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Author Topic:   The Sudden Dawn of the Cosmos and the Constancy of Physical Laws
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 196 of 244 (888504)
09-19-2021 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 173 by Christian7
09-18-2021 4:28 PM


Re: Bad Philosophy
Christian7 writes:
quote:
Are you here for constructive discussion or just trying to be a frustrating dick? How much have you really changed from that messed up kid? I'm beginning to think your behavior here is just an adult incarnation of your younger self.
I'm making an argument.
You definitely are not making an argument. You're repeatedly declaring the same nonsense over and over again while ignoring what people have actually said, probably because you don't understand it.
quote:
The error bars on what will happen if you jump off a tall building are very small. If you really believe nothing is certain, give it a try.
You yourself said that nothing is certain. The Law of Gravity, The Theory of Gravity, (I guess it's not a law), is not certain, though we all know that we are subject to it, according to the science as you've explained it. It would seem then, that nothing was discovered about gravity which we can be sure of, except the common observation that no one can fly without a machine, which I am sure that everyone understood for the most part already.
Yes, of course nothing is 100% certain in science, but what do you think of 99.99999% confidence (there's not really any way to know the number of 9's after the decimal point, I'm just trying to give you a proper impression of how confident we are)? Do you think that's good enough for the scientific principles behind lasers, airplanes, interplanetary spacecraft and nuclear reactors that these devices will work? It is, right? It has to be, else none of these things would work.
You're really struggling conceptually with tentativity. I think your main trouble is with the idea that our confidence in something can be less than 100% and still work. But what things in your life are you 100% certain of? Nothing in your life is 100% certain, right? Driving to work, buying groceries, getting a haircut, getting your computer onto the Internet, none of these are a certainty, yet you're still able to successfully carry on your life in the face of all this uncertainty. The same is true of science, except that our confidence in our established theories is far higher than the likelihood that you'll make it in to work tomorrow.
Confidence and certainty are not the same thing.
Yes, that's what I've been telling you. Certainty is not required for science to work, but no matter how many times we tell you this you keep making the same argument about science not being certain and therefore the universe could turn into an elephant.
If you are merely confident you will not go to Hell for refusing to believe the gospel, but not certain, then rejecting the gospel is not wise.
You're preaching again. Do you have evidence for hell and all the rest? No? Don't you think you should only be making arguments for things demonstrated to actually exist?
If you are merely confident that you will not suffocate in space, but not certain, then going into space with a faulty astronaut suit is not wise.
Well, that's a bunch of nonsense. Why would anyone think they wouldn't suffocate in space? Did you mean to say in a spacesuit? Of course there's risks in a spacesuit. Our confidence in established scientific theories are extremely high. Our confidence in manufactured products like spacesuits is much, much less.
You must admit, then, that if scientists are not certain, they are taking a risk. And taking risks with your soul is not wise.
You're preaching again, and you're apparently still confused about tentativity. We're trying to help you understand that scientific theories do not have 100% certainty, and you've wandered away from scientific research and into manufactured products. You're way out in left field.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by Christian7, posted 09-18-2021 4:28 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Christian7
Member (Idle past 247 days)
Posts: 628
From: n/a
Joined: 01-19-2004


Message 197 of 244 (888505)
09-19-2021 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 184 by Percy
09-18-2021 8:53 PM


