Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

Nothing rather than the universe is a possibility.

it isn't possible for nonexistence to exist.

Perhaps I should just leave you to have the argument with yourself. Let me know which you wins.

You are prepared to accept Russell's brute fact.

I never said that. Please stop putting words into my mouth, I don't know where they've been. Russell's brute fact is possible, just as a necessary entity might be possible (although I'm struggling to see how, given the nonsense you've posted). As I keep pointing out, I'm unconvinced by any of the proposed 'explanations'.

But God is at the base of all heirarchies, the ground of our being on which everything depends moment by moment. So how can he fail to act through anything?

Gibberish.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Perhaps I should just leave you to have the argument with yourself. Let me know which you wins.

I never said that. Please stop putting words into my mouth, I don't know where they've been. Russell's brute fact is possible, just as a necessary entity might be possible (although I'm struggling to see how, given the nonsense you've posted). As I keep pointing out, I'm unconvinced by any of the proposed 'explanations'.

Could that because you have a commitment to agnosticism perhaps? I'm unconvinced by the objections to the argument from contingency.
 If you are saying that the reason why there is something rather than nothing is possible rather than impossible then I suppose that is progress.

Gibberish.

How so? It is an alternative to your contention that God could not act in the universe. There are others, not least that God has determined everything in the universe. God had has determined some things or some types of things would happen in the universe. That God who need not be subject to time cannot act is a bit of an extreme statement IMV.

[Stranger]

Could that because you have a commitment to agnosticism perhaps?

No. Seriously, what is it with with you that you can't seem to grasp that somebody might not be committed to any particular point of view? Is it something to to with the religious mindset that requires absolute faith in something that makes you totally blind to the notion that other people don't think like that?

Today, I have literally no idea about the correct reason why there is something rather than nothing or why the things that do exist are as they are. I'm not even sure if it's the right question to ask or if it really has a meaning. Perhaps the answer is (as has been said) not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine.

However, if some startling new evidence or some totally convincing argument was presented to me, then tomorrow, my view may be entirely different.

If you are saying that the reason why there is something rather than nothing is possible rather than impossible then I suppose that is progress.

Progress? I haven't changed my view one iota since the start of this discussion.

How so? It is an alternative to your contention that God could not act in the universe. There are others, not least that God has determined everything in the universe. God had has determined some things or some types of things would happen in the universe. That God who need not be subject to time cannot act is a bit of an extreme statement IMV.

   I never mentioned 'god', I just pointed out that something (anything) that is 'outside' time, cannot act. Time is a basic requirement for acting, because an action requires change, and change requires time.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Progress? I haven't changed my view one iota since the start of this discussion.

And i'm still of the view that objections here are of the category of trying to rebut the principle of sufficient reason.....using the principle of sufficient reason.

The reason for why something and not nothing is always going to be er, a reason i.e. a something.

[Nearly Sane]

A reminder that in Christianity the concept of free will is problematic

https://www.thecollector.com/erasmus-martin-luther-what-makes-us-free/

[Stranger]

And i'm still of the view that objections here are of the category of trying to rebut the principle of sufficient reason.....using the principle of sufficient reason.

Which just another example (of many in this discussion) of you simply failing to understand what is being said to you.

The PSR is a philosophical idea that seems to be extrapolated from our everyday experience. It cannot be proved. Further, as I pointed out before (and you totally missed the point) quantum uncertainty appears to at least weaken it considerably. If you're looking for a sufficient reason why one radioactive nucleus decays at some specific time, you'll be out of luck. All the (well tested) underlying theory can tell us is that there was some probability that it might.

However, as you seem to have raised the PSR to the level of unquestionable and universal truth, it is not unreasonable to ask you to explain exactly how something can intrinsically have sufficient reason for its own existence. Absent such an explanation, your 'argument' from contingency offers no answer at all to why there is something rather than nothing, It just assets that the hierarchy of explanation terminates at something that is supposed to magically provide the answer, just as long as we don't as how.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which just another example (of many in this discussion) of you simply failing to understand what is being said to you.

