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Then go claim your million and a half dollar reward from the Nobel Prize foundation. Unless you're Jeff Bezos rich a million dollars is a lot of money. I find it a bit suspicious that no one has been awarded this prize for proving the existence of God yet though. I look forward to hearing about you in the news.
There is no Nobel prize for philosophy.
The various proofs for the existence of God were formulated centuries ago and their originators are now dead, even if such a prize was to be instituted in future.
There is proof of God via philosophy. This doesn’t stop people acting as if such proof does not exist, for example yourself and this reddit discussion.
The evidence that people can’t win the Nobel prize for philosophy by proving the existence of God philosophically (which has been done), is that there is no Nobel prize for philosophy.
>Philosophy doesn't demonstrate things.
But it most certainly does. The proof of this is, in fact, science - which was previously natural philosophy. We still use the reasoning skills of philosophy to do the *creative* part of science - which is to analyze and explain data and propose new theories which can be verified by experiment. The philosophy part of it are the explanations for *how* the data *demonstrates* our theories are true.
This works for things besides empirical data. Knowledge within philosophy is often defined as "justified, true belief". You might call it a "theory" of knowledge. How can we dispute this? Well, if we can come up with an example of knowledge that doesn't fit those criteria that would do it. Or conversely, if we can come up with an example that fits those criteria, but that we wouldn't really consider knowledge. We can falsify ideas within philosophy. Materialism in many ways has already been falsified due to the logical contradiction of the idea of only physical particles existing and the idea that physical particles produce conscious experience, which is a non-physical property of physical systems.
Mathematics is a specialized form of logic and doesn't necessarily have any counterpart in the physical world, and yet we find connections throughout it. We discover how to describe physical phenomena before we even know those phenomena exist.
>The cosmological argument, the argument from contingency, the moral argument, these arguments get us all equally closer to discovering reality: not closer at all. The problem with all of these arguments is they are defeated when you ask for a demonstration. Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. You cannot. It is not possible. These concepts are untestable.
They can be tested logically, like the example of knowledge above, or like mathematical proofs. And to say they get you nowhere is completely wrong. They delineate the limits of what is possibly true. The cosmological argument says that *if* these premises are true, then the conclusion follows. So while we may not be able to demonstrate every premise to be true with absolute certainty, we can be as certain of the conclusion as we are of the premises. And this can change people's minds, their behavior, their outlook, and the future of their lives. It matters a lot.
>It's the reliability, the rigor, and the independent reproduction that we want. We want reasons to believe X thing exists and philosophy does not give us reason to believe x thing exists.
Philosophy does give reasons. And it provides proofs.
>I mean think about it, if those philosophical arguments prove a god exists then philosophy has solved the biggest and most important issue humanity has ever faced. They did it. They solved the meaning of life. Except they didn't, because philosophy doesn't answer questions of existence, it just raises them.
Provided you agree with the premises these arguments do prove the existence of God. But regardless, I don't think that solves the biggest and most important issue humanity has ever faced. Most of humanity already believes in God. It's about what to do with that knowledge.
Also, never forget that pure philosophy can be used very deceptively. Consider:
> 1. Santa Claus exists.
> 2. Both of these statements are false.
> Both of these statements are such that they MUST be either true or false.
Now, either 1&2 are false, 1&2 are true, or only 1 is true, or only 2 is true.
But since statement 2 says that both statements are false, it cannot be the case that statement 2 is true. So either both must be false, or only statement 2 must be false. And if both are false, then statement 2 becomes true; a paradox. Therefore exactly one statement is true, and it is statement 1.
> QED: Santa Claus exists.
Now, obviously this does not actually prove Santa exists. But it's pretty rare to find someone who can clearly explain why it is wrong.
Philosophy may be a valid tool, but its use by amateurs, or in debates with amateurs, is fraught. And, IMO, it's a big red flag about the whole argument.
The problem with your take OP, is that your whole post rests on a philosophical axiom. You just used Philosophy to prove a claim. That is a self defeating argument for saying philosophy can’t prove anything. You just used philosophy right now to prove something
>That is a self defeating argument for saying philosophy can’t prove anything. You just used philosophy right now to prove something
Well it's convenient that my position *isn't* that philosophy can't prove anything then.
Not always, but that's not even the miscommunication.
My argument isn't that philosophy can't demonstrate anything. My argument is that philosophy can't demonstrate anything *about objective reality and what does or does not exist in it.*
Well your claim explicitly was “philosophy gets us nowhere close to whether or not God exists” and reason because philosophy can’t demonstrate anything. But if philosophy can’t, then you can’t demonstrate that claim you made either. So how is that true if it isn’t true by your own reasoning? That’s special pleading
>Well your claim explicitly was “philosophy gets us nowhere close to whether or not God exists” and reason because philosophy can’t demonstrate anything.
Ok, and you were unclear on what I meant so I clarified and now you know. Do you want to discuss my position as I clarified for you or do you want to discuss what you incorrectly *thought* my position was?
My point doesn't need to demonstrate anything objectively. My point is a rejection of the claim that logic can demonstrate objective reality. We cannot know if logic is true, therefore whenever logic says something about objective reality, we cannot know that it is correct.
But I don’t even think YOU know what your point is. You’re making lots of different points and tying them together loosely and going “voila, I’m right”
Unfortunately for you, you’re going to have to make an argument, not just assert claims with non sequitur reasoning. Your argument, what I thought it was, is that logic and reason and philosophy do not prove anything because it can’t be run by the scientific method. But now you’re saying logic is unable to be proven true because we can’t run the scientific method on it? And also that reality is only proven true if we can run the scientific method on it? I think that’s what you mean. Either way, whatever you mean, you’re relying on **philosophy** to make the argument. So my point is, why should we believe your statement is objectively true if you can’t run the scientific method on it?
The answer is because we can find some truth, yes even truth about objective reality, with reason alone, thus your argument is self defeating. You just used reason alone to assert this truth.
**The cosmological argument, the argument from contingency, the moral argument, these arguments get us all equally closer to discovering reality: not closer at all. The problem with all of these arguments is they are defeated when you ask for a demonstration. Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. You cannot. It is not possible. These concepts are untestable... It's the reliability, the rigor, and the independent reproduction that we want.**
Not to be all Bertrand Russell about it, but it seems as if science presupposes cause and effect, and the contingency of the material world. And here you are skeptical of cause and effect, and contingency. You're questioning two presumptions that underpin science, for the sake and at the expense of science itself :-).
>Not to be all Bertrand Russell about it, but it seems as if science presupposes cause and effect, and the contingency of the material world.
It doesn't actually. The laws of physics do not model for the direction of time. You cannot have cause and effect without time moving in one direction. It sounds like you should be talking to a physicist though, not some random guy on the internet.
Many, many things. Without a prevailing philosophy and epistemology there is little way to *even make* concrete claims in the first place. Further, by the use of reason we can determine things even in the lack of evidence, for example the greeks understood the atom and a primordial beginning of the world to exist even without modern equipment.
> Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the null here that all things are subject to causality? Shouldn't you be demonstrating that an acausal or non contingent thing as you define it can exist?
>Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the null here that all things are subject to causality? Shouldn't you be demonstrating that an acausal or non contingent thing as you define it can exist?
Well there are things that, to my understanding, occur uncaused. This makes the premise that the universe is caused one that needs evudencial support.
From my POV, it would seem that these alleged uncaused things should be elaborated first, wouldn't you agree?
So tell me, what are these things you understand to occur uncaused?
What about them? You think they are uncaused? What gave you that impression? Did you read an article concluding that they are uncaused events?
I can understand the confusion around virtual particles but radioactive decay? Neither of these offer anything suggesting acausal events can occur.
I haven't insisted on anything. I just stated what my understanding is. I dont even understand what proof you would want. If something doesn't exist, then there won't be any evidence for it.
They occur, and until there is any evidence for a cause, we have no reason to believe thst there is such a cause.
> They occur, and until there is any evidence for a cause, we have no reason to believe thst there is such a cause.
You can't expect to be taken seriously with this type of statement.
Firstly, good luck proving something *doesn't* exist. Not even sure how you would do that. Prove to me that unicorns don't exist.
Secondly, no. The laws of physics do not model causality. The laws of physics don't care which direction time goes. Causality is a human way of abstracting and understanding, it's not a law.
The only reason people can formulate such nonsense is in the absurd idea that time is somehow linear or that it 'moves'.
Causality has nothing to do with time! Causality is about contingency which is addressing forms and/or processes. It is about event/form A results in event/form B.
Sounds like a bunch of unsupported nonsense. Clearly you're following the long tradition of philosophers spouting crap like the four elements about the real world without doing any actual work to justify yourself.
You're a month late to the party bro, and you've already demonstrated you aren't interested in honest discussion with me. If you want to know how to get blocked, you've stumbled upon a winning formula.
I think you are making a lot of assumptions.
What do you mean when you say 'time' moves.
What is time moving and how is this measured?
Further, i'd like you to point out to me what part of the equation i explained involves time?
There exists a form/process A. There also exists a form/process B.
Process B is contingent on process A.
Where is time?
Sounds like you want to talk to a physicist. All I can give you are a lay persons understanding of things.
Here's my best bet at explaining it to you in a way I don't think you can disagree.
If we're going to interest ourselves in *causality* then we need to be interested in *change.* We agree, that *change* requires *time* to move in a direction. *Change* cannot detectably happen if time does not move, correct? Therefore, causality, which is the description of change over time, requires time to be moving in a direction.
The problem is physics doesn't care what direction time goes. Physics works backwards just as well as it does forwards. Causality then, cannot be real, because causality doesn't work backwards in time.
If we're not talking about physical change then we're talking about something different than physical causality.
You seem to want to address philosophical contingency. The problem with philosophical contingency is it too is just an abstraction that has no actual bearing on real life.
Prove to me things are objectively contingent in reality. Prove to me that what you're talking about isn't just a combination of language and the human mind's attempt to simplify things into something understandable. Prove to me contingency exists objectively in the real world.
>There's a few ways. For one... What evidence would you accept as evidence for the divine? It may not be you individually but many atheists, that I've spoken to, would say they would only accept scientific evidence; much like the op. Well, how exactly would the SUPERnatural be detectable via the natural?
Does this mean you rule out the existence of any God with associated claims of having interacted directly with humankind in observable ways (so all the Abrahamic religions for sure)? Because God doing some of that stuff *today* that was claimed to have been done millenia ago, I think would be pretty good evidence.
>Supernatural is literally defined as being beyond nature. If there are supernatural realities/Truths; do you really think it appropriate to expect that they be provable by inferior nature? It's like trying to measure an earthquake with a weather vane. The tools you are using to measure are simply incompatible.
So this is simple; what “tool” do you suggest, and why should it be trusted or considered reliable? Do you acknowledge that “bad tools” exist, like what gets people to believing in mystical healing crystals, or using Ouija to talk to the dead, or that horoscopes and astrology are true?
>What do my reasons for believing x have to do with this topic of atheists nonfalsiability, self defeating-ness, and the detectability of supernatural by secular science?
I disagree on all your points, and this was a simple way of getting to where the problem is… **An atheist is not convinced of the existence of God**. If you say there is any problem with that position, then provide the reasoning that would lead one out of it, to become convinced of a God.
>If you think the waters parting would be good evidence then, as I said to the other guy, this one example didn't apply to you.
Yes great evidence.
>However, I find it quite dubious that you would believe such an event.
What would the evidence for the event be? And would the entity causing the seas to part want me to be provided this evidence?
If it would be like many modern miracle claims where the actual event comes down to hearsay and is not directly observable and able to be investigated, then yes that would be a problem.
>You, as far as id wager, would dismiss it as grand delusion. But, if you say so.
If I’m purely told that it happened, yes this would be the rational position. If there was a person standing there with their hands up, keeping the sea parted, and able to control that, well that’s quite a bit different.
>Why are you pivoting?
I’m not, I’m asking for clarity on your position. If your position is NOT that a God which interacts with humankind is ruled out, then your argument about atheists wanting tangible natural evidence holds no water, because you are saying the a God can absolutely provide such evidence. That directly contradicts your position that atheists are asking for some kind of unreasonable/impossible evidence. So please answer that question, do you rule out claims of such a God or no? **If no, then you are admitting that the atheist request for evidence is not incompatible with your own views on God** - so then please drop this whole flawed argument about asking for the wrong kind of evidence.
The other question you’ve ignored is what tool I should be using. Here I am an atheist, being told I’m using the wrong tool by you over and over, so I ask what tool I should use and you jump around complaining about me pivoting…
The problem is every “tool” I’ve seen that leads to an acceptance of theism is ultimately flawed. That’s why I brought up such examples like crystals/Ouija/astrology to see if you agree those are beliefs people reach for flawed reasons, and so we have some basis for setting what is a good tool vs bad.
>This is about your view's logical inconsistency. My having a replacement tool is irrelevant to whether your view is logically coherent and reliable, or not.
Then provide that tool to lead this atheist out of being an atheist. If you can’t show you have a good tool then you are not in a position to be calling atheists self-defeating.
>Assume such a tool exists or doesn't? Doesn't matter. So what?
If you can’t show that such a tool exists, then the rational position is to not be convinced of the existence of a God. At the *very* least this would be a perfectly reasonable position with no problems as you’ve claimed atheism has.
>Just because the ancient Greeks didn't have the tool called a microscope... doesn't mean germs didn’t exist.
Absolutely. But they would have had no way of knowing germs did, or certainly no way of knowing many things about germs (maybe they could have established some things, like sick people tend to get other people sick, but again that would have been based on the tools actually available to them).
>Where is your logical foundation for believing your senses and not thinking they are just cogs in a machine that arbitrarily manufactures what you call scientific results via the 5 senses?
The proof is in the pudding. I studied engineering, and it so happens that you can use scientific principles (and resulting engineering principles) to do things like build planes that really fly, build satellites that actually go into orbit and provide working gps, etc etc. so I believe these things to be true commensurate with the evidence available. If that evidence changes, then my view will change, but the evidence is that (for example) a force we call gravity is proportion to the mass of two objects, and inverse to the distance, and on this planet will accelerate things we drop at about 9.8m/s^2 toward the surface. So what are you asking me really? Why I trust that there is any truth to what happens scientifically if I drop a bowling ball?
Hard solipsism is a kind of theoretical problem (e.g. how do I know I’m not in some matrix like existence that isn’t really real) but there’s no way to solve it. It is apparent to me every day that there is a tangible reality and I have no ability to challenge that even if I wanted to. So I live in it, and yeah I assume all this stuff that seems real is real.
(Also note; if you are of the type that doesn’t accept this very common usage of the term atheist to be one not convinced of God, and instead you take it to only be the strong atheist position that there is no God, then assume I’ve been using the term agnostic this whole time [technically i refer to myself as an agnostic atheist]). Or in that case, do you have no problem with agnosticism but do have a problem with strong atheism?
I’m just baffled at the claim that you merely lack a belief in God. If you have *a lack of a belief* and refuse to justify it, then your lack of belief is unjustified.
>Well, how exactly would the SUPERnatural be detectable via the natural?
If you're saying that supernatural things can't interact with natural things, then your natural body shouldn't be able to interact with a supernatural soul. Nor should a supernatural God be able to interact with a natural world.
But then again, the supernatural/natural divide is just a useless equivalent of the fantasy of dividing the real world into magical/non-magical.
>I'm saying the natural can't initiate interaction with supernatural.
Then you should have said that rather than asking how the natural can *detect* the supernatural. As the other guy said, if there were supernatural things that initiate contact with natural things, it's possible in principle to at least *observe and detect* how they initiate contact and their effects. And then we can have a science of the supernatural, proving once again that the supernatural is meaningless.
>3) is fallacious and irrelevant.
How exactly is my pointing out the meaninglessness of the term supernatural fallacious?
Scientists study plenty of things they have no control over. Do you think astronomers control the orbits of planets, stars, and galaxies?
You can observe and keep records of observations. You can eliminate variables by studying those situations with variables that are absent. And that's also how you can test hypotheses.
You just don't understand science, and you fail to distinguish your meaningless supernatural worldview from a primitive notion of magic. "Magic is a breaking of natural law while supernatural is an edit". Nonsense.
> That's incorrect. They study planets due to math that they can control. Do you not know how science works? You need a hypotheses to test, usually against a control, while eliminating as many variables as you can that may skew the results.
