Randomness plays an essential role — lll

Unless the dino-exterminator asteroid was a planned event. We could find out, you know. What did the dinsoaurs do for the 200 millions years they flourished that homoformed (make suitable for homo sapiens) the planet? Sabrá Mandrake!

Rasmussen's paradox in a nutshell.

1. Everything that exists must have an explanation based on something else.

2. The totality of reality has no explanation (there is no something else).

Ergo,

3. Nothing exists

Another version of it would go

1. If it exists, it has an explanation

2. Reality has no explanation

Ergo,

3. Nothing exists

Yep, can't argue with that!


Unless you buy into the argument based on

1. Explanations being based on things simpler than that which they explain.

2. The simplest, therefore, needs no explanation

The totality of reality began as the simplest conceivable object (the Big Bang singularity). Looks like physicists are on a wild goose chase, there is no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.

Options:

1. Reality needs no explanation (I opted for this)

2. Reality explains itself (Someone might want to work on this)

Sophistry = No substance + rhetoric (Marilyn Monroe dead)

Philosophy = Substance + rhetoric (Marilyn Monroe alive)

?

Sophists offer us beautiful dead women as if we're necrophiliacs, philosophers offer us beautiful alive women who we can have a decent relationship with.

Belief in god could be both viewed as private or public (later about this) -- private like pain, as you said. In which case, nothing else is required except for the self-reported sensation of divination or other holy experience. But if we consider it as a public knowledge, such as what lll touched on -- since belief in god had led to some grave consequences such as persecution, then should it be held at a higher standard than other private sensation such as dreams and pains? Should we require proof of god? — L'éléphant

What I wanted to say but didn't now becomes relevant. A person has a religious experience and tells himself he had a one-to-one with God. The religious experience itself can't be denied, it is true and there's no need for proof.

We have to prove that some things need no proof. The reality of a sensation/experience doesn't need an argument, it needs no justification. How do we do that? Looks like the JTB theory of knowledge needs an overhaul. I have no idea how to do that.

Anyway, what I want to get across has to do with the beetle-in-the-box analogy. Is my religious experience (a private affair) the same as or identical to yours?

And here the issue of belief in god becomes muddled when organized religions are involved. And to me, this is when the practice of religion is more at issue here than belief in god.

Nonetheless, I gave an example of the big bang, which is comparable to the existence of god in magnitude? Or not. But I guess I'm trying to find a comparison big enough to make it balanced. — L'éléphant

Organized religion makes no sense in Wittgenstein's philosophy if god is a religious experience (private). There may be 2 billion Christians on earth but each one of them could be using "Yahweh" to mean totally different things.

Please excuse any remarks you feel are tangential to the main point.

Aristotle list the four general causes — apokrisis

Formal cause: The blueprint/design
Material cause: The stuff that the craftsman works with
Efficient cause: The craftsman (God)
Final cause: The purpose (God's intentions. The meaning of life).

The fine-tuning argument attempts to explain the universe as the perfect environment for humans i.e. the universe has been designed with us in mind.

Ok, here we are. What are we supposed to do now? What is the meaning of life? An unanswered subquestion of the final cause.

We know the purpose (the final cause) of the universe: A home for humans.

We do not know our own purpose (final cause): What is the meaning of life?

Looks like all we did was kick the can down the road.

And the ending of my intro is that, we do accept certain things without proof. But belief in god seems to have not benefited from this leniency. — L'éléphant

Great! I'm now fascinated by where you're going with this.

1. What if god is a sensation, like pain is? God's relationship with suffering is well-documented (heaven/hell) (vide religious experience)

2. Is "I am in pain" = "God exists"? The former is private but the latter is not. My pain vs. Our God. Both are propositions in their own right.

3. Wittgenstein means to convey that experience itself can't be doubted (to be false), but he makes it a point to clarify that it remains possible that we could be talking past each other (beetle-in-the-box).

Please see above. I am agreeing with W as far as being content with our self-reporting habit of pain -- no proof required except our own account of it. — L'éléphant

Are you changing your tune or is it that I misunderstood you? That was quick.

Anyway, as far as I can tell this: One can't deny what one is experiencing in the immediate sense. If I'm going through pain, yes I am. That's about it.

The fine-tuning argument is, as the name itself suggests, entirely predicated on the precision in the values of certain physical constants if the universe is to be the way it is, if life is to evolve the way it did.

However, mammalian evolution, therefore our own (human) existence, was made possible by a fluke (an asteroid as per consensus that caused the extinction of the dinos). In other words humanity or intelligence, both essential components of the fine-tuning argument for god, were simply contingent and not necessary.

Furthermore, as Carl Sagan once put it, if you rewind the clock of evolution and let it run again, there's no guarantee that humans & intelligence would evolve. Something totally different could happen.

