Logic and Disbelief
The Logic of Atheism debate got me thinking about something. If atheism is defined as a disbelief in the existence of gods, then how does logic apply to that? I’m not sure logic is needed to justify a non-belief. Non-beliefs aren’t really based on arguments, they’re based on a lack of them. Convincing arguments supporting theism are lacking, therefore atheism. If logic is just a tool used to justify/support arguments, then how could it apply to a non-belief that is based on a lack of convincing arguments?
Comments (122)
You would still be applying logic to arrive at your position of non-belief right? It is logical to withhold belief in the absence of evidence.
I don’t see why logic wouldn't be applicable.
It can also be defined as a lack of belief in the existence of gods. Many atheists are like that. They haven't seen any convincing evidence and haven't had any relevant personal experience. Many don't have any particular need or desire to take it any farther than that. Why put energy into something that doesn't seem relevant to your life?
The people you are talking about have a positive belief that there is no God or gods. With that belief, you have the usual problem with proving a negative. From what I've seen, most of such atheists argue from an anti-religion position. Arguments against god are used as part of an argument to de-legitimize specific religions or religion in general.
a) One can believe that something is the case.
b) One can believe that something is not the case.
c) One can not believe that something is the case.
d) One can not believe that something is not the case.
Now (a) contradicts (b); one could not hold both true about the very same thing. That black swans both exist and do not exist, for instance.
But (c) does not contradict (d) - one can not believe that there are black swans and not believe that there are no black swans, if one has no beliefs about swans. Swan-agnosticism.
It could also be defined as a belief in the non existence of Gods. It just depends on whether you think belief or disbelief is the “default position”. That’s really what burden of proof depends on. And in this debate both the theists and the atheists believe the burden of proof is on the other. Because both consider their own position the default, and the other the one that needs justification.
You know, that recent comment of yours about only one post per week might have merit.
I don’t think so. I’m starting at a position of non-belief prior to even hearing any of the arguments. It’s the position of ignorance, which seems to necessarily be the default position, since one can’t start at a position of knowledge. Right?
Quoting DingoJones
Logic is strictly applied only to arguments. What argument is being presented when you simply find theism’s argument unconvincing?
No, I’m meaning those who do not believe gods exist. Those who fall under “C” in Banno’s example.
See this thread for my thoughts on the accuracy of statements like these. Suffice it to say I’m not certain one can have a belief without an object of that belief.
Quoting Pinprick
Is it coherent to believe that there are no unicorns on earth?
I wouldn't say ignorance is a “position” you have. To me “position” implies a transition from ignorance perhaps, but it doesnt seem like “I don’t know” is really a position/stance/belief. How would I have a position about something I had no knowledge of.
Quoting Pinprick
Ah I see what you are saying now. I wouldn't restrict logic for only arguments, in my view logic is a broader concept that just happens to be present in argumentation.
If you are defining logic only as it is used as part of argumentation then I think what you are saying follows from that. With no argument present no logic could be present.
Quoting DingoJones
I don't think everyone gets there through logic.
A new born baby is a non-believer, and ostensibly does not get there through logic. I'm sure it's the same for many adults: they don't get to non-belief by thinking about the evidence or lack thereof - it's just default.
:up:
The point I was trying to make is that even if you haven’t gone through a logical process to arrive at atheism logic is still present in the sense that your lack of belief adheres to the basic principals of logic such as non-contradiction and excluded middle.
The logic of un-belief may be based on the old adage : "seeing is believing". Anything that I can't see, or otherwise verify for myself, is subjective hearsay. But most "isms" are also also grounded by a pragmatic attitude, which defines what can be accepted without evidence, and what should be treated with skepticism. Of course, it's always easy for us to be skeptical of other people's paradigms, that we don't share. And the emotional feelings of "isms", including Atheism, are often impervious to rational logic.
For example, Catholic Christians share much of their belief system with Protestant Christians, and non-christian Muslims. Yet, Catholics tend to assume that theirs is the true church, and Protestants are apostates from the truth. At the same time, the Protestant attitude is just the opposite. And centuries of rational (theological) arguments have been insufficient to overcome the feeling-of-certainty attached to their (our) beloved personal paradigms. Therefore, if a person's faith is so dependent on their subjective frame-of-reference, it behooves all of us, not just Atheists, to insist on a more objective foundation for belief, where possible.
Unfortunately, objective evidence for many human beliefs is not available. So, some things we must accept as more-or-less true (truish), as long as they don't clash with our foundational worldview. And the line-of-demarcation between Atheist and Theist beliefs usually falls into an evidence gap between the categories of "Physics" (Measurable Reality) and "Meta-Physics" (Immensurable Ideality). Ironically, many of us are more emotionally invested in subjective Ideas & Ideals, than in practical objective things, because objective facts are known only indirectly.
For example, most of us take for granted that the "solid" physical objects we see & touch are made-up of tiny balls called "atoms", because that is the conventional wisdom of classical Science. That's still true, even a century after Quantum scientists concluded from laboratory evidence -- plus lots of reasoning and arguments -- that atoms are nothing more than imaginary "balls" of mathematical probability. Like many Catholics, some of us pretend to go along with the official line (on Abortion, for instance), even as we act based on un-sanctioned beliefs. Besides, intuitive Classical Physics just feels more real than spooky Quantum Queerness, with its ghostly virtual particles.
So, what we choose to believe or disbelieve may depend more on our established belief system than on any logical or empirical evidence. And that a priori faith is your personal worldview, which in turn provides reasons for logical arguments. If the scenario of "selective truth" is indeed the case for most humans, a modicum of modesty should moderate our judgments of other people's views. And a mirror of skepticism toward our own beliefs, may help root-out fake facts. :cool:
Hume on Logic :
Hume argued that inductive reasoning (characteristic of the scientific method) and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
How can we know what's true? :
We know something is true if it is in accordance with measurable reality. But just five hundred years ago, this seemingly self-evident premise was not common thinking. Instead, for much of recorded history, truth was rooted in scholasticism.
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/07/how_do_we_know_what_is_true.html
How do we know that things are really made of atoms? :
Seeing is believing . . . or because the experts told us so?
https://www.quora.com/Are-atoms-imaginary-or-real-If-they-are-real-then-how-can-we-see-them
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151120-how-do-we-know-that-things-are-really-made-of-atoms
No...
Convincing arguments supporting theism are lacking, therefore nothing.
Convincing arguments supporting atheism are lacking, therefore nothing.
The whole debate is one big pile of nothing.
Which in a way is kind of good, given that reality itself is one bit pile of what we typically call nothing.
Ok.
If you don't prime a person into a specific belief, there will not be any of that belief. If the exposure to such belief isn't present until the child is an adult, his reason and logic will at that age help to question that belief in a way that a child could never do.
The problem in this world is indoctrination from a young age. Many grow up and have to actively question everything they've been taught in order to dismiss those irrational beliefs. Since most people are biased and don't fundamentally think with reason and logic, very few wake up from that indoctrination. It is their fundamental worldview, their Plato cave.
Quoting Foghorn
Reason, logic, and rationality have always pushed back theism. Whenever a "truth" in theism is debunked, theists and religious people reshape the meaning surrounding that "truth" in order to comply with newly discovered facts. By historical events alone, very much support atheism compared to theism. If we produce an argument for atheism, it's the more rational path, it's the path of reason and logic, compared to a path of pure belief. Since the burden of proof is always on the one making a claim, theists have lacking support in any argument. So atheism already have that as a supporting argument.
It's rather that theists don't accept arguments against theism. It's a common thread that theists just throw the same argument back at atheists. It's the foundation for the theist's fundamental misunderstanding and disregard for burden of proof.
There's no rational or reasonable evidence for theist's claims, therefore atheism has a higher truth value than theism since atheism is what comes out of not being able to prove the existence of God. It's the logical conclusion to the failure of rationally proving the existence of God. Without proof, atheism has the higher ground. It's the logical conclusion of burden of proof. If burden of proof is rational, then atheism, since theists need proof to claim any truth, which they don't have.
But even if they had proof, then atheism still applies, since if atheism is a lack of belief, then with proof there no longer is belief, only facts. So atheism is always higher in truth-value than theism, by the logic of their relation to each other.
Quoting Christoffer
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education." - Bertrand Russell
I guess that would be right, unless it’s the default position, which I believe it is.
Well, at least on this we agree.
Tomato, tomahto. Arguments are about trying to establish clear evidence. If evidence is lacking, arguments will necessarily fail.
Good on ya, Bertie. :up:
Reminds me of Hitchens' Razor. It suffices in general conversation but 'weak atheism' doesn't satisfy me philosophically (hasn't for decades, in fact). I prefer to make the strongest case for unbelief regardless of how weak or non-existent the argument for belief may be. In the last decade or so my particular (contra one g/G at a time) 'posiitive atheism' has developed into an even more rigorous, parsimonous and general (contra g/G-Types, and only consequentially their g/G-Tokens) 'antitheism'. For integrity's sake (contra philosophical suicide), only crushing 'realist-cognitive theism' satisfies me – écrasez l'infâme! – while, without contempt or condescension, leaving alone otherwise inoffense 'noncognitive theists' (of "simple faith", like my mother).
NB: Hitchen's "antitheism" is only an irreligiously polemical expression of weak atheism, and not at all as rigorous as my argument.
Your mother doesn't believe that my name is Michael, which is to say that "your mother believes that my name is Michael" is false. That's different to your mother believing that my name isn't Michael.
I don't believe that you had toast for breakfast, which is to say that "I believe that you had toast for breakfast" is false. That's different to me believing that you didn't have toast for breakfast.
You do not believe that unicorns, which is to say that "you believe that unicorns exist" is false. That's different to you believing that unicorns do not exist.
I wondered if the term 'logic' was being used in a formal, or colloquial sense. I think maybe 180 used the term 'logic' colloquially, and was then challenged to defend it - and the debate blew up out of his refusal to back down. Maybe if there's a round 3 - they can revise the question; have a straight up, free wheeling theist/atheist debate - using any of all arguments at their rhetorical disposal.
