Uncaused existence.
Offline Seems to me that existence as a whole is uncaused. Even if we accept the big bang starting as some quantum event in some substrate, that substrate had to have some form of existence. And then we descend into infinite regress. So I can't escape the conclusion that on some level, existence is uncaused.
If not, then at some point, something "appeared" out of nothing. And if something can appear out of nothing, ANYTHING can appear out of nothing. If the appearance of things from nothing is limited by some underlying laws, then those laws are yet another layer of structure and they must exist before the appearance of something from nothing. Nothing means now laws or anything. From a truely null state, anything can happen.
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Offline Quote:The issue is that there are many things which have no cause nor causer. Read a book on quantum mechanic and you will see tons of things which have no cause... infact nuclear decay itself has no cause.
Actually, many things have a cause. Nuclear decay could be based on the Zero Point Field for example (which explains the rate of half-life...) Ditto, for seemingly 'uncaused' events such as quantum flucuations etc...
In fact, Quantum computing has always intrigued me and is part of what I base my beliefs on.
Using lagit scienct to postulate ambigious naked assertions is retrofiting science after the fact. Your pantheism is just as much a naked assertion as any ancient comic book myth.
You, like Wave, are simply attempting to put new wrapping on a broken concept. Quantim michanics do not, nor will ever support a dissimboided conciousness of any kind.
No one here will ever lay claim to know where modern science will lead us. But postulating naked assertions and attempting to fit science in is just new packaging to mask a broken concept.
"super natural/entity/dissimbodied conciousness/ ouiji boards/voodo dolls, deism, pantheism, are just different lame attempts to explain the unknown insted of accepting the unknown without jumping to conclusions"
Science does not support agendas or pet ideas, it is a metheod, a process that lead us to better data. If your claims were valid, they would be widely accepted and taught in science classes.
So CAPTIAN, write a book and get it peer reviewed by the scientific community. I dare you. My guess is if you ever did, lagit sceintists would laugh you out of the community.
I could see you teaching a science class, "Lets all go over to the electron microscope and take a look at a dissimbodied conciousness"
Your education level does not prevent you as a human from believing in asbsurdities as fact. There are many intelegent people who believe all sorts of absurd things. You merely fool yourself just like they do and falsely believe that quantum science supports your naked assertion.
"Quantum science proves my naked assertion of a purple snarfwidget"
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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Offline Girl Dancing In Orbit wrote:Come on, you are refusing to understand what I said or you have deliberately omitted the second and more important half of my intervention. I said that this as nothing to do with the existence or nonexistence of something.
I must have missed something. My only point is that empiricism is not a sufficient tool for understanding and dealing with reality.
My point is that empiricism is primordial for us to know if something really exists or not (i take the "or not" back... I'm wrong to say that). It's not because we empirically know that something exists that we understand it, I agree with you on that.
But saying that God exists without any empirical evidence is pulling a rabbit out of your hat. It comes out of nowhere for no reasons.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
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Wavefreak, my friend....
You are SO CLOSE!!
Come to the dark side!!!
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
LOL! NEVER!
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But your implication is that there is an uncaused causer.
And since you bear the theist tag (no disrespect) I assume (and admit that I assume) that your implication is that such an uncaused causer must be a god figure.
Are you trying to make a case for a god figure? Because if you are, it doesn't appear to be working.
Or are you just expressing frustration with not knowing all the answers? Welcome to the human condition!
Come to the dark side. We have cookies.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
I'm not sure where this leads. I have difficulty with anything beyond the big bang. I'm not sure anything can be said with confidence about "before" the big bang.
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If nothing can be said with confidence, then you've basically given the theistic and atheistic versions of existence the unknowable status prior to the big bang.
I guess you'll just have to make the best decision you can given what you can know post big bang.
Did I mention the cookies?
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
We've got angel food cake.
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I like red bean mochi. It tastes appropriately neutral.
Uh oh. If you're not sure about anything pre-big bang, then you're getting real close to see how unlikely the "god" would be to "cause" any of it. I feel like we're close to winning a toaster or something on this one.
You might also find that the pre-Big BAND timeline is more in reach to study.
Study, yes. Falsification? Not likely beyond a certain point. And then it isn't possible to conclude anything. And, fwiw, I don't believe in an athropomorphic grey beard sittting on a throne in the sky.
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Unl;eavened bread has only slightly less taste
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Clearly you've never had the angel food cake my wife makes (filled with whipped cream and strawberries and glazed with icing)
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Our friend wavefreak is a theist of a different order, little or no religious dogma that I am presently aware of, highly intelligent, and possesing a sense of humor about himself...as an atheist I find that very disorienting and difficult to deal with.