The PSR is a philosophical idea that seems to be extrapolated from our everyday experience. It cannot be proved. Further, as I pointed out before (and you totally missed the point) quantum uncertainty appears to at least weaken it considerably. If you're looking for a sufficient reason why one radioactive nucleus decays at some specific time, you'll be out of luck. All the (well tested) underlying theory can tell us is that there was some probability that it might.

However, as you seem to have raised the PSR to the level of unquestionable and universal truth, it is not unreasonable to ask you to explain exactly how something can intrinsically have sufficient reason for its own existence. Absent such an explanation, your 'argument' from contingency offers no answer at all to why there is something rather than nothing, It just assets that the hierarchy of explanation terminates at something that is supposed to magically provide the answer, just as long as we don't as how.

You seemed not to have grasped that there is a reason why there is something rather than nothing. There would also under the principle be  a reason for why there was nothing rather than something. So reason cannot be dispensed with. The PSR is thus satisfied so the necessary entity cannot fail to exist.

But more importantly the reason is within itself and not contingent. Once you get to the reason why something and not nothing there is really no place to go. No pertinent questions are sequitur.

But you have failed to realise something else. You have reached the point where you are having to ask why does God have to exist necessarily?

Think about your position here. It isn't atheist.

A theist just needs to establish a metaphysical entity necessary for existence of a contingent universe.

The question could God have failed to exist is based on that established premise

As for conceiving nothing so there could be nothing. Just conceiving never worked for Anselm. Why should it work for you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which just another example (of many in this discussion) of you simply failing to understand what is being said to you.

The PSR is a philosophical idea that seems to be extrapolated from our everyday experience. It cannot be proved. Further, as I pointed out before (and you totally missed the point) quantum uncertainty appears to at least weaken it considerably. If you're looking for a sufficient reason why one radioactive nucleus decays at some specific time, you'll be out of luck. All the (well tested) underlying theory can tell us is that there was some probability that it might.

However, as you seem to have raised the PSR to the level of unquestionable and universal truth, it is not unreasonable to ask you to explain exactly how something can intrinsically have sufficient reason for its own existence. Absent such an explanation, your 'argument' from contingency offers no answer at all to why there is something rather than nothing, It just assets that the hierarchy of explanation terminates at something that is supposed to magically provide the answer, just as long as we don't as how.

The trouble with proposing quantum anything or radioactive decay are the questions why (insert as applicable) and not (insert as applicable).

[Stranger]

You seemed not to have grasped that there is a reason why there is something rather than nothing.

   No, Vlad, I haven't 'grasped' it. The PSR and our human tendency to think there should be a reason (basically the same thing) suggests that there would be such a reason but, when we actually apply some rational thought to it, we end up with the logical problem of something that is a reason for its own existence, at which point, just insisting that there still must be such a thing, has exactly the same level of 'explanation', as "well I dunno, it must be magic".

But you have failed to realise something else. You have reached the point where you are having to ask why does God have to exist necessarily?

   Nope. God is nothing but empty white noise you until offer some reason to take a version of it seriously.

The trouble with proposing quantum anything or radioactive decay are the questions why (insert as applicable) and not (insert as applicable).

Did that even mean something to you in your head before you typed it, or are you simply generating random sentences somehow?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

   No, Vlad, I haven't 'grasped' it. The PSR and our human tendency to think there should be a reason (basically the same thing) suggests that there would be such a reason but, when we actually apply some rational thought to it, we end up with the logical problem of something that is a reason for its own existence, at which point, just insisting that there still must be such a thing, has exactly the same level of 'explanation', as "well I dunno, it must be magic".

   Nope. God is nothing but empty white noise you until offer some reason to take a version of it seriously.

Did that even mean something to you in your head before you typed it, or are you simply generating random sentences somehow?

But what you are saying and doing is indistinguishable from using the PSR until it doesn't suit the atheist position....aka special pleading.

