How does it work up there concerning exam questions? Who creates the questions? If I have created some nice physics questions, could I show them to authorities? Just curious.

I felt into the same trap!

Not one: :up:
Not two: :up: :up:
But:
:up: :up: :up:

Maybe a bore for debate, but that's the way it is! Indeed, so many better things to spend time on. Computers are great, needless to say, but AI is AS, artificial stupidity.

"The Atheist Experience" Hellijuah!

Because I like beauty? Don't you like female beauty? :starstruck:

If this doesn't settle the matter, then we have to consider Bartricks' case a lost case. :up:

Yes. A first physical cause is logically necessary. This first cause, leading to the emergence of thermodynamic time, can't be itself a part of the irreversible chain of cause and effect. This non-thermodynamic primordial time-symmetric causal mechanism itself can be immersed in a wider context of thermodynamic principles, signaling when time can be kick-started.

It is often thought that where existence is concerned, the options are that some things have always existed and that from these other things were made, or alternatively (and incoherently) that everything that exists has been created by something else. I am pointing out that there is another option: some things have created themselves. — Bartricks

So you offer a third option. A zebra can appear in your room. Now what?

In a practical exemple that we use in health topics for instance is that if you have cancer, all that you wish is to find something that has power to cure cancer. No matter if such power will come from gods, science, magic or some mysterious source. What really matter after all is the "power" to cure cancer. — Individualist Possibilist

There was a debate about an actress refusing established medical treatment of cancer. Sylvia Millecam.

The books of Wilhelm Reich, inventor of the orgone accumulator in the fight against cancer, were all burnt in New York, in the nineteen fifties.

Beware of the Watchtower material @universeness is offering. He tries to pray on everyone and converse everyone to atheism. His tactics are suspicious... Be warned!

Nice try, but still, without the gods would be meaningless for me. All interesting things in live, like physics (which is nothing but investigating the matter they created), art (painting, photography, the labor with the treetrunks, writing, math, etc.), woman (eventhough I have one big love), sports, every form of culture, etc., yes, life itself, would be without meaning or reason. I know the gods because I know the world we live in, and the creatures in it. Even an anarchist can be religious! I think Sagan being talked about here makes you see more, indeed.

Concerning sweet sixteen, when still in town, I lived next to a girl school. Girls between 13 and 18, maybe. Some real cute ones between them. One of them wrote her name on the front door to make an appointment. It was obvious what she wanted... I invited her up and we had a nice time, without actually doing the deed. I couldn't imagine doing as I was grown up and she wasn't. But I liked her beauty! I know what Krauss would have done... (will he find out I write this, when about 20 people, in the whole world, are logged in on this forum). So why would they throw me out of the group? What's wrong with liking the beauty of a sweet sixteen?

Yes indeed. Florinda Donner wrote a great story about one particular small group of people in the rainforest. She seemed to have become one of them. She saw a member killing a baby with a stick. The baby was kept with the face down until the stick was pushed against it's back and made it crack. She didn't like it but the members had no problem doing it. They would be punished if they did that here, in the western world, which nowadays is the whole world.

I'm curious if Agustin thinks the world he describes is real, i.e., religion referring to real gods.

Agustin Fuentes seems nice:

"A wide-ranging argument by a renowned anthropologist that the capacity to believe is what makes us human   Why are so many humans religious? Why do we daydream, imagine, and hope?"

The capacity is human indeed. Does he think that that's an indication for the reality of gods? And our praying to them? Or is it seen as a resort to something when being unable to actually improve oneself?

Haha! Great cartoon! :up:

What I often wonder is how anthropologist consider the stuff they consider in their study. Do they consider the worlds the cultural members live in as real worlds, or merely as study objects? Interesting stuff, but out of touch with reality? I remember reading Florinda Donner's story and was disappointed when reading she made it up. But at the same time she showed how it should be.

"Ah! A woman philosophizing!" So I thought when looking at the video. She just introduced the actual philosopher... :sad:

It's strange, mr. Universe. I have seen Carl Sagan pop up many times this week. I heard him mentioned in "The Big Bang Theory", in a breakfast show last week, in another program, and just saw him again! Weird!