Please do. Don't limit yourself to logic on my account. Because I think, when all is duly considered, one must eventually arrive at agnosticism.
A logical belief needs evidence.
There is no evidence for the existence of unicorns.
Therefore, it follows that a belief that unicorns exist is not logical.
IE, it is logical to believe that unicorns don't exist
Putting it another way, it is logical to disbelieve in the existence of unicorns.
IE, logic can justify a disbelief.
here[/url]).
Our claims about events outside our light cone are cognitive but not demonstrably true or not true. Could not theistic claims be the same?
I can see why you italicized the my. Perhaps you should also have put quote marks around the term "logic."
Further, your link refers specifically to 'Abrahamic deities' throughout - in a thread entitled: "Agnosticism is the most rationally acceptable default position." If your intent is to show the Bible is not literal truth - there are lower hanging fruit!
My agnosticism refers to the possible existence of a Creator God. I don't know if such a God exists, but it's one possible explanation for the existence of the universe; to say nothing of apparent order in the universe, that gives rise to life and human intellect.
I'm not agnostic with regard to religion. Religion is the politics of people's past - and God was necessary as an objective authority, to justify moral laws in multi-tribal society. Religion is essentially a social contract between ruler and ruled, and so it seems to me - your atheism, is atheism with regard to specific definitions of God.
Now you claim to show:
Quoting 180 Proof
Not with reference to that link.
Even regarding religious claims, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead seems cognitive, but I don’t know how it could be demonstrably true or not true, any more than Shakespeare eating an apple on his twentieth birthday would be.
I would have said:
One can reasonably argue that religion may be pointing at something real, without considering religion definitive of what it points at.
The existence of a God of some kind is a reasonable hypothesis, given the existence of the universe, apparent order in the universe, and the fact the universe fosters intelligent life. Then consider the ubiquity and utility of the concept of God in human civilisation, and one is forced to conclude that, as an hypothesis, God exists - and thus the atheist claim "I see no God, therefore there is no God" fails on grounds of inductive reasoning, i.e. no swans are black.
The atheist may argue that the burden of proof is on the theist, but I don't believe so. The individual theist did not originate the concept. The concept exists; and still constitutes a viable hypothesis, even in face of the sum of scientific knowledge.
Fortunately, I've long left behind such sophomoric arguments (see my first post on p.1).
I read your post at the time - if you refer to this:
Quoting 180 Proof
It was in response to this, I said, "please do." Make an argument for atheism, as strong as you like. "Don't confine yourself to logic...!" I said. Still, nothing. So far, you haven't made an argument. All you've done is debate the debate, and make sarcastic dismissals. Tell me about your atheism. I feel like, for me - atheism was an angry phase in my twenties, I've grown out of.
I maintain that science is important, and that it's important to acknowledge what you can and cannot know. Both theism and atheism make knowledge claims without evidence; and I'd like to identify and point that out with regard to your claim to know there's no God.
Atheism is not justified in terms of a valid epistemology, or with regard to scientific method. You don't know if God exists or does not; and yet locate yourself beyond the bounds of what you can reasonably claim to know, and then claim logic as your authority. That can't be right.
Neither of which I think are required for the claim to be cognitive. We can make cognitive claims about events outside our light cone which cannot be proven or disproven and we can make cognitive claims about what Shakespeare ate on his twentieth birthday that cannot be proven or disproven. So I see no prima facie reason why we can't make cognitive claims about the existence of a creator deity that cannot be proven or disproven.
It appears to me that you need to support your claim that "if theism is cognitive, then its claims (e.g. "the Abrahamic Deity exists") are demonstrably true or not true" is true; it cannot simply be accepted as an axiom as you have done.
It's also worth mentioning that agnostism covers both the claim that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven and the claim that the existence of God hasn't been proven or disproven, and so even if theistic claims are demonstrably true or not true, they might just not have been demonstrated true or not true yet, and so agnosticism is a rational position to hold until sufficient evidence either way is found.
My argument is that theism is not true. My argument is N O T "god does not exist". The latter is futile but the former is realist-cognitive insofar as theism consists of realist-cognitive claims. It's not merely an "axiom" but a warranted (demonstrable) assumption. Let's agree to disagree on that point of contention for time being. I'll get back to you ...
I think I agree. When you say “‘your mother believes that my name is Michael’ is false,” you’re assigning a truth value to a statement, rather to an actual real world referent.
What does "lack of belief" mean? Well, theism is a belief (God exists) and, oddly, atheism is too (God doesn't exist). We can set aside theism for the moment and focus our attention on atheism. If atheism is, as some claim, a "lack of belief" then it implies, as per the justified true belief theory of knowledge, that atheism isn't knowledge - it isn't a belief ergo, it doesn't have to be true and nor does it need to be justified. That, no doubt, isn't what the atheist thinks atheism is. Perhaps I'm being too pedantic and "belief" is being used in some other sense by atheists. I'm not sure but from a philosophical perspective, to the extent I'm capable of some rigor, atheism as a "lack of belief" makes zero sense. If belief is lacking, there's nothing that can be true/false and there would be no need for justifications of any kind and yet, atheists are falling over each other to both claim that their position on God is the truth and well-justified. It doesn't add up, does it? :chin:
Try this analogy on for size:
watching "Star Trek" : theism :: not watching tv : atheism.
I did think along those lines but it doesn't make sense. Here's a more elaborate version of your analogy.
1. Blank paper (the mind)
2. Written on the blank paper: God exists (theism)
3. Written on the blank paper: God doesn't exist (atheism)
4. Written on the blank paper: Don't know if God exists or not (agnosticism)
Clearly the blank paper is what everyone would agree is "lack of belief" - no belief ergo, nothing to write on the blank paper and so, nothing that's truth-apt that needs justification.
Atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist i.e. there's something written on the blank paper that can be true and so needs to be demonstrated.
Atheism can't claim to be the blank paper state of mind because,
1. They'd have to accept that they have no idea about God. They would be like little children who first hear the word God. That's clearly false because a negation (atheism) means that they know what the affirmation (theism) is. They would be contradicting themselves.
2. They would also have to admit that their sales pitch that they're rational, their position justified, is an illusion. There's no proposition on a blank page. What are they justifiying?
sodomy : theism :: celibacy : atheism.
Dirty old man! :rofl:
But, celibacy is not the negation of sodomy. We could be a-sodomy and yet not celibate. Your analogy fails!
:chin: Somehow, I can't say that I didn't see that coming.
This is exactly what Wittgenstein was talking about. A brief glance of the Wikipedia entry on atheism proves that I've got the wrong end of the stick. Atheism is more nuanced than I thought. :up:
I believe that snow is white - my argument is that I observe snow is white
I disbelieve that snow is black - my argument is that I observe snow is white
IE, my disbelief is based on an argument
Quoting Pinprick
IE, I am using logic as a tool to support my disbelief that snow is black based on my argument that I observe snow is white
Think of it this way. If theism/a-theism is based on Omniscience (Omnipotence Paradox), descriptions of a deity or God, then the negation of same, is also based on that same illogical premise. In other words, a logically impossible God is certainly a concept that is used as evidence to counter theism.
And so for both the Theist/Atheist, their belief systems (in this descriptive case) are both illogical. And in turn, that it is not necessarily a bad thing, considering other things in life (the nature of existence itself) have illogical descriptions/explanations (consciousness, etc.) in themselves.
Rationality requires a conclusion to be consistent with rational premises: A conclusion that is inconsistent with rational premises is both illogical and irrational. A conclusion that is compelled by irrational premises is logical, but irrational. And a premise that is not sound or valid (unclear) can be incoherent.
Maybe more practically speaking, those kind of logical descriptors beg other questions about what belief systems really are... . For example, what does it really mean for something to be illogical, irrational, logically impossible, so on and so forth. Then, parsing it even further, the angst of recognizing that the laws of nature and logic itself cannot reconcile things like uncertainty (think Heisenberg) and other phenomena (the paradox of time, laws of non-contradiction, etc.), leaves many belief systems in a state of finitude.
One should ask what kind of belief system is appropriate for a given truth value. In laymen's terms, being reasonable means treating like cases likely, different cases differently. And when it comes to ideas about the concept of a God (conceptions of God-cosmological, humanistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, Christian, Buddhist, etc. etc..) what kind of truth value are we looking to understand. Using logic, what is our desire(s) or need to know (Will) about the origin, nature, and purpose of the universe.
In this respect, I agree with physicist Paul Davies in that the complete understanding of existence and its properties may lie outside the usual categories of rational human thought. And that certainly includes pure reason and mathematical structures. Hence one notion of a God.
Even if the theist/atheist assumed both i) a god that is all-knowing and ii) a complete understanding of an all-knowing god would lie outside human rational thought, it does not follow that the theist/atheist would not be able to use logic to strive for a partial understanding of the truth.
Sure, and using that same sense of logic, synthetic a priori proposition's are alive and well: all events must have a cause. Perhaps that, in a strange way, is your partial truth.
It certainly is.
:100: :up:
The conclusion seems inescapable. Though it may still somehow escape the atheists.
Not sure how we can escape the many descriptions/explanations of so-called existence as being considered logically impossible, yet still exist .
Accordingly, we have other opposing concepts that seem to fill the void: disbelief/belief, objective/subjective, a priori/a posteriori, ad nauseum. Kant was on to something when he essentially felt like dichotomizing reality was not the way to go, in the discovery of something novel.
And he probably was not wrong. But it does seem that when we deny the existence of something, the human mind has a tendency to fill the gap with a substitute that may be worse than the original.
By analogy, we may dig a hole in the ground only for it to fill with garbage instead of good soil. Or amputate a healthy limb only to replace it with some cheap contraption made in China.
