The Philosopher will not find God
In an argument/research, the Philosopher will not find God. He is trying to untangle the cord but cannot find the beginning.
The concept of God is inherently unprovable and unverifiable. Philosophers have attempted to prove the existence of God using logical arguments, but these arguments ultimately have flaws and fall short. The pursuit of God is fundamentally different from scientific research. Science relies on observation and experimentation, while the pursuit of God is often based on subjective experience and personal conviction. This does not necessarily make the pursuit of God meaningless or futile, but it does mean that it is not subject to the same standards of evidence and proof as scientific inquiry.
In addition, the concept of God may be too complex for human beings to fully understand. As finite beings with limited cognitive capacity, we may not be able to comprehend the full scope and nature of God. This is a challenge that has been recognized by philosophers and religious scholars throughout history and in many religious traditions, the concept of God is viewed as transcendent and beyond human understanding. God is often portrayed as infinite, eternal, and all-knowing, while human beings are limited, finite, and fallible. This means that there may be aspects of God that are beyond our ability to comprehend or grasp.
There are many concepts in science and mathematics that are difficult or even impossible for humans to fully understand. For example, the concept of higher-dimensional space, like 5D, is difficult to visualize and comprehend, even for trained mathematicians and scientists. This suggests that there may be limits to our cognitive abilities and our ability to understand complex concepts, even within the realm of science.
Therefore, the pursuit of God is like trying to untangle an untraceable cord. Philosophers may spend their entire lives attempting to prove the existence of God, but they will never be able to provide conclusive evidence. Despite thousands of years of philosophizing, the number of philosophers that have been able to provide conclusive evidence for or against the existence of God is 0. The concept of God is too complex and too multifaceted to be reduced to a single logical argument or observation. Instead, the pursuit of God is a deeply personal and meaningful journey that is often based on faith and intuition rather than logic.
The concept of God is inherently unprovable and unverifiable. Philosophers have attempted to prove the existence of God using logical arguments, but these arguments ultimately have flaws and fall short. The pursuit of God is fundamentally different from scientific research. Science relies on observation and experimentation, while the pursuit of God is often based on subjective experience and personal conviction. This does not necessarily make the pursuit of God meaningless or futile, but it does mean that it is not subject to the same standards of evidence and proof as scientific inquiry.
In addition, the concept of God may be too complex for human beings to fully understand. As finite beings with limited cognitive capacity, we may not be able to comprehend the full scope and nature of God. This is a challenge that has been recognized by philosophers and religious scholars throughout history and in many religious traditions, the concept of God is viewed as transcendent and beyond human understanding. God is often portrayed as infinite, eternal, and all-knowing, while human beings are limited, finite, and fallible. This means that there may be aspects of God that are beyond our ability to comprehend or grasp.
There are many concepts in science and mathematics that are difficult or even impossible for humans to fully understand. For example, the concept of higher-dimensional space, like 5D, is difficult to visualize and comprehend, even for trained mathematicians and scientists. This suggests that there may be limits to our cognitive abilities and our ability to understand complex concepts, even within the realm of science.
Therefore, the pursuit of God is like trying to untangle an untraceable cord. Philosophers may spend their entire lives attempting to prove the existence of God, but they will never be able to provide conclusive evidence. Despite thousands of years of philosophizing, the number of philosophers that have been able to provide conclusive evidence for or against the existence of God is 0. The concept of God is too complex and too multifaceted to be reduced to a single logical argument or observation. Instead, the pursuit of God is a deeply personal and meaningful journey that is often based on faith and intuition rather than logic.
Comments (182)
Which "concept of God"?
There's more than one concept and countlessly more instantiations of those concepts.
Everything you've argued could also lead to 'so who cares?' I guess the next part of this is establishing what faith and intuition actually mean. There's pretty much no belief going that can't be held by faith and intuition, from alien abduction to Bigfoot.
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive, as Sound -
It beckons, and it baffles -
Philosophy, don't know -
And through a Riddle, at the last -
Sagacity, must go -
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
Blushes, if any see -
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a Vane, the way -
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul'
Emily Dickinson
It's always satisfying when poetry does philosophy well.
I can understand why someone wouldn't care. I wouldn't care myself except for all the people who hate religion and care very deeply. I don't include you in that group.
An even-handed and generally reasonable post. I agree with a lot, but not all, of it.
Makoto Fujimura on Emily Dickinson
I noticed all the lines separated by dashes in the poem I quote.
Quoting gevgala
'And through a riddle at the last-
Sagacity, must go'.
The OP did say "unprovable and unverifiable". Speaking for myself, I'm with you up until si comprhendis non est deus, then you're on your own mon ami.
Every material object has a cause. The cause is prior in time to the object. Therefore the cause of the first material object is not material. This immaterial cause is what is known as "God".
Thanks. Interesting article. I am generally suspicious of articles about poets, poetry, and poems. Writers like to pick them apart and turn them into something else, as if they knew what the poet was trying to do better than she did. This one didn't. It was insightful and respectful.
Some claim matter is neither created nor destroyed. How do you go about refuting this? For example: do you think caused and created are two different things?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Do you think the {cause ? effect} relationship always implies a temporal sequence? For example: Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If someone claims God is self-caused, how would you refute this refutation of {cause ? effect} is always temporal?
I would rather say that the existence of God is inherently unprovable and unverifiable, since concepts are abstract ideas, not objects, hypotheses or facts to undergo proof.
Quoting gevgala
Indeed, the existence of God --any god and as a commonly shared concept-- cannot be proved. "By definition", as we say.
Usually, for the persons who really believe in (a) God, i.e. they do not pretend to or superficially believe because of tradition and various religious elements in the society, have come to that belief from personal experience and/or conviction. God can only be experienced.
Quoting gevgala
Indeed. However, I don't think that humans really try to understand such concept. We cannot even imagine e.g. how an omnipotent being would look and act like. Imagination is at full play here.
So people have simplified that concept using subtraction or deduction. They get some abstract idea of an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient entity and they use it when they are talking about God. Then, they also compare it to things they consider very valuable, e.g. "God is Love", "God is Light", etc.
All these are enough for creating different "images" of God that produce pleasurable and in general positive feelings to people, giving them hope in life and so on.
In short, although the concept of God may be complex --we must never forget that it is ourselves who have created!-- for most people actually is something very simple, something that exists in their everyday life.
As for the pursuit of God that you are talking about, I have no much to say. I know it exists but I have no examples in mind.
Quoting gevgala
I don't have any one in mind. Do you?
I believe that most philosophers --and philosophy in general-- are not much concerned about God's existence or have a direct sense of God.
Translate ...
I know this is to someone else but it interests me to some extent.
I think causality is a provisional human understanding which seems to fit some matters. I don't think we know enough about reality or the universe to know that all things have causes or even what causality amounts to. I am not confident that we can look at our experience of our world and derive from this anything approaching a totalizing truth claim. At best, what we have are some testable, sometimes useful claims, but no overarching, demonstrable metanarrative. I think this gap or tension propels some of us into theism/mysticism/quantum woo or even radical politics, as the emotional need for universal narratives that can save humans and make sense of everything constantly overwhelms us.
Quoting ucarr
The problem with any claim like this - 'Leprechauns are self caused and are only seen by people who believe in them,' - are that seem to be more a jumble of words than statement about the world.
Is it not fairly dubious to claim self-creation for something which can't be demonstrated to be extant in the first place?
Create or destroy some matter.
I agree with you. Reality? Whew! It's one of the important reasons I go to bed every night. "I don't wanna be conscious right now." 'Course I have dreams whilst mind is vacationing. I must say, however, my nightmares are few and far between. Causality: Hitchcock made a fortune blowing fog over it.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yeah. It's at my throat more often than not. That's why I pay money to the sales-person. Happiness around the next bend for the price of a ticket is just exactly what I wanna hear.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes, sir! On it, sir!
Si ENIM comprehendis, non est deus. Roughly, "if you can comprehend it, it isn't God."
That was Augustine, of course. Never let comprehension get in his way.
:smirk:
Quoting Agent Smith
No doubt an inferior version of
[quote=Laozi][i]The Dao that can be spoken
is not the eternal Dao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.[/i][/quote]
All else is idolatry.
Thank you for your response. I would like to clarify my position. My intention of this post was not to challenge the faith of believers, but rather to explore the challenges that non-believers and philosophers face in trying to understand the concept of God. I agree that the pursuit of God operates by different standards than empirical science, and that there are domains of discourse and communities of faith where the pursuit of God is intelligible. However, it is also true that even the most devoted religious person may not fully understand God or the reasons why things happen. In fact, different religious leaders may offer different interpretations of tragic events based on their personal interpretations of scripture and religious teachings. For example, following the recent earthquake in Turkey/Syria, I have seen different Islamic preachers offer various explanations for the event. Some have interpreted it as a test of faith and resilience, while others have viewed it as a form of divine punishment or a reminder of the temporary nature of life. Still, others have simply emphasized the importance of trusting in God's plan and refraining from questioning His wisdom. While there may be different interpretations of tragic events like natural disasters, what remains constant is the importance of turning to God and striving to live a life that is guided by moral and spiritual values. The pursuit of God can provide individuals with a sense of purpose, meaning, and connection to something greater than themselves, even if it is not subject to the same standards of evidence and proof as empirical science. My main point is that we as human beings will never be able to fully understand God and my main message is to non-believers who choose not to believe in God because the concept of God does not make sense to them.
Mono / duo / poly theism?
Panentheism?
Pantheism?
Deism?
Panendeism?
Pandeism?
Acosmism?
Animism?
That might be true, but under the Aristotelian conceptual structure matter has no existence without form. Matter without form is an unintelligible and incoherent idea. So what some claim about matter, that "matter is neither created nor destroyed" is completely irrelevant, because when we talk about material objects we are talking about matter with form, and form is what is created and destroyed.
Quoting ucarr
Yes.
Quoting ucarr
I would say "God is self-caused" is incoherent because it would mean that God is prior to Himself in time, and that seems to be contradictory.
This is synonymous both with 'uncaused to exist' (i.e. eternal) and with 'self-organizing' (e.g. vacuum fluctuations, biological evolution).
Quoting 180 Proof
This is helpful. Thank-you.
This is interesting and insightful. I don't think I would ever think of it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Does form exist without substance (matter)? This would have to be the case if form is destroyed and matter not. However, if this is the case, then a given form, once destroyed, could never reappear at a later time. By this line of reasoning, destroy but one wheel and forevermore the wheel can never reappear. You don't believe this do you?
If form and substance are inseparable, when a material object is smashed up or vaporized, is there any more destruction of one or the other? Is it that, instead, form and substance are really just reconfigured endlessly?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Talk to just about any Christian and she will tell you God exists outside of time.
Talk to just about anyone and she'll tell you God, by definition, cannot have a creator other than God. So God, by some means, must be self-created.
Précisément! Hence, the OP's claim that the philosopher will not find God.
Si comprehendis non est deus.
Indeed, one must say then Sophia is seeking man and not the other way round. These kinda strangeness are all part and parcel of our journey which is, as you said, the destination. I should watch some movies.
One must be on the vagabond road freely thinking in order maybe to be found by Sophia rather than hold up warm and dry, well-fed and smug in some cozy destination (dogma) merely believing.
I don't understand why the brain is so god damn important. When a person goes into shock, as due to blood loss, the first organ to be shut off is the brain (we feel faint and eventually pass out), and blood is redirected to the cardiorespiratory system. Perhaps this too is a case exemplified by what you said earlier.
(see the article for further detail).
This is not to say that I myself understand what 'the One' or 'the uncreated' or any of the equivalent expressions from philosophy and religion really mean. I'm of the view that accounts of such an understanding rely (as I've said before) on the attainment of 'the unitive vision' (of which perhaps Spinoza's intellectual love of God is an example.) This in turn requires a kind of non-discursive grasp or insight into the nature of being which is very difficult to attain and rarely realised in practice.
That said, this kind of vision is not necessarily theistic in nature, for example, in Buddhist philosophy, there is no suggestion of 'divine union'. Although having said that, the convergences between Buddhist contemplation and Christian mysticism have been often documented by (for example) Thomas Merton and his successors (including the Zen Catholic movement.)
Many deep and difficult issues of interpretation here, of course.
It is at the simplest a confusion of faith with belief.