The issue is that there are many things which have no cause nor causer. Read a book on quantum mechanic and you will see tons of things which have no cause... infact nuclear decay itself has no cause.
Of course you have difficulties dealing with the pre Big Bang, no one on earth knows, not only what happen before the Big Bang, but what happen in the very first moment of the Big Bang. Modern physics breaks down at a point called the Planck Epoch (which is not before the BB but right at the start of it).
You are almost right when you say : "I'm not sure anything can be said with confidence about "before" the big bang." You can be sure of it. Nothing can be said about "before" the big bang, period. Of course there are cosmological models that tries to deal with "before" (branian cosmology, cyclic universe and so on) but they are far from being valid theories... We have to wait for that.
Like every theory, the big bang is an incomplete theory and we have to wait for physics to be updated before saying anything. But please ! Let's not place a God at the edge of our knowledge, doing such a thing is destructive to science, so whatever God you wish to believe in, do not believe in a God of the Gaps.
Wavefreak seems to be a Deist if you ask me.
I don't really know anything about it but I think that nuclear decay have a cause, at least beta decay i.e. the weak nuclear force. It as to do with the exchange of heavy bosons and it's a process that may be random but not un-caused, like you tell it. But again, I can be wrong on that one.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
I cannot comment on things that I don't fully understand. My limited understanding is that the notion of uncaused event follows from Bell's theorem and its elimination of hidden variables. But there are still some questions about non-local hidden variables and algebraic operators.
What I do know is that we are more often than not surprised by things. Imagine the astonisment of astronomers when when observations indicated that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating.
Also, while there is an apparant lack of a proximal cause to nuclear decay, the instability of an atmoic nucleaus must first exist before decay can happen. So if I bombard a carbon nucleus with neutrons, changing it to carbon 14 instead of carbon 12, it will eventually decay into nitrogen 14. When it decays I cannot say, but there is causality.
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You are absolutely right. John Bell was very surprised that the EPR paradox violated his theorem, Einstein would of been surprised to.
Newton thought that light was a particle, Maxwell thought it was a wave, and look at us now, it's neither one nor the other while sharing attributes with both.
That's what the universe is, a surprising place to be, and whatever made the universe come into existence, I bet that it will be much more surprising than the inelegant notion of a God.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
Actually, many things have a cause. Nuclear decay could be based on the Zero Point Field for example (which explains the rate of half-life...) Ditto, for seemingly 'uncaused' events such as quantum flucuations etc...
In fact, Quantum computing has always intrigued me and is part of what I base my beliefs on.
You convert a down quark to an up quark. That causes a w boson to emit which than decays into a beta particle.
or
weak force causes a neutron decays into proton, electron and an anti-neutrino.
The fact however is a radioactive atom is sitting there rearranging itself constantly and awaiting to hit an arrangement which causes the atom to decay. There's a very direct link between the weakforce becoming imbalanced enough to decay... but this is a second cause... what caused the atom to arrive to that arrangment? NOTHING its just a statistical event which is doomed to happen.
Natural radioactive atoms such as those created in supernova explosions still have no cause..
My question is if you are one of those theists who attribute the big bang to God? Do you realise that the big bang like mathematical equations do not have a God variable.
E=MC^2 and not E=MC^2 + (God)
Yes many things have a cause. Not everything.
could be... sure and michael jackson could be an alien. I dunno...
How is the supernova removed from the chain of causality?
Don't believe I've ever heard of god being described in mathematical terms. I suppose god being the proximal cause of the big bang universe is a possibility, but there is no way to verify that.
That's just silly.
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LMAO, ROFL, LOL etc etc etc...
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
The ZPF contributing to decay is more plausable than MJ being an alien.
There is no way to verify that, so there is no reason to say that.
Again, don't fall for the God of the Gaps.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
I dont know any atheist that would claim to know what happened before the big bang. I think most, however would warn against incerting myth where the gap is. I think they would warn against assuming a "who" as a cause, and would rather think of it as a "what", a natural process as to which we have yet to uncover.
What we do know is that atoms ARE NOT magical and what componants of the unverse we see now are natural, although not fully understood, it would stand to reason, whatever came before is simply a natural process that we have yet to tap into understanding.
Saying "anything can happen" does not support non-scientific absurd claims. For example, I could shout from the rooftops right now, "When I wake up tommorow I will magically turn into a doughnut" Science will never support such an absurdity. "anything" from a scientific standpoint only refures to natural law, not outragious hockus pokus.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
God of the Gaps is a dodge. Unless god is dilberately planting false data (some fundies seem to think so) then I can't dismiss empirically derived conlusions about reality. That said, I'm not convinced that empiricism can describe all that can be known nor that god can be described empirically. I have yet to come up with a way of describing my belief. It is decidedly non-rational (I purposely do not say irrational). A rather poor analogy is an abstract painting. A good abstract painting in some way pulls in the veiwer and allows the user to decide what is there. I look at the universe and the painting is more to me with god than without.