Well said. Maybe it goes back to simple reasonableness and treating like cases likely, different cases differently, not sure. Meaning, if we substitute mystery behind the nature of reality and other phenomena, with pure reason as the holy grail, I think we encounter things like self-contradictory propositions and so forth (think Gödel). Kind of like the idea behind Dialetheism I suppose.
Certainly if we replaced religion with Marxism, for example, the hole-in-the-ground analogy would seem to hold. We are replacing something that is the product of humanity's collective effort over many millennia with the unexamined and untested ideas of a self-styled pseudo-philosopher who failed to even get a job at university and was forced to seek employment as a part-time journalist. But I could be wrong, of course.
I suspect that most of the Atheists on this forum do have logical reasons for being skeptical of other people's belief in invisible deities. Their logic might be of the "if-then" form. For example, "if God is good, then why is there evil in the created world?". Others might simply say that belief in any questionable proposition, apart from empirical evidence, is illogical, hence unbelievable.
However, many of us absorbed a belief in the relationship between humanity and Nature (defined as deity), before the age of reason. So, our reasoning is grounded on that fundamental relationship, and any other worldview just doesn't make sense. Both sides of the "-ism" divide use logic & reason to arrive at "reasonable" conclusions to moot questions. And it's only their unquestioned assumptions (axioms) that allow then to reason-out different answers from the same evidence. That may be why you say that "logic" is not needed to be skeptical of non-conforming worldviews. The logic is implicit in their original belief system, biased one way or the other.
Those of us who post on philosophical forums though, tend to use explicit logical arguments in favor of their own views, and in opposition to different worldviews. Unfortunately, due to the different emotional meanings of the same terminology, they tend to talk past each other. That's why the great skeptic, Voltaire, said, "if you wish to converse with me, first define your terms". Formal Logic is only as good as the validity of its terms. Yet different worldviews have disparate emotional meanings, as contrasted with rational technical meanings, for the same words. That's why I set-out to define, not just technical terminology, but my innermost personal worldview, as carefully as possible. But still, I am misunderstood more often than not. :sad:
“If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “define your terms.” How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to the strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task."
The point of my previous post was that "truth values" are ultimately evaluated in terms of emotions and feelings, or the lack thereof. The technical definitions of our words can be understood differently, depending on the emotional shadings of our worldviews. Hence, the contrasting "truth-values" (personal meaning) of our words.
For example, faith in God implies a "truth-claim". But, I submit that neither of us has empirical evidence, one way or the other, to verify the existence of an entity, that is by definition outside-of or more-than the physical universe. So, the Agnostic position may be the most rational solution. But, when human (and philosophical) yearnings for ultimate Truth are taken into account, there may be an answer that has the best, and perhaps the worst, of both worldviews.
I once had an extended pre-internet letter dialog with a relative, who was an evangelical Christian. And our conversation was as calm and rational as possible, since we knew, and loved & respected, each other. My concern was more with the veracity of the "scriptures", than with the general notion of a deity. But, when I asked her for the extra-biblical evidence to support her faith, she replied that she had "experienced" God in her own heart. So, does that sensation count as empirical evidence?
Since it was obvious that a rational logical debate was not going to change either belief system, we ended the exchange with the "to each his own" resolution. Much later, I developed my own philosophical worldview, that was neither Theist nor Atheist. It may not have much "truth-value" for you, but it allows me to look dispassionately at both sides of any contentious question. That accommodating worldview is what I call the BothAnd Principle. :cool:
Both/And Principle :
[i]* My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol, and the two sides of one coin. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
* The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to offset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system. In a philosophical sense, all opposites in this world (e.g. good vs evil) are ultimately reconciled in Enfernity (eternity & infinity).
* Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ? what’s true for you ? depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (Ideality, Truth) doesn't change, but your conception of truth does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
* This principle is also similar to the concept of Superposition in sub-atomic physics. In this ambiguous state a particle has no fixed identity until “observed” by an outside system. For example, in a Quantum Computer, a Qubit has a value of all possible fractions between 1 & 0. Therefore, you could say that it is both 1 and 0.[/i]
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
PS__Technically, "scripture" simply means "writings". But for some it also means "absolute Truth". While, for others, it means "religious propaganda".
Well, that may be, but is besides the point as far as I'm concerned. Truth-values are what they are regardless of "emotions and feelings" which is why they are extremely useful / reliable. By "ultimately evaluated" you must mean religiously believed ... which I don't disagree with; but again, that's besides the point for knowing.
[quote=Carl Sagan]I don't want to believe. I want to know.[/quote]
When "mere belief" no longer suffices, one questions, not in search for more certainty in one's current beliefs or some new beliefs, but in order to know whether or not those beliefs are true. Atheism, as I understand it, claims that (realist, cognitive) 'theism is not true', a claim which can easily be falsified by soundly demonstrating that theism is, in fact, true.
For black & white thinkers, bolstered by the feeling of certainty, "truth-values are what they are", and anything else is false-values and illusions.
But my point was that no one in this world knows the absolute truth. And no-body is perfectly objective. Why do you think Einstein so passionately argued that "god does not play dice!" .He spent the last years of his life trying to prove that Quantum Indeterminacy was wrong. Apparently, he believed that the real world was deterministic, as assumed by the classical scientists. Was he wrong? Can you provide conclusive evidence, one way or another, that he knew the truth, or was believing a lie?
What makes you believe that your "truth-values". . . "are what they are"? Christians and Muslims also believe that their truth-values are the true-truth. Not because of empirical facts, but due to emotional certainty. Are you that certain of your "truth-values"? Could Reality be Relative, as Einstein asserted, to the chagrin of his fellow scientists?
The profoundest questions of philosophy, after 2500 years of the Rational search for wisdom, and 400 years of Empirical Science, have still not been answered to date. That's why we have a Philosophy Forum to continue that open-ended search for truth. It's also why neuroscientist Robert Lawrence Kuhn hosted a TV series, called Closer to Truth. Those who believe that empirical Science has the last word on Truth, may be surprised that serious scientists still disagree on fundamental questions. That's why the BothAnd Principle advises a touch of humility, and a broad mind, for those who seek the elusive butterfly of Truth. :joke:
Quantum indeterminism asserts that certain kinds of events, call them "Q events" are indeterministic. Really really really indeterministic, not just "as far as we know?" ...
https://hilo.hawaii.edu/~ronald/310/Quanta.htm
Truisms. So what? Knowledge does not require "the feeling of certainty" or "absolute truth". This is special pleading for not excluding woo-woo and pseudo-science from reasonable examination of theism or other mystifying dogmas. I'm neither scientistic nor a positivist, Gnomon; the truth-value of a truth-claim – positive, negative, undecidable? – is my concern. Insofar as theism consists in truth-claims (i.e. religious realism), it's reasonable to ascertain their truth-values (via sound inferences and/or public / objective corroboration) which, of course, is fallibilistic and not "certain" or "absolute", that is, pragmatic (re: Peirce & Dewey, Popper & Haack, etc). Expressions of theism, etc which do not consist in truth-claims (i.e. religious nonrealism, mystical (esoteric) quietism, etc) are not of epistemic (or metaphysical) concern for secular freethinkers.
FWIW, I consider myself to be a "secular freethinker". but I do have epistemic, ontological, and metaphysical "concern" for unorthodox truth claims. Many concepts that are currently accepted by the majority of scientists -- such as the counter-intuitive notion that the Earth moves around the Sun -- were once radically eccentric.
Most people in the world, not just Theists and Anti-theists, seem to believe that their personal ideology is The Truth, or close enough for their purposes. But they can't all be right, even those who claim to rely only on empirical facts. So, for me, all truth-claims are suspect. I am a card-carrying skeptic (e.g. subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic Magazine for over 40 years). Hence, I am well-informed about Science and Pseudoscience.
However, the invisible line between Orthodox Science and Pseudoscience is always murky & moot. Therefore, I try to keep an open mind about those borderline notions, but not so open that my brains fall out. I also try to follow Spinoza's motto, as quoted below. Yet, the purpose of Philosophy has always been to explore the fringes of knowledge (epistemology) in search of Truth and Wisdom.
The skeptical attitude toward other people's beliefs is not intended to be offensive, but defensive : to avoid taking the bait of superficially appealing doctrines. Nevertheless, I am not afraid to look closely at supposedly scientific, but non-empirical & fringey ideas -- such as String, and Many Worlds, and Instantaneous Inflation theories -- in order to see if I can fit them into my own worldview. That's how I work to get Closer to Truth, and not to bury my head in the sands of Official Truth. That's the freedom of a FreeThinker. :cool:
" I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human [beliefs] , but to understand them." —Baruch Spinoza
[my brackets]
Pseudoscience :
The wide umbrella of pseudoscience encompasses ideas that come from a variety of sources, and they generally have little in common except that they have been designated as such by members of the scientific community.
Discover Magazine, June 2021
Note -- Galileo's controversial ideas about a sun-centered system, were "designated" as pseudoscience (heresy) by members of the orthodox clergy.
Purpose of philosophy :
Philosophy overall aims to question assumptions we make about our lives and really dig in to the details of why we think what we think and how we choose to act. It can get complicated at times, but it can also help a person to see more clearly that there are other ways of looking at the world than is our habit.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/philosophy-definition-purpose.html
Fringe Theory :
Fringe theories include the models and proposals of fringe science . . . . the term fringe theory is closer to the popular understanding of the word theory—a hypothesis or a guess or an uncertain idea—than to the concept of an established scientific theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_theory
By now, you may have noticed that I am an equal-opportunity Skeptic. I can doubt the confident positive assertions of both Theists and Atheists. I was raised in an evangelical religion, which taught us how to "reason" with those of different beliefs -- including Christians who had lost their way. But it didn't take long for me to realize that it was futile to sow seeds of "truth" on stoney ground. Only those who are pre-disposed toward a certain version of the truth, would see the "error of their ways". That's why Jesus said metaphorically : “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” .
