God did not create the universe, says Hawking

[nguirado]

capricious, will-driven

I don’t think this is a good description of God. It might be what it looks like to some. I think we can use your argument that nature need not conform to our notions of logic here. We need not understand everything God is.

There are some religious dogmas that can be proven or disproven: If we had had a science team present at the resurrection (perhaps it was proven to those present, in which case they wouldn’t have needed faith), we wouldn’t be arguing. It would be where the spiritual intersects the physical.

Cosmology would be a type of logical proof. We’d still need faith to say that the Cause was the Judeo-Christian God.

 

[beehumble]

The guy has been all over the map on this stuff… a year from now he’ll have another idea about it that contradicts this one.

…meaning he doesn’t have a clue.

 

[nguirado]

I don’t think everything has to be an argument, nor do people have to be consistent. Sincerity is more important.

 

[Touchstone]

I don’t think this is a good description of God. It might be what it looks like to some.

I don’t see how that’s controversial. Do you suppose God is not the master of his own will, and does as he pleases? That’s all that’s entailed by that description. God’s ways are “mysterious” in Catholic understanding, yes?

There are some religious dogmas that can be proven or disproven: If we had had a science team present at the resurrection (perhaps it was proven to those present, in which case they wouldn’t have needed faith), we wouldn’t be arguing. It would be where the spiritual intersects the physical.

If it is subject to disproof, it can’t be dogma, can it? If it’s dogma it’s beyond question or criticism, as I understand it. Have I misunderstood the term all this time?

Cosmology would be a type of logical proof. We’d still need faith to say that the Cause was the Judeo-Christian God.

Really? How do explain all this without the Christian God, then? Isn’t God a necessary being, the only way to explain why there’s anything at all? If not, I’d be interested to hear your alternative to God as creator. Barring that, I’d say the Christian needs no faith at all, just reason, on the question of how the universe came to be.

It’s just logic, right?

-TS

(Heh. That was fun, a little moonlighting in theistic shifting of burden of proof!)

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Quantum superposition.

Context and epistemology is often ignored in discussions such as this.

Nobody actually directly measures or observes a “superposition”. Its inductively inferred on the bases that the physicist cannot comprehend or explain why one particle apparently takes both possible pathways at the same time. This is not actually seen, but is assumed given the outcome of the experiment. Interestingly enough they evoke logic in their inductive inference as a justification of their interpretation of reality.

The law of contradiction doesn’t always mean that a thing will be contradictory in every context. The law of superposition may very well be real and possible in a particular context, and non-contradictory within that strict context. Also, no true knowledge can be given of what is actually occurring ontologically, given the fact that we are dealing with empirical science and not metaphysics. That an apparent contradiction is actual evidence of a real contradiction is an assumption. But I know full well that apparent contradictions can be equally interpreted as an incomprehensible out come of an intrinsically logical universe. Contradictions can be mistaken for limitations in knowledge. However there are things that must be true; I think therefore I am is a case in point and is proof of objective logic and also the fact that out of nothing comes nothing. Science cannot “prove”, on the bases of probability, that an apparent contradiction is in fact a contradiction in reality, especially if it is assumed on the bases of something that is indirectly inferenced.You are merely assuming that a real ontological contradiction is taking place, but you have no real justification for thinking that this is in fact so. Popularity of an idea or interpretation is not proof of its reality.

The particle exists everywhere, and nowhere, simultaneously.-TS

Well, given that science is not the science of nothing, “nowhere” cannot possibly be interpreted as nothing. Thus we certainly cannot say that the a particle is both existing and not existing at the same time. Thus in the strict context of space time and energy, when we are not observing the particle it is everywhere and no where in “particular”. This is evidently not taking place in the context of “macro events”. Thus what this actually means “ontologically”, in the context of a micro particle of energy, is anyone’s guess, and I see no reason to think that it is necessarily the case that a “particle” is everywhere at once in the same context of what would incur a contradiction. There is no epistemological justification.