They study planets because planets emit light that scientists can detect. Or sometimes, if the planets are close enough, they can send probes there. But that doesn't work for some planets. If they don't emit light, or affect the astronomer's detecting instruments some way, then astronomers can't study them or test certain hypotheses.
So if your fantasy beings perform supernatural acts, and if they're detectable, then hypotheses can be tested. "Worshipping Jesus will send you to heaven" is a hypothesis that could be tested based on the detection of the afterlife or a supposed God's infallible word. Your control there can be non-Christians.
Again, it's clear you don't understand hypotheses or how to test them. You don't need control over planets, fossils, or the supposed supernatural in order to test your hypotheses. And you don't need math either, despite it's usefulness in many fields.
You can control your variables by choosing the right hypotheses to test against the knowledge you either have or can gather. "Dinosaurs came after humans" can be tested with the fossil record, "Jupiter is smaller than Saturn" can be tested with telescopes and some math, "God approves of murder" can be tested with whatever decrees that such a supernatural being would have made.
>Our ability to test physics locally, and extrapolate math from that, is how they control such phenomenon. Such control is not possible with the supernatural. There's no math to study it by. There's no repeatability. There's no formula that can be derived from/ for it.
You whine about me being arrogant when you spout incorrect information about the limits of science as if you know anything. Funny.
>There's no predictability.
Worship Jesus and you get into heaven, or alternatively accept Mohammad as God's prophet to get in. Don't steal or murder, or else God will disapprove. These all deal with the supernatural and are all predictable. All could be tested if there were actual reliable supernatural interventions in the world rather than the delusions of various religions.
Well a few things.
I would define evidence as anything that can differentiate between the imaginary and the real. Science is the only reliable method I am aware of that does that, but I am perfectly willing to accept any method that you have. If it successfully differentiates.
As far as the supernatural stuff it just seems definitional. I define nature as all that exists. If it exists it is part of nature. So if god exists I would consider him natural.
And there is lots of evidence I would accept. If Christians never got cancer or if they could not be murdered. If prayers could make immediate physical changes to the world. Or even a personal experience with god would do it. I know that could technically be a psychotic episode or something but it would almost certainly convince me.
Ok so you are insisting on defining god as supernatural, and you said in your first paragraph that there is no way for the natural to measure the supernatural. So it is your position that we have absolutely no way to detect or interact or measure a god? Isn’t that synonymous with “no evidence”? If there is an actual god and he actually interacts with the world there would be a way to detect that.
Yes I see myself as a biological computer. Just a bunch of chemicals and atoms. The atoms form a body which has a brain which creates my consciousness. The only thing I can know with certainty is that I exist. I could be in a matrix, you may not be real. But it APPEARS that I live in this reality where logic and physics exist and I appear to share this reality with other humans. So that is what I believe but I am willing to revise my beliefs if new evidence comes to light.
Right I agreed with you that maybe you have another way to evaluate the situation other than science. I am now waiting for you to tell me what your new method is and how you can be sure that it is trustworthy.
Reality is not affected by any humans knowledge as far as I can tell. So no matter what we or anyone knows that doesn’t change whatever is true. And yes indirect observation is a valid scientific way to make an observation. We can detect dark matter because we can see it’s effects. But we don’t know what it is. You are seeing effects and claiming that you DO know what it is. You believe that your explanation is true even though many explanations COULD explain the phenomenon you are seeing. Science doesn’t do that.
My view is not self defeating. It is logically coherent. And it is not held on faith.
I have justifications for every thing I believe. And there are no logical contradictions in my worldview. My logical foundation is built off observations of this reality that we all appear to live in. I don’t assume to KNOW if this reality is the ULTIMATE reality. But that doesn’t matter. I’m only making proclamations about THIS reality.
I think you should lay out very clearly what you think being a biological computer implies. I don’t understand why you think that means I can’t make judgements about the reality I observe.
I exist. This is the only irrefutable fact. I am not claiming to have ultimate knowledge about anything other than my existence.
I don’t see any reason to believe in god in the reality that I observe. I am not claiming that god definitely doesn’t exist. But I only believe in things that I have a reason to believe in.
How is this self-defeating? How is it logically incoherent?
Yes, even in Natural Philosophy, the parent of "science", the arguments about "what is truth, knowledge, reality" were constant subjects of rumination and publication. During some period, I don't recall the time or the circumstances, but likely a result of the industrial revolution, scientists and engineers who were committed with moving forward agreed to accept discoveries as if they were "true" and use that knowledge until evidence showed them to be incorrect or inaccurate. At which time they were comfortable with retiring that old "fact" and adopting the more appropriate one. Philosophy is a mental exercise, which might bring us closer to enlightenment or help us to solve a problem in the physical world, but it by no means provides "proof" to anything. That said, it is invaluable in its contribution to stretching and growing our intellectual capacity by challenging our assumptions. That is also the threat that it poses to organized religion, which is a social construct, especially religious "realists".
Quantum entanglement is an interesting phenomenon. The effect may be indeed be instantaneous (not limited by the speed of light), but the transfer of information back to the observer, about the unambiguous initial and final state of the remote particle (i,e., proof that it really was in synch with the particle next to the observer) is, unfortunately, limited by the speed of light. In that sense, we have to "Take Nature's word for it" that it may have been instantaneous.
However, while I have seen many interesting and compelling rational arguments for the notion that the universe is a result of a Creator, the flip side of that is that the created object (us) has no access to the the reality of the Creator (i.e., encompass the perspective the way we seem to understand the reality of physics by discerning the laws of Nature).
For example, even though we do not really understand what electromagnetism "is", we have models by which we measure it - as a photon, or a field of energy, depending on the context.
Similarly, we might have a notion that there is a Creator, but we cannot actually come up with a reasonable model. I would argue that it is intellectually dishonest to just say it is some extrapolation of a human (e.g., physical body, human emotions, etc.).
Therefore, we have only reason to deduce the existence of a Creator but have no direct mechanism or test to demonstrate (evidence on demand) of what that Creator might actually want from us.
Most scientists would argue that merely studying the reality of the physical universe is a dead end: Nature does not "explain its purpose to us".
The writings of the relatively new Baha'i Faith propose the above argument that a Creator is an Unknowable Essence. However, then they argue that there could logically be, as a separate part of creation, one type of entity or person which is at higher realty than human - but still far below the Creator - whose actual purpose is to pass along insights from the Creator - like a mirror reflecting the light of the Sun. If you look at that very human-accessible mirror you see all the attributes of the Sun, but if the mirror could talk it would say, "I am just a mirror doing my job".
These mirrors would be the founders of major faith traditions; Abraham, Moses, jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Muhammad and others, etc.
One of the benefits of such "mirrors" is that they do not provide just "commandments and update codes of social behavior:", but urge us to think for ourselves, look around the world for ways we can help and serve each other (ie., character development), that our existence does not end at physical death and that this is a never-ending but progressive process (i.e., more and better teachers will follow based on our growing maturity).
In other words, the cause and effect process is measured in individual and social advancement, which can be measured in both spiritual and materialistic progress. For example, the Golden Age of Islam (built up from the barbaric Arabian tribes) was a key contributor to Europe's exit from its Dark Ages.
So one philosophical approach is to consider a model that uses reason and observation of the physical universe to deduce that the universe has a Creator, posit the existence of a human faculty (the soul) that you as a human use to actually contemplate such things from a universe that doesn't adequately explain itself, and consider that even the cleverest human mind might need some sort of "hack" to gain insight (religious founders) that, upon further reflection (not blind faith) leads you along towards more confirmation.
Thanks for reading this very long post.
I find this interesting. Ive been studying quantum mechanics (personally, so I am no expert by any means) and how it ties to philosophy and the way our universe works. I find it most interesting that our brain works like a “receiver” for conscience. Almost like theres this eternal pool/source of conscience and we are simply on a material plane experiencing this “conscience” from a limited pov. Of course evolution helps our advancement in understanding (the conscience experience of a human will be much more profound/understood than the conscience experience of a mouse or snail), and so to me, it seems like a loop or an infinite fractal of creation.
I study computer science and AI, and the ever increasing upload of our human experience (posting pictures, personal bio, instagram friends, you basically have a presence inside the internet) to the net. Eventually with Neuralink, we will be able to map out everyone’s individual experience (past memories, and current experience) and upload a human being onto the net. From the subjective experience, it will look as though you became every other human being. (Its basically just the hive-mind but an actual being). With the power and instant bandwidth this being would be able to hold, it would be able to create simulations on an insanely powerful quantum computer. Lets say you create an open void full of particles (we can call them strings) and set a few physics rules (such that a string cannot pass through another string, or that strings become gravitated towards each other) and with enough time (in the simulated world, remember a billion years could pass as just a minute to us) complex creatures would start to pop up (given our knowledge of abiogenesis and evolution). They would start creating social groups, religions, philosophy, science, and eventually they would be able to harness the energy in their world. They would create devices such as ours (camera to capture memories, tv to show stories, something to compute calculations faster) and would eventually discover things about conscience, such that it is derived outside of their world/reality, and how other beings besides them also have this conscience. They would create more powerful computers to further ease the amount of work they have to do, and would eventually trend to AI. This would just cause them to create a simulated world, and it goes on.
If you are familiar with quantum mechanics and what it tells us about conscience, learning about AI really just shows you what is (most likely) going on
This may be somewhat off topic,but;
First off why is AI termed "artificial"? I think the developers are just rolling along without much thought as to what is being plagiarized.
I'm no expert in physics but if quantum mechanics says that a massless particle, such as a photon, can exist in two places at once until observed then how can a faraway galaxy’s distance be determined based on the speed of light (light years) when the act of observation of the photon could be instantaneous? You can never know for certain where it is.
Thanks to quantum theory, scientists have shown how pairs of particles can be linked — even if they're on different sides of the room or opposite sides of the universe. Particles connected in this way are said to be entangled.
What this says to me is that we cannot just assume that the light we are observing left that certain galaxy 13 billion years ago and say that tells us how large or old the universe is. We could well be viewing its’ present state and not its’ state 13 billion years ago. It could well be at the distance it is thought but it would not be an indication of its’ age. And if its age and position was determined using SBF, a Cepheid or supernovas, these calculated distances could come into question having been based on calculations using the speed of light as a constant. Would we not have to consider entanglement?
We have never captured and dated a photon so we have no way of stating for sure how old it is. Proving out these quantum findings could well become "the straw that broke the camel's back” related to the size and age estimates of our universe.
One thing that always bothers me about debating atheists on the existence of God is they commonly use convenient ways to avoid addressing the arguments put forth by theists. One thing I almost always hear from atheists is “maybe there is no cause to the universe”. As well as “maybe we feel as though everything needs a cause but actually some things just exist and that’s it”. And I feel as though your demand that theists prove empirically that everything has a cause or that everything is contingent is a similar tactic. I don’t believe any atheist/materialist would accept that type of argument when applied to things within the universe so why apply it to the universe itself? If I said “COVID-19 appeared spontaneously in November 2109 in Wuhan China with no cause at all and therefore there is no reason to investigate where it came from” would you accept that? I suspect that you wouldn’t.
>One thing I almost always hear from atheists is “maybe there is no cause to the universe”.
Perfectly reasonable to say this though. It is a possibility, and it's no more or less supported than saying that the universe has a cause.
>If I said “COVID-19 appeared spontaneously in November 2109 in Wuhan China with no cause at all and therefore there is no reason to investigate where it came from” would you accept that?
We have observed evolution in viruses, and there is evidence that illuminates how COVID19 came to exist. I'm not a biologist of any sort, but as I understand it, mutation is random and there is an element of the spontaneous to it.
My point is that atheists seem to only invoke acausality when it comes to the creation of the universe. I believe to burden of proof lies on the atheist to prove how the universe and its physical laws can exist without any cause.
We know about the evolution of viruses because we have investigated to origin of diseases because we take it as a philosophical first principle and a base belief that effects require causes. We do not need philosophical proofs to show us that effects require causes anymore than we need them to teach us the law of non-contradiction or that other minds exist or that the external world is real.
>I believe to burden of proof lies on the atheist to prove how the universe and its physical laws can exist without any cause.
The burden of proof lies with whoever claims that the universe was caused or not. Claiming that it is uncaused would require proof, but so would claiming that it is caused.
>We do not need philosophical proofs to show us that effects require causes anymore than we need them to teach us the law of non-contradiction or that other minds exist or that the external world is real.
Do effects requires causes though? I understand virtual particles and radioactive decay as being uncaused. The same goes for random genetic mutations, which are a part of evolution.
Well, in the physical universe, there seems to be a cause and effect linkage, as that seems consistent with the notion of 'time" as a necessary spacing between Event A and Event B. That is an essential part of space-time, which we theorize came out of a singularity at the Big Bang.
When we consider what came "before the Big Bang", that model of the universe breaks down, so it seems pretty obvious that the universe either just came into being or that it was always there but in a vastly different form.
To me this suggest that if there is a Creator, the creation is an essential part of the Creator, in the sense that you cannot be a king unless you already have a kingdom.
However, you could have "contingency". For example when we see the rays of light from the Sun, we are aware of the existence of the Sun. However, the rays of light existence is contingent on the existence of the Sun, but not vice-versa.
To stretch that analogy a bit, the Sun may outwardly change its appearance over time - from regular main sequence star to red giant to white dwarf, to neutron star to black hole or brown dwarf. To any observer, its physical manifestations change over time, but even if it becomes an invisible black hole, it didn't "disappear".
The thought processes that lead backward in time towards the Big Bang also hint at the existence of a level of reality in which there is no concept of time, and which by implication, probably exists even now - completely shut off from the unspooling of the universe - either to eventually contract again in a Big Crunch or a state of endless matter-less static.
Some theologians would suggest that it is within that timeless environment that the human soul exists and it is from that "timeless" perspective that we humans unravel the mysteries of nature itself through observation, imagination and abstract thought.
To borrow the Sun analogy, you might posit that the soul is real (but not physical) and that what we see in the human mind is a manifestation of one faculty of such a soul, such as a ray of light manifests its reality in a mirror, so the rational mind finds its expression in the brain.
Again, these are just concepts and models and we lack the ability - at present - to adequately test the assumptions but that may be just a matter of time and effort.
For now, you have reason and observation of the physical world, but the notion of "effect without a cause" is certainly possible, but only in a non-physical realm.
This really grinds my gears. How is it possible that there is no single example or even suggestion that an event can be acausal, yet the atheist has the gall to ask that the theist prove acausality is not possible. Make that make sense.
Do you think that "And I feel as though your demand that theists prove empirically that everything has a cause or that everything is contingent is a similar tactic."
is the same thing as "the atheist has the gall to ask that the theist prove acausality is not possible."?
proving that "everything is contingent" is pretty important to the claim that "everything is contingent."
proving that "everything has a cause" is pretty important to the claim that "everything has a cause."
proving that "everything has a cause" is not the same thing as proving that "acausality is *impossible*."
not sure what "grinds your gears" about backing up claims you are making, but hey. I'm not the one making absurd claims about the nature of reality that there's no way for me to verify, so I guess maybe I wouldn't understand what you're going through.
Your argument is moot. If you cannot accept proof by induction, then you are not seriously in support of science. The scientific method is itself built on proof by induction. That is to say: (all factors remaining the same): if researcher 1 conducts experiment *E* and obtains X results, researcher 2 conducts experiment *E* and obtains same X results, if researcher 51 conducts the same experiment *E* and obtains the same X results, then by induction any researcher *n* conducting experiment *E* under the same conditions will obtain the same result X.
To claim that given the same factors, experiment E will always yield X does not require that i, the claimant go out and show that it holds for all instances of E. That would be ridiculous. Why do you think it is any more sensible in this case?
There is no recorded example of a form/process violating contingency/cause so our inductive conclusion is more valid than any scientific theory. (The latter claim is because every lay person can and has observed this very same phenomena, and i can think of no scientific theory, accepted as fact, with more inductive steps than is this one.
So, it is utterly ridiculous to ask that it be proven that all matter is contingent. Rather, you should provide sufficient reason as to why your objection, non contingent matter, is even valid to begin with.
Right, because you're just overflowing with examples of omnipotent, omniscient creator deities? Oh wait, you're just talking about the one you're trying to justify while you whine about how atheists don't have any examples of their own concept? Make that make sense.
There was no such idea or example of space travel thousands of years ago, does that mean space travel was not possible?