Since this is a forum for logical "wisdom seekers" you'd think that most would immediately recognize the Truth, and file it away in their wisdom cache. But, surprisingly, a significant number here have closed-off their minds to whole categories of "truth". And I have learned by empirical experience that "crushing" the opposition is a lose-lose approach to anything. Anyway, it's usually the inoffensive innocent non-cognitive types who are "crushed" by scorched-earth offensive tactics.
My "inoffensive non-cognitive mother" was lectured long into the night, by my positive cognitive-theist father, on fine points of doctrine, which he took for absolute essential truths, but she was more flexible about. For the sake of peace in the family, she pretended to go along with his hardline doctrines, but inwardly she was not pre-disposed to black & white worldviews. I suppose I inherited some aspects of both dispositions. But in my old age, I'm more inclined toward moderate win-win tactics. I can be flexible now, because I no longer believe that those who reject a particular version of The Truth will be tortured in Hell forever. Besides, aggressive evangelism is not approved on a philosophical forum of diverse worldviews. :nerd:
[i]11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, . . .[/i]
___2 Thessalonians 2:7-12
Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”
___John 18 : 38
I feel the need to clarify that, in our discussions, I am not arguing in favor of Pseudoscience or against Science. Instead, I'm trying to make 21st century science more inclusive. My Enformationism thesis has made me appreciate what Aristotle was talking about in the second volume of his treatise on Nature (Greek "physica"). Because the focus of the second volume was on the immaterial mental aspects of Nature : the theories that humans have developed about Nature-in-general. That encyclopedia of philosophical concepts was later labelled "The MetaPhysics" : simply indicating the second of two volumes. But over time that descriptive term took-on a secondary meaning, probably due to Catholic Theology (the Scholastics). It was used to refer to anything SuperNatural, as in gods & angels & demons. So, when empirical Science revolted against Catholic hegemony on Truth, they turned that useful theological distinction into a pejorative. Hence, today, "metaphysics" is commonly taken to mean "unrealistic" (definition 2 below).
Ironically, materialistic 20th century scientists, in their search for Truth, inadvertently blurred the imaginary line between Physics and Metaphysics, as it dug into the quantum foundations of Reality. Classical Materialism was based on the notion of solid "real" atoms as the fundamental building blocks of reality. But now, physicists have gradually come to accept that the basic elements of Reality are Fields of Virtual Particles. And those invisible intangible specks of mathematical information are defined as dimensionless nodes in a mathematical matrix of geometric interrelationships. So, they can be interpreted as either "realistic" or "imaginary", depending on your perspective. However, following Aristotle's example, I prefer to consider those fundaments as both Potential and Actual, as in the state of Superposition.
The classical picture of Reality, as a smooth continuum, was turned upside down by two discoveries : 1. the granular nature of Quantum physics, and 2. the digital nature of Information theory. And those discrete-but-entangled Virtual Particles are now known to consist of nothing more real than mathematical Information. From that counterintuitive insight, I have developed a Theory of Everything, based on the notion of superposition of Information : it can be both Real and Ideal, both Virtual and Material, both Energy and Matter, both True and False. Therefore, I conclude that our world is not simplistically black-or-white, but Complex and Relative --- in the sense of Einstein's theory of Relativity : what you see (your truth) depends on your frame of reference. Of course, that shades-of-gray worldview, makes distinguishing True from False more difficult. But philosophical wisdom has never been easy.
For example, those who are disposed to believe in ghosts or UFOs will see them in any strange reflections or fuzzy images, where imagination is allowed to construct patterns within randomness. But subjective interpretations of limited information seldom manifest themselves in a hard material form. I see ghosts & aliens in fictional portrayals all the time. But I have never seen them in person, or in non-fictional reality. So, while I remain skeptical about such vague manifestations, I cannot categorically dismiss them as absolutely false, because some very intelligent people do claim to "see" such things. So, like Schrodinger's cat, I merely imagine them in superposition of true/false, or as possible-but-not-likely. For me, they don't seem real, but I acknowledge that from their perspective (biased, prejudiced, or better informed??) their metaphysical idea of ghosts seems just as plausible as Invisible Fields and Virtual Particles. :nerd:
Metaphysics :
[i]1. the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
2. abstract theory with no basis in reality.[/i]
Virtual Reality :
[i]Victor Toth (on Quora) "Virtual particles are called virtual” because they do NOT EXIST," (5/30/21). Gordon Caine (in Scientific American) "Virtual particles are indeed real particles," (10/09/06). Can anyone resolve this seeming contradiction?
"However, under certain very extreme circumstances, virtual particles can “become" real in a sense. And they may well be “real" in the minds of those who are intimately familiar with the mathematical formalism. It just becomes a matter of perspective."[/i]
____Quora
Aristotle divided the theoretical sciences into three groups: physics, mathematics, and theology.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/Physics-and-metaphysics
Truth Embargo -- UFOs :
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/truth-embargo-ufos-are-suddenly-all-talk-washington-n1270560?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Using contemporary physical theories in order to "justify" or "as evidence" for the prevalence of non-physical "forces" "agencies" "conditions" or what have you constitutes a performative contradiction that yields other fallacies (e.g. reification / misplaced concreteness, category mistakes, hasty generalization, appeal to authority / intuition / mysteries, etc). IMO, Gnomon, your "Enformationism" is no less conceptually incoherent.
You've made it clear that, for you, Metaphysics is anti-scientific. But, how did you arrive at the conclusion that Aristotle's "First Principles" is a zombie? It's true that some philosophers and scientists have tried to put a stake through the heart of Scholastic Metaphysics. But Aristotle's abstract notion of Substance -- Quality, Quantity, and Relation, as the essence of concrete matter -- keeps rising from its grave to haunt hard-core Physicalists and Naturalists. I'm currently reading physicist Carlo Rovelli's book, Helgoland, about the origins of Quantum Theory. In his brief history of that revolution in Science, it's obvious that Metaphysics was inadvertently resurrected from a shallow grave. Which reminds me of Mark Twain's quip : "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"
Rovelli noted that while some of the QT founders were using metaphors from Buddhism and Hinduism to explain why the basement of reality is so full of spooky ghosts, such as Superposition and Entanglement, others were making non-empirical metaphysical claims of their own. He described Ernst Mach's "anti-metaphysical spirit", but then notes that the target of his criticism was not Aristotle, but the materialist scientists, who tried to understand QT in terms of Classical physics. Rovelli then quoted a philosopher friend, who asked "what are these 'most rooted metaphysical convictions' of ours, if not what we have become accustomed to believe precisely by handling stones and pieces of wood?" Rovelli labels those sober scientist's "metaphysical prejudices" as "naturalism without substance".
He says, "many interpretations of quantum mechanics . . . (Many Worlds, Hidden Variables, and Physical Collapse) . . . seem to me to be efforts to squeeze the discoveries of quantum physics into the canons of metaphysical prejudice." In other words, he's accusing some highly credentialed scientists of holding -- not empirical physical beliefs -- but metaphysical philosophical positions that are out of date. Moreover, he said that "Mach argues that the progress of science shows that this notion of 'matter' is an unjustified 'metaphysical' assumption". So, even post-enlightenment scientists hold-on to Metaphysical beliefs about Ontology and Epistemology.
Clearly, Rovelli is not using the term "metaphysics" in the sense of definition "2. abstract theory with no basis in reality", but of definition "1. the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space". The thesis of the book is that immaterial metaphysical mathematical Relations are the essential "substance" of Quantum Reality. However, Rovelli himself is a sober and credentialed scientist. Yet, he is also a Theoretical Physicist, so he experiments with metaphysical ideas, not physical objects. Do you consider his metaphysical science to be BS? :nerd:
Aristotle's Substance :
. . . four possible candidates for being the substance of something: essence, universal, genus, and subject.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/
Note -- all of those proposed substances are subjective mental concepts, not objective material objects.
Rovelli's Field of physics :
Loop quantum gravity, by contrast, is concerned less with the matter that inhabits space-time than with the quantum properties of space-time itself.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theory-meets-loop-quantum-gravity-20160112/
Note -- the notion of invisible strings of matter vibrating in 11 dimensions is about as "naturalism without substance" as it gets. By contrast, the mathematical properties of space-time are legitimate subjects for a theoretical (philosophical) physicist, who doesn't pretend to study invisible, non-empirical matter.
No, not "anti-scientific", just not scientific (or non-cognitive) at all like in any aspect of philosophy.
No. Having just read Hegoland myself, I consider your interpretation BS ( :wink: which I pointed out in the last paragraph of my previous post). Rovelli's RQM has strong metaphorical affinities with Na?ga?rjuna and, therefore, like Spinoza Hume Kant et al who I've pointed out, is anti-Aristotlean (i.e. contra hylomorphic substance, horror vacui, teleology (finalism), potential-actual, etc), which is how he interprets the history of QM (sans other interpretations). Physical science is 'grounded', in part, by metaphysics insofar as it's a grammatical (narrative context), as Freddy reminds us, and logico-mathematical (formal modeling) hybrid; but this neither 'reduces metaphysics to science' nor 'generalizes science into metaphysics' as your (Hegelian? Husserlian?) oxymoron "metaphysical science" suggests.
OK. But, I must object to your interpretation of Rovelli's interpretation of Aristotle. It's true that Aristotelian physics and metaphysics were rejected by some of the Enlightenment scientists, who were rebelling against Scholastic Philosophy (i.e. religious interpretations of Aristotle). And those early scientist's objections were reflected in Stephen Weinberg's book titled, Against Philosophy. Apparently, from his perspective, philosophy was all about Metaphysics. That's why Rovelli wrote a rejoinder, Physics Needs Philosophy. There, he recounts an ancient debate between Isocrates and Aristotle. And he concluded that, "Two millennia of development of the sciences and philosophy have vindicated and, if anything, strengthened Aristotle’s defense of philosophy against Isocrates’ accusations of futility."