Yes, that's true. We all have to I guess. I'm happy with the body and skin that I am. What more can we say?

↪Agent Smith ↪Haglund
I get it, most of you have invested in specific metaphysical ideologies and people who mesh with your echo chamber are recognized as a treat so you feel then need to derail the conversation in an "unchallenging" state. — Nickolasgaspar

Okay, being a good scientist, let's analyze this precious piece of language..

"I get it"

That's the question. Do you really get it? A tough one! What is there to get in the first place? The thread is about universal fine-tuning. But the "I get it" uttered here seems to refer to the next part of the sentence. So what is thought to be gotten? For that, let's continue our journey in "fun to analyze!!"

"most of you have invested in specific metaphysical ideologies"

Is actual research done for this conjecture? How many is most? What are "specific metaphysical ideologies"? Too vague to be of any scientific interest. We might conclude this part of the sentence is uttered as a rhetorical device by subject Nickolasgaspar. Let's continue!

"and people who mesh with your echo chamber"

This expression seems to conjecture there are people meshing with our echo chamber. Does subject N. compare our brains here with an echo chamber? Meaning that echoes of meshing around are heard? Does subject N. refer to brain surgery maybe? Is brainwashing involved? What is meant? Does he maybe mean we heard things or read stuff? If the last is the case than the expression seems to have objective and justified truth value. On we go!

"are recognized as a treat"

People who are "recognized as a treat". We can only fantasize what is meant here. As fantasizing has no place in rigid scientific discovery I will refrain. But, no worries.

"so you feel then need to derail the conversation"

It's unclear from the grammar or syntax, to which previous part of the sentence is referred here. To the specific metaphysical ideologies adopted, to the echo chamber meshing or to the treat part. And is this actual following? Do most feel the need to derail in the first place? If so, what is there to derail? Too much unclear and unfounded conjecture without any empirical content. Again we conclude nothing else that rhetorics are uttered. And then, a conversation is named. But is that what's going on here? Mmmm....On to the final analysis...

"in an "unchallenging" state"

This expression seems to me indicate that the conversation has become an unchallenging one on the basis of a previous conjecture for which there is no actual proof. Subject S. seems to indicate to be unchallenged. That might be the case.

So far, the analysis. Seeya next time!

The same problem applies between objects and living things: where is the point of discontinuity — Angelo Cannata

I think the shifts develop slow and continuous. From shapeless oneness of matter and mind, to the divide between the physical and the mind with bodies in between.

humans need their lives to have meaning in a cosmic scale
— Nickolasgaspar

Maybe some, not me! I've had my share of grandiose delusions! — Agent Smith

:up:

Before going to sleep logged in again shortly to give you the thump! :up:

Point missed. I put the ball in front of the goal so that you can get a point, but what do you do? You try and eat it — Bartricks

I'm hungry for balls. If it lays eternally on a cushion, it's not safe with me around. And when I've eaten it, I cause myself laying eternally on it. So I self cause depression eternally and coherently. What more does one want?

For instance, it is possible there's a zebra in my sitting room. The idea is a coherent one. Have I just asserted that there is a zebra in my sitting room? No. — Bartricks

This actually can happen. A zebra can be appearing from the vacuum. In quantum mechanics there is a chance that this happens. So if you wait long enough you can be stuck with a whole zoo! Lucky you!

You absolutely couldn't. — Bartricks

That's because I thought you meant litterary creation. An egg being pulled out of the hat.

Interesting, and it's no doubt what happens in the progress of knowledge. But knowledge needs a reference frame, a perspective, or a filter, to construct the empirical world with. The knowledge of these is not part of empirical knowledge. Without this a priori knowledge you wouldn't even be able to start the gathering.

Ah, the concept is coherent. Yes, I could have told you that from the start.

So the universe has created itself?

Unfortunately yes. — Nickolasgaspar

What's your proof then?