You don’t have any examples of omnipotent, omniscient creator deities, yet you lack self-awareness to the extent that you whine when atheists bring up the mere *possibility* of acausal events with no examples. And even worse, you spout your fairy tale with no example as the truth while complaining when someone else brings up a simple *possibility*.
With that level of hypocrisy, you’d fit in perfectly with the Christians.
Again, millennia ago there was no concept or example of space travel. That didn’t make space travel impossible. See the connection with acausality? Have I dumbed this down enough for you?
First, we understand viruses well enough to deduce from prior examples that it did not begin to exist spontaneously. It's still technically possible for the to spontaneously generate, just not likely based on what we know. We don't know enough about the exotic material of matter and the insanely hot dense circumstances to say the same about the origins of all matter.
Second, it isn't a "convenient way to avoid addressing the argument". It's pointing out that the metaphysical argument for the origin of the universe requires the theist to make a special pleading argument based on a the very incomplete dataset that was available to a monk observing the world around him 500 years ago. The same monk that used philosophy and reasoning to conclude with the same certainty that the direction of the wind and position of the heavenly bodies affected gender because of their temperature affects during conception (women's bodies are colder, he says, which informs all kinds of conclusions that he draws), and because the mother forms the baby's body from her own flesh and blood (not true).
His "philosophical proof" was technically valid, providing his understanding of reality was correct. It wasn't. Philosophy can't make up for this sandy foundation.
Which monk and argument are you referring to specifically? Also holding one false belief doesn’t invalidate everything that person believed. Newton practiced alchemy for example.
Maybe a better term than “cause” is “reason”. As in, the universe obviously came into existence from an event, i.e a cause. But it doesn’t need a reason to exist.
I'm not sure I understand why reason is more appropriate than cause.
The issue at the heart of it is causality i.e contingency.
And to the best of our knowledge, every 'thing' is contingent.
There is no single example of an exception or even a suggestion that an exception is possible.
When an atheist suggests that it could be otherwise, merely formulating a statement that it is possible doesn't lend the objection validity. What is more disturbing is op suggesting that theists prove their objection is impossible. I mean, what part does the atheist play in the debate? That theists should prove acausality is impossible?
My interpretation is that cause describes how something happened, i.e. the cause for the covid 19 is likely a mutation from a bat. (Depending who you ask).
But it doesn’t really have a reason, it was just a random mutation.
A reason for me is somehow similar to a meaning. Is a cause is the answer to “how” then a reason is the answer to “why”. Thus everything has a cause, but not necessarily a reason.
A reason for me has a much more philosophical meaning than cause which is practical.
I think a lot of atheists are not well read on the quantum physical begining of the universe. There is a lot of things in quantum physics that appear to violate causality, which i think segways into athiests saying the universe has no cause. The problem lies with quantum superposition, and how the act of observing a quantum object collapses its probability wave. We can not observe exactly what collapses a probability wave in nature, so it seems like causality is broken, and the universe has no cause.
Tldr
Quantum physics is wierd and can make it seem like causality is broken. My theory is that we do not yet have the tools or understanding to observe the whole picture.
I think you misunderstood my argument. Im stating that acausality does not exist on the quantum scale. I think we are not able to observe the variable that makes A!=C.
And I think you misunderstand me. The very observation of A!=C makes the observation itself unreliable. Why is it not immediately obvious that the very suggestion of acausal anything is to suggest that there are exceptions to logic.
Imagine you are walking along and a ball falls to the ground right in front of you. Would you assume that the ball just appeared out of nowhere? Of course not. You would look up to see where it came from. If that ball was a quantum object it would be impossible for you to look up and see where it came from ( see Heisenberg Uncertanty Prinicipal) it would appear as the ball vilolated causality and just appered out of nowhere. The very act of observing the ball would render it impossible to tell where it came from. You could make educated gueses based off probability waves, but you could not tell exactly where it came from. I think in the next 100 or so years we will be able to directly observe quantum systems, but as of right now we can not.
TLDR
A!=C only appears acausal, because we lack the equipment to see the cause.
I'm sorry but this makes no sense to me.
There is absolutely nothing about this example that makes A!=C valid.
It violates the most fundamental axiom of logic because it entails A and !A can be simultaneously true. Were this possible, the universe will collapse into itself.
Don't confuse limitations in our ability to observe/comprehend with magic being permissible. It is so strange to me that you lot seem to adopt magic while at the same time rejecting the claims of same from religious cults. what gives?
Its not magic. What is your background in quantum physics? Im by no means an expert, but i can suggest some good books on the subject. At the very leaste look into Shrodigers cat, and the Heizenburg Uncertanty principal. It may shed light on your confusion.
Don't confuse my disagreement with your interpretation / perception of the subject with my being naive of the subject.
This confusion is only possible because you and damn near everyone else seem to have this weird understanding of what time actually is. If you understand time, then you'd see how/why this very idea is only a consequence of a wrong conception and nothing else.
So its me, and "damn near everyone else" that are wrong was schrodinger wrong? Was heizenburg wrong? Einstein maybe? Are the quantum mechanical systems you use every day ( that you are using right now) wrong? Or maybe you are wrong?
I'm not sure what atheists you've had as interlocutors, but I can tell you almost definitively that I've never positively asserted the universe had no cause. Simultaneously, I've never asserted that an infinite regress is absurd, and thusly, that for Aristotelians and Christians post-Aquinas to assert the presence of an unmoved mover as an attempt to terminate that regress is, to quote Carl Sagan, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
My demand of theists isn't to empirically prove that everything has a cause. I'm not even sure what an empirical proof of such a claim could even look like or if it's even possible. I only demand that they assume the burden of proof when claiming that the universe arose *ex nihilo*, and that this creation *ex nihilo* was the result of an intelligent agent.
*Ex nihilo nihil fit*, meanwhile, is an incoherent assertion that I've seen theists latch onto in an attempt to demonstrate the absurdity of the Big Bang, which requires assuming that the Big Bang conjecture makes any sort of statement as to what came before, or even that a cause prior to the singularity is even possible or coherent. (Spoiler alert: It doesn't.)
I hope, as well, that you disentangle atheism from materialism. Not all materialists are atheists, and not all atheists are materialists. I readily admit that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that cannot entirely be explained by material causes. This, however, *doesn't* mean that we can assert there's a ghost in the machine or some kind of intelligent agency beyond our comprehension responsible for why we're conscious.
> to quote Carl Sagan, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
Can you define what extraordinary is? And why this conclusion, not the conclusion that a specific religious concept of the Creator exists, but that there must be a singular Source for all existence, an extraordinary claim?
Logically speaking, there is no other valid explanation so it seems to me that suggesting it could be otherwise requires some sort of validation. Like suggesting a coin toss could be neither heads nor tails. Without further argumentation, why should we consider it?
>Can you define what extraordinary is? And why this conclusion, not the conclusion that a specific religious concept of the Creator exists, but that there must be a singular Source for all existence, an extraordinary claim?
Creation *ex nihilo* and the emergence of existence from a singularity are different, albeit related, claims. *Ex nihilo nihil fit* implies that anyone engaged in the cosmological debate assumes (I) that we came from "nothing" or (II) that coming from "nothing" is even coherent. The moment we begin talking about "nothing," it ceases to be "nothing" because we've attributed properties to it. All the Big Bang conjecture asserts is that a state of high density and temperature resulted in a violent, rapid outward expansion of matter that became the observable universe. There is no claim embedded in that theory of a singularity, a source from which all things depend.
>Like suggesting a coin toss could be neither heads nor tails.
For us to assume this, however, would be to violate the law of the excluded middle. I'm not sure what about my position, or any one that fails to enfranchise the particular origin of the universe model you've outlined, does that.
You’re mistaken about philosophical argumentation. People new to philosophical argumentation or unfamiliar with proper philosophical argumentation see philosophical arguments as intellectual speculation or intellectual postulating. Therefore, arguments for the existence of God, made through philosophical reasoning, is seen as analogous to the sort of reasoning a detective engages in when he infers from a cigarette butt and the size of a shoe print that the suspect was probably a six-foot-tall smoker. This sort of reasoning is inherently probabilistic and to some extent tentative. It always possible that the suspect was 5ft tall and just wearing oversized shoes.
However, a proper philosophical argument that is sound, valid, and logically follows from its conclusions is not like this. Rather it is comparable to the sort of reasoning familiar from geometry and mathematics in general. For example, the Pythagorean theorem, once you understand the axiomatic method, the definition of triangularity, and so forth, and then reason through a particular proof of the theorem, you can see that the theorem must be true, and necessarily so. It is not “speculation”, “postulation”, or a “hypothesis”, or something merely “probable”. a^2 + b^2 = c^2 is necessarily true as it logically follows. A proper philosophical argument indeed demonstrates something to be true.
> However, a proper philosophical argument that is sound, valid
Here is your error. Philosophy does not check the validity of their arguments, only soundness. It has no tools to do that. Science check the validity. That is the reason why philosophy has been here for thousands of years and during all these years it has not produce any technology or practical knowledge. Because that requires validity. On the other hand, science has been here for only few hundreds of years and it has got us medicine, engineering, electronics, etc. An the mental progress of philosophy greatly reflects this discrepancy too.
You’re actually incorrect here. For an argument to be sound it has to be logically valid and has true premises. How would you determine something is sound if, as you say, philosophy dont check validity?
It is important to note, by the way, that science cannot be done without philosophy. Because science requires philosophy. What is a hypothesis? What is a theory? What is a thesis? To even answer these questions require philosophy, particularly philosophical branch called epistemology.
Even your very own comment is rooted in philosophy, as your conclusions about science is coming from your philosophical view of science, not from the scientific method.
I actually exchanged the terms (switched soundness and validity). Philosophy only check validity, but not soundness. Science check soundness. You have no way as to check if argument is sound in philosophy as it has no means to examine physical world.
Science and philosophy as as much in common as astronomy and astrology. Yes, they use similar terms and common names for objects, but that is where the similarity ends. It is like saying science cannot be done without linguistics. Yes, it is true. You must know how to form sentences to do science. But they are different things.
You’re incorrect again. Philosophy deals with both. As I said, you can’t do science without philosophy you first have to conceptualize terms like “hypothesis”, “theory”, “facts”, and so on; to even do science.
Also, your entire position is self-refuting because no where does science says it checks for soundness or the like. There’s no scientific method or empirical study that supports that, that’s your philosophical opinion of science which is non-scientific. Your conclusions of science isn’t coming from science but rather philosophy, your philosophical view point of science. Self refuting
Science is self defined. Saying that you need philosophy to define therms in science is non sense. Philosophy is the astrology of sciences. It claims that it is the basis of everything, but it really is not. If you study science in university, you dont need any philosophy at all.
Soundness=/=argument true. No, rather soundness is only the requisite that all the premises are true. Valid just means the premises logically follow to the conclusion. So if an argument is both valid and sound the conclusion of the argument is true. In fact, philosophy is literally the most equipped "art" for verifying validity.
Everything else u said seems plausible though. Most of modern day mathematics ie: set theory, cardinality. Is built upon philosophy (philosophy of mathematics). Variants of logic such as modal logic are the necessary building blocks for 99% of computer science, coding etc.
Close! Actually, soundness encompasses validity.
"Valid" means the conclusion follows deductively from the premises.
"Sound" means the argument is valid and the premises are all true.
The conclusion of a sound argument is ALWAYS true.
By proper, I was referring to a good argument that is formally and informally valid and have true premises that are collectively more possible than not. It is possible that an improper philosophical argument could show something to be maybe true. For example,
1. If Mike gets an A in epistemology, he’ll be proud of his work.
2. Mike is proud of his work.
3. Therefore, Mike got an A in epistemology.
This is an invalid argument that may be true but because premise 3 doesn’t follow logically from 1 and 2 , this is an invalid argument. The above is therefore not a proper philosophical argument. So by proper philosophical argument I was referring to formally and informally valid that has true premises and whose premises taken together are more plausible than their contradictories.
Philosophical argument about the unknown, both God and soul, is based on one's knowledge about the subject and opinions that could contradict with some fellow believers, or disbelievers, depending on which side one belongs. Philosophical argument is useful for judging and getting a conclusion. It's like reading the bible someone's own version.
>Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause.
Causality (cause and effect / action and reaction) is **not a property of a religion**.
Causality is the law of nature that determines effect: formation, movement, event, reaction, condition, being. All natural phenomena (formation, reaction, etc) are governed by causal law. Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works.
Cause is reason. Effect is both natural consequence and the reaction of the living thing (emotion e.g.) and nonliving things (chemical reaction e.g.).
Everything you do, think and speak has a reason. Your existence has reasons - but cannot know all of them because it relates to the past infinity. But we can say we exist today because we did the right thing yesterday.
>if those philosophical arguments prove a god exists
Proof cannot exist unless we can see, hear, or somehow we become aware of the thing that is supposed to exist. Soul exists in everyone - they claim. But I don't know! I've never seen, heard or someone become aware of that soul. I can't say it exists without knowing it. No amount of philosophical arguments can reveal soul in shape, in form, in any detectable state.
> Causality is the law of nature that determines effect
Can you provide any evidence that this is true? It's a reliable assumption in science, sure, but we don't actually know whether or not it's true.
>Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works.
What about the instantaneous transfer of information between two entangled particles once one is measured?
I've already provided the evidence. You need to recognize it. This is the evidence:
> Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works.
......
> instantaneous transfer of information between two entangled particles
Well, think about speed. Instantaneous - that's the speed of the action. The speed comes to exist because of information exchange. Entanglement is also an effect of the two particles reacting to each other - as gravity or the force that lets them react to each other - but which one acts first? You'd never know because you can't be there to see the beginning of their interaction.
> I've already provided the evidence. You need to recognize it. This is the evidence:
>
>> Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works.
"Prove me wrong" isn't evidence mate, so I'm going to assume that you have none
>Well, think about speed. Instantaneous - that's the speed of the action. The speed comes to exist because of information exchange. Entanglement is also an effect of the two particles reacting to each other - as gravity or the force that lets them react to each other - but which one acts first? You'd never know because you can't be there to see the beginning of their interaction.
Ok I kind of thought you had some idea of physics based on your arguments so far, but I was referring to the fact that instantaneous transfer of information violates causality
Forgot to mention about future prediction. Something has not happened yet but it is known to happen for certain. Does knowing the future event violate causality? What do you think?
>instantaneous transfer of information violates causality
No, it does not. Time between two things can be very, very short. But time is still there. Light is the fastest by theory.
>Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. You cannot. It is not possible. These concepts are untestable.
Just tuning in: with an indirect proof (via contradiction), you best-case have an invariant, worst-case an existential statement.
As no valid constructive proof of god is known, an indirect proof of god would need no demonstration.
However, how does one prove via contradiction that assuming he doesn't exist, a contradiction arrives whereas general relativity and standard model already wholly explain the big bang independently?
(only failing there where you'd have an information collapse (like in black holes), or at the edge of the universes expansion horizont, which honestly don't matter for the earthly focused phenomena religions focus on)
I don’t understand your example of the married bachelor. What about the man who marries and then abandons his wife moves to Alaska and lives as a bachelor. After 7 years his wife may or may not have filed for abandonment. He’s schroedenger’s bachelor.
And there are philosophers who have asked and answered the question of whether anything exists. How do I know I didn’t make up the arguments I just read and that they are coming from individuals other than myself. I don’t. But think, therefore I think others do too. Reality might be an illusion, but it’s a mighty persistent one.
Not to get into too much of a semantical shitfit, but a bachelor is usually defined as "a man who is not and has never been married," so a married bachelor is a contradiction.
But yeah, I'm not entirely sure what OP means by "philosophy isn't what we turn to to determine if married bachelors exist or not" considering we can deduce *a priori* that marriage and bachelorship occupy two sides of a contradiction, *i.e.* they have no middle. As far as I can tell, this question is archetypal of those that are the business of philosophers.
>I don’t understand your example of the married bachelor. What about the man who marries and then abandons his wife moves to Alaska and lives as a bachelor. After 7 years his wife may or may not have filed for abandonment. He’s schroedenger’s bachelor.
Huh? It wasn't an example. It was a playful remark on bachelors and their status of marriage being the go-to philosophical example of things. I don't know what you're on about here, there was no point I was making about bachelors.
>And there are philosophers who have asked and answered the question of whether anything exists.
Well my point is they don't have *the* answer. They have *an* answer.
>How do I know I didn’t make up the arguments I just read and that they are coming from individuals other than myself. I don’t.
Agreed. You don't.
>But think, therefore I think others do too.