It’s a revolt against our macro-scaled sensibilities -TS

Its counter intuitive, but that is not proof of an ontological contradiction. A thing can be contradictory in one context, and not in another, thus you have to have epistemological certainty of all contexts in order to prove a universal contradiction, and that simply is not allowed to us given the uncertainty principle.

It’s not a problem of lack of meaning, it’s a problem of confusing different senses of the term. A tautology is “true by definition”, and a statement that accords with the empirical state of the world is “true by fact”.

Would you say that a fact can be both fact and not a fact?

That’s our gamble, and it seems to be quite a good one. We don’t control the structure of reality, we are just trying to see if we can model it and systematize our comprehension of it a bit. And a very useful principle we deploy is the law of non-contradiction, something we use to ferret out contradictions that would break the coherence of our models-TS

What does coherence even mean with out objective logic? It seems to me that you are stretching quantum physics beyond what it actually proves by playing on appearances and ignoring context along with the epistemological limitations involved. But hey, if you want to believe in magic, go a head. Just don’t go around claiming that Christians are irrational for having faith in God, since rationality obviously has no objective meaning in your book; whether you realise it or not.

 

[nguirado]

I don’t see how that’s controversial. Do you suppose God is not the master of his own will, and does as he pleases? That’s all that’s entailed by that description. God’s ways are “mysterious” in Catholic understanding, yes?

Capricious: Impulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim.

Will-driven is fine. If that will is perfect, it wouldn’t be capricious. Whatever God does is perfectly just, loving, etc. He wouldn’t contradict that nature, which is what capricious suggests- just one moment and unjust the next.

If it is subject to disproof, it can’t be dogma, can it? If it’s dogma it’s beyond question or criticism, as I understand it. Have I misunderstood the term all this time?

Historical, physical events are/were all provable and disprovable at some level at some point (we might not be able to now), yet they’re also dogma. Something can be both. I think you mean that the Church holds it as obligatorily true and therefore not subject to debate. I may not have used the correct word. I meant that the central events in my faith either happened or they didn’t.

Really? How do explain all this without the Christian God, then? Isn’t God a necessary being, the only way to explain why there’s anything at all? If not, I’d be interested to hear your alternative to God as creator. Barring that, I’d say the Christian needs no faith at all, just reason, on the question of how the universe came to be.

The Christian cosmology only necessarily leads to Deism.

 

[Touchstone]

Context and epistemology is often ignored in discussions such as this.

Nobody actually directly measures or observes a “superposition”. Its inductively inferred on the bases that the physicist cannot comprehend or explain why one particle apparently takes both possible pathways at the same time. This is not actually seen, but is assumed given the outcome of the experiment. Interestingly enough they evoke logic in their inductive inference as a justification of their interpretation of reality.
I don’t think you’d find a scientist who found that notable. Logic is an integral part of the enterprise, indispensable, as I’ve said now, repeatedly. There seems to be an impression here that science is somehow “purely empirical to the exclusion of logic”. That’s not the case, even if that were somehow possible. The very foundation of science is the gamble I talked about – the rules that govern the enterprise: the universe is intelligible to some degree on natural terms. This is an overarching rule, a core logic that enables scientific epistemology – natural explanations for natural phenomena.

The point on superposition is that it offends long-standing and otherwise highly effective rules we’ve applied about physical states; macro objects have a discrete location in space/time. A rock, so long as it remains structurally intact, has a location, an extent, and one that is measurable, observable testable. That rule, the persistence of objects spatio-temporally, which maintain their structure and extension so long as it’s not violated by other forces, has been extraordinarily useful and reliable, a plank in our logical framework that bears heavy loads.