The long and short of it: fine-tuning doesn't mean humans would come into existence. So much for the special relationship (we think) we have with god. Anthropic principle into the trash can.

Yes. And I don't disagree with W. — L'éléphant

Well, yeah, Wittgenstein seems to be/is using experience (can't find a better/right term), pain to be precise, in the same ways as Descartes uses thinking (cogito ergo sum). Both become the foundation of knowledge i.e. they can be employed to exorcize philosophy of skepticism.

The grammar of sensation and pain is a bit special. In general, we do not question or doubt such statements. — lll

:up:

Wittgenstein said (paraphrasing) "When you're in pain, you know you're in pain; you don't justify/require proof that you are in pain."

The way I understood his statement: Some things are not proven, they're experienced directly.

Even so, take a look at the following argument.

Imagine you prick your finger with a needle.

1. This sensation in my finger is called pain.
Ergo,
2. I'm experiencing pain.

Tough call.

Desideratum: Real Pleasure

Reality: Real, pleasure sold separately

Pleasure/Experience machine: Unreal, pleasure maxed out.

We can have both (in Jannat).

Am I on the right track?

Romance scams. When men do it, that's men being men. When women do it, ouch! :grimace:

There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us. — Franz Kafka

:up:

Infinity = everything. — 180 Proof

Yeah, I guess so. That's the prevailing wisdom. Infinity is an asymptote: we can get close to it, never reach it (King Tantalus).

Epicurus, how could I have forgotten you? Curses! :smile:

God doesn't exist. Even if he exists, he can't help us or he is bad/indifferent or he's in the dark about our agony. It's a bright day, eh? Picnic?

1. Nothing exists.
2. Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.
3. Even if something can be known, it cannot be communicated.
4. Even if it can be communicated, it cannot be understood. — Gorgias

Nothing = Infinity

Is randomness a reason (re: the principle of sufficient reason aka PSR)?

If mama giant made them eat, it's proof of an unfree will. Poor babies! — EugeneW

:ok:

There is always a choice, yes?

The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer. — George Santayana

Pushes power button on my PC. Enters password. Sees message: Please wait...

Whistles...any moment now...

Mulgere hircum! Non sono mica Mandrake!

Some! Proof of free will?

Ik ben de penis van God voor wie er geen regels zijn.
— lll

De penis van God ejaculeert het heilig ejaculaat aan de bron van het universum, het heilig Erect. Het Heilig Erect is eeuwig. Het Heilig Ejaculaat periodiek. Wij zijn spermatozoen in het Heilig Ejaculaat — EugeneW

Speaking in tongues (glossolalia). Looks like you're about to shut down your brain's language center or maybe you're hyperclocking? :up: Do keep us posted about your journey!

Aut consilio aut ense (Either by meeting or by sword/war). Thank god! Meeting (negotiations) is the first option. That must count for something, oui? Upon seeing an armed soldier assuming a shoot to kill stance, we have to remind ourselves, poor brute, he has no choice! Nobody resorts to violence unless backed into a corner: neca ne neceris (kill lest you be killed). Are some of us overreacting?

It's CONVINCING enough for you, but philosophically it's not proof. Proof on the philosophical level is universal. If it's proof for you, then it's not proof for everyone. Therefore it's not universal. Therefore it's not philosophical. So I would humbly like to ask you to not use the word proof when in conversation about philosophy unless you mean a philosophical proof. Thanks. — god must be atheist

:up: God, does He exist for everybody or for only a select few (the chosen ones)? There's nothing impossible or inconsistent about that, right?

Proving God doesn't exist is quite easy. Consider God a (scientific) hypothesis, it'll entail certain observables. Forgive me Laplace!

A simple disproof of god follows:

1. If God exists then there should be no evil.
2. There is evil.
Ergo,
3. God doesn't exist [1, 2 MT]

(My thanks go out to @180 Proof)

Read my fucking lips — god must be atheist

:chin:

You lost me. — 180 Proof

I got there first! :grin:

Time never Begins!

Yep. Why? Refer to Zeno's paradox(es): Achilles, forget about catching up with the tortoise, couldn't even start (running [clock])! Time (is an illusion)? :chin:

Only cataphatic metaphysics; my speculative concerns moveq on from there to ↪180 Proof. — 180 Proof

I see! I didn't realize we had a choice (in the matter). Only put stock in that which can be affirmed! There's something inherently sick about denial (of reality). Transcendence is the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Are we so pathetically weak? We are dissatisfied (dukkha).

You need gods just like everyone else 180booze... Just to deny them... — EugeneW

:chin: No, no, he has a point!