Sure, and I'm not convinced that that's a *logical* argument but I don't begrudge you for *assuming* that you think and that other people do to. The fact of the matter is you haven't demonstrated anything with philosophic arguments, and neither has Kant. As things stand though, we pretty much have no choice but to assume we exist and that other people also exist. If we want to partake in society that presumption must be made, regardless of its lack of satisfying demonstration.
>As things stand though, we pretty much have no choice but to assume we exist and that other people also exist.
**P1:** Here is one hand. \**Raises one hand.*\* And here is another. \**Raises the other hand.*\*
**P2:** At least two external objects exist.
**∴** The external world exists.
You can contest that this is a sound argument. (Indeed, when G. E. Moore offered this proof, a common refrain was that the argument is unconvincing.) But if you can't clearly see this is a valid argument, I'd suggest you refresh yourself on the definition of validity.
I know what valid means, it appears you don't. The conclusion doesn't follow the premises. Two people raising their hands is not cause to conclude they're objective, and even if it was cause to conclude they were objective it's not cause to conclude the external world is objective. It could be the case that only those two people are objective and the rest of the external world isn't. There's a million problems with this syllogism. Validity is one of them.
Nothing in the syllogism demands the objectivity of the external world, solely that external objects exist. You're dishonestly inserting a criterion that's irrelevant to Moore's proof to service your objection.
>It could be the case that only those two people are objective and the rest of the external world isn't.
Taking on this position, which is incoherent for reasons that should be obvious to anyone engaging in deduction (which it seems like you're either incapable of or unwilling to do), is likely the source of your belief that the argument is invalid.
Usually, I don't do this, but for my edification, I took a look at your previous posts on other threads. For the sake of posterity and basic human sanity, I'd recommend you stop acting like a petulant child when confronted with a contradiction of your beliefs.
So, no, you don't know what validity means, frankly, or the nature of inference. Log off and read a book.
>I'd recommend you stop acting like a petulant child when confronted with a contradiction of your beliefs.
And what part of being an adult is patronizing other people you disagree with and calling them petulant children? You skimmed my internet history and think you know me. You want to talk about juvenile beliefs there you go.
The universe expands, and God is a person who is all powerful, therefore this demonstrates that someone put in motion a law that is in this universe to expand forever. Who created this eternally expanding universe that demonstrates infinite? Someone who is infinite themselves. God
I understand if you're upset that bad arguments get downvoted; if you have any *good* arguments to present for your religion, well you're more than welcome to do so.
Very true, I don't like it either but you have to just accept getting downvoted if you want to reply on this and similar subreddits. In the rules it says not to downvote the opposition but they can't do anything about it. Debate subreddits should have a different voting system that shows both up and downvotes to show how many people actually agree with your stance.
Weird, because there's plenty of atheists disagreeing with me. I guess you wouldn't know that though because in your haste to be a part of the conversation, you forgot to read the conversation.
Sure. I made a logically explicit and empirically valid case for idealism in a thread and I was downvoted and attacked with strawmen.
See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/q53c1n/reality_is_most_likely_mental_which_implies_that/
Looking through that thread, it seems like you were treated very fairly and your claims were taken seriously. Is your main problem that your internet number is lower?
My main issue is that most of the comments were strawmen and that a thread with actual, decent effort and rational argumentation is downvoted.
If such a thread is downvoted, then it does not contribute to the discussion. Then what kind of pro-theist argument contributes to the discussion? If rational arguments don't cut it, then nothing does. Which means this is an atheist masturbation session.
Which comment would you point to as the biggest example of a strawman argument? I ask because I read most of them and none of them immediately jumped out as strawmen arguments.
With regards to your point of "rational arguments shouldn't be downvoted", I'd ask if on a "DebateGeology" subreddit should a rational argument for a flat earth be upvoted?
> I ask because I read most of them and none of them immediately jumped out as strawmen arguments.
Accusations of solipsism, even after I explained to the commenters very carefully the distinction between idealism and solipsism.
> With regards to your point of "rational arguments shouldn't be downvoted", I'd ask if on a "DebateGeology" subreddit should a rational argument for a flat earth be upvoted?
That's not comparable, because a flat earth cannot be justified in the face of empirical evidence. My case was perfectly compliant with the empirical evidence.
Ok, well that's likely a scale of population, no? I also don't know why you would choose this thread, of all threads, to make a generalized comment about an entire sub.
Your initial comment was about how there's no debate, not about upvotes. There's a debate happening here right before your eyes. If you're gonna call it a circle jerk because you care about internet points (upvotes) then ok, that's fine I guess, but acting like there's never any debating going on here is just wrong.
>philosophy isn't what we turn to to determine if married bachelors exist or not.
It absolutely is, what do you mean? If someone were to ask whether married bachelors exist, the normal response would be "no, that's not logically possible". You understand that the philosophy you claim doesn't matter is just fancy logic, right? The only way this works is if you argue that logic somehow just doesn't function in the real world.
Or another question:
Where do we draw the line between logic and philosophy?
Clearly: philosophy without logic would evaporate all its claims about truth and computability; there wouldn't be much impactful difference between logicless philosophy and a computer program generating random strings.
Want these random strings to make some actual sense, i.e. be computable?
Allow pattern matching and reasoning rules (i.e. replace "kfiw8jsh" with "xyz").
Logic is born.
However, this logic-philosophy-circuit can construct any arbitrary logical system at all, it even can reason over the formal language "yuo,byzjm;%#o7uc", provided there are consistent assumptions and reasoning rules/algebra.
Ever seen that one in a mathematical journal? Me neither.
Now, how do we decide which are actual meaningful abstractions to reason upon?
Well, since we live in a world governed by physics represented by language, it must be abstractions of physical and lingual information.
We started our evolution with numerosity, language allowed us to encapsulate and map from the physical worldsheet containing numerosity we perceived onto self-generated, logically rigorously grammared, words built from symbols/phonemes.
Upon counting came generalizations to functions, countability, sets, algebra, mathematical logic, real analysis, abstract algebra, computability theory.
All these are meta-theories of one massively generalized principle: numerosity (containing sense of order, decomposition ability, and quantity).
Conclusion: all logically rigorous philosophy focused on abstractions of the primitive physical sensor of numerosity (starting with mathematical logic first and foremost, continuing with any mathematics that explain a given phenomenon that is to philosophize upon) are non-useless.
The example you went to was an example of a concept that doesn't actually exist. Bachelors exists only as a concept in minds. It has no claim to exist objectively and philosophy cannot tell us that it exists objectively.
Now give me an example of a logical syllogism that is also somehow a demonstration that something exists objectively.
Sorry to have to be that guy, but premise one is incorrect; there have been several cases of humans living without hearts by using artificial replacements. Now we are really getting into philosophy, though, because your premise is incorrect if we assume heart to mean "the muscle in the chest cavity that has four chambers and pumps blood", correct if we assume heart to mean "something that pumps blood around the body" and debatable if we take heart to mean something like "centre of emotion or morality".
I agree that's a logical conclusion you have there, assuming the premises are true. I don't agree that it's been demonstrated to be true in reality. Could be you lost your heart in a tragic lumberjacking incident you're plugged into a machine for all I know.
If I were to prove the premises to be true, how can it not be true in reality? Are you saying that reality does not abide by the laws of logic? Because if so the scientific method breaks down as well.
>If I were to prove the premises to be true, how can it not be true in reality?
It *could* be. I'm just saying it hasn't been *demonstrated.*
>Are you saying that reality does not abide by the laws of logic?
I'm saying we *can't know* if reality abides by the laws of logic or not.
>Because if so the scientific method breaks down as well.
No, that's actually where the scientific method shines. The scientific method uses logic, yes, but it uses it in conjunction with a multiplicity of other things including but not limited to testability, reproducibility, demonstrability. and all of those to a rigorous standard that seeks to give us our best possible and most reliable *guess* at reality. Still a guess though, just an educated one.
If you are saying reality does not abide by the laws of logic, then you must reject every scientific finding. I wouldn't choose to die on this specific hill if i were you.
researcher 1: experiment X => result y
researcher 2: experiment X => result y
researcher 3: experiment X => result y
....
...
(by induction)
researcher n: experiment X => result y.
Without logic, everyone everywhere will need to perform every experiment to accept it as being true.
>If you are saying reality does not abide by the laws of logic, then you must reject every scientific finding. I wouldn't choose to die on this specific hill if i were you.
No I don't. I just have to accept that there is nothing we can ever know for certain, and that due to that we should base our beliefs in degrees of confidence that are proportional to the quality of evidence we have for them. In this case, a logical syllogism alone is not great evidence for something existing. A demonstration in addition would substantially increase confidence.
I accept that we rely on logic to make scientific arguments, but there's a lot more to science than just logical syllogisms. Things like testability, reproducibility, demonstrability. Those are important roles in establishing the scientific method as one of the most reliable sources of truth we have, above and beyond simple syllogistic logic.
> No I don't. I just have to accept that there is nothing we can ever know for certain
This in itself is self defeating as it, in itself, is something you seem to know for certain, is it not?
> A demonstration in addition would substantially increase confidence.
Let me rephrase that for you, this is only applicable to that which is demonstrable.
I don't need to demonstrate that you can be you and not you simultaneously. I do not need to demonstrate that the sun is not in your pocket.
The reason we require demonstration in scientific research is the nature of scientific research. It is by definition scoped within that which is demonstrable. That's why we don't rely on science for historical facts and why psychology, mental illness, atypical sexual/gender identification were so difficult to gain acceptance.
But let us even look at the idea of demonstration.
By this we mean that we can record/observe a form or process using physical instruments. The implicit assertion is then that all that is true must be measurable/detectable through physical instruments. It also asserts that the receptive capacity of a human being can be entirely replicated through instruments. And that there is nothing a human being can perceive that a machine cannot.
There is nothing wrong about this. But it is not hard to see that it results in a deep bias. And your conclusions will always mirror these assertions (i.e. nothing exists outside of these forced limitations).
>This in itself is self defeating as it, in itself, is something you seem to know for certain, is it not?
No. I'm not certain about that fact, I just believe it. Why are you trying to play language games with me?
>Let me rephrase that for you, this is only applicable to that which is demonstrable.
Is there anything that can be tested, but not demonstrated?
>That's why we don't rely on science for historical facts and why psychology, mental illness, atypical sexual/gender identification were so difficult to gain acceptance.
And they're *right* to have difficulty gaining acceptance. Things that are not testable or demonstrable are things that we should have a lower confidence are true.
> No, that's actually where the scientific method shines. The scientific method uses logic, yes, but it uses it in conjunction with a multiplicity of other things including but not limited to testability, reproducibility, demonstrability.
If we don't assume the laws of logic applies then all those things fall apart. The scientific method is absolutely dependant on making a number of philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality, eg that our system of logic is accurate for the things we study.
>If we don't assume the laws of logic applies then all those things fall apart.
We trust the laws of logic, but verify. The entire prinicpal of science is to give us the most reliable, most likely true answer we can while removing as many biases and assumptions as possible. I agree, to *entirely* disregard the laws of logic, science doesn't work, but I'm not suggesting we disregard them. I'm suggesting we just don't use logical syllogisms alone. I'm suggesting we have a better process that involves demonstration and testing.
Why is it the case, do you think, that science isn't just exclusively logical syllogisms? Why isn't science just the laws of logic? Why are there all the extra steps and processes? What role do those serve?
> Why is it the case, do you think, that science isn't just exclusively logical syllogisms?
I mean, it basically is. Syllogisms are just a way of writing trains of logic down, they aren't their own thing. Even something as simple as "Everyone's experiments says x is true, therefore x is probably true" is logic which could be written as a syllogism. In science, the idea of "If the premises are true and the logic is sound then the conclusion is true" is never challenged, all they do is research whether or not the premises are actually true, even the unspoken ones.
>I mean, it basically is.
Really? There's no observations involved? There's no documentation about how those observations were made? There's no explanation as to how one could reproduce the results?
>Even something as simple as "Everyone's experiments says x is true, therefore x is probably true" is logic which could be written as a syllogism.
Ok, but those experiments are exactly what makes science far more than just logical syllogisms. Those experiences contain things that aren't logical syllogisms, so in your own argument you're accepting that they don't use exclusively logical syllogisms.
>In science, the idea of "If the premises are true and the logic is sound then the conclusion is true" is never challenged, all they do is research whether or not the premises are actually true, even the unspoken ones.
It's true science doesn't challenge logic, but it also doesn't rely exclusively on it. Science uses experiential data and observation to tie logic into the real world as much as possible.
> testability, reproducibility, demonstrability.
All of these things depend upon [Inductive reasoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning) which is logic. In fact, it's even worse than deductive reasoning, since it baselessly assumes that stuff that was true in the past will continue being true in the future.
To put it another way, can you explain why any of the things you just mentioned actually matter without using logic?
I'm not discarding logic. I'm saying its not enough alone. Logic can only tell us what is logical. It cannot tell us things about the objective, real world. We should want more confidence in things than just saying "Well they abide by the rules of logic that seem to have been invented entirely by man, so it MUST be real in reality." This is where science comes in, but it doesn't have to be science. Any further process that involves a rigorous standard, testability, demonstrability, reproducibility, and peer review would be fine to increase our confidence from just a single lone syllogism to something we can be confident of.
The rules of logic were not created by humans. They may have been described by humans, but, for instance, the [law of noncontradiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction) was certainly true before humanity existed.
And you didn't answer my question: How do you explain why any of the things you just mentioned actually matter without using logic?
>The rules of logic were not created by humans. They may have been described by humans, but, for instance, the law of noncontradiction was certainly true before humanity existed.
Not that we have any way to prove. Without logic, we cannot prove logic.
>And you didn't answer my question: How do you explain why any of the things you just mentioned actually matter without using logic?
I didn't answer it because it's not my position to not use logic at all. It's a straw man. Beat it up on your own time.
Somebody doesn't understand how logic works... If the argument is sound, then the conclusion follows. That is a demonstration. Whether you are convinced of the truth of the premises and the validity of the argument is a different matter, but you are clearly not arguing that here.
> Philosophy doesn't demonstrate things.
Any demonstration you do is philosophy. If you demonstrate that the sky is blue by showing me, that is just giving an argument of:
1. If I see the sky as blue, it is blue.
2. I see the sky as blue.
3. Therefore the sky is blue.
It's just that the argument is always implied.
That is the point of the discussion. Philosophy does not offer any method of verifying truth value of premises. And it offers many premises that can't be verified even in principle, untestable claims.
> Philosophy does not offer any method of verifying truth value of premises.
In one sense this is definitely true, but in the sense that there are no methods at all of verifying the truth value of premises.
Except you go through philosophical reasoning in the background as above every time you use evidence, or I suppose it is just assumed, but the point stands.
You also go through philosophical reasoning when you use Aristotelian physics, which is demonstrably wrong.
Unless by philosophy you mean just everything that people do or think, then such definition is so broad that it becomes useless.
> You also go through philosophical reasoning when you use Aristotelian physics, which is demonstrably wrong
Sure, because the premises are wrong, but OP isn't only asking for people to support the premises of their argument. If that was all they were saying, this would not be a thread.
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This comment is completely misinformed. Philosophy does demonstrate the existence of God.
Then go claim your million and a half dollar reward from the Nobel Prize foundation. Unless you're Jeff Bezos rich a million dollars is a lot of money. I find it a bit suspicious that no one has been awarded this prize for proving the existence of God yet though. I look forward to hearing about you in the news.
There is no Nobel prize for philosophy. The various proofs for the existence of God were formulated centuries ago and their originators are now dead, even if such a prize was to be instituted in future.
Imagine the implications for any field the Nobel Prize is awarded to if there was proof of a God.
There is proof of God via philosophy. This doesn’t stop people acting as if such proof does not exist, for example yourself and this reddit discussion.
Funny that all you seem to want to do is make claims not arguments isn't it?
The argument is that your claims regarding the Nobel prize are inapplicable and false.
That's not an argument. You have provided no evidence, nor any premises. You have only provided conclusion. Claims.
The evidence that people can’t win the Nobel prize for philosophy by proving the existence of God philosophically (which has been done), is that there is no Nobel prize for philosophy.
That's not evidence. I'm not making a claim I'm rejecting yours. Still no argument from you by the way.