Not wishing to Diss your intellectual prowess but Sean Carroll, a formidable atheist mind does take the PSR seriously and has vowed to work on his rebuttal. So that weakens your claim about the serious threat the PSR poses to a brute fact universe.

A plea from the insufficiency of the human intellect which is what you are making? That seems to be based on discovery and of course you need to point out exactly in this debate where human intellectual insufficiency becomes a factor.

[Stranger]

But what you are saying and doing is indistinguishable from using the PSR until it doesn't suit the atheist position....aka special pleading.

Only to somebody who seems to have a big problem with English comprehension. First, it's got nothing to do with atheism, because it's a seriously crap argument for a god even if you could make a 'necessary entity' make some sort of sense.

It's also crap as an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing because it ends in something totally undefined and apparently absurd: something that provides its own reason for existing, effectively the explanatory equivalent of a causal loop (except that a causal loop is at least imaginable). Now, to be fair, and as I keep on saying, I have yet to see any proposed explanation that actually makes much sense or is at all convincing, which is why I'm sticking to the "don't know" position.

As far as the PSR goes, it already seems to break down, at least to some extent, when it comes into contact with quantum theory. So, I regard it as a useful idea in most circumstances but, unlike you, I am not going to put blind faith it its universal applicability, especially on such a fundamental question as the basis for all existence.

A plea from the insufficiency of the human intellect which is what you are making? That seems to be based on discovery and of course you need to point out exactly in this debate where human intellectual insufficiency becomes a factor.

The problem here is that we can't know if we've reached the limit of our intellectual abilities. It's a possible that we are simply asking the wrong sort of questions or that the answer really is beyond our abilities to understand, how would we know?

So, again, given all the unknowns and the fact that all the supposed 'answers' on offer are crap, a rational "we don't know" appears to be the only position to take (until and unless somebody comes up with a less crap answer).

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I think that's your point not his since you are leaving room for there to be a reason. I believe Russell's full phrase was ''The universe just is and there's an end to it. He certainly didn't mean that the reason you suggest was outside the universe.....in which case he would be de facto proposing the universe as having a necessary aspect rather than being entirely contingent.

How on earth did you get from my saying: “Russel’s point I think wasn’t that the universe is a brute fact, but rather that (given our current state of knowledge about it) a “brute fact” is all we can reasonably say about it. It's an epistemic point, not a scientific one” to this frankly bizarre straw man version of it?

Try to focus here: he was merely saying that absent cogent to answers to the “why the universe?” question we have a "don’t know", so the most we can say is just that it’s a brute fact that the universe does exist. Taking the opportunity of that don’t know to insert “therefore god” and special pleading that god to get it off the same question (ie, why god?) is just poor reasoning.         

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

How on earth did you get from my saying: “Russel’s point I think wasn’t that the universe is a brute fact, but rather that (given our current state of knowledge about it) a “brute fact” is all we can reasonably say about it. It's an epistemic point, not a scientific one” to this frankly bizarre straw man version of it?

Try to focus here: he was merely saying that absent cogent to answers to the “why the universe?” question we have a "don’t know", so the most we can say is just that it’s a brute fact that the universe does exist. Taking the opportunity of that don’t know to insert “therefore god” and special pleading that god to get it off the same question (ie, why god?) is just poor reasoning.       

You are trying to argue that Russell's statements The universe just is and that is all there is to it isn't proposing that the universe is just brute fact. Do you not see how it cannot be interpreted as such?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Only to somebody who seems to have a big problem with English comprehension. First, it's got nothing to do with atheism, because it's a seriously crap argument for a god even if you could make a 'necessary entity' make some sort of sense.

It's also crap as an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing because it ends in something totally undefined and apparently absurd: something that provides its own reason for existing, effectively the explanatory equivalent of a causal loop (except that a causal loop is at least imaginable). Now, to be fair, and as I keep on saying, I have yet to see any proposed explanation that actually makes much sense or is at all convincing, which is why I'm sticking to the "don't know" position.