It just doesn’t work that way in some physical contexts we now know. It’s still useful where it was useful, but it’s inapplicable in new contexts we’ve discovered. Logic is a tool, but it’s not magic or perfect; we adjust our tools for new challenges and problems in science. And for superposition, the understanding is NOT that reality is “irrationality” or unstructured in its operation. Rather, just that many of our intuitive notions of logic are simplistic, quaint, or just plain unwarranted in natural contexts. To discover a model that performs empirically is to approximate the “logic of nature”, which maybe quite close to, or far from our own intuitions.

The law of contradiction doesn’t always mean that a thing will be contradictory in every context.

 

[Touchstone]

Capricious: Impulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim.

Will-driven is fine. If that will is perfect, it wouldn’t be capricious. Whatever God does is perfectly just, loving, etc. He wouldn’t contradict that nature, which is what capricious suggests- just one moment and unjust the next.

Fine, but that’s framed from a “God-centric” perspective; ostensibly, to him, it’s consistent, principled, etc. The caprice is descriptive from our perspective – this is why God is described as impassible, mysterious, unfathomable. The underlying “uncapriciousness” is established by faith in God’s nature, not in God’s passable, non-mysterious, fathomable mechanics from our standpoint. I’m happy to say that God is “will driven” and “opaque” or “mysterious” or “unfathomable” in his internal dynamics that drive that will.

Historical, physical events are/were all provable and disprovable at some level at some point (we might not be able to now), yet they’re also dogma. Something can be both. I think you mean that the Church holds it as obligatorily true and therefore not subject to debate. I may not have used the correct word. I meant that the central events in my faith either happened or they didn’t.

OK, I understand that. That’s fine. I’ve had it beaten into me over years (by Catholics, mostly) that dogma in the formal sense is not subject to any empirical or analytical review, period. If it is, it ain’t dogma, and never was. But I get the usage you are working with here, now.

The Christian cosmology only necessarily leads to Deism.

Well, I can stipulate that, and it doesn’t change the impact of my point. A “tie” on this question leaves the Christian that much farther short, if anything, as now even deism isn’t indicated, once we agree that origins of the universe are completely opaque to us, epistemically. Getting to deism, ‘of necessity’ is a HUGE step, apologetically. You’re almost home if you can get that far. But once one understands that our universe is a zero-energy, flat universe, the very kind of structure that proceeds inevitably “for free” out of the fabric of space/time – space time completely empty of all energy and matter – as the simple product of quantum fluctuations, that “necessity” is shown to be something not necessary at all. Here you have a mathematical recipe for universes popping out of “nothing” – nothing in the physics sense: the absence of matter and energy, but within the fabric of space/time.

This doesn’t work against your statement that the creation of the universe by God is embraced as a matter of faith. If that’s how you get there, then neither Hawking’s or Krauss’ or any other physicist’s model will affect that. But for many arguments offered that posit God (just a deist god, perhaps) as a necessary actor on the scene, this all makes them crumble and fall, to the extent they bore any load at all in the first place.

One of the interesting features of this cosmology is the manifestation of a being universe being spawned right here in this universe. If it were to happen, and perhaps it is happening, the spawned universe would be perceived from the inside as just as expansive and long-lived as ours is from inside ours. But from the outside of this newly spawned universe, from our context, it would be a shrinking black hole of fleeting duration. A blip in the quantum foam that we could hardly notice if we were looking. That’s what our physics models indicate. If some cosmologist or cleric in that “daughter universe” is thinking about what God might have created their universe, they are way off base, as all of that would be just physics in action, nature doing its thing, automatic. The cleric in the daughter universe could not imagine how such a wondrous thing as the universe around him came to be without a creator god, as the product of a will.

Hawking’s book, I expect, will emphasize the coherence of this model as a “godless automatic universe generator”, the physics we have come to currently as the most performative. That doesn’t demonstrate anything about our universe being created, but it does dispatch the “necessity” of the arguments thought to demand creative deism.