You wouldn't bet on a theory with no evidence, would you? Of course you wouldn't. In this you're just like everyone else.
So let's say there's a box with a million pebbles in it. You can't see inside, but you can reach in and pull out one pebble at a time. The first hundred pebbles you pull out are white. You're asked to guess the color of the next pebble. What color would you pick?
You'll choose white, of course, because the evidence gives you a fair amount of confidence it will be white. Now you choose an additional thousand pebbles, and again all are white. What's your confidence now that the next one will be white. Higher, right? Now you choose an additional ten thousand pebbles, and again all are white. What's your confidence now that the the next one will be white? Even higher, right? You and everyone else thinks this way.
There are trillions and trillions of stars and galaxies and nebulae and black holes and planets and sources of radiation out there, and every one we've ever looked at (which must number in the thousands at least) displays the exact same laws of physics we're familiar with here on Earth. What is your confidence that the next astronomical object we discover will also display the same laws of physics? Very high, right? Because of the tremendous amount of evidence, right?
If the box containss 100 billion pebbles, and I take out all but one pebble, all being white, can I be confident the next pebble will be white? Yes, but it can very well be blue. There is no certainty.
Since we said science is tentative, why are you asking about certainty? There is no certainty in science. My confidence that I am right and you are wrong derives from my awareness of the evidence supporting my position and how clear you've made it that you have no evidence for anything you say. All you do is keep repeating the same fallacious rhetorical arguments.
You never pointed out a fallacy in the form of my argument, nor proved my premises false. You merely quoted from other sources of which there is no certainty. It is much more likely that a conclusion drawn from premises which are already proven, either by deduction from previous premises, or by its tautilogical nature, is certainly true. But I'm not claiming my arguments were fool proof, only that you did not deal with their validity at all, merely the truth value of the premises through their contradiction with unproven knowledge.
There is no proof in science, either. Proving things is the realm of logic and mathematics.
Then it would seem that philosophy ought to have a place in evaluating truth, above the level of science.
The Millikan oil drop experiment is instructive. Millikan devised experiments to measure the charge of the electron. He measured its negative charge to be 1.5924×10−19 coulombs. Other scientists tried to repeat his experiments or devised their own and found similar though slightly higher values. As the experiments were refined and became increasingly accurate they gradually honed in on the current value and began adding decimal places. The currently accepted value is 1.602176634×10−19 coulombs, only about 0.6% greater than what Millikan first measured.
Millikan's initial value was highly tentative, but each successive experiment gave greater and greater confidence that scientists were getting closer and closer to the actual value.
Can the value be further revised? Possibly. My guess is that our confidence in that final digit isn't that high.
But can the entire value be rejected, in the sense that it's found to be just plain wrong, perhaps not even negative? It's very difficult to imagine how that could be possible. For one thing the proton has an equal and opposite charge, as does the positron. Many other elemental particles also carry an electric charge either equal or opposite to the electron's. If we're wrong about the charge of the electron then we'd have to wrong about much else. That's inconceivable.
That's the way much of science works. Scientifically established values, hypotheses, theories and laws are not isolated from each other but are interdependent, woven into the entire fabric of science. There's very little in science that stands in isolation. If one thing changes then a lot of other things have to change, too.
So of course science is tentative and never achieves certainty, but our confidence in much scientific knowledge is extremely high. Your claim that scientific tentativity means that anything in science can be wrong and can therefore be ignored deeply misunderstands the strength of the evidence and the interwoven nature of science.
Well, I don't know if the existence of dark matter is proven, or if dark matter has ever been detected or analyzed. But speaking of scientific models, it seems that there was a problem with their model of the universe, so they accounted for it by saying the universe was filled with dark matter, unable to explain why their theory didn't make sesne of the amount of matter in the universe. They believed in their theory more than the evidence, so they made up a concept, and filled in the gap, without any empirical observation. If they have no evidence of dark matter's presence in the universe, but merely an inference from inconsistency with math and what they observe, then this demonstrates their confidence is based on math rather than science.
I think all most people want is a sincere effort at discussion. Single sentence answers saying it could all be a dream and whatnot is really poor form. Show some regard and respect for others.
I'm trying. Also, I don't always use the most effective communication. This is not deliberate.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 184 by Percy, posted 09-18-2021 8:53 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 199 by AZPaul3, posted 09-19-2021 2:00 PM Christian7 has not replied
 Message 222 by Percy, posted 09-20-2021 5:29 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Christian7
Member (Idle past 247 days)
Posts: 628
From: n/a
Joined: 01-19-2004