It seems that Rovelli agrees that Philosophy is Metaphysics : i.e. theories rather than experiments. In another article, he says "I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct approximation of Newtonian physics in its appropriate domain, in the same precise sense in which Newton theory is ..." But in the same article, what he referred to as "Physics" was Aristotle's arguments, his theories, his generalizations, not his laboratory experiments. Today, few scientists, in their own work on Physics, refer to Aristotle's facts from the first volume of Phusis (Nature) . Yet they do make use of his Categories and Logical Arguments, which were expressed in the second volume, now known as The Metaphysics. Although, for Aristotle, both books addressed the current best knowledge of Nature, the first focused on Hyle (wood, matter), and the second on Form (essences, ideas, theories). What he didn't discuss in the Metaphysics was popular myths about the various gods & ghosts. When he did refer to "God", it was more like Spinoza's Nature God, than to the exploits of Zeus and Apollo. :wink:
Physics Needs Philosophy :
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-needs-philosophy-philosophy-needs-physics/
1. “Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but with regard to their mode of life.”
___Aristotle
Quoting 180 Proof
Maybe so. But I am in good company. Since most of the metaphysical concepts in my thesis were derived from prominent scientists, like Rovelli, who are reinterpreting Nature in light of Quantum Theory, in terms of Relationships, not Material objects. Whether or not Enformationism is "conceptually incoherent", it is based on Quantum physicist John Archibald Wheeler's radical notion of "It from Bit". Could it be that your Classical interpretation of the thesis is what's muddled? :joke:
Carlo Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics :
Rovelli won the second prize in the 2013 FQXi contest ‘It From Bit or Bit From It?’ for his essay on “relative information”. His book, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, has also been translated into 41 languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide.
https://medium.com/predict/carlo-rovellis-relational-quantum-mechanics-256cc264f394
"It from bit symbolises 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; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe."
https://plus.maths.org/content/it-bit
Abstract of the Enformationism Thesis :
click box for popup
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page82.html
Quoting Gnomon
Yeah, and philosophy based on science is assbackwards (incoherent) insofar as science is derived from – conceptually framed by – philosophy. The "good company" you're keeping, Gnomon, are just as incoherent as your "thesis". Also, this implicit appeal to authority is neither here nor there. I do appreciate your ambitious speculative "thesis", however, even though I don't agree with it jumping the shark to masquerade as a "science" of some kind.
What do you think my "anachronistic, neo/faux-Aristotlean interpretation" is all about? Please, be constructive. Name-calling, and expressions of disgust ("I consider your interpretation BS") are not philosophical arguments. :joke:
How do you "interpret" Rovelli's interpretation of Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna's "central thesis" of emptiness? (chapter 5) He quotes him as saying "the ultimate reality, the essence, is absence, is vacuity". Does that notion fit your understanding of scientific Truth? From my perspective, Rovelli seems to approve of Nagarjuna's belief that the material world is an illusion. Therefore, he concludes that only relations are real. Yet, relationships only exist in the Minds of observers. And the function of Consciousness is to "see" invisible relations between things, is it not? Hence my thesis suggests that "ultimate reality" is not a collection of parts, but the Whole, which exists only as a web of relations. Does that sound disgusting from your scientific perspective? :cool:
Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter is a 2011 book by biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon.. . . . "A central thesis of the book is that absence can still be efficacious."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
Quoting 180 Proof
What gave you the idea that my thesis is "masquerading as science"? Do you think it's actually a religious concept, disguised as science? Or could it be merely an emerging paradigm of quantum science and 21st century philosophy? :cool:
Enformationism :
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
You seem to have strong opinions about a thesis you know only from a few forum posts. Obviously, you still don't understand what my thesis is really proposing. Apparently, you read a few trigger words in my posts -- such as "Panpsychism" -- and then jump to a foregone conclusion without actually knowing how & why I use such terms in a novel manner. FWIW, I have placed below a link to an introduction to the Enformationism thesis. It also includes an even more condensed version in a popup, for those who can't follow long arguments. Unfortunately, the abbreviation may leave too much room for "reading into" my words, the reader's own meanings.
Speaking of "trigger words", in chapter six of Rovelli's book, he addresses some misuses of Quantum Theory to support some theories of Panpsychism and Spiritualism, which I also discuss in my blog. Although, he admits a hippie phase in his own past, he expresses disgust for New Age notions such as "quantum medicine" and "quantum spiritualism". And I agree with his scientific position. But I don't dismiss the ancient roots of such ideas as the work of neanderthals and idiots. For example, the sages, who invented the notion of invisible Spirits, were probably some of the smartest people in the world at the time. But what they described as animating "spirits" was actually what we now call invisible causal "energy". Unfortunately, the explanatory theories of those early philosophers and scientists were quickly converted into religious doctrines by those who wanted to use "science" to convince the gullible that they had influence over those scary natural forces.
Rovelli says "I don't find such arguments and such 'pan-psychism' persuasive in the slightest. . . . there is no need to attribute proto-consciousness to elementary systems . . ." And I agree. That's why I use the the more neutral, and technical, term "Information", instead of spooky "consciousness", to describe energy exchanges in bits & bytes at the quantum level of physics. However, he goes-on to discuss "Intentionality", which is a property of Information that goes beyond the mechanics of Energy, to include the notion of "Meaning". Then he says, "Two concepts bring us close to an answer : Information and evolution, even if neither is enough to comprehend what "meaning" is in physical terms." Later, he asserts, "a small miracle occurs, however, when we combine the two ideas of information and evolution." Again I agree, but I maintain that it is a natural "miracle", not a divine intervention. My thesis is all about the consequences of combining Information with Evolution. I had to coin a neologism to convey the meaning of that chimerical combination : EnFormAction. But, I'll leave it at that. I suspect that we have strayed far from the OP question of the relationship between Logic and Disbelief. :cool:
Introduction to Enformationism :
One of those early worldviews is Panpsychism, which is updated to replace ancient “Psyche” (spirit) with modern “EnFormAction” (creative energy)
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page80.html
Addendum to :point:
[quote=Carlo Rovelli, Hegoland, pp. 159-60]It is with sadness that every so often I spend a few hours on the internet, reading or listening to the mountain of stupiditie dressed up with the word 'quantum'. Quantum medicine; holistic quantum theories of every kind, mental quantum spiritualism – and so on, and on, in an almost unbelievable parade of quantum nonsense.[/quote]
et al.
(re: TPF's Quantum-Woo Crew :sparkle:)
Muchas gracias señor!
Thanks for that sincere confession of faith in Scientism : Reductionism & Materialism. Ironically, the "woo-crew" typically quotes the informed opinions of physicists, such as Rovelli to support their philosophical ideas. Whereas, "The Boo Hiss crew" (180Proveit) typically spouts expressions of faith in generic scientific doctrine, and of intellectual superiority to freewheeling philosophers.
Speaking of "woo of the gaps", highly credentialed physicist Hossenfelder interviewed Mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, about the physical cause of consciousness. His theory is that quantum scale microtubules mysteriously produce consciousness when measured. He's a Nobel Prizewinner, but Sabine found such woo-of-the-gaps "quantum spiritualism" hard to accept, because the gap between non-conscious tubes of protein and conscious minds is filled with unspecified and unwarranted assumptions. "I find that stunning, because it's telling us that your belief that the system works is stronger than the system itself. What are you doing that enables you to transcend the system?" Fortunately, he admitted that it was just a hypothesis, not a doctrine.
180's faith in the system of science also transcends any specific evidence within the system. He dresses up his quips, not with the ambiguous word "Quantum", but with vague references to intuitive, but outdated, Classical Newtonian Physics. By avoiding references to quantum weirdness, I suppose he feels that his bold accusations of woo-mongering are on safe ground. Because, with no details, they're not subject to the Holistic interpretations of the quantum pioneers. That sounds like the Trump technique, when challenged he points the finger at the other guy and calls him unflattering names. Is that legitimate TPF philosophy? :joke:
WOO-FREE AND ARGUMENT-FREE "BOO-HISS" PHILOSOPHY
[quote=Richard Feynman]If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.[/quote]
While Feynman's comment suggests any theory/idea based on Quantum Mechanics is a case of obscurum per obscuris, I find it quite fascinating that anyone would lay a foundation of ignorance for their knowledge claims.
Hey! Don't blame Feynman. It was the obscure First Cause that laid the foundation for Quantum obscurum. Feynman was a genius, but not smart enough to make sense of a system that functions both deterministically and randomly.
My Enformationism thesis accepts that such nonsense was necessary to produce a self-organizing world that also has an element of freedom. A straightforward computer program would be self-organizing, but it would be very limited in novelty. That's why the Evolutionary program was a stoke of genius. It allows simple repetitive cause & effect actions to go creatively crazy sometimes. That's because linear logical predictable Cause-Effect is built on an unstable foundation of non-linear absurd unpredictable Background-Hiss. And I'm not talking about 180. :grin:
How Randomness Can Arise From Determinism :
This dichotomy between unpredictable individual behavior and precise group behavior is not unique to quantum mechanics.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-randomness-can-arise-from-determinism-20191014/
There's no honor in pretending to be intellectually superior. Even Trump can barely pull it off. Besides, isn't it hard to make a supercilious smirk-face with your tongue sticking out? Hey, trading insults, instead of ideas, is fun. But, you don't get no badges for your political playground philosophy, sir! Just kidding . . . or am I? :joke:
PS__No offense intended. The smiley has tongue-in-cheek, and no wiggling ears.
I try to practice what I preach, but it's hard to get Either/Or thinkers to view anything from a perspective other than their own ingrained point of view. Apparently 180BooBoof looks to Trump for philosophical arguing tips. Just accuse the other guy of doing exactly what you are doing. Or at least distract the attention from your own faults. A finger pointing away, reliably distracts bystanders from looking at you. That's not a complementary BothAnd perspective, but merely the old "don't look at me . . . hey, look over there" trick. That's not Philosophy, it's Sophistry. And it's childish. :cool:
DON'T ACCUSE ME OF RACIST POLICIES,
JUST LOOK OVER THERE AT THAT RACE PERSON
Not trying to nitpick, but isn't your philosophy supposed to be like the USA is - welcoming to all, and I mean people from every corner of the world by that (inclusive)? Given so I find it hard to tally that with you engaging in arguments, even those involving naysayers (exclusive).