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you're aweful silly.
I was asking what you believe... if you are a jew, christian, or muslim... do you believe Genesis is legitimately 100% accurate... or do you think God lied and that the big bang and evolution was actually God..?
you missed my point... not exactly something suprising... most theists are incapable of understanding such contrast.
Hey Kettle, I think I hear the pot calling.
It seems like we're running out of places, though, that your god could be. However, I think we still win the toaster if you're basically where we are regarding world religion, dogma, morality, etc. In other words, if your "god" isn't doing anything or "informing" you of anything, you're at least the least dangerous theist I can think of.
Maybe you've won yourself Spinoza's god.
Our 5 senses can't tell us that radio waves exists, we need a tool that will "translate" these waves in something that our senses can detect. So we now have empirical knowledge of something that we could not normally know the existence of without the proper tools.
Now, if there are things for which it would be physically impossible to design a tool to get empirical evidence for it, meaning that we would have no way whatsoever of discovering them, even if these things really exists, then, they are completely irrelevant to us and we have no reasons to suspect their existence and can't therefor postulate their existence.
And if you postulate the existence of such things, then, don't hesitate to use the word "irrational" because you have no rational reasons to say that these things exists.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
Wavefreak is obviously not a religous fundi that talks to God first thing in the morning.
And I know alot of Deist that are exactly where we are regarding religious dogmas.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
Design an experiment that will tell me which will make the better president - Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. This is relevant, and yet cannot, in principle, be empirically decided.
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Easy let Clinton rule for 4 years, after let Obama rule for another 4 years. Compare after. But that's not how the political system works, but the experiment is still physically doable.
And this as nothing to do with things like God. You are asking me to predict the behaviour of things that we already know exist, it's like asking "tell me how this cloud will behave as compared to this other cloud" it's bad analogy with proving the existance of God
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
We are talking about the existence of things, not the behavior of existing thing.
The question is :
Is there a God ?
not
How does God behave ?
Before answering the second question, we have to answer the first one.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
Making shit up because you like an idea is far worse than using the best data we have to date. When falsified that data can be and should be discarded for the newer tested and proven data.
Otherwise anytime someone utters something we should merely believe it.
You cant discribe your beliefs. Fine, and I am under no intelectuall obligation to change my position to yours without evidence.
You are letting your emotional sense of "awe" cloud your judgment. The universe is full of some nasty distructive shit. Black holes, exploding suns, comets and meteors. We could get distroyed at any point in a blink of an eye and you think that a god is involved?
Ok, lets say for argment's sake such a being does exist. I would call it a prick for putting us on a planet full of natural disasters, desease, famine, crime and war, much less the distructive nature in the universe.
If you think all this was created by a being that cares go up in the space shuttle and when you go out on a space walk, take your helmet off and tell me that a god exists.
The amount of potential and kenetic energy released by the nature in the universe leads to the birth of stars and solar systems, that is true, but their is also a staggering amount of distruction as well.
You would believe a cognative being who made such an inificiant and hostile invironment to live in?
I wouldnt diliberatly build in live in a home full of broken glass on the floor, freyed electrical wiring, asbestos and put flesh eating bacteria in it, then proceed to move in.
What are you talking about? You would call a god believable that set up a system where children are raped and murdered and where breast and testicular cancer kill millions every year? Is this the god you see?
No, I see randomness void of cognition. I see humans falsely believing in this super natural power because they are afraid of their own mortality. I see a mundain phycological reason for the false incertion of a god.
Our genes evolved to drive us to continue. When humans assert that a human like super natural character exists, they are merely and falsely projecting their own natural disire to continue onto a magical claim. It is the missfire meme that Dawkins talks about in |"The God Delusion".
Nature's power is massive and impressive at times, but it is also distructive and frighting as well. Again, there is no need to postulate a disimbodied being to explain nature.
You like certain aspects of nature, but fail to recognize the frightening things and you are faslely allowing your sense of "awe" get the better of you.