Message 198 of 244 (888507)
09-19-2021 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 185 by AZPaul3
09-18-2021 9:23 PM


Re: gobbledygook
Yes, the evidence shows that mental state is dependent on physical brain state.
So if you challenge this and the mental state is not dependent on physical state then what is it and what evidence do you cite?
There is no evidence that consciousness is the result of brain activity. Dependency and consequence are not the same thing. If consciousness were the consequence of brain activity, then the brain would be not be a purely physical organ, for consciousness is not a physical construct. Consciousness is not even a thing which alone is required for person-hood; it is merely a property of a soul.
A soul is not a physical object. Physcial objects do not have the ability to have qualitative experiences. There is nothing it is like to be a physical object.
There is no amount of computational trickery that will create a visual field isolated in the centerhood of a physical process. All physical processes, as far as qualia is concerned, can only produce information or states to represent it. There is no actual production nor possession of it by these processes. The precise mechanism by which qualia is created by brain in a subjective fashion has not been demonstrated. I have never read in the news that it has been. Qualia is not merely a state of a physical process or represention created by the arrangement of informational units. A computer screen does not have visual qualia.
If consciousness is at all physical, it must be a property of physical things to begin with; it cannot be an emergent property of things which have no property leading to consciousess.
Since logic was born with us the answer is no. Before us there was no logic to defy.
If there was no logic to defy, then logic is not universal. For the logic functions the same way in every mind, and in every machine, as does math. There is no mathematical rule which can be added which is in nature mathematical, which is not universal, and which could not be discovered by someone else. Anything resembling logic is not logic, and the universe does not conform perfectly to that kind of logic.
Therefore, seeing that logic is universal, it has existence independent of physical objects, and therefore its existence is non-physical. This means that logic did in fact exist before we created it, and the universe did in fact conform to it.
Your mind won't be after death and your brain has no other option than matter/energy. Your mind is just chemicals.
If you are trying to say the mind transcends death then show us your evidence. Right now oblivian is the only evidenced path we can see.
If my mind is just chemicals than it is not a mind. A house is not a house without a mind. A mind is not a mind without a mind. Chemicals are not chemicals without a mind. In fact, they have no qualitative property at all. No meaning can be ascribed to them.
What a twisted pile of crap
Surely a pile of crap is easy to refute; but you have not done it.
Color is one of those human constructs we use to define the perception we experience when we record various frequencies from the EM spectrum. I don't know what an ant sees but it sure does perceive its world with eyes and optic sensory neurons just like us. We could argue whether an ant was sentient.
How can anything physical assign meaning? Meaning is not a property of the physical universe, according to your claims.
Edited by Christian7, : No reason given.

Edited by Christian7, : No reason given.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 185 by AZPaul3, posted 09-18-2021 9:23 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 203 by AZPaul3, posted 09-19-2021 3:12 PM Christian7 has replied
 Message 230 by Percy, posted 09-21-2021 9:05 AM Christian7 has not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 199 of 244 (888508)
09-19-2021 2:00 PM
Reply to: Message 197 by Christian7
09-19-2021 1:25 PM


They believed in their theory more than the evidence, so they made up a concept, and filled in the gap, without any empirical observation.
Again, poor Vera Rubin's work is given short shrift by the ignorant.
We saw the evidence, thank you Vera. There is A LOT more gravitational force around a galaxy then it's constituent matter, which we can see, could produce. Since the only venue we know of for gravity is matter there must be a hell of a lot of something like matter around galaxies that we have, yet, not directly detected.
We know something is there but we can't see it directly. Analysis of the Bullet Cluster - Wikipedia clearly shows the presence of this stuff.
There are real intellectual reasons to hypothesize a form of matter that is, presently, unknown and invisible to us. It is dark to us. We can see it's there. So stop with this bullshit about we just made it up to fix some equation.
Ignorant git.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 197 by Christian7, posted 09-19-2021 1:25 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Christian7
Member (Idle past 247 days)
Posts: 628
From: n/a
Joined: 01-19-2004