[quote=Richard Feynman]If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.[/quote]
No, you still miss the complementary perspective of BothAnd. It doesn't accept all opinions as equally true, but within any whole system, there is overlap in the middle, part true part false. As illustrated by a Venn diagram in Logic -- where True & False overlap -- there is an imperfect mixture of both red & blue opinions. Absolute truth could be anywhere in the diagram, but a human, standing on his local spot on the globe, can't see beyond his own horizon. Yet, we know by reasoning & experience that Relative Truth is often good enough for practical purposes, and it can often be found within your own shadow, but on your neighbor's side of the fence. For Absolutists & Perfectionists though, the other side of the fence, is by definition, False.
In the YinYang symbol, the same principle is illustrated by putting a small circle of the opposite color within each complementary half of the big circle. The ancient chinese sages intuited what Einstein discovered mathematically : that what you see (and believe to be true) is relative to the observer's frame of reference. Hence, only omniscient G*D can see the Truth in any situation. But Einstein, briefly imagining himself as omniscient, realized that "truth is relative". And he was modest enough to know that his imaginary G*D was on his side, only when he was on G*D's side, mathematically. :smile:
Unfortunately, some people are absolutists, and can't accept watered-down truth, to contaminate their idealized politicized (us vs them) worldview--- yes, I'm talking about you 180Boo. To Black vs Whiters, a fact is a fact, and there is no gray in-between. So, in order to make sense of apparently intelligent people holding contrasting opinions, they tell themselves that the one holding a "wrong" opinion is, at best mis-informed, or at worst a blithering idiot, pretending to engage in philosophical discourse. Fortunately, such extreme Contrast (100%True versus 100%False) thinkers are rare. But, online philosophical forums allow them to imagine the majority is on their side. Like bulldogs though, once they bite, they can't let go. In their two-value world there is no middle-ground between Macho-Male and Effete-Female, no LGBTQ alphabet queers.
Fortunately, the rational methods of Philosophy were developed to allow us to meet-intellectually (on the sidelines Stoa) without coming to blows (in the Agora, with the masses). We lay down our weapons by emulating Socrates -- "all I know is that I know nothing" -- and Isaiah -- "come, let us reason together". There are two dictionary definitions of "argument" : 1. an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one. 2. a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. When I first started posting on this forum, I had some philosophical discussions with 180, in which we exchanged opinions & reasons. And I thought we not very far apart in our views. But something about my Enformationism & BothAnd worldviews struck him as dangerously heretical (i.e anti-science*1). Since then he has not pretended to offer rational arguments (def #2), and presents only emotional outbursts (def#1) "your'e wrong, wrong wrong". No more middle ground, and no more Mr. Nice Guy.
So, for the most part, I have simply ignored his booing & hissing. When, I recently responded to an apparently innocent comment, it simply gave him an opening for invective & evisceration. (note the bold philosophical terms in the following post). Although, I remain open to philosophical dialog, I will refuse to engage in political debates. However, If you feel lucky, you are free to get down in the mud, and start slinging. 180 has made it clear that he is not an open-minded BothAnder, but a my-way-or-wrong-way take-no-prisoners Heresy Inquisitor. In time-honored tradition, you can volunteer to be my champion to defend my sullied honor, by "engaging with the nay-sayers". Know the risk though, before you admit to any eccentric opinions. Good luck, you'll need it. :joke:
COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER.
NO, SCREW THAT, JUST BURN THE BASTARD
*1. Anti-science : I prefer Sabine Hossenfelders open-minded term "ascientific" for non-empirical philosophical questions.
By the way, great post!
I see I have been summoned away from wooing the gaps to talk quantum mechanics sans mechanics! I'm in the process of authoring a paper on consciousness, one entry in the photonics movement that may initiate a revolutionary synthesis of physics, neuroscience and psychology. Wisely minimizing my use of the term ''quantum'' so as to not disillusion the quants from my ultrarealist panprotopsychism.
Anatomy of the neuron suggests that these cells are fundamentally structured around electrical coherence, call it quantum if you want, but the role of light as binding agent for percepts insofar as they arise from electromagnetic matter is more uncertain and requires further research, though showing much promise so far. I hypothesize that modulation of infrared radiation produced by electric currents within neurons is root source of the functional spectrum, interacting with atoms to constitute the brain's participation in forming the perceptual field. Anyone interested can read the first draft of my paper on the topic as OPs of my thread Uniting CEMI and Coherence Field Theories of Consciousness, The Sequel .
Feel welcome to criticize, that's the entire purpose of this forum as far as I'm concerned!
What are you calling "de-legitimizing" the opposition? I do make it a policy to avoid debating those who are dug-in. Dialoguing (win-win) is two-way sharing of views, and is the purpose of this forum. But Debating (win-lose) is a power struggle to defeat the other "position". Even in monistic Buddhism "It is not uncommon to find a variety of seemingly conflicting religious practices incorporated into the lives of Buddhists". That's one way to make peace, set-aside areas of conflict as unimportant. But 180 is not a Buddhist, and he is not compromising of his orthodox beliefs.
Again, you have misunderstood the "BothAnd" philosophy, so, we continue to dialogue in order to construct a mutual meaning that we can both accept. For 180, it may mean "selling-out to the enemy." To you, it seems to mean : "it's all good". To the contrary, "BothAnd" does not mean that Evil is just misunderstood Good, or that a whole is the arithmetic sum of its parts. I engage in vigorous back & forth dialogs on this forum all the time -- with posters who seem flexible in their opinions. So, 180 is the only "opponent" I typically ignore, to avoid wasting time on pointless power struggles. I have no wish to convert him to my own philosophical worldview. But he seems to find it offensive, and is motivated to show me the error of my beliefs. Or, at least to prove who is smarter.
180's arguments are typically articulated in the form of "you're wrong! and here's an orthodox science book that proves it!". Frustratingly, he seldom cites "book, chapter & verse". Like most religious true believers though, he places high value on authoritative Orthodoxy. Yet, to him, I suppose non-classical Quantum physics was like the Protestant Reformation : a slap in the face*1. Anyway, as I said above, I used to engage with 180 before I learned the wisdom of the old saying "don't wrestle with a pig, you'll both just get dirty . . . and the pig likes it". By now, he knows I'm just poking the pig to hear him squeal. Do you think less of me for that sardonic philosophical humor?
You seem to have misunderstood the BothAnd philosophy as a naive idealistic attitude, like that of the founding fathers of the USA : "all men are created free & equal". That high-minded phrase was interpreted by Emma Lazarus : "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore". Yet in the news today, the governor of Florida has imported wretched Mexicans from Texas, and exported them to Massachusetts. The Founders were well-intentioned, and their ideal was good, but in practice not all of those "yearning to breathe free" are welcome in Florida or Texas. Even those idealistic political Patriots, immediately ceased dialoging with their Fatherland, and declared war on jolly old England. That's how most Political arguments are resolved. But BothAnd is not a Political philosophy; it's a Philosophical philosophy. Unfortunately, 180 treats it like a Political assault on Scientific Orthodoxy, or a Religious heretical movement.
Perhaps BothAnd reminded you of Rousseau's rousing phrase, "man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains," The BothAnd holistic worldview is not intended to address such real-world political or physical problems. It's not an attack on anything. So, I have never understood what set 180boo in antithetical opposition to such an inoffensive personal attitude : "be open-minded, look at alternatives before you choose a path". His dismissive responses to my posts seems to have something to do with my unconventional usage of the old Theological term "Metaphysics".
Yet, I have repeatedly explained that I'm not referring to Catholic Theology, but to the kind of topics that Aristotle discussed in the Metaphysics volume of his treatise on Physics : e.g. existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility*2. None of which is a physical object or substance, and none subject to empirical falisifiability. All of which are still topics of Philosophical discussion to this very day. Ironically, the first six volumes, which the Catholics labeled The Physics (Nature) introduced the notion of a god-like First Cause *3. So, 180 would do just as well to debate with Aristotle on Physics. Unless you are personally motivated to dialogue with a demagogue. Is that "delegitimizing", or simply calling a spade a shovel? He's called me worse, and it doesn't hurt my feelings. :joke:
PS___The smilie has ironic tongue-in-cheek, not tongue sticking out. But, 180 may interpret it as a juvenile counter-attack. I try to use humor to defuse, but some don't get the joke..
"If you say something tongue in cheek, you intend it to be understood as a joke, although you might appear to be serious".
*1. Seven Decades of Heresy in Quantum Physics :
Although quantum mechanics has predicted an extraordinary range of phenomena with unprecedented accuracy, it remains controversial. Bohr and Heisenberg pronounced it `a complete theory' in 1927, but Einstein never accepted it, and as late as 1989 John Bell charged it with dividing the world of physics. David Wick traces the history of this controversy and shows how it affects our very conception of what a scientific theory is all about.
https://www.nhbs.com/the-infamous-boundary-book
*2. What topics did Aristotle write about? :
His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology, and government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle
*3. Aristotle Physics :
The Physics takes its title from the Greek word phusis, which translates more accurately as “the order of nature.” The first two books of the Physics are Aristotle’s general introduction to the study of nature. The remaining six books treat physics itself at a very theoretical, generalized level, culminating in a discussion of God, the First Cause.
Let me be honest here, I really like your EnformAction idea and its BothAnd foundation. Religion needs an update and pronto; the best way to do that is with the aid of science which has in recent times becoming an opponent of religion, but that doesn't mean there's no middle ground! You have, by proposing a synthesis of the two, found that middle ground (BothAnd). I applaud you for it! :100: :party:
The opposition from the science guys and the lukewarm reception from religious folks you're met with is in my humble opinion because ...