ALL our knowledge is empirical. — Nickolasgaspar

That simply is a conjecture. Do you have proof?

What went wrong? The emergence of mankind?

I was going to make a comment similar to Mww's. Laws don't "make everything happen," they describe how things happen. — T Clark

If the law described a force, is it the force that makes it all happening? And, what cause would the mechanism of force have. Are you determined by the forces between your parts? The forces between the elementary particles you are made of, or do you determine the forces between them? Are you just a puppet dragged along by forces, like a clockwork orange?

Indeed, given the nature of the universe it seems quite unreasonable to me to think that God had anything to do with its creation. — Bartricks

Excuse me?

"Playing With Elementary Functional Integrals & Contours + Imagery"...

Nice toys you play with. Of course, the first thing I tried was to establish a contact with the functionals in QFT. I love the visuals. Especially on page 4 and 10 (which show a strange Moiré kind of structure because of the close lines). There seems to be a connection with virtual particles (interaction!). For example, free Dirac fields couple to the virtual photon field and a virtual photon is represented by a bubble diagram, a closed circle contour in complex 2d x,t or p,t, or even the combined phasespace approach. So you can imagine your integration of in function space is relevant somehow. If each point in spacetime is connected with an operator valued distribution. The operator just excites various free particle states which almost continuously change (because the interactions with the virtual gauge particles, say virtual photons) into free particles with different p's and x's. I got it uploaded! Gnight, oldi boulderer! :yawn:

Oh yes. The fun with the Cyrillic(?) text is to follow without Cyrillic.

As I said, fiction. But regardless of whether it's fiction or not, your explanation is very clearly inconsistent with your referenced article. The article explicitly says "but only after an infinite time". Therefore the article's explanation of "critical density" implies no end of time, yet your explanation states "at the end of time". A very clear contradiction in the two fictions, yet you give yours the same name, "critical density", as the other — Metaphysician Undercover

Good one! :up:

Another instance was my attempt to find out what measure was appropriate for Feynman's path integral. — jgill

Bedtime reading, for if you can't sleep. :yawn:

The "big" theories are presented, in general, with much more rigor than they actually posses. It's a PR trick. QFT is not defined mathematically rigorously and a lot of axioms surround it, assuming things to be true.

"Axiomatic quantum field theory is a mathematical discipline which aims to describe quantum field theory in terms of rigorous axioms. It is strongly associated with functional analysis and operator algebras, but has also been studied in recent years from a more geometric and functorial perspective."k

Rigorous axioms... Can you see the contradiction? Can an axiom be rigorous?

Dirac called renormalization a "stopgap procedure" while Feynman had similar complaints. And let's be honnest (for a change...), isn't doctoring up an infinity to become finite quite... eeeh... stopgappy? Personally I think it's the assumption of point particles spoiling it all. I once proposed this on stack exchange but the question was deleted... there you go!

Is my will determined by determined physical processes in the first place? Yes. The will is a completely determined process. The particles making you up, while you move through the physical world around you are completely determined, no matter what imprecise and loose holonomic constraints are applying. We are all like rolling balls on a rough chaotic plane, with internal monitoring facilities guiding the balls in their rolling-alongs. Free will is determined, as it should be. It's the only substrate for free will to exist. Any probabilistic substrate is doomed.

the fate of the Universe is to become nothing". Not to become nothing, but not to exist. Nothing does not exist. If one searches for nothing, what will be found--nothing. Do not search for non-existents: time, nothing, infinity. — val p miranda

Precisely. The fate is to dilute towards the equilibrium energy state, which is the trigger for the next couple of universes to come into real being, from the virtual eternity.

Let's hope future transhumans will be intelligent enough not to wish to cause suffering of any kind to any living creature or any flora or planetary system. — universeness

And that is not certain. You may hope so, but if they become conscious who says they wont destroy their makers and beat the Earth into submission? Kill nature, which they wont need to exist. Turn the Earth into a transnatural horror fantasy? With only flat metal plains, pylons of power, energy plants, and automated factories drilling the Earth and draining her resources? Fearty?