Message 200 of 244 (888509)
09-19-2021 2:10 PM
Reply to: Message 187 by AZPaul3
09-19-2021 1:47 AM


First, of course there had to be a cause. We just don't know what that cause was, and neither do you. May as well be a quantum spark from nothing as well as any other speculations people care to imagine.
Second, endings are different from beginnings. Totally different sets of rules.
But, what you're trying to claim is: if the universe sprang from nothing with no cause then the universe may as well return to nothing, disappear, just as well from no cause.
Answer: Maybe. Nobody knows.
If it gives you nightmares then just remember the void IS out to get you.
What caused the quantum spark?
First, of course there had to be a cause. We just don't know what that cause was, and neither do you. May as well be a quantum spark from nothing as well as any other speculations people care to imagine.
Second, endings are different from beginnings. Totally different sets of rules.
But, what you're trying to claim is: if the universe sprang from nothing with no cause then the universe may as well return to nothing, disappear, just as well from no cause.
Answer: Maybe. Nobody knows.
If it gives you nightmares then just remember the void IS out to get you.
What caused the rules to change?
Why does the universe even have rules? Rules are not physical things.
Since we don't know (and we includes you) your creation angst is unwarranted. I think it might actually be unhealthy. It can't be easy on the blood pressure and your psyche to constantly raise a vein in your neck over 'nothing' which is something you don't know.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Facts are that it took the universe 14 b yrs to evolve the vessel to develop our mind. Do you not appreciate all the stuff that had to happen first before mind could emerge? You know how many suns had to blow up to make the stuff of mind? And all the chemistry from DNA to the Krebs cycle had to develop first. As for any why, it's a useless question so I'll leave that to the philosophers.
Why does there need to be a physical process for a mind to exist? The most fundamental object in the universe still has to be explained. Either the universe doesn't make sense, or it is being animated by power. Could this perhaps have something to do with "....the word of His power"?
I don't know from why. See your local horde of garden gnomes. What we do know is that, in this universe, it appears that everything is physical and nothing of a non-physical nature (whatever that might be) is evident.
Our best laws of the universe, our models, do not account for anything non-physical because there is no observation, fact, reason, logic, hint, to evidence anything non-physical exists. If there were a non-physical thing as the religious weenies would define it then there most certainly would be evidence. Lots of it.
So, how is it that you can have two apples in two different places, if numbers aren't non-physical. How can this quality of countability exist if its purely physical? If it were purely physical, it would be a physical object.
Given the workings and relationships of particles and their energies the universe didn't have much choice. Matter was going to clump, fuse, explode and, in one case at least, make life and intellect. As for where those relationships came from, they came from the same place the universe came from. We no friggin' idea, and, again, to emphasize the point, neither do you.
The rest of your post is just drivil.
You go on and on about nothing, literally, when it is not nothing that is evident. As for cosmic genesis, what is evident is 'we don't know'. That is considerably different from this 'nothing' you get so much heartburn over.
Look, atheists affirm the universe sprang from nothing. You're telling me it wasn't nothing. If nothing is not nothing then it isn't nothing, which makes it something. If then, there was something, and before that was not nothing, then the universe never had a beginning.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 187 by AZPaul3, posted 09-19-2021 1:47 AM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 206 by AZPaul3, posted 09-19-2021 3:59 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 201 of 244 (888511)
09-19-2021 2:29 PM
Reply to: Message 174 by Christian7
09-18-2021 4:39 PM


