need to be intelligent as well. :chin: Panpsychism & Theism rolled into one!

Differential equations, @lll, are they part of load & stress equations in re bridges? Can you explain them to me, please? Simplify them, if you can or want to.

If you want them to, yes. I toyed around the Unity game engine briefly. It's got an impressive 'physics engine.' — lll

What does it have to be that way? How does the bridge know "that's the last straw, I'm collapsing"? :smile:

Monotheism was born because one God prevailed over the other Gods because of cultural and historical processes that happened over time. — Angelo Cannata

Where does it say that?

With a bat, it seems hopeless. With geniuses, I think we slowly 'become' or assimilate part of them as we keep reading and thinking and writing. They fade in. But it's always a fusion. — lll

Like the thing in The Thing!

Assuming the uniformity of nature, the bridge would collapse because our 'video game version' of it was wrong (wrong enough), and we made a decision that trusted the model when we shouldn't have (too heavy of a truck, tardy replacement or maintenance.) (I'm mostly a stats/computer guy who knows the math better than the applications, so maybe others can say more and say better.) — lll

Do video game bridges collapse under extreme/excess weight like real bridges do?

if x and y are isometric against some measurable values — Wayfarer

What does that mean?

In reason,, reasoning, attempts to reason, we're family, united. In what are we distinct, unqiue, one-of-a-kind thing? When do I become me and when do you become you such that $I \neq You$?

Individuality, community, reason as the glue that unites us.

Laplace, where is God in all this? — Napoleon

I have need of only God's reflection general — Laplace

There's something tricky about talking about either genius or stupidity from the outside. — lll

Indeed! One has to be bat to answer the question "what is it like to be a bat?" Logic/reason is useless? Give me an opaque box and ask me "what does this box contain?" How do I approach this problem? A beetle of course! What is a beetle, outside/inside a box?

Nevertheless...

target practice or as scratching posts. — lll

I think I'm a bat. How did Zhuangzhi become a butterfly?

Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. — Zhuangzhi

@Wayfarer

That causation has no deductive basis and given that most "laws" of nature are causal in nature, suggests an absence of an intelligence (god), a designer for the universe.

Perhaps it's just that we're stupider than we think we are and simply don't possess the processing power to suss this out.

So many possibilities...shouldn't we just take the world as it appears to us instead of racking our brains trying to figure out the (real)truth, assuming there is one as of yet under the veil of Isis?

Indeed, causation is, as Hume discovered, not deductively necessary (re the problem of induction). The best we can do is describe patterns in nature, one such kind being causality where we tell ourselves that the cause brings about the effect provided the correlation is strong and consistent across spacetime.

If causation has no deductive basis, all bets are off: there's no way we could predict the future, today a ball may bounce off the ground and tomorrow it might stick to it. If so, what about the law of karma? Buddha did emphasize anicca (the problem of induction). The world is going to be full of surprises then, oui? Today you might hurl invectives at someone and get beaten black and blue for it and the next day, doing the same thing, you might end up with a marriage proposal.

Basically, anicca (impermanence) is a warning, it alerts us to chaos (an ever changing set of rules/laws or, god forbid, cosmic anarchy).

Unfortunately, without some kinda pattern (laws/rules/principles), the world becomes incomprehensible and that's what Zen koans must be designed to evoke in the unsuspecting practitioner: utter perplexity and anxiety (can one hand clapping make a sound? It just might, panta rhei)

Coming to the notion of agency as relates to laws/rules, it seems to be an argument from incredulity. We can't imagine laws sans legislators; ergo, one erroneously concluded, every law (of nature) must have an intelligent being as its source.

Either an infinite number of events has occurred or there's a first cause.

An infinite number of events hasn't occured (proof?)

Ergo,

There's a first cause

Universal principles, self-reference (you just killed yourself), infinity, all areas we're not good or we know very little about come together in this problem. It's as if all our enemies decided to team up against us.

Free will, it appears, exists in that we can consider all possible options in our minds. I can even mentally simulate every possible pathway from a given choice node, make a virtual choice and use my knowledge and experience to get an idea of what all possible options will look like.

Actually making the choice, however, may be determined.

Makes you wonder, what is the evolutionary relationship between feeding and part/whole conception? — Enrique

Food for thought:

The body feeds on food.
The mind feeds on ideas.

As we ascend Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we're chewing all the way, but on different kinds of things (first burgers, chicken nuggets, caviar for the affluent; second ideas; third, ?)

such revolutionary offspring were all surnamed 'Wild' — unenlightened

:lol:

Surnames, biased patriarchally, are unfair to women. It's as if their contributions to the familiy and its achievements don't matter or are relatively insignificant. The fairer sex would complain if it were not the case that it's a double-edged sword; who, man/woman, would want their name to be associated with the black sheep of their stock?