If you ask a fan of Ipswich town FC. which is the greatest football club, they will tell you it is Ipswich Town FC. If you ask them about the next game, they will tell you that Ipswich will win. And if you point out that Ipswich almost invariably loses and often come bottom of the league, they will be hurt, but not dismayed. To be a fan is to be a loyal supporter and keep the faith in good times and bad times. To be an Ipswich fan is not wrong as a matter of fact, nor is it even a matter of fact that Ipswich will lose their next game.
It is not that the facts do not matter; the win is all important, and the loss is a heavy blow, but faith covers them both and amplifies them both. Faith is what makes these things matter at all. I am not a football fan, and I couldn't care less about Ipswich Town FC. I can therefore afford to be philosophical about their chances. But the only people who care about my analysis, are the Ipswich fans.
So if you are not a fan of god, you will always miss out on the excitement, and think yourself very wise.
But "God" is one of the greatest mysteries of human existence. So if a philosopher seeks wisdom, then knowing about God would be a high priority. It's the mystery outlined by unenlightened above. What makes people stand up for, and defend in faith until the bitter end, something they know through probability to be incorrect, yet they still have hope for. The common portrayal is that these faithful people are being deceived by someone else, some higher-ups. This is a deception which builds the faith so that the people can be herded like a flock. However, "deception" implies that the deceivers, those "higher-ups", know something which the deceived do not. So to uncover those secrets is fodder for the philosopher.
Quoting ucarr
It may. Form is what is actual, and matter is potential. The argument from Aristotle is that if there ever was a time when there was potential without any actuality (what is called "prime matter") there would always be potential without actuality because potential with no actuality would not have the capacity to actualize itself. Therefore this would never result in anything actual. But what we find is potential with actuality, matter with form, so pure potential (prime matter) is ruled out. as impossible. Therefore anything eternal must be actual, and form may be prior to matter.
That form is prior to matter is understood in the following way. Each and every occurrence of an object, or material thing, is not a random occurrence of matter, a thing is an organized state of matter, it has a form. By the law of identity a thing is necessarily the thing which it is. It is impossible that a thing is not the thing that it is. So when a thing comes into being, the form of the thing is necessarily prior in time to the material existence of the thing, as the cause of, or reason why the thing is the thing which it is, and not something else.
Quoting ucarr
Of course I believe that. Each object, wheel in your example, is unique, with a proper identity all to itself, as indicated by the law of identity. When one material object is destroyed it will never reappear, time does not repeat itself.
Quoting ucarr
There is a little trick of equivocation in respect to the meaning of "time" which might help to understand this problem. By materialist principles the concept of "time" is tied to the activities of material things. If material things are moving, time is passing. Therefore under this conception of "time" there is no time without material things. God however, being the creator or cause, of material things, must be prior to material things and is therefore "outside of time" according to this conception of "time". That of course appears to be incoherent, to have something (God) which is prior in time, (as the cause of time), to time itself.
But this just demonstrates that there is a problem with the materialist conception of "time". When "time" is tied to the material existence of things, in that way, the possibility of time which is prior to the occurrence of material things is ruled out. Then the actuality (form) which is necessarily prior to material objects as the cause of their existence, is rendered unintelligible, as "an act" without time is incoherent.
Therefore to understand the theological conception of "God", as creator of material existence, it is necessary to dismiss that faulty conception of "time" which places God as outside of time. Aristotle's arguments showed God to be eternal, as outside time, by that conception of "time". This made it impossible to properly apprehend or understand God, "God" being incoherent, as an activity or cause which is outside of time, i.e. prior to time. However, the logic which places activity, or actuality, (Form) , as prior to the material existence of things, is sound. This indicates that the conception of "time" which ties it to the material existence of things is faulty. Nevertheless, that conception of "time" persists in most technical usage of "time", and "God" remains unintelligible to most educated people.
If that's true, Augustine was no philosopher, as he thought he--more than anyone--had found him.
The OP is quite clear as to why philosophers will fail ... in the quest for God. I don't know if St. Augustine was a philosopher or not, I'm not familiar with his work.
Overview Were examining the form/substance relationship. The important questions of the role of time, persistence and God are also thrown into the mix.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. Our empirical experience of reality always finds form and substance interwoven. Do you have any empirical experience of form and substance in separation?
I argue that: form without substance is an unreachable abstraction; substance without form is an unintelligible chaos. This leads to the claim that form and substance are essential attributes of existence.
There is the question Does language, by naming them separately, artificially separate form and substance? If this is the case, then probably debating issues that separate them is just an undecidable word game. Each side can make endless arguments for their priority, respectively, thus demonstrating their equivalence WRT priority.
Quoting ucarr
Let me make sure were not sinking into a type/token confusion here.
In my above quote, Im talking about destruction of form of wheel as a generality, as a type of form. That means destruction of all possible actualizations of said form. After such a destruction which I think not possible no particular, empirically real wheel could ever appear.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Your above quote tells me youre talking about form of wheel as a token and not as a type.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In making your argument here, youre presupposing God is in time and, moreover, that time WRT God is insuperable. You need firstly to establish the logical necessity of this supposition. If you can do this you will then be in position to establish the logical necessity of God prior to time being incoherent.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is Platonic idealism. At its center stands Platos realm of ideal forms, of which material likenesses within the everyday world are imperfect and transient copies.
Clearly, you think tokens of form can be destroyed, but not the postulated Platonic types from which theyre supposedly derived.
This throws us into examination of the essence precedes existence premise.
As a metaphysician, youre a Platonist, an objective idealist.
So, you think time is metaphysical in the sense of immaterial. Also, youre a dualist in the sense of immaterial things, forms, being the causes of material objects.
Once God is confined to time, some questions arise: Did time precede God? If time precedes God, doesnt that imply God has a cause other than God? If God and time are co-eternal, doesnt that imply time was not caused by God, a contradiction of God as creator of all?
What we "know about" (which?) "God" is that it is "the greatest mystery" the (ultimate) inexplicable "answer" to every question that begs them all. Recognizing that "God" does not explain anything (re: mythos) is what motivated the Presocratic proto-scientists (physiologoi) in Ionia & Elea to speculate on rational explanations (logos) for nature (phusis) and our minds (nous). IMO, to seek explicable wisdom is incompatible with seeking inexplicable "God".
Why have you replaced my word, "matter" with "substance"? There is nothing to prevent the conception of substance without matter, such as the conception of independent Forms. So form without matter might be substance without matter. Matter is not essential to substance.
Quoting ucarr
I told you the logic of this. God acts as a cause of the material world. Any act requires time to occur. Therefore the idea that God is prior to time, is inconsistent with the idea of God having actual existence, or God as the actual creator of the world. Therefore to think of God in both ways, as creator, and as prior to time, is incoherent.
True mon ami, very true. Story-telling (mythology) must've be a really big deal to prephilosophical/prescientific cultures. It was their way of grasping (explaining) reality and it probably satisfied their curiosity, especially that of the younglings, more inquisitive but equally credulous/gullible.
The shift to natural explanations took place, as per Wikipedia, with Thales of Miletus at the head of the pack. The rest is history of course.
It's worth noting that intuition, like instinct, can be valid/correct/useful despite not being able to put precise or exacting words to it. You don't know why or how exactly you feel something to be true, and yet in some cases it is true.
Thus intuition and the subconscious are very closely linked. I do think the subconscious has a set of knowledge, beliefs and level of awareness that the conscious mind cannot directly access and yet is still influenced by.
Intuition is like the deep, visceral, yet permeating voiceless guide that says "yes there is something not quite right about that person, they are unsettling, don't trust them, stay alert" or "yes, this is the right choice for your career, you know this is what you want despite all the reasons against it."
This is why we often use the heart as a stand-in for the source of intuition and the brain as the one for logic.
You dont have proof of how you know. You cannot articulate it. But you do know it.
Intuition of course can also be wrong. Just as some logics are correct and others are erroneous as they presume something, or forgot to factor something into the logical process. Hence why so many plausible theories (ones that seem logical) fail when tested.
Logics can contradict one another (logical paradoxes). Intuition in these cases may be yet another tool to overcome such obstacles.
Wow that's a really great insight. Got me thinking a lot.
On the contrary, perhaps the brain is so important because it is the first thing to suffer when the body is in a state of crisis. Of all the body components, is the most sensitive to change. Because it is so complex, and thus demands so much control to maintain its function.
The top of the pyramid (brain) certainly crumbles when the base (body) is eroded. The base of the pyramid does not neccesarily fall if the top is eroded. Its a hierarchy of stability and order. The most susceptible to change is the most perceptive which is good. But also the most vulnerable.
It seems not for now :)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No important reason. I'm accustomed to form and substance as a set. I perceive form and matter as being interchangeable.
It's true substance has a meaning other than matter. It can mean quality.
Do you think quality has form? More generally, do you think abstractions have form?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Self-creation of God took time to occur?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Time predates God?
My take on that would be that "the philosopher shouldn't seek God until he has access to objective epistemology pointing to the existence and ontology of God(s).
-I think your conclusion has a huge problem.Your conclusion is not supported by your example.
First issue with your example is that the both results(win-loss) on the next game are possible. That is not true for god. We don't know whether such an agent is possible.
Second issue, not all fans are blind to the facts of their team and not all fans of the opponent team believe they will win. You are adopting an extreme position to make your case.
There are fans that acknowledge strengths and weaknesses in both teams, are aware of the previous matches,how they performed and they are willing to inform their expectations accordingly.
In the case of the God claim, we don't have only two positions (fans of god vs not fans). We have skeptics, scientists, agnostics gnostics etc etc.
In order to choose the reasonable Default position we only need to evaluate the claims, take it to account the available facts (if they are any) and use the rules of logic, avoid fallacies to arrive to best informed thesis.
So I'll try a different one. I am a fan of justice. This does not mean I think justice exists, it means I am committed to the cause; I strive for justice, i cheer for it. And you can explain that life is complicated and knowledge is never absolutely certain so on, so I am wrong to think there can be perfect justice, but you will be missing the point, as you have missed my previous point.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
This is why a philosopher cannot find god; he cannot make a commitment to anything, but must always be weighing and evaluating and reasoning. It's a very good recipe for thinking, but a very poor one for living.
along the lines of:
-Well maybe you meant "a metaphor. Metaphors can be interpret literally or not.
An analogy is either correct or not. I only pointed out why your analogy falls short.
-" I am a fan of justice. This does not mean I think justice exists, it means I am committed to the cause; I strive for justice, i cheer for it."
-Correct , Justice doesn't exist as an entity or an agent or a substance. Its an abstract concept of a process societies strive to sustain.
-" And you can explain that life is complicated and knowledge is never absolutely certain so on, so I am wrong to think there can be perfect justice, but you will be missing the point, as you have missed my previous point."
-I can not see the relevance of this point . Knowledge and Justice are Abstract concepts of idealistic goals set by humans. I won't argue in favor or the manifestation of absolutes in reality because I don't believe it is possible.
God on the other hand is an existential claim of an agent/entity made by Humans.
Whether someone is a "fan" of god or not is irrelevant to the methods we use to objectively demonstrate the existence of an entity.
Your final statement was:"So if you are not a fan of god, you will always miss out on the excitement, and think yourself very wise."
How do you justify this jump to those two conclusions??WHat excitement is that and why one must think he is very wise for not accepting an existential claim that lacks objective verification??
Quoting unenlightened
-Well in my opinion, the issue lies with the God claim . God claims are not based on objective facts accessible to everyone for evaluation.
Now in your final line I understand that your claim is" being critical and skeptical towards unfounded claims is a poor way to live your life"??? How can you support that claim?
A material object consists of matter and form. And, material objects are also said to be substance. So it cannot be correct to say that substance is matter. You could define "substance" to say that it is the same as "matter", but then why not just use "matter" instead?
I've never heard anyone use "substance" to mean quality. That's a new one on me.
Quoting ucarr
I already said that self-creation is incoherent, and I explained why. This discussion is not progressing.
Quoting ucarr
If God is actual, time must predate God, because any act requires time. Don't you agree? How could God ever begin to do anything if there was no time?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. God is not self-caused. Does God have a cause?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. Time predates God. And God created the material universe.
So, time before God was metaphysical and there were no material things?
Okay. God can only act within time.
So, outside of time God cannot exist?
True, there's a place for god in philosophy.