Re: Bad Philosophy
Christian writes:
quote:
This couldn't be more wrong. What we accept about the universe derives from evidence.
There's nothing with evidence, if it provides certainty, but if merely confidence, it is not evidence.
You're still thinking just one move ahead. That you could say something like this means you haven't thought this through at all. You appear to be responding with whatever pops into your head first, even if it's nonsense.
What do the police collect at a crime scene? Evidence, right? How much of that evidence leads to a certain conclusion? Very little, right? Does that mean the evidence they gathered isn't really evidence? It's still evidence, right?
So your argument is wrong, and nonsense. We're approaching 200 messages now. It's fine if you didn't get this stuff when the thread began, but if you're still not getting it after nearly 200 messages then it's because of a determined ignorance, combined with a desperation to prevent constructive discussion by making absurd arguments that distract attention from the topic.
I've been trying to present arguments, and I'm not deliberately misinterpreting anything.
Are you saying it wasn't deliberate when you argued that because of tentativity the universe could turn into an elephant? If that wasn't deliberate then your only other excuse is to claim that your comprehension of what you read is so poor that it seems like a reasonable argument to you.
quote:
Truth is not a concept within science. Knowledge requires evidence, analysis and replication. If you think truth has a role within science then argue for this position instead of just repeating it.
If truth is not a concept within science, then how can it have all the answers?
No one in this thread has claimed science has all the answers. Why would you think that?
What I *would* say is that when presented with a choice between a scientific answer based upon evidence and replication and a preacher's answer based upon his reading of the Bible, the scientific answer has an orders of magnitude higher probability of being correct. I'd also say that for any area of objective research that the scientific method is the best way to approach it, not religious services or preachers or witch doctors and so forth.
If it cannot address the very issue of truth, and what is ultimately true, then why is anyone even doing science. Without a concept of truth, or the ability to affirm that anything is true, there is no knowing that anything is says is true.
You frequently confuse two different definitions of the word truth. Sometimes you're using it in the sense of religious truth. Science has nothing to do with religious truth.
Other times you use truth in the sense of accurately reflecting reality, and that's the definition of truth appropriate for science. In discussions with religious people we tend to avoid words like "truth" and "true" because religious people will tend to interpret them in a religious sense. But I'll ignore that practice for this once and say that science tries to discover what is likely true of reality.
It would be a mistake if you took that and cast it into a religious context and said something like, "Science tries to uncover truths about the universe."
I believe truth has a role in science.
If by "truth" you mean developing accurate understandings of the universe, then you've got things right, but using the word "truth" is likely to get you into trouble because you'll tend by your very nature to flip that word into a religious context and say things like, "Science seeks the truth about the universe."
quote:
This is what as known as a circular argument. Are you trying to make sure you hit all the major fallacies in a single thread?
For me to know something it must be true.
On the contrary, you appear to know a great many things that are not true. For instance, you appear to know that science must have certainty to be true, and that's obviously false.
For me to know something I must be certain.
You appear to be certain of a great many things that are not true.
I don't need evidence to know something as long as what I believe is true.
Believing things without evidence is the definition of faith. This is a science thread, and thinking you don't need evidence to know things is serving you very poorly here.
Therefore, knowledge is certainty of truth, regardless of evidence.
Literally billions of people throughout time have been certain of things that are untrue. "Zeus is the chief God." "The world is flat." "The sun orbits the Earth." "Illness is caused by evil spirits." "The continents don't move."
Your statement that you need no evidence to have knowledge but rather certainty of truth is the height of ignorance. That approach will guarantee you lead an ignorant life and explains why after nearly 200 messages you have still managed to learn almost nothing. You're still making the same ignorant arguments now that you were making when you started this thread.
Is that circular?
Pretty much. Boiling it down, you've got "knowledge is certainty" followed by "certainty is knowledge." Making things worse, in the middle you declare evidence irrelevant to knowledge.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Christian7, posted 09-18-2021 4:39 PM Christian7 has not replied

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 Message 202 by Tanypteryx, posted 09-19-2021 2:56 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 202 of 244 (888514)
09-19-2021 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 201 by Percy
09-19-2021 2:29 PM


Re: Bad Philosophy
Boy, you guys have really shined up the bottom of the barrel!

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python

One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie

If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq


This message is a reply to:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 203 of 244 (888515)
09-19-2021 3:12 PM
Reply to: Message 198 by Christian7
09-19-2021 1:55 PM


Re: gobbledygook
There is no evidence that consciousness is the result of brain activity.
This is just fucking dumb.
Kill the brain and all evidence of consciousness stops. That's pretty definitive.
A soul is not a physical object.
Since you cannot show that such a thing exists you are, for once, correct. Non-existent things are not physical objects.
Physcial objects do not have the ability to have qualitative experiences.
.
.
.
If consciousness is at all physical, it must be a property of physical things to begin with; it cannot be an emergent property of things which have no property leading to consciousess.
And you know this how? Gut feel? Incredulity? Do you have any type of evidence that consciousness is not physical?
Therefore, seeing that logic is universal, it has existence independent of physical objects, and therefore its existence is non-physical. This means that logic did in fact exist before we created it, and the universe did in fact conform to it.
Logic is not universal. Your contention is illogical since logic is a human construct. Also, if you look at human history you'll find that this universe has never conformed to our logic but its operation has informed and altered our sense of what is logical and what is not.
If my mind is just chemicals than it is not a mind.
Even in your case, as strong as the impulse is to deny it, you do have a mind. And it is all chemical. We have the analyses. We have the evidence for our position.
What you got?
Surely a pile of crap is easy to refute; but you have not done it.
Why should I? It was all semantic slop with no clear meaning worth the read. Your syntax is terribly disjointed and nonsensical.
How can anything physical assign meaning? Meaning is not a property of the physical universe, according to your claims.
We're not talking meaning. Labeling an object or a perception is not assigning meaning. It is a description, which conscious meat machines like humans do with aplomb. But, yes, since we are conscious meat machines with undisciplined human logic we are habit prone to assign (assume) meanings where not is warranted.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by Christian7, posted 09-19-2021 1:55 PM Christian7 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 204 by Christian7, posted 09-19-2021 3:16 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
Christian7
Member (Idle past 247 days)
Posts: 628
From: n/a
Joined: 01-19-2004


Message 204 of 244 (888516)
09-19-2021 3:16 PM
Reply to: Message 203 by AZPaul3
09-19-2021 3:12 PM


Re: gobbledygook
You ignored much of my post, thereby failing to refute it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by AZPaul3, posted 09-19-2021 3:12 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 208 by AZPaul3, posted 09-19-2021 4:06 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Christian7
Member (Idle past 247 days)
Posts: 628
From: n/a
Joined: 01-19-2004


Message 205 of 244 (888517)
09-19-2021 3:17 PM


I know that some of my arguments may be defective. I need to take a break and do research. I will return when I have more knowledge.

Replies to this message:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 206 of 244 (888518)
09-19-2021 3:59 PM
Reply to: Message 200 by Christian7
09-19-2021 2:10 PM


What caused the quantum spark?
Someone's speculation caused the spark.
You really don't comprehend what you read post to post, do you.
Why does there need to be a physical process for a mind to exist?
What other medium is available?
Either the universe doesn't make sense, or it is being animated by power.
Typical religious false dichotomy. The universe has often not conformed to our ideas of what makes sense. Making sense is another one of those human constructs that is ill defined and has no place in science. And, yes, it is animated by power. See the gauge bosons in the Standard Model - Wikipedia. They are the powers that move the stuff of the universe.
So, how is it that you can have two apples in two different places, if numbers aren't non-physical.
Well first, the apples have to be separate because of the Pauli exclusion principle. Don't bother looking that up. You'll only misunderstand it and confuse yourself, again.
Because numbers have their physical instantiation within the physical confines of the human brain is no reason to posit we cannot use the underlying concepts and their utility in counting other physical things. That's just dumb.
Look, atheists affirm the universe sprang from nothing.
Again with the nothing. You're obsessed.
Listen up. You have read a speculative musing and taken it to be gospel. No, atheists affirm no such thing. We can't. Like you, we don't know the cosmic origin.
You're telling me it wasn't nothing. If nothing is not nothing then it isn't nothing, which makes it something. If then, there was something, and before that was not nothing, then the universe never had a beginning.
What part of "we don't know" do you not comprehend? You are such an idiot it's amazing you can operate a keyboard.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 200 by Christian7, posted 09-19-2021 2:10 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 207 of 244 (888519)
09-19-2021 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 205 by Christian7
09-19-2021 3:17 PM