As far as the PSR goes, it already seems to break down, at least to some extent, when it comes into contact with quantum theory. So, I regard it as a useful idea in most circumstances but, unlike you, I am not going to put blind faith it its universal applicability, especially on such a fundamental question as the basis for all existence.

The problem here is that we can't know if we've reached the limit of our intellectual abilities. It's a possible that we are simply asking the wrong sort of questions or that the answer really is beyond our abilities to understand, how would we know?

So, again, given all the unknowns and the fact that all the supposed 'answers' on offer are crap, a rational "we don't know" appears to be the only position to take (until and unless somebody comes up with a less crap answer).

personally your descent into assertions of things being crap signals to me that you are floundering.

[Stranger]

personally your descent into assertions of things being crap signals to me that you are floundering.

Says the world class flounderer himself. I guess it beats trying to address the massive hole in the centre of your 'argument' (two, if we include your absurd attempts to identify the unexplained 'necessary entity' with anything like a theist god). Have you also run out of ways to misunderstand or deliberately misconstrue what has been said?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

You are trying to argue that Russell's statements The universe just is and that is all there is to it isn't proposing that the universe is just brute fact. Do you not see how it cannot be interpreted as such?

The “brute fact” here is simply that there is a universe, and Russell’s position is that in response to the question “why is there a universe?” that’s all we can say about it. Nothing more, nothing less.   

I think he’s right about that. Why don’t you?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

personally your descent into assertions of things being crap signals to me that you are floundering.

Just to be clear here, this is you – Vlad – the king of the entirely argument-free and scatological dismissal – accusing another poster (who actually does argue his position) of a "descent into assertions of things being crap". Is that right?

[Alan Burns]

To date all you have provided is vague hand-waving, gibberish phrases (for example, about 'conscious control' and 'the present')

The present is where things happen.
You have it totally wrong.
Everything we perceive has already happened - it is a consequence of things which happened in the present.
Things are determined by what happens in the present - not the past.
The universe came into being from the present - there was no past.

[torridon]

The present is where things happen.
You have it totally wrong.
Everything we perceive has already happened - it is a consequence of things which happened in the present.
Things are determined by what happens in the present - not the past.
The universe came into being from the present - there was no past.

This makes no sense.  The present moment is a consequence of past moments.  Future events are a consequence of the present moment.  It is the arrow of time, continuously unfolding.  Arguably, the present moment does not even exist.  How long does 'now' last for ?

[Alan Burns]

This makes no sense.  The present moment is a consequence of past moments.  Future events are a consequence of the present moment.  It is the arrow of time, continuously unfolding.  Arguably, the present moment does not even exist.  How long does 'now' last for ?

The problem is that in scientific terms we cannot detect the present.  Everything we perceive through our physical senses is a consequence of things which have already happened.  Our interaction with the present is in the human mind which can make things happen.

[Stranger]

To date all you have provided is vague hand-waving, gibberish phrases (for example, about 'conscious control' and 'the present')

The present is where things happen.
You have it totally wrong.
Everything we perceive has already happened - it is a consequence of things which happened in the present.
Things are determined by what happens in the present - not the past.
The universe came into being from the present - there was no past.

So, your answer to me pointing that you've only given vague hand-waving and gibberish is to post.....  more vague hand-waving and gibberish!

"The present is where things happen." is an absolutely classic deepity. Colloquially and in the vague sense, it's true but trivial and irrelevant and in the deep sense that you're trying to give it it's just nonsense.

It's a not only baseless but also meaningless assertion without the first hint of any logical justification or attempt at explanation.

The problem is that in scientific terms we cannot detect the present.  Everything we perceive through our physical senses is a consequence of things which have already happened.  Our interaction with the present is in the human mind which can make things happen.

More baseless nonsense. 

Let me remind you of something:-

My view that conscious awareness can't be generated from material reactions alone is not just personal incredulity.  It is based upon sound logic on which I could write many pages.

Now I'm sure you have written many, many pages both before and after you wrote this. Why do none of them contain any of this sound logic of which you spoke?