That's deep man/woman! :smile:
"There's a place for" unintelligibility-inexplicability (i.e. "divine mysteries") "in phlosophy" (i.e. the love pursuit of 'masterful intellection-explication')? :roll:
Nickolasgaspar was quite clear on what he meant. Perhaps you're looking at it from an ex post standpoint.
:lol: That's alright. I may have stepped outside the boundary of his belief.
Yes, you are in very good company focussing on the facticity or fictionality of "the God claim". That is exactly what I am pointing to myself. As long as your issue is that, you will never understand something like this:
[quote= Samuel Crossman]
My song is love unknown,
My Saviour's love for me,
Love to the loveless shown that they might Lovely be.[/quote]
Quoting unenlightened
The adequacy of human evaluation and human reasoning needs to come to be questioned before there can be any room for any other issue. This if you like is my counter question to philosophy - what evidence do you have that your merely evolved thinking and reasoning apparatus is in any way capable of understanding the universe that birthed it? What is reasonable about that faith in the face of all the evidence? Surely, of all the religions, faith in oneself is the least adequate?
I don't know, I can't imagine the possibility of anything uncaused, so probably. But God is noy well understood by me so I can't make any firm judgement.
Quoting ucarr
I think my answer to all this is generally yes. But I don't know what you mean by saying time is "metaphysical". If you mean that it's an object of study in metaphysics, then I agree.
Also the answer to the last question depends on one's conception of time. In relation to the conventional conception of time (which is faulty), God is outside of time. In relation to a true conception of time God cannot be outside of time.
This demonstrates the usefulness of the conception of God. It helps us to understand the reality of faults in conventional conceptions, and the fallibility of humanity in general, as indicated by unenlightened above.
Its just reasoning reflecting on facts :grin:
I am focusing or better observing and analyzing the irrationality in humans. Accepting an existential claim without evidence is a text book example of irrational human behavior. Turning my back on logic in order to "understand" (as you claim) the superstitious message of some verses is not reasonable thing to do.
You are literary stating that we should ignore the truth value of a claim as long as songs and poems can easy our existential and epistemic anxieties.
Oh, my apologies, I thought you were a human.
You do understand that I only criticize the logic behind those ideas, not you as an individual..right? No need to act defensively and to accuse others "for not understanding" the wishful thoughts in a couple of verses.
Can we agree that being a fan of an idea is not enough to make it true?
Also the instrumental value of an idea is not relevant to our philosophical efforts to understand nature reality and what exists within.
I hope we can have a meaningful discussion without you feeling threatened by my logical objections on the foundations of these supernatural claims.
Do you? Or do you not even allow yourself to become conscious of how you have exposed your own irrationality, so quick you are to project it onto me?
As it happens I answered your question 2 days before you asked it in another thread:
Quoting unenlightened
I pointed out the inconsistencies in your analogy and you accused me for "taking your analogy ...literally", As I told you an analogy is not a metaphor so "taking it literally or not is irrelevant".
You gave an other analogy that failed (again) to address the issues created by the first analogy.
Then you are accusing me for "not understaning" and I told you that I am not interested in understanding the instrumental value of a story, but I want to learn how this story affects people's behavior....and you came back with a snarky comment. So who is projecting what here...sir?
I guess We have reached the end of the road where a theist (or magical thinker) is unable to provide objective evidence and he turns to different practices.
So Enjoy the rest of your stay....in this thread!
Not quite. My argument is that you need to stop believing in yourself in order to believe in God. And you have quite clearly exemplified this for me. What I have not done, that you have not seemingly noticed, is presented any argument for God, or professed any belief in God.
But you have seen in me the antagonist just like a good Christian seeing the devil in an atheist. You have displayed your irrationality and your blind faith in a cause, that of your own superior rationality. It's quite amusing.
And yet in the mouth of (most?) believers these days, "God" is just a three-letter epithet (or crutch) for ego ("why").
As for where philosophy proper sits in all this, it doesn't demand the kind of obedience to dogma typically associated with religion. But it may require an openness to dimensions of being that are out of reach for what is typically called 'empiricism', because it may demand a knd of introspective awareness that can't be validated in the public square, so to speak. And earlier philosophy did have an aspect which is quite close to religion in some respects, as explained by Pierre Hadot:
Quoting Pierre Hadot entry IEP
* or hysteria :lol:
That's the best thing one can do in life! Deepity?
That's too obvious to state. Pick up an introductory book on philosophy and be informed! @180 Proof claims philosophy and god are incompatible. I beg to differ.
Make the argument, señor.
God is the focus of the philosophy of religion? :chin:
:up: I concur. Philosophers are in the business of sussing out how coherent the idea of a god is, whether facts support the existence of such a being, is a god desirable, etc.
Si, you said that before and I agree - you hadta philosophize about god to realize that (ex post god is nonphilosophical). However, how do you square this position of yours with the universal scope of philosophy? In me humble opinion, everything is philosophizable.
Does this incline you to think time has a cause?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Does the following train of thought reflect your thinking: Since time predates God and God created the material world of physics, time must be something other than physical.
As I already pointed out, our epistemology on god can only shed light on the Anthropological aspect of the cultural concept...not the ontological one. We don't have verified epistemology on the existence of god in reality in order to render any discussion on it "Philosophical".
180 Proff is right. God and philosophy are incompatible until hard evidence are provided as our starting point of a meaningful philosophical discussion.
People don't claim to have philosophical discussions on the existences Hobbits, Yeti, fairies, Leprechauns etc etc and that should be true for any claim that can be supported by credible epistemology.
ITs only "the best thing one can do" if reasonable arguments is the goal.
Yes, I'm glad you appreciate the close connection. Ego is the zeitgeist of the age brought on by, I suppose a century of material 'progress'. Hedonism is ego as virtue, and as you are aware, often wins the popular vote in politics in these parlous times. Where religion is disconnected from politics, one might, even now, find a more significant expression.
Speaking of Stoicism, I noticed this book:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604070/how-to-live-a-good-life-by-edited-and-with-an-introduction-by-massimo-pigliucci-skye-cleary-daniel-kaufman/
Which suggests in the introduction that a philosophy and a religion both necessarily have a metaphysics an an ethics, (and possibly a practice), and that the difference is vague. Not a new thought of course, but probably new to a certain modern incarnation of zealotry.
I have said before that everyone has something at the centre of their life that they live for, and that is their god, whether it is a football team, knowledge, ego, power, love, pleasure, rationality, sex, or whatever. "With my body, I thee worship."
No, that's what I describe as incoherent. "Cause" implies temporality, it is a temporal concept where a cause is understood to be prior in time to the effect. To say that there is something prior in time to time, as the cause of time, is incoherent. If we wanted to speak of something prior to time, we would have to use terms other than temporal terms to describe this sort of "priority". We might say "logically prior to" for example. But this would require a description of time itself, to determine what is logically prior to time, and we do not have such a description.
Quoting ucarr
No, that's backwards, you need to reverse it. We have the physical world first, as our source of evidence. We see that something preexists each and every material thing as the cause of existence of that thing. So we have an inductive principle that there is a cause prior to every material thing. This is what theologians refer to as "God". But "cause" is a temporal term, implying an act, and acts only occur within a duration of time (another inductive principle). So God requires time as a precondition for acting.
The problem with what you're saying is that "subjective experience and personal conviction" doesn't translate to knowledge unless there is some justification for the belief, and that doesn't need to be science. Science is only one form of knowledge, but it's not the only kind of knowledge that's available to us. So, there are other ways of justifying a belief, which is a matter of having a good understanding of epistemology. If you're going to present a belief that there is a fact, viz., that God exists (Christian or otherwise), then you need some justification other than some indefinable subjective thing, or some personal conviction that's based on a feeling. Much of what religion emphasizes is not about objective facts, but about how they feel about their belief.
You seem to think that philosophy or philosophical thinking is separate from religious belief, and in some ways it is, i.e., there is the professional philosopher who teaches at a university, or other philosophers who may have just spent much of their lives thinking and studying about philosophy. However, make no mistake about it, if you have a set of beliefs, whatever they may be, and you've spent even a small amount of time thinking about those beliefs critically, you're doing philosophy. Many religious people want to separate their beliefs from general philosophical thinking, but that's an illusion. If you think about God, Christian or otherwise, and what that means, and explain your beliefs as you've done above, then you are presenting a particular religious worldview, and in doing that you're doing philosophy. You can't escape philosophy it permeates all of our beliefs, science, religion, history, psychology, and every other subject you can think of including games.
The only question is, do you do it well? And, since language is the vehicle with which we communicate our beliefs you better have a good understanding of how our concepts/words work in the flow of language, i.e., how they connect up with the world of facts (abstract or concrete, metaphysical or not).
Happy Hunting
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Since, by your declaration, logical priority ? temporal causality, it seems to follow that a realm of ideal forms exemplifies your statement that:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Furthermore, it seems to follow that this realm of ideal forms, being outside time because it timelessly causes material objects to exist, holds possession of a metaphysical identity in the sense that it is beyond both the temporal and the physical.
Can you affirm or deny this interpretation of your meaning?
Furthermore, it seems to follow that this realm, per the above named attributes, empowers God to exist in time whereupon God creates the material universe. Under this construction, God is a physical being. Moreover, God, being physical, exists as a natural part of this physical universe of material things. All of this entails a denial of God as supernatural, a radical departure from establishment theism.
Can you affirm or deny this interpretation of your meaning?
Embedded within your declarations is the mystery of the status of time.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Furthermore, you seem to be implying time is physical.
Can you affirm or deny this interpretation of your meaning?
No, not at all. A cause, as I painstakingly explained, cannot be outside of time.
Quoting ucarr
No, not at all. As I explained, the idea that time is physical is what leads to the conclusion that God is outside time, God being the immaterial cause of the physical. This renders "God" as unintelligible, incoherent, as a cause, or act which is outside of time. Since logic indicates that the material (or physical) world must have a cause, we must conclude that time is not material (or physical).
Since you appear to be having difficulty let me restate the principles which I've been trying to explain.. Tell me what you don't understand.
1. Logic produces the conclusion that there must be a cause prior in time to all material (physical) things. This cause cannot be material (physical) because it is prior in time to material (physical) things. Theologians call this "God".
2. If time is the product of physical activity then God must be outside of time.
3. As an actual cause, it is impossible that God is outside of time.
4. Therefore time as well as God must be prior to material (physical) things, and is not material (physical).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So causation implies passing of time.
Since you say,
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
can we assume someone can speak or write a logical statement that necessarily leads to:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. Regarding the ordering of reality, if something is logically prior to time, then its priority over time is by a standard of measure not temporal?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In the above quote priority is temporal? In the time prior to the physical-material universe, history was nonetheless unfolding, with some events occurring before other events? An example would be whatever event was happening in the immaterial world just before the big event of God causing the existence of the physical-material world?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So God causing the physical-material universe out of time does not cohere with the axiom: causation cannot occur outside time? Theological God is thus incoherent with causation?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So time is the product of physical activity is a false premise?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So God exists and acts within time is your main premise?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Gods existence in time is non-physical whereas human existence in time is physical?
Isn't it the case that in most constructions of God 1) God is transcendent and is outside time and space and 2 God being 'omni' can do whatever God wants and is not subject to any laws, since God created them? So trying to parse what god can and cannot do, or where God resides and in what form is pointless and subject to the paucity of human understanding. If the laws of physics get in the way of a person's understanding God then they're not doing it right...
I recognize your point of view and, moreover, I respect the facts and conventions that source the content of your query. However, in my dialogue with Metaphysician Undercover, I want to examine his thinking non-judgmentally. My purpose is to hopefully discover some ramifications of his thinking not already known to him. Should this happen, it might present him with an opportunity to delve deeper into his thinking, thereby increasing the chance of it becoming richer and deeper.
An important part of the technique, as I understand it, entails asking basic questions the world thinks already answered. Sometimes, in dialogue, simple questions trigger subtle, lucrative questions. When this happens, thought adventurers like ourselves are off to the races along a new line of inquiry not previously seen. Haven't we seen this in the movies? Folks put their heads together on a tough question. Suddenly, someone asks a simple question in a new context or POV and bingo! The answer pops out of the birthday cake.
This is why non-judgmental interviewing can be useful to the philosophical theoretician, a characterization I apply to Metaphysician Undercover.
I don't know anything!
That is the method.
In Plato, It is interesting to see how the results vary according to who is being interrogated.