-TS

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

I think “plausible” gets very dicey as a concept beyond the confines of our own universe (it’s plenty tricky as it is to gauge in this universe). We have no clue what rules apply “out there” (note the futility of our language to even talk about this without resorting continually to our “this-universe” concepts), if any, from the set of physical principles we’ve come to grips with in this universe. There may not be anything else. Or there may. It’s an epistemic vacuum…A draw is the best, and worst case either the atheist or Catholic can hope for, epistemically. We are all utterly separated from any real knowledge on this question.

I have enjoyed the rigour with which you have built our epistemic prison. I agree with what you are saying, however you did not recognize that the prison has an escape hatch. By this I mean that there is a possibility with regard to “real knowledge” that you have not addressed. If I may borrow your infranatural idea, imagine that the prison of human knowledge is bounded in the same manner as our sight. The ultranatural corresponds to the upper range of what we can see (this is where Hawkings likes to hang out), and the infranatural corresponds to the lower range (i.e. particle physics). The visible range in the middle might be called our real or natural knowledge. These knowledge boundaries are not necessarily fixed. Einstein pushed back the ultranatural with his theory of gravity as space curvature, and the discovery of electron physics pushed back the infranatural. Overall it doesn’t matter that much whether the boundaries are fluid or static; in either case we end up living within the natural universe. If God exists solely beyond the outer limits of a potentially infinite ultranatural universe, you are correct in stating that our ideas regarding Him can only be speculation. On the other hand if He places Himself within the natural universe in an intelligible way, suddenly God is both performative and empirical. He meets your criteria for real knowledge and we get to clamber out the escape hatch.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I don’t think you’d find a scientist who found that notable. Logic is an integral part of the enterprise, indispensable, as I’ve said now, repeatedly. There seems to be an impression here that science is somehow “purely empirical to the exclusion of logic”. That’s not the case, even if that were somehow possible. The very foundation of science is the gamble I talked about – the rules that govern the enterprise: the universe is intelligible to some degree on natural terms. This is an overarching rule, a core logic that enables scientific epistemology – natural explanations for natural phenomena.

This is all just assertions and principles based on your purely philosophical world view. You are assuming a purely naturalistic world view which is not metaphysically necessary; and you are falsely mixing this up with science as if the two are the same. You are being misleading; either that or you have been mislead. Empirical Science cannot determine the truth or false hood of logic; it doesn’t have any epistemological authority to do so.

The point on superposition is that it offends long-standing and otherwise highly effective rules we’ve applied about physical states;

This is the key to your misunderstanding. Classical physics as in classical laws are not synonymous to metaphysical laws. This is something you have assumed. That physical reality has become counter intuitive is not a good reason to think that therefore this counter-intuitiveness is a sign that logic has no objectivity, it purely means that the laws of classical physics are not absolute.

macro objects have a discrete location in space/time. A rock, so long as it remains structurally intact, has a location, an extent, and one that is measurable, observable testable. That rule, the persistence of objects spatio-temporally, which maintain their structure and extension so long as it’s not violated by other forces, has been extraordinarily useful and reliable, a plank in our logical framework that bears heavy loads.

Again you are confusing classical physics with metaphysical logic.

It just doesn’t work that way in some physical contexts we now know. It’s still useful where it was useful, but it’s inapplicable in new contexts we’ve discovered. Logic is a tool, but it’s not magic or perfect; we adjust our tools for new challenges and problems in science. And for superposition, the understanding is NOT that reality is “irrationality” or unstructured in its operation. Rather, just that many of our intuitive notions of logic are simplistic, quaint, or just plain unwarranted in natural contexts. To discover a model that performs empirically is to approximate the “logic of nature”, which maybe quite close to, or far from our own intuitions.