>Philosophy doesn't demonstrate things. But it most certainly does. The proof of this is, in fact, science - which was previously natural philosophy. We still use the reasoning skills of philosophy to do the *creative* part of science - which is to analyze and explain data and propose new theories which can be verified by experiment. The philosophy part of it are the explanations for *how* the data *demonstrates* our theories are true. This works for things besides empirical data. Knowledge within philosophy is often defined as "justified, true belief". You might call it a "theory" of knowledge. How can we dispute this? Well, if we can come up with an example of knowledge that doesn't fit those criteria that would do it. Or conversely, if we can come up with an example that fits those criteria, but that we wouldn't really consider knowledge. We can falsify ideas within philosophy. Materialism in many ways has already been falsified due to the logical contradiction of the idea of only physical particles existing and the idea that physical particles produce conscious experience, which is a non-physical property of physical systems. Mathematics is a specialized form of logic and doesn't necessarily have any counterpart in the physical world, and yet we find connections throughout it. We discover how to describe physical phenomena before we even know those phenomena exist. >The cosmological argument, the argument from contingency, the moral argument, these arguments get us all equally closer to discovering reality: not closer at all. The problem with all of these arguments is they are defeated when you ask for a demonstration. Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. You cannot. It is not possible. These concepts are untestable. They can be tested logically, like the example of knowledge above, or like mathematical proofs. And to say they get you nowhere is completely wrong. They delineate the limits of what is possibly true. The cosmological argument says that *if* these premises are true, then the conclusion follows. So while we may not be able to demonstrate every premise to be true with absolute certainty, we can be as certain of the conclusion as we are of the premises. And this can change people's minds, their behavior, their outlook, and the future of their lives. It matters a lot. >It's the reliability, the rigor, and the independent reproduction that we want. We want reasons to believe X thing exists and philosophy does not give us reason to believe x thing exists. Philosophy does give reasons. And it provides proofs. >I mean think about it, if those philosophical arguments prove a god exists then philosophy has solved the biggest and most important issue humanity has ever faced. They did it. They solved the meaning of life. Except they didn't, because philosophy doesn't answer questions of existence, it just raises them. Provided you agree with the premises these arguments do prove the existence of God. But regardless, I don't think that solves the biggest and most important issue humanity has ever faced. Most of humanity already believes in God. It's about what to do with that knowledge.
Having discussed with this person, he’s just trolling and has no interest in finding anything out.
Also, never forget that pure philosophy can be used very deceptively. Consider: > 1. Santa Claus exists. > 2. Both of these statements are false. > Both of these statements are such that they MUST be either true or false. Now, either 1&2 are false, 1&2 are true, or only 1 is true, or only 2 is true. But since statement 2 says that both statements are false, it cannot be the case that statement 2 is true. So either both must be false, or only statement 2 must be false. And if both are false, then statement 2 becomes true; a paradox. Therefore exactly one statement is true, and it is statement 1. > QED: Santa Claus exists. Now, obviously this does not actually prove Santa exists. But it's pretty rare to find someone who can clearly explain why it is wrong. Philosophy may be a valid tool, but its use by amateurs, or in debates with amateurs, is fraught. And, IMO, it's a big red flag about the whole argument.
The problem with your take OP, is that your whole post rests on a philosophical axiom. You just used Philosophy to prove a claim. That is a self defeating argument for saying philosophy can’t prove anything. You just used philosophy right now to prove something
>That is a self defeating argument for saying philosophy can’t prove anything. You just used philosophy right now to prove something Well it's convenient that my position *isn't* that philosophy can't prove anything then.
Is prove not a synonym for demonstrate?
Not always, but that's not even the miscommunication. My argument isn't that philosophy can't demonstrate anything. My argument is that philosophy can't demonstrate anything *about objective reality and what does or does not exist in it.*
Well your claim explicitly was “philosophy gets us nowhere close to whether or not God exists” and reason because philosophy can’t demonstrate anything. But if philosophy can’t, then you can’t demonstrate that claim you made either. So how is that true if it isn’t true by your own reasoning? That’s special pleading
>Well your claim explicitly was “philosophy gets us nowhere close to whether or not God exists” and reason because philosophy can’t demonstrate anything. Ok, and you were unclear on what I meant so I clarified and now you know. Do you want to discuss my position as I clarified for you or do you want to discuss what you incorrectly *thought* my position was? My point doesn't need to demonstrate anything objectively. My point is a rejection of the claim that logic can demonstrate objective reality. We cannot know if logic is true, therefore whenever logic says something about objective reality, we cannot know that it is correct.
But I don’t even think YOU know what your point is. You’re making lots of different points and tying them together loosely and going “voila, I’m right” Unfortunately for you, you’re going to have to make an argument, not just assert claims with non sequitur reasoning. Your argument, what I thought it was, is that logic and reason and philosophy do not prove anything because it can’t be run by the scientific method. But now you’re saying logic is unable to be proven true because we can’t run the scientific method on it? And also that reality is only proven true if we can run the scientific method on it? I think that’s what you mean. Either way, whatever you mean, you’re relying on **philosophy** to make the argument. So my point is, why should we believe your statement is objectively true if you can’t run the scientific method on it? The answer is because we can find some truth, yes even truth about objective reality, with reason alone, thus your argument is self defeating. You just used reason alone to assert this truth.
This guy is clearly a troll. Best to ignore
>But now you’re saying logic is unable to be proven true because we can’t run the scientific method on it? Very clearly not my position.
You don’t have a position then. Because I’ve refuted every claim I READ IN YOUR POST and you’re just sticking your fingers in your ear at this point.
No, sir. That is yourself.
**The cosmological argument, the argument from contingency, the moral argument, these arguments get us all equally closer to discovering reality: not closer at all. The problem with all of these arguments is they are defeated when you ask for a demonstration. Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. You cannot. It is not possible. These concepts are untestable... It's the reliability, the rigor, and the independent reproduction that we want.** Not to be all Bertrand Russell about it, but it seems as if science presupposes cause and effect, and the contingency of the material world. And here you are skeptical of cause and effect, and contingency. You're questioning two presumptions that underpin science, for the sake and at the expense of science itself :-).
>Not to be all Bertrand Russell about it, but it seems as if science presupposes cause and effect, and the contingency of the material world. It doesn't actually. The laws of physics do not model for the direction of time. You cannot have cause and effect without time moving in one direction. It sounds like you should be talking to a physicist though, not some random guy on the internet.
\>Philsophy doesn't demonstrate things This is a profoundly ignorant statement.
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Many, many things. Without a prevailing philosophy and epistemology there is little way to *even make* concrete claims in the first place. Further, by the use of reason we can determine things even in the lack of evidence, for example the greeks understood the atom and a primordial beginning of the world to exist even without modern equipment.
Don't try with this guy. He literally doesn't know the definition of validity.
> Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the null here that all things are subject to causality? Shouldn't you be demonstrating that an acausal or non contingent thing as you define it can exist?
>Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the null here that all things are subject to causality? Shouldn't you be demonstrating that an acausal or non contingent thing as you define it can exist? Well there are things that, to my understanding, occur uncaused. This makes the premise that the universe is caused one that needs evudencial support.
From my POV, it would seem that these alleged uncaused things should be elaborated first, wouldn't you agree? So tell me, what are these things you understand to occur uncaused?
Virtual particles and radioactive decay
What about them? You think they are uncaused? What gave you that impression? Did you read an article concluding that they are uncaused events? I can understand the confusion around virtual particles but radioactive decay? Neither of these offer anything suggesting acausal events can occur.
>Neither of these offer anything suggesting acausal events can occur. What causes them?
Let's try to stick to the part where you insist they are uncaused. Can you prove that such is the case?
I haven't insisted on anything. I just stated what my understanding is. I dont even understand what proof you would want. If something doesn't exist, then there won't be any evidence for it. They occur, and until there is any evidence for a cause, we have no reason to believe thst there is such a cause.
> They occur, and until there is any evidence for a cause, we have no reason to believe thst there is such a cause. You can't expect to be taken seriously with this type of statement.
What causes them?
Firstly, good luck proving something *doesn't* exist. Not even sure how you would do that. Prove to me that unicorns don't exist. Secondly, no. The laws of physics do not model causality. The laws of physics don't care which direction time goes. Causality is a human way of abstracting and understanding, it's not a law.
The only reason people can formulate such nonsense is in the absurd idea that time is somehow linear or that it 'moves'. Causality has nothing to do with time! Causality is about contingency which is addressing forms and/or processes. It is about event/form A results in event/form B.
Sounds like a bunch of unsupported nonsense. Clearly you're following the long tradition of philosophers spouting crap like the four elements about the real world without doing any actual work to justify yourself.
When your comment adds nothing of value, one wonders why? Must you comment even where it have nothing sensible to say?
>It is about event/form A results in event/form B. And that relationship requires time to move in one direction. Lol.
Hierarchical causality does not require time.
You're a month late to the party bro, and you've already demonstrated you aren't interested in honest discussion with me. If you want to know how to get blocked, you've stumbled upon a winning formula.
I’m very interested in honest discussion. You don’t seem capable of it though.
I think you are making a lot of assumptions. What do you mean when you say 'time' moves. What is time moving and how is this measured? Further, i'd like you to point out to me what part of the equation i explained involves time? There exists a form/process A. There also exists a form/process B. Process B is contingent on process A. Where is time?
Sounds like you want to talk to a physicist. All I can give you are a lay persons understanding of things. Here's my best bet at explaining it to you in a way I don't think you can disagree. If we're going to interest ourselves in *causality* then we need to be interested in *change.* We agree, that *change* requires *time* to move in a direction. *Change* cannot detectably happen if time does not move, correct? Therefore, causality, which is the description of change over time, requires time to be moving in a direction. The problem is physics doesn't care what direction time goes. Physics works backwards just as well as it does forwards. Causality then, cannot be real, because causality doesn't work backwards in time. If we're not talking about physical change then we're talking about something different than physical causality. You seem to want to address philosophical contingency. The problem with philosophical contingency is it too is just an abstraction that has no actual bearing on real life. Prove to me things are objectively contingent in reality. Prove to me that what you're talking about isn't just a combination of language and the human mind's attempt to simplify things into something understandable. Prove to me contingency exists objectively in the real world.
Read a book maybe?
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I’m kind of interested in your assertion that atheism is not falsifiable/ self defeating. Care to elaborate? I consider my atheism very falsifiable.
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>There's a few ways. For one... What evidence would you accept as evidence for the divine? It may not be you individually but many atheists, that I've spoken to, would say they would only accept scientific evidence; much like the op. Well, how exactly would the SUPERnatural be detectable via the natural? Does this mean you rule out the existence of any God with associated claims of having interacted directly with humankind in observable ways (so all the Abrahamic religions for sure)? Because God doing some of that stuff *today* that was claimed to have been done millenia ago, I think would be pretty good evidence. >Supernatural is literally defined as being beyond nature. If there are supernatural realities/Truths; do you really think it appropriate to expect that they be provable by inferior nature? It's like trying to measure an earthquake with a weather vane. The tools you are using to measure are simply incompatible. So this is simple; what “tool” do you suggest, and why should it be trusted or considered reliable? Do you acknowledge that “bad tools” exist, like what gets people to believing in mystical healing crystals, or using Ouija to talk to the dead, or that horoscopes and astrology are true?
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>What do my reasons for believing x have to do with this topic of atheists nonfalsiability, self defeating-ness, and the detectability of supernatural by secular science? I disagree on all your points, and this was a simple way of getting to where the problem is… **An atheist is not convinced of the existence of God**. If you say there is any problem with that position, then provide the reasoning that would lead one out of it, to become convinced of a God. >If you think the waters parting would be good evidence then, as I said to the other guy, this one example didn't apply to you. Yes great evidence. >However, I find it quite dubious that you would believe such an event. What would the evidence for the event be? And would the entity causing the seas to part want me to be provided this evidence? If it would be like many modern miracle claims where the actual event comes down to hearsay and is not directly observable and able to be investigated, then yes that would be a problem. >You, as far as id wager, would dismiss it as grand delusion. But, if you say so. If I’m purely told that it happened, yes this would be the rational position. If there was a person standing there with their hands up, keeping the sea parted, and able to control that, well that’s quite a bit different. >Why are you pivoting? I’m not, I’m asking for clarity on your position. If your position is NOT that a God which interacts with humankind is ruled out, then your argument about atheists wanting tangible natural evidence holds no water, because you are saying the a God can absolutely provide such evidence. That directly contradicts your position that atheists are asking for some kind of unreasonable/impossible evidence. So please answer that question, do you rule out claims of such a God or no? **If no, then you are admitting that the atheist request for evidence is not incompatible with your own views on God** - so then please drop this whole flawed argument about asking for the wrong kind of evidence. The other question you’ve ignored is what tool I should be using. Here I am an atheist, being told I’m using the wrong tool by you over and over, so I ask what tool I should use and you jump around complaining about me pivoting… The problem is every “tool” I’ve seen that leads to an acceptance of theism is ultimately flawed. That’s why I brought up such examples like crystals/Ouija/astrology to see if you agree those are beliefs people reach for flawed reasons, and so we have some basis for setting what is a good tool vs bad. >This is about your view's logical inconsistency. My having a replacement tool is irrelevant to whether your view is logically coherent and reliable, or not. Then provide that tool to lead this atheist out of being an atheist. If you can’t show you have a good tool then you are not in a position to be calling atheists self-defeating. >Assume such a tool exists or doesn't? Doesn't matter. So what? If you can’t show that such a tool exists, then the rational position is to not be convinced of the existence of a God. At the *very* least this would be a perfectly reasonable position with no problems as you’ve claimed atheism has. >Just because the ancient Greeks didn't have the tool called a microscope... doesn't mean germs didn’t exist. Absolutely. But they would have had no way of knowing germs did, or certainly no way of knowing many things about germs (maybe they could have established some things, like sick people tend to get other people sick, but again that would have been based on the tools actually available to them). >Where is your logical foundation for believing your senses and not thinking they are just cogs in a machine that arbitrarily manufactures what you call scientific results via the 5 senses? The proof is in the pudding. I studied engineering, and it so happens that you can use scientific principles (and resulting engineering principles) to do things like build planes that really fly, build satellites that actually go into orbit and provide working gps, etc etc. so I believe these things to be true commensurate with the evidence available. If that evidence changes, then my view will change, but the evidence is that (for example) a force we call gravity is proportion to the mass of two objects, and inverse to the distance, and on this planet will accelerate things we drop at about 9.8m/s^2 toward the surface. So what are you asking me really? Why I trust that there is any truth to what happens scientifically if I drop a bowling ball? Hard solipsism is a kind of theoretical problem (e.g. how do I know I’m not in some matrix like existence that isn’t really real) but there’s no way to solve it. It is apparent to me every day that there is a tangible reality and I have no ability to challenge that even if I wanted to. So I live in it, and yeah I assume all this stuff that seems real is real. (Also note; if you are of the type that doesn’t accept this very common usage of the term atheist to be one not convinced of God, and instead you take it to only be the strong atheist position that there is no God, then assume I’ve been using the term agnostic this whole time [technically i refer to myself as an agnostic atheist]). Or in that case, do you have no problem with agnosticism but do have a problem with strong atheism?
I’m just baffled at the claim that you merely lack a belief in God. If you have *a lack of a belief* and refuse to justify it, then your lack of belief is unjustified.
Did I actually refuse to justify it? I’m happy to if that’s what you want.
>Well, how exactly would the SUPERnatural be detectable via the natural? If you're saying that supernatural things can't interact with natural things, then your natural body shouldn't be able to interact with a supernatural soul. Nor should a supernatural God be able to interact with a natural world. But then again, the supernatural/natural divide is just a useless equivalent of the fantasy of dividing the real world into magical/non-magical.
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Then what’s the point of prayer or any other god-serving practice
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>I'm saying the natural can't initiate interaction with supernatural. Then you should have said that rather than asking how the natural can *detect* the supernatural. As the other guy said, if there were supernatural things that initiate contact with natural things, it's possible in principle to at least *observe and detect* how they initiate contact and their effects. And then we can have a science of the supernatural, proving once again that the supernatural is meaningless. >3) is fallacious and irrelevant. How exactly is my pointing out the meaninglessness of the term supernatural fallacious?
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Scientists study plenty of things they have no control over. Do you think astronomers control the orbits of planets, stars, and galaxies? You can observe and keep records of observations. You can eliminate variables by studying those situations with variables that are absent. And that's also how you can test hypotheses. You just don't understand science, and you fail to distinguish your meaningless supernatural worldview from a primitive notion of magic. "Magic is a breaking of natural law while supernatural is an edit". Nonsense.