:up: :100:
Yes, I went through this logic already. We know through observation and induction that each and every material thing has a cause. The cause of a material thing is prior in time to the existence of that material thing. Therefore there is a cause prior in time to all material things.
Quoting ucarr
I really don't know, but obviously not temporal. Someone would have to show me the logical order before I could make the judgement as to what is demonstrated by it. I just stated that as a possibility.
Quoting ucarr
Yes, because we were talking about "cause", and "cause" implies a temporal order.
Quoting ucarr
Correct.
Quoting ucarr
For that part of the argument. However that God exists and acts within time are conclusions drawn from the preceding part, which we already discussed.
Quoting ucarr
Yes, humans are physical (material) beings. God as the cause of material (physical) existence cannot be a material (physical) being, otherwise God would be the cause of Himself, which is incoherent.
Edit: I had to delete my reply to the following questions because I misunderstood:
Quoting ucarr
Let me try again.
As I explained earlier in the thread, the conventional conception of time bases the passing of time in physical (material) activity. By this conception of "time", God is outside of time. And so the theological conception of God, as outside of "time" is coherent on this conception of "time".
Where the problem lies is that God is understood to be actual, and the acting cause of material existence. "Acting", and "cause" are conceptions which imply the passing of time. So there is an inconsistency. God cannot be both outside time, and also an acting cause.
Since the logic which dictates the necessity of God, as an acting cause prior to material (physical) existence is sound, then we ought to conclude that God is not outside of time. So we can see that it is the conventional conception of "time", which forces the conclusion that God is outside of time, and this conception is therefore faulty. It is only in relation to the faulty conception of "time" that God is said to be outside of time. God is outside of time by that definition of time, but since this creates inconsistency or incoherency, the definition of time is incorrect, and God is not outside a true definition of time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The gravitational field of earth's moon causes the rising and falling of ocean tides. Do you say that the moon's gravitational field predates the oceans covering the earth? Do you instead acknowledge that before creation of the material universe, cause and effect were temporally sequential whereas, in the wake of said material creation, cause and effect are not always sequential? Another way of saying this is saying ordinal relationships are not always temporally sequential.
Can you accept the following formulation: God existing and acting in time causes the material universe?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let's take a look at a list of your essential premises:
How do you respond to the following summary?
Upon consideration of the above essentials, your thesis gives highest priority to time. It is the principle essential, ranking above even God. This must be so since God cannot exist or take action without the sanctioning empowerment of time, a principle essential that predates God.
No, if the gravitational field is the cause of the tides, it predate the tides, not necessarily the oceans.
Quoting ucarr
No, that is illogical, cause and effect are always sequential by definition, that's the essence of causation.
I've already agreed that ordinal relations are not necessarily temporal. Causation is a temporal relation though. This points to my first premise. When we observe, and conclude through inductive reasoning, that material things are caused, what "cause" means is something prior in time. So we cannot change the meaning of "cause" here unless we get empirical evidence of a cause which is not temporal. Removing the temporal essence of "cause" would destroy the soundness of the argument.
Quoting ucarr
Yes, this is because God is defined as being "actual", and time is prerequisite for acting.
Okay. The gravitational field doesn't predate the ocean. So, at all times, the ocean currents are under influence of both earth and moon gravitational fields.
Does the strengthening gravitational field predate the rising tide?
The ocean tide rises with the progressively closing approach of moon to earth. As strengthening field intensifies, ocean tide heightens simultaneously. There is no time lag in the action-at-a-distance of the gravitational field. Were that the case, when a suicide jumps from the bridge, they would hover in the air for a positive interval of time before accelerating towards the ground.
We see this in a Warner Bros. cartoon featuring Wiley Cayote going over the edge of a cliff in pursuit of Roadrunner.
Have you seen this hover-in-the-air hesitation first-hand in your own experience?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Your above clause is analytical. Is it also tautological? Also, remember having said:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Can you cite a definition of cause and effect that explicitly incorporates temporal antecedence?
All this makes no sense to me. The suicide jumper is acted on by gravity before jumping. And, the "action-at-a-distance" of gravity is understood to not be instantaneous. The force of gravity, like light, takes time to traverse space. And I'd advise you not to get your images of physical actions from cartoons. Ever see the one where they cut a circle in the floor around a person, then the person just hangs there for a few frames before falling?
Quoting ucarr
Come on ucarr, you're being ridiculous. Obviously gravity is acting on the person prior to falling over the edge. Why would you think that gravity would only avt after the person steps ove the edge?
Quoting ucarr
Please don't waste my time, ucarr. If you do not believe me that causation is a temporal concept then do your own research, and find out how the term is used. Then get back to me with what you find. You know, asking me for a definition is pointless, because I can go through the web and pick and choose what I want to reproduce for you. I do not deny that one might define causality such that it is not necessary for the cause to be prior in time to the effect. What I've said is that this would render causation as incoherent and unintelligible.
Here's what Wikipedia says about causality in physics:
"Causality means that an effect can not occur from a cause which is not in the back (past) light cone of that event. Similarly, a cause can not have an effect outside it's front (future) light cone."
Further:
"Such a process can be regarded as a cause. Causality is not inherently implied in equations of motion, but postulated as an additional constraint that needs to be satisfied (i.e. a cause always precedes its effect)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)
Here's some further reading material for you. If you read some of this stuff you'll see that most traditional definitions of causality list temporal precedence as a necessary condition . However, some might allow for simultaneity, but as I said this renders causation as unintelligible because then there is no true principle to distinguish cause from effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria#:~:text=Temporality%3A%20The%20effect%20has%20to,greater%20incidence%20of%20the%20effect.
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1007/1007.2449.pdf
When I joined this forum, being rather naive of the current state of philosophy, I was surprised to have my philosophical reasoning & conjectures challenged for empirical evidence, rather than logical reasons. I thought that was the whole point of Philosophy : to go where Science cannot. Yes, philosophies often evolve into restrictive religions, but they may also free us from misconceptions.
Empirical investigations are limited by the physical properties of their tools. But Philosophy's only tool is metaphysical Reason. Which can easily transcend material barriers. Yet, some attempt to block such transcendence, with socio-cultural taboos. My latest run-in was with the Logical-Positive belief system, which constructs artificial fences around Logic ; functioning like electronic ankle cuffs, to limit the range of Reason to verifiable empirical questions. In other words, forcing Philosophy to obey the rules of Science.
Ironically, even law-abiding scientists sometimes form beliefs that could be described as Blind Faith. Like religious beliefs, they are taken to be Facts & Truths. But as long as we are free to exchange opinions, we may be able to refine our opinionated beliefs in order to get Closer to Truth. Avoidance of Open Questions will allow them to fester in the dark. :smile:
You're right. The speed of gravity waves equals the speed of visible light waves. The action-at-a-distance of gravity is not instantaneous.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover *1
Quoting ucarr
*1 Why do you think I don't know this?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting ucarr
Do you see a difference between being held to the ground by gravity and accelerating-due-to-gravity to the ground while free-falling through space?
Note -- If there's a time lag in acceleration due to gravity -- at sea level it's [math] 9.8m/s ^2 [/math] -- then an atomic clock will be needed to measure such a minute interval of time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. So, you think cause and effect -- even when contextualized by ordinality instead of by temporal antecedence -- only has coherence when cause is prior in time to effect?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
At scout camp a boy, out on a hike, getting thirsty, fills his empty canteen with water from a stream and drinks. Back home and twenty-four hours later the boy starts feeling sick. His doctor informs him of the bacterial infection he imbibed from the stream. He learns that symptoms have appeared that day because after twenty-four hours of rapid multiplication, the bacteria has attained high volume. The symptoms were not caused by bacterial infection; they were caused by high volume of bacterial infection.
Okay. So, you think cause and effect even when manifesting simultaneously must always be understood in terms of temporal antecedence in order to have coherence?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. So, you think postulation is sufficient ground for concluding: (...a cause always precedes its effect)?
"Enformer"-of-the-gaps, unsound arguments (about your own citations), and continuous strawman & ad hominem replies are among the parade of logical challenges I, @universeness, @bert1 & others have raised collectively over hundreds of posts just in the last twelve months. All you do lately is whinge on about what a victim you are of "materialist, reductionist, anti-metaphysical bias" or whatever. :ok: :sweat:
Oh come on Gnomon!! enough of the 'I am being treated unfairly,' on repeat, through your loudspeaker.
I DO NOT, refute your right to philosophise as YOU see fit, and as makes logical sense to YOU.
I have already posted, that I think you do, genuinely, seek truth.
You will have your followers and your dissenters. I may not agree with what you say BUT I will defend with MY LIFE, your right to say it. I think folks like @180 Proof etc, (in other words, your dissenters,) appreciate your viewpoints, but the counter arguments we offer, are perfectly valid and legitimate and YOU, need to be magnanimous enough to accept that, or leave yourself open to the accusation, that you are a dishonest interlocuter.
Ironically, science announces its own inherent limitations in the loudest voice of all. You can debate ad nauseum whether resonating waves of neurons amount to what we experience as subjective consciousness. Meanwhile, 95% of everything that is is, at the most basic physical level, a complete unknown to us. What are the implications of that? I wouldn't want to speculate, but it would simply be foolish to imagine that there aren't any. Or to think that the present state of our own scientific knowledge is anything but...very limited.
Specifically, all of the claims to reductively explain mind via matter are themselves just hypotheses. Moreover, since they are hypotheses, and hypothesizing exemplifies what we mean by thinking, they seem to be inherently and obviously self-contradictory. Which is more unlikely, that matter produces thought, or that thought produces matter? Most likely we are looking at the twin poles of a dynamic system, substance and form, or hylomorphism. At least that's the direction I'm looking.
With respect to what the gravity is doing in the two scenarios, there is no difference. In other words, the cause is the same in the two, but the effect is different due to the same type of cause acting in different situations.
Quoting ucarr
I don't see how you are understanding your categories. Cause/effect is a type of ordinality, but this does not mean that all ordinalities are causal. Cause and effect are contextualized by ordinality, but the ordinality in this case is defined as a temporal ordinality. That eight is a greater quantity than six is a different type of ordinality, which does not imply temporality. But causation is a different type of ordinality from quantity because the terms of that specific form of ordinality are defined by temporality, before and after, rather than by quantity.
Quoting ucarr
Yes. if cause and effect manifested simultaneously we would not be able to distinguish which is the cause, and which is the effect because the temporal relationship of cause/effect, by which we would determine one is the cause, and the other the effect would not exist.
So in your example of bacterial infection.. The symptoms are the body's (immune system's) reaction to a high volume of bacteria. The high volume of bacteria is observed to be temporally prior to the reaction (symptoms) therefore affirmed to be the cause. If the two suddenly occurred in a truly simultaneous way, we could not say that one caused the other, the occurrences would be said to be coincidental. And if we try to assign cause and effect to two coincidental occurrences we have no way of knowing which is the cause and which is the effect.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Kant reacted to the Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason, and to Newtonian mechanics (which he probably understood better than any other philosopher), by accepting determinism as a fact in the physical world, which he calls the phenomenal world. [i]Kant's goal was to rescue the physical sciences from the devastating and unanswerable skepticism of David Hume, especially Hume's assertion that no number of "constant conjunctions" of cause and effect could logically prove causality.
Kant called this assertion the "crux metaphysicorum." "If Hume is right," he said, "metaphysics is impossible. Perhaps even knowledge is impossible?" Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was to prove that Hume was wrong.
Quoting The Information Philosopher
Have you examined the atemporal conjunction of qubit (superposition) quantum computing within "Osprey," Google's quantum computer?
Do you deny that gravity holding a person down to earth in one situation and accelerating the descent of a person in free fall in another situation exemplifies gravity doing two different things in two different situations?
Do you deny that cause and effect relationship with outcome 1 in situation 1 and cause and effect relationship with outcome 2 in situation 2 exemplify two different cause and effect relationsips?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Since, when we look at integers 6 and 8 and understand there is no temporal relationship connecting them, as per the definition of ordinality, and that therefore, if we replace 6 and 8 with before and after, and if we maintain our understanding of the context to be ordinal, then claimingbefore and after have a temporal relationship amounts to conflating two distinct categories (contexts). When placed within the context of ordinality, before and after either get stripped of their conventional meaning, temporal, thus becoming undefined placeholders, or they become oxymorons, i.e., temporal-atemporal terms. In short, ordinal (rank) and cardinal (quantity) are distinct categories.
Causation is not a type of ordinality. In the context of ordinality (rank) there's no causal link between 6 and 8, or between any of the other ordinals.
Causation and temporal antecedence are closer to -- but not coincidental with -- cardinality. Cardinality can be applied to temporal antecedence in the sense that an event temporally antecedent to another event has a time quantity measurement different from the later event.
Do you deny this?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Do you acknowledge that your above affirmation raises the possibility that humans, in making the effort to understand phenomena causally, might be projecting a rational conceptualization of the mind onto the world?
Do you acknowledge such a possibility suggests the existence of evidence supporting David Hume's attack on rationality_causality?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Might this be a motivation for projecting artificial temporal antecedence onto observed phenomena?
In our examination of this bacterial infection, it should be noted no symptoms appear before the bacterial content is high-volume. This time lag, known as the incubation period, holds standard to medical diagnosis and treatment of sickness.
Since they don't appear during the incubation period, can we claim bacterial infection before high-volume is an antecedent cause of symptoms?
Yes. Those who are arguing against my Information-based thesis, are treating it as-if it's a Theistic Religious doctrine, which subordinates Science to Faith. I can agree with most of their rational arguments against traditional religions. But they are missing the central point of the thesis*1, and introducing their own atheistic biases into their counter-arguments. By that I mean they are not arguing against Enformationism, but against Theism. My BothAnd worldview is like Hylomorphism : Matter plus Form ; Science plus Philosophy ; Empirical plus Theoretical. :smile:
*1. Which I assume they have never read.
Oh no, you've got me pegged. Just in the wrong hole. You get frustrated by my denials of your peg-holes. Which leads you to conclude that I'm being equivocal about my true beliefs. Yet it's not my beliefs that I'm denying, but your beliefs about my beliefs. That's because I'm not a two-value (true-false) True Believer, but a multi-value (maybe) truth-seeker. If you'd stop shooting at my feet, I could stop dancing in the street.
Apparently, you and 180 believe that everybody should be either an up-front Theist, or an authentic Atheist. But, regarding topics that are open-ended (un-verifiable), I'm an Agnostic*1. Some Agnostics are indeed religiously inclined. But others are Scientifically & Skeptically inclined. And my position is closer to the latter. My Enformationism thesis is a philosophical elaboration of Quantum Uncertainty*2, and of Information Theory Subjectivity. So, although my personal worldview includes a role for a First Cause/Prime Mover, it prescribes no creedal beliefs or communal practices. And it does not claim to "know the mind of God".
Therefore, If I'm being evasive, it's because you keep trying to pin a label on me that does not represent my personal worldview, or my multi-valued reasoning*3. Aristotle's formal Logic was two-valued because, in the interest of precision, it arbitrarily excluded moderate positions. Yet, the reasoning underlying Enformationism leads to a moderate position between Revealed Religion and Gnostic Atheism*4.
If I knew for sure that there is an Eternal Enformer, I'd admit it freely. But it's just a logical conclusion based on circumstantial evidence, which I delineate in the thesis. Most of the evidence pointing in that direction (the great beyond) is found in Quantum Physics and Information Theory, not in any traditional religious doctrines. And the most important pointer is the unpredented Big Bang theory, which leaves the Cause of that sudden emergence of something from who-knows-where as an Open Question.
Cosmologists are aware of the implications of that Eternal Gap*5, but most of their gap-fillers are based on classical doctrines of Materialism & Physicalism. But they have no explanation for the Energy & Laws that caused & coordinated the Original Explosion into a progressively evolving mechanism that produced Life & Mind for no apparent reason. Of course, I don't know the Enformer's intentions, because I'm just an avatar in the Reality Game. :cool:
*1. Agnostic :
a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
Note -- But lack of empirical knowledge does not hamper philosophical speculation -- including conjectures about emergence of Artificial Super Intelligence from far-future Singularities.
*2. Virtues of Uncertainty :
a little over one third of British respondents said they were agnostic, about the same as said they believe in a "supreme being", and about twice the number who said they were atheists. . . . . Principled agnosticism, then, is the practice of a kind of humility. Why should it be valued? It sounds paradoxical, but because an agnostic spirit actually broadens the mind.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/13/religion-philosophy-atheitsm-agnosticism
*3. Many-valued logic :
Many-valued logic (also multi- or multiple-valued logic) refers to a propositional calculus in which there are more than two truth values. Traditionally, in Aristotle's logical calculus, there were only two possible values (i.e., "true" and "false") for any proposition. . . . In fact, Aristotle did not contest the universality of the law of excluded middle, but the universality of the bivalence principle: he admitted that this principle did not all apply to future events
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-valued_logic
*4. The Gnostic Atheist :
I think I probably align more with agnostic atheism today because I see it as being somewhat more consistent with skepticism and not because I think there is anything wrong with gnostic atheism.
https://www.atheistrev.com/2019/01/the-gnostic-atheist.html
*5. Stephen Hawking's big bang gaps :
The laws that explain the universe's birth are less comprehensive than Stephen Hawking suggests. . . . Cosmologists embrace these features by envisaging sweeping "meta-laws" that pervade the multiverse and spawn specific bylaws on a universe-by-universe basis. The meta-laws themselves remain unexplained eternal, immutable transcendent entities that just happen to exist and must simply be accepted as given. In that respect the meta-laws have a similar status to an unexplained transcendent god.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/04/stephen-hawking-big-bang-gap
Note -- The "meta-laws" that some cosmologists take for granted are precisely those that imply both Creative Power (Energy) and Intelligent Design (Natural Laws). My interpretation differs from Genesis though, so I call it "Intelligent Evolution", in which the "design" produced not a perfect world, but a program for evolving an imperfect world toward some unknowable Final Cause : the answer to an unknown ultimate "what if" question. Hey, it's just a theory.
Yes I deny that, and I'm very surprised that you do not understand. It is the person who is doing two different things, walking on the earth in one case, and falling in the other, gravity is doing the same thing in both cases.
Quoting ucarr
I'm afraid not ucarr, you are being ridiculous again. Before and after have completely different meaning from six and eight. By analogy, would you say let's switch green and red, in the context of colour, and see that green is the same thing as red. Come on.
Quoting ucarr
Yes I deny that, for the reasons already given. Causation is one type of ordinality, ordinal numbers is another type. "Ordinal" is not restricted to numbers. It can mean a position in any type of series, or concerning any order. So contrary to what you say, the temporal order of cause and effect is an ordinality.
Quoting ucarr
Yes, that's generally how conceptualization works, and why human knowledge is fallible. I respect Hume's attack on causality and recognize the fallibility of human knowledge. As I said, you can define "causation" however you want. But obviously some ways are more useful than others, and if you deny temporality from the definition I think you end up with a useless form of "causality".
Quoting ucarr
The motivation is usefulness. And, since assigning temporal antecedence to the cause proves to be a very useful principle, and denying temporal antecedence would produce a useless conception, the choice is an obvious one.
Quoting ucarr
Sorry, I don't follow the question. I think your example is too complex, too many factors involved which need to be considered, which are not stated in the example.
I think your issue here is that you see your issues in terms of getting pegged or being in holes.
Quoting Gnomon
My aim has always been at your 'reasoning,' not your feet, or any other part of your anatomy.
Quoting Gnomon
:roll: So you do propose that the mind of god has a manifest existent! That makes you a theist! or if you think your first cause/prime mover has not been in touch with it's creations (or maybe just us) then you are a deist! either flavour belongs to a theological belief for the origin story of the universe and absolutely nothing to do with the science of quantum physics. I don't need to peg you falsely, your theological origin claim for the universe is crystal clear. I have no idea why you are so averse to being labelled a theist/deist/theologian.
Quoting Gnomon
You typed that you assigned a very high credence level to your eternal enformer proposal.
I cant be bothered to track down the actual quote, I am referring to, but I will if I must.
Make up your mind, don't keep switching between expressing a strong belief in the validity of your claims and typing about how wrong you might be. Are you merely engaging in traditional fabulism?
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Here's my inference from your above quote (especially the bold_italic part): the person in free fall is doing the falling. This is distinct from saying: The person is experiencing the falling. The first statement means the person is causing the falling. The overall statement says gravity is also causing the falling (just as it is also causing the walking person to be pinned to the ground).
From Space Shuttle missions many humans have seen astronauts spinning and somersaulting mid-air within zero-gravity chambers whilst the rocket is outside earth's gravitational field. In the absence of a gravitational field, we see that humans do not cause their own falling through space. Back to our situation: regarding when a suicide jumps from a cliff, in our example here, we have two proffered explanations: 1) the person falls to earth at increasing speed due to acceleration due to gravity; 2) the person falls to earth at increasing speed due to both their own rare and generally unknown ability to use their own power to reflexively cause him_her_self to fall earth at increasing speed due to acceleration due to gravity and due to the power of gravity to do same.
Let's apply Occam's Razor in our evaluation of the two proffered explanations; after all, we know that when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not unicorns, right? So, when we look for best explanation why suicide falls to earth at increasing speed due to acceleration due to gravity, do we want an explanation that has a human doing something we have reason to doubt the possibility of as witnessed in the zero-gravity chamber, or do we want an explanation that has a human experiencing something seen too many times to count over the millennia spanning human history?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Do you not see that in my argument two contexts: temporal_sequential and ordinal are involved and, moreover, that my argument depends upon taking before and after out of their default temporal_sequential context and placing them in the ordinal context, and that doing so strips away temporal antecedence? Also, do you not see changing their context thus violates no rules of inference? Sixth and eighth have different ranks, but there's no temporal relationship in ordinality, as there is in cardinality. By analogy, before and after denote different times, but as with all ordinals, there's no temporal relationship between beforth and aftereth.
Do you not agree your attempted analogy equating red and green fails because contextualizing before and after as beforth and aftereth does not equalize them. Instead, it de-temporalizes them? Do you not see, more generally: contextualizing ? equalizing?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. So, beforth and aftereth can constitute an ordinality either temporal or non-temporal. This true because ordinal specifies order by position; it says nothing about temporal order. Since non-temporal is included and temporal is not excluded, both types are valid.
Do you agree this?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Due you suppose the pursuit of usefulness always leads to truth?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Here's the root of my argument: antecedence ? coincidence.
Since coincidence parallels co-functionality, coincidence can sometimes example causation.
Do you agree with this?
# Manifest existence? : yes, the real physical world (Spinoza's Substance*1). # Deism = Theism? : philosophical Deists will disagree. Deist? Yes / Theist? No. Regarding Theism, I'm an Atheist*2. # Quantum Physics? : a quantum Field is not a physical Object, but a metaphysical (mathematical) Concept. # I admit that the error of these Yin/Yang ideas is "crystal clear" to your dichotomous Black vs White worldview. (Suum cuique)
Regarding Deism, I'm an Agnostic. But you wouldn't understand, because in your two-value Logical Positivism belief system such median distinctions are not allowed. Yet in my Enformationism there is a categorical difference between Theism (religion) and Deism (philosophy). In a Deistic sense, the Creator of the world is immanent in the creation. By that I mean, the physical world is made of (consists of) Information. For most people today, "Information" is equated with Data (meaningless isolated Bits). But the Enformationism thesis has concluded that "Information" is essentially Mind (meaning ; concepts : intention ; causation).
Pioneer quantum Physicist John A. Wheeler deduced that, in his professional opinion, material things have an immaterial Source : "It from Bit" (Information = the creative power to enform = Causation). From that insight, physicists have gone on to conclude that physical Energy is actually metaphysical Information in action : EnFormAction. Based on such counter-intuitive notions from scientists, my amateur philosophical hypothesis worked back to the beginning of the world, to infer that Nature also has an immaterial Source : the First Cause. I have provided links to all these non-religious scientific inferences. So, since I have no formal qualifications, I'll let you argue with the experts, and accuse them of being dogmatic Theists.
I'm averse to being "labelled a theist/deist/theologian" because those labels are not intended to contribute to discourse, but to "peg" my ideas in a category that you can simply dismiss as irrational & unscientific, hence not worthy of a philosophical dialogue. Ironically, you are so averse to the god-posit that you waste enormous amounts of personal time & energy trying to debunk my puny little personal opinion. :nerd:
PS__I continue to reply to your disparaging comments -- not in hopes of convincing you -- but in order to test my amateur reasoning against people with strong opposing views. At least, you make counter-arguments in a form that I can work with. But I stopped responding to , because he was not dialoguing or debating, but simply debasing.