Your whole argument is a straw-man, since it all amounts to the argument that metaphysical logic and classical physics is synonymous, and thus to disprove classical physics in one context is to disprove the objective realism of logic. Like I said, that which is in comprehensible is not evidence of that which is contradictory. Epistemologically speaking, given are finite state of knowledge, I dare say that there are logically consistent reasons why QM can perform some of the things that it does. Logically consistent truth doesn’t necessarily require a classical understanding of physics in order to be viewed as objective, so long as we respect that there are many different contexts and levels to reality.

The nature of a “law” in the scientific sense of the term, is that the rule obtains without exception.

That is not the scientific sense of law. If it was, than it was false, since the scientific method doesn’t deal in absolutes.

A single exception demotes the law to something else. As Aristotle’s first premise, it’s a transcendental predicate; one can’t argue, or even communicate conceptually without relying on the PNC. To invoke conceptual language is to rely necessarily on PNC.

This is only true of a philosophical world-view that characterises physical laws as absolute logical laws. I do not hold this view, as I have always contended that physical reality and thus physical laws were created. At the very least, from the stand point of epistemology, I cannot assume that physical laws are universal or absolute.

But nature, is under no such obligations. Manifestly, much of nature we now can apprehend as intelligible; it’s at least somewhat amenable to rules-based models. But it’s of no concern to the universe if part of its operation is utterly unintelligible and thoroughly self-contradictory to man. It’s under no obligation to be comprehensively intelligible – reality is what it is.

Again you have successfully erected nothing more than a straw-man posing as a true representation of logic. As soon as you bring epistemology and context in to the picture your whole argument dissolves in to gooey puddle of uncertainty and faith.

I can’t think of what “true knowledge” would even mean in terms of ontology. That’s as empty as theology in terms of substantial meaning for “knowledge”.

Its empty to you and you require it to be so, since it would undermine your argument to claim otherwise.

To be continued…

 

[MindOverMatter2]

How would you know some ontological proposition is false, for example (or some theological proposition, for that matter)? This is why (metaphysical) ontology is a non-factor in scientific epistemology. Any ontology engaged is practical, physical, descriptive, phenomenological.

This only shows that you have no understanding of metaphysical ontology and thus the arguments for Gods existence. Apart from the fact that you misrepresent what I say about superposition, let me say that QM doesn’t destroy the concept of change, potentiality, or the idea that out of nothing comes nothing or that a thing cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. Despite the counter intuitiveness of QM, you have not proven epistemologically that logic is not objective; you have only shown that what is contradictory in one context of reality can be possible given a very different and specific context of reality about which we have very little or no knowledge. We have absolutely no direct knowledge about what is actually happening to a particle when we are not observing it, and thus we have no idea how it achieves superposition, and thus we have no good reason to think that it achieves it in a manner that is truly contradictory to an objective realist metaphysics. Thus the importance of epistemology when making claims about logic and its application to reality; this fact is just as much binding on you as it is on me.

An honest scientist can only say that they don’t understand what’s happening, they only understanding that it is happening. They are describing reality, not dictating it. You have taken it further in to purely philosophical non-empirical terrain, and quite frankly your arguments do not hold. In every case, QM takes place in reality, and is meaningfully measured in that context since events are real events, and cannot possibly be otherwise. Therefore your arguments in no way proves that a thing can come out of or exist in nothing or that it is even a possibility. The idea that it is a possibility is an exaggeration of the consequences of QM and is purely a philosophical inference on your part given your agenda and the agendas of other scientists. QM only shows us that classical physics can only relate to macro events.

Given that, I can’t see of what concern “true knowledge” in terms of metaphysical ontology would be here.

You can’t see because you don’t want to see it. Like atheists who rabidly embrace evolution thinking they have found an excuse to disbelieve in God, you have rabidly embraced Quantum physics because you think that it disproves the objective logic that is claimed to prove Gods existence. This is all made evident when you accuse metaphysics of being something that it is not.

Again, physicists don’t conclude that “the universe is crazy” in some fundamental sense, but rather that we are just crude in our intuitions, and our intuitive logic is a barrier to understanding and performance in some of these contexts, rather than the aid it traditionally has been.