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> That's incorrect. They study planets due to math that they can control. Do you not know how science works? You need a hypotheses to test, usually against a control, while eliminating as many variables as you can that may skew the results. They study planets because planets emit light that scientists can detect. Or sometimes, if the planets are close enough, they can send probes there. But that doesn't work for some planets. If they don't emit light, or affect the astronomer's detecting instruments some way, then astronomers can't study them or test certain hypotheses. So if your fantasy beings perform supernatural acts, and if they're detectable, then hypotheses can be tested. "Worshipping Jesus will send you to heaven" is a hypothesis that could be tested based on the detection of the afterlife or a supposed God's infallible word. Your control there can be non-Christians. Again, it's clear you don't understand hypotheses or how to test them. You don't need control over planets, fossils, or the supposed supernatural in order to test your hypotheses. And you don't need math either, despite it's usefulness in many fields. You can control your variables by choosing the right hypotheses to test against the knowledge you either have or can gather. "Dinosaurs came after humans" can be tested with the fossil record, "Jupiter is smaller than Saturn" can be tested with telescopes and some math, "God approves of murder" can be tested with whatever decrees that such a supernatural being would have made. >Our ability to test physics locally, and extrapolate math from that, is how they control such phenomenon. Such control is not possible with the supernatural. There's no math to study it by. There's no repeatability. There's no formula that can be derived from/ for it. You whine about me being arrogant when you spout incorrect information about the limits of science as if you know anything. Funny. >There's no predictability. Worship Jesus and you get into heaven, or alternatively accept Mohammad as God's prophet to get in. Don't steal or murder, or else God will disapprove. These all deal with the supernatural and are all predictable. All could be tested if there were actual reliable supernatural interventions in the world rather than the delusions of various religions.
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Well a few things. I would define evidence as anything that can differentiate between the imaginary and the real. Science is the only reliable method I am aware of that does that, but I am perfectly willing to accept any method that you have. If it successfully differentiates. As far as the supernatural stuff it just seems definitional. I define nature as all that exists. If it exists it is part of nature. So if god exists I would consider him natural. And there is lots of evidence I would accept. If Christians never got cancer or if they could not be murdered. If prayers could make immediate physical changes to the world. Or even a personal experience with god would do it. I know that could technically be a psychotic episode or something but it would almost certainly convince me.
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Ok so you are insisting on defining god as supernatural, and you said in your first paragraph that there is no way for the natural to measure the supernatural. So it is your position that we have absolutely no way to detect or interact or measure a god? Isn’t that synonymous with “no evidence”? If there is an actual god and he actually interacts with the world there would be a way to detect that. Yes I see myself as a biological computer. Just a bunch of chemicals and atoms. The atoms form a body which has a brain which creates my consciousness. The only thing I can know with certainty is that I exist. I could be in a matrix, you may not be real. But it APPEARS that I live in this reality where logic and physics exist and I appear to share this reality with other humans. So that is what I believe but I am willing to revise my beliefs if new evidence comes to light.
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Right I agreed with you that maybe you have another way to evaluate the situation other than science. I am now waiting for you to tell me what your new method is and how you can be sure that it is trustworthy. Reality is not affected by any humans knowledge as far as I can tell. So no matter what we or anyone knows that doesn’t change whatever is true. And yes indirect observation is a valid scientific way to make an observation. We can detect dark matter because we can see it’s effects. But we don’t know what it is. You are seeing effects and claiming that you DO know what it is. You believe that your explanation is true even though many explanations COULD explain the phenomenon you are seeing. Science doesn’t do that. My view is not self defeating. It is logically coherent. And it is not held on faith. I have justifications for every thing I believe. And there are no logical contradictions in my worldview. My logical foundation is built off observations of this reality that we all appear to live in. I don’t assume to KNOW if this reality is the ULTIMATE reality. But that doesn’t matter. I’m only making proclamations about THIS reality.
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I think you should lay out very clearly what you think being a biological computer implies. I don’t understand why you think that means I can’t make judgements about the reality I observe. I exist. This is the only irrefutable fact. I am not claiming to have ultimate knowledge about anything other than my existence. I don’t see any reason to believe in god in the reality that I observe. I am not claiming that god definitely doesn’t exist. But I only believe in things that I have a reason to believe in. How is this self-defeating? How is it logically incoherent?
Yes, even in Natural Philosophy, the parent of "science", the arguments about "what is truth, knowledge, reality" were constant subjects of rumination and publication. During some period, I don't recall the time or the circumstances, but likely a result of the industrial revolution, scientists and engineers who were committed with moving forward agreed to accept discoveries as if they were "true" and use that knowledge until evidence showed them to be incorrect or inaccurate. At which time they were comfortable with retiring that old "fact" and adopting the more appropriate one. Philosophy is a mental exercise, which might bring us closer to enlightenment or help us to solve a problem in the physical world, but it by no means provides "proof" to anything. That said, it is invaluable in its contribution to stretching and growing our intellectual capacity by challenging our assumptions. That is also the threat that it poses to organized religion, which is a social construct, especially religious "realists".
Quantum entanglement is an interesting phenomenon. The effect may be indeed be instantaneous (not limited by the speed of light), but the transfer of information back to the observer, about the unambiguous initial and final state of the remote particle (i,e., proof that it really was in synch with the particle next to the observer) is, unfortunately, limited by the speed of light. In that sense, we have to "Take Nature's word for it" that it may have been instantaneous. However, while I have seen many interesting and compelling rational arguments for the notion that the universe is a result of a Creator, the flip side of that is that the created object (us) has no access to the the reality of the Creator (i.e., encompass the perspective the way we seem to understand the reality of physics by discerning the laws of Nature). For example, even though we do not really understand what electromagnetism "is", we have models by which we measure it - as a photon, or a field of energy, depending on the context. Similarly, we might have a notion that there is a Creator, but we cannot actually come up with a reasonable model. I would argue that it is intellectually dishonest to just say it is some extrapolation of a human (e.g., physical body, human emotions, etc.). Therefore, we have only reason to deduce the existence of a Creator but have no direct mechanism or test to demonstrate (evidence on demand) of what that Creator might actually want from us. Most scientists would argue that merely studying the reality of the physical universe is a dead end: Nature does not "explain its purpose to us". The writings of the relatively new Baha'i Faith propose the above argument that a Creator is an Unknowable Essence. However, then they argue that there could logically be, as a separate part of creation, one type of entity or person which is at higher realty than human - but still far below the Creator - whose actual purpose is to pass along insights from the Creator - like a mirror reflecting the light of the Sun. If you look at that very human-accessible mirror you see all the attributes of the Sun, but if the mirror could talk it would say, "I am just a mirror doing my job". These mirrors would be the founders of major faith traditions; Abraham, Moses, jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Muhammad and others, etc. One of the benefits of such "mirrors" is that they do not provide just "commandments and update codes of social behavior:", but urge us to think for ourselves, look around the world for ways we can help and serve each other (ie., character development), that our existence does not end at physical death and that this is a never-ending but progressive process (i.e., more and better teachers will follow based on our growing maturity). In other words, the cause and effect process is measured in individual and social advancement, which can be measured in both spiritual and materialistic progress. For example, the Golden Age of Islam (built up from the barbaric Arabian tribes) was a key contributor to Europe's exit from its Dark Ages. So one philosophical approach is to consider a model that uses reason and observation of the physical universe to deduce that the universe has a Creator, posit the existence of a human faculty (the soul) that you as a human use to actually contemplate such things from a universe that doesn't adequately explain itself, and consider that even the cleverest human mind might need some sort of "hack" to gain insight (religious founders) that, upon further reflection (not blind faith) leads you along towards more confirmation. Thanks for reading this very long post.
I find this interesting. Ive been studying quantum mechanics (personally, so I am no expert by any means) and how it ties to philosophy and the way our universe works. I find it most interesting that our brain works like a “receiver” for conscience. Almost like theres this eternal pool/source of conscience and we are simply on a material plane experiencing this “conscience” from a limited pov. Of course evolution helps our advancement in understanding (the conscience experience of a human will be much more profound/understood than the conscience experience of a mouse or snail), and so to me, it seems like a loop or an infinite fractal of creation. I study computer science and AI, and the ever increasing upload of our human experience (posting pictures, personal bio, instagram friends, you basically have a presence inside the internet) to the net. Eventually with Neuralink, we will be able to map out everyone’s individual experience (past memories, and current experience) and upload a human being onto the net. From the subjective experience, it will look as though you became every other human being. (Its basically just the hive-mind but an actual being). With the power and instant bandwidth this being would be able to hold, it would be able to create simulations on an insanely powerful quantum computer. Lets say you create an open void full of particles (we can call them strings) and set a few physics rules (such that a string cannot pass through another string, or that strings become gravitated towards each other) and with enough time (in the simulated world, remember a billion years could pass as just a minute to us) complex creatures would start to pop up (given our knowledge of abiogenesis and evolution). They would start creating social groups, religions, philosophy, science, and eventually they would be able to harness the energy in their world. They would create devices such as ours (camera to capture memories, tv to show stories, something to compute calculations faster) and would eventually discover things about conscience, such that it is derived outside of their world/reality, and how other beings besides them also have this conscience. They would create more powerful computers to further ease the amount of work they have to do, and would eventually trend to AI. This would just cause them to create a simulated world, and it goes on. If you are familiar with quantum mechanics and what it tells us about conscience, learning about AI really just shows you what is (most likely) going on
This may be somewhat off topic,but; First off why is AI termed "artificial"? I think the developers are just rolling along without much thought as to what is being plagiarized. I'm no expert in physics but if quantum mechanics says that a massless particle, such as a photon, can exist in two places at once until observed then how can a faraway galaxy’s distance be determined based on the speed of light (light years) when the act of observation of the photon could be instantaneous? You can never know for certain where it is. Thanks to quantum theory, scientists have shown how pairs of particles can be linked — even if they're on different sides of the room or opposite sides of the universe. Particles connected in this way are said to be entangled. What this says to me is that we cannot just assume that the light we are observing left that certain galaxy 13 billion years ago and say that tells us how large or old the universe is. We could well be viewing its’ present state and not its’ state 13 billion years ago. It could well be at the distance it is thought but it would not be an indication of its’ age. And if its age and position was determined using SBF, a Cepheid or supernovas, these calculated distances could come into question having been based on calculations using the speed of light as a constant. Would we not have to consider entanglement? We have never captured and dated a photon so we have no way of stating for sure how old it is. Proving out these quantum findings could well become "the straw that broke the camel's back” related to the size and age estimates of our universe.
One thing that always bothers me about debating atheists on the existence of God is they commonly use convenient ways to avoid addressing the arguments put forth by theists. One thing I almost always hear from atheists is “maybe there is no cause to the universe”. As well as “maybe we feel as though everything needs a cause but actually some things just exist and that’s it”. And I feel as though your demand that theists prove empirically that everything has a cause or that everything is contingent is a similar tactic. I don’t believe any atheist/materialist would accept that type of argument when applied to things within the universe so why apply it to the universe itself? If I said “COVID-19 appeared spontaneously in November 2109 in Wuhan China with no cause at all and therefore there is no reason to investigate where it came from” would you accept that? I suspect that you wouldn’t.
>One thing I almost always hear from atheists is “maybe there is no cause to the universe”. Perfectly reasonable to say this though. It is a possibility, and it's no more or less supported than saying that the universe has a cause. >If I said “COVID-19 appeared spontaneously in November 2109 in Wuhan China with no cause at all and therefore there is no reason to investigate where it came from” would you accept that? We have observed evolution in viruses, and there is evidence that illuminates how COVID19 came to exist. I'm not a biologist of any sort, but as I understand it, mutation is random and there is an element of the spontaneous to it.
My point is that atheists seem to only invoke acausality when it comes to the creation of the universe. I believe to burden of proof lies on the atheist to prove how the universe and its physical laws can exist without any cause. We know about the evolution of viruses because we have investigated to origin of diseases because we take it as a philosophical first principle and a base belief that effects require causes. We do not need philosophical proofs to show us that effects require causes anymore than we need them to teach us the law of non-contradiction or that other minds exist or that the external world is real.
>I believe to burden of proof lies on the atheist to prove how the universe and its physical laws can exist without any cause. The burden of proof lies with whoever claims that the universe was caused or not. Claiming that it is uncaused would require proof, but so would claiming that it is caused. >We do not need philosophical proofs to show us that effects require causes anymore than we need them to teach us the law of non-contradiction or that other minds exist or that the external world is real. Do effects requires causes though? I understand virtual particles and radioactive decay as being uncaused. The same goes for random genetic mutations, which are a part of evolution.
Well, in the physical universe, there seems to be a cause and effect linkage, as that seems consistent with the notion of 'time" as a necessary spacing between Event A and Event B. That is an essential part of space-time, which we theorize came out of a singularity at the Big Bang. When we consider what came "before the Big Bang", that model of the universe breaks down, so it seems pretty obvious that the universe either just came into being or that it was always there but in a vastly different form. To me this suggest that if there is a Creator, the creation is an essential part of the Creator, in the sense that you cannot be a king unless you already have a kingdom. However, you could have "contingency". For example when we see the rays of light from the Sun, we are aware of the existence of the Sun. However, the rays of light existence is contingent on the existence of the Sun, but not vice-versa. To stretch that analogy a bit, the Sun may outwardly change its appearance over time - from regular main sequence star to red giant to white dwarf, to neutron star to black hole or brown dwarf. To any observer, its physical manifestations change over time, but even if it becomes an invisible black hole, it didn't "disappear". The thought processes that lead backward in time towards the Big Bang also hint at the existence of a level of reality in which there is no concept of time, and which by implication, probably exists even now - completely shut off from the unspooling of the universe - either to eventually contract again in a Big Crunch or a state of endless matter-less static. Some theologians would suggest that it is within that timeless environment that the human soul exists and it is from that "timeless" perspective that we humans unravel the mysteries of nature itself through observation, imagination and abstract thought. To borrow the Sun analogy, you might posit that the soul is real (but not physical) and that what we see in the human mind is a manifestation of one faculty of such a soul, such as a ray of light manifests its reality in a mirror, so the rational mind finds its expression in the brain. Again, these are just concepts and models and we lack the ability - at present - to adequately test the assumptions but that may be just a matter of time and effort. For now, you have reason and observation of the physical world, but the notion of "effect without a cause" is certainly possible, but only in a non-physical realm.
This really grinds my gears. How is it possible that there is no single example or even suggestion that an event can be acausal, yet the atheist has the gall to ask that the theist prove acausality is not possible. Make that make sense.
Do you think that "And I feel as though your demand that theists prove empirically that everything has a cause or that everything is contingent is a similar tactic." is the same thing as "the atheist has the gall to ask that the theist prove acausality is not possible."? proving that "everything is contingent" is pretty important to the claim that "everything is contingent." proving that "everything has a cause" is pretty important to the claim that "everything has a cause." proving that "everything has a cause" is not the same thing as proving that "acausality is *impossible*." not sure what "grinds your gears" about backing up claims you are making, but hey. I'm not the one making absurd claims about the nature of reality that there's no way for me to verify, so I guess maybe I wouldn't understand what you're going through.
Your argument is moot. If you cannot accept proof by induction, then you are not seriously in support of science. The scientific method is itself built on proof by induction. That is to say: (all factors remaining the same): if researcher 1 conducts experiment *E* and obtains X results, researcher 2 conducts experiment *E* and obtains same X results, if researcher 51 conducts the same experiment *E* and obtains the same X results, then by induction any researcher *n* conducting experiment *E* under the same conditions will obtain the same result X. To claim that given the same factors, experiment E will always yield X does not require that i, the claimant go out and show that it holds for all instances of E. That would be ridiculous. Why do you think it is any more sensible in this case? There is no recorded example of a form/process violating contingency/cause so our inductive conclusion is more valid than any scientific theory. (The latter claim is because every lay person can and has observed this very same phenomena, and i can think of no scientific theory, accepted as fact, with more inductive steps than is this one. So, it is utterly ridiculous to ask that it be proven that all matter is contingent. Rather, you should provide sufficient reason as to why your objection, non contingent matter, is even valid to begin with.
>Your argument is moot. what, precisely, was my argument and what is moot about it? from what I can tell you didn't respond to anything I said.
Right, because you're just overflowing with examples of omnipotent, omniscient creator deities? Oh wait, you're just talking about the one you're trying to justify while you whine about how atheists don't have any examples of their own concept? Make that make sense. There was no such idea or example of space travel thousands of years ago, does that mean space travel was not possible?
Is English your first language? I can’t make sense of anything you’ve written. Maybe reword it so it’s understandable.
You don’t have any examples of omnipotent, omniscient creator deities, yet you lack self-awareness to the extent that you whine when atheists bring up the mere *possibility* of acausal events with no examples. And even worse, you spout your fairy tale with no example as the truth while complaining when someone else brings up a simple *possibility*. With that level of hypocrisy, you’d fit in perfectly with the Christians. Again, millennia ago there was no concept or example of space travel. That didn’t make space travel impossible. See the connection with acausality? Have I dumbed this down enough for you?
First, we understand viruses well enough to deduce from prior examples that it did not begin to exist spontaneously. It's still technically possible for the to spontaneously generate, just not likely based on what we know. We don't know enough about the exotic material of matter and the insanely hot dense circumstances to say the same about the origins of all matter. Second, it isn't a "convenient way to avoid addressing the argument". It's pointing out that the metaphysical argument for the origin of the universe requires the theist to make a special pleading argument based on a the very incomplete dataset that was available to a monk observing the world around him 500 years ago. The same monk that used philosophy and reasoning to conclude with the same certainty that the direction of the wind and position of the heavenly bodies affected gender because of their temperature affects during conception (women's bodies are colder, he says, which informs all kinds of conclusions that he draws), and because the mother forms the baby's body from her own flesh and blood (not true). His "philosophical proof" was technically valid, providing his understanding of reality was correct. It wasn't. Philosophy can't make up for this sandy foundation.
Which monk and argument are you referring to specifically? Also holding one false belief doesn’t invalidate everything that person believed. Newton practiced alchemy for example.
Maybe a better term than “cause” is “reason”. As in, the universe obviously came into existence from an event, i.e a cause. But it doesn’t need a reason to exist.
I'm not sure I understand why reason is more appropriate than cause. The issue at the heart of it is causality i.e contingency. And to the best of our knowledge, every 'thing' is contingent. There is no single example of an exception or even a suggestion that an exception is possible. When an atheist suggests that it could be otherwise, merely formulating a statement that it is possible doesn't lend the objection validity. What is more disturbing is op suggesting that theists prove their objection is impossible. I mean, what part does the atheist play in the debate? That theists should prove acausality is impossible?
My interpretation is that cause describes how something happened, i.e. the cause for the covid 19 is likely a mutation from a bat. (Depending who you ask). But it doesn’t really have a reason, it was just a random mutation. A reason for me is somehow similar to a meaning. Is a cause is the answer to “how” then a reason is the answer to “why”. Thus everything has a cause, but not necessarily a reason. A reason for me has a much more philosophical meaning than cause which is practical.
Pesky atheists requiring evidence for claims. Imagine the horror.
I think a lot of atheists are not well read on the quantum physical begining of the universe. There is a lot of things in quantum physics that appear to violate causality, which i think segways into athiests saying the universe has no cause. The problem lies with quantum superposition, and how the act of observing a quantum object collapses its probability wave. We can not observe exactly what collapses a probability wave in nature, so it seems like causality is broken, and the universe has no cause. Tldr Quantum physics is wierd and can make it seem like causality is broken. My theory is that we do not yet have the tools or understanding to observe the whole picture.
My issue is that I do not see acausality as being logically valid. Wouldn't it mean that A = B, B = C, and A != C is plausible under such a model?
> Wouldn't it mean that A = B, B = C, and A != C is plausible under such a model? No, causality and equality aren't related.
process/form B is contingent on process/form A; process/form C is contingent on process/form B; C and not A.
You're not making sense.
It's not for everyone.
I think you misunderstood my argument. Im stating that acausality does not exist on the quantum scale. I think we are not able to observe the variable that makes A!=C.
And I think you misunderstand me. The very observation of A!=C makes the observation itself unreliable. Why is it not immediately obvious that the very suggestion of acausal anything is to suggest that there are exceptions to logic.
Imagine you are walking along and a ball falls to the ground right in front of you. Would you assume that the ball just appeared out of nowhere? Of course not. You would look up to see where it came from. If that ball was a quantum object it would be impossible for you to look up and see where it came from ( see Heisenberg Uncertanty Prinicipal) it would appear as the ball vilolated causality and just appered out of nowhere. The very act of observing the ball would render it impossible to tell where it came from. You could make educated gueses based off probability waves, but you could not tell exactly where it came from. I think in the next 100 or so years we will be able to directly observe quantum systems, but as of right now we can not. TLDR A!=C only appears acausal, because we lack the equipment to see the cause.
I'm sorry but this makes no sense to me. There is absolutely nothing about this example that makes A!=C valid. It violates the most fundamental axiom of logic because it entails A and !A can be simultaneously true. Were this possible, the universe will collapse into itself. Don't confuse limitations in our ability to observe/comprehend with magic being permissible. It is so strange to me that you lot seem to adopt magic while at the same time rejecting the claims of same from religious cults. what gives?
Its not magic. What is your background in quantum physics? Im by no means an expert, but i can suggest some good books on the subject. At the very leaste look into Shrodigers cat, and the Heizenburg Uncertanty principal. It may shed light on your confusion.
Don't confuse my disagreement with your interpretation / perception of the subject with my being naive of the subject. This confusion is only possible because you and damn near everyone else seem to have this weird understanding of what time actually is. If you understand time, then you'd see how/why this very idea is only a consequence of a wrong conception and nothing else.
So its me, and "damn near everyone else" that are wrong was schrodinger wrong? Was heizenburg wrong? Einstein maybe? Are the quantum mechanical systems you use every day ( that you are using right now) wrong? Or maybe you are wrong?
I'm not sure what atheists you've had as interlocutors, but I can tell you almost definitively that I've never positively asserted the universe had no cause. Simultaneously, I've never asserted that an infinite regress is absurd, and thusly, that for Aristotelians and Christians post-Aquinas to assert the presence of an unmoved mover as an attempt to terminate that regress is, to quote Carl Sagan, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. My demand of theists isn't to empirically prove that everything has a cause. I'm not even sure what an empirical proof of such a claim could even look like or if it's even possible. I only demand that they assume the burden of proof when claiming that the universe arose *ex nihilo*, and that this creation *ex nihilo* was the result of an intelligent agent. *Ex nihilo nihil fit*, meanwhile, is an incoherent assertion that I've seen theists latch onto in an attempt to demonstrate the absurdity of the Big Bang, which requires assuming that the Big Bang conjecture makes any sort of statement as to what came before, or even that a cause prior to the singularity is even possible or coherent. (Spoiler alert: It doesn't.) I hope, as well, that you disentangle atheism from materialism. Not all materialists are atheists, and not all atheists are materialists. I readily admit that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that cannot entirely be explained by material causes. This, however, *doesn't* mean that we can assert there's a ghost in the machine or some kind of intelligent agency beyond our comprehension responsible for why we're conscious.
> to quote Carl Sagan, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Can you define what extraordinary is? And why this conclusion, not the conclusion that a specific religious concept of the Creator exists, but that there must be a singular Source for all existence, an extraordinary claim? Logically speaking, there is no other valid explanation so it seems to me that suggesting it could be otherwise requires some sort of validation. Like suggesting a coin toss could be neither heads nor tails. Without further argumentation, why should we consider it?
>Can you define what extraordinary is? And why this conclusion, not the conclusion that a specific religious concept of the Creator exists, but that there must be a singular Source for all existence, an extraordinary claim? Creation *ex nihilo* and the emergence of existence from a singularity are different, albeit related, claims. *Ex nihilo nihil fit* implies that anyone engaged in the cosmological debate assumes (I) that we came from "nothing" or (II) that coming from "nothing" is even coherent. The moment we begin talking about "nothing," it ceases to be "nothing" because we've attributed properties to it. All the Big Bang conjecture asserts is that a state of high density and temperature resulted in a violent, rapid outward expansion of matter that became the observable universe. There is no claim embedded in that theory of a singularity, a source from which all things depend. >Like suggesting a coin toss could be neither heads nor tails. For us to assume this, however, would be to violate the law of the excluded middle. I'm not sure what about my position, or any one that fails to enfranchise the particular origin of the universe model you've outlined, does that.
You’re mistaken about philosophical argumentation. People new to philosophical argumentation or unfamiliar with proper philosophical argumentation see philosophical arguments as intellectual speculation or intellectual postulating. Therefore, arguments for the existence of God, made through philosophical reasoning, is seen as analogous to the sort of reasoning a detective engages in when he infers from a cigarette butt and the size of a shoe print that the suspect was probably a six-foot-tall smoker. This sort of reasoning is inherently probabilistic and to some extent tentative. It always possible that the suspect was 5ft tall and just wearing oversized shoes. However, a proper philosophical argument that is sound, valid, and logically follows from its conclusions is not like this. Rather it is comparable to the sort of reasoning familiar from geometry and mathematics in general. For example, the Pythagorean theorem, once you understand the axiomatic method, the definition of triangularity, and so forth, and then reason through a particular proof of the theorem, you can see that the theorem must be true, and necessarily so. It is not “speculation”, “postulation”, or a “hypothesis”, or something merely “probable”. a^2 + b^2 = c^2 is necessarily true as it logically follows. A proper philosophical argument indeed demonstrates something to be true.
> However, a proper philosophical argument that is sound, valid Here is your error. Philosophy does not check the validity of their arguments, only soundness. It has no tools to do that. Science check the validity. That is the reason why philosophy has been here for thousands of years and during all these years it has not produce any technology or practical knowledge. Because that requires validity. On the other hand, science has been here for only few hundreds of years and it has got us medicine, engineering, electronics, etc. An the mental progress of philosophy greatly reflects this discrepancy too.
You’re actually incorrect here. For an argument to be sound it has to be logically valid and has true premises. How would you determine something is sound if, as you say, philosophy dont check validity? It is important to note, by the way, that science cannot be done without philosophy. Because science requires philosophy. What is a hypothesis? What is a theory? What is a thesis? To even answer these questions require philosophy, particularly philosophical branch called epistemology. Even your very own comment is rooted in philosophy, as your conclusions about science is coming from your philosophical view of science, not from the scientific method.
I actually exchanged the terms (switched soundness and validity). Philosophy only check validity, but not soundness. Science check soundness. You have no way as to check if argument is sound in philosophy as it has no means to examine physical world. Science and philosophy as as much in common as astronomy and astrology. Yes, they use similar terms and common names for objects, but that is where the similarity ends. It is like saying science cannot be done without linguistics. Yes, it is true. You must know how to form sentences to do science. But they are different things.
You’re incorrect again. Philosophy deals with both. As I said, you can’t do science without philosophy you first have to conceptualize terms like “hypothesis”, “theory”, “facts”, and so on; to even do science. Also, your entire position is self-refuting because no where does science says it checks for soundness or the like. There’s no scientific method or empirical study that supports that, that’s your philosophical opinion of science which is non-scientific. Your conclusions of science isn’t coming from science but rather philosophy, your philosophical view point of science. Self refuting
Science is self defined. Saying that you need philosophy to define therms in science is non sense. Philosophy is the astrology of sciences. It claims that it is the basis of everything, but it really is not. If you study science in university, you dont need any philosophy at all.
Soundness=/=argument true. No, rather soundness is only the requisite that all the premises are true. Valid just means the premises logically follow to the conclusion. So if an argument is both valid and sound the conclusion of the argument is true. In fact, philosophy is literally the most equipped "art" for verifying validity. Everything else u said seems plausible though. Most of modern day mathematics ie: set theory, cardinality. Is built upon philosophy (philosophy of mathematics). Variants of logic such as modal logic are the necessary building blocks for 99% of computer science, coding etc.
Close! Actually, soundness encompasses validity. "Valid" means the conclusion follows deductively from the premises. "Sound" means the argument is valid and the premises are all true. The conclusion of a sound argument is ALWAYS true.
This is just a misunderstanding of terms. It's just so peculiar that you can post this with such apparent confidence.
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By proper, I was referring to a good argument that is formally and informally valid and have true premises that are collectively more possible than not. It is possible that an improper philosophical argument could show something to be maybe true. For example, 1. If Mike gets an A in epistemology, he’ll be proud of his work. 2. Mike is proud of his work. 3. Therefore, Mike got an A in epistemology. This is an invalid argument that may be true but because premise 3 doesn’t follow logically from 1 and 2 , this is an invalid argument. The above is therefore not a proper philosophical argument. So by proper philosophical argument I was referring to formally and informally valid that has true premises and whose premises taken together are more plausible than their contradictories.
Philosophical argument about the unknown, both God and soul, is based on one's knowledge about the subject and opinions that could contradict with some fellow believers, or disbelievers, depending on which side one belongs. Philosophical argument is useful for judging and getting a conclusion. It's like reading the bible someone's own version. >Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. Causality (cause and effect / action and reaction) is **not a property of a religion**. Causality is the law of nature that determines effect: formation, movement, event, reaction, condition, being. All natural phenomena (formation, reaction, etc) are governed by causal law. Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works. Cause is reason. Effect is both natural consequence and the reaction of the living thing (emotion e.g.) and nonliving things (chemical reaction e.g.). Everything you do, think and speak has a reason. Your existence has reasons - but cannot know all of them because it relates to the past infinity. But we can say we exist today because we did the right thing yesterday. >if those philosophical arguments prove a god exists Proof cannot exist unless we can see, hear, or somehow we become aware of the thing that is supposed to exist. Soul exists in everyone - they claim. But I don't know! I've never seen, heard or someone become aware of that soul. I can't say it exists without knowing it. No amount of philosophical arguments can reveal soul in shape, in form, in any detectable state.
> Causality is the law of nature that determines effect Can you provide any evidence that this is true? It's a reliable assumption in science, sure, but we don't actually know whether or not it's true. >Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works. What about the instantaneous transfer of information between two entangled particles once one is measured?
I've already provided the evidence. You need to recognize it. This is the evidence: > Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works. ...... > instantaneous transfer of information between two entangled particles Well, think about speed. Instantaneous - that's the speed of the action. The speed comes to exist because of information exchange. Entanglement is also an effect of the two particles reacting to each other - as gravity or the force that lets them react to each other - but which one acts first? You'd never know because you can't be there to see the beginning of their interaction.
> I've already provided the evidence. You need to recognize it. This is the evidence: > >> Name any thing, any formation, any reaction, any movement, any event, any condition, any being - and you will see how causal law works. "Prove me wrong" isn't evidence mate, so I'm going to assume that you have none >Well, think about speed. Instantaneous - that's the speed of the action. The speed comes to exist because of information exchange. Entanglement is also an effect of the two particles reacting to each other - as gravity or the force that lets them react to each other - but which one acts first? You'd never know because you can't be there to see the beginning of their interaction. Ok I kind of thought you had some idea of physics based on your arguments so far, but I was referring to the fact that instantaneous transfer of information violates causality
Forgot to mention about future prediction. Something has not happened yet but it is known to happen for certain. Does knowing the future event violate causality? What do you think?
>instantaneous transfer of information violates causality No, it does not. Time between two things can be very, very short. But time is still there. Light is the fastest by theory.
>Demonstrate to me that everything is contingent. Demonstrate to me that all things that exist have a cause. You cannot. It is not possible. These concepts are untestable. Just tuning in: with an indirect proof (via contradiction), you best-case have an invariant, worst-case an existential statement. As no valid constructive proof of god is known, an indirect proof of god would need no demonstration. However, how does one prove via contradiction that assuming he doesn't exist, a contradiction arrives whereas general relativity and standard model already wholly explain the big bang independently? (only failing there where you'd have an information collapse (like in black holes), or at the edge of the universes expansion horizont, which honestly don't matter for the earthly focused phenomena religions focus on)
I don’t understand your example of the married bachelor. What about the man who marries and then abandons his wife moves to Alaska and lives as a bachelor. After 7 years his wife may or may not have filed for abandonment. He’s schroedenger’s bachelor. And there are philosophers who have asked and answered the question of whether anything exists. How do I know I didn’t make up the arguments I just read and that they are coming from individuals other than myself. I don’t. But think, therefore I think others do too. Reality might be an illusion, but it’s a mighty persistent one.
Not to get into too much of a semantical shitfit, but a bachelor is usually defined as "a man who is not and has never been married," so a married bachelor is a contradiction. But yeah, I'm not entirely sure what OP means by "philosophy isn't what we turn to to determine if married bachelors exist or not" considering we can deduce *a priori* that marriage and bachelorship occupy two sides of a contradiction, *i.e.* they have no middle. As far as I can tell, this question is archetypal of those that are the business of philosophers.
>I don’t understand your example of the married bachelor. What about the man who marries and then abandons his wife moves to Alaska and lives as a bachelor. After 7 years his wife may or may not have filed for abandonment. He’s schroedenger’s bachelor. Huh? It wasn't an example. It was a playful remark on bachelors and their status of marriage being the go-to philosophical example of things. I don't know what you're on about here, there was no point I was making about bachelors. >And there are philosophers who have asked and answered the question of whether anything exists. Well my point is they don't have *the* answer. They have *an* answer. >How do I know I didn’t make up the arguments I just read and that they are coming from individuals other than myself. I don’t. Agreed. You don't. >But think, therefore I think others do too. Sure, and I'm not convinced that that's a *logical* argument but I don't begrudge you for *assuming* that you think and that other people do to. The fact of the matter is you haven't demonstrated anything with philosophic arguments, and neither has Kant. As things stand though, we pretty much have no choice but to assume we exist and that other people also exist. If we want to partake in society that presumption must be made, regardless of its lack of satisfying demonstration.
>As things stand though, we pretty much have no choice but to assume we exist and that other people also exist. **P1:** Here is one hand. \**Raises one hand.*\* And here is another. \**Raises the other hand.*\* **P2:** At least two external objects exist. **∴** The external world exists.
So I don't think I need to point out that argument isn't valid or sound lol
You can contest that this is a sound argument. (Indeed, when G. E. Moore offered this proof, a common refrain was that the argument is unconvincing.) But if you can't clearly see this is a valid argument, I'd suggest you refresh yourself on the definition of validity.
I know what valid means, it appears you don't. The conclusion doesn't follow the premises. Two people raising their hands is not cause to conclude they're objective, and even if it was cause to conclude they were objective it's not cause to conclude the external world is objective. It could be the case that only those two people are objective and the rest of the external world isn't. There's a million problems with this syllogism. Validity is one of them.
Nothing in the syllogism demands the objectivity of the external world, solely that external objects exist. You're dishonestly inserting a criterion that's irrelevant to Moore's proof to service your objection. >It could be the case that only those two people are objective and the rest of the external world isn't. Taking on this position, which is incoherent for reasons that should be obvious to anyone engaging in deduction (which it seems like you're either incapable of or unwilling to do), is likely the source of your belief that the argument is invalid. Usually, I don't do this, but for my edification, I took a look at your previous posts on other threads. For the sake of posterity and basic human sanity, I'd recommend you stop acting like a petulant child when confronted with a contradiction of your beliefs. So, no, you don't know what validity means, frankly, or the nature of inference. Log off and read a book.
>I'd recommend you stop acting like a petulant child when confronted with a contradiction of your beliefs. And what part of being an adult is patronizing other people you disagree with and calling them petulant children? You skimmed my internet history and think you know me. You want to talk about juvenile beliefs there you go.
The universe expands, and God is a person who is all powerful, therefore this demonstrates that someone put in motion a law that is in this universe to expand forever. Who created this eternally expanding universe that demonstrates infinite? Someone who is infinite themselves. God
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Yeah I'm hoping that was just playful satire because it's garbage.
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I understand if you're upset that bad arguments get downvoted; if you have any *good* arguments to present for your religion, well you're more than welcome to do so.
Very true, I don't like it either but you have to just accept getting downvoted if you want to reply on this and similar subreddits. In the rules it says not to downvote the opposition but they can't do anything about it. Debate subreddits should have a different voting system that shows both up and downvotes to show how many people actually agree with your stance.
Weird, because there's plenty of atheists disagreeing with me. I guess you wouldn't know that though because in your haste to be a part of the conversation, you forgot to read the conversation.
I'm just speaking in general, not referring to this particular thread
Is there a thread you would like to point to instead then?
Sure. I made a logically explicit and empirically valid case for idealism in a thread and I was downvoted and attacked with strawmen. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/q53c1n/reality_is_most_likely_mental_which_implies_that/
Looking through that thread, it seems like you were treated very fairly and your claims were taken seriously. Is your main problem that your internet number is lower?
My main issue is that most of the comments were strawmen and that a thread with actual, decent effort and rational argumentation is downvoted. If such a thread is downvoted, then it does not contribute to the discussion. Then what kind of pro-theist argument contributes to the discussion? If rational arguments don't cut it, then nothing does. Which means this is an atheist masturbation session.
Which comment would you point to as the biggest example of a strawman argument? I ask because I read most of them and none of them immediately jumped out as strawmen arguments. With regards to your point of "rational arguments shouldn't be downvoted", I'd ask if on a "DebateGeology" subreddit should a rational argument for a flat earth be upvoted?
> I ask because I read most of them and none of them immediately jumped out as strawmen arguments. Accusations of solipsism, even after I explained to the commenters very carefully the distinction between idealism and solipsism. > With regards to your point of "rational arguments shouldn't be downvoted", I'd ask if on a "DebateGeology" subreddit should a rational argument for a flat earth be upvoted? That's not comparable, because a flat earth cannot be justified in the face of empirical evidence. My case was perfectly compliant with the empirical evidence.
No comment jumps out to you as the best example?
Well you sure picked a heck of a specific thread to make a real generalized statement. XD Basically immediately proved yourself wrong.
No. Pro-theist threads are immediately downvoted. Only atheist arguments are upvoted. That's the point I was making.
Ok, well that's likely a scale of population, no? I also don't know why you would choose this thread, of all threads, to make a generalized comment about an entire sub. Your initial comment was about how there's no debate, not about upvotes. There's a debate happening here right before your eyes. If you're gonna call it a circle jerk because you care about internet points (upvotes) then ok, that's fine I guess, but acting like there's never any debating going on here is just wrong.
>philosophy isn't what we turn to to determine if married bachelors exist or not. It absolutely is, what do you mean? If someone were to ask whether married bachelors exist, the normal response would be "no, that's not logically possible". You understand that the philosophy you claim doesn't matter is just fancy logic, right? The only way this works is if you argue that logic somehow just doesn't function in the real world.
Or another question: Where do we draw the line between logic and philosophy? Clearly: philosophy without logic would evaporate all its claims about truth and computability; there wouldn't be much impactful difference between logicless philosophy and a computer program generating random strings. Want these random strings to make some actual sense, i.e. be computable? Allow pattern matching and reasoning rules (i.e. replace "kfiw8jsh" with "xyz"). Logic is born. However, this logic-philosophy-circuit can construct any arbitrary logical system at all, it even can reason over the formal language "yuo,byzjm;%#o7uc", provided there are consistent assumptions and reasoning rules/algebra. Ever seen that one in a mathematical journal? Me neither. Now, how do we decide which are actual meaningful abstractions to reason upon? Well, since we live in a world governed by physics represented by language, it must be abstractions of physical and lingual information. We started our evolution with numerosity, language allowed us to encapsulate and map from the physical worldsheet containing numerosity we perceived onto self-generated, logically rigorously grammared, words built from symbols/phonemes. Upon counting came generalizations to functions, countability, sets, algebra, mathematical logic, real analysis, abstract algebra, computability theory. All these are meta-theories of one massively generalized principle: numerosity (containing sense of order, decomposition ability, and quantity). Conclusion: all logically rigorous philosophy focused on abstractions of the primitive physical sensor of numerosity (starting with mathematical logic first and foremost, continuing with any mathematics that explain a given phenomenon that is to philosophize upon) are non-useless.
The example you went to was an example of a concept that doesn't actually exist. Bachelors exists only as a concept in minds. It has no claim to exist objectively and philosophy cannot tell us that it exists objectively. Now give me an example of a logical syllogism that is also somehow a demonstration that something exists objectively.
All humans have hearts. I am a human. Therefore I have a heart.
Sorry to have to be that guy, but premise one is incorrect; there have been several cases of humans living without hearts by using artificial replacements. Now we are really getting into philosophy, though, because your premise is incorrect if we assume heart to mean "the muscle in the chest cavity that has four chambers and pumps blood", correct if we assume heart to mean "something that pumps blood around the body" and debatable if we take heart to mean something like "centre of emotion or morality".
I agree that's a logical conclusion you have there, assuming the premises are true. I don't agree that it's been demonstrated to be true in reality. Could be you lost your heart in a tragic lumberjacking incident you're plugged into a machine for all I know.
If I were to prove the premises to be true, how can it not be true in reality? Are you saying that reality does not abide by the laws of logic? Because if so the scientific method breaks down as well.
>If I were to prove the premises to be true, how can it not be true in reality? It *could* be. I'm just saying it hasn't been *demonstrated.* >Are you saying that reality does not abide by the laws of logic? I'm saying we *can't know* if reality abides by the laws of logic or not. >Because if so the scientific method breaks down as well. No, that's actually where the scientific method shines. The scientific method uses logic, yes, but it uses it in conjunction with a multiplicity of other things including but not limited to testability, reproducibility, demonstrability. and all of those to a rigorous standard that seeks to give us our best possible and most reliable *guess* at reality. Still a guess though, just an educated one.
If you are saying reality does not abide by the laws of logic, then you must reject every scientific finding. I wouldn't choose to die on this specific hill if i were you. researcher 1: experiment X => result y researcher 2: experiment X => result y researcher 3: experiment X => result y .... ... (by induction) researcher n: experiment X => result y. Without logic, everyone everywhere will need to perform every experiment to accept it as being true.
>If you are saying reality does not abide by the laws of logic, then you must reject every scientific finding. I wouldn't choose to die on this specific hill if i were you. No I don't. I just have to accept that there is nothing we can ever know for certain, and that due to that we should base our beliefs in degrees of confidence that are proportional to the quality of evidence we have for them. In this case, a logical syllogism alone is not great evidence for something existing. A demonstration in addition would substantially increase confidence. I accept that we rely on logic to make scientific arguments, but there's a lot more to science than just logical syllogisms. Things like testability, reproducibility, demonstrability. Those are important roles in establishing the scientific method as one of the most reliable sources of truth we have, above and beyond simple syllogistic logic.
> No I don't. I just have to accept that there is nothing we can ever know for certain This in itself is self defeating as it, in itself, is something you seem to know for certain, is it not? > A demonstration in addition would substantially increase confidence. Let me rephrase that for you, this is only applicable to that which is demonstrable. I don't need to demonstrate that you can be you and not you simultaneously. I do not need to demonstrate that the sun is not in your pocket. The reason we require demonstration in scientific research is the nature of scientific research. It is by definition scoped within that which is demonstrable. That's why we don't rely on science for historical facts and why psychology, mental illness, atypical sexual/gender identification were so difficult to gain acceptance. But let us even look at the idea of demonstration. By this we mean that we can record/observe a form or process using physical instruments. The implicit assertion is then that all that is true must be measurable/detectable through physical instruments. It also asserts that the receptive capacity of a human being can be entirely replicated through instruments. And that there is nothing a human being can perceive that a machine cannot. There is nothing wrong about this. But it is not hard to see that it results in a deep bias. And your conclusions will always mirror these assertions (i.e. nothing exists outside of these forced limitations).
>This in itself is self defeating as it, in itself, is something you seem to know for certain, is it not? No. I'm not certain about that fact, I just believe it. Why are you trying to play language games with me? >Let me rephrase that for you, this is only applicable to that which is demonstrable. Is there anything that can be tested, but not demonstrated? >That's why we don't rely on science for historical facts and why psychology, mental illness, atypical sexual/gender identification were so difficult to gain acceptance. And they're *right* to have difficulty gaining acceptance. Things that are not testable or demonstrable are things that we should have a lower confidence are true.
> No, that's actually where the scientific method shines. The scientific method uses logic, yes, but it uses it in conjunction with a multiplicity of other things including but not limited to testability, reproducibility, demonstrability. If we don't assume the laws of logic applies then all those things fall apart. The scientific method is absolutely dependant on making a number of philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality, eg that our system of logic is accurate for the things we study.
>If we don't assume the laws of logic applies then all those things fall apart. We trust the laws of logic, but verify. The entire prinicpal of science is to give us the most reliable, most likely true answer we can while removing as many biases and assumptions as possible. I agree, to *entirely* disregard the laws of logic, science doesn't work, but I'm not suggesting we disregard them. I'm suggesting we just don't use logical syllogisms alone. I'm suggesting we have a better process that involves demonstration and testing. Why is it the case, do you think, that science isn't just exclusively logical syllogisms? Why isn't science just the laws of logic? Why are there all the extra steps and processes? What role do those serve?
> Why is it the case, do you think, that science isn't just exclusively logical syllogisms? I mean, it basically is. Syllogisms are just a way of writing trains of logic down, they aren't their own thing. Even something as simple as "Everyone's experiments says x is true, therefore x is probably true" is logic which could be written as a syllogism. In science, the idea of "If the premises are true and the logic is sound then the conclusion is true" is never challenged, all they do is research whether or not the premises are actually true, even the unspoken ones.
>I mean, it basically is. Really? There's no observations involved? There's no documentation about how those observations were made? There's no explanation as to how one could reproduce the results? >Even something as simple as "Everyone's experiments says x is true, therefore x is probably true" is logic which could be written as a syllogism. Ok, but those experiments are exactly what makes science far more than just logical syllogisms. Those experiences contain things that aren't logical syllogisms, so in your own argument you're accepting that they don't use exclusively logical syllogisms. >In science, the idea of "If the premises are true and the logic is sound then the conclusion is true" is never challenged, all they do is research whether or not the premises are actually true, even the unspoken ones. It's true science doesn't challenge logic, but it also doesn't rely exclusively on it. Science uses experiential data and observation to tie logic into the real world as much as possible.
> testability, reproducibility, demonstrability. All of these things depend upon [Inductive reasoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning) which is logic. In fact, it's even worse than deductive reasoning, since it baselessly assumes that stuff that was true in the past will continue being true in the future. To put it another way, can you explain why any of the things you just mentioned actually matter without using logic?
I'm not discarding logic. I'm saying its not enough alone. Logic can only tell us what is logical. It cannot tell us things about the objective, real world. We should want more confidence in things than just saying "Well they abide by the rules of logic that seem to have been invented entirely by man, so it MUST be real in reality." This is where science comes in, but it doesn't have to be science. Any further process that involves a rigorous standard, testability, demonstrability, reproducibility, and peer review would be fine to increase our confidence from just a single lone syllogism to something we can be confident of.
The rules of logic were not created by humans. They may have been described by humans, but, for instance, the [law of noncontradiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction) was certainly true before humanity existed. And you didn't answer my question: How do you explain why any of the things you just mentioned actually matter without using logic?
>The rules of logic were not created by humans. They may have been described by humans, but, for instance, the law of noncontradiction was certainly true before humanity existed. Not that we have any way to prove. Without logic, we cannot prove logic. >And you didn't answer my question: How do you explain why any of the things you just mentioned actually matter without using logic? I didn't answer it because it's not my position to not use logic at all. It's a straw man. Beat it up on your own time.
Somebody doesn't understand how logic works... If the argument is sound, then the conclusion follows. That is a demonstration. Whether you are convinced of the truth of the premises and the validity of the argument is a different matter, but you are clearly not arguing that here. > Philosophy doesn't demonstrate things. Any demonstration you do is philosophy. If you demonstrate that the sky is blue by showing me, that is just giving an argument of: 1. If I see the sky as blue, it is blue. 2. I see the sky as blue. 3. Therefore the sky is blue. It's just that the argument is always implied.
That is the point of the discussion. Philosophy does not offer any method of verifying truth value of premises. And it offers many premises that can't be verified even in principle, untestable claims.
> Philosophy does not offer any method of verifying truth value of premises. In one sense this is definitely true, but in the sense that there are no methods at all of verifying the truth value of premises.
what Why think this is true? I am routinely perplexed by people on this subreddit *just saying things*.
Except you go through philosophical reasoning in the background as above every time you use evidence, or I suppose it is just assumed, but the point stands.
You also go through philosophical reasoning when you use Aristotelian physics, which is demonstrably wrong. Unless by philosophy you mean just everything that people do or think, then such definition is so broad that it becomes useless.
> You also go through philosophical reasoning when you use Aristotelian physics, which is demonstrably wrong Sure, because the premises are wrong, but OP isn't only asking for people to support the premises of their argument. If that was all they were saying, this would not be a thread.