Right - which is why the description 'scientific law' is treated with suspicion. It sounds anthropomorphic to some. — Wayfarer

Reminds me of hunting game. We don't block all escape routes for the prey, we leave one open. Of course it leads to a trap but you get the idea. What's the alternative to anthropomorphism? Do only humans make laws?

I can think whatever the hell I want. That's freedom, oui?

Suppose determinism is true. Even in this case, I can ponder upon all options available and even simulate (in my mind) making any choice whatsoever; you know, if I do this, then that, then that, and so on. Determinism will mean the actual choice you make is not yours, that's all. However, being able to contemplate all pathways when you reach a choice node is freedom (of will) in thinking (at least).

Hey I agree.

The objections to the idea of laws is that the word implies a power that makes something happen, whereas in natural law, there's no such observable power. See Nancy Cartwright's No God No Laws. — Wayfarer

Men make laws; look around you, this law, that law, we seem to be completely immersed in it from womb to tomb and sometimes beyond the grave. Perhaps it's this plain fact of life that makes us think (erroneously?) that where there are laws, there must be a legislator, someone who frames these laws. In theism, this someone is god.

Buddha stands out from the rest in this regard. Being averse to metaphysical speculation, an inevitability, he kept mum (noble silence). He must've thought it best to stick to demonstrable truths like karma and anicca as far as possible and minimize the metaphysical elements of his philosophy, Buddhism.

It's in the thinking that we achieve freedom. — L'éléphant

:fire:

:ok: How true. It just dawned on me that you're unequivocally right, no strings attached. We can actually think anything, absolutely anything at all. Even consider the situation when we don't possess free will - we can mull over all the options in our head, even conduct simulations as best as we can with all options on the table. Making a choice is a different matter (we maybe constrained), thinking about all possible choices is a different story (we're free as a bird).

Gorgias started it, Rasmussen will end it.

But still. Time can't be stopped and space can't be cut. How can spacetime intervals exist? — EugeneW

Time can't be stopped, yup. Time, in physics, is defined with clocks in mind. Smash all the clocks, stop playing the drums, digitalize your heart and let it go thump-thumpity-thump-thump, and Chronos will die (a noble death).

Space can't be cut, true. We can bend it though, when you bend too much, you undergo mitosis.

I'm trying something. :smile:

Heads you win, tails I lose? :chin:

I don't understand something. Why is lineage an either/or deal? Too, it seems that most people don't really care which it is - patriarchy/matriarchy - they choose the side that's greener in a manner of speaking. Typical human behavior if you ask me.

Are you familiar with Wittgenstein’s argument Re: colour? — GLEN willows

No, what's that?

We all have to start somewhere, we then (try to) move forward, and we (apparently) do. Then, in the life of every philosopher, comes the time when you get stuck or find yourself in a cul-de-sac. You want to go forward of course, it isn't possible however. So, you do what most of (would) do, make a U-turn and head back towards where you started. Along the way, you see a side-road. You have a choice now. What do you do? Perhaps the dead end you returned from was the truth, the destination, the end point of your logical journey.

Wanna see something really crazy?

A good cyclist does not need a high road. — Sherlock Holmes

naturalism — Gregory A

Naturalism is not an escape pod for atheism. Newton, when he established the foundations of science, said something to the effect that only God could've been the one behind the laws of nature of which a handful he enumerated.

There's no arguing with theists. The laws that miracles violate and the miracles themselves, as per theists, are God's work. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Heads I win, tails you lose kinda deal!

:zip:

If family resemblance (re heredity) is a fact, a philosopher's gotta look like Socrates (the father of Western philosophy) which is to say a philosopher has some Greek blood in him/her (Socrates was Greek, oui?), s/he's aesthetically challenged (have you seen Socrates' herm?), and should be annoying as hell (Athenian gadfly)!

Well, it seems rather natural to respond in kind, oui? It feels right so to speak to scream/hit back when screamed at/struck. That's what usually happens when people interact with each other, it's (kinda sorta) a (social) law and people, for better or worse, follow it (unknowingly or not).

That's karmic law, and, in my humble opinion, it seems to be as law-like as any physical law that scientists have discovered and described (mathematically or not).

As to the question of intentionality, we seem capable of controlling our actions, if not completely at least partially, and that counts, a lot, when it comes to deciding and executing deeds in the moral dimension In short we can break the law of karma, as Jesus, the paragon of goodness in Christianity had done. The thought of crucifying those who crucified him never even crossed his mind; instead, he broke karma, and turned the other cheek. How many cheeks did Jesus have? :smile: He must've surely run out of them via dolorosa.

Anyway, why do you question what a law is? A law is a description of the behavior of objects, people are objects to, so are mind, the behavior being consistent across time and space.