Immantentists (like me) have no use for "somethingism". — 180 Proof

WYSIWYG? So, to you metaphysics is flights of fancy, fantasizing? Looking for the ideal partner is like vowing to be a lifelong bachelor/spinster?

I'll need time to process all that. I'll get back to you (when I can).

$0 = (+x) + (-x)$

Nothing = Something + The Anti-Something

Nothing isn't really nothing. So, if you encounter something, don't think that's not nothing. It's still a bit hazy for me.

Atheism preceeded the Bible by millennia and every religion that rejects worship all deities entails atheism with respect to those unworshipped deities. — 180 Proof

:up: I'm sure you know what Ietsisism/Somethingism/x-ism is, the vague intuition that there's more (to reality) than meets the eye. To me ietsism is proto-religion, and for the past 5k years, god(s) have been placeholders or assumed values of x in x-ism. What lies ahead is anyone's guess.

Try to imagine that the subject is an invention/convention so ancient that we mistake it as the single most obvious fact. 'The soul is the prison of the body.' — lll

:ok: I have a vague understanding of what you're trying to get at. It's an interesting perspective. Taoist. Toooo Taoist? I dunno!

roaches — lll

Bah! Humans! — Roaches

Have I understood you correctly if I say that if an object is sitting motionless it can mean two things:

1. No force is acting on the object
2. Two opposing forces (+x and -x) are acting on it.

?

Why are you so sure there's a you in there in the first place?

We've been brought up to behave as if there's a little self in here who pinks at a little screen and tweaks various knobs to make the body go boom boom. Unscrew the doors from their jambs, friend. Or shall I say friends, acknowledging that your skull may be haunted by a plurality of flu officers? Or are we both just ripples in the same semantic symbolic dance? (Have we plumbed the depths of what it mines to share a lung-wedge?)

'Unscrew the locks from the doors ! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs ! (Wilt Whetman.) — lll

That went over my head. Anyway...

You're correct to point out that the this idea of self we have maybe an illusion, but a distinction that seems relevant is this: Is our self an assumption or an inference? Does it matter which it is? Cogito ergo sum (Decartes).

It all depends I suppose on the definition of "self" or "I".

penisolated ego gets it backwards. — lll

:up: :clap:

Our tongue tools are our greatest inheritance — lll

Yep, language is part of tbe so-called cognitive revolution. Even so, evolutionary success is not predicated on language; in fact shooting oneself in the foot seems to be the defining feature of those who can speak/write viz. garrulous apes (h. sapiens). We've understood the world, yes, but its destruction, our own too, is the price we pay.

Breeds there the man...

'I love her and yet I don't love her.' — lll

The undercurrent!

To me both are impossible. In trying to imagine a square & no square I picture a square and then picture a circle, but they both cannot appear in the same instance and in the same mental space unless they overlap, but then aren't the same object. The same for quark/not quark. — Harry Hindu

Same here! Yet...there has to be someone or something that can do this (conceive of or, as you put it, hold a contradiction). There's gotta be someone, there usually is someone, that's the law (every rule has an exception). And if (supposing) I can do it, so can you; that's another law. I don't think all men are mortal! :grin:

That's just a flight of fancy. On a more serious note, this: We can't look directly at the sun, you know that! Retinal burn would render you blind. However, there are workarounds for that...

Is the notion of a just war tenable/defensible?

It depends...do we/should we permit killing in self defense?

I see now why rape (so called Korean, Chinese, etc. comfort women are still acting as if WW2 hasn't ended) is never forgiven. It isn't killing..or is it? :chin:

Okay. You're incorrigible on this point. We'll have to discuss something else. — 180 Proof

:blush: Sorry. G'day.

Doubt, like belief or disbelief, requires grounds. — 180 Proof

There are good reasons to doubt, metaphysical reasons (necessity and possibility): appearance vs. reality. Buddha (maya), Plato (the allegory of the cave), Descartes (deus deceptor), basically some strain of skepticism.

Nevertheless you make an excellent point! Like certainty, doubt too needs justification.

Self-explanatory: Self-explanatory
— Agent Smith

But what's the explanation? — EugeneW

Some things (should) explain themselves.

Read below for more...



I don't think a visit to the grocer is going to be complex enough to deserve that label. Complexity should be a function of not how many participants are involved, but of how many laws/principles/rules are at play. To illustrate, this (129.0387349573383219773 × 934883459281.93874236583) is not complex.

Anyway an explanation is such that they tend to be done in terms of constituents/parts when the target of the explanation is the whole: phenomena are explained with chemistry or physics, at an atomic level that is.

Axiomatic systems like mathematics typify the method of starting off with a few simple building blocks, establishing some ground rules, and then exploring the structures and networks we can construct therefrom.