I agree that the application of “classical physics” doesn’t hold in every context. However Metaphysics is the study of being as being and deals with absolutes in a very different context to science, rather than the study of particular beings and their performative powers which is science, and thus metaphysics once understood is in no way shape or form a barrier to scientific progress. It is merely a barrier to your atheism.

 

[Touchstone]

I have enjoyed the rigour with which you have built our epistemic prison. I agree with what you are saying, however you did not recognize that the prison has an escape hatch. By this I mean that there is a possibility with regard to “real knowledge” that you have not addressed. If I may borrow your infranatural idea, imagine that the prison of human knowledge is bounded in the same manner as our sight. The ultranatural corresponds to the upper range of what we can see (this is where Hawkings likes to hang out), and the infranatural corresponds to the lower range (i.e. particle physics). The visible range in the middle might be called our real or natural knowledge. These knowledge boundaries are not necessarily fixed. Einstein pushed back the ultranatural with his theory of gravity as space curvature, and the discovery of electron physics pushed back the infranatural. Overall it doesn’t matter that much whether the boundaries are fluid or static; in either case we end up living within the natural universe. If God exists solely beyond the outer limits of a potentially infinite ultranatural universe, you are correct in stating that our ideas regarding Him can only be speculation. On the other hand if He places Himself within the natural universe in an intelligible way, suddenly God is both performative and empirical. He meets your criteria for real knowledge and we get to clamber out the escape hatch.

Dawkins makes this very point in The God Delusion, using the radiation spectrum. Man has historically had “blinders” on and could only see the world in a vary narrow slice of the radiation spectrum (from above infrared to below ultraviolet). Well, instruments like infrared provide an expansion of the spectrum available to us; this is one of the important advances of science, that we “see” in ways we could not previously.

So I take your point, here, and say it’s a point I make myself (as does Dawkins in his book). It’s not just color and radiation. Instrumentation and technology allow us to “see” in many contexts we could not previously – at quantum or nano scales, for example.

Insofar as God exists and is immanent, immanent in some physical sense, then sure, God is, in principle at least, available to us. But that does not tear down the epistemic wall that separates us from knowledge of the outer context of the universe, even a little bit. Having God here with us would be a big deal to discover indeed, but the most we could out of God even so is testimony about the origins of the universe, which means we’re nowhere, even then. That testimony could be complete nonsense and lies, and we’d have NO WAY whatsoever to tell. Because the events and outer context, if any obtained, are beyond our epistemic horizon. They are perfectly unavailable to us, no matter what Hawking or the Pope or Pat Robertson tell us happened.

You’ve salvaged my use of the term “infranatural”, here, which I can appreciate for the point you made, but which thwarts my intent. My intent was to offer “infranatural” as an analog to “supernatural” – incoherent, undefined, fluffy, whimsical, etc. I supposed that coming up with a “whole different sphere of reality” on the fly, it would show how vacuous “supernatural” is conceptually as an analog.

-TS

 

[Holly3278]

I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
(Luke 18:8 RSV)

To the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good.
(Psalms 14:1 RSV)

In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes which they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his heart, and the man greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD. In the pride of his countenance the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
(Psalms 10:2-4 RSV)

 

[SedesDomi]

In the pride of his countenance the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
(Psalms 10:2-4 RSV)

Saying “there is no God” is different from saying “God is not needed in order to explain the creation of the cosmos”.

 

[JDaniel]

Saying “there is no God” is different from saying “God is not needed in order to explain the creation of the cosmos”.

Sedes:

That it quite true. Absurd though it may be, what you describe is true. Either I believe that the universe sprang up from non-being, non-entity, non-energy, non-matter, non-thought, non-container, non-place, non-space, non-reasonableness, etc., or, I don’t. I believe the latter. Now, I have to show you that there is God.