*1. Spinoza's Substance :
He defines God as a substance consisting of infinite attributes
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-attributes/
Note -- Was Spinoza a theist?
*2. Spinoza Theist? :
Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" [Deus] to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional JudeoChristian monotheism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
Variations on the god-of-the-gaps theme: deism is "theism minus answering prayers" or theism is "deism plus answering prayers" theological interpretations of the same ontologically transcendent super-natural entity (i.e. "creator" "first cause" "intelligent designer", etc).
Thoughts, @universeness?
No it does not. Anytime something is caused to do something by a separate force, the thing doing whatever it is caused to do is not the cause of the action. A rock is doing the falling but not causing the falling. A cannon ball, or baseball flying through the air is doing the flying, but not causing the flying. Etc..
The rest of your discussion of "doing" is therefore not relevant to how I was using "doing".
Quoting ucarr
Of course, but to rob a word of it's meaning is a meaningless exercise.
Quoting ucarr
When different times are denoted one is always before the other. Otherwise they would not be different times. That is unavoidable by the nature of what "time" signifies. You are not making any sense to me at all in your latest post ucarr.
Quoting ucarr
Again, you are not making any sense. "Before" and "after" are temporally defined. Your proposal to de-temporalize them is a meaningless, useless exercise.
Quoting ucarr
Nonsense, before and after specify temporal order which is a type of "order by position". It is not distinct from "order by position". This is the third time I've told you that now, yet you refuse to accept it and keep repeating nonsense, as if you can remove the temporal order by insisting that before and after is an order by position rather than by time. Yes, before and after is an order by position, temporal position. Give up on the meaningless nonsense, it's pointless.
Quoting ucarr
No, but truth can only come from useful concepts, those which are useful toward truth. Usefulness is necessary for truth, but does not necessarily lead to truth. Uselessness cannot lead to truth because it denies the required "useful toward truth".
Quoting ucarr
Definitely not, for the reasons I've already explained.
The first sentence from the site 'All about philosophy,' describes deism as: Deism is the belief in a supreme being, who remains unknowable and untouchable. It then goes on to discuss deism, as a stepping stone to atheism.
YOU propose a first cause mind with intent. The suggestion that such may be a god that remains interested in its creation or not, is of little significance to me, neither is any separation of deism and theism. Provide some convincing evidence for your first cause mind with intent or it will remain labelled as a woo woo, gap god posit, imo.
Quoting Gnomon
You are just repeating your unfounded complaints, which are tedious to read.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, it's you who have labelled your enformationism as 'personal opinion' and now your 'puny little personal opinion.'
Quoting Gnomon
Your attempts to insult @180 Proof by your patronising claim, that you find me more palatable, is almost school yard debate tactics. I find such, pretty low brow.
I could not agree with you more sir!!
Well, hang on. If it is the direct 'cause' of there being physical objects, then isn't it in some strong sense 'entangled' with and by the concept of 'physical-objectness'? Perhaps physical objects themselves do not perfectly exemplify 'physical-obectness' either?
You might find:
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF QUANTUM PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Interesting:
From that site, we have:
The most fundamental entities of matter or energy are quantum fields.
For example, there is a quantum electromagnetic field, a quantum electron field, a quantum up-quark field, etc. Each field fills the entire universe and has a value at every point in the universe. By value is meant the strength of the field at that point.
A 3-dimensional wave vibrates through a field (red netting), starting in the left bottom corner and moves rightward. We detect this vibration as a particle (green film). The particle is shown in orange when the wave moves up and blue when the wave moves down. [Image source: stills from Fermilab video by Dr. Don Lincoln, Quantum Field Theory (in the public domain) Jan. 14, 2016; ]
[i]The term quantum appears in the name of this theory because quantum fields are conceptualized differently from the force fields (electrical, magnetic, and electromagnetic) of classical physics. While the concepts of quantum fields build on the concepts of the classical electromagnetic field, they are conceptualized somewhat differently. The quantum aspects are taken up a bit later in this article.
As fields are the most fundamental entities in the universe that we know of, we cant say anything further about their ingredients, what substance they might be made of.
In the accompanying diagram, the red netting represents the underlying quantum field. A localized 3-dimensional wave travels through it. The macroscopic level of reality, where we detect the associated particle, is shown in green. The particle is shown as an orange or blue circle. A sequence of snapshots (Diagrams A, B, C, D) show a 3-dimensional wave traveling in the (red netting) field: (A) the wave crests and then, (B) forms a trough, (C) crests again, and (D) forms a second trough. The green film represents the macroscopic level of reality in which we detect particles. A particle is shown traveling towards the center of the green film from the lower corner. The particle manifests the underlying wave and is the entity that we detect. We cannot detect the field itself. In Quantum Field Theory, the particle is the manifestation of the deeper reality of a localized wave traveling through a field.[/i]
Our knowledge of quantum fields is limited to mathematical equations.
We have not seen nor heard nor felt quantum fields. Our knowledge of them is limited to mathematical equations which describe the fields and predict the results of experiments in the quantum world.
Quantum fields are, in a sense, physical.
Quantum fields are physical in the sense that they create real, lawful effects in spacetime. For this reason, their behavior is verifiable in physics experiments. However, quantum fields do not exist in spacetime in the same way that tables and chairs exist. If quantum fields existed in spacetime, we would be required to agree with paradoxical statements that make quantum mechanics seem baffling:
1. Electrons exist in more than one place at the same time.
2. Electrons shoot from an electron gun as a particle, travel as a wave, and land on a detector as a particle.
3. Electrons dont have definite properties until they have an interaction with another part of the physical universe.
4. Particles travel backwards in time as in the delayed choice two-slit experiment.
It may be more understandable to think of quantum fields as existing in a sublevel of reality, which Dr. Ruth Kastner calls, Quantumland. (Then again, it may not seem more understandable!)
You might find the Royal Institute series of lectures on quantum fields stimulating.
The Universe is made of quantum fields
As to the overall 'reality' of mathematics, reality is clearly 'amenable' to modification through mathematical means, so if the effects of (the application of) mathematics are real, so must mathematics be.
Yeah, I've watched that lecture twice. It's great for reducing your model of the universal fundamentals from the baryons (protons, neutrons, electrons) etc to 'quarks' and electrons and improving your understanding of QFT.
I think mathematics is a REAL language.
No argument here. I was mathematically blessed. But I was a bit of a fanatical explorer also. I had a bit of a chemical-excess incident when I was sixteen from which I had to be resuscitated. I remember clearly after that, being dissevered from the mathematical language. I used to be able to read a page from a math textbook like you would read a page of a book. To understand math, all I had to do was read it a little more slowly, the concepts just explained themselves, or more like the pieces of the puzzle took shape. After, I could still 'do' math, and understand math, but the gift of the language was gone. Some lessons are harder than others.
Yeah, brain chemistry is easily impacted. At least you have not lost your 'love' of maths.
Absolute fluency in any language, is very hard to achieve, even for those like John Nash (of 'A beautiful mind fame.') My command of maths is 'average' at best. I envy your description of your relationship with maths. I would even be happy to take the same 'hit' as you did, to my maths fluency, if it meant I could claim the maths level you or @jgill has. I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill, enjoys with maths. I know some people use the term math rather that maths, but then, as a Scottish person, I pure know how to spoke right England by ra way!!
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I acknowledge that my interpretation of my gravitation example, with respect to your claim cause and effect is essentially temporal, is wrong.
I also acknowledge that your interpretation of my gravitation example, with respect to your claim cause and effect is essentially temporal, is correct.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
My interpretation of what the jumper is doing in free fall, as previously stated by me, is wrong. The jumper is not doing falling at accelerating speed -- gravity is doing that by causing it.
What the jumper is doing is reacting to what gravity is causing the jumper to do.
Causation
Cause an agent of change that transforms the state of being of its object
Effect a transformation of the state of being of the object of a causal power
Temporal Sequence
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Before and After Interpretive Claim (With respect to above claim) this type of temporal sequence may contain a causal component, but it isnt necessary.
Supporting Examples
Example A Causal Component
Example B No Causal Component
In Example B we see that before and after retain their meanings in the absence of a causal relationship that connects them (with respect to lung cell metabolism).
How do you assess the truth content of the above interpretation of your claim?
Tu quoque. :joke:
I stopped responding to , not because I was offended by his skepticism of an unorthodox philosophical concept, or even his off-target debasive tactics, but because he seemed to insist that philosophical questions must be settled by empirical methods. He also accused me of making pseudo-scientific assertions, even though for support, I quoted the opinions of professional scientists, not religious theologians. Ironically, I have subscribed to both SKEPTIC & Skeptical Inquirer magazines for over 40 years, plus Scientific American magazine. So, I'm pretty well-informed about pseudo-science. Quantum Physics is indeed weird, but it only seems "pseudo" because of its Holistic & Transcendent*1 implications. And its philosophical connotations would be labeled by Materialists as "pseudo", except for the fact that it works -- pragmatically and without magic. My moderate position falls somewhere in between the New Age religious interpretations, and the Old Age classical physics paradigm.
Just today, in Skeptical Inquirer, March-April 2023, I found some relevant comments. "Our emphasis is on empirical, scientifically testable claims". Then, "the committee takes no position regarding nonempirical or mystical claims. . . . Those concerned with metaphysics an supernatural claims are directed to those journal of philosophy and religion dedicated to such matters". The Enformationism thesis is indeed "non-empirical". But whether it is "mystical" depends on your attitude toward un-solved mysteries. I was forced to remind 180 repeatedly, that TPF is a Philosophy forum, for discussing debatable ideas, not a Physics forum for exchanging factual information and verifiable guesses.
My thesis is definitely not a "what is" assertion, but a "what if" question. For example, it does not claim, as a fact, that there is a transcendent entity responsible for the existence of our contingent world. (do you accept that it is not self-existent?) Even if there is indeed a transcendent First Cause, the thesis points out that, due to the dialectic of Good vs Evil, divine intervention to correct such imperfections is not plausible --- especially if one assumes that the deity is the God of Abraham. That deity has a recorded history of failing to make good on his promises to protect his chosen people from harm. When grievous harm does repeatedly befall them, the record blames that Badness on the hapless people themselves. Instead, my postulated First Cause is totally responsible for both the Good and the Evil of the effects of ongoing causation.
I do postulate that Evolution is progressing in an upward direction, from an almost nothing Singularity toward, perhaps, a Technological Singularity --- from simplicity toward complexity. But that is hardly a traditional religious concept. No offer of direct intervention or salvation. Instead, it is more like an open-ended scientific experiment, to see how things turn out. Of course, those who want a comforting religious worldview can (and do) easily interpret the open-ended uncertainty of quantum science in religious metaphors, such as "transcendence of death". Meanwhile, those who prefer a closed mechanical classical physics paradigm can (and do) interpret the same quantum evidence to mean that "what was is what will be". Do you expect any future surprises like the, so-far inexplicable, emergence of Life & Mind from random roiling of matter?
Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. :smile:
*1. Transcendent Causation :
The point we wish to make here is that there can never be a "theory of everything" possible unless physics can come up with an adequate theory of a universal and singular causation of everything , both quantum and physical.
https://www.academia.edu/24843805/Physical_causation_transcendental_causation_and_a_theory_of_everything
Just as your personal relationship to anything: to any concept, happening or person, is individual and not precisely replicable by other people, simply it may have similarities or overlap, but is never quite identical.
Everyone has a different relationship to the concept of "good", to their mother, to the moon, to income tax, to nature or to "God" - every perspective is unique because it is establish through unique experiences.
So I would not go as far as to say "philosophers will not find God" but rather they will "not find a God that others can appreciate as they do".
And that is a condition ripe for argument and discussion and changing of views, as debating about a concept is an experience that informs our personal knowledge individually.
Perhaps I should have added (material) after "physical" in the quote. For most of us, "physical" implies "matter-based", and "mathematical" implies logical relationships*1. However, in my personal worldview both Matter & Math are forms of generic Information*2. Our senses detect Weight, but our minds interpret Mass, and imagine Matter/Object (Kant). I refer to Mathematics as "metaphysical" in the Platonic sense, that many mathematicians accept, but physicists tend to reject. So yes, physical Objects and metaphysical Fields are "entangled", in the sense that both can be reduced (mentally) down to patterns of relationships (ratios ; information ; meaning). :smile:
*1. Mass :
Mass (symbolized m) is a dimensionless quantity representing the amount of matter in a particle or object.