quote:
I know that some of my arguments may be defective
You may be giving yourself too much credit. It seems to me that all of your arguments are defective or worse.
For example trying to “prove” that there was no contradiction between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah by listing two other examples of scripture contradicting Deuteronomy. I think that calling that “defective” would be understating the case.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 205 by Christian7, posted 09-19-2021 3:17 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 208 of 244 (888520)
09-19-2021 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 204 by Christian7
09-19-2021 3:16 PM


Re: gobbledygook
I ignored it because it was obvious crap that had already been refuted. You are obsessed and without the mental discipline to comprehend corrections.
I think I need a break. The bullshit is too deep.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 204 by Christian7, posted 09-19-2021 3:16 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 209 of 244 (888525)
09-19-2021 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 175 by Christian7
09-18-2021 5:03 PM


Re: Paul Steinhardt on Dark Energy.
Christian7 writes:
Atheism needs there to be no creator. For this to be so, the universe must either be eternal from the past, or have come from nothing. But for the universe to come from nothing, then for the first event there must be no cause. And they assert that there can be events without a cause, but you merely claim that we have no evidence of events without a cause, from which it is obvious that it is not certain that events can take place without a cause. Therefore, it is not proven, according to your own understanding, that the universe has no creator, and therefore, atheists are deluded, according to your own assertions.
You're just finding different ways of saying the same thing. Convincing people is not a matter of finding the right grammar, the right phrasing, the right vocabulary. You'll never convince anybody because it isn't your way of expressing that is wrong but the ideas themselves. Here's a list of incorrect statements:
  • The universe must be either eternal or come from nothing.
  • If the universe came from nothing there can be no cause.
  • The other side says there is no evidence of events without a cause [this isn't true].
  • Because of this lack of evidence, it is not certain that there can be event's with no cause [it's true that it's not certain, but from scientific principle, not lack of evidence]
  • It is not proven that the universe has no creator [no one has made this claim, and nothing is proven in science anyway]
  • Therefore atheists own statements show them deluded [Christian has attributed a number of statements to atheists that they haven't made]
So I'm not even going to try to untangle that hash of false statements. I'd just end up repeating the same arguments you're already ignoring. Why don't you ask some intelligent questions, for example, "I'm having trouble figuring out whether your claim is that there is or isn't evidence for events with no cause. Could we discuss this some more?" But you don't do that, you just keep repeating your erroneous statements over and over again.
quote:
So all you're saying is that things that don't exist also have no physical laws. How is that relevant to whatever point you're making?
No, I am saying that things outside this physical reality do not obey physical laws.
The precise terminology isn't important. You're saying that things outside this physical reality do not obey physical laws. How is that relevant to whatever point you're making?
You next construct another hash of complete confusion. Christian, what is it in your life experience that tells you you know anything about logic, math or science? Nothing, right? So why do you persist in talking about logic, math and science?
If logic and math are human constructs, they reflect reality, when provided claims that correspond to the world.
This is incredibly poorly phrased if all you're trying to say is that we can create mathematical models of the universe.
And if the world cannot defy this reflection,...
So in your thinking, if we study how the universe behaves and discover it obeys the mathematical equation (for example) F=ma, then henceforth the universe cannot violate that equation, even though the universe's behavior was exactly the same both before and after we developed that equation. Why do you think the existence of that equation has any effect on the universe's behavior? It doesn't, of course. The equation merely models the way the universe behaves. It is interesting to note that scientific philosopher's have marveled at the fact that the universe is comprehensible and can be modeled using mathematics. Maybe you could try going that route.
...though there are things describable for it to do, which would violate this reflection, then this reflection correlates with that which limits the universe.