God bless,
jd

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Touchstone: Very good job. I think you’ve been very patient as well and you’re an asset to us all. I see your point that nature doesn’t have to conform to our notions of logic. I think you also mean that if we observe something illogical, we’d have to change our notion of logic.

Will Hawkins deliver some kind of knockout blow? I think most people wouldn’t ask for real evidence. A plausible theory that shows that laws cannot not exist and that nothing cannot not exist because of those laws would be sufficient.

As religious people, we only need to fight to a draw. Faith is a virtue, after all. I’ve decided to have faith until it contradicts reality.

You don’t seem to realise what’s at stake here. If Gods existence cannot be demonstrated with reason, then you faith is no more valid or reasonable than somebody believing in fairy tales. In which case touchstone would be well within his rights to not believe in God. The Catholic faith is not Fideism.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Whats not considered is the simple fact that there in no such thing as nothing. The mere concept when placed under scrutiny doesn’t stand up.

There is that which we know, that which we don’t know. Considering what we don’t know, and explaining it as Nothing is something.

What consists of Nothing? Empty Space, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Air? I fail to grasp this logic. If Dark Enery consists of 75% of the Universe, and is itself expanding constantly, how could it be nothing, its energy.

Many, many very real values can’t be seen. This doesn’t explain out as nothing though. I’ve heard an argument that mathmatics itself is nothing. This is also wrong. All mathmatical symbolism represents something. The symbol itself may be nothing more than a symbol, that is still something.

E=MC squared, Energy-Something Matter-something C-speed of light-something, Squared-itself is something, in that it represents a specific number of Something.

The value One [1] it represents one [1] of “something”.

What is nothing defined? NO- Thing, not anything, naught.

It is necessary to explain what nothing is. Nothing does not exist, that is to say, something that is nothing does not exist, or to put it another way, nothing is something. Otherwise, you couldn’t be thinking about it.

Nothing’ is nothing that cannot be explained because there is nothing to explain about nothing.

This is nothing below the arrow V yet it is something. The nothing logic eludes me.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

*But nature, is under no such obligations. Manifestly, much of nature we now can apprehend as intelligible; it’s at least somewhat amenable to rules-based models. But it’s of no concern to the universe if part of its operation is utterly unintelligible and thoroughly self-contradictory to man. It’s under no obligation to be comprehensively intelligible – reality is what it is. *

As an atheist you can say this of nature. As a theist, I can say the same of God. Yet when the atheist approaches the subject of God (if he dares) he somehow finds it righteous to demand more from God than he demands from nature. God must be more “comprehensively intelligible,” or he suddenly becomes a redundant hypothesis. Yet God by definition is what He is.

God might be more comprehensively intelligible to the atheist if he would close his brain for a second and open his heart.

 

[Saint_Castulus]

I don’t think you’d find a scientist who found that notable. Logic is an integral part of the enterprise, indispensable, as I’ve said now, repeatedly. There seems to be an impression here that science is somehow “purely empirical to the exclusion of logic”. That’s not the case, even if that were somehow possible. The very foundation of science is the gamble I talked about – the rules that govern the enterprise: the universe is intelligible to some degree on natural terms. This is an overarching rule, a core logic that enables scientific epistemology – natural explanations for natural phenomena.

The point on superposition is that it offends long-standing and otherwise highly effective rules we’ve applied about physical states; macro objects have a discrete location in space/time. A rock, so long as it remains structurally intact, has a location, an extent, and one that is measurable, observable testable. That rule, the persistence of objects spatio-temporally, which maintain their structure and extension so long as it’s not violated by other forces, has been extraordinarily useful and reliable, a plank in our logical framework that bears heavy loads.

