jgill

But there are legitimate skeptics who have problems with some of the particulars, who are not backwood numbskulls. As perhaps the only actual ex-meteo...

There is a small irony here, although if you didn't live through the eras you might not appreciate it: When I got into gymnastics in the 1950s it was ...

You misinterpret what I am asking. I'm not speaking of a citizen advancing a legal opinion. Only when does anyone begin thinking of the border problem...

At what point does a citizen reinterpret the flow of illegal immigrants into the USA as an "invasion"? Possibly when they cannot be admitted into a ho...

Although causal chains seem to be aligned with a passage of time for each link, one has to be cautious about saying "first tick" or something similar....

I remember talking with members of the Beat generation in the 1950s who expressed the same philosophy. But a few years later, when they began being dr...

From the same paper: A bit more pungent.

Certainly non-rational mathematical objects, like e and pi, appear frequently in computations in physics, say. But they are always terminated at some ...

:roll:

I don't watch the Fox commentators, but I do watch Bret Baier. The show is certainly tilted to the right, but overall it seems fair in reporting the n...

Good point. What I described is a form which yields specific values depending upon the choices of the {{f}_{n}}'s. For certain linear fractional trans...

(2021)

"1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which a chain of events follows" ...

:up: This notion of first cause being the existence of the chain is no more than interesting speculation. When I speak of a chain receding to infinity...

I assume you are not talking about "real functions" as compared with "complex functions", but what we find in nature. Huh. How did wave functions snea...

You don't think the methods of quantum mechanics have led to impressive ideas? All the mathematics and mechanical expertise involved don't lead to ide...

Sensitive to initial conditions is easily understood as the butterfly effect, but the other two conditions (both of which may imply SIC) are not as ea...

Wow :gasp: My own. Replying to your comment does the job.

I can't argue with that. :smile:

OK, I admit, your movie star looks are dazzling. :roll:

Thanks, Pal. Same to you. :cool:

"Time travel" has been beaten to a pulp through pulp science fiction. I like "timelines", but only those I initiate. Time is like a murky, viscous liq...

My wife and I watched Bill Maher interview Newsom last week. She is more conservative than me, but we agreed he was very, very impressive and that we ...

:smile: The first cause must have an effect on the causal chain it initiates. Therefore, by definition, it is an element of that chain and not somethi...

Are you sure "speed of energy" is definable in theoretical physics? You know, this thread is similar to the thread on "A First Cause is Logically Nece...

Not what I said. Doesn't logically follow. And this is a forum dedicated to logical arguments? When I watch sanctuary regions in our country strugglin...

A hypothetical chain going back to infinity doesn't have to have a first cause. At this point your preferred alternative is the existence of the chain...

I despise the far left and the far right equally. Those politicians close to the center have my respect, generally. And I despise both Biden and Trump...

I admit, I am stretching a point. I'm looking for any sort of evidence of change of movement through time. And time dilation shows one individual movi...

A fair assessment. I despise the two candidates. I keep hoping a third candidate will materialize.

Although we would never know it.

To me he looks like someone bored with his audience and wishing to be elsewhere. He could be a Biden spokesperson. Poor guy.

Of course not. Suppose instead we observe such a chain in nature, imbedding it in our minds. It now exists in two realms. Does an act of "measurement"...

Suppose I create the chain. Am I the FC? Or are electro-chemical processes in the brain FCs? Let's consider chains that originate in the human mind. H...

The word "timeline" is, of course, vital in the study of history. Over an era there is a timeline of wars, a timeline of governance, illnesses, etc. B...

Suppose it is possible to prescribe each link in the chain. Is this description a first cause of the chain? It coincides with existence. Precedes it, ...

If a well-defined causal chain extending back in time has no beginning or has arbitrary beginnings, does it have a first cause? Would you say the defi...

I am old and my memory fades, but did we become a Banana Republic during 2016-2020? Maybe this time around . . . :chin:

I predict just before the presidential election Biden will declare war, possibly with Iran. It won't be pretty, but it will draw upon patriotism of th...

The vagueness of first cause is troubling for me. It seems like category confusion. Suppose we have a finite or infinite regression. I know from my st...

@ChatGPT :up: (Sorry @Philosophim, but he sounds so authoritative I succumb to his reasoning.)

OK. If the chain goes back to an origin lying outside of spacetime, that may be its first cause. If it continues back unbounded, possibly going outsid...

It's your "line", not mine. I am happy to say causal chains have a first cause. But more on intuition than logic.

Now we are considering a causal chain having an uncountable number of links. Even between two points close together on the line, an uncountable number...

You have patiently spelled out your logic. You are the origin of this thread, but clearly not the first cause.

Damn. I get blamed for everything.

So it is an effable feature of nature. Then tell us about it. Or don't bother. I have no problem with you saying there is a first cause. What differen...

I'm trying. Hard to imagine a train track running down the road in front of my house. Would it stop at every house? Or make a reservation and the trai...

I used the word "God" as an example of what to call the uncaused cause, not referring to religion. You are then inserting FC (first cause) into the "n...

That, in a courtroom case, you might construct a convincing argument arising out of nothing. :smile: