Josh Anderson writes:
Yes, it is. Here’s the question you should ask yourself: Is symbolic code something that blind, intelligence-free physical processes could create and use? Or is mind alone up to the task?
The legendary John Von Neumann did important work on self-replicating systems. A towering giant in the history of mathematics and pioneer in computer science, he was interested in describing machine-like systems that could build faithful copies of themselves.
Von Neumann soon recognized that it would require both hardware and software. Such a system had to work from a symbolic representation of itself. That is, it must have a kind of encoded picture of itself in some kind of memory.
Crucially, this abstract picture had to include a precise description of the very mechanisms needed to read and execute the code. Makes sense, right? To copy itself it has to have a blueprint to follow. And this blueprint has to include instructions for building the systems needed to decode and implement the code.
Here’s the remarkable thing: Life is a Von Neumann Replicator. Von Neumann was unwittingly describing the DNA based genetic system at the heart of life. And yet, he was doing so years before we knew about these systems.
The implications of this are profound. Think about how remarkable this is. It’s like having the blueprints and operating system for a computer stored on a drive in digital code that can only be read by the device itself. It’s the ultimate chicken and egg scenario.
How might something like this have come about? For a system to contain a symbolic representation of itself the actualization of precise mapping between two realms, the physical realm and an abstract symbolic realm.
In view here is a kind of translation, mechanisms that can move between encoded descriptions and material things being described. This requires a system of established correlations between stuff out here and information instantiated in a domain of symbols.
Here’s the crucial question: Is this something that can be achieved by chance, physical laws, or intelligence-free material processes? The answer is decidedly NO. What’s physical cannot work out the non-physical. Only a mind can create a true code. Only a mind can conceive of and manage abstract, symbolic realities. A symbolic system has to be invented. It cannot come about in any other way.
If you think something like this – mutually interdependent physical hardware and encoded software – can arise through unguided, foresight-less material forces acting over time, think again. If I were to ask you to think of something, anything that absolutely requires intelligence to bring about, you’d be hard pressed to think of a better example. It’s not just that no one understands how it could be done, it’s that we have every reason to believe that it is impossible in principle. No intelligence-free material processes could ever give you something like this.
But wait, how can we be so sure this feature of life was not forged by evolution, built up incrementally by the unseen hand of natural selection? What’s to say this is beyond the ability of evolution to create?
The question answers itself. In order for evolution to take place you have to have a self-replicating system in place. You don’t evolve to the kind of thing we’ve been describing. That is, necessarily, where you begin.
The DNA and the dizzyingly complex molecular machinery that it both uses and describes did not evolve into existence. This much is clear. Any suggestion that it did is not based on a scintilla of empirical evidence or any credible account of how it could have come about in this way.
The conclusion is clear: The unmistakable signature of mind is literally in every cell of every living thing on earth.
Watch a few seconds of this to remind yourself of the kind of mind-bending sophistication in view here:
Note that John von Neumann mathematically showed that the information content of the simplest self-replicating machine is about 1500 bits of information. This is a vast amount of information, since information bits are counted on a logarithmic scale, and it cannot be explained by any natural process, since it far exceeds the information content of the physical (non-living) universe. Therefore, since self-replicating organisms obviously exist on Earth, their origin must come from the only known source of this level of information – an intelligent mind of capability far beyond our mental ability – consistent with the biblical view of God.
Human beings are made of around 30 trillion little self-replicating machines or cells. If the existence of all the cells in a human being cannot be accounted for by natural processes then we must all have been designed?
Seversky at 1,
It is the only reasonable conclusion. ID research has found great levels of complexity in living things that natural/evolutionary processes could not have stumbled on, regardless of the amount of time available. Chaos cannot order itself. Order creates order. Intelligence creates order.
the complexity, self-replicating molecules, codes, … yes, we heard that before … of course, this is a good argument, no rational person can deny it … but let’s don’t forget, we are not talking to rational persons … Darwinists can ignore and ‘debunk’ almost everything …
I as an engineer, i think, that one of the best arguments for designed cell is the capability of detecting errors/ damage … and then to repair it.
Inside the cell, everything gets repaired. From cell membrane to DNA molecule.
The moment all the damage sensing and repair machinery was discovered, Darwinism was falsified and creation confirmed.
These features are fundamental for life. If things don’t get repaired = cancer = no life = no ‘evolution’.
If you are a Darwinist, you have to believe, that these damage sensing and repair mechanisms emerged at the same moment, because the damage sensing triggers the repair machinery … as a Darwinist, you also have to believe, that this damage sensing/repair mechanisms evolved instantly, in the beginning of “whatever it was” … otherwise, there won’t be any life or ‘evolution’ … as a Darwinist, you have to believe in very absurd things …
Here is a very nice DNA Damage and Repair animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFr0xTMV5k
This is wrong. Biologists who subscribe to the concept of Darwinian evolution have no need of such a belief.
Alan Fox @4
you are wrong. But it does not surprise me. You people don’t even understand what you have to believe in … and how high your level of faith has to be :)))))
@5
Ah, got to love UD: if you disagree with someone else’s description of your beliefs, it’s you who’s wrong!
PM1 at 6,
Both sides can’t be right.
PM1/6
That’s one of the least of their annoying habits….
PM,
but you guys ARE wrong. That is a fact.
@9
It’s one thing to say that our beliefs are false; it’s quite something else to say that we’re mistaken about what our beliefs are.
It’s much easier to dispute their claims that way.
As often happens, the comments ignore the main point of the post. Taking it back to Seversky@1, who wrote:
“Human beings are made of around 30 trillion little self-replicating machines or cells. If the existence of all the cells in a human being cannot be accounted for by natural processes then we must all have been designed?”
I’ll answer in the affirmative. We are designed, and by a designer that must be transcendent to this universe – consistent with God. If designed, then we are significant, not an accidental outgrowth of natural forces, like erosion of a mountainside. The biblical account of our origin and the purpose of our existence offers us hope. Such is the “good news of great joy” announced at the first Christmas.
Caspian at 12,
Exactly right.
“The biblical account of our origin and the purpose of our existence offers us hope. Such is the “good news of great joy” announced at the first Christmas.”
It’s Hope for the hopeless. Even for stubborn hopeless UD trolls.
Andrew
Caspian/12
Surely you are not implying that humans cannot find significance (or hope or meaning) without subscribing to a biblical “worldview?”
CD at 15,
Where do people find significance, or hope or meaning, outside of a Biblical worldview?
That’s why Darwinian Evolution
and punctuated equilibrium are self refuting.
Things must happen simultaneously if they are to be meaningful in Darwinian Evolution or else the ecology is destroyed. So what actually happens is that Darwinian processes only produce trivial changes that cannot add up to anything in the Evolution debate.
They may be important for adaptation but not Evolution. We call the science that studies these changes, genetics.
ID completely accepts modern genetics. So ID accepts Darwinian processes because while they cannot produce anything of consequence for Evolution, they are important for nearly all species at certain times.
That’s why Darwin’s finches are excellent for ID’s mascots.
Let’s go finches.
Relatd writes, “Where do people find significance, or hope or meaning, outside of a Biblical worldview?”
That is an incredibly narrow, parochial statement. It’s one thing to be attached attached to your religious view, and believe it brings you significance, hope, and meaning. It’s another to thing that your religious view is the only possible way for people to find significance, hope, and meaning in their life. Leaving aside the non-religious such as myself, who have no problem finding significance, hope, and meaning in our lives, there are billions of people of non-Biblical religions who also find significance, hope, and meaning in their lives through their religious beliefs: Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists being the major religions.
I don’t see how you can demean so many of your fellow human beings. It’s a sad commentary on the divisiveness fostered by tribal religious beliefs.
VL at 18,
Instead of accusing me of something, answer the question.
Oh, I demean people? Give me a break.
I did answer: through other non-Biblical religious beliefs, as well as non-religious beliefs. Obviously, billions of such people find significance, hope, and meaning in their lives.
Demean means “to lower in character, status, or reputation” or “to lower in dignity, honor, or standing”.
That is what you are doing when you imply that non-Biblical believes can’d find significance, hope and meaning , but Biblical believers can: you are elevating your religion and lowering all others.
I think demean is an appropiate word.
VL at 20,
I asked a question. You went into Accusation Mode. You have no interest in discussing things or asking me questions like “Are you are tribal religionist out to demean people?” Don’t assume anything, OK?
Martin-r @3
The following story about repair is absolutely mindblowing:
How does it work? Incomprehensible!
My answer was that people with non-Biblical religious beliefs can find significance, hope, and meaning in their lives.
Do you think that is true?
If a person is incapable of finding hope, significance and meaning independent of a biblical world view then the hope, significance and meaning they find with a biblical world view is just an illusion.
VL at 23,
That wasn’t your first answer. Please don’t accuse and call people names based on an assumption. A guess. If I’m not clear then ask for some clarification instead of immediately jumping to a conclusion, OK? That makes for a discussion.
What I think doesn’t matter. Tell me exactly where and how you find meaning in your life.
Realtd, your question was “Where do people find significance, or hope or meaning, outside of a Biblical worldview?”
My answer was “there are billions of people of non-Biblical religions who also find significance, hope, and meaning in their lives through their religious beliefs: Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists being the major religions.”
Do you agree with my answer: that people can find significance, hope, and meaning through religions other than Biblical ones?
VL at 26,
It appears you don’t want to have a discussion. Oh well.
VL, I would argue that for many, significance, meaning and hope can be enhanced by religious beliefs, but they can’t be created by them.
Relatd, I don’t see how you can say I don’t want a discussion? You asked a question. I provided an answer, and want to know whether you agree with my answer or not. That seems like the kind of thing that takes place in a discussion.
What kind of response would you want me to provide that would qualify in your eyes as being part of a discussion?
Exactly how does one go about finding any real significance, purpose, and meaning for life, (much less finding any real hope for eternal life), within Atheistic Naturalism?,,, A worldview which explicitly denies that such ‘abstract’ entities as “significance, purpose, meaning, and hope” even exist?
,,, Atheistic naturalism is an inherently nihilistic worldview which explicitly denies that we have any real significance to our lives,,, even engendering a claim from the late Hawking that our lives have no more significance than ‘chemical scum’,,,,, a nihilistic worldview which also claims that the universe, and therefore our lives in the universe, have no real, and ultimate ‘teleological purpose’, behind their existence, (it’s all a big ole purposeless accident of some random quantum fluctuation),,,,, and that, therefore, there simply can be no real meaning ever found for our lives in this big ole ‘accidental’ universe which just so happened to spring into existence, in a flash of light, for absolutely no reason whatsoever,,, a naturalistic worldview which also entails that we are purely physical beings, with no immaterial, i.e. spiritual, component to our being, and that, therefore, life ends at the grave and there simply can be no real hope for life beyond death?
Fortunately for us, and thank God, all these nihilistic claims inherent within atheistic naturalism are all found to be false claims.
Verse:
Of supplemental note
Scroll, scroll, scroll.
There are many warnings but some ears do not hear.
Psalm 14:1
‘The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.’
Luke 16:31
“He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
The State religion in the Soviet Union was atheism. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, religion returned.
Post 32 by relatd appears to be in response to BA’s post about atheism, not in response to my posts about non-Biblical religions. Do I understand that correctly?
Dear Viola Lee
My understanding is that Islam IS a Biblical religion. Moslems themselves regard it Biblical, calling themselves Abrahamic, as their foundation is the Old Testament. Christians have historically agreed. For example, in his Divine Comedy, Dante regarded Islam as a Christain heresy, somewhat like Arianism. That is becuase Moslems, like Arius, do not believe that Jesus is God, but they do believe that He was a great prophet. They call Him the “Gentle Prophet”. They often exchange gifts on Christmas, and believe that Mary was a virgin and that she is the highest woman in heaven.
I beleive we are diverging far from the topic of this thread.
In this thread, our Atheist and Agnostic friends have once again avoided discussing the scientific evidence for a belief in a non-supernatural origin of life.
Thus I enourage them to state their position clearly on whether or not there is ANY scientific evidence that life originated without a supernatural cause..
But nowadays, Creationism is in the catbird seat largely because of they have no case on this matter.
Above in this thread details are given about various cellular mechanisms/machinery including repair, etc. These are observed and still there is a demand for proof that they require design. The same people demanding such proof would fully understand that if a claim were made that the simplest of machines, eg toothpicks, screws, pins, safety pins, let alone a piece of cloth, were produced by natural processes, the burden of proof would be on the one making the claim. Absurd!
What scientific evidence?
Bornagain77 & Relatd: Where do people find significance, or hope or meaning, outside of a Biblical worldview?
They find those things in the interactions they have on a daily basis with people they love and like and enjoy being with. They find those things in their work or play or hobbies. They find those things in various art forms they experience. They find those things just walking through the woods or climbing mountains or watching the waves crash against a beach. They find those things everywhere in life. They don’t need to be told what should be significant or meaningful or hopeful; they find out for themselves. They are not children that need to be disciplined or held to a particular moral line. Most importantly of all: they do not have to agree with you what is significant or hopeful or meaningful. You’ve spent decades on this planet and you don’t understand billions of other human beings and what they value then I think you should spend some time getting to know something about the world you live in. You should learn how to see things from other people’s point of view.
You expect others to respect your stance but you clearly have not even bothered to make an attempt to find out what makes others tick. Why else would you ask the question you asked? The world is not black and white, it’s many, many lovely shades, like a coat of many colours. Thank goodness! Maybe you should experience some of those colours and see if they ‘suit’ you?
After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, religion returned.
And that’s worked well for them hasn’t it? Let’s see . . . under their new Christian tolerant regime they have supported genocide in Syria, annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine killing thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women and children. All good then.
TLH/38
My question at Comment No. 15 was specifically directed to Caspian’s Comment No. 12. To the extent that Caspian, the moderator, puts something in play, my view is that it is fair game for comment. Understanding also that implicit in every question is a comment, I am trying to find out the scope of Caspian’s claim, i.e., if the ID/biblical path is the only path to “significance” or simply one of many ways to manifest meaning, significance and hope in one’s life. If he intended the latter, then I have no problem with Caspian’s observation. If he intended the former, then VL’s Comment No. 18 is spot on…
Thanks to JVL at 39 and CD at 40 for adding some more substance to some of what motivated my post at 18.
Viola Lee: Thanks to JVL at 39 and CD at 40 for adding some more substance to some of what motivated my post at 18.
🙂 I think what annoyed Relatd (in this particular case) is that you didn’t directly answer his question; you tried to get at the assumptions and attitude behind the question which, of course, he found offensive. He’ll probably find my response offensive as well. Oh well. He never worries about offending others so it would be disingenuous for him to get all worked up over some he disagrees with.
at 39 JVL, a Darwinian Atheist, argues, basically, that people don’t need God in order to “find significance, or hope or meaning”.
JVL gives some examples of people, supposedly, finding “significance, or hope or meaning” all without God.
The trouble with JVL’s claim is that none of those things would exist without God. JVL’s worldview of Darwinian Atheism simply lacks the basis to ground any of the things he appealed to.
For instance, “People”, i.e. humanity in general, much less “love” for other people, simply can find no grounding within his worldview Darwinian Atheism.
People, i.e. “Man, the universal”, simply does not exist within the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution.
What about grounding our ‘love’ of fellow humans within Darwinian atheism? Forget about it! Love, and/or morally noble altruistic behavior of any sort, is simply completely antithetical to Darwin’s “One general law” of letting “the strongest live and the weakest die”, i.e. Darwin’s ‘death as creator’ view of reality.
How about grounding “work or play or hobbies”? Can Darwinian atheism possibly ground any of those inspirational things? Well, working, playing and/or doing a hobby, all entail that some goal, and/or purpose, is trying to be achieved by someone, or by some group of people. Yet, teleological, goal-oriented,, purpose of any kind can simply find no grounding within JVL’s worldview of Darwinian Atheism.
How about people finding “significance, or hope or meaning” in the “various art forms they experience”? Can Darwinism materialism ground the inspirational beauty we find in art? In a word, No!
As the following video makes clear, art is merely a reflection and imitation, of the beauty that an artist finds in the world,
And Darwinian Atheists are simply at a complete loss to explain the beauty we see in nature.
In fact, Charles Darwin himself denied the objective reality of beauty and even said that, “This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.”
In short, Darwin, because of his reductive materialistic presuppositions, was forced to hold beauty to be, merely, ‘illusory’.
Might it be too obvious to point out that, directly contrary to what Charles Darwin believed, that we live in world overflowing with ‘objectively real’ beauty?
Moreover, the existence of ‘objectively real’ beauty turns out to be a fairly powerful argument for the existence of God.
JVL goes on to say, people “find those things, (“significance, or hope or meaning”), just walking through the woods or climbing mountains or watching the waves crash against a beach. They find those things everywhere in life. They don’t need to be told what should be significant or meaningful or hopeful; they find out for themselves.”
Yet, the fact that people “don’t need to be told” that those things are inspirational is proof, in and of itself, that people intuitively know that all those good and beautiful things come from God.
You see, the ‘default’, intuitive, belief of people, including atheists, when shown beautiful landscapes in rapid succession, (before they have time to censor their reactions), is to believe that beautiful landscapes are ‘purposely made’.
So yes, I agree wholeheartedly with JVL, people ‘don’t need to be told’ that the things he listed are meaningful, beautiful, and inspirational. Yet, the reason we do find inspiration in those things is because God “spiritually hardwired” the ability to draw inspiration from those beautiful things into us.
It is JVL himself, via his Darwinian materialism, that is, number 1, at a complete loss to explain the ‘objectively real’ existence of beauty in the first place, and number 2, much less can JVL, with his Darwinian atheism, possibly explain why we should find such deep inspiration in such beautiful things.
Any worldview/religion that involves the end of personal existence, posits necessarily that one’s life has no intrinsic meaning. Instead, it follows that one’s life can only have meaning for (and can only be experienced by) something external to oneself — ‘society’, ‘nature’, ‘cosmos’, ‘Brahman’, or whatever.
Bornagain77: The trouble with JVL’s claim is that none of those things would exist without God. JVL’s worldview of Darwinian Atheism simply lacks the basis to ground any of the things he appealed to. For instance, “People”, i.e. humanity in general, much less “love” for other people, simply can find no grounding within his worldview Darwinian Atheism.
And
What about grounding our ‘love’ of fellow humans within Darwinian atheism? Forget about it! Love, and/or morally noble altruistic behavior of any sort, is simply completely antithetical to Darwin’s “One general law” of letting “the strongest live and the weakest die”, i.e. Darwin’s ‘death as creator’ view of reality.
All of the above (and many comments after these) are just an opinion. An opinion held by many people, especially on this forum, but an opinion nonetheless.
Yet, the fact that people “don’t need to be told” that those things are inspirational is proof, in and of itself, that people intuitively know that all those good and beautiful things come from God.
Of course you mean the Christian God, not just any old god from Greek or Roman or Norse or Egyptian or Hindu or Zoroastrian (to name just a few) traditions. It also, basically sideline Muslims and Jews because the Christian God is the one that supposedly sacrificed his ‘only begotten son’ (no daughters and wasn’t Adam made in God’s image?). Which means that until about 2000 years ago all the people who loved and lost, who painted and sculpted, who built astonishing buildings and structures, who gave thanks before killing animals for food, who found meaning and purpose in their lives before then were basically just deluding themselves.
And I’m portrayed as the horrible cynic who might as well just go out and kill and maim and destroy. I feel sorry for anyone who considers themselves and their beliefs so superior to everyone else and their beliefs that the rest of the world is just wrong. In the history of the earth Christians are in the minority. And they probably will be for as long as people are still around. To have that little respect or care for other humans is just appalling. By your own standards.
Whatever JVL, the post stands on its own merits. You overt hostility towards Christianity not withstanding.
at 45 Origenes says, “Any worldview/religion that involves the end of personal existence, posits necessarily that one’s life has no intrinsic meaning.”
No. That is a Christian view, but is not necessarily true at all. One Eastern perspective is that our individual soul is present in this life only, and that at death it goes back to the “universal ocean” of the universal soul. Individuality has existence, and intrinsic value and meaning, during life, but it is transitory comes to an end at death.
I’m not saying that is the way it is: I’m just saying that the Christian view is not the only one, and has no privileged position.
This is why CD’s comment at 40 to Caspian (and implicitly to relatd) is important: is a Biblical view the only route to finding significance and meaning in life, or just one of a number of alternate views?
JVL/46
JVL, take heart and remember George Bernard Shaw’s observation: “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who do not have it.”
The “foundational basis” for everything BA77 writes, irrespective of topic is this:
This “foundation” is a simple, but insidiously circular formulation. Everything else is pedantic window dressing–reams and reams and reams of it.
CD writes, “This “foundation” is a simple, but insidiously circular formulation.”
That’s an excellent line about all these worldview discussions in general. We build systems of understanding that have thoroughly embedded chosen assumptions that, due to their circular existence as both assumption and conclusion, create an internally consistent system that is nevertheless not necessarily true if the underlying assumptions are removed.
Bornagain77: You overt hostility towards Christianity not withstanding.
I actually have a lot of good Christian friends who don’t look down on every non-Christian on the planet. They understand that there are other points of view. They love their non-Christian friends and don’t tell them that their non-Christian love is meaningless and has no basis in reality. They don’t think they are better than everyone else.
It’s your blatant, rude, superior attitude I deplore. In fact, I find it very un-Christian when I compare it to people like The Archbishop of Canterbury or even my local vicar.
One of the reason some people don’t like Christians or Christianity is because of people like you who tell them they have no right to claim meaning or love or purpose or even some basic legal rights. You are part of the problem.
Origenes
Thanks for mentioning Topoisomerases.
yes, I am aware of this molecular machines. Like DNA proofreading/repair, it is fundamental to life. Without this feature, no life.
The existence of topoisomerases is another UNDENIABLE proof of designed cell.
DNA supercoiling problem – it did not occur to me …. I, as an engineer, i feel ashamed … i have to say, that our Creator thought of everything … not to mention, how this supercoiling problem is being fixed. Would YOU be able to find just the right spot(s) where to cut this extremely long molecule in order to fix the supercoiling problem ?
All these cell’s features like DNA proofreading/repair, topoisomerases, programmed cell death, various cell cycle checkpoints, etc … make Darwinists look as stupid as it gets …
Darwinism = fake news/hoax/conspiracy.
Viola Lee @
Not exclusively I would like to note.
I argue that it is.
Indeed, that’s what I meant by ‘Brahman’. My point is that such a concept has no (ultimate) meaning to a person. That’s why I say “one’s life has no intrinsic meaning.” It does not matter to the person what happens after personal existence, the person is gone, it has dissolved into nature, the cosmos or into, as you call it, the “universal ocean.”
VL/50
That is why I hate the term “worldview.” I’d like to wring the person’s neck that came up with it…….
Origenes, I see you added more to 45 after I responded to it. You wrote, “Instead, it follows that one’s life can only have meaning for (and can only be experienced by) something external to oneself.”
But that is not what intrinsic means. You also wrote, “My point is that such a concept has no (ultimate) meaning to a person. That’s why I say “one’s life has no intrinsic meaning.” It does not matter to the person what happens after personal existence, the person is gone, it has dissolved into nature, the cosmos or into, as you call it, the “universal ocean.”
That is not what “intrinsic” means either.
Intrinsic means “of or relating to the essential nature of a thing”. My life has intrinsic meaning in that I manifest my nature in my existence. My existence, and its intrinsic meaning and value, does not have to go on forever, or be in respect to something external to myself, to exist.
It is one possible philosophical/religious perspective to think that it does, but not a necessary perspective.
An excellent point.
About twenty years ago I started doing extensive world travel for work. This travel, and my interactions with the people living there, made me aware that the stereotypes I didn’t even know I held were incorrect.
@43,44: scroll, scroll, scroll.
If BA77 keeps commenting I am going to have to start using my left thumb to prevent my right thumb from getting too bulked up.
And, much to BA77’s horror, there are many Christian’s who are married to people of different religions, and no religion. I happen to be in one of those marriages. Forty years and counting. BA77 would never even consider dating a non-Christian. Sad, because by having this superior and hateful attitude, he is missing out on the company of many wonderful people.
Of supplemental note to posts 43 and 44,
“For Darwin, non-adaptive design categories, (such as Beauty), simply did not exist.”
As well, it is now found that seeing beautiful things increases belief in God,
And in the interest of increasing belief in the very real God who is behind such very real beauty,,,
Verse:
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Viola Lee
Well of course not. Where do I claim that it does?
That is good to hear. However, my simple point is that your experience of intrinsic meaning, does not, and cannot, come from a concept that involves ending up as fertilizer, or as a faint vibration in the “eternal ocean”. Sure you can have a happy encounter with the family and experience ‘meaning’, but it is in spite of such a concept. IOW the concept does not confer meaning to your life; it does nothing to further your experience of meaning. That is the simple point I try to make here.
Bornagain77: For Darwin, non-adaptive design categories, (such as Beauty), simply did not exist
You live in an arid and dry land where only the select few are allowed to even contemplate the meaning of beauty or love or purpose. Outside of your alabaster citadel with it’s ramparts and meter thick walls all the non-believers are having parties, singing, playing music, making love, laughing, kidding around, getting into punchups, having an argument with their spouse, making fun of their neighbours . . . having a normal, human life.
You keep believing what you believe and not letting most of us into the inner sanctum. I’m happy on the outside with the atheists, the gays, the lesbians, the non-Republicans, the real people. You know, the ones that generate most of the music and art and theatre and dance and joy in the world.
All you need is love, too bad you’ve run out.
Origenes@61, are you suggesting that without a belief in an afterlife that you can’t have meaning and hope in the life you are leading? I would argue that you are more likely to work hard at bringing meaning and hope to your life if you are not relying on an afterlife as a plan B. And if it turns out that there is an afterlife, that is just icing on the cake.
Well, we disagree at a foundational level, Origenes. I have intrinsic meaning that comes from the nature of my existence, and the fact that I will come to an end someday doesn’t negate that.
We just have different philosophical perspectives. I hear what you say about something that is true for you, but it is not necessarily true.
We probably have to just leave it at that.
re 63 to SG. Origenes is not just suggesting that, he is stating it, it seems to me, as a necessary fact: without a belief in an afterlife that you can’t have meaning and hope in the life you are leading.
Sir GilesDecember 11, 2022 at 10:14 am
Scroll, scroll, scroll,…
translation: fingers in ears, eyes shut, reciting: la la la …
To put it succinctly: the belief that one will end up as fertilizer does not add meaning to one’s life. I reluctantly accept that for some it does not in any way reduce any meaning to their life. However, be that as it may, I claim that it does not add intrinsic meaning to anyone’s life.
Nope. Just an accurate description of what most people do when they come upon a BA77 comment.
Es58: translation: fingers in ears, eyes shut, reciting: la la la …
Am I to take it that you agree with Bornagain77 in that only Christians can have any claim to understanding and having a basis for truth, beauty, compassion, love, fairness, etc? That amongst the 8 billion people who are alive now and all the millions who have already lived and died that only Christians can truly understand what meaning is? Is that correct?
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that it does. But I think it can provide a driving force to work hard to enhance the meaning to the life that you lead.
Origenes: To put it succinctly: the belief that one will end up as fertilizer does not add meaning to one’s life. I reluctantly accept that for some it does not in any way reduce any meaning to their life. However, be that as it may, I stick to my claim that it does not add intrinsic meaning to anyone’s life.
Can we engage in a minor ‘what if’ with your indulgence?
What if you find out, just before you die, that there is no god, no afterlife, no heaven. Just supposing here.
Would you think that your whole life of being nice to people, treating people with respect (I am making some assumptions here), wanting to do good . . . would all that have been a waste because you weren’t going to heaven as a reward?
What should motivate good and compassionate behaviour? Being told what to do or treating others the way you’d like to be treated? Do you act out of compassion or because you’re going to get something out of it?
At 67, Origenes says, “the belief that one will end up as fertilizer does not add meaning to one’s life. I reluctantly accept that for some it does not in any way reduce any meaning to their life. However, be that as it may, I claim that it does not add intrinsic meaning to anyone’s life.”
No, existing as a living being is what provides a foundation for meaning and purpose to life. However, some would say that returning one’s physical components back to the earth to nurture more life does add an element of meaning to death.
Viola Lee
You keep pointing out an experience of meaning independent from worldview/religion. But this is not what’s being discussed. We are discussing the influence of worldview/religion on the experience of the meaning of life.
Also off-topic.
Origenes writes at 73, “You keep pointing out an experience of meaning independent from worldview/religion.”
Not at all. Everyone’s understanding of the source of the meaning of life comes from my some philosophical perspective which, religious or not, contains some foundational assumptions. I understand that there are a variety of philosophical/religious perspectives on this topic, all of which have foundational assumptions.
It is absolutely true that one’s “worldview/religion” influences the experience of meaning. The question that started this discussion was whether one view, a Biblical one, is the only one that can truly provide meaning.
And my comment about death was directly in response to your comments about becoming fertilizer, so I don’t see how that it off-topic.
Origenes/67
Unless you are cremated and put in a jar on the kid’s mantel next to your dog, you are going to end up as fertilizer one way or the other–that’s the one irrefutable fact that we know happens when we die….
What I don’t understand is how “meaning” is only meaningful if it’s accomplishing someone else’s purpose. Christians make it sound like something profound and fulfilling to be essentially bit-part players in what amounts to their Creator’s vast reality show. They don’t even know what that purpose is.
Unless you are Jesus or Lazarus.
That is an incredibly narrow, parochial statement. … Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists being the major religions.
I agree except left out of that list philosophical materialism. Which in many people ‘inspires’ (i.e. “enlivens the spirit”) evangelism as intense as any at the same time denying that which has been enlivened. Plus promulgating ‘hope’ in the inevitability of being correct, that at the end, the individual is annihilated. Which to the majority on the planet is a really weird kind of hope, a weird religion. One tried for many years by yours truly.
What I think doesn’t matter. …It appears you don’t want to have a discussion. Oh well
(head smack)
No, existing as a living being is what provides a foundation for meaning and purpose to life. However, some would say that returning one’s physical components back to the earth to nurture more life does add an element of meaning to death.
Oh. So the simple philosphical belief “I exist” can be very profound. Deep enough to drive some to searching for the source of humanity’s seeming unhappiness, suffering and metaphysical dread. Shallow enough to drive other people to commit crime and unspeakable atrocity. There is nothing like “I exist” combined with “I’m terrified of my precarious existence” that could as effectively drive a Slavic dictator to commit genocide against a neighboring much smaller Slavic nation as currently plays out.
In response to VL @18 and CD @ 15 & 40:
In this discussion about human significance, it’s important to distinguish between a person finding significance through relationships, vocation, volunteering to help a cause, etc. and an ultimate significance, if I may call it that, that is rooted in something beyond our human activities and belief system. For the former definition, you would be right to say that people of any race, culture and religion could find this type of significance, and many do so. For the latter definition of significance, one cannot attain this by anything we do — it’s a significance that we’re born with — it’s rooted in being made in the image of God, rather than being the result of mindless forces. It’s a significance that we have because we’re endowed with an immortal soul, rather than being just a collection of atoms. The design evidence we see in our cells shows that we’re more than biomolecules that think. Our beings are consistent with the biblical view that we were made for a purpose (and this purpose is shared with us in the Bible, but I’ll not fully develop it now). This significance is inconsistent with the materialistic worldview that says that nothing exists beyond the spacetime of our physical universe. This is why I said about us @12, “If designed, then we are significant, not an accidental outgrowth of natural forces.” This isn’t an exclusive claim of a religion, it’s a logical consequence of a transcendental worldview vs. a materialistic worldview (or, supernaturalism vs. naturalism). The biblical message of God and humanity adds to what God says about our significance, purpose and destiny.
Or Marx was right and religion is the “opium of the people”, providing hope against hope and anesthetizing them against the pain of facing what is the bleak alternative of “Life’s a bitch and then you die!”
Caspian #79:
I think you’ve summarised the Christian world view well. And I think you’ve created good, quick points to the major arguments and justifications for that view.
While I do not share your opinion of the importance or strength of the Biblical message I appreciate you’re being clear about it.
You’ve seen how easy it is for people ‘on your side’ to denigrate and discount those who disagree with them. You tend to not participate in many discussions following your posts. I would be interested to hear if you hold some of the same sentiments as your fellow Christian IDests who post here.
Caspian&79, I agree with JVL in that I believe that you have captured the Christian view. And for many Christians, this belief is very comforting and I wouldn’t try to argue them out if it. The only time I take exception is when people like BA77 and Relatd claim that non-Christian’s, agnostics or atheists cannot possibly find meaning in their lives every bit as real and comforting as theirs.
Sir Giles @
To be clear, do we agree that, the meaning atheists find in their lives, does not come from their belief that they will end up as fertilizer?
A reminder:
Sir Giles, “I take exception is when people like BA77 and Relatd claim that non-Christian’s, agnostics or atheists cannot possibly find meaning in their lives every bit as real and comforting as theirs.”
I have not once in this thread commented specifically on agnostics or non-Christian’s finding meaning in their lives. Since I deal with Darwinian atheists day in and day out, I have focused exclusively on Atheistic/Darwinian naturalists.,,, And I have merely pointed out, a few times now, the blatantly obvious fact that Atheistic Naturalists cannot possibly derive any real meaning for life in a worldview that denies the entire universe has any real meaning behind its existence. It ain’t rocket science. You can’t have real meaning for life in a worldview that insists the entire universe has no real meaning behind its existence. i.e. the universe can’t give what it ain’t got!
The best you can possibly have, as an atheist, is an ‘illusion’ of meaning for life, but never any real meaning for life. And indeed that “illusion of meaning’ is what atheists themselves have, inadvertently, admitted to in the following study,
Again, it ain’t rocket science.
Moreover this act of self-delusion on the part of atheists, of making up illusory meaning and purposes for their lives, apparently has an extremely limited beneficial effect for the atheist.
As Professor Andrew Sims, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, states, “The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally.”,,, “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life;,,”
In fact, in the following studies it was found that, “those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%.” and “the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated.”
To state the obvious, those are not minor differences in longevity between believers and non-believers.
Thus, it is readily apparent that the Atheist’s attempt to create illusory meaning and purposes for his life, minus belief in God and an afterlife, falls short in a rather dramatic fashion on both the mental and physical level.
Frankly, just from a practical point of view, atheists ought to become Chriatians/Theists just so to have better mental health and a longer life in the here and now, regardless of the hereafter.
I mean really, what have atheists got to lose save for the utter despair that is inherent in the nihilism of their atheism?
Bornagain77: For Darwin, non-adaptive design categories, (such as Beauty), simply did not exist.
When you really think about a statement such as this it gets more and more insidious. It implies a standard or criterion that is set by someone or someones. And who might that someone or someones be?
Well, apparently, based on the comments of Bornagain77 and Relatd and others it is held to be the Christian God. Who, we are also told, is not subject to the same laws and restrictions and limitations as us humans. But this God can dictate not only what our moral and ethical behaviour should be but also, it seems our aesthetic and emotion behaviour as well. We cannot possibly even have a solid aesthetic or moral or emotional or ethical standard because we don’t acknowledge that all these things HAVE to have come from our benevolent and loving God who created us and all the laws and standards that matter.
Which means, of course that we cannot, without the risk of punishment:
Love or desire anything that is not proscribed by God’s rules and laws.
Hope or yearn for anything that is not proscribed by God’s rules and laws.
Create or bring about anything that is not pre-approved by God’s rules and laws.
Be attracted to who we wish that is not approved by God’s rules and laws.
In other words: we are not allowed to exercise free will without the risk of punishment. You can do what you like but you just might burn in hell. Forever. For choosing to do something that isn’t approved of.
And that’s free will? Really? Do what I say or spend eternity burning in agony?
If you need the threat of hell to be a good person then you are just a bad person on a leash.
You are not free. You are are not even a pet. You are a captive, morally, ethically, physically and spiritually. You dance to the master’s tune or you suffer eternal damnation.
What kind of a god creates intelligent beings that are given the choice to love him or be damned? Can anyone who is a parent get behind that standard? My child can make up his own mind but if he doesn’t do what I say then he can rot forever in pain and agony. Who amongst us has ever said that to a child they brought into this world and loved and cherished and would give anything to protect and support.
Which of you would actually cut off all contact with your child if they turned out to be homosexual? Anyone? Would you vow to never speak to them again because God told you that they are scum and evil and should not be even considered worthy of compassion?
How many of you would choose to bend or adopt God’s rules in your own situation? Because of love.
What’s more important: rules in a book or rules of your own heart?
JVL at 39,
I got an answer… to my question? Hey, you know what rhymes with assume? Asinine. You and Viola Lee would get kicked out of the United Nations and the Diplomatic Corps for making assumptions.
Ambassador from Christian Country: How do people people find significance and purpose outside of a Biblical worldview?
Viola Lee: You bad, bad man. You tribalist!
You: You don’t know NOTHING about the rest of the world because you’re a Christian!
So instead of assuming things about me – AND MAKING ACCUSATIONS – just ask questions like a good diplomat. OK?
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was bombarded by “alternate lifestyles.’ I read the Marxist-Communist-Anarchist “underground newspapers.’ Buddhism and other Eastern beliefs were the new/old big thing. I had a friend who went religion/belief shopping, so I spent some time asking questions in a Krishna temple. Don’t you dare assume anything about me. If you believe people should understand each other then stop with the assumptions.
In the late 1970s, I became friends with one of the tribal leaders of the Punk Rock scene. I went to their special hangouts, listened to them and observed their behavior.
To me, the world is very black and white. Right and wrong are clearly defined. Believe me, I’ve seen people living otherwise. I have heard the “it’s all grey” argument before so you’re assuming I don’t know – again.
Viola Lee thinks hiding behind ‘billions of people’ is what? A reason to actually live differently? A big excuse? Her personal desire?
Based on the latest figures, there are 2.56 billion Christians and 1.97 Muslims. That’s over half the planet.
Don’t be stupid about Russia, OK? Do the research. Vladimir Putin lived through most of the Cold War. He only cares about what the Soviet Union cared about: get as much as land as you can. A little background about Patriarch Kirill.
Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk is in charge of foreign relations for the Russian Orthodox Church. ‘The metropolitan noted that Pope Francis’ comment earlier this year that the Russian patriarch should not “become Putin’s altar boy” was “unexpected” and “not useful for Christian unity.” The support the Patriarch is giving the Russian government is viewed as the wrong thing to do by Pope Francis. So your attempt to place blame on religion is misplaced.
A reminder to all reading: The Soviet Union, the Workers’ Paradise, crashed and burned. The remaining Russian Federation, and Vladimir Putin, is trying to show that it can and will protect its “interests.”
Origenes writes, “To be clear, do we agree that, the meaning atheists find in their lives, does not come from their belief that they will end up as fertilizer?”
First, Origenes, let’s be clear that atheists are not necessarily materialists. I, at least, am talking about non-theistic, non-Biblical philosophical/religious views, which encompasses much more than materialism.
Second, yes, of course, “the meaning atheists find in their lives, does not come from their belief that they will end up as fertilizer.” The meaning such people find in their lives comes the experience of how they live their lives, not from what happens after they die. The “fertilizer” part is just an acknowledgment that the span of their existence is finite and must come to an end.
Bornagain77: And I have merely pointed out, a few times now, the blatantly obvious fact that Atheistic Naturalists cannot possibly derive any real meaning for life in a worldview that denies the entire universe has any real meaning behind its existence. It ain’t rocket science. You can’t have real meaning for life in a worldview that insists the entire universe has no real meaning behind its existence. i.e. the universe can’t give what it ain’t got!
What do you mean by ‘real meaning’?
JVL, it is obvious that you have a pretty deep emotional hang-up towards Christianity.
Sorry, I don’t do ’emotional hang-ups’. 🙂
Relatd, I apologize for starting my post at 18 with the assumption that you were saying that only those with a Biblical worldview could find significance, hope, and meaning. However later (64) I did try to get some clarification. I wrote,
Would you be willing to answer that question?
Relatd: I got an answer… to my question? Hey, you know what rhymes with assume? Asinine. You and Viola Lee would get kicked out of the United Nations and the Diplomatic Corps for making assumptions.
I did try and answer your actual question. And then, after that, I tacked on some other things. Just like you do. All the time.
You always make assumptions about what other people think. You always make assumptions about what conclusion other people will come to. You always make assumptions about how conversations will go before they actually happen.
That blind spot you’ve got is the mote in your own eye. Maybe you should look in a dark glass until the image resolves itself a bit better.
Oh, and by the way, the leaders of the punk movement were not tribal leaders. They were mostly middle-income kids who were bored and wanted to stir things up a bit. And, in a few years, they all calmed down and got jobs and raised families and paid taxes and got boring. So what?
The remaining Russian Federation, and Vladimir Putin, is trying to show that it can and will protect its “interests.”
And what do you think its interests are with regards to Ukraine?
Bornagain77: JVL, it is obvious that you have a pretty deep emotional hang-up towards Christianity.
So, you cannot define what you mean by ‘real meaning’? Why is that?
Before I sent that reply I had typed out a long, argumentative post which I decided was out of order and so I excised it and replaced it with something I thought was much more significant: asking you to define your terms.
And, as I have said many, many times before: I have a lot of good, devote Christian friends. And none of them espouse the views you embrace. I don’t have a problem with Christianity. It’s your views that I find appalling at times.
And you know I’ve said that and you still choose to pretend that it’s me that hates Christianity. Which is incorrect.
JVL at 85,
You’re no Bible scholar – at all. When God created the first man and first woman, he could have created robots. They would obey every command. But you can’t force anyone to love you, can you? So God gave them free will. The ability to choose Him or the wrong thing.
You seem to think ‘religion limits me.’ “I want total control of my life. To do whatever I want!”
And what does that get you? Personal pleasure – hopefully – without feelings of guilt? That’s it? Get all the fun you can because you might kick off tomorrow and you want to sample all that fun before you go? That is the friction point. There is a lawgiver. When man makes himself god, he sees nothing but death and all that pleasure he wants to experience.
But instead of focusing on God and His laws, which are meant for the good of all people, God is rejected. He will punish sinners – those who break His laws – and I am a sinner as well. So the risk of going to Hell is real. It’s not fiction. But it disappears under the effects of all that pleasure, doesn’t it?
Romans 2:14
“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.”
Romans 2:15
“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”
Relatd: So God gave them free will. The ability to choose Him or the wrong thing.
As a loving and caring parent is that what you said to your children? Children you wanted to find their own way in the world. Children who you knew might see things differently from you. Children who you loved more than you loved yourself. Do it my way or the wrong way. Is that what you said? Is that what your dad said to you: son, there are only two ways this can happen, my way or the wrong way. You choose.
JVL at 94,
“find their own way in the world.”? In any Christian household, you raise up your children to be Christians. Period. Human children are not birds who fly from the nest at 18. And when they have children, you teach them about God as a grandparent.
I am a professional researcher who has studied many cultures, from Africa, Asia and other countries. There is a book titled The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I did not like the book but the basic idea is sound. Whether you are from Japan or China or a Native American, the qualities that make a hero are universal.
The qualities of beauty are universal. In art. In real life. I also have an arts background. I am thoroughly familiar with the requirements for a good painting and know the basics of color theory. (My favorite book is Color Image Scale by Shigenobu Kobayashi.) At my job, I am called into the head of the graphic arts office to get my opinion on the four pencil roughs which are required by us for a book cover. Sometimes, not always, I am asked to explain my selection. My answer must be brief, detailed and accurate. It is based on years of experience.
When instructing children in Christianity, you send them to a religious school. I was in Religion class and we went, as a class, to Church once a week. In my neighborhood, I was blessed with good role models. I liked most of my neighbors. We had a few oddballs but we were never taught to hate anyone. I understood who homosexual persons were in the early 1960s. Again, I was not taught to have negative feelings toward them or anyone else.
The “right way” is the right way, not just for religious reasons but practical reasons. Children, as they grow, go through stages. I saw it in all the kids I knew. We knew, that as young adults, we would begin dating. Most of us would get married and have families. It was the natural, not just a religious order. Staying away from excessive drinking, from smoking, from illegal drugs, profanity and pornography were essential actions. Our good behavior was based on years of experience. Our parents had also been teenagers at one time. Self-discipline created good character. You, and your family, had a good name, a good reputation based on your actions.
Being a Bohemian was right out, or a Beat or a Hippie. Life is too short for cheap thrills, (morally) loose women and certain other activities. Doing it right was a literally more healthy way.
Even in my late teens, I saw what those who think differently were up to. It was no good for them or society at large. It was to be rejected. By the way, I don’t mean rejecting the people but their ‘lifestyle choices.’ I’ve known gays and have an acquaintance who went through a process and now presents as a woman. He said he was going to marry his boyfriend. I did not give him a hard time over what he chose to do.
Relatd: By the way, I don’t mean rejecting the people but their ‘lifestyle choices.’ I’ve known gays and have an acquaintance who went through a process and now presents as a woman. He said he was going to marry his boyfriend. I did not give him a hard time over what he chose to do.
I’m glad you were tolerant. And I did read your entire response and I do appreciate that you took the time to give a detailed answer. It gave me a better understanding of your perspective.
I’m not sure that you and I are that much different in how we deal with the world on a daily, practical, sensible way. I think we are very different in how we view purpose and underlying morals and ethics. But if we both agree to live by the civil laws of the countries we are in, if we both agree to mostly adopt a live-and-let-live approach, if we both stand up for the legal rights of everyone regardless of race, creed, colour, orientation, etc, etc then perhaps we don’t actually have that much that needs to be argued about.
Perhaps we should all start by considering each other as neighbours. You don’t have to like the same food, you don’t have to like the same music, you don’t have to support the same football club (ooo, controversial I know), you don’t have to go to the same church . . . but you should be able to let them borrow your lawnmower. Not every weekend mind you, but sometimes when they really need it. I am convinced that the now absent ET and I would have been excellent neighbours even though we disagreed over many, many things. And, as I have already mentioned several times, he changed my mind on a couple of evolutionary points.
The thing about neighbours is: you give them the time of day because they are your neighbours. And that’s a good thing.
JVL at 96,
We did not all go to the same Church. Different people were not born in the U.S., including my parents. We did get along. People did illegal things but we were taught to stay away from that. In the 1950s and 1960s, legal meant the right thing to do. That was deviated away from. That action, actually, a number of bad decisions, created problems. It created what some call a “culture war.” It has nothing to do with culture but everything to do with some specific groups of people getting “permission” for their behavior. So some laws today have created permissions that are not good for society at large.
VL at 90,
Your question is not a question. You have made a declaration and then ask if I agree or disagree. Something other than presenting me with a declaration would have been preferable.
OK: Do you believe that people who believe in other non-Biblical religions can find significance, hope, and meaning through their particular religious beliefs?
VL at 99,
I will assume, in this case, that you are not a Biblical person, so, here is a specific question:
What – exactly – is the origin of your significance and meaning? What exactly? Or, Where does it come from?
Realtd, I’m not talking about my own beliefs. I’m talking about the more general question of whether you, in your comment at 16, meant to imply that significance, hope, and meaning can only be found by those who have a Biblical belief system, or whether those of other, non-Biblical, religious belief systems can also find significance, hope, and meaning through their belief systems.
Hence my question. In response to your post at 16: do you believe that people who believe in other non-Biblical religions can find significance, hope, and meaning through their particular religious beliefs?
VL at 101,
Of course I do. However, you appear to want to only stick to declarations. That is not discussion, it is declaring something without an explanation. No one learns anything. Do you understand? The origin of significance and meaning in life remains unexplained by you.
Good. Thanks for answering my question. Again, I apologize for thinking you meant that people couldn’t find significance, hope, and meaning outside of a Biblical worldview. As you have said, I should have asked questions about what you meant rather than jumping to a conclusion.
The “problem” is that people can find significance, hope, and meaning in stuff that is clearly misguided. People were willing to do anything for the glory of the German Reich. The Incas sacrificed their children. On a lighter note, some Argentines are selling their cars in order to see Messi play in Qatar.
I take it we will never agree on what is true meaning and what’s not. So, what is the way forward here?
Origenes at 104,
The question is: How then shall we live? Just whatever we want? Or is there a reasonable answer that is good for people in general? This is not a “modern” problem. There are rules that work right now. They are based on a simple premise: This is good for you and others. This is not good for you and others.
Realtd asks, “How then shall we live? … There are rules that work right now. They are based on a simple premise: This is good for you and others. This is not good for you and others.”
This isn’t very helpful, because as Origenes points out, we are not going to agree about some of those rules, and we’re not going to agree about what we think is the philosophical foundation for those rules.
So, as Origenes says, “So, what is the way forward here?”
That’s really the question. How can we live with so many diverse perspectives? I offer that one way is to pay less attention to philosophical and religious differences—to not draw uncrossable lines in the philosophical sand—but focus on actual issues and attitudes irrespective of philosophy and religion. There will still be disagreements that may need political solutions, cultural changes, civil discourse and compromise, etc. But that will be better than ruling out members of different perspectives as tribal enemies.
VL at 106,
“tribal enemies”? YOU are drawing uncrossable lines here.
No, I said we shouldn’t see people as tribal enemies. Instead we should try to work with people even if their basic loyalties are to a different perspective.
Hi Caspian. Thanks for your reply at 79. I got involved in responding to CD and relatd, and tried to clarify my point at 23 by writing, “My answer was that people with non-Biblical religious beliefs can find significance, hope, and meaning in their lives. Do you think that is true?”
Let me point out that my question did not include materialism. To clarify, I was asking about perspectives that would agree that, in some ways and through some means, there is design in the world.
But I will claim that belief in design does not necessarily imply an immortal soul, or life after death, or even some “ultimate meaning” for human beings. Those are Christian beliefs that are, of course, consistent with design but not necessarily implied by design.
So I’d like to ask you a question similar to what I have asked realtd: Do you believe that people with various kinds of non-Biblical religious beliefs can find meaning and purpose in life, equivalent in validity according to their beliefs although different than Biblical beliefs?
Indeed. Live and let live
Are the intolerant our tribal enemies?
At 39 JVL, a Darwinian Atheist, argued, basically, that people don’t need God in order to “find significance, or hope or meaning”. He gave several examples of people, supposedly, finding “significance, or hope or meaning” all without God.
Yet, as I pointed out in posts 43 and 44, The trouble with JVL’s claim is that none of those things, (i.e. “People”, ‘love’, “work, “play”, “hobbies”, “beauty in art and nature”), would exist without God. JVL’s worldview of Darwinian Atheism simply lacks the ‘ontological basis’ to ground any of the those things he appealed to in order to try to derive true meaning and purpose for his life.
At 46, JVL hand-waved off the fact that Darwin atheism lacks the ‘ontological basis’ to ground any of those things as ‘just an opinion’. But alas for JVL, the fact that Atheistic Naturalism can’t ground ‘real’ meaning and/or purpose for life is not just an opinion but it is a fact that is repeated, ad nauseam, like some kind of religious mantra by leading atheists. Repeated, ad nauseam, by leading atheists such as the late Steven Weinberg, and the late Stephen Hawking, and also currently by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Sean Carrol, Brian Greene,, Katie Mack, and etc.. etc..,,,
Again, it is simply impossible for Darwinists to derive any true meaning and purpose for their lives in an objectively meaningless and purposeless universe. The best the Darwinian atheist can hope for is to create some ‘illusion of meaning and purpose’ for their lives. i.e. an objectively meaningless and purposeless universe simply can’t give what it doesn’t have.,,, It ain’t rocket science!
The main supposedly “scientific’ arguments that atheists have tried to use to support their false claim that the universe, and therefore our lives, are objectively meaningless and purposeless is the Copernican Principle, and/or the Principle of Mediocrity, (as well Darwinian atheists have also tried to use the false narrative of human evolution to try to undermine the Christian’s claim that out lives are meaningful and purposeful).
Yet, contrary to what atheists, (and the vast majority of people, including Christians), believe nowadays, the Copernican Principle, and/or the Principle of Mediocrity, has now been overturned by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, our two most powerful theories in science: (as well as being overturned by several other lines of powerful scientific evidence)
March 2022
https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/neil-thomas-on-evolutionary-theory-as-magical-thinking/#comment-748883
Perhaps the best and most impressive scientific evidence to come forward to prove that our lives have far more meaning, purpose, and significance in this universe than is presupposed by atheists is the closing of the ‘freedom of choice’ loophole in quantum mechanics.
Which is to say, instead of humans being the result of impersonal physical laws as is held by Atheistic Naturalists, in quantum mechanics we find that humans, (via their free will), are brought into the laws of nature at their most fundamental level.
This presents quite the dilemma for atheists.
As the late Stephen Weinberg, an atheist, put the dilemma for atheists, “In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,”
In fact the late Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within.
Yet, regardless of how Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
In 2018, just 1 year after Weinberg wrote that article, (and before Weinberg passed away in 2021), Anton Zeilinger and company closed the ‘freedom of choice’ loophole.
As Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
And indeed a very big part of that “very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe” is that our lives are not nearly as insignificant, meaningless, and purposeless, as atheists have falsely presupposed them to be via the Copernican principle.
As physics professor Richard Conn Henry stated “It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe.”
As much as it may hurt atheists’ feelings to know this, and as far as our best science can now tell us, we are not merely to be considered insignificant “chemical scum” as Hawking and other atheists, via the Copernican Principle, have tried to imply,
Hopefully atheists will soon get over the ‘sad’ fact that they are not merely to be considered ‘chemical scum’ in short order? As I asked earlier in this thread at post 84, “what have atheists got to lose save for the utter despair that is inherent in the nihilism of their atheism?”
Supplemental note,
When we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally held with the presupposition of ‘contingency’), and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
Verse:
Bornagain77: Again, it is simply impossible for Darwinists to derive any true meaning and purpose for their lives in an objectively meaningless and purposeless universe.
What do you mean by ‘true meaning’?
allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
Please explain how the resurrection of Jesus ‘bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics’. The resurrection was not a mathematical event nor has it been described in mathematical terms.
Bornagain77/112
Since you have stressed the importance of empirical support for claims, what is your empirical or experimental evidence for your claim?
What do you understand by “ontological basis” and what it means to “ground” the things JVL referred to?
What is the difference between “meaning” and “true meaning”?
How did your God derive His “true meaning”? If He invented a meaning for Himself, what is to prevent us doing the same?
No, there is nothing in relativity or quantum theory or the CMBR anomalies to support any claim to a privileged status for humanity in this Universe.
If nothing exists until human beings observe it then what happened to the Universe before we were here to observe it? Or, to put it another way, if nothing exists until we observe it, what are we observing in the first place? And if the nature of reality depends on the observer, why do we all seem to be observing the same thing?
Or Christians, presumably.
“What do you mean by ‘true meaning’?”
I mean ‘real’, i.e. ‘not illusory’. Since truth, love, beauty, personhood, purpose, meaning, etc..,, can only be reasonably grounded in, and derived from, an ‘ontology of God”, then God alone is capable of giving ‘real’ meaning and purpose to our lives. Whereas the Darwinian atheist must hold that all meaning and purpose for our lives is ‘illusory’ since a meaningless and purposeless universe can’t possibly give what it doesn’t have, namely meaning and purpose. ,, It ain’t rocket science.
“Please explain how the resurrection of Jesus ‘bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics’”
In so far as the ‘incomplete’ (Godel), but ‘miraculous’ (Wigner and Einstein), mathematics that describe this universe are, rightly, held to be God’s thoughts,
In so far as the ‘incomplete’ (Godel), but ‘miraculous’ (Wigner and Einstein), mathematics that describe this universe are, rightly, held to be God’s thoughts, then God bridging the, (non-renormalizable), ‘infinite mathematical divide’ that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics readily follows, and Christ resurrection from the dead becomes a very plausible solution for the quote-unquote ‘theory of everything’. Especially considering that, as the Shroud of Turin itself testifies to, both quantum mechanics and general relativity, (i.e. gravity), were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766384
Bornagain77: I mean ‘real’, i.e. ‘not illusory’. Since truth, love, beauty, personhood, purpose, meaning, etc..,, can only be reasonably grounded in, and derived from, an ‘ontology of God”, then God alone is capable of giving ‘real’ meaning and purpose to our lives.
If you were given a truth or a purpose or some such how could you determine if it were real or illusory? Something like: There are more real numbers than natural numbers but both sets are infinitely large. Or: Every even natural number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers. Or: Every integer greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three prime numbers. Or: Can a physical object have fractional dimension?
Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order.
None of this addresses the ‘infinite gap’ between relativity and quantum mechanics.
How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind.
So . . . how does the fact that there are different sizes of infinity tell you about the ‘divine mind’? Is the Goldbach conjecture true or false? How about Zorn’s lemma? The Riemann-Zeta hypothesis? The Axiom of Choice?
Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect.
Again, no mention of the ‘infinite gap’ between relativity and quantum mechanics.
Especially considering that, as the Shroud of Turin itself testifies to, both quantum mechanics and general relativity, (i.e. gravity), were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Please give a mathematical or physics based model of Christ’s resurrection showing how it deals with relativity and quantum mechanics.
Both Sev and JVL doth protest too much.
In trying to refute my claim that only God can ground ‘real’ meaning and purpose for our lives, both Sev and JVL have written fairly lengthy posts trying to debunk my claim about only God being able to ground meaning and purpose. Obviously, they both hope that their posts will be taken to be rational, (even hoping they will be taken to be meaningful and purposeful), rebuttals of my claim.
The ‘small’ problem for both Sev and JVL is that both of them are Darwinian atheists. As such, they hold to a worldview that denies that they have free will in any real and meaningful sense. In short, they are not in control of their thoughts and are thus not in control of what they are saying in their posts. In short, since they deny they have free will in a real and meaningful sense, then I have no reason to presuppose their posts to be rational, much less meaningful, or purposeful.
Which pretty much establishes the exact point that I am making.
Of supplemental note:
Bornagain77: In trying to refute my claim that only God can ground ‘real’ meaning and purpose for our lives, both Sev and JVL have written fairly lengthy posts trying to debunk my claim about only God being able to ground meaning and purpose
Mostly I just asked you some questions. If you can’t answer them then just say so.
The ‘small’ problem for both Sev and JVL is that both of them are Darwinian atheists. As such, they hold to a worldview that denies that they have free will in any real and meaningful sense. In short, they are not in control of their thoughts and are thus not in control of what they are saying in their posts. In short, since they deny they have free will in a real and meaningful sense, then I have no reason to presuppose their posts to be rational, meaningful, or purposeful.
But you do think we have free will and so I’m asking you questions of my own volition am I not? So, why are you not attempting to answer them?
You can’t have it both ways. If you think I have free will then you must treat me as a rational and independent agent instead of trying to convince me that I shouldn’t see myself that way. Actually, we both see me as a rational and independent agent so that’s not actually a point of contention. Except for you to dodge answering questions.
You can’t just run away when people push against your theology.
JVL, “You can’t have it both ways. If you think I have free will then you must treat me as a rational and independent agent”
So you can ignore the catastrophic epistemological failure that results from the Atheistic Naturalist’s denial of free will but I can’t?
How convenient for you.
Luckily for me, I have the free will necessary to refuse to play such stupid, and self-serving, games with a dogmatic atheist who refuses to ever be rational when it comes to honestly questioning his atheism as a coherent worldview.
Bornagain77: So you can ignore the catastrophic epistemological failure that results from the Atheistic Naturalist’s denial of free will but I can’t?
What a coward: I won’t argue with you unless you agree with my stance ahead of time. Pathetic.
Luckily for me, I have the free will necessary to refuse to play such stupid, and self-serving, games with a dogmatic atheist who refuses to ever be rational when it comes to honestly questioning his atheism as a coherent worldview.
You have the free will to run away from questions which arise from your statements. Again, pathetic.
If that really is your stance then why did you respond to my earlier questions? ‘Cause they were easy? But when they got hard you had to find a reason to run away? Is that it?
You pick and choose which questions to answer and when you choose not to answer you say that the questioner can’t possibly be rational because their world view doesn’t allow it even though your worldview insists on it!!
Let the record show that Bornagain77 replies when he has an easy copy-and-paste answer but finds some reason to not respond when he doesn’t understand the question, in this case, about mathematics, which he does not understand. And he shouldn’t pretend that he does.
@120
It does look as if his attitude is, “it doesn’t matter if you regard yourself as a rational being or if I regard you as a rational being, because my interpretation of your worldview entails that you are not entitled to regard yourself as a rational being.”
The upshot is that the only people whom he will countenance as rational beings are those who in his opinion are rationally entitled to regard themselves as rational beings, given his interpretation of their worldviews.
Needless to say, this does not allow him to entertain the thought, “well, such and such is clearly a rational being and also regards themselves as one, so perhaps I was mistaken to believe their worldview does not entitle them to believe that about themselves.”
It’s up to you if you want to continue to argue with someone who is completely wrong about what you believe and unable to acknowledge it. As for me, I’ll do so only to the extent that it’s entertaining.
PyrrhoManiac1: It’s up to you if you want to continue to argue with someone who is completely wrong about what you believe and unable to acknowledge it. As for me, I’ll do so only to the extent that it’s entertaining.
Weirdly enough Bornagain77 has responded to my queries for a long time without playing what he considers a ‘get out of jail free’ card. In fact, he had just responded to a couple of my queries before he decided to flee. I’ve even called him on his lack of mathematical understanding before but he’s never just decided to blank me before because he thinks that my world view means I cannot believe I have free will. EVEN THOUGH his own view insists that I do have free will. He’s fallen down an incoherent and dark hole which he can’t dig himself out of. I think that’s why he fled. He’s got nowhere to go.
This reminds me of my old, ignored, and forgotten ‘Argument from Self-prediction.’…
What would it take for a machine-like system to be able to predict itself? Suppose a computer executing an algorithm that it will solve in exactly 3 hours. In order to predict beforehand that the process will take 3 hours, the computer must be able to run a (model?) copy of itself. Think of it.
What would it take for the brain to accurately predict “Next Sunday I will do some Xmas shopping at Walmart.” Mind you, there is nothing that controls the brain top-down, there is nothing that can compel the brain to go along with Xmas shopping next Sunday; the ‘decision’ to do Xmas shopping will come up next Sunday from deep below, from the level of neurons, fermions, and bosons.
So, it follows that the only road to accurate self-prediction for the brain is to run a model of itself that accurately simulates whatever the neurons will do until next Sunday, taking into account future environmental influences during that period, such as food & drinks … This cannot be done.
– – – –
1. If materialism is true, then human behavior is caused by neural events in the brain and environmental input.
2. The brain cannot possibly predict its future behavior with any specificity.
3. I can predict future behavior with specificity.
Therefore,
4. Materialism is false.
Origenes: I can predict future behavior with specificity.
What level of specificity?
JVL @124
Quite specific, I suppose. For instance: “next year, 12/12/2023, 6:53 PM Greenwich Mean Time, I will be at Trafalgar Square, London; wearing blue clothing.”
@115
This assumption — ” truth, love, beauty, personhood, purpose, meaning, etc..,, can only be reasonably grounded in, and derived from, an ‘ontology of God” — is asserted without argument. What is asserted without argument can be dismissed without argument. Therefore, I do not need an argument in order to dismiss the assertion.
Thus: the assertion that “truth, love, beauty, personhood, purpose, meaning, etc..,, can only be reasonably grounded in, and derived from, an ‘ontology of God” is false.
More specifically: from the fact that the universe as a whole is without meaning and purpose, it does not follow that our lives are without meaning and purpose.
The error here, I think, lies in the thought that one cannot rationally regard one’s own life as meaningful if one does not believe that there is a transcendent viewpoint from which one’s own live would be seen as meaningful.
It’s as if my life only really matters if there’s a transcendent perspective on the universe as a whole and my life matters from that perspective. So, anyone who rejects a belief in such a transcendent perspective, cannot regard their own lives as really mattering — not even to themselves and their loved ones.
I think that I just don’t really understand the idea that my life doesn’t really matter if I don’t think that there’s a transcendent perspective on the universe from which vantage-point my life can be seen to matter. As if the mattering of my life to myself and my loved ones was insufficient for it to really matter. This is baffling to me. I’m having an immense difficulty thinking myself into a frame of mind where this could even seem to be true.
Origenes: Quite specific, I suppose. For instance: “next year, 12/12/2023, 6:53 PM Greenwich Mean Time, I will be at Trafalgar Square, London; wearing blue clothing.”
And you think you or someone can do that for the whole human population on the planet to the extent that you can refute materialism? Asking for a friend. Joke.
JVL@ The point you are making goes over my head. Of course, I assume that you and most of the human population routinely engage in acts of self-prediction… Does “tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock I will do push-ups” and/or “see you next week, same time same place”, sound familiar?
Only if you are spared. 🙂
JVL: “What a coward:,,, You have the free will to run away from questions which arise from your statements.,,,”
🙂
Excellent posts PM, at both 121 and 126. Both say things well that I have tried to articulate at times.
This is absolute nonsense.
The best that one can say is it is not proven. The belief is then not justified. So the one stating the opinion cannot justify the belief is true. It does not say the belief is false.
@132
If there’s no argument for this claim, then it is not irrational to reject the claim without giving an argument against it. (Corollary: if there were an argument for this claim, then rejecting the claim without responding to the argument would be irrational.)
This is the identical situation you argue against.
Your assert that rejecting the claim is reasonable without any proof that what you assert is true. This does not make the asserted claim by the other person false. It just means it could be true but not justified.
The best one can do is say to someone is that they believe something without justification. You have not proved what they believe is false or the negative is true.
Nothing you said makes the claim by the other person false.
Ba77,
It is important to tell the whole truth. Not a watered-down version of the truth. The truth has scientific and spiritual dimensions.
1 John 1:8
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
———————————————————————
“1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121′
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition
PM1 claims I made no argument. He is, as usual, wrong in his claim. In posts 43 and 44 I most certainly did make arguments against JVL’s position and for my position.
But anyways, to further validate my position.
The Allegory of the Cave
As to “When the prisoners are released, they can turn their heads and see the real objects”,,, I hold that the ‘shadows’ that we are now experiencing of beauty, love, meaning, purpose, etc.. here in this world are merely shadowy reflections of the ‘real’ beauty, love, meaning, purpose, etc.. that we will all, hopefully, experience one day in heaven.
To prove my point I will reference the following Near Death Experience studies which found NDEs to be ‘more real than real’, and “The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality’ and also “memories of near-death experiences are recalled as ‘‘realer” than real events or imagined events.’
Here are a few quotes from Near Death Experiencers themselves,
As to ‘beauty’ in particular, a common description of heaven in Near Death Experiences is just how ‘indescribably beautiful’ heaven is
Verses:
Of supplemental note to the physical reality of a higher heavenly dimension that exists above this temporal realm
Ba77,
No one knows the full story of what heaven will be like. True art, beauty and love, are given as gifts by the Holy Spirit. I know a number of artists and writers. Some do not know where their gifts come from. Some do. We are to use these gifts and be fruitful.
1 Corinthians 12:7
“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
12:8
“For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,”
12:9
“to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,”
12:10
“to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”
12:11
“All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”
Bornagain77: But anyways, to further validate my position.
But not to respond to the questions directed at you.
You answered some of my queries, which was sound. And I responded with further queries. Upon which you decided that because I didn’t agree with you about the nature of free will you could then ignore me and not even attempt to answer my questions. Which, let us note, had to do with the nature of truth. But you bailed. You ran away. Even though, by your standards, I am a free agent with the ability to think for myself.
I’m not going to forget your cowardice. Others might. Will you?
Cut-and-paste as much as you like, running away from a question doesn’t go away.
When you are ready to act like a mature individual and deal with the issues you have dodged then I shall stop badgering you. But if you’re going to act like a petulant teen then .. . ..
Relatd: No one knows the full story of what heaven will be like.
No, of course. But if this forum is going to jettison science altogether then make sure that is clear and stated.
Origenes: JVL@ The point you are making goes over my head.
I’m not surprised that you make a statement which, when queried, you cannot support or even address in a meaningful fashion.
JVL, you refuse to honestly acknowledge the catastrophic epistemological failure that is inherent in your own atheistic worldview and then you expect me to forget your stubborn refusal to be honest and act as if you are capable of being honest and forthright in your subsequent ‘questions’ past that point?
You got me confused with somebody else. I don’t play stupid ‘chase the troll’s tail in a circle’ games.
As far as I am concerned, I have presented my arguments clearly. But of course, given your past stubborn refusal to be honest, I don’t ever expect you, (or any of the other dogmatic atheists on UD), to accept them. It is just the nature of the beast. As far as I can tell, and for whatever severely misguided reason, you, (and other dogmatic atheists here on UD), are emotionally committed to fighting against Christianity no matter how much evidence, or reason, may be presented to you to the contrary. It truly is sad.
@136
It is mildly amusing to see you say this, since what you said in 43 and 44 had absolutely nothing to do with anything JVL has actually said here. What we find in your 43 and 44 are links to criticisms of Darwinism, but those criticisms are themselves really quite laughable and misinformed about evolutionary theory. But, we’ve been that road many a time and it would be a waste of my time to post the same links about naturalizing teleology that I’ve posted previously. I mean, what kind of person what post the same exact content over and over again?
Plato’s allegory of the cave has been subject to much interpretation in the past few thousand years, but only on some of those interpretations is it incompatible with naturalism.
I take Plato’s point to be not so much about what’s real as about what’s valuable, what’s really deserving of our time and attention. The prisoners in the cave compete with each other for honor, fame, and power — the person who has beheld the forms understands that those things are not truly valuable.
I think that Plato’s right about that — but I think that Aristotle is closer to the truth when he argues that if forms were utterly transcendent in the way Plato makes them out to be, they could not do the ontological and epistemological work that they need to do. Forms need to be the structuring causes immanent in the world as we sensually encounter it.
I recently encountered the evocative phrase that we want a philosophy that combines “the wisdom of Plato with the sanity of Aristotle.” I rather like that phrase.
Relatd@16
A narrow fundamentalist Christian view. What about the spiritual faiths of other billions of human beings, like:
Hinduism including Vedanta and Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and a small percentage of the population practicing Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and the Bahai Faith. And then there are many other spiritual belief systems not directly associated with world religions, such as Theosophy and the New Age movement.
And of course the fundamentalist Christian teaching is that all these billions of people practicing their own ways of loving God are inexorably destined for Hell.
Doubter at 143,
Who the heck told you that? Do you have any official statement from so-called Fundamentalist Christians?
Whatever PM1, your ‘denialism’ of evidence against Darwinian materialism is par for the course, and I, personally, think the fact that NDEs are found to be quote-unquote “‘‘realer” than real events” to be fairly powerful evidence substantiating the general point Plato was making in his allegory of the cave.
Of related note to the blatant hypocrisy that is evident when Darwinian atheists evaluate evidence against their position,
We have far more observational evidence for the reality of souls than we do for the Darwinian claim that unguided material processes can generate functional information. Moreover, the transcendent nature of ‘immaterial’ information, which is the one thing that, (as every ID advocate intimately knows), unguided material processes cannot possibly explain the origin of, directly supports the transcendent nature, as well as the physical reality, of the soul:
Verse:
To JVL @81:
You asked, “I would be interested to hear if you hold some of the same sentiments as your fellow Christian IDests who post here.”
Thank you for your question, but I honestly don’t know. Jesus said something that’s very freeing: “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1)
Caspian at 146,
“very freeing”? Like a Get Out of Jail Free card? Taking things Jesus said out of context and without the proper interpretation means making up your own version doesn’t count.
“* [7:1] This is not a prohibition against recognizing the faults of others, which would be hardly compatible with Mt 7:5, 6 but against passing judgment in a spirit of arrogance, forgetful of one’s own faults.”
– The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Relatd #16
To me this comes across as an honest clarifying question, and I’m no Christian. I do not see any offense here and I’m surprised to learn that some ppl do.
Origenes at 148,
I don’t see the harm in finding out the source of significance, hope and meaning outside of the Bible. But some people took it as a stealth/hidden/implied attack against their own beliefs and source of significance. Christians are called to explain themselves, why not others?
Just FYI: I apologized to relatd for interpreting his remark as being an attack on other sources of signficance.
Relatd
Everywhere Christians are increasingly confronted with hatred. Everyone who pays attention notices what’s going on.
– – –
Viola Lee, thank you.
Origenes at 151,
Hatred is to be expected. Anyway, I hope that here, at least, there can be some dialogue and people just getting to know each other.
Relatd, here I offer a short sketch of my worldview as an attempt to answer your profound question indirectly:
My personal concept of reality involves reincarnation. Each of us is, willingly or not, on an individual road to enlightenment. In my book, self-awareness is all-important. Morality does not have the central role it has in Christianity but is seen as an aspect of awareness. One of my credos is: ‘suffering is the announcement of awakening.’ God is a person like you and me but has reached ultimate awareness, knowledge, love, and wisdom.
If reincarnation is the case then I’d like to come back as a pampered and much-loved house cat.
@Seversky
I hear you, however, your request will be denied, the trajectory is upward for all of us.
In order to ground any ‘real’ meaning, significance, or purpose we find for our lives, a reasonable question to ask is, “might it first not be (very) helpful if the Darwinian atheist had a realistic clue, (not pipe dreams), as to where life itself actually came from?”
Of note:
Verse:
Bornagain77: In order to ground any ‘real’ meaning, significance, or purpose we find for our lives, a reasonable question to ask is, “might it first not be (very) helpful if the Darwinian atheist had a realistic clue, (not pipe dreams), as to where life itself actually came from?”
It might also be good to be able to determine what are ‘real’ truths and what are illusory or transient truths.
For example: can you determine the truth (or not) of the statement “all even numbers bigger than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers”. Having a methodology is good.
JVL, to point out the obvious, it is funny, and very disingenuous of you, that you, a Darwinian atheist, in order to avoid admitting the truth that you have no realistic clue how life itself could have possibly come about by naturalistic processes, (and thus, by default, honestly admitting that you have no realistic way of grounding any ‘real’ meaning, significance, or purpose we find for our lives), instead of honestly admitting that fact and honestly saying something along the line of, “Hey, since I have no realistic clue how life came about naturalistically, then I’ve got a pretty damn big problem grounding how our lives might have any ‘real’ meaning, significance, or purpose”,,, instead of honestly admitting that ‘little’ problem, as most reasonable people would have done, you instead want to divert attention from that blatantly obvious fact that you, (if you were being honest and reasonable), should just have honestly admitted to, and instead you want play ‘chase a troll’s tail in a circle’ games with finding whether or not a certain mathematical statement may be true of not.
I’ve seen you employ this mathematical ‘diversionary tactic’ a few times now when you have been shown some insurmountable problems with your Atheistic worldview. It is sad that you would be so intellectually dishonest with yourself, and others, so as to think this shallow diversionary tactic to mathematics somehow relieves you from being honest with the facts that are sitting right in front of you.
Moreover, as to your overall belief that mathematics is a source of, let’s say, ‘non-transient “real’ truths’. Well, I remind you, first, that your worldview of Darwinian atheism itself has no mathematical basis, and therefore, using your own line of reasoning, your Darwinian worldview fails to qualify as a “real’, “non-transient’, truth.
Secondly, I remind you that Godel, via his incompleteness theorems, threw a big ole monkey wrench into your overall belief that mathematics could serve as its own source for ultimate truth.
Kurt Godel, via his incompleteness theorems, proved that “There is a hole at the bottom of math” and that “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”., and that “Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous”
In short, even mathematics itself is now shown to be ‘contingent’, not ‘necessary’, in its existence, and therefore even mathematics itself is dependent on the Mind of God for its existence. Or to out it in other words, God is the ‘necessary truth’ from which all other ‘contingent truths’ derive their existence.
Verse and Quotes,
Relatd@144
There may be some disagreements in some quarters, but much of the Christian world believes that if someone doesn’t accept Jesus as Lord and Savior today—in this life—he or she will go to hell.
This means that the majority of Christians, pastors, and ministers believe that now is the only day of salvation. (Note: this popular belief is taught only by some not all authorized holy or agreed-upon-by-ecclesiastics texts.) This popular belief means that people who don’t believe in Jesus (Yahshua) during this lifetime for any reason will be eternally tormented in the ever-burning fire of hell. Thus, historically, many missionaries and Christians assumed the responsibility to convert as many non-believers as possible. They travel around the world trying to save souls and lead them to Christ.
“Extra ecclesiam nulla salus” is a Catholic Church teaching since at least the Fourth Lateran Council in the early thirteenth century. It means “there is no salvation outside the Church”. On the face of this teaching, it would seem that not only all non-Christians, but even non-Catholic Christians go to hell.
From Wiki:
The historic Protestant view of hell is expressed in the Westminster Confession (1646), a Reformed confession of faith:
“….but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” (Chapter XXXIII, Of the Last Judgment)
(On) the fate of the unevangelized (i.e., those who have never had an opportunity to hear the Christian gospel), those who die in infancy, and the mentally disabled: ….some Protestants agree with Augustine that people in these categories will be damned to hell for original sin, while other Protestants believe that God will make an exception in these cases.
@159
This is deeply misleading, to say the least.
Gödel proved that if a formal system is rich enough to express the Peano axioms, then there will always be true statements about that system which cannot be proved within that system. That mean the end of Hilbert’s logicism: since first-order logic is complete, the fact that arithmetic could not be complete meant that arithmetic could not be completely translated into first-order logic.
Hence this:
could be true, but whatever the argument for it, it has nothing at all to do with what Gödel proved.
The proof that any formal system that can capture number theory will be “incomplete” — that one can always construct true statements of that system that cannot be proven by that system — does not show that mathematics depends on the Mind of God.
Bornagain77:
I just lost a long post, sigh. I shall hit the high points now and try and recreate the finer details later after my dinner.
I am happy to admit that I do not know how life began on Earth and I think most people like me are also happy to admit that. And, we shall never know for sure since we cannot go back in time and observe it actually happening. We can make some good guesses parts of which can be verified as being possible.
You are the one who proposed that mathematics was a glimpse into the divine, into the mind of God and his ‘blueprint’. So I should think that you would be very, very interested in some real mathematical truths. Every since mathematical theorem has always been true and will always be true. That sounds like some kind of eternal or perpetual truth to me even without your theological overtones.
But wait! You say there is a ‘hole’ in the bottom of mathematics. (Which is not true, as has been pointed out.) But you think mathematics is a window on ultimate and invariable truth?
Perhaps you should spend more time seeing how your various statements and opinions combine together into a whole. Or is it a ‘hole’?
So, unsurprisingly, both PM1 and JVL, being the dogmatic atheists that they are, are in ‘denialism’ about just how devastating Godel’s incompleteness is to their atheistic metaphysics.
In taking their unsurprising ‘denialism’ apart, first off it is important to note that the very existence of ‘immaterial’ mathematics is something that is completely antithetical to Atheistic materialism,
Moreover, given that mathematics is profoundly immaterial in its foundation essence, then it is not surprising to learn that our ability to understand and ‘do mathematics’, is something that the reductive materialistic foundation of Darwinian evolution is at a complete loss to explain.
In fact, in 2014, several leading evolutionary scientists jointly, and honestly, admitted that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”
Although JVL and PM1, being the dogmatic atheists they are, will never honestly admit it, this inability to ground the existence of ‘immaterial’ mathematics, and this inability to ground our ability to “do immaterial mathematics’, is NOT a minor problem for Atheistic/Darwinian materialism.
As James Franklin challenged atheists, “the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,,”
But anyways, ignoring that ‘NOT minor’ problem for them, PM1 and JVL denied that Godel’s incompleteness is devastating to atheistic materialism in general.
They are, as usual, completely wrong in their claim.
For instance, Godel’s incompleteness has now been extended into quantum physics and has now shown “that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour”.,,, and that “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
In short, the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics will NEVER be successfully, mathematically, extended to account for the macroscopic descriptions of general relativity. Much less will Darwinists, by appealing to microscopic particles, ever be able to account for the specific macroscopic ‘form’ that any particular organism may take.
Moreover, as if that was not already devastating enough to Atheistic/Darwinian materialists, Gregory Chaitin has now shown that “what Gödel discovered was just the tip of the iceberg: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.”
This presents an irremediably difficult situation for those who hope to find a purely mathematical theory of everything that makes no reference to God. As the late Steven Weinberg, an atheist, confessed to Richard Dawkins, “I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that.”
And although atheists, via the late Weinberg, are, self-admittedly, are in a pretty bad ‘fix’, the Christian Theist has a ready explanation. As Bruce Gordon explains, “the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them.”
And it is not as if ID proponents do not already have sufficient reason to believe that free will must be involved in choosing among an “infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring(ing) into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them.”
As Douglas S. Robertson explains, “Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.”
In fact, (as was already touched upon), modern science was born out of the belief that any mathematics that might describe this universe are to be considered ‘God’s thoughts’.
As Johannes Kepler stated shortly after discovering the third law of planetary motion,
And as Edward Feser explains, “Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world.”
And you don’t have to take Kepler, Poythress, and Feser’s word for it, Eugene Wigner, (who’s insights into quantum mechanics continue to drive breakthroughs into quantum mechanics; per A. Zeilinger), and Albert Einstein, (who needs no introduction), are both on record as to regarding it as a ‘miracle’ that math should even be applicable to the universe in the first place.
Moreover, Wigner questioned the ability of Darwinism to produce our ‘reasoning power’ in his process of calling it a miracle. Whereas Einstein went so far as to chastise ‘professional atheists’ in his process of calling it a miracle.
And the last time I checked, a miracle is considered to be the sole province of God,
Of course, PM1 and JVL, being the Darwinian atheists that they are, will never honestly admit to any ‘miracle’ that points toward God, yet regardless of their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the truth, I hold that we have more than sufficient reason to regard the applicability of mathematics to the universe, and our ability to understand that ‘immaterial’ math, to be nothing less than a miracle from God.
Of supplemental note,
Verse:
Doubter at 160,
Your attempt to explain this matter involves very little research. It is very important because some reading may get the wrong idea. A few references:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-happens-to-those-who-die-and-do-not-believe
https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/can-non-catholics-be-saved/
@163
Nothing in 163 shows that Godel’s incompleteness theorem entails that mathematics depends on the Mind of God.
I don’t really care if you believe that mathematics depends on the Mind of God. You could believe that Dumbo is an avatar of Ganesha for all I care.
I’m just pointing out that you’re making a lot of claims that have no argument, and every time this lack of argument is pointed out, you pull another Gish Gallop just like 163.
Bornagain77: So, unsurprisingly, both PM1 and JVL, being the dogmatic atheists that they are, are in ‘denialism’ about just how devastating Godel’s incompleteness is to their atheistic metaphysics.
Too funny. Godel’s ‘incompleteness’? You don’t understand the mathematics so you shouldn’t try and hijack it for you own narrow view.
In taking their unsurprising ‘denialism’ apart, first off it is important to note that the very existence of ‘immaterial’ mathematics is something that is completely antithetical to Atheistic materialism,
IN YOUR OPINION. You state all your opinions as if they were facts and then find someone who sometime said something which you think supports your statement. But, again, you don’t actually understand the mathematics. I know that because when I bring up real mathematics you either ignore it or say I’m just trying to confuse the issue. But I’m not; I’m pointing out that YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE MATHEMATICS but you think you do.
Moreover, given that mathematics is profoundly immaterial in its foundation essence, then it is not surprising to learn that our ability to understand and ‘do mathematics’, is something that the reductive materialistic foundation of Darwinian evolution is at a complete loss to explain.
It’s not at a complete loss to explain. You just haven’t bothered a) learning the mathematics and b) read up on why we can do mathematics without any theology.
In fact, in 2014, several leading evolutionary scientists jointly, and honestly, admitted that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”
Which is not the same as saying: we shouldn’t be able to do these things without God. You always twist and distort things to the point where you think they agree with your view.
Although JVL and PM1, being the dogmatic atheists they are, will never honestly admit it, this inability to ground the existence of ‘immaterial’ mathematics, and this inability to ground our ability to “do immaterial mathematics’, is NOT a minor problem for Atheistic/Darwinian materialism.
It’s not a problem at all. Just because we don’t completely understand, right now, how we learned to deal with such things doesn’t mean we can’t deal with such things. Again, you don’t understand the mathematics and you don’t understand the discussions about the mathematics.
As James Franklin challenged atheists, “the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,,”
So what? Humans are a lot more complicated than any current AIs, we know that. That has nothing to do with humans being able to do higher level mathematics.
You just go on and on and on and on.
But you blatantly side-step two statements you made which don’t connect up: Mathematics is a window into the realm and mind of God. And there is a ‘hole’ in the bottom of mathematics. And then when I bring up some real, not even complicated, mathematical ideas you accuse me of trying to divert attention away from the real point.
Make up your mind. IF mathematics is a sign of the divine then why aren’t you interested in all of its aspects? Why aren’t you interested in examining and checking out all of its ‘truths’? Why aren’t you interested, if it is a door to the divine, in learning how to speak the mathematical language and understand all its subtleties and beauty?
Maybe it’s because you just aren’t able to think mathematically. Maybe you don’t like having that pointed out to you. Maybe that’s why you make contradictory statements about mathematics. Because you really don’t understand it. It’s actually all just a mystery to you. So you assume it’s magic, it’s divine, it’s supra-human.
As Bruce Gordon explains, “the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them.”
Really? Okay then, is the Axiom of Choice true or false? What about Zorn’s lemma? The Goldbach conjecture? You don’t understand any of those things do you? You throw about stuff that you think sounds profound but you actually don’t understand any of it at all.
You think math is an aspect of the divine but you can’t speak the language of mathematics at all. Perhaps you should stop thinking you can.
I tell you what, let’s just stick to talking about the mathematics. Do you think every even number greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers yes or no?
Whatever JVL and PMI, your usual denialisms and ad hominems notwithstanding, I’m sure unbiased readers can parse out for themselves who is being forthright and who is being disingenuous.
Bornagain77: Whatever JVL and PMI, your usual denialisms and ad hominems notwithstanding, I’m sure unbiased readers can parse out for themselves who is being forthright and who is being disingenuous.
Too bad for you eh? You who cannot even admit he doesn’t understand all the math he posts about.
Can you express every even integer bigger than 2 as the sum of two primes? Yes or no? It’s a big, eternal truth either way, can you even begin to speak that language?
PS it’s not an ad hominem if it’s true. That makes it just a fact, a truth. You don’t understand the mathematics do you? And you can’t even be honest enough, humble enough, sincere enough to admit it. Your pride is more important that the truth isn’t it?
Hawking seems to confirm what Bornagain is saying about Gödel’s theorem:
JVL@169, referencing BA77@168, you know that you have won the argument when BA77 resorts to the “whatever” defence.
JVL @Sir Giles
I don’t understand what is being claimed here. It’s common knowledge at this forum that Gödel’s theorem states that given a finite set of axioms, there will be theorems that are unprovable — is JVL claiming that this is “not true”? And where has this been pointed out?
Origenes: I don’t understand what is being claimed here. It’s common knowledge at this forum that Gödel’s theorem states that given a finite set of axioms, there will be theorems that are unprovable — is JVL claiming that this is “not true”? And where has this been pointed out?
Read through Bornagain77‘s comments on Godel’s work in the thread above to find out. I’m not going to go through it all again just for you.
PM1, JVL et al:
Let’s note on undecidability/ unsolvability, the widely acknowledged wider import of Godel’s two theorems:
https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Unsolvability
Speaking on the computation side (and note the pervasive importance of algorithms):
https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Undecidability
Hole or crack in the foundations would be colourful language, but it makes a substantial point.
Attempts to create a perceived molehill out of the mountain that Godel exposed fail. This reminds me of the shock when India was first being surveyed for mapping, and certain longstanding mountains in the distance were suddenly recognised to be the highest in the world.
That had always been the case, it was just that their significance was now highlighted.
Again:
No, this cannot be sidelined.
KF
Origenes, note the just above; the piling on and hyperskeptical dismissiveness games fail yet again. KF
F/N: In opening remarks for his Algorithmic information theory [1987], Chaitin:
In a related collection of papers, he remarks:
Mathematicians, too, duly humbled, must live by faith and not by sight!
KF
@172
Neither JVL nor myself are taking issue with Gödel’s proofs of the first and second incompleteness theorems. We are taking issue only with bornagain77’s claims about the theological implications of those proofs. More specifically, I have taken issue with the lack of argument for those supposed theological implications.
(In full disclosure, my grasp of mathematics and philosophy of mathematics is quite limited. I’ve read and appreciated Newman and Nagel’s book Gödel’s Proof but I haven’t read the original paper and I doubt it would benefit me if I were to try.)
Kairosfocus @
It seems to be all that they have.
Moreover, I cannot help but notice that Mr. JVL here tends to go off whenever a coherent argument against his preferred worldview is being presented. In posts that reek of projection, he accuses Bornagain of dishonesty and several other things (e.g. #169).
Something quite similar happened earlier in this thread after I presented my ‘Argument from Self-prediction’ (#123). First JVL attempts to question the third premise (#124). But when his attempt turns out to be a damp squib (#125), JVL also resorts to incoherence (#127 & #128) and ad hominem attack (#140).
@169
A bit off-topic but I think relevant to some neighboring issues: a few months ago I heard a fascinating talk by a philosopher of mathematics about Goldbach’s Conjecture. He argued that the deep problem with the Conjecture is not that we don’t know if it’s true or false, but that we don’t know what mathematics we would need to know in order to determine if it’s true or false.
He contrasted the Conjecture with Wiles’s proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. To proof the Theorem, Wiles had to construct a lot of mathematics first, and it took mathematicians time to examine the math, correct the mistakes, improve the foundations, and eventually conclude that Wiles’s proof (suitably corrected) was valid.
Wiles had to figure out what we needed to know in order to construct a proof of the Theorem. No one has yet done that for the Conjecture: we don’t know what we would need to know in order to show that it’s true or that it’s false.
@168
I don’t think you’re being disingenuous in the sense of being insincere or lacking in candor.
I do think that you are deficient in critical thinking and basic epistemic norms — what Kairosfocus would call “Ciceronian duties of right reason.” I say that because you promote criticisms of what you call “Darwinian atheism” without taking the time to reflect on the accuracy of those criticisms or how a thoughtful, reflective naturalist might respond to those criticisms.
And every post of yours has the same five or ten links to various articles with misunderstandings, omissions, and distortions.
It would a full-time job to go through every one and point out each and every mistake in every article you link to. I already have a full-time job, and commenting at Uncommon Descent isn’t it.
As it is, I’ve already gotten weary of correcting even basic mistakes you make about what I believe — such as claiming that I’m an atheist. I’m not, and I’ve said so many times, but you refuse to take notice, and I’ve just gotten tired of constantly pointing this out.
PM1, kindly note that I have referenced Enc Math and Chaitin. This is an issue of technical significance for math and computing, thus immediately science, but it also casts a wide worldviews penumbra as it shatters case no 1 used to push rationalism by way of a hoped for global rational axiomatic structure. That puts up front centre that we have worldview presuppositions and alternative cores at stake, what I have for simplicity called first plausibles at our faith points. KF
Although I feel, (via Godel, see posts 159, 163, and 164, and thanks to Kairosfocus addition at posts 174 and 176), that we already have more than sufficient reason to believe that math can’t serve as its own foundation, (i.e. that math has a ‘contingent’, not ‘necessary’, existence), and to, therefore, regard the applicability of mathematics to the universe, and our ability to understand that ‘immaterial’ math, to be nothing less than a miracle from God, In order to further demonstrate, and more solidly establish, that the omniscient ‘infinite Mind of God’ must be behind any mathematics that describe this universe I will appeal to the ‘collapse of the wave function’ in quantum mechanics.
But first it is necessary to illustrate a little background.
In order to try to avoid the Theistic implications that are inherent in quantum wave collapse, many times atheists will appeal to the ‘Many-Worlds’ interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics. In the ‘Many-Worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics the reality of the wave function collapse is simply denied as being a real effect.
To say that the atheist’s ‘Many-Worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics is ‘untethered imagination run amok’ is to put it too kindly.
As Philip Ball further explained in 2018, MWI “destroys any credible account of what an observer can possibly be.”
Luckily for our existence as observers, and for our sanity, wave function collapse, (and directly contrary to what atheists hold in their MWI), is now experimentally shown to be a real effect.
As the following article states, experiments have now demonstrated “the non-local, (i.e. beyond space and time), collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function”,, “the collapse of the wave function is a real effect”,, “the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected”,, and “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”,,
So, regardless of how atheistic materialists may feel about it, wave function collapse is now shown to be a real effect and, as such, the MWI is now experimentally shown to a false interpretation of quantum mechanics.
There are two things that make wave function collapse so ‘undesirable’ for atheistic materialists.
Number one, the free will of an observer is shown to be an integral part, (although not a complete explanation), in bringing about wave function collapse.
As Steven Weinberg succinctly explains, “the Schrödinger equation,,, It is just as deterministic as Newton’s equations of motion and gravitation”.,, “So if we regard the whole process of measurement as being governed by the equations of quantum mechanics, and these equations are perfectly deterministic, how do probabilities get into quantum mechanics?”,,, “In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,,”
Weinberg’s statement, “these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure”, does not really capture just how devastating this is to atheistic metaphysics. What Weinberg is really saying, in essence, is that the wave function is not collapsing to its particle state until an observer chooses what to measure.
This following experiments more fully capture just how devastating wave function collapse is to atheistic metaphysics.
In the following delayed choice experiment with atoms it was found that, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behaviour was brought into existence,”
And in the following experiment which falsified ‘realism’, (which is the belief that an objective ‘material’ reality exists independently of our observation/measurement of it), it was found that, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
The Theistic implications of such experiments are fairly straightforward. As Scott Aaronson quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
The second thing that makes wave function collapse so ‘undesirable’ for atheistic materialists is that prior to our choice of what to measure, which is to say prior to the collapse of the wave function, the wave function is mathematically defined as being in an infinite dimension state that requires an infinite amount of information to describe properly.
As is fairly obvious, the ‘infinite dimensional’ Hilbert space corresponds to the Theistic attribute of omnipresence. And the infinite information required to describe the ‘infinite dimensional’ wave function prior to collapse corresponds to the Theistic attribute of omniscience.
In essence, the wave function is, basically, mathematically described as being one of “God’s thoughts’ prior to its collapse to its finite ‘material’ state.
Which is rather stunning confirmation of the Christian’s contention, (via ‘Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology’, Edward Feser; “Keep it Simple”; 2020), that the (infinite-dimensional and infinite information) mathematics that are found to describe this universe at its most basic level really are “God’s thoughts”. Just as was originally held by the Christian founders of modern science who thought they were thinking God’s thoughts after him whenever they discovered some mathematical truth about the universe.
As St. Augustine succinctly summarized the Christian’s view of mathematics, “Although the infinite series of numbers cannot be numbered, this infinity of numbers is not outside the comprehension of him “whose understanding cannot be numbered”.”
So again, whereas atheists are at a complete loss to explain why ‘immaterial, infinite, and eternal’ math should even be applicable to the universe in the first place, much less can they possibly explain how we, (as supposedly purely material beings), have the capacity within ourselves to understand this “immaterial, infinite, and eternal’ realm of math, I hold that we have more than sufficient, even compelling, reason to regard the ‘infinite dimensional’ mathematics that describe this universe at its most fundamental ‘quantum’ level to be the ‘immaterial, infinite, and eternal’ omniscient “thoughts of God”.
Verses and Quotes:
As I head out the door, I note again from Enc Math: “It is not anymore possible to disregard undecidable propositions as exceptional singularities that are not encountered in “real mathematics”” KF
@181
I do think that the fundamental question of the Dilemma of the Criterion and the closely related Agrippa’s Trilemma are of extreme importance here.
I disagree that “first plausibles at faith points” is the best way to resolve those problems. I think that our acceptance of first principles must itself be reasonable in order for those principles to have authority. But since those principles cannot be derived from anything else (if they were, they wouldn’t be first!), what is required is a way of thinking about reasonableness other than being logically justified by deductively valid argument or being empirically justified by induction over experiences. (It is for this reason that I think Hegel was right to identify dialectics as the science of thought that goes beyond reasoning from axioms, just as Plato says in Republic and Parmenides.)
We could get into those issues, if you wanted.
But if we do, I’m not at all sure that it would be relevant to consider the implications of Godel’s theorems. Those theorems show that number theory lacks “foundations” in the sense that Hilbert thought it needed. What Hilbert wanted was to show that arithmetic could be translated into a purely syntactical language, where meaningless symbols were mapped to meaningless symbols. That’s how they understood first-order logic, and what they wanted was to reduce arithmetic* to logic. Godel proved that this could not be done, because first-order logic is complete and arithmetic cannot be.
It’s a fascinating episode in the history of mathematics, and it had massive implications for computing, as shown by Turing and by Church.
But does it have implications for how we resolve the Dilemma of the Criterion or Agrippa’s Trilemma? Well, maybe. Yet that is precisely what would need to be argued for, not just asserted.
* By “arithmetic” I mean any formal language rich enough to capture the axioms of arithmetic.
Arithmetic- the adding or subtracting of positive integers.
That’s all it is. Now different arrangements of positive integers are extremely useful. But we forget just what arithmetic and numbers are, in reality.
Multiplication is fast addition. Division is fast partitioning.
The most useful thing in all elementary education is memorizing the multiplication tables up to nine.
https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1602656906413330432
Aside: we agreed several times, that there is no such thing as infinity in the real world. Extremely useful concept for the real world but only exists in a mental abstract world used to help solve real world problems.
PyrrhoManiac1: But if we do, I’m not at all sure that it would be relevant to consider the implications of Godel’s theorems. Those theorems show that number theory lacks “foundations” in the sense that Hilbert thought it needed. What Hilbert wanted was to show that arithmetic could be translated into a purely syntactical language, where meaningless symbols were mapped to meaningless symbols. That’s how they understood first-order logic, and what they wanted was to reduce arithmetic* to logic. Godel proved that this could not be done, because first-order logic is complete and arithmetic cannot be.
And, more importantly, it doesn’t mean there is a ‘black hole’ at the heart of mathematics.
Again, every theorem ever proven was true then, is true now and always will be true. I can’t say how many PhDs in mathematics are awarded every year planet-wide but I’m betting it’s in the thousands. Every single one of those dissertations is a unique and never-before-seen bit of mathematics.
There’s no ‘hole’; there is a robust and viable and productive system producing more and more and more mathematics every single year.
Yes there are some notions (like the Axiom of Choice) which may, in fact be undecidable (one of the reasons it’s called an axiom, duh) but how many of you have ever even heard of it? Do you even know what area of mathematics it features in?
If mathematics does, in fact, give a window onto the mind of God then we are getting to know that mind better and better every year.
PM1, the point is the failure of grand axiomatisation, which justifies recognising that gap. As for first plausibles, the issue is that worldviews do have finitely remote first plausibles, whether they are well framed or not. With evolutionary materialistic scientism as such an ill founded case. Comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and balance of explanatory power then apply. KF
Jerry: Arithmetic- the adding or subtracting of positive integers.
Doesn’t quite encompass the fundamental theorem of arithmetic does it?
JVL, you need to have a talk with Chaitin. KF
Bornagain77: The second thing that makes wave function collapse so ‘undesirable’ for atheistic materialists is that prior to our choice of what to measure, which is to say prior to the collapse of the wave function, the wave function is mathematically defined as being in an infinite dimension state that requires an infinite amount of information to describe properly.
NO ATHEIST has a problem with any aspect of quantum mechanics. Not one. And yes, that is the mathematics. Every physicist, every mathematician, many chemists all know how it works. You’re just making up that it’s a problem.
Look, it’s really clear you don’t understand the mathematics behind quantum mechanics at all. Which means it’s all magic to you. Which means you can ‘assign’ meaning or interpretations which, most likely, are not inherent in or reflected by the actual mathematics and science.
Actually, it doesn’t take an infinite amount of information to define mathematically. That’s what modelling is all about.
I hold that we have more than sufficient, even compelling, reason to regard the ‘infinite dimensional’ mathematics that describe this universe at its most fundamental ‘quantum’ level to be the ‘immaterial, infinite, and eternal’ omniscient “thoughts of God”.
Well that means I understand more of the ‘thoughts of God’ than you do. Kind of funny don’t you think?
Is just the partition of a positive number into lesser positive numbers that add up to the number.
It is a combination of fast addition or multiplication or/and just plain addition.
Kairosfocus: JVL, you need to have a talk with Chaitin.
Uh huh. I’m good actually. By the way . . .
Still doesn’t mean there is a ‘hole’ in the centre of mathematics that you want to fill with theology.
Also:
Anyway, you know what? Most, vast majority most, mathematicians don’t think about such things at all. There are too busy actually discovering new mathematical truths. I know this because I’ve been there. I’ve watched such things happening. There is no mathematical crisis or hole. There just isn’t. You should stop saying things that aren’t true and/or are only professed by a minority of those in the field.
Jerry: Is just the partition of a positive number into lesser positive numbers that add up to the number.
Oh dear, that’s not right at all. Gee Jerry, your mathematical expertise is looking pretty shaky at the moment.
Perhaps you should actually look it up.
But it is right.
Maybe you should actually look it up.
I did and used the Wikipedia definition as the basis for my remarks. And I did get 100% correct on the GRE test for mathematics.
Jerry: But it is right. Maybe you should actually look it up.
Oh dear, someone else pretending to know more that they do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_arithmetic
Note: not sum, product.
Turns out that maybe even Euclid was aware of this BASIC result. Which Jerry didn’t know.
Jerry is going to make some statement that multiplication is the same as addition (my prediction) but the fundamental theorem of arithmetic talks about the product of, sometimes, many prime numbers. So Jerry</b. has a) forgotten or neglected to mention the importance of primes in the theorem and b) hasn't generalised how an extended product of primes can be represented as a sum.
Jerry has been lazy, clearly. And he clearly has not reacted as any mathematician I know would have reacted.
I did and used the Wikipedia definition as the basis for my remarks. And I did get 100% correct on the GRE test for mathematics.
Obviously you didn’t look it up and oooo, you got a high score on your GREs. I took them as well. Thousands of people take them every year. Why are you getting so much wrong now then?
JVL doth protest too much, methinks.
JVL makes this fairly egregious false claim, “NO ATHEIST has a problem with any aspect of quantum mechanics. Not one.”
This is a very interesting, and egregiously false, claim for him to make, especially seeing that, in the very post that he was throwing spitballs at, I specifically referenced an article from the late Steven Weinberg, a prominent atheist, entitled “The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics” no less, that listed the many problems that he personally had with quantum mechanics.
I guess JVL does not even bother to actually read my posts before starting to throw spit balls at them.
Anyways, in spite of JVL’s egregiously false claim, atheistic materialists have fought tooth and nail, for decades now, trying to preserve ‘hidden variables’, and ‘local realism’, from being falsified. All to no avail as the 2022 Nobel prize in physics itself testifies.
As Daniel Garisto quipped in an article about the 2022 Nobel prize in physics, “the demise of local realism has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
Well, I guess that since JVL, in spite of that long history of atheists clinging to hidden variables, and local realism, all to no avail, still claims that “NO ATHEIST has a problem with any aspect of quantum mechanics. Not one”, then I guess that JVL has no problem whatsoever with Anton Zeilinger stating, “information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows.” ,,, “the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word.”
In conclusion, JVL either purposely lied, or he is woefully ignorant about the overall history of quantum mechanics, a history where atheistic materialists have clung to the now falsified presuppositions of hidden variables and local realism.
Either way, whether he is purposely lying, or whether he is woefully ignorant, it does not bode well for him.
An additional comment about God’s Word.
Isaiah 55:11
“so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
@200
That’s quite lovely. Thank you for sharing.
“We will learn to shed the unessential dogmas, rules, definitions, prejudices which have been collected by the religions over centuries and millennia. We will learn that they have been created out of feelings of insecurity, out of an innate need of mankind to define and understand even the undefinable and ununderstandable. I am convinced that in all major religions we will discover the essentials of what it means to be human in this world. We will succeed in convincing church leaders and religious leaders to be more audacious and to open up to other views of the world and to rely less on what they perceive to be their own access to truth.”
And here the main problem is revealed: Man becomes God. The word of God is reshaped to fit the desires of men. The truth comes from God. He reveals it. Religious leaders don’t just believe they have access to truth through the Bible by their own will. To know the Bible is to know the will of God. It cannot be discarded. Or changed.
“As long as there are children”
Well, well, well. Children considered the hope of mankind.
Let’s abort millions in celebration.
Sev’s “The Future of Science” post is a big joke. What a surprise.
Andrew
JVL, as usual buried under tangential comments. See 176 i/l/o 174 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-quora-is-it-possible-to-prove-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-that-intelligence-was-required-to-create-life/#comment-771824 KF
As to:
Although Zeilinger’s claim that all religions are, basically, merely a ‘comforting bed time story’ invented by men to try to “understand even the undefinable and un-understandable” is probably true for many of the religions of the world, Judeo-Christian Theism stands in stark contrast to that fairly simplistic ‘bed-time story’ narrative that Zeilinger believes to be true for all religions
Zeilinger himself gives witness to fact that Judeo-Christian Theism stands in stark contrast to other world religions, and that it uniquely offers insight into the “undefinable and un-understandable”, when he himself references the beginning of John, not once, but twice (that I know of), in claiming that the fundamental ‘stuff’ of the universe is not matter and energy, but information.
And indeed, Zeilinger’s insight that the fundamental ‘stuff’ of the universe is not matter and energy, but information, enabled him formulate Zeilinger’s principle,
And indeed I hold that Zeilinger’s, very ‘Judeo-Christian friendly’, insight that the fundamental ‘stuff’ of the universe is not matter and energy, but information, is what enabled him to make his fairly astonishing experimental breakthroughs in quantum mechanics that enabled him to glimpse into the quote unquote “undefinable and un-understandable”
As should be needless to say, it is funny thing that a supposedly ‘comforting bed-time story’ of Judeo-Christian theism would correctly predict an ‘information theoretic’ basis for the universe. And that Zeilinger himself would happen to use a ‘information theoretic’ understanding of the universe in order to experimentally glimpse into the “undefinable and un-understandable.”
Anyways, besides Judeo-Christian theism correctly predicting that the fundamental ‘stuff’ of the universe would information theoretic in its foundational basis, Judeo-Christian theism alone, out of all the religions of the world, also uniquely, and correctly, predicted that the entire universe had a transcendent origin.
Via Hugh Ross, we find “out of all the major religions in the world, only the Holy Bible was correct in its claim for a completely transcendent origin of the universe. Some later ‘holy’ books, such as the Mormon text “Pearl of Great Price” and the Qur’an, copy the concept of a transcendent origin from the Bible but also include teachings that are inconsistent with that” now established fact. (Hugh Ross; Why The Universe Is The Way It Is; Pg. 228; Chpt.9; note 5)
Moreover from Sev’s citation, we also find that Zeilinger has been severely misled by the false warfare thesis between science and religion, and that he has also been severely misled by the pseudoscience of evolution, (a pseudoscience that, as every ID intimately knows, is relentlessly promulgated by atheists in sprite of having no experimental evidence that it can create even a single protein),
First, the warfare thesis between science and Christianity is simply a flat out lie that was imagined out of thin air by Darwinian atheists for polemical purposes.
Contrary to what Zeilinger has falsely been led to believe by Darwinian atheists, science and Christianity are certainly not in a battle with each other. In fact, modern science was born out of, and is still very much crucially dependent upon, Judeo-Christian presuppositions.
As Paul Davies noted, “even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”
So thus, Zeilinger, in so far as actions speak louder than words, used an information-theoretic understanding of the universe to make fairly impressive ‘experimental strides’ into glimpsing into the undefinable and un-understandable”. And that information-theoretic understanding of the universe, as Zeilinger himself conceded, (at least twice), is found at the beginning of John.,,, To point out the obvious, that is either a very astonishing ‘coincidence’ or else Judeo-Christian theism has far more going for it than Zeilinger has been falsely led to believe by Darwinian atheists.
Zeilinger also stated.
I couldn’t agree more with Zeilinger. See post 182, i.e. “the free will of an observer is shown to be an integral part, (although not a complete explanation), in bringing about wave function collapse.”
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-quora-is-it-possible-to-prove-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-that-intelligence-was-required-to-create-life/#comment-771833
And although, as a Christian, I am very comfortable with what Zeilinger stated in that passage, how a Darwinian/Atheistic materialists could possibly find any comfort whatsoever in anything Zeilinger wrote in that passage I have no idea. That passage is simply completely antithetical to the entire foundation of Atheistic Materialism.
Man tries to exalt himself above God. To correct what God said as if his mind could, in any way, be greater than God’s. It is written:
2 Timothy 3:1
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.”
3:2
“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,”
3:3
“unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good,”
3:4
“treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,”
Yes, 200 by Sev is nice, especially the first two paragraphs,
Bornagain
WRT quantum mechanics, do you agree with me that only aspects of reality can be said to be not real?
Allow me to explain my point:
For Alice the particle has no spin directionality independent from her as an observer. IOW the spin directionality is ‘not real’ [not independent of her measurement]. However, what remains ‘real’ [independent of her measurement] is that we are dealing with a spinning particle. It’s spin can be up or down but we are dealing with a (real) particle either way. Only an aspect of the particle can rightly be called “not real”, namely it’s spin direction. It cannot be measured such that it is not a particle but a pink elephant. To say that the particle as a whole is not real, let alone to say “The Universe Is Not Real”, seems provocative and without basis to me. Do you agree?
As an aside, it should also be noted that, once the particle is measured by Alice, Bob is confronted by a particle with “real” spin. His measurement has no bearing on the direction of the spin of his particle (or am I missing something?)
Well Origenes, I hold that ‘realism’ has been falsified at an even deeper level than what you are holding in that I hold that the particle doesn’t even exist in a particle state until the ‘infinite dimensional’ quantum wave collapses into a particle state upon our ‘free will’ decision of what to measure and/or observe.
I think the first part of the following video is good at getting this basic point across.
Bornagain @
Thank you.
From the video:
“In part” seems to be in line with my point, that only aspects of reality are not real. One cannot decide to perform measurements on an electron when only photons pass the measurement device. Put another way, one cannot make “photon probabilities” collapse into an electron. Right?
Also from the video:
The first impression is that this claim goes much further than the previous one. However, it is not clear if they mean to say “partly independent.”
If there is no physical world that is real in any way, if there is nothing independent of its observation, then it would be completely up to us what exists (what to bring into existence). Then we can decide to measure pink unicorns.
I take it, that this is not your position. Or is it? 🙂
JVL, 193:
>>Still doesn’t mean there is a ‘hole’ in the centre of mathematics>>
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-quora-is-it-possible-to-prove-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-that-intelligence-was-required-to-create-life/#comment-771824 [this is 174]
1: As I documented in 174 – 6, there was a research programme led by Hilbert that sought to frame core mathematics in a unified, axiomatised, closed comprehensive deductive whole; which was shattered by Godel’s two theorems on incompleteness, irremovable potential for incoherence and resulting irreducible complexity.
2: This is already key, for had that programme succeeded, there would have been even more denigration of anything that did not meet the “gold standard”; that would echo the iron grip of the Euclidean axiomatic framework from the days of the Greeks.
3: The obvious “anything” would be politically incorrect inductive reasoning and things like worldviews analysis that highlights first plausibles at finite remove and resulting faith points then comparative difficulties analysis. Where, “faith” highlights that we recognise such things on trust.
4: That is, the infinite regress is impossible/an infeasible supertask, question begging circularity is self defeating, we have no realistic alternative but worldviews cross examined on comparative difficulties across alternative clusters of first plausibles defining various faith points, i.e. worldviews.
5: Chaitin, as cited in 176, extends this further and just as decisively, it is not some esoteric oddity, it is closer to hand than we may want to acknowledge:
. . . and:
6: So, we see in the Enc of Math, cited in 174 but buried under tangential remarks across yesterday:
7: Sideline and dismiss does not work, as core Mathematics is part of the logic of being, i.e. the logic of structure and quantity, which can be shown to be applicable to any possible world.
8: Note, logic of being, here, is synonymous with Ontology, a major sub branch of Metaphysics, roughly: the philosophical [= hard, core questions], critical study of worldviews. This then exposes your resort to loaded language:
>>that you want to fill with theology.>>
9: Notice, your subject switch, from logic of being and worldviews analysis to what in this context is a loaded word that invites inference of “religion, not reason”? (Itself, a prejudice.)
>>Some philosophers and logicians disagree with the philosophical conclusions that Chaitin has drawn from his theorems related to what Chaitin thinks is a kind of fundamental arithmetic randomness. The logician Torkel Franzén criticized Chaitin’s interpretation of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and the alleged explanation for it that Chaitin’s work represents.>>
10: Again, philosophy studies hard, fundamental questions without easy answers, on comparative difficulties. So, starting with the definition of philosophy itself, everything is disputed. The mere fact of a difference of opinion and resulting critique is indecisive. The issue is balance of merits on comparative difficulties.
11: where, in fact, the material point is that Godel’s proofs established a fundamental result, axiomatisation for complex systems esp those involving core math cannot establish a closed, universal framework, or even that our limited frameworks are coherent and that others to Chaitin et al have shown that this is not an isolated dismissible oddity. Undecidability is a pervasive phenomenon.
12: So, hoped for closed rationalistic, axiomatic systems are fatally flawed, are in fact impossible. This leaves the worldviews, first plausibles, faith points approach as the last man standing after the demolition derby. Comparative difficulties, self evident first truths [which, thanks to Godel we know cannot span a full orbed worldview], established facts, theses proposed as they help unify and are fruitful, etc are all on the table.
13: In particular (and as I discussed some time ago here at UD and elsewhere) mathematical and computational systems set up abstract logic model worlds. Where, if key parts pivot on necessary entities fabric to any possible world [NZQRCR* etc is a case] then, answering Wigner, the answers are universal. In other cases, they need to be tailored to what is plausible and useful for a given world. Hence, Scientific frameworks, simulation models etc.
14: This duly chastened framework is useful, reliable, effective, but it lends no credibility to hoped for gold standard grand rationalistic-deductive comprehensive, closed schemes.
15: So, we all must live by worldviews, rooted in first plausibles expressing faith points, the issue is to recognise that, exercise comparative difficulties and be willing to move on as the weight of comparative difficulties shifts the balance on the scales.
KF
Seversky, Bornagain @
Not a real object in any way? Not independent from observation in any way? As in, “there is no object at all.” As in, “there is nothing to describe.” As in, “it totally up to us what to bring into existence by way of measurement”? As in, “what do you want to measure into existence today, a pink unicorn perhaps or something entirely different”?
The knowledge of us observers? There is no object, there is just our knowledge? So, if we are to decide that our knowledge is that there is no moon, no moon will be measured?
Statements of our confidence about what? About nothing real, about nothing independent from us? Statements of our confidence about our knowledge of stuff that does not exist, in any other way other than concepts in our minds?
– – – – – – – – – –
I must say that I will be somewhat annoyed if the general answer to my questions is: “Well of course not, that is not what we meant. Don’t take what we say so literally”. It would be tempting for me to ask “Why the sloppy language?”
Origenes “If there is no physical world that is real in any way, if there is nothing independent of its observation, then it would be completely up to us what exists (what to bring into existence). Then we can decide to measure pink unicorns.
I take it, that this is not your position. Or is it?”
The position that there is “no physical world that is real in any way” is, of course, not my position. Nor, of course, is Solipsism my position. I, as a Christian, obviously, hold the infinite and omniscient Mind of God, not my finite and puny mind, to be the ‘necessary’ existence upon which all other ‘contingent’ physical existences depend. i.e. my position is not that ‘physical existence’ is not ‘real’, but is that the ‘reality’ of physical existence is ‘contingent’ upon the ‘necessary’ reality of God.
To further distance myself from solipsism, my position, as I stated in 182, is that “the free will of an observer is shown to be an integral part, (although not a complete explanation), in bringing about wave function collapse.”
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-quora-is-it-possible-to-prove-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-that-intelligence-was-required-to-create-life/#comment-771833
Perhaps I should have more clearly stated, ““the free will of an observer is shown to be an integral part,
(although not, by any means, a complete explanation), in bringing about wave function collapse.”??
As I went on to further explain in posts 182 and 183, I hold that it is fairly obvious that the omniscient/ominpresent Mind of God is required in order to provide a complete, and ‘causally sufficient’, explanation for the ‘collapse’ of the infinite dimensional/infinite information wave function into its particle state.
A ‘post-collapse’ final particle state, which, via Zeilinger’s principle, is held to be “an elementary system (that) carries just one bit of information”.
Yet, prior to wave collapse, the particle, (in so far as a particle can be said to ‘physically’ exist as a ‘particle’ in its wave state), is held to ‘physically’ exist in an infinite dimensional/infinite information state. This ‘infinite dimensional’ wave state of the particle is held to be a ‘superposition’. A ‘superposition’ of the particle existing in all possible states. i.e. A ‘superposition’ of the particle existing in all possible positions as opposed to the particle existing in only one definite position of only one state, i.e. a particle existing in just only one position with the state of, say, spin up or spin down.
The ‘superposition’ of the particle existing in all possible positions is, obviously, antithetical to the entire reductive materialistic foundation of Darwinian atheists, which holds that material particles are the fundamental ‘stuff’ of the universe from which everything else derives.
But anyways to go further, this ‘superposition’ of the particle existing in all possible states has historically been held to be merely “an abstract element” and “primarily a conceptual entity”. Yet as the following articles touch upon, the ‘abstract’ and ‘conceptual’ entity of the particle existing in a ‘superposition’ wave function is now experimentally shown to be a physically real entity that can be measured prior to the ‘superposition particle’ collapsing to just one definitive position.
As the following experiment found, (and contrary to the widespread belief that the superposition wave function was just a ‘mathematical tool’), “there’s definitely some reality to the wave function,”
In fact, as referenced previously in post 182 (and in falsification of the atheist’s Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics), collapse of the ‘superposition’ wave function into a finite particle state of only one definite position, has now also been experimentally demonstrated.
As the following article states, experiments have now demonstrated “the non-local, (i.e. beyond space and time), collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function”,, “the collapse of the wave function is a real effect”,, “the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected”,, and “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”,,
That a ‘superposition’ of a particle is not just some “abstract element”, “primarily a conceptual entity” and/or a “mathematical tool”, as was originally held, but is a physically real element of reality is also demonstrated by the fact that information can be encoded onto a photon while it is in its ‘superposition’ wave state.
The following experiment, via Robert Boyd and company at the University of Rochester,
encoded “an entire image’s worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact.,,, As a wave, it passed through all parts of the stencil at once,,,”
The ‘superposition’ particle simply does not exist as ‘particle’, in the classical sense, of having only one definite position.. And it is on this inability to ground the ‘superposition’ of a particle that the Atheist’s reductive materialistic explanations of reality crash and burn.
As Anton Zeilinger explains in the following video,
And as Anton Zeilinger further explains in the following video,
Considering Anton Zeilinger’s honest confessions, I consider the following verse to be very apt
Moreover, the so called ‘measurement problem’ in quantum mechanics is really just a ‘problem for atheistic materialists in that they simply have no causal mechanism in order to adequately explain how it is possible for the ‘infinite dimensional/infinite information’ superposition wave function of a particle to collapse into a particle of having only one definite position, whereas Christians readily do have has a ‘sufficient explanation’ to explain how it is possible for a ‘infinite dimensional/infinite information’ superposition wave function to collapse into a particle of having only one definite position. Namely the infinite and omniscient Mind of God. (see posts 182 and 183).
Clearly, to give an adequate explanation of the collapse of a ‘superposition’ particle, (a superposition particle which is mathematically defined as being is ‘infinite dimensional’ state, a state which also contains an infinite amount of information), into a finite particle of only one position, then, obviously, it is necessary to appeal to ‘something’ that has the ‘causal adequacy’ within itself to collapse a infinite ‘superposition’ particle into a finite state. And I argue that only God has the causal adequacy within Himself to explain how it is possible for an infinite ‘superposition’ particle to collapse into a finite particle of only one position.
Quote and Verses:
Of supplemental note;
Bornagain @215
So, we are in agreement here. Are you, like me, annoyed by sweeping statements, that cause nothing but unnecessary befuddlement, like:
And incoherent statements by the fundamentally discombobulated Sabine Hossenfelder on which I commented in #214?
Here, my questions return ….
“The particle … [exists in a] … infinite dimensional/infinite information state” does not resonate with me at all. “Infinite” as in no boundaries whatsoever? As in, the particle can collapse as everything, and everywhere, or be nothing at all?
When you say “all possible positions” or “all possible states” you are referring to a finite set of positions [the particle is within the boundaries of a certain area] and a finite set of states are you not? Spin is either ‘up’ or ‘down’ right? There is no infinite ways for the spin to be, right? Similarly, “all possible states” does not include the state of a pink unicorn, right? Also here there are clear boundaries to what the particle can be, right?
If so, it would be prudent to clearly point this out.
“… the particle existing in all ITS possible positions, [which is a finite set of possibilities].”
Origenes, “The Universe Is Not Locally Real” is merely another way of saying that the physical universe is ‘contingent’ upon a ‘necessary’ ‘beyond space and time’ cause for its existence. (i.e. It is actually a confirmation of the Judeo-Christian presupposition undergirding the founding of modern science that the universe is ‘contingent’ upon God for its existence)
The confusion arises from the materialistic presupposition that material particles are self-existent within space-time, with no need to explain their continual existence within space time. In other words, the confusion arises from presupposing material particles to be ‘necessary’ in their existence instead of being contingent’ upon God for their existence as they actually are.
As the following article put the present dilemma facing materialists, “We must explain space and time, (and I might add even material particles themselves), as somehow emerging from fundamentally spaceless and timeless physics.”
As to “all possible states” does not include the state of a pink unicorn, right?”
🙂 LOL
Well in my single rational universe where God simply collapses the ‘superposition’ of the particle to a finite position, there are no ‘pink unicorns popping into existence seemingly out of nowhere. Unless, of course, there might be a rational purpose for God bringing such a creature into existence.
Yet in the atheists’s conjectures of infinite Many Worlds and Multiverses, (which they put forth to try to avoid God), it is held that anything can, theoretically, happen for no reason whatsoever. Thus, they are not so lucky in avoiding Pink Unicorns popping into existence from seemingly nowhere
Bornagain @
This idea, obviously, only makes sense for us theists. How it impacts the minds of the Sabine Hossenfelders of this world when they blurt it out, I have no clue and, frankly, I’m not sure I want to know.
@213
I’m only going to respond to the first few points, since there’s plenty to discuss right there.
Well, sort of. Hilbert’s program was to clarify the foundations of mathematics by proposing a set of criteria: mathematics had to be formal, complete, consistent, and decidable. Although Godel showed that arithmetic could not satisfy completeness and consistency, Hilbert’s program has not been a complete failure (see here).
I’m not sure about this. If Hilbert’s program had succeeded, it would have established that all of mathematics can be derived from a finite set of axioms, just as geometry itself is. But would it have done more than that? I don’t know.
If Hilbert’s program had been fully successful (which is a difficult counterfactual to maintain, since we know now that there is no possible world in which this is the case!) it would have at best established a complete axiomatization of mathematics. It would not have established a complete axiomatization of all knowledge.
This is where our disagreement begins, I think.
Even in purely formal domains (logic and mathematics), axiomatization is a late development that clarifies the inferential relations in what has already been discovered. (Geometry was centuries old before Euclid!)
In substantive domains, where we are concerned with theories about the world and not just formal systems, axiomatizing a fully developed theory does not mean denigrating other ways of generating knowledge. If anything, the axioms come subsequent to experimental results, as a way of clarifying them and removing inconsistencies, contradictions, and paradoxes.
And this is where the real problems begin.
Agrippa’s Trilemma states that any putative claim to knowledge must either be derived from other clams that also depend upon it, or else justification must be endless, or else we must be dogmatists and take some claims as asserted but not defended.
It seems that you want to impale yourself on the third horn of the Trilemma, when you refer to “faith points”: some claims must be taken on faith and not justified.
But you are, of course, intelligent enough to realize that knowledge that relies on unreasoning faith is no knowledge at all, which is why we need to ask which set of first principles are the most reasonable ones, the ones that legitimately compel our rational assent?
But at this point you then say that we have no choice but consider ” balance of merits on comparative difficulties” and “be willing to move on as the weight of comparative difficulties shifts the balance on the scales.”
But what does this mean if not assessing whether the systems built upon those first principles are coherent or incoherent? And if what ultimately matters is whether the worldview is coherent, then we are now impaled on the first horn of the trilemma (circularity).
In other words: by recognizing why impaling yourself on the third horn of the trilemma (dogmatism) is not rationally satisfactory, you seem forced to impale yourself on the third horn (circularity).
I’d be very interested to know how you see your criteria for evaluating the rational acceptability of a worldview as avoiding all three horns of Agrippa’s Trilemma. As it is, I don’t see how your proposal to assess based on comparative difficulties is really all that different from coherence, which seems to collapse into circularity.
@216
“Non-local” means “not restricted to one specific space-time region”, not “transcending all of space-time”. Quantum effects are nonlocal in that what happens to one particle of an entangled pair simultaneously affects the other particle, regardless of spatial distance between them.
This by itself does not show that the quantum realm transcends all of space-time in the same sense that classical theism supposes that God does.
PM1
Why not? Define the two and show how they differ fundamentally. Provide us with an argument.
I have no idea what this comment is about.
Are you disagreeing with my assessment of arithmetic? If you are, I fail to see what this is about. It’s beside the point as people introduce irrelevant stuff all the time here. One of which is the introduction of arithmetic.
@222
Well, as I understand classical theism, God is utterly transcendent to the physical universe: He doesn’t experience the passage of time, so He doesn’t experience past, present, and future as we do. From the standpoint of eternity, all temporal moments are the same. The difference between then and now doesn’t exist for Him. And likewise, He doesn’t see the difference between distances, between here and there. (In semantic terms, I guess, one could say that He doesn’t use indexicals as we do!)
Quantum nonlocality, as I understand it, is that what happens in one spatial region can simultaneously effect what happens in another spatial region, without any need for propagation of information from one spatial region to another.
Those just seem like really different concepts to me.
Kairosfocus:
As PyrrhoManiac1 has already explained, you have (once again) interpreted some mathematical and physics events and theories in a very idiosyncratic way that seems to support your theological stance. What is particularly odd about your skewed view is that you have been told about your biases many, many, many times before but you absolutely refuse to even acknowledge that you have been ‘corrected’ many times.
You have a strange double standard of knowledge: when you say it, it’s undeniably true but if someone disagrees with you they must have not heard you or are intentionally disagreeing because they hate God or some such.
Until you can learn to actually discuss the academics like a real academic I’m not sure why any of us should bother to point out that your views are extremely fringe.
PS you don’t have to ‘talk mathy’ or attempt to teach us about the mathematics; we already know.
PM1 @224
What connects the two entangled particles? Not our universe. Our universe attempts to separate them (and fails to do so). The fact that the two are connected nonetheless seems to point to the existence of a realm independent from space (and perhaps also time), capable of overriding the logic of our universe. Is this realm where God resides? We don’t know.
Jerry: Are you disagreeing with my assessment of arithmetic?
Well, you did get the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic incorrect! To repeat:
The fundamental theorem of arithmetic, also called the unique factorization theorem and prime factorization theorem, states that every integer greater than 1 can be represented uniquely as a product of prime numbers, up to the order of the factors.
And this can be verified everywhere.
Post 220 by PM is very interesting. I’d love to add my two cents, but have very little time.
Briefly, I think the systems of understanding we make about areas where empirical evidence is lacking, like metaphysics and theology, we embed assumptions which create coherence via circularity, referring back to themselves as conclusions or by being used in what appears as logical arguments by appearing as accepted conclusions when they are in fact assumptions, by faith. They are ouroboritic belief systems, to perhaps coin a phrase.
Origenes: The fact that the two are connected nonetheless seems to point to the existence of a realm independent from space (and perhaps also time), capable of overriding the logic of our universe.
More likely it means that there are forces or influences that we don’t fully understand or that we haven’t learned to detect or measure. It’s not a question of overriding our current ‘logic’, it’s a question of expanding our ‘logic’ to encompass new, heretofore undefined forces. Einstein didn’t overridden Newton, he took on a larger and more expansive set of data.
VL at 228,
Empirical evidence requires a correct worldview, not one tainted with presuppositions. Evidence is fine but ignores another dimension – faith, and God.
Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Viola Lee: ouroboritic
Lovely! I’ve never heard the term before but knowing ouroboros I got it immediately.
I want to add something to @220 about mathematics and metaphysics.
Every ancient Greek philosopher I know of, from Plato onward, was very clear that metaphysics could not be done in the way that mathematics was. Plato is especially clear about this: in mathematics we reason from axioms, whereas in metaphysics we search for first principles. Aristotle and everyone else followed him in this.
The first major philosopher to argue that metaphysics should be done like mathematics was, of course, Descartes. He argued that the absence of clearly identified self-justifying axioms had prevented progress in metaphysics. But while some philosophers thought he was right about this, most didn’t. Locke, most famously, thought that the lack of progress in metaphysics was due to not emulating the inductive method of empirical science.
Meanwhile, the whole German tradition from Kant onward explicitly rejects mathematics as a model for metaphysics, and that culminates in Hegel’s insanely ambitious project to develop a comprehensive metaphysical system with no presuppositions at all. (Over 200 years later and still no one can figure out if he succeeded!)
My point being, I don’t think that metaphysics was ever in any danger of being made axiomatic, even if Hilbert’s program had succeeded in axiomatizing arithmetic.
And it should be obvious that axiomatizing metaphysics, even if that were possible, would do nothing to avoid Agrippa’s Trilemma.
Re 230. Empirical evidence is empirical evidence. Interpreting the significance of empirical evidence can involve one’s worldview.
And belief in God is a matter of faith. Some worldviews don’t include that assumption.
PM1 “Non-local” means “not restricted to one specific space-time region”, not “transcending all of space-time”.
LOL, and JVL recently falsely claimed that NO ATHEIST has a problem with quantum mechanics. 🙂
Hidden variables have been falsified six ways from Sunday,
Bornagain77: Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them
Nice quote mine. Clearly the point is that we do not currently have complete scientific explanations for the phenomena we observe.
Again, Einstein’s work could be said to be outside of Newtonian space and time but it’s clearly subject to laws and predictions and not the whim of some undefined or undetected intelligence. So, our notion of space and time expand with new ‘laws’ and observations. As has been happening for centuries.
PS: proof that you don’t even look at the links you post, that one is broken. Why, why, why should we take any of your quote-and-paste screeds seriously?
PM’s statement has nothing to do with atheism. He made a very reasonable distinction between the theological conclusion BA wants to make and what non-locality really means. I think PM’s point could easily be made also by a theist.
And I don’t think PM’s remark had to do with hidden variables, but the link he provides doesn’t work.
“proof that you don’t even look at the links you post, that one is broken.”
Which one?
Bornagain77: Which one?
hahahhahahahaha you haven’t checked any of them! Too funny.
They all work for me. I was going to try to help you, but alas, apparently you are just into trying to score cheap rhetorical points however you can,, Sad!
Ba77 at 234,
I appreciate your posts. However, I think some scientists and theorists have this all wrong. Just because subatomic/quantum reactions cannot be seen like macro atomic reactions, i.e. solid matter, does not mean quantum effects occur in a separate realm. It does not mean a ‘separate reality’ exists. Quantum effects are understood well enough at this point to build quantum computers and to build macro tools to further study the various effects. Considering how relatively advanced this is, especially quantum cryptography, I would remind you and all reading that some of this work would be highly classified and certainly not available in the open/public literature.
BA, when you first posted you only included the first link, which was different than it is now. Your original link didn’t work, and then you changed it.
Your original link was https://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php
Perhaps you will acknowledge your role in this confusion.
Also, I’ll point out that most (but not all) quantum physicists accept that there are no hidden variables: this is not an atheism vs theism issue. Second, as I said earlier, and BA didn’t respond to, PM’s remark has nothing to do with hidden variables.
But all the links work for you now? No need to thank me. 🙂
I think it is shining example just how eager you guys are to condemn anything I post right after I post it, even before I have a chance to do my corrections to my post in the 20 minute time window that is given to do corrections.
And, not that I will ever get an honest answer from you, but exactly what do you think was trying to be preserved with the appeal to hidden variables?
Of note, I have other, better, things calling me,,,, it is the Christmas season. so I’m out of here.,,, Have a good evening.
Bornagain77: They all work for me. I was going to try to help you, but alas, apparently you are just into trying to score cheap rhetorical points however you can,, Sad!
One of the links you initially posted was broken. That is true. That’s what I was reacting to. Shall I wait 20 minutes every time you make a post until your revision time has expired? I guess I’d better or you’re going to criticise me for criticising you for making a mistake.
Yes the links work now, but they didn’t. Perhaps you’ll retract post 239 and your remark about cheap rhetorical tricks.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with ID.
Belief in a creator is very much more than faith. Equating that belief with a specific god is not justified but a creator, most definitely yes. That creator must have immense intellect and power. The creator also most assuredly made specific choices. Thus, it is possible to make some assessments of the creator based on these choices.
The creator is consistent with the gods of several religions. Justifying a specific religion/god is way beyond the purview of ID but an extremely powerful/knowledgeable creator who makes choices is fairly obvious.
Jerry, I was responding to relatd, and about the Christian God.
I guess we can all hope for a Christmas miracle. But I am not going to hold my breath.
@228
I think something like that’s right. The ouroboros is a long-standing symbol of mine. (I have one tattooed on my left arm.)
But, I would want to vary the ouroboritic image just a bit here — from a circle to a spiral, as it were.
Instead of a circle, where the chain of inferences spills out from a fixed set of assumptions and then lends inferential support to those assumptions, imagine a process in which the inferential consequences develop to a point where they allow us to call into question – to revise, modify, or even replace — the assumptions from which we started out. That in turn would require us to revise, as needed, the inferences that unfolded from those assumptions — and eventually leading back., again, to revising those assumptions, and then again — and again — constantly modifying the whole of our worldview.
Or, to use the metaphor of Neurath’s boat:
I think there’s a subtle but important difference between a worldview that engages in constant self-correction like this and a worldview that is (as it were) merely circular.
BA
“They all work for me. I was going to try to help you, but alas, apparently you are just into trying to score cheap rhetorical points however you can,, Sad!”
Sad and petty.
Vivid
Yes, a very good distinction. The first pure ouroboros is dogmatic and fixed, and the second spiralling one is the way we grow and change even if certain fundamentals stay solidly fixed. (And sometimes even the fundamentals can change.)
But I want to make a distinction between understandings that are susceptible to empirical evidence and those that are not—understandings which involve both personal choices concerning such things as values and metaphysical beliefs which are beyond evidence. Both of which can be fixed or more changeable, but both the nature of their fixity, so to speak, and their changeability, are different in important ways.
At 243, BA writes, “And, not that I will ever get an honest answer from you, but exactly what do you think was trying to be preserved with the appeal to hidden variables?”
I didn’t notice that anyone in this discussion was appealing to hidden variables. Maybe I missed that – what post?
I see that above JVL wrote: “NO ATHEIST has a problem with quantum mechanics.”
That is wrong in the following way: every quantum physicist, atheist or not, has a problem with quantum mechanics in that everyone is in some stage of doubt about how to interpret it in connection with the nature of reality. No one really knows. On the other hand, virtually all quantum physicists are in agreement about how the math fits what we observe: hence the “shut up and calculate” response to philosophizing about it.
BA’s response about hidden variables took off, in a characteristic fashion, from there.
VL
Your post reminded me of this quote from Neils Bohr
“Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it.” Niels Bohr
Vivid
Recently three people got the Nobel prize for their work in quantum mechanics, and I think all three said at some point that they really don’t understand what it means about reality. It’s a really big mystery!
IBM Quantum Computers
https://www.ibm.com/quantum
Neutron interferometer
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-quantum-crystals.html
Relatd posts some links which illustrate my point. Totally disconnected from the atheism vs theism issue, scientists use an understanding of how quantum mechanics works, in an empirical sense, to do practical things even if they have different metaphysical views of what it all means.
Viola Lee @
You make it seem like a complete blur. However quantum mechanics has clearly taught us that classical physics, that undergirds materialism and naturalism, cannot explain what’s going on, and even worse: it got reality wrong. Understandably this shocking revelation causes some worries in those worldviews.
It is as if you and JVL don’t want to acknowledge this simple fact.
VL at 257,
Practical results are all engineers in this field care about. Working out the math and other details is important but getting something built, either for research or as a finished product, is primary. Basic research is leading to working products in this field. If products for sale cannot be made, it slows research down. Investors and governments want results. Devices that work. The metaphysical aspects are important but getting something built that works reliably has been achieved, even if new discoveries are made. Once understood, these new discoveries could lead to new applications.
However, the transition from the macro world we live in to the quantum world has direct implications to ourselves as observers. Our minds can affect the results in the quantum world. Our decision to actually measure causes a change in the possible results. We are entangled with the quantum world. A world that contains things yet to be discovered.
Of course I recognize the dramatic difference between the prior classical physics and quantum physics: I have no idea what you think I am “not acknowledging”.
I am aware that there are materialistic interpretations of quantum mechanics and theistic interpretations also, but there were/are materialistic and theistic interpretations of classical physics also. Quantum physics has presented us with some views radically different than the clockwork-world of Newtonian physics, but for several hundred of years proponents of that view were theists. And the “shocking revelations” of QM started 100 years, so this is not new.
And I am not a materialist.
So I’m not sure what the specifics of your point are.
to realtd at 259: I agree with your first paragraph, except to point that the math is part of getting something built.
I also agree with your second paragraph. I’ll add that there are some significant things we don’t know. First, how do quantum events work in the absence of consciousness: it doesn’t take someone watching a quantum computer to make it work. We also don’t know what consciousness is. If consciousness of an event can change the event because we “are entangled with the quantum world”, then one possibility is that consciousness is, in fact, a phenomena of the quantum world.
As you say, there is much to be discovered.
Viola Lee
As I understand it, it has been confirmed (Nobel Prize included) that certain properties of particles are not independent of our measurements. Let me repeat: certain properties do not exist (are not real) before they are measured by us.
There is no materialistic interpretation of this dependence. There cannot be one, since it is diametrically opposed to the fundamental thesis of materialism, which says that particles and their properties make up reality.
We’ve had this discussion before, so no sense going over it again. “The fundamental thesis of materialism, which says that particles and their properties make up reality”, is outdated. New understandings of materialism would include understanding the properties of QM.
You yourself wrote earlier, “If there is no physical world that is real in any way, if there is nothing independent of its observation, then it would be completely up to us what exists (what to bring into existence). Then we can decide to measure pink unicorns.”
So “something” exists even if it doesn’t become real to us until measured.
And, as I said to relatd, quantum computers work even if they are not being observed: what constitutes a “measurement” is a major problem in interpreting QM. QM mechanics doesn’t seem to require a conscious observer to function.
So “is it or it it not materialism” is sort of a non-useful question to be asking. Do we call the “something” that exists before we measure it “material” or not? Surely not in the outdated sense, but in the sense that it is part of what constitutes physical reality, or brings about material reality, I think it’s reasonable to call it part of the material world. That doesn’t explain consciousness or it’s role in an observation, but I think at least you should perhaps recognize some of this, and quit offering the outdated “particles and their properties make up reality” statement as a definition of materialism.
Viola Lee @
Since the advent of quantum mechanics, materialists are no longer sure what the central thesis of their worldview is or what it is about. Some would call it a crisis.
How did you research the opinions of materialists? Quantum mechanics is a rarified field that I don’t understand and I bet even those who study QM for a living struggle with some of the concepts. Why is this controversial?
I see this frequently in these comment columns from ID advocates. ‘Materialists, atheists, Darwinists are wrong, confused, uncertain, in disagreement about something therefore “Intelligent Design” is supported and my work is done.’
Certainty is overrated.
PM1,
I appreciate your responding on specifics. However, additional comments are in order:
>>sort of. Hilbert’s program was to clarify the foundations of mathematics by proposing a set of criteria: mathematics had to be formal, complete, consistent, and decidable. Although Godel showed that arithmetic could not satisfy completeness and consistency, Hilbert’s program has not been a complete failure >>
1: Where did I say it was “a complete failure”? Nowhere, nor did I imply or invite that inference.
2: Instead, I specified the key aspect where it was a bridge too far, giving Godel’s result and its import.
>>I’m not sure about this. If Hilbert’s program had succeeded, it would have established that all of mathematics can be derived from a finite set of axioms, just as geometry itself is. But would it have done more than that? I don’t know. >>
3: We both know the history of the dominance of thought by deductive schemes epitomised by Euclidean Geometry, for 2000+ years so that it was a crisis when non Euclidean geometries emerged as the 5th postulate was challenged.
4: We both see how the irreducible complexity of mathematical reality such that core math pivoting on NZQRCR* etc — the term arithmetic does not immediately suggest how far reaching this is — cannot be axiomatised in a finite cluster of consistent axioms joined to exposure of how close at hand the problem is, has led to a whole domain of exploration on what is undecidable and its impacts not only on math but on computation.
5: this was a moment of paradigm shift.
>>Even in purely formal domains (logic and mathematics), axiomatization is a late development that clarifies the inferential relations in what has already been discovered. (Geometry was centuries old before Euclid!)>>
6: True but irrelevant, side tracking and misleading, as axiomatisation, post Euclid, was the gold standard of intellectual mastery of a domain for 2,000 years.
7: Indeed, deductive schemes overshadowed inductive reasoning and there are echoes down to today.
>>In substantive domains, where we are concerned with theories about the world and not just formal systems, axiomatizing a fully developed theory does not mean denigrating other ways of generating knowledge.>>
8: The issue is not strict import but history of ideas. It is indisputable that the inductive was the stepchild of logic, in an age where deduction was king, for 2,000 years.
9: Similarly, here at UD, Ironically, I have had to highlight that axiomatisation of core math is not arbitrary, it is responsive to Mathematical facts on the ground.
>> Agrippa’s Trilemma states that any putative claim to knowledge must either be derived from other clams that also depend upon it, or else justification must be endless, or else we must be dogmatists and take some claims as asserted but not defended. It seems that you want to impale yourself on the third horn of the Trilemma, when you refer to “faith points”: some claims must be taken on faith and not justified. >>
10: Strawman. As we both know, I am pointing to the core challenge of argument and warrant, leading to the structure of worldviews.
11: As noted since at least Aristotle, infinite regress is futile so we must recognise first principles that are start points. Where, likewise, question begging circularity fails as that loop is inherently fallacious . . . mere coherence is not enough.
12: So, no, we are not “impaling [ourselves]” — loaded language — but instead recognise patterns of real world thought. Worldviews have presuppositions, first self evident truths, intuitions etc that cannot be reduced further to infinite regress. These come in clusters that need to be factually adequate and coherent, so reliable. Then we address balance on explanatory power by being neither ad hoc nor simplistic.
13: Plainly, this is the point where one trusts some things as first givens and this includes first principles of right reason, eg Epictetus:
14: It is obviously self referentially absurd to try to prove first logical principles such as distinct identity and its close corollaries non contradiction and excluded middle. Just to think, speak and write we rely on this, it makes no sense to saw off the branch on which we sit.
15: This can be summarised as our first plausibles, taken on trust and used as context, tools and first reliables of reasoning. Trust, so that dirty word applies, faith.
16: Faith, however, contrary to the sneering attitudes of Dawkins et al, is not a synonym for irrationality, instead responsible reasoning acknowledges worldview core first plausibles and our limitations, as Locke did, anticipating today’s error of substituting the inferior commodity, [hyper-]skepticism for the true virtue, prudence:
17: Prudence leading to a chastened recognition of our base of reasoning and knowing with its limitations is not intellectual suicide by impalement on a horn of an extended dilemma.
>>we need to ask which set of first principles are the most reasonable ones, the ones that legitimately compel our rational assent? But at this point you then say that we have no choice but consider ” balance of merits on comparative difficulties” and “be willing to move on as the weight of comparative difficulties shifts the balance on the scales.” But what does this mean if not assessing whether the systems built upon those first principles are coherent or incoherent?>>
18: Further strawman caricatures.
19: I clearly highlighted comparative difficulties as requiring a recognition that all significant worldviews options bristle with difficulties. Indeed, I pointed out that philosophy is the discipline of hard core questions without easy answers. Hence, COMPARATIVE difficulties regarding [1] factual adequacy, [2] coherence, [3] balance of explanatory power. This is not irrationalism nor is it hyperskeptical despair but a reference to prudence as guiding light.
20: It seems you demand detailed spelling out, even as TLDR games loom. I — and the many thinkers from Aristotle on — am specifically finite, avoiding infinite regress. While coherence is important [all realities must be so together], it is not enough to avoid question begging. Factual adequacy requires reliability and as much truthfulness as can be obtained. Balance of explanatory power avoids ad hoc patchworks and what is simplistic. COMPARATIVE difficulties breaks question begging by, well, err, ah, comparing the different main sides on the matter at stake.
21: So, your setting up and knocking over a simplistic Agrippa Trilemma strawman failed. Failed, by not attending to what was outlined on comparative difficulties.
>>by recognizing why impaling yourself on the third horn of the trilemma (dogmatism) is not rationally satisfactory, you seem forced to impale yourself on the third horn (circularity). >>
22: Further strawman fallacy caricatures. Dogmatism implies fallacy of closed mind, i.e. question begging, precisely what comparative difficulties addresses.
>>I’d be very interested to know how you see your criteria for evaluating the rational acceptability of a worldview as avoiding all three horns of Agrippa’s Trilemma. As it is, I don’t see how your proposal to assess based on comparative difficulties is really all that different from coherence, which seems to collapse into circularity.>>
22: Already outlined, drawn out in response to strawman caricatures.
KF
Jerry, I simply pointed out that, once two’s complements and nines complements are on the table, subtraction collapses into addition. This then allows us to realise that the four rules are useful summaries of main operations, with subtraction, multiplication and division as in effect close corollaries of addition as root binary operation. Indeed, A – B = C in effect can be re-interpreted as what must augment B to return A: A = C + B. However, for practical work we address all four. In design of central processing units, recognising complements allows us to simply use full adders and complements to carry out arithmetic in arithmetic and logic units. Registers with shift also are key. KF
JVL:
See the just above, piling on fails.
KF
PS, I note that idiosyncratic, clearly meant to belittle, fails. Ever since at least Aristotle, first principles have been pivotal in the world of thought. That’s probably the all time no. 1 philosopher, we should not have forgotten, say:
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,025:4:1006a
Your quarrel is with Aristotle, not me or my alleged biases and dubious, novel oddities. Aristotle here more than anticipated Agrippa and frameworks of worldviews. And, the relevant history of ideas on dominance of deductive systems and the shock of the Godel result are plain. Onward, you need to substantially engage Chaitin and Enc of Math, for starters.
F/N: It may save much futile back and forth if objectors were to ponder carefully the substance, contextual allusions and issues in just this brief remark by Locke in opening the batting for his Essay on Human Understanding:
Notice the challenge to the demand for certain proof of all things? Notice, the exposure of global hyperskepticism flowing from that challenge? Ponder, say, the implicit despair in sat Descartes and his attempt to doubt everything leading to I think so I exist as to doubt is to think and one must be to think. Infer, what Locke would say of double standard, selective hyperskepticism and the rhetoric that echoes the psychology of cognitive dissonance leading to projection of perceived fault to the despised other.
In short, my history of ideas rooted concerns are abundantly well founded and can be seen coming from philosophers of the first rank.
Deal with the substance, rather than with Alinsky tactic personalisation and polarisation.
KF
Kairosfocus @266, PM1 @
Surely the first logical principles also undergird any mathematics and any metamathematics.
Indeed, Agrippa’s Trilemma cannot be formulated, cannot exist, without the first logical principles. So, if Agrippa were to draw a circle around the first logical principles, he will then notice that there is no outside of the circle. That is to say that he does not have the epistemic right to assume a position independent (‘outside’) of it.
Here, any judgment necessarily depends on the truth of what one seeks to adjudicate — which is, as Kairosfocus said, “obviously self referentially absurd.”
Origenes, yes, I discussed that aspect of Mathematical foundations here. You spotted where I was going next if Agrippa was to be brought up again. He too sat on the same branch as the rest of us, just to post a sentence that can be read he has to use distinct identity, he is also trying to argue on claimed facts towards a three pronged dilemma, often called a trilemma. So, he implied the first principle nature of first principles of reasoning. Such are not enough to erect a worldview, and we already saw facts being implicitly on the table. A whole raft of issues prior to there being observers to recognise facts are also on the table. We know question begging and infinite regress fail so we are left to finitely remote first plausibles defining worldviews, and comparative difficulties. Going back, Godel and those who came after him opened up a whole new world on the classic case of axiomatised deductive reasoning as gold standard, core Math. KF
Kairosfocus @
Thank you for the reference to your article. A few quotes and some of my thoughts:
If I were to answer the question “What is logic about?”, my answer would be: “Being.” Although logic does not provide us with a definition of being, it tells us what something is and what it is not, in the context of its relationships to other entities.
The relationship in being between entities, brought to light by logic & math, thus results in the framework for any possible world.
Logic is not only about relationships in being. Logic is not severed, hanging mid-air, pointing to horizontal relationships, instead it is grounded by the crucial law of identity: A=A.
Here, at the foundation of logic, there is no relationship between multiple entities — there is just “A”. Behold, one thing only. Here is self-grounding, self-relationship. Unity.
Why does it speak to us? Why does it inform us?
In my view, there can be but one answer: consciousness—self-awareness: ‘I experience I experience.’
A=A is about “I Am that I Am.”
@266
I made no strawman caricatures of anything you said. I attempted to take you seriously and engage with you as a fellow philosopher.
It remains really quite unclear to me how you understand the epistemic status of “first plausibles”, as you call them. (I would call them “first principles”, but what do I know?) At times you indicate that they are simply trusted, taken on faith. At other times you indicate that we need to inquire into the overall theoretical coherence and practical adequacy of the worldview that is based upon those first plausibles. So it’s not clear whether you think the rational authority of those first plausibles is itself something that can be established by inquiry or if it is simply bestowed upon those principles by taking them on trust.
If you think (as I suspect you do) that we must critically assess the cogency of rival worldviews, then the question arises as the criteria we shall use, and the reliability and authority of those criteria. And if (again, as a I suspect) you think that something like Stoic epistemic duties are the criteria to use (as I infer from your quoting Epictetus and Cicero), then I think the following problem arises: does the Stoic give us enough to refute the Skeptic?
I can think of the Skeptic (and here I am thinking of how Sextus Empiricus writes in Outline of Pyrrhonism) as offering two distinct responses. I prefer the second, but the first one is worth a moment’s notice.
The first response is to go the radical route of certain Chinese and Japanese Buddhists, and just say that all assertion is folly (including of course the assertion that all assertion is folly), that we need to climb out out of the prison of conventional language entirely, and that enlightenment comes when we can attend to the transitoriness and impermanence of all things, including all thoughts and desires. One simply ceases to reason altogether.
The second response, and I think closer to what Sextus would say, is that while the Skeptic does recognize the binding authority of epistemic rules and obligations, those rules and obligations are equally binding on the proponents of all worldviews, and so those epistemic obligations cannot help us adjudicate the conflict between rival worldviews.
PyrrhoManiac at 273 writes,
Oops. I messed up the quotes at 274, and it’s too lat to fix. The second indent is my comments, such as they are.
Kairosfocus: It is obviously self referentially absurd to try to prove first logical principles such as distinct identity and its close corollaries non contradiction and excluded middle. Just to think, speak and write we rely on this, it makes no sense to saw off the branch on which we sit.
So, those are some of your axioms in your system.
Faith, however, contrary to the sneering attitudes of Dawkins et al, is not a synonym for irrationality, instead responsible reasoning acknowledges worldview core first plausibles and our limitations, as Locke did, anticipating today’s error of substituting the inferior commodity, [hyper-]skepticism for the true virtue, prudence:
Extremely difficult to interpret. Are you saying prudence is also one of your axioms?
This then allows us to realise that the four rules are useful summaries of main operations, with subtraction, multiplication and division as in effect close corollaries of addition as root binary operation. Indeed, A – B = C in effect can be re-interpreted as what must augment B to return A: A = C + B. However, for practical work we address all four
All part of Abstract Algebra. Did you ever take a course in Abstract Algebra? Rings and Fields, etc.
Your quarrel is with Aristotle, not me or my alleged biases and dubious, novel oddities. Aristotle here more than anticipated Agrippa and frameworks of worldviews. And, the relevant history of ideas on dominance of deductive systems and the shock of the Godel result are plain. Onward, you need to substantially engage Chaitin and Enc of Math, for starters.
I think all systems of beliefs have basic assumptions or axioms. And Godel pointed out a limitation of such systems. BUT . . .
This did not change the basic teaching of mathematics or philosophy or physics. In fact, when I earned my MA in mathematics in the 80s we didn’t discuss Godel at all. There was and is still too much viable and active mathematics to cover as a student to spend much time on a theoretical limitation. This is my beef with your opinion: you hypothesise that the mathematical community was shaken to the core by Godel’s theorems and, on a practical and lower level this just wasn’t or isn’t the case. It hasn’t affected the teaching of undergraduate and most graduate mathematics at all. To become a working mathematician does not require knowledge of or acknowledgement of Godel’s theorems. You can ‘do’ lifetimes of mathematics without considering Godel at all.
PM1,
unfortunately, the gaps above speak for themselves; especially your failed attempts to use “impale[ment].”
Perhaps, I need to add F H Bradley’s response to the Kantians, as part of further backdrop:
it is in this context that we can for example ponder factual adequacy issues and coherence issues, leading back to the force of Locke’s candle in us remarks.
>>It remains really quite unclear to me how you understand the epistemic status of “first plausibles”, as you call them. (I would call them “first principles”, but what do I know?) At times you indicate that they are simply trusted, taken on faith. At other times you indicate that we need to inquire into the overall theoretical coherence and practical adequacy of the worldview that is based upon those first plausibles. So it’s not clear whether you think the rational authority of those first plausibles is itself something that can be established by inquiry or if it is simply bestowed upon those principles by taking them on trust. >>
1: We both know that from Aristotle and Epictetus, some of the first things are self evident first principles such as the first principles of right reason, but I have explicitly highlighted that such are never enough to frame a worldview. Other things are facts of experience including facts of consciousness. Others, are postulates or presuppositions that draw their power from theoir ability to unify more or less a conception of the world, and more. All of which are doubtless familiar.
2: I say first plausibles as they are where we start from, as we must. And I have repeatedly highlighted, these are the things that for whatever reason we trust, i.e. our point of faith. For cause, I do NOT use faith to imply blind, irrational dogmatism, something that got tossed out there as a rhetorical grenade.
3: In short, I am thinking inductively, argument by support and inference to the least difficult grand explanation, given comparative difficulties.
4: Thus, I am saying that worldviews come with al kinds of epistemic status, some are just folk common sense informed by the dominant ideas of a culture, others are more reflective. The strength of the plausibles depends on what they are, and on the gap between personal awareness and objective awareness of their status. That is, I am describing not prescribing.
5: For instance, someone who has met God and been transformed in life, is in a very different position from someone who has been led down the garden path of modern hyperskepticism towards God.
>>If you think (as I suspect you do) that we must critically assess the cogency of rival worldviews, then the question arises as the criteria we shall use, and the reliability and authority of those criteria.>>
6: Please. You are dealing with someone who has several times explicitly addressed worldview difficulties and comparative difficulties analysis. Also, self evident first principles and other start points that are of a very different order, why this rhetorical pretence that there is a doubt on the matter?
7: Further to which, what is so hard to figure our about saying that all major worldviews bristle with difficulties and that a key method of philosophy is comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and balance of explanatory power [neither an ad hoc patchwork nor simplistic].
8: Let me exemplify, for cause, I hold with many others that despite its ability to dress up in a lab coat and institutional dominance, evolutionary materialistic scientism is hopelessly, multiply self referentially incoherent and self defeating.
9: Similarly, as one who is alive because of miracles in answer to prayer, I have met God in life transforming power as have many others of my acquaintance.
10: At a different level, as I have seen excellent reason to believe it, and as I was listening on shortwave, I have good knowledge of the fact that men landed on the Moon in July 1969. Many other matters of history are similarly credible.
11: ||| + || –> |||||, expressed 3 + 2 = 5 is self evident, a basic mathematical fact. Extending, I have argued that NZQRCR* etc are necessary world framework structures for any possible world.
12: You have been present when several such matters were raised above, So, I have excellent reason to hold that your “questions” or “doubts” are in fact ways to suggest strawman caricatures, as any reasonable person will recognise that degree of warrant for various claims is highly variable, and dependent on first plausibles.
13: For that matter, you have been present when I have pointed out my view that knowledge in the first instance carries meaning based on being the common property of English speakers. So, we cannot lock it up to being dependent on vanishingly rare certainty. I have explicitly addressed weak form or sense knowledge as defeasible, warranted, credibly true [so, reliable] belief. Some few items are undeniable on pain of patent absurdity, but the bulk of real world knowledge, of day to day serious thought, history, science etc is like this. Again, the pretended ignorance of and invidious suggestions in your approach point to strawman fallacies.
>>The first response is to go the radical route of certain Chinese and Japanese Buddhists, and just say that all assertion is folly (including of course the assertion that all assertion is folly) . . . >>
15: Admitted self defeating incoherence and despair of language and perception, cf F H Bradley.
>>while the Skeptic does recognize the binding authority of epistemic rules and obligations, those rules and obligations are equally binding on the proponents of all worldviews, and so those epistemic obligations cannot help us adjudicate the conflict between rival worldviews>>
16: Again, self defeating as the rule implies and undercuts itself. Incoherence and factual failure leading to explanatory failure. Hyperskepticism, global or selective, is self defeating. Similarly, any frame that asserts, implies, suggests or invites an inference of grand delusion.
KF
JVL, obviously, I did some algebra; BTW it is groups, rings, fields and algebras. My remark to Jerry was that one can reduce the four rules to addition [with complements], as some processor ALU’s do; this, to build back up to, it does make sense to highlight the four. Of course back in the 50s – 60s, the big issue was whether you put floating point in the CPU in hardware. Axioms are obviously cases of first principles that may be in worldviews but one’s first commitments are much broader and worldviews have a lot of the inductive in them. Prudence is a cardinal virtue and a first duty [indeed, as Cicero noted, a first, built in law antecedent to courts and parliaments], including that warrant is a criterion of knowledge; e.g. why in criminal matters Rex must prove to moral certainty beyond reasonable doubt. And yes, Regina has been retired for a while to come, as I have seen in recent bills coming across my desk. It is not an axiom, a statement asserted as a start point for a system such as Euclid’s or ZFC or those of S5 for modal logic. I did not assert or suggest that Godel overthrew Math, just a particular attitude and pattern. Of course, his result marked a paradigm shift and we all now recognise undecidables as a key insight. KF
JVL, revisiting a point. Are you aware of a thousands of years long theme of achieving deductive certainty on points of knowledge in our civilisation? Which is a root of hyperskepticism of the sort addressed by Locke? Are you aware that Euclidean Geometry was commonly taught in schools as a key to not merely mathematics of figures in the plane with some practical utility but as a paradigm example of clear, certain reasoning on axioms that are inherently clear and plausible, leading to powerful and certain results? Thus, down to my own high school level classic geometry, the gold standard of rationality? Are you aware that this was held to be in the core of High School education, part of the Math programme for basically every student (until, “New Math” took over)? Are you aware of the debates on the 5th, parallel lines postulate and how this seemed odd, leading to early C19 attempts to carry out a reductio that instead opened up non Euclidean geometries and the shock that was after 2,000 years? Are you aware of the discomfort with the first 100 years of calculus and its seeming looseness by comparison, leading to a lot of work to develop standard analysis and related areas? Are you aware of the Greek use of the paradigm and the difficult struggle for empirical sciences to emerge, with a much lower standard of warrant, per observation, hypothesis, testing and reliability? Are you aware that Hilbert’s axiomatisation intent fitted into a dominant cultural trend? That Godel’s result and onward work had a shocking impact that ran counter to the trend of thought? That, as both Enc Math and Chaitin testify, there was a trend to view the result as an oddity, which Chaitin specifically counters on the strength of onward results? Do you not therefore see that there is a significant history of ideas trend at work? That context informs my comments and my remarks are far from some religiously motivated oddities. I am thinking there is a hole in our understanding of relevant history of ideas, and that yet again I must thank the Boston Jesuits who helped me to catch some of the tail end of a 2,000+ year tradition. KF
PS, I suspect this too is tied with the discomfort in fairly recent decades with inductive thinking and attempts to put science on a deductive frame. I call names like Popper, contrasting Feyerabend et al. Inductive logic, modern argument by support sense and especially abduction as inference to best explanation as key form have been the step child of thinking on rational, responsible warrant.
F/N: I think, Greenleaf has a message for us:
He of course primarily wrote concerning courts, which have been paradigm examples of broader warrant with much at stake.
I suggest, through the window of abductive inference to best explanation, such has somewhat to say to science and to critical analysis of worldviews and related issues. There is even an echo of the warrant to certainty issue, mathematics and Euclidean geometry there. For said geometry was the main example of mathematical, deductive, certain demonstration on offer.
Notice, the paradigm referred to and the contrast on matters of court decision.
KF
PS, I excerpt Grabiner, in “The Centrality of Mathematics in the History of Western Thought ” as we can take it to the bank that the Dawkins mindset is at work:
And much more.
PM1 @273
Self-defeating statements are irreparable, there seems to be a lack of awareness about that fact by some:
*All assertion is folly*
(1.) All assertion is folly
(2.) “All assertion is folly” is an assertion
from (1.) and (2.)
(3.) “All assertion is folly” is folly …
– – – –
Repair attempt 1.: *all assertion is folly (including of course the assertion that all assertion is folly)* (author: PM1)
1. all assertion is folly (including of course the assertion that all assertion is folly)
2. “all assertion is folly” is folly
– – – – –
Repair attempt 2.: *all assertion is folly (except for the assertion that ‘all assertion is folly’)*.
1. All assertion is folly
2. “All assertion is folly” is itself an assertion but is not a folly.
… premise (1.) and (2.) contradict each other …
Viola Lee on PM1’s quote :
You must like self-contradictory statements.
_ _ _ _
The other day I pointed out that Popper’s claim “All knowledge remains conjectural” is a self-contradictory statement. Seversky responded and suggested that some easy remedy is available:
“Specifically exclude his own position” from a universal statement? It cannot be done. Self-contradictory statements are huge mistakes without remedy.
Hmm. Q, I think you have missed the big point.
Did you read the rest of my post?
P.S. No one offered your repair #2. You made that up, without making it clear that PM (nor I) said that.
VL @274 @283
Truth is an accurate description of reality. Words refer to things and, of course, are not the things to which they refer. What do you mean by “not confuse it with what is real”? Are there persons who confuse the word/thought “apple” with the actual apple?
Can you provide an example of reasoning thinking which one should not take “too seriously”?
I don’t understand what this means. Is this the claim that “No true statements about the Tao can be made”? If so, that would be self-referentially contradictory.
Sure. But who are you arguing against? Can you name a person who suggested that the word “apple” can ‘replace’ to which it refers, namely an actual apple?
I can agree with the above. Except for the line “sometimes the opposite is true”; I do not see any opposition with the previous.
– – – –
@284 Correct. Included by me in order to show that no ‘easy repair’ is available.
// follow-up #285 //
“Reasoning thinking can be useful if it’s not taken too seriously …” is a self-contradictory statement:
(1.) Reasoning thinking must not be taken too seriously.
(2.) “Reasoning thinking must not be taken too seriously” is itself reasoning thinking.
From (1.) and (2.)
(3.) The claim that “Reasoning thinking must not be taken too seriously” must not be taken too seriously.
(3) is correct. All things in moderation. 🙂
No one confuses a real apple with the word apple. People certain think lots of abstractions point to real things. That is a confusion.
People also frequently think that words point to clear-cut distinctions between things when in fact those distinctions are artificial and don’t map to clear-cut lines in the real world. That is a confusion.
Kairosfocus:
Too many “are you aware”s. Your condescending attitude is grating as usual. And you haven’t said anything really different so . . .
I was struck by that also: condescendingly presenting a list of things that all the mathematically literate people here know. Are you aware of that, KF?
@280
I am all in favor of abductive inference in science and also in metaphysics. I’m in solid agreement with Charles S. Peirce that metaphysics should be less like mathematics (deduction from given axioms) and more like science (lots of overlapping, mutually supporting inferences). (His “Some Consequences of Four Incapacities” is one of my favorite philosophical essays.) Peirce thinks that we ought to reject Cartesian methodology for privileging mathematics as the paradigm of reasoning.
But if so, what follows? If we accept Peirce’s opening gesture of making metaphysics more like science, what would that entail? In science, we test and revise our hypotheses, and are prepared to abandon them if they do not work. To adopt that same critical attitude in metaphysics is precisely to abandon first principles altogether.
And that is why I think that Peirce gives us, for the first time in the history of Western philosophy, the overcoming of the Dilemma of the Criterion. The Dilemma of the Criterion is what must confront any form of reasoning about ultimate reality that is not dialectical.
Josiah Royce and F. H. Bradley were consummate metaphysics – but what matters to me is less the absolute idealism for which they are known, but rather their dialectical skill in argument. Neither of them is setting up first plausibles as unquestionable presuppositions, with inferential consequences logically drawn (as we see not only in Descartes, but also the utterly brilliant and incomparable Spinoza and Leibniz).
Even Royce’s “error exists” in ‘the argument from error’ is not a fixed point from which the lever of Archimedes is deployed (a metaphor that Descartes uses for his own foundationalism, from which consequences are deductively inferred, but a starting-point from which he dialectically unfolds a system without presuppositions.
In other words, I think that it’s really not clear if your epistemology leans towards foundationalism or towards anti-foundationalism.
The main problem with anti-foundationalism is that it rather easily becomes the postmodern morass that we’re familiar with from Nietzsche and those he influenced. But I think there’s a rather straightforward way to avoid the Nietzschean morass, and that’s by accepting Peirce’s idea that we don’t need foundations in metaphysics any more than we do in science: both science and metaphysics are self-correcting enterprises, in which any claim can be put in doubt, but not all at once.
JVL [ATTN, VL], resort to personalities is a clear sign that the material point was made. And no I am not being condescending, I am replying to revisionism that has accused me of being “idiosyncratic.” Replying, by witnessing to what I saw first hand at the end of a 2,000 year tradition and tracing that tradition. At this stage, I must wonder what has been forgotten or simply erased and sidelined. KF
PS, VL, if all of that was known by all, why was there a pretence then that such was not the case, forcing me to go back and document it as if it had to be shown from scratch?
PM1, did you see me ever identifying first plausibles, as a bloc, as unquestionable first principles? I’ll save time by saying, NO. Instead, I repeatedly identified a SMALL subset as self evident (which implies the attempt to deny is instantly absurd), having given Epictetus on core logic as a key case. Let me add, I explicitly noted such can never amount to enough to erect a full worldview. I further note that . . . following reformed epistemology forebears . . . I pointed to how worldviews bristle with difficulties [I do not bother with weltbild as the crude level] and then pointed, repeatedly to comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and balanced explanatory power. That is certainly not deductive, and I explicitly identified it as abductive, working towards the least difficult on balance. You are obviously familiar from the past with my reference to Josiah Royce, which means you should be familiar with what I have again outlined in answer to a pattern that looks rather strawmannish. On the point, error exists, such is readily seen as undeniable, as the attempted denial instantiates, it is not just an empirical point of general agreement. So, we have here a known, undeniable truth implying that truth is not an empty set and that a first truth is humbling; we must now seek means to detect and correct errors. Schemes that try to deny objective truth and knowledge, their name is legion, fail. In this context, we need not go on about Neurath’s raft model, the point is a raft or ship or spaceship or spider web has a foundation equivalent substructure that unifies and gives protective strength. My point is, we have core commitments that are finitely remote and which are firsts, facts, awarenesses, principles such as LOI-LEM-LNC, unifying explanatory constructs, things we simply pick up from experience in community. Often, unexamined and incoherent, even absurdly and patently so. The issue is to consider and to do so to find some plumbline tests. Of which LOI-LEM-LNC is a capital case, one with power to erect core mathematics. Acknowledging that architecture of thought about the world rather than pretending it does not exist or is not needed, seems to me a basic step of prudence replacing the inferior approach, hyperskepticism; which has haunted our civilisation for centuries and has landed us needlessly in a morass of futility. KF
LOI-LEM-LN is not in doubt by anyone, I don’t think. That error exist is an obvious empirical and logical fact. What is in doubt is all the further conclusions your draw from these facts.
Viola Lee @
Is it also not in doubt by people who say that “all assertion is folly”? And how about people who say: “reasoning thinking must not be taken too seriously”?
Does LOI-LEM-LN relate to reality? Should we perhaps be careful not to “confuse” it with reality? Is ultimate reality (Tao!?) something which is somehow beyond the grasp of LOI-LEM-LN?
Your position is unclear.
Q, you have latched on to one quote that I spoke of favorably without paying any attention to anything else I wrote. No sense continuing to respond to your repetitious questioning. You aren’t interested in serious discussion with me.
Viola Lee @283,
Huh? Where did I miss the big point and in what post?
Viola @ 296
Again, what post are you talking about?
Thanks,
-Q
Viola Lee @
You seem confused; see #285 and #286.
Yes, you did respond, and I responded at 288. But 295 goes back to more questions to which I think you are not really interested in my responses. Let’s drop it.
VL @
So, you were confused when you berated me for not “paying any attention to anything else” that you wrote. Apologies accepted.
Well, that was not a serious response, now was it?
Absolutely, let’s do that.
Yes, 288 was quite serious.
VL, while I am happy to see you affirming this triad, actually, as is public knowledge many people have tried to deny LOI-LEM-LNC. Years back, here at UD and elsewhere, often in the name of relativity, quantum theory or even denial or suspension of the principle of explosion. The result is indefensible chaos. See, weak argument correctives 38 for where a response had to be made on record. KF
Are you aware that including seven “are you aware”‘s in a single response is a sure sign of condescension?
But seriously, KF starts almost every response with phrases like “Are you aware?”, “As you full well know”, or an accusation of malevolent intent. It makes it very difficult to take him seriously. Even on the rare occasion when he may have a valid argument.
SG, the resort to personalities is a strong sign that the objection that was responded to cannot be sustained. I find it especially significant that you set out on piling on without even acknowledging that when one is called idiosyncratic etc on a matter that should have been taken as generally known commonplace — admitted after the fact by implication of onward attempt at belittling . . . yes, telling (and justifying, as you well know or stronger as an exceptional marker of objections beyond the pale) — something is wrong. But then you have shown by sad track record what you are, or rather are not. KF
F/N: It seems relevant to further note from as obviously pointing out that the attempted beat-down misrepresented relevant history has hit a nerve on how the quest for utter certainty with Math as gold standard, hit a snag with the Godel results:
She goes on, pointing to Aristotle and deduction:
The issue I pointed to is very real (notice Greenleaf’s contrast between Math and the courtroom), and the impact of the Godel theorems undermined a mindset that fed hyperskepticism. For, once we have a core of math tied to NZQRCR* etc, no finite cluster of axioms will be comprehensive and coherent, hence undecidables. Thus too, the significance of Chaitin, in showing that this is not some negligible oddity.
The result is, Mathematics, once the flagship of deductive, axiomatic systems is now a far messier, inductively influenced whole. We trust it to be reliable as a system, we cannot prove it beyond all doubt, indeed there is a proof for that. Trust, of course, is a telling word, it is the word of the faith-walk. Reasonable, responsible faith is a reality as close as mathematics, computing and science.
And personalise polarise Alinsky tactics — “rare” occasions that I “may have a valid point” being a clear case in point of open and unjustified contempt and plain hostility — cannot change the force of that.
KF
Just a bit of OT fun. Question for the more mathematically minded (than me).
If I present you with two data points, numerical values separated by a time interval, recorded on graph paper of a suitable scale, firstly as is and then with a carefully drawn straight line from the one point to the other, have I provided you with extra information in the second scenario?
I’d appreciate KF’s input no less than anyone else’s. I promise it is not a trick question. I have my own answer but I’m open to correction.
AF, only, that someone has drawn a straight line connecting the two. You have not even indicated the scales (apart from one is time), linear, log etc. Issues of noise may be present inasmuch as you spoke of data. Two points in a plane may be connected by a straight line or an infinity of curves. Beyond that, one needs dynamics or at least kinematics if change with time is proposed but of course dynamics need to be justified on observed capability or body of knowledge to be of real world significance. Further to this, the meaning of the points per scale if any on the other axis may entail huge issues and complexity. KF
I’m not supplying any further information about the two data points (other than they are the result of measuring some real phenomenon at moments in time). You could imagine the information is provided by a probe measuring a variable such as temperature, pressure or velocity, but not limited to that. The result of an opinion poll on separate occasions, say.
Thanks for responding. Do you mind hanging on a bit for my input in case there are other responses and I don’t want to exert undue influence.
AF, data implies observation, you have simply expanded. Beyond, we can wait. KF
Alan, my answer is No.
Alan Foxy: If I present you with two data points, numerical values separated by a time interval, recorded on graph paper of a suitable scale, firstly as is and then with a carefully drawn straight line from the one point to the other, have I provided you with extra information in the second scenario?
No except that it appears you think the data should fall into a linear pattern. If you have a good reason for making that assumption then, in some sense, you have added something not apparent in the two data points alone. If there is no reason for assuming the data should fall into a linear pattern then, in fact, you have confused the situation.
Thanks for the succinct response, Viola.
And thanks, JVL.
I’ll clarify how the question arose. In another forum, I commented on a thread regarding the latest UK census showing a decline in religious belief. Almost as an afterthought, I added that the way the data was presented with straight lines through the actual results was decorative rather than informative.
JVL and VL, KF is so predictable. I made this comment:
And his response started with an accusation of malevolent intent:
And he even threw in a “as you well know” for good measure.
Alan@314, given the additional clarification I would say that the line does not add much because a straight line implies a linear trend, which we cannot discern from just two points in time.
That being said, assuming that it was a properly conducted poll with a large number of randomized respondents, then we could conclude that there appears to be a trend. But without data points between the two, we would have no way of knowing if the trend was significant or just the result of the normal noise associated with the polling process.
A better indication of a decline in religious belief would be attendance at churches and total church revenues declared on tax forms. Assuming churches are handled like other not-for-profits and charities, they may not have to pay taxes, but they are still required to submit tax returns and have publicly available audited financials.
Sir Giles: That being said, assuming that it was a properly conducted poll with a large number of randomized respondents, then we could conclude that there appears to be a trend. But without data points between the two, we would have no way of knowing if the trend was significant or just the result of the normal noise associated with the polling process.
Also, if the poll was about religious affiliation then a decreasing trend would have to be asymptotic as a decreasing linear model would dip into negative values at some point.
SG, you are now plainly projecting, as you must know that you have crossed a pretty serious line. This is the second time you have said in effect that I am a general failure at reasoning. The last time, I took up an OP to address the matter in the context of ID, to which you had no substantial support. Now, you are speaking generally [in the context of Math and deductive reasoning in our civilisation with a side order of architecture of worldviews], and I can confidently predict that again, apart from personalising, polarising, projecting, you will be unable to back up with substance. When someone keeps making false and insubstantial accusations and mischaracterisations such as “. . . on the rare occasion when he may have a valid argument,” she or he is in the end only characterising her-/him- self as one who behaves like that. Where, it is hard to conceive of you as not knowing better. You would do better to reconsider. KF
AF, population trends, even if well sampled have limits, and trends like pie crusts are made to be broken. KF
Good points! Thanks guys. I also wonder what sorts of things affect opinion. Perhaps Asimov was on to something with Hari Seldon’s psychohistory predictions being blown off course by inherently unpredictable events.
How unexpected events such as changes in social infrastructure, demographic changes, wars, epidemics and other natural disasters, or a convincing second coming of Christ could impinge on the level of religious belief makes me think predicting trends in religious belief a chancy business.
Alan, I would agree that making predictions about religious belief based on past trends is a crap shoot. But the one thing that is not contentious over the last few decades is the decline in Christian belief in the US (-90% to -60%). I find it interesting that the decline corresponds to the rise of the internet. As more information (not always accurate) becomes more easy to access, Christian belief declines. Whether this is causative or coincidence is impossible to say.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2022/09/PF_2022.09.13_religious-projections_00-01.png?w=640
Kairosfocus: you will be unable to back up with substance
Frequently we do back up our counter arguments with substance which you dismiss or avoid. Sometimes over and over and over again.
If you’re going to participate in a public discussion then, sometimes, you have to concede a point. You have to admit to getting something wrong. But you do so so rarely I can’t remember when was the last time it happened.
You would do better to reconsider.
Done that many times.
population trends, even if well sampled have limits, and trends like pie crusts are made to be broken.
Weird that you didn’t even try to address Alan Foxy‘s question. Why is that?
F/N: On worldviews, Merriam-Webster:
As a humble point of in common reference, Wikipedia confesses:
Of course, this is mainly a point of reference. For cause, I hold that axioms are very different from basic personal, social, historical and knowledge base facts, and again from self awareness, yet more from the origins and destiny story of a people group, likewise presuppositions and metaphysics postulates or laws of logic, etc. But indeed, on just considering why accept A, B. Why B, C etc we see that Agrippa et al have a half point. The half is that infinite regress and circularity are not good enough. So, we can see that we must have finitely remote first plausibles that we accept as just that, credible, defining our faith-points. The challenge of question begging leads to recognising that all worldviews bristle with difficulties and so comparative difficulties stabilises against question begging.
Of course, the tripartite test, factual adequacy [and obviously predictive power], coherence and explanatory balance then raises a raft of onward issues. Naive views are often factually inadequate, incoherent and ad hoc or simplistic, but so are all too many sophisticated and prestigious ones. For example, evolutionary materialistic scientism is irretrievably incoherent.
So, we need to be aware of worldviews issues and of a key root of difficulties, much of what is involved in a worldview addresses ourselves in our world in wider reality. Therefore, such are inescapably self referential, so a powerful part of the coherence test is to be aware of potential for self referential incoherence and of the linked challenges that error is possible. Eclecticism, subjectivism, emotivism, radical relativism and syncretism etc then arise as onward challenges fraught with potential for errors.
Currently, our civilisation is deeply challenged on worldviews matters.
They show up at UD because they lurk just under the surface of debates. For example, is objective knowledge possible? What, properly, is knowledge given common usage and usage in serious disciplines? Related, what are facts? Are there truths, can at least some truths be confidently known? Are there self evident truths? Is consciousness or self awareness self evident? Is or can it be affected by error and can we deal with the haunting skeptical fear of something like a Plato’s cave grand delusion? Do ontology, wider metaphysics, logic, epistemology, axiology [ethics and aesthetics] have significant, reliable bodies of knowledge? If so, why is there so much of radical skepticism, relativism, nihilism etc? How can our civilisation go forward, is there any reason to have hope?
And much more.
Coming back to the issues coming up above, from the days of the Greek Geometers to the turn of the 1930’s, mathematical, axiomatised systems and associated bodies of fact and knowledge were the gold standard for the deductive paradigm for certain knowledge. Other fields up to and including the court room and the sciences were at lesser grades, with inductive judgement deeply involved. In some aspects they could deliver moral certainty — it would be irresponsible to act as though X were false given its warrant — but this led to acid, corrosive doubt as a spectre haunting the centuries.
Now, Godel shattered the gold standard in principle and Chaitin et al have removed any hope that his in principle results could be regarded as remote oddities. There is no finite set of axioms that are coherent and comprehensive covering domains touched by NZQRCR* and associated basic operations etc and there is no constructive procedure to generate axiomatic frames that are demonstrably coherent.
Yes, we “all” know that . . . except for those who don’t or refuse to acknowledge the force thereof.
Now, we may proceed to deal with what is substantial.
KF
JVL, the relevant substance, building on further materials upthread is just above. Address it substantially and show that I am the utterly incompetent reasoner that SG . . . who you are backing up in this course of discussion . . . has asserted for a second time. I predict, you may produce disagreement but adequate warrant to reduce the above to empty words will be lacking. As for AF, I answered in the context of data points and trends rather than taking up the contentious issues of radical secularisation and dechristianisation of our civilisation and the voyage of suicidal folly we have collectively embarked on. If basic concepts such as worldviews, the quest for certainty and the like cannot be reasonably agreed I see no reason to go on to more and more toxic tangents. It is enough to note that population trends have hard limits and are made to be broken. In our case, mixing metaphors, our civilisation is headed for a cliff edge and a hard collision with realities being pretended away. KF
PS, if you want a snapshot of my view on trends, markets, products, ideas etc look up the product life cycle model, and ask your self what sort of bell shaped impulse yields a sigmoid as cumulative effect.
Kairosfocus: Address it substantially and show that I am the utterly incompetent reasoner that SG . . . who you are backing up in this course of discussion . . . has asserted for a second time.
As always, your tone is dismissive and condescending. You reasoning flaws have been pointed out many times; I can’t imagine that elucidating them again will bring about a different response from you.
I predict, you may produce disagreement but adequate warrant to reduce the above to empty words will be lacking.
The real issue is: getting you to admit anyone else has a valid point critical of you. That never seems to happen from your perspective. Hard to imagine that you could be that perfect.
As for AF, I answered in the context of data points and trends rather than taking up the contentious issues of radical secularisation and dechristianisation of our civilisation and the voyage of suicidal folly we have collectively embarked on. If basic concepts such as worldviews, the quest for certainty and the like cannot be reasonably agreed I see no reason to go on to more and more toxic tangents.
You failed to address the question of whether or not drawing a line through two data points adds information. You are now focused on the purported source of those data points and act as if that has become the central point when clearly it is not.
It is enough to note that population trends have hard limits and are made to be broken.
A blank statement which, actually, conveys nothing of substance to the conversation.
In our case, mixing metaphors, our civilisation is headed for a cliff edge and a hard collision with realities being pretended away.
A classic (for you) case of why you are not a good reasoner: you attempt to railroad every conversation around to your preferred topics and issues. And, given that we have all heard your view over and over and over again over the course of many years, your efforts are pointless as well as irritating.
IF you want us to take you seriously as a scholar and an academic then you should start behaving like one starting with actually addressing the question at hand AND not trying to browbeat anyone who disagrees with you into submission or absence.
JVL, with reference to KF’s ”civilisation is headed for a cliff edge and a hard collision with realities being pretended away.” it has been pointed out to KF multiple times, by several people, that the evidence does not support his paranoia. Infant mortality down, life expectancy up, quality of life in old age improved, racial issues improved, no longer persecuting and prosecuting homosexuals and transgendered, ready access to birth control, better opportunities for women, decreased rates of violence, etc.
The best reason I can come up with for his doomsaying is that Christianity is on the decline and many of the persecutions permitted by the Bible are no longer acceptable by society. But that is just my opinion. He may very well have other reasons for his fears.
Sir Giles: The best reason I can come up with for his doomsaying is that Christianity is on the decline and many of the persecutions permitted by the Bible are no longer acceptable by society. But that is just my opinion. He may very well have other reasons for his fears.
I think, too, that his complete inability to accept some aspects of modern culture (same-sex marriage, same-sex sex, etc) means that he has clearly fallen behind the times but, if you can’t move with the times, you end up falling back on what sound more and more like inflexible, fundamentalist views. That’s all somewhat predictable. In Kairosfocus‘s case his inability to even utter (i.e. type) certain words just make him look like someone so out of touch with the modern world as to render himself completely ineffectual when trying to deal with current events. You can’t just keep stamping your feet, insisting you’re right, that we’ve learnt very little in the last 2000 years, and expect people to take you seriously or even listen to you. Couple that with an incredibly pompous and intentionally archaic rhetorical style and . . . well . . . people start tuning out.
You do wonder if Kairosfocus and Bornagain77 actually think that anyone really reads their posts anymore? I bet they don’t even read each others’.
JVL at 327,
“modern culture”? As opposed to two moths ago? People should reject perverse lifestyles. And by reject, I don’t mean reject people, just reject the lifestyles. For the record, no one needs my permission to live how they want.
Relatd: People should reject perverse lifestyles.
Perverse based on whose standard? Do you follow all the rules and injunctions in the Bible? Even the ones about not wearing clothing made from two different kinds of fabric? Or the one about not eating shellfish? Or the one about anyone who curses their parents must be killed? How do you know which laws to follow and which to reject?
JVL@327, although we are centering on KF, he is by no means the only one with this “stuck in the past” pathology. It has been my experience that those who long for a past that never really existed ignore the fact that the only certainty in life is change. You can either try to understand and influence the change or you can rail against it. The difference between the two is that the latter is doomed to failure.
Any time there is change, people are dragged into the future whether they like it or not.
1) There is the hotel manager who opposed civil rights by pouring acid into a white’s only pool when black people were swimming in it.
2) Or the bus driver that had Rosa Parks arrested for not moving to the back of the bus.
3) Or the baker and florist who were sued for refusing to provide their services for a same sax marriage.
4) Or the county clerk who was pilloried in the media and social media for refusing to issue a wedding licence to a same sex couple.
5) Or the movie executive who was charged for behaviours that were previously condoned.
6) Or the employee fired for behaviour that was previously condoned.
All of these are extremely uncomfortable and unpleasant for those involved, but they serve an important purpose in the advancement of society.
Although challenging, I would much rather live in modern society than in any previous decade. I was at a Christmas dinner last night for my office staff and their significant others. Two of the staff have same sex parters, who were welcomed just like anyone else would be. A couple decades ago, this would not be the case.
JVL, you are rapidly painting yourself into a corner. It is by no means “condescending” to object to repeated unjustified, unsubstantiated blanket accusations that one is a generally incompetent reasoner and to lay out one’s reasons then challenge the one making accusations to provide substance or in all reasonableness, withdraw the charge. KF
F/N: On other matters regarding the course of our civilisation, it is not hard to see how we are blindly heading to disaster. As a minor sign, compare events in E Europe to those of the 1930’s. There are many other signs that need to be heeded but are unlikely to be taken seriously by those who are caught up in the tides of the times. However, we would be well advised to heed Machiavelli, whose counsel was that political disasters are like hectic fever, easy to cure at first but hard to diagnose; but when the course becomes obvious to all, it is far too late to cure. At another time, I may point out some further signs. KF
Dear Sir Giles @ 321
The decline of Christian belief can also be attributed to censorship and lies on the part of the Science establishment specifically and academia, government, and the media generally.
Where in a Science publication, or media account, does one find this fact: That ALL the scientific evidence shows that life began through Divine inervention. And of course, Courts have held that it is illegal, indeed unconstiutional, to teach that fact in a public school. You got it, illegal to teach a scientific fact. And the Science establishemnt applauds
So we are given a theory, naturalisticc abiogenesis, which is as discredited as perpetual motion or phlogiston. Instead it is presented as the truth in virtually all basic biology textbooks, without ever a mention of its problems, when the truth is that it has ZERO evidence supporting it.
Of course some BS science to prop up Atheism is not the number 1 problem with the lies fof our intellectual establishment. Not when they tell us that it is okay to murder millions of unborn children,
The only thing wrong with this argument is that it does not conform to the evidence.
TAMMIE LEE HAYNES/333
Of course, it must be a conspiracy of the all-powerful science establishment that is responsible for the decline, it couldn’t possibly be that it is being discredited by the public behavior of some of it’s most prominent figures and institutions.
— Voltaire
Divine intervention in the origin of life is not taught as a scientific fact in the science classes of public schools because it has not been established as a scientific fact. It is, therefore, unconstitutional to teach it as such. Creationism has a standing invitation to present evidence in support of its claim but has failed to do so thus far. The ball is in your court.
Do you have an example of a biology text-book which presents abiogenesis as a well-established theory or scientific fact?
The decline in church attendance suggests it is not Atheism which needs propping up.
In his new book Zombie Science, biologist Jonathan Wells asks a simple question: If the icons of evolution were just innocent textbook errors, why do so many of them still persist?
[evolutionnews.org]
JVL at 329,
Christians are not under the law Moses wrote. And why do you divert to clothes and dietary rules which have nothing to do with the subject?
Same-sex marriage is not equivalent to one man, one woman marriage. The complementary in heterosexual marriage means children are brought into the world. In the case of a marriage where the woman finds out she cannot have children, the complementary still exists. I have a friend who is in that situation.
I followed the legal efforts to create SSM. It could have been done differently and achieved a similar result, but this was rejected by those involved. They wanted to be considered the same as straight married couples. However, this is not possible since the sex organs are incompatible.
SG at 330,
“dragged into the future” hahahahahahahahaha
Are you living “in the future” right now? It’s called “the present.”
“3) Or the baker and florist who were sued for refusing to provide their services for a same sax marriage.
“4) Or the county clerk who was pilloried in the media and social media for refusing to issue a wedding licence to a same sex couple.”
It’s called exercising their freedom of religion.
Seversky at 335,
You still haven’t gotten a clue.
“In February 2022, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of Catholics in the world increased by 16 million to 1.36 billion.”
Do the research or I will get that Mega-Sock Launcher.
No, it’s called violating anti discrimination laws.
Viola Lee,
After attacking me personally, would you please respond to @297.
Thank you,
-Q
By this logic, couples who know they are infertile and couples who don’t want to have children can’t get married. I hate to break it to you, but the church does not own marriage. It is a state institution and, as such, the state can decide what it is.
Over the years, marriage has changed. Men no longer have the right to physically discipline their wives. Women no longer have to obey their husbands.
In fact, same sex unions were performed by the church up until the 13th century.
Q, I think it is excessive to say that I “attacked” you. At 299 I agreed that you had responded when I had said you hadn’t, and at 300 you agreed, I think, that we should drop the discussion. Why are you bringing this back up?
SG, you (along with far too many others) may well be exemplifying a pattern identified 2,000 years ago:
A word of caution. We must not let this slippery slope begin.
Later, on marks of a civilisation that has lost its way.
KF
Viola Lee @343,
If you actually read @300, you’ll notice that it’s from Origenes, not Querius, right?
And then if you do a search for Querius, you’ll find a conspicuous lack of any attacks from Querius directed against you, leaving me confused and protesting my innocence.
-Q
SG at 342,
I hate to break it you but God owns marriage. The importance of marriage for society in general cannot be diluted.
“Over the years, marriage has changed. Men no longer have the right to physically discipline their wives. Women no longer have to obey their husbands.”
Then by that sort of ‘reasoning,’ why bother getting married? The Bible is clear that husbands should love their wives. They should love and respect each other before the ceremony so that they can enter into a proper union with each other. They should be friends, enjoying each other’s company.
SG at 340,
You can say what you like but their actions can and have been defended in court. All laws discriminate. All laws tell you what you can and cannot do. If they have free exercise of religion, they can do this.
Kairosfocus @344,
I was surprised to read that the Catholic church did once sanction same-sex marriage despite the clear teachings of the Bible.
Since Islam also accepts Torah, it’s against their teachings as well and under Shariah law, people who do this are routinely executed along with any apostate” who tries to rationalize this.
In the meantime, it will be interesting to see whether the woke mob will ever attack Islam for their beliefs and practices.
As a Christian, I follow the final commands given by Jesus Christ in Revelation 22:10-12. My job is clearly not to waste my time “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
-Q
Dear Mr Seversky@335
You misrepresented my statements.
Perhaps it was because you didn’t read them carefully.
In my statements I claimed that THIS is a fact: “ALL the scientific evidence shows that life began through Divine inervention.” If you disagree with that claim, please tell us what the contrary evidence is.
You asked for “an example of a biology text-book which presents abiogenesis as a well-established theory or scientific fact”
Here it is: Miller and Levine “Biology”Pearson Education, Inc 2010, pgs 553 to 555
As a typical example of how prominent Scientists in Biology textbooks discuss the origin of life, Dr Miller makes this deceitful statement regarding the Miller Urey experiment.
“The results were spectacular. They produced produced 21 amino acids – building blocks of proteins.”
As Dr Miller (and his 18 senior faculty “Science Rewiewers) certainly know, the Miller Urey experiment did NOT make building blocks of proteins. Proteins are homochiral, while the amino acids that Miller and Urey were racemic. Today, 70 years after Miller and Urey, Scientists are still unable to overcome this problem. And to hide this failure from millions of students.
KF@344, are you suggesting that I shouldn’t have invited the same sex partners of my two homosexual employees to the company’s annual Christmas dinner?
re 345: Oh my. At 283 I typed Q, not O, but was addressing Origenes, and just now I notice that 297 was from you, not Origenes: it was he I thought I was replying to, because it didn’t even occur to me that you were part of the conversation. I have been entirely confused about who is who, and I apologize for the resulting confusion.
Viola Lee @351,
Thank you. Apology happily accepted.
-Q