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/mass-m
Note -- Mass is dimensionless because it is an idea, not a thing. It's a symbol (qualia) representing a quantity of matter. But the symbol or metaphor is not the thing or object.
*2. It from Bit :
It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom at a very deep bottom, in most instances an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses;
https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/09/02/it-from-bit-wheeler/
Note -- this idea was proposed by quantum physicist John A. Wheeler. Again mathematicians & physicists may differ on the plausibility of this postulate.
But on the other hand mass also represents that quantity of energy bound in a particle (or anything). Which is interesting because energy can be bound directly, as mass. But it can also be bound in more complex forms stored by complex systems, which adds to the 'merely physical' mass of the system.
No doubt you are, Gnomon, a verifiably expert pseudo-scientist. :lol:
If you would be so kind, @universeness, check these questions (which Gnomon is too disingenuous to address substantively) for any insistence on my part that they be "settled by empirical methods" where Gnomon's statements lack empirical assumptions:
Quoting 180 Proof
Gnomon doesn't address them because, in fact, he cannot and is afraid trying to do so will lay bare the very pseudo-science at the heart of his pseudo-philosophizing "personal worldview" and which will confirms my (our) suspicions. :smirk:
Why then, if not an "assertion", Gnomon, do you refer to "Enformationism", etc as "my personal worldview" (and "a non-physical belief system")?
In other words, "what if" Enformer-of-the-gaps? with which I've taken issue because, like "Intelligent Design", your "what if" doesn't explain anything about how the world is or came to be as you purport to do (which, btw, is empirical otherwise you wouldn't rely so heavily on "cutting edge" physics for your anachronistic 'Deistic-First Cause' speculations).
Right, according to these definitions, things are as I said. The agent of change (cause) is gravity. The effect is the falling of the person.
Quoting ucarr
Of course, the designation of before and after is not sufficient for a judgement of causation, it is only one of a number of necessary factors. Do you understand that if X is a necessary condition for Y, the occurrence of X still does not necessitate Y?
Did you not read the reference I put up, the Bradford Hill criteria for causation? There's a list of nine criteria for causation, which he proposed, one of them is a temporal relation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria
I'm not saying that this is the only, or best, list of criteria. I posted it because you did not believe that temporality was an accepted criteria for causation. Now I'm referring to it to show you that temporality is not the only criterion for causation, there are other conditions which need to be met as well. The argument which I posted is concerned with the temporal aspect of causation.
You are way above me, my friend. I never got over an infatuation with BASIC, merely dabbling in Fortran, C++, etc. Look at my icon. This little guy materialized after a magnification of well over 1,000X from a program I wrote on certain dynamical systems. :cool:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The necessitation of Y requires multiple necessary conditions?
Philosophy doesn't set out to find god.
You are welcome to your speculations.
I think you cut my quote, incompletely:
Quoting universeness
instead of:
Quoting universeness
I was not comparing our knowledge of Computing Science, I was suggesting my love of Computing Science was probably comparable with your love or Pantagruel's love of mathematics.
Yes, the icon you produced, reminds me of the many images we produced at uni, when we used recursive algorithms to produce fractal patterns.
I will take the liberty of repeating them here, to help remind @Gnomon, that he should try to answer them and I confirm, that he does not need to provide substantive empirical evidence, to do so.
It's me who insists that empirical science is the final arbiter of all philosophical musing, not @180 Proof.
A. In science, what specifiable problem does "Enformationism" solve falsifiably?
B. In philosophy, what non-trivial, coherent question does "Enformationism" raise without begging any (or translate into a more probative question or questions)?
How does your "Meta-physics" trump physics' conservation laws (e.g. Newton's 3rd law of motion)?
How have you solved the causal interaction problem (re: substance dualism)?
With respect to "Causal Agency", what non-trivially differentiates "Enformationism" from creationism / intelligent design?
1. Why do "ancient Holistic philosophies" need non-philosophical "support"?
2. What is such "support" suppose to change about or with "ancient Holistic philosophies"? And change for whom?
3. Lastly, insofar as scientifically literate philosophers / students of philosophy tend to dismiss your repetitious (mis)uses of scientific theories and their findings coupled with your own (disingenuous?) confession to being a neophyte in both philosophy and natural sciences, how do you know, Gnomon, that the pervasive "lukewarm reception ,"is due to "reductive scientistic bias" and not due to well-founded learning that is philosophically and/or scientifically superior to your own? What does overlooking or denying the more likely prospect of the latter possibility say about the "openness" or lack thereof of your "mind", sir?
Since you have me pegged as an anti-science god-fearing religious nut, I feel obligated to tell you what I'm giving-up for Lent : Epistemic Gaslighters. :joke:
Whoops. Sorry. My fault. :yikes:
Nae problem bruv! Your icon is still very cool looking, and I still envy your title of maths 'prof.'
You are welcome! It's bizarre to me that @Gnomon actually thinks we are doing him a favour, by encouraging him to explain more about his motivations and personal reasons for inventing and blogging about his personal theocratic musings that he labels enformationism and the gap god he has titled 'the enformer.'
Quoting Gnomon
I could understand, if many, many TPF members were enthusiastically, posting in support of his claims.
So, I think this further exposure, of his speculations, and his own admission of it's direct connection to theological stances such as deism and a Kalam style first cause mind with intent, has further damaged the rationality of his creationist worldview. In many, many cases, it's just not true that any publicity is good publicity.
Quoting jgill
So, the part is part of the whole, except when its not.
It's amusing to picture you and celebrating & high-fiving & thumbs-uping your victorious vanquishing of a mythical dragon. Unfortunately, that supernatural serpent exists only in your imagination. Yet, it emerged into your fanciful personal reality (worldview) due to your misinterpretation of my use of the G*D label to describe the hypothetical ultimate source of natural Reality*1. As a moderate skeptic myself, I understand & appreciate your stance against religious Supernaturalism. But, other than "preternatural", I didn't have a official dictionary word to describe the nature of a Hypothetical entity. So, I made-up a neologism, based on its role in traditional cultures.
Just today though, I came across the high-tech philosophical term : Manifest Image*2 , in which G*D is a semantic device (artefact), not a physical thing subject to empirical proof or disproof --- a conceptual gap filler*3. In The Logic of Information, professional philosopher Floridi says the normative and semantic environment the manifest image of the world is built by our minds, but it is no less real. . . . it is the contribution that the mind makes to the world. MI is human imagination, not perception, yet it is how we know (cognize) reality (Kant). So, due to your "encouragement", I have learned a technical term that is above my amateur pay-grade.
Such mental images are integral parts of our worldviews, but they are Cultural instead of Natural. Hence, they cannot be proven or disproven by scientific methodology. Semantic MI, such as quantum wave-particles, become useful elements of our Kantian reality. But their normative existence is meta-physical, not physical. In Sellars' sense, they are non-natural (cultural ; mental), but not super-natural (spiritual). Consequently, they are detected, not by what they are (material), but by what they do (role).
Floridi says that the explanatory gap is due to the artefactual nature of the natural. That's because we know, semanticize, and explain reality through the construction, expansion, and refinement of our semantic artefacts . . . For example, we know there is no God's-eye perspective, but Cosmologists & Philosophers feel free to construct manifest images to represent such an outside-in worldview. He goes on to conclude that, for homo sapiens, the non-natural is our first nature, and the natural is our second nature". Therefore, we humans don't just perceive physical nature, we conceive Nature meta-physically, in terms of Manifest Images.
I don't expect this semantic excursion to change your mind. It's merely an attempt to express the G*D concept in terms less likely to be interpreted based on the historical prejudicial antipathic antimony of religion vs science, where the same word can have opposite meanings. :smile:
*1. Science and Ultimate Reality : Quantum Theory, Cosmology, and Complexity
This volume provides a fascinating preview of the future of physics. It comprises contributions from leading thinkers in the field, inspired by the pioneering work of John Wheeler.
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Ultimate-Reality-Cosmology-Complexity/dp/052183113X
*2. Manifest Image (Wilfred Sellars) :
his development of a coherentist epistemology and functional role/inferentialist semantics, for his distinction between the manifest image and the scientific image of the world, for his proposal that psychological concepts are like theoretical concepts, and for a tough-minded scientific realism . . . . The scientific image grows out of and is methodologically posterior to the manifest image, which provides the initial framework in which science is nurtured,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/
*3. The manifest image contrasts with the scientific image, which deals in the behaviour of conglomerates of the physical particles postulated by scientific theory. What Sellars called the perennial philosophy from Plato onwards accepts the reality of the elements and features of the manifest image, but it is also a perennial problem to compare and reconcile its claims with that of the scientific image, which is in reality the arbiter of what is, that it is, and of what is not that it is not.
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100130832;jsessionid=0297B7D765A0033DE113DE8550B5341A
No. In Wilfred Sellars words : "stop attacking your own Manifest Image, then claiming to vanquish Gnomon's metaphors". :joke:
I 'liked' your last 2 posts, they contained a lot of 'reasonable' points.
I also credit @180 Proof's summary of your 'complaints' as 'stop picking on my Enformer of the gaps.'
To me, you painted your metaphysical floor in theistic shades and found yourself in a corner of the room waiting for the floor to dry, lest you should you should mess up your work. The problem is that the paint you used takes a loooooooooong time to dry and is prone to 'flaking' soon after it does.
If you added some rationality to the mix and stated categorically, that you fully accept, that any posit that suggests that our universe was created by a first cause MIND with INTENT is unfalsifiable and therefore has no validity as a hypothesis, and is certainly not worthy of the term 'theory,' then that might help. There IS NO theory of enformationism, it is nothing but YOUR philosophical musings (which you admit to at times and then at other times you call enformationism a 'theory.') and at its FOUNDATION, is a gap god character, you labelled the Enformer.
YOU are a good thinker with laudable debating skills, but in this case, your dalliance with theology has caused you to try to defend a hopeless position. You are in the same place as any theist, who simply says there is a first cause mind with intent that created the universe because I SAY THERE IS and then they (you thankfully don't!) pull out some ancient book of BS and claim this contains the ONLY truth's about the human race and it's origins and all other such ancient books of BS, are full of BS. :roll:
My advice in all earnest @Gnomon, is take out the BS woo woo from your Enformationism, if you want it to gain some credence ground within the scientific community. Otherwise, it may only ever find followers amongst nefarious characters like Ken Hovind, shown below from a year or so ago, debating evolution with a scientist. I think if he knew about your 'enformationism' he would try to promote it as 'scientific' and valid evidence of god. He would do this as all those in his camp are desperate for any life raft of flotsam they can find.
No. It was you & 180 who painted Enformationism as "Theistic". Gnomon denied that denigrating mis-characterization, but accepted the philosophical label of rational "Deism"*1. Which you quickly re-defined as "Theistic", even though reason-based Deism was intended to be a naturalistic (nature as organism instead of mechanism) alternative to Theism. It was also an attempt to avoid the excesses of Imperial religions that resulted from authoritarian political power.
Both Theists and Atheists belittled Deism for its do-nothing-deity. But Enformationism offers a quantum science update that envisions the Enformer/Programmer more like a do-everything First Cause, which works via bottom-up Natural processes (Causation ; En-formation) instead of top-down Miraculous interventions. That thesis is neither faith-based Religion nor evidence-based Science, but reason-based Philosophy. As a freely-chosen personal philosophical worldview, it has no dominion over the beliefs of un-believers, such as Atheists. It does however, have one thing in common with New Age philosophies : it treats Nature respectfully as a living organism, not an inorganic machine to be used & abused by money-motivated men*2.
Putin ironically defined his invasion of Ukraine, reminiscent of the Nazi invasion of Poland, as a purge of Nazis from a sovereign nation. So, even though he is not obtaining his real objective, he can still withdraw and declare that debacle a victory. The party that unilaterally defines the battle, also defines the terms of success. An old saying advises the invader to "declare victory and depart". But Putin may be too stubborn to admit defeat, until both sides are devastated. Are you & 180 still doing the victory dance over your vanquishment of a religion of your own devising? :smile:
*1.Deism beyond Reason :
In his respectful critique of Deism, he makes one telling observation : "Most deists I know do believe in more (about God) than what natural, unaided reason can discover." Although Reason is their raison d'etre, Deists cannot deny that some of their beliefs and hopes are not derived from pure Reason, but from reason supplemented with hope or speculation. So the original post-enlightenment boast of a rational religion, was true only by comparison to the more dogmatic Faith religions of the day.