It just doesn’t work that way in some physical contexts we now know. It’s still useful where it was useful, but it’s inapplicable in new contexts we’ve discovered. Logic is a tool, but it’s not magic or perfect; we adjust our tools for new challenges and problems in science. And for superposition, the understanding is NOT that reality is “irrationality” or unstructured in its operation. Rather, just that many of our intuitive notions of logic are simplistic, quaint, or just plain unwarranted in natural contexts. To discover a model that performs empirically is to approximate the “logic of nature”, which maybe quite close to, or far from our own intuitions.

The nature of a “law” in the scientific sense of the term, is that the rule obtains without exception. A single exception demotes the law to something else. As Aristotle’s first premise, it’s a transcendental predicate; one can’t argue, or even communicate conceptually without relying on the PNC. To invoke conceptual language is to rely necessarily on PNC.

But nature, is under no such obligations. Manifestly, much of nature we now can apprehend as intelligible; it’s at least somewhat amenable to rules-based models. But it’s of no concern to the universe if part of its operation is utterly unintelligible and thoroughly self-contradictory to man. It’s under no obligation to be comprehensively intelligible – reality is what it is.

I can’t think of what “true knowledge” would even mean in terms of ontology. That’s as empty as theology in terms of substantial meaning for “knowledge”. How would you know some ontological proposition is false, for example (or some theological proposition, for that matter)? This is why (metaphysical) ontology is a non-factor in scientific epistemology. Any ontology engaged is practical, physical, descriptive, phenomenonological.

Given that, I can’t see of what concern “true knowledge” in terms of metaphysical ontology would be here. We might as well suppose that no true knowledge can be given in terms of astrology, here, right?

I don’t understand that to be the starting point (assumption), but the end point (conclusion). We have performative models that rely on the math of superposition – the location of the particle is only resolved in the model as understood to be thoroughly nowhere and everywhere at the very same time. Saying “well it’s one or the other” breaks the model, and it fails to perform against observations if you do. What is at another instant of interaction (wave function collapse, for example) amenable to “location” in the classic (logical) sense is perfectly immune to “location” at another. It exists, but it doesn’t persist in the mode of existence we expect due to our logic we find intuitive.

Again, physicists don’t conclude that “the universe is crazy” in some fundamental sense, but rather that we are just crude in our intuitions, and our intuitive logic is a barrier to understanding and performance in some of these contexts, rather than the aid it traditionally has been. If you are thinking “it’s there”, we just don’t how to locate the particle, you are misunderstanding the principle of superposition (I’m not aware of any 'law of superposition).

-TS

Here we have Touchstone…master of the universe I guy who obviously spends countless hours on forums because someone, in his opinion is wrong:bowdown: why are we wasting so much time with an atheist? the man obviously has discarded the concept of Christian faith.Tell me TOUCHSTONE, how do you rate Christians in regards to intelligence? so your point is we are idiots? dude you are quite possibly the most arrogant forum participant I have ever run across. My faith is strong and you have no impact on my faith in Jesus Christ our lord.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

I supposed that coming up with a “whole different sphere of reality” on the fly, it would show how vacuous “supernatural” is conceptually as an analog.

The word “supernatural” is only vacuous to those who deny the existence of the supernatural, for which you have no evidence, since you are a strict naturalist. Those of us who relate to the supernatural, to God in particular, do not relate to Him as one thinking machine to another, which is the only analog a naturalist could come up with (hence Deism). A Christian theist will think of God with the analog of “personhood.” We know that God made us in His “image and likeness.” That is analog enough, even if God remains hidden to us in many other respects. We have a lifetime to explore god, just as we have a lifetime to explore nature.

The atheist can deny God for lack of proof certain, but that is because the atheist does not relate to God as person, with his whole being … heart, head, and soul. Stuck in the rut of naturalism, he has shut himself off from the avenue he might follow toward the place where God lives … in his very own heart. Atheism is fundamentally denial of God with not a shred of evidence. It is mere repudiation of a “redundant” hypothesis, and perhaps after all more than redundant … more of a really unwanted and despised hypothesis.

Atheism is Ockham’s blood-drenched razor.