Remember, it's not up to anybody else to answer any of your "how else do you explain" questions, nor is it anybody else's job to provide an alternative explanation, you have made the claim that the human mind must require god-magic and cannot possibly be due to any physical process (known or unknown) and that your assertions about free will are actually true (vacuous assertions about it being demonstrable and dishonest claims that people's posts are evidence, without being able to logically explain why, are just not good enough).

Remember also, as I said in #44921 Roger Penrose failed to prove that minds were even non-algorithmic (which is the very least you'd have to do to get where you want) and he is a world renowned mathematician and cosmologist who has collaborated with Stephen Hawking, so actually understood the burden of proof, knew that baseless gibberish was never going to convince anybody, and knew exactly how to use logic.

So far you've given us zilch in the way of sound reasoning. One big fat nothing. 0/10 so far. You need to up your game considerably.

[Outrider]

The present is where things happen.

We have block time, there is no universal 'present'. If I travel faster than you, my ten minutes in the future happens at a different time to your ten minutes in the future.

You have it totally wrong. Everything we perceive has already happened - it is a consequence of things which happened in the present.

Everything we perceive was always going to be perceived, it exists in parallel to every other point in time-space.

Things are determined by what happens in the present - not the past.

Things are just determined, our perception of things moving through time from a common past to a common future is an artefact of limitations of our sensory capacity, not an intrinsic facet of reality.

The universe came into being from the present - there was no past.

No. Within that framework of our understanding of time, the universe came into existence in the past. It was there long before we were around to consider it in any understanding of our subjective 'present', and it will likely continue to exist long after all our 'presents' have passed.

O.

[Stranger]

We have block time, there is no universal 'present'. If I travel faster than you, my ten minutes in the future happens at a different time to your ten minutes in the future.

Indeed. As I found pointed out elsewhere recently, if we go far enough away from Earth we could find a frame of reference (with a suitable velocity relative to us) in which WW2 is in its present, and another in which Christmas 2030 is in its past.

And that's just special relativity. In general relativity the whole idea of 'the present', as defined by us, can break down entirely, for example, at the event horizon of a black hole.

No. Within that framework of our understanding of time, the universe came into existence in the past. It was there long before we were around to consider it in any understanding of our subjective 'present', and it will likely continue to exist long after all our 'presents' have passed.

And, from the point of view of general relativity, the whole space-time didn't come into existence at all, it just (might be) finite in the direction we call 'past'.

However, there really isn't much point in going on pointing out why gibberish is gibberish. Alan has made a very strong claim, that human minds must be miraculous, and has said that it can be justified with "sound logic", so the the burden of proof is entirely his. Nobody needs to do any work until he comes up with something resembling a logical argument. If he wants to use a notion of 'the present' then he's got to properly define what it means in a concrete way, not just by assertion and hand-waving.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The problem is that in scientific terms we cannot detect the present.

No, the problem is that in scientific terms there’s no clear definition of what “the present” would even mean. 

Everything we perceive through our physical senses is a consequence of things which have already happened.

Well, yes.

Our interaction with the present is in the human mind which can make things happen.

This is just incoherent. What would this mean even as a comprehensible sentence?

Your problem here Alan is that many years ago you had a very, very bad idea and have since become so invested in that very, very bad idea that you cannot now allow yourself to understand why it’s a very, very bad idea.

Clinging to a position that’s indefensible just because you’re highly invested in it is also though, well, a very, very bad idea. 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

No, the problem is that in scientific terms there’s no clear definition of what “the present” would even mean. 

Well, yes.

This is just incoherent. What would this mean even as a comprehensible sentence?

Your problem here Alan is that many years ago you had a very, very bad idea and have since become so invested in that very, very bad idea that you cannot now allow yourself to understand why it’s a very, very bad idea.

Clinging to a position that’s indefensible just because you’re highly invested in it is also though, well, a very, very bad idea.

I can assure you that I am not "clinging on" to the idea that our freedom to think is a reality which can't possibly have a material explanation.  My experience on this forum has reinforced this conviction because I have seen no credible reason to doubt the reality of this gift of freedom we all enjoy.