Olson admits, "I think theres some truth in the claim that deism is (or can be) more rational than full, robust Christianity." But he doesn't agree that Reason is sufficient to make a worldview into a religion. And I happen to agree with him. But, Olsen goes on to point-out the problem with an austere, abstract, logic-driven, Spock-like worldview. "A religion that doesnt go beyond reason has no place for love or sin or care for the weak or hope for an ultimate triumph of good over evil. And its god would seem to me to be bad insofar as he is omnipotent but never intervenes in history or persons lives."
https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page69.html
*2. Einstein -- New Age nut? :
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/29/archives/the-einstein-papers-a-man-of-many-parts-the-einstein-papers-man-of.html
Note -- I look forward to the next smirking reply from satirizing Einstein's spooky woo-woo nature-worship.
The only thing "spooky woo woo" about Einstein is your (willful?) misunderstanding of him and his work which suits your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps tilts at windwills. :sparkle:
Our exchange regarding your enformationism and your enformer has again reached a panto style exchange of 'oh yes it is,' and 'oh no it's not,' impasse.
I don't respect paganistic viewpoints that anthropomorphise nature as a single entity with intent.
To compare your debate with me and @180 Proof with references to Nazism and the actions of Putin in Ukraine, leave me thinking that you may be a little bit mad, and inebriated with your own vernacular.
"Who's zooming who?" __Aretha Franklin
"Intolerant AntiTheism uses emotional WooBoo labels as substitutes for logical arguments" __Gnomon
Philosophical fallacies :
Ad Hominem -- label philosophical opponent as woo-monger
Strawman -- define philosophical god-concept as religious god-model
Ignorance -- denying the pre-big-bang epistemological gap
False Dilemma -- Religion vs Science ; Theism vs Atheism
Slippery Slope -- any god-posit will lead to religious irrationalism
Causal Fallacy -- Asserting or denying a causal relationship based on the fact that the proposed cause does not immediately, absolutely, or uniquely determine the effect.
Einstein's Nature God compared to Enformationism's Nature God :
A. "He could not conceive of a God who punished and rewarded people (partly because he was a thoroughgoing determinist). He repeatedly distanced himself from the idea of a personal God." ___CHECK.
B. "This was not the personal God of the Abrahamic faiths, but nor was it the idiomatic God of atheism."
___CHECK
C. Im not an atheist and I dont think I can call myself a pantheist, he once said when asked to define God. I believe in Spinozas God, he told Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogues of New York, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.
___CHECK
D. "There are still people, he remarked at a charity dinner during the War, who say there is no God. But what really make me angry is that they quote me for support of such views. There are fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics, he said in 1940."
___CHECK
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/did-albert-einstein-believe-in-god
Note -- The "idiomatic" GOD of Atheism is not the First Cause of philosophical Enformationism.
Interesting list.
I would add "Zeno-type pseudo-paradoxes -- Dividing the indivisible (Dichotomy of space and time)"
(One of my favorite fallacies to talk about.)
That's because my replies are tailored to the posts I'm responding to ; reflecting biases back to you. may be a bit more absolutist (Black vs White) than Uni, but both tend more toward Left vs Right ideological debates than philosophical possibility dialogues. My communications with other, less antagonistic, posters are much less combative. I continue to respond to your Either/Or categorizations, mainly because they are very narrowly targeted, and help me to find possible weaknesses in my own worldview. If you are offended, it's from looking in a mirror.
For example, 180 refers to my "willful misunderstanding" of Einstein, when I use him as an example of a rational scientist who is not a hardline Atheist. This was a response to 180's insistence that I must be either a Theist or an Atheist : no middle ground. But Einstein was quoted, in his own words, saying "I am not an Atheist". By your Yes-or-No definition, does that make him a Theist? In contrast to 180's mis-characterization, Enformationism is intended to be a moderate position, between Theism and Atheism, more like Deism. But he and you place Deism in the same pigeonhole with Theism. So, who is "inebriated with his own vernacular" -- a language of White vs Black labels, which omit the whole range in between extremes?
Like Einstein, "I am not an Atheist". And I'm also not a Theist --- not that there's anything morally wrong with that. Most of the people I know & love are Theists, and are morally good(-ish) people. Yet, like Albert, I view Nature as functionally equivalent to the traditional notions of pagan or universal gods. Einstein replied to a similar attempt to pin him down : I believe in Spinozas God. Nature may not be a loving father or a vengeful spirit, but it is a source of information for us humans to tap into. As Einstein advised "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better". The only problem with Spinoza's God, is that it does not account for a space-time creation event, satirically labeled "The Big Bang". Einstein's "Steady State" alternative does not fit the evidence, and is now considered, by most cosmologists, to be passé*1.
Your mischaracterization of Enformationism as "paganistic viewpoints that anthropomorphise nature as a single entity with intent", illustrates your own misinterpretation, not my own intent. Instead, I portray Nature as a program processing information without intent of its own. However, like many philosophers faced with evidence of a creation event, I look beyond the Big Bang for the Logos*2 that is playing-out in Evolution. I have never claimed to know what that ultimate Purpose is. And I do not have a personal relationship with the Programmer. It's just a philosophical postulate to explain the evidence that is emerging within Quantum Theory and Information Theory. You are welcome to your own explanation for that pre-bang explanatory gap. But the existence of Causal Energy & Natural Laws must be accounted for in any gap-filler. :smile:
PS___The Nazi reference was merely to illustrate how much easier it is to argue ideologically (via labeling) instead of philosophically (via reasoning). Are you aware of the hypocrisy of Putin's validation of his invasion? I was not calling anyone on this forum a Nazi. But I have been labelled a Theist, with the same diversionary intent.
*1. Big Bang or Steady State? :
For most purposes, however, the debate between the big bang and the steady state was over in 1965, with big bang the clear winner.
https://history.aip.org/exhibits/cosmology/ideas/bigbang.htm
*2. Logos :
A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity. An eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation, available to every individual who seeks it.
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/theogloss/logos-body.html
Note -- Einstein's aphorism "look deep into nature" for understanding, may have been referring to the Logos logic programmed into Nature.
Sadly, Fallacy lists can be used by both sides in a debate. For example, often labels me as slander slinger of "Ad Hominems", when that is his own favorite arguing tactic. Another trick is to corral your opponent into a biased category that is easier to dismiss with a wave of the hand : "Strawman". I suspect that, when a dialogue descends to the point of Fallacy listing, it has long since fallen into repetitive Circular Reasoning.
"Dividing the Indivisible" sound like a very technical approach. Where did you run into such an infinitesimal argument? :smile:
Although your question is completely off-target, I'll answer a similar unstated question, which is pertinent to this thread. This response is mainly for the benefit of open-minded onlookers to this mudslinging street brawl, who may not presume that everything is about Physics. As I have repeated repeatedly, Enformationism is not a scientific theory, so it does not offer empirically falsifiable solutions to physical problems. It does instead present a hypothetical philosophical conjecture on ancient Meta-physical (Ontology & Epistemology) questions as noted below. :smile:
What is the thesis about? :
This informal thesis does not present any new scientific evidence, or novel philosophical analysis. It merely suggests a new perspective on an old enigma : what is reality? The so-called Information Age that began in the 20th century, has now come of age in the 21st century. So I have turned to the cutting-edge Information Sciences in an attempt to formulate my own personal answer to the perennial puzzles of Ontology, the science of Existence.
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html
Note -- The thesis assumes, like most philosophical treatises throughout history, that Philosophical reasoning does not stop at the Big Bang barrier of space-time.
Right, there are many ways to avoid direct confrontation! :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
It's you who is underrating it! :grin:
"Sophism": "a clever but false argument, especially one used deliberately to deceive." Do you consider this an insignificant or unimportant example?
Then check "sophism" in ancient Greece, as well as Zeno's "paradoxes", which are blatant cases of fallacious reasoning.
I hold the same opinion as Christopher Hitchens, that all religion is pernicious and I agree with the opinion behind his book title "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." So, I do have a very strong anti-religious stance. I don't mind a non-proselytizing individual theist/deist/theosophist. I only find such a person pernicious, when they, on occasion, try to justify their beliefs, by trying to link them with real scientific theory, such as quantum physics.
Quoting Gnomon
The point is, its not a 'theory,' at all!
Quantum physics actually qualifies as a scientific THEORY. As you admit, enformationism, certainly does not, but you have suggested enformationism is a theory, that has some association with quantum physics. It is NOT and it DOES NOT, it also does not qualify as a hypothesis, it is pure speculation.
Perhaps you could get something from the first definition of a theory, shown below, but very little, in my opinion, based on the words I have underlined in the first definition below.
I think the fact that 'most people you know and love are theists,' has resulted in an unconscious or perhaps even conscious bias towards their viewpoints on human existence.
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be scientific, belong to a non-scientific discipline, or no discipline at all. Depending on the context, a theory's assertions might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings.
[i]A scientific theory must be:
a simple unifying idea that doesn't include anything unnecessary
logically consistent (contradictions aren't allowed)
logically falsifiable (there must be possible or theoretical situations in which the theory would be invalid)
limited, so it's clear whether data verifies, falsifies, or is irrelevant (i.e., it doesn't presume to explain absolutely everything)[/i]
[i]Following are the characteristics of the hypothesis:
The hypothesis should be clear and precise to consider it to be reliable.
If the hypothesis is a relational hypothesis, then it should be stating the relationship between variables.
The hypothesis must be specific and should have scope for conducting more tests.[/i]
Quoting 180 Proof
:clap:
Quoting 180 Proof
Absafragginlootly!
:lol: You can't just 'hand wave away' @180 Proof's valid question and replace it with a question you invent and are quite willing to answer :rofl: That's not how honest debate works!
It's ridiculous that you would employ such a stealth tactic, soon after typing a list of actions which qualify as negative actions in any honest debate.
Since "God" questions are very common on this forum, it's clear that the ultimate notion of "deity" is not yet dead among philosophical thinkers, even though the savage sword of doubt is aggressively wielded against the retreating shield of faith. Consequently, I would expect TPF to be a "domain of discourse" for topics that don't conform to "different standards of empirical science". Yet, some dedicated anti-theists are still trying to drive a physical Science stake into the heart of an immortal metaphysical faith, that just won't die a natural death. It's the undying hope of Philosophers, that Mother Nature is, in some sense, rational & directional rather than random & aimless.
Apparently, for many of us wisdom lovers, "Better an ignis fatuus ; Than no illume at all". Yet, Compared to tangible Empirical evidence, fleshless Philosophical arguments are will-o-wisps that provide only ineffectual ethereal illumination. So, why bother? Why not just accept that the omnipotent hand of God, has been amputated? Why not substitute faith in all-powerful Technology for the impotent absent God? I can think of only one reason for a god-like answer to Ontological & Epistemological questions : the unknowable abyss of "Why", that remains after all "How" questions have been turned into high-tech.
Nature was long presumed to be God's hand, working in the world. But now Culture has extended the reach of the human hand beyond natural bounds. Unfortunately, Phusis has always been indifferent to human needs & desires, despite prayers & sacrifices. So, we turn to Technology to grant our individual wishes, all-too-often to the detriment of collective needs. Tech's reductive methods are inherently amoral, leaving the huddled masses of low-tech humans to suffer from un-met needs. Mech-Tech also disrupts the functional neurology of Nature, allowing Mother Earth to wither away. (hug a tree today)
Therefore, for ethical philosophers, there remains a need for, at the very least, a metaphorical bonding & governing power to hold the disparate parts together. But the notion of ethical Holism is irrelevant to the heartless machines that run the modern world. Can we rely on efficient Science to light the way, or is there a role for feckless Philosophy, to "keep the ends out for the tie that binds"? Is the logical necessity for an ultimate organizing force Real or merely Ideal? Does it matter? :smile:
[i]Thosedying then,
Knew where they went
They went to Gods Right Hand
That Hand is amputated now
And God cannot be found
The abdication of belief
Makes the Behavior small
[b]Better an ignis fatuus
Than no illume at all[/b]--[/i]
___Emily Dickinson