The universe is a hostile place it is not a "painting" it is a reality and isnt always pretty.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Sorry, but that doesn't fly. The outcome of the first four years effects the second four years. You cannot independently evaluate their presidencies. In order to empirically decide you would have to put each one into indentical situations and compare the outcomes. This is in principle impossible. Even worse, in different sequences of events, on sequence would favor Barack and the other Hillary. A contrived example: suppose a giant solar flare knocked out enough communications satellites to disrupt international financial transactions for a significant period of time. The ripple effects on the global economy push us into a catastrophic world wide recession. Hillary, elected first, cannot inspite of her best efforts, deliver any type of effective soultuion, so she is voted out of office after one term and Barack is elected. The initial conditions of Hillary's term (a shaky but not failed economy) is not the same as the initial conditions of Barack's. So how can you compare which actually is the better president? Barack may be consider a better president by simply keeping things from getting worse.
The point is that much of what happens in our lives cannot be empirically decided. Can you tell me what the stock market is going to be valued at in 6 months? 12 months? 24 months? And yet that exact speculation influences financial decisions TODAY. Even global warming can't be emperically decided. Its conclusions are based on computer models, not by a falsifiable experiment. Before you all jump my ass, yes, the computer models are driven by empirical measurements of climate, etc, etc - but it is not possible to do a grand, repeatable climate experiment with a control. Climate models are in principle a best "guess".
So, if the mundane affairs of main are impossible to fully quantify, how the hell am I supposed to quantify god?
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Wave certainly is a step up from tratitional ancient myth lovers. But he, like they have the same deficite that Thomas Jefferson had as a Deist, evidence.
He cant even discribe his belief, his words, not mine. I see no good reason to buy something, on any issue, without solid factual evidence. Having a case of the "warm fuzzies" is not good enough for me.
Wave may be the nicest person outside his claims. I think he knows I am not judging him, the person, but reminding him that "just because" I "feel this is real" is not good enough for me.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I accept that awe is a part of my conciousness. I cannot discard that fact in any of my judgements.
I find that stuff pretty frickin' amazing. And the prospect of death doesn't terrify me. Shit happens. What makes it bad?
If god is the moral agent as described by fundementalism then yes, he is a prick. I would spit in his eye.
So god is going to reward my stupidity?
Pretty cool, huh?
I have always thought the physical unverse was amazingly efficient. Maybe not optimized for humans, but still effecient.
I'm not sure how moral agency got into the conversation, but you are assuming I hold to some kind of super benevolent sky daddy. I don't assume that the welfare of humanity is the most important thing in the universe.
The universe is astonishlingly beautiful to me. What you call hostile is just the unverse doing its thing. I don't have much of a problem with that.
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YOU ARE ONE INCH AWAY FROM BECOMING AN ATHEIST! YOU ARE SO DAMN CLOSE IT MAKES MY CHIN(sanitized for public consumption) ITCH!
BINGO, how the hell is one supposed to quantify god? The answer is simple. Make up whatever you want, use your emagination, just like people invented Thor to explain lighting. You merely attempt to downplay your lack of answers by attempting to avoid the ancient hokus pokus claims rather than accept that you dont have the answe3rs, so you incert your explinations you find appealing where answers dont exist.
Your god belief is merely an attempt to avoid the pitfalls of anceint theism. But the paradoxs and absurdities still exist, even with your ambigous claims of a generic god.
Did it ever occure to you that "god" as a concept is broken and woefully inadiquate to explain all that we dont know at this point? Did it ever occur to you that you cling to this claim because you merely like the idea of a god?
I can postulate a "purple snarfwidget" as the cause of the universe, but you would rightfully reject it because I would NOT be able to quantify such a naked assertion.
YOU ARE SO CLOSE WAVE, SO DAMNED CLOSE......We have hope for you.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Come on, you are refusing to understand what I said or you have deliberately omitted the second and more important half of my intervention. I said that this as nothing to do with the existence or nonexistence of something.
No I can't tell you which one will be the best president, but Clinton and Obama both exists, we have empirical evidence for this. So they will behave like humans (existing animals) do. Predicting their behavior falls into probabilistic "laws" (can't find a better word, I'm not English).
The stock market exists as well, we have empirical evidence of that, and it's behavior is also probabilistic.
Again, change your example, it is a bad analogy. You have to separate the notions of existence and behaviorism, they are not the same thing AT ALL. Only existing things can behave... but not non existing things.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
Unlike Brian37 I am not trying to convince you that the universe is at the same time hostile and hospitable to us.
I share exactly the same feeling of amazment that you do when contemplating the exquisite and staggering beauty of the universe.
But I don't need to believe that some magical space daddy created it to find it oh so wonderful.
Si Dieu existe, c'est Son problème !
If God exists, it's His problem !--Graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne (France), May 1968
romancedlife.blogspot.com
I must have missed something. My only point is that empiricism is not a sufficient tool for understanding and dealing with reality.
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