[quote=Numerius Negedius (comment on Leonhard Euler's Tentamen novae theorae musicae)]Too [s]mathematical[/s] religious for [s]musicians[/s] scientists and too [s]musical[/s] scientific for [s]mathematicians[/s] the religious.[/quote]
In attempting to unite two rivals for our attention not to mention benefit, you've lost the support of both. This however doesn't mean your philosophy is wrong/bad; what it actually means is that the chimeric philosophy you've developed fits like a glove with reality as we know it. In most cases, I've noticed, people are happy only when they get what they want and utterly disappointed by hard facts.
Good day!
I think I see what you are suggesting. But Enformationism is neither Mathematical (intellectual) nor Musical (emotional), it is instead a general philosophical & metaphorical Worldview, which reveals no new scientific or mathematical facts to the stock of human knowledge. Its primary contribution is to support ancient Holistic (e.g. Taoism ; Idealism ; Stoicism , etc) philosophies with cutting-edge (reductive) scientific knowledge (e.g quantum & information), and Einsteinian Relativity (POV framing).
So the "lukewarm" reception is due primarily to its negative implications for some dearly-held beliefs, such as the modern ideology of Scientism. It also has little aesthetic appeal to most religious people, because it offers no plan of salvation in the hereafter, and no consoling symbolism & ceremonies in the here & now. So, what limited appeal it may have is for rational intellectuals with a mostly pragmatic way of thinking. Ironically, antipathy & opposition comes mainly from those who believe they have arrived at unassailable Truth, in the form of some Orthodox doctrine or scientific model of reality.
But, even among those rational & philosophical types, some are activists, motivated to change the world*1, not just to understand it and adapt to it. They will be disappointed with Enformationism. Also, even traditional religious types, with an intellectual bent -- such as my family -- their hopes for a better world tomorrow were raised along with their upbringing. And the only hope they see for a "fallen" world is a supernatural Messiah. Enformationism does not describe a world-fallen-from-grace though, but a world that is evolving exactly as intended by the First Cause "Programmer".
In the gradual unfolding of the Evolutionary Program, pain & suffering and dashed hopes are due, not to demonic beings, but to inherent natural laws & forces. This Stoic*2 attitude toward the Real world has been taught by sages for ages, from Plato to Lao Tse to Buddha to the post-enlightenment Deists. However, in view of our post-enlightenment power over Nature, we find our remaining powerlessness hard to accept. Our aspirational moon rockets still blow-up, not due to divine opposition, but to 14 billion-year-old natural laws, and human errors.
Unfortunately, human reasoning is always based on limited information, and is influenced by history & tradition. So its prescriptions & solutions for the "human condition" can be expected to to conflict with one another. For example, general Deism*3 has fragmented into a variety of -isms over the years : PanTheism, PanDeism, PanEnDeism, etc. Enformationism is none of those, and all of those. It proposes no official orthodox position on any topic. Due to our limited access to factual information on our lonely little blue planet, and also to the ambiguity of "facts" on the Quantum foundation of Physics right under our feet, all truths are temporary & contingent. Does that sound like a religion to you? Admittedly, it has some similarity to New Age worldviews, but only in so far as they accept various ancient holistic & naturalistic, but non-fatalistic philosophies. :cool:
*1. “The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways,” he famously said. “The point, however, is to change it.” ___Karl Marx
Note -- philosophers "change" the world with their ideas (living memes), not with guns (death). And such change-of-mind takes generations, requiring stoic patience.
*2. Stoicism :
an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
*3. Deism :
Derived from the Latin deus, meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe. Or more simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology (that is, God's existence is revealed through nature).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
To me Enformationism, what I could grasp of it, manages to capture all 3 aspects of God: [omni]benevolence (stoic virtue, living in accord with the laws of nature), [omni]science (science), and [omni]potence (EnFormy, the creative force).
I know your philosophy isn't theistic in the sense that Christianity is, but I couldn't help but notice the connection between it and the Christian God's attributes as outlined above. A happy coincidence? Hard to say, but worth investigating in my humble opinion. Maybe it reveals an underlying imtuition that is universal, differing only in the specifics while being same in spirit if you catch my drift.
That's all I have for now. Good day mate!
Quoting Gnomon
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?
Addendum to ...
I like Gnomon's idea in a very general sorta way, s/he probably needs to work on the specifics.
No. Atheists have heard all the arguments, all their lives. They have no reason to believe there's a god without evidence, and yet no atheist says that he KNOWS there's no God, or she shouldn't. there could be. There could be fairies and leprechauns too.
I think this depends on how g/G is defined or described. Consider positive atheism. :halo:
Your grasp of Enformationism is still incomplete : it's not about God, but about Nature*1. However, as far as we know, Nature is not eternal or self-existent, so a philosophical First Cause is still necessary to explain the Big Bang beginning of the on-going creative process of Evolution*2. And it would be an astronomically unlikely "coincidence" for a random thermodynamic process to begin with fine-tuned settings that are essential for the emergence of living & thinking organisms*3.
Darwin's evolutionary process --- of random errors (mutations) woven into self-correcting organisms by goal-directed selection criteria --- is obviously not entirely materialistic & mechanistic*4. That's because, in our experience, undirected mechanisms (e.g. perpetual motion machines) do not produce self-reproducing baby mechanisms. The only natural mechanisms that do perpetuate themselves are Holistic organisms, which are more-than the sum of their parts. The "more-than" is goal-directed design criteria (information), as in computer programs. So, the logical necessity for a goal-setting Programmer, or some kind, is a logical leap into the unknown time-before-time. Even atheistic cosmologists make that pre-bang "set-up" assumption, including pre-existing Energy (causation) and eternal "laws" to control the interactions of matter & energy. They don't deny the "fine-tuning", but merely the intention behind those "anthropic" settings.
One name for that eternal fine-tuning Programmer is "Multiverse", which merely multiplies what already exists in the physical world, in order to explain its beginning without recourse to an intentional Creator*5. But, in any computer program, it's the ultimate Intention (question) of the Programmer that sets the initial state (hence the aim) of the computation process (output or answer). I don't know the question or the answer, and I know nothing about the First Cause of the universe, but I can make some educated guesses about the FC's "attributes". The basic logical assumption is that there can be nothing in the Effect that was not Potentially in the Cause. But, clearly there's no Omniscience, or Omnipotence, or Omnibenevolence in the creation, so we can only infer such qualities in an eternal (timeless) & infinite (spaceless) Creator.
In eternity, anything that can happen will happen. Or at least, that's the assumption behind the Multiverse hypothesis. But, Nature has none of those properties, so I don't attribute them to my Spinozan Nature-G*D. Which is definitely not patterned after the Christian God. However, as you noted,
almost all philosophical & religious traditions have intuited a basic set of attributes for their First Cause postulations : Brahman, Tao, Logos, Allah. But the existence of evil in our world implies that Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence are antithetical. :cool:
*1. Specifically, about Nature, in view of non-classical & counter-intuitive Quantum Physics, and the non-physical forms of Generic Information (e.g. ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc.)
*2. Plato & Aristotle assumed their world was eternal, but other evidence led them to infer that a First Cause of Causation (motion, change, evolution) was logically necessary.
*3. Since the Greeks were avid mathematicians & rationalists, they inferred that the First Cause of the world must be orderly & reasonable (not random & irrational), hence LOGOS was their label for a non-physical non-anthropic Creator. Cynics today though, tend to downplay human intelligence. Because it is not perfect & omniscient, compared to what?
*4. Darwinian Programming : "There is a famous [mis]quote attributed to Darwin: ‘ It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. While most likely Darwin didn’t say it, the principle behind it still stands. Nowadays this property is known as ‘evolvability’." https://accu.org/journals/overload/20/109/ignatchenko_1911/
Note -- Adaptability requires A> intentions, B> feedback loops, C> course changes. A + B + C + ? = Holistic Intelligence (? = interaction, interdependence, sharing of information). Humanity as a species, has occupied almost all ecological niches on Earth, and are in the process of colonizing off-worlds. What were the odds of that eventuality when the Singularity went Bang?
*5. Fine Tuning : Skeptical physicist Hossenfelder asks : "isn't it peculiar, they ask, that the universe is the way it is, so we can be the way we are?" That's an "ascientific" philosophical question. So, later she says, "most scientists dismiss this idea out of hand, but I think it's worth thinking about" (philosophically, not scientifically).
"The issue is this. The currently known laws of nature contain twenty-six constants. . . . It's extremely unlikely that these constants would just coincidentally happen to have exactly the values that allow for our existence. Therefore, the universe as we observe it requires an explanation . . . . However, the multiverse hypothesis doesn't explain anything". Existential Physics
Note -- If a shooter at a target range hits the center twenty-six times in a row, would you look for an abnormal explanation : super-human marksmanship, or magic, or cheating?
:up:
All Gods are possibilities we can't rule out with 100% certainty. Every hypothesis has a loop hole that can be plugged to stop fatal hemorrhaging ad hoc. Hence novacula occami which isn't about truth but about simplicity - there was no one but Smith in the room, the door was locked from the inside, no windows; surely Smith took his own life now that he's lying on the floor, stiff as a board and bright green! Simple!
Quoting Gnomon
Is the analogy accurate? If so, how would Ockham answer the question?
180boo challenges the logical possibility of a First Cause (pre-existent marksman) with a sarcastic "Yeah, but which god may exist?". The intention is to get you to commit to a particular anthro-morphic god model. Which he can shoot-down with Science.
However, Enformationism is not a scientific thesis, and does not pretend to have direct evidence or revealed knowledge to support any traditional god-model. That's why I use ambiguous terms (e.g. "G*D") to describe the Big Bang sharp-shooter. Impersonal abstract attributes are inferred from real-world evidence*2 that some kind of First Cause is logically necessary to explain the contingent existence of our space-time world. That's not religious Belief, just philosophical Logic.