This is incredibly poorly phrased again, and the best I can come up with is something that doesn't make sense. You appear to be saying that we can write mathematical equations that are not accurate models of how the universe behaves, for example F=md. If that's what you're saying then that is true. You then appear to say that the equations that do not correctly reflect how the universe behaves correlate with "that which limits the universe," which in your thinking must be equations that correctly model the universe. So if I've unscrambled this hash properly, why would you think equations that do not properly model the universe would have any correlation with those that do?
Better yet, why don't you just express what you were trying to say in plain English.
And if what it correlates with is not itself the universe, the only physical reality we know, then what it correlates with is not physical.
This is a very odd way of phrasing it, but yes, that is correct, mathematical representations that do not model the universe do not correlate with the way the universe actually behaves. That's a tautology. You've in essence said, "Incorrect models yield incorrect results."
Therefore, something non-physical governs the universe.
Clearly false. Valid conclusions do not come from a hash of fallacious statements, unintelligible statements and tautologies.
This means that our human constructs is a mere reflection of that which limits the universe, and not a reflection of the universe.
Again, valid conclusions don't follow from your confusions and errors, plus this distinction you're trying to draw between the universe and "that which limits the universe" makes no sense. There is no evidence for anything like "that which limits the universe."
For if it were a reflection of the universe, then no claims need be provided, because other claims not describing our universe may also be provided when claims must be provided.
I'll try to decipher this. You're saying that if we have accurate models of the universe then no models are needed because there could also be inaccurate models. That this makes no sense should not require explanation.
Physical things have physical form.
You're referring to our universe, where things can have both physical (bones) and non-physical (light) form. I think you're trying to say that we can observe things in our universe.
Non-physical things have no physical form.
After discussing with you for a while I can tell that you're not actually referring to non-physical things like light. You're talking about things outside our universe. I'm not going to engage any of your claims about a place for which you have no evidence.
Yet formless things can affect things which have form.
You're trying to say that things outside our universe can affect things inside it. Can you provide some examples of this?
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typos.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by Christian7, posted 09-18-2021 5:03 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 210 of 244 (888528)
09-19-2021 8:46 PM
Reply to: Message 179 by Christian7
09-18-2021 5:22 PM


Your spelling and grammar is fine, but I don't think you know how to make sense.
That which is mental is sentient. That which is physical is not. A process is nothing more than the interaction of its parts. When a computer operates, it does so by the interaction of its parts. Nothing emerges out of it that is not reducible to this interaction. When the brain operates, it merely operates according to the interaction of neurons and whatever else. This process should be nothing but purely physical. Therefore, it cannot be sentient. For sentience by nature is not a physical thing. For mind has form, and this form is not physical, for if it were physical, then all physical things all to have the same kind of form. But the problem is, that this form is not isolated merely in bounds, another reason why it cannot be physical. No physical objects are isolated in this fashion. The content of no process is isolated from any other process in this fashion.
This is just a bunch of nonsense, but I've listened to you enough to know what you're trying to say, which is that the brain is physical and the mind is mental and where sentience resides. Sounds fine. It isn't the way I see things myself, but it's a common viewpoint.
But your word salad was supposed to explain the nonsense in your Message 155, that if the brain is physical then there cannot be a mental aspect in a purely materialistic universe. You still haven't explained how that makes any sense.
Also, it looks to me that you didn't finish your thought, that you wanted to go on to argue that because the mental aspect does exist in our universe that therefore our universe can not be materialistic.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 179 by Christian7, posted 09-18-2021 5:22 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
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