Ancient philosophers, using unaided reasoning, labeled that same existential necessity with different names for the same abstract concept : Brahman, Tao, Logos, etc.*3. What would you call the Initial Step in 14-billion-year series of events? A cosmic coincidence??? :cool:
*1. Preternatural : "beyond what is normal or natural".
*2. Astronomical evidence points back to a dimensionless point in sub-Planck time before space-time. A common retort is that the concept of time-before-time is like "what's north of the north pole?" But that physical spherical geometric analogy does not apply to a dimensionless Singularity. So, If you take that evidence at face value, you are faced with scientific evidence for a "creation event" of something from nothing. What would you call the Cause of such an un-natural event : a reverse Black Hole? Where's the evidence?
*3. "[u]Brahman[/u] is a metaphysical concept of Hinduism referring to the ultimate unchanging reality, that is uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, the cause, the foundation, the source and the goal of all existence."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman
What do you mean by "possibilities"?
By possibilities I mean those multiple hypotheses that square with data. For instance if I give you the sequence 2, 4, 8, ... the pattern could either be
1) 2[sup]n[/sup], where n = 1, 2, 3
2) 2, 4, 8, 14, 22, ...
These two patterns are possibilities.
Why? There are many definitions of God - from the OOO God to a malus Deus - and all of them jibe with or can be made to with what we know as reality. In short we can't rule out any of 'em as incompatible with our experiences. If you follow the theism-atheism feud, the back and forth between these two warring factions, you'll immediately see what I mean.
I disagree completely.
Quoting 180 Proof
This excludes an "OOO" deity. :halo:
Besides, Smith, none of the classical arguments^^ for the possibility of g/G°°are sound whereas, on the other hand, there are quite a few sound arguments (including my own**) for the impossibility of g/G.°°
(transcendent facts (vide Spinoza) aka "magic")°°
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/653775 ^^
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/463672 **
I would have to defer to your good judgment on this one! It looks like God is the square peg in the round hole of reality - just won't fit! Either we're too small or He's too big! Most/how unfortunate!
Quoting Pinprick
Logic can be used for both beliefs and non-beliefs. "I believe that you lie" and "I don't believe that you say the truth" mean almost the same thing. One is belief and the other is disbelief or non-belief. One can give reasons --i.e. use logic-- for either of them.
Atheism too, is also defined as belief --i.e. that there is no God-- and as disbelief or non-belief --i.e. lack of belief that God exists. You can meet both definitions around. And you can find a big deal of literature on the subject. In which of course a lot of reasoning is used. But, as you say, " logic is needed to justify a non-belief.". Well, I'm more radical about this: I say that there's even no meaining in talking about the subject. First of all, what kind of God an "atheist" refers to? Your God? My God? The God as presented in the Bible? And so on. Then, if I believe that none of these "Gods" exists, trying to prove the truth of it has no meaning and worst, it is an impossible task. How can I prove that there is not an invisible man walking on the street?
The origin of our world in a sudden act of creation is now generally accepted as a scientific fact, not a religious myth. But Science is limited by tradition and methodology to post-Big Bang evidence. So, any speculation beyond that limit is inherently ascientific, but legitimately philosophical. Undaunted, some curious scientists have put on their philosophical hats (dunce caps??) and projected from what is known, with reasonable probability, to what is unknown & unknowable & improbable. Such conjectures may be in the realm of statistical possibility, but can't be quantified in terms of probabilities, due to lack of evidence.
That the initial conditions (e.g. max energy potential, min entropy ; something from nothing) are highly unlikely is undeniable. Yet, we can A> ignore it as an unimportant detail, or B> label it as an inexplicable mystery, or C> accept it as a challenge to human reasoning. For example, particle physicists may not concern themselves with why the original "particle" (Singularity) miraculously blinked into existence already charged with the potential energy & laws for a whole universe. But Astrophysicists, cannot just ignore the obvious implications (logical possibilities) of such an astronomically unlikely initial state. The best they've come-up with to-date though, is magical Inflation (The Great Inflator), or unfalsifiable Multiverse (The Great Beyond) : artificial God substitutes.
The beginning of the reality curve has been calculated down to subatomic Planck scale. So, we can logically extrapolate the curve backward using mathematical analysis*1. But, because the odds against the BB are so incredibly high, we have good reasons "to be suspicious"*2 . So, we are faced with three options: A> don't worry about it ; B> postulate a pre-existing universe to lower the odds ; or C> hypothesize a pre-existing Dealer to stack the deck*3. Hence, it comes down to a choice between ODDS or GODS. The only physical evidence for either is Reality with a big question mark (?).
Multiverses and Gods are imaginary possibilities of something-from-nothing-for-no-reason versus something-from-Potential-on-purpose. The OOO gods and the Great Flying Spaghetti monster are both satirical absurdities, and not intended to be taken seriously. But creator deities have been taken seriously by most wise men down through the ages. Ironically, a great unknowable Universe of Universes is taken seriously today by a few gambling speculators, based on minuscule mathematical possibilities. :smile:
*1. Billions of years of normal evolution compressed into an instant vertical line (by magic?)
*2. When we observe low-probability events in our Universe, we have every right to be suspicious.
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/how-probability-misleads-us-about-the-universe-4f96f17d5b5f
*3. Eternal SpaceTime or Eternal Deity :
[i]The preexisting spacetime would be quantized (preexisting meaning the matrix universe within which the fluctuation would occur) and
A fluctuation would give rise to a virtual particle or virtual energy which would be so massive that its conjugate duration of time of allowed existence, under the Heisenberg formula, would be bigger than the reigning quantum of time in the matrix universe, so that the only outcome allowed under the math would be that said particle becomes real : BANG)[/i]
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-probability-of-a-Big-Bang-occurring-right-now-due-to-quantum-fluctuations
GOD PARODIES : GOLB and GROB GOB GLOB GROD
https://adventuretimeconspiracies.tumblr.com/post/48374563533/deities-of-ooo-a-compilation
[s]I was thinkin' more along the lines of ODDS is GODS. Miracles are highly improbable, not impossible (re the problem of induction), events and they're considered divine acts. In addition, the god of the gaps clearly demonstrates we worship ignorance.
[quote=Wikipedia][s]Probability is the math of ignorance[/s][/quote][/s]
:100: :up: ... aka "illusions of knowledge" (i.e. not knowing that / what we do not know).
I wouldn't say that humans "worship ignorance", but I could suggest that people fear "Uncertainty", and worship "Hope". Religious people are not idiots*1, so they can understand that invisible deities are dubious. But when under threat from various invisible agents of Evil, they play the odds, and bet on the Good Guy, behind the curtain of ignorance, that everyone else believes in. For example, the typical barefoot peasant in ancient times, had never seen their King or Pharaoh, but they could directly experience the consequences of disobeying the top-down social laws governing their behavior, and limiting their freedom.
Many Atheist arguments against the notion of an omnipotent & omnibenevolent deity point to the imperfection of the creation. But Leibniz seemed to acknowledge the obvious defects, and to ignore the unrealistic Garden of Eden myth. So, he focused his abstract mathematical argument on the Real world of ups & downs that we know directly. He didn't propose that our universe is a perfect world, but merely the "the best of all possible worlds". Which implies that his "perfect" god could not recreate heaven on Earth. Implying that H/er range of possibilities was limited for some self-imposed reason. The Genesis myth even hints at what that limitation was : human Reason (bestowing the freedom to choose). In the idyllic Garden, the immature humans were essentially naive animals with hands, but no ability to understand how to intellectually choose Good over Evil. The wily serpent was a metaphor for the short-term appeal of the Evil path.
Of course, most animals intuitively act in their own self-interest, to preserve Life and to avoid Death. But humans add the ability to Reason from what-is to what-if, in order to prepare for the long-term future -- the strait & narrow path. And it's that uniquely human talent for projecting from Now into the Future, that gives them more choices than mere animals, including chimps & dolphins. Hence, humans have developed herd instincts into world-wide cultures that redirect Nature to serve human interests (e.g air conditioning). Naturally, what's good for my local comfort is not necessarily good for the global environment. So, our choices always involve trade-offs.
Therefore, I conclude that a top-down Pre-Destined perfect world was not an option for this experiment in Free Will. Here, I'm reading-into Leibniz' argument, in order to explain why the Real world is not absolutely perfect, but the "best possible" compromise between Freedom and Determinism*2. Ironically, that trade-off between all-good & all-evil, implies that the Programmer of Evolution was not Omni-benevolent, but Omni-Potent, in the sense of possessing the Potential for both Good and Evil. I'll leave it to you to decide if, limited Free Will (human Reason) is a good-enough trade-off for off-setting the Hegelian Dialectic, zig-zagging between the poles of Good & Evil consequences of human choice. This "best of all possible worlds" is imperfect, but good-enough for survival of rational animals and moral agents*3. :smile:
*1. Theism apologist, "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz(1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. . . . "Leibniz presented a number of arguments for the existence of God, which represent great contributions to philosophical knowledge." . . ."Certainly only a fool could believe that it is the best world possible. But, Leibniz speaks on behalf of the fool, with an argument that has essentially the following structure" . . ."To the more difficult question whether there is a better world with perhaps a little less genocide and natural disaster Leibniz can only respond that, if so, God would have brought it into actuality. And this, of course, is to say that there really is no better possible world."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/
*2. Rationalism versus Fatalism -- Freewill Within Determinism :
By taking the long view, they can accept that G*D is neither Good nor Evil, but BothAnd.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page67.html
*3. Apparently, another genius, Voltaire, missed Leibniz' implication that the possibilities for creating a space-time world were finite. Hence, his satirical novel Candide. Since Leibniz referred to his mathematical deity as "perfect", I suspect that even he was not completely convinced by his own argument. Today though, we know more about the initial conditions, and natural laws, that function as limitations on progressive evolution.