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wheels10
Guest
I hope that you are searching for an explanation for Human Life.
I pray that during your search The Holy Spirit will reveal This Truth to your heart, mind and soul.
God Bless.
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I pray that during your search The Holy Spirit will reveal This Truth to your heart, mind and soul.
God Bless.
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greylorn
Guest
There is no discernible relationship between what I wrote, and your complaint. Nowhere did I say or imply that I began with conclusions and worked back to premises.That sounds to me like your coat is on a very shakey nail. If you don’t like the conclusions you reach, just adjust a premise or two? Start where you want to be and work backwards if things don’t seem to be correct?
greylorn:
I think I’d rather stick with experiment to determine what’s correct, even on type 1a supernovae that can and are being directly observed.
It is an insult to anyone to attribute to them that which they did not say, and I propose that you never do that again with me or anyone else. Doing so only marks you as a pseudo-intellectual shmoo with an atheist agenda. I will assume, for the moment, that you are better than that, only because you are bright enough to rise above your preprogrammed brain.
This may be just a misunderstanding which is the result of your unwillingness to accept words written as words intended, so let’s clear it up. (If it is the result of your inability to read— then its nothing I want to fix.)
Science and philosophy both work by beginning with a premise or two and using logic to develop the premise, see what happens. Once upon a time philosophers used to correct other philosophers’ illogical digressions, but not anymore. These days, philosophers seem arranged as if in a room in a circle of jerks, massaging the back of the philosopher ahead while singing Cum Bay Ah or something just as relevant.
I’ve no use for them, nor they for me. I mention this because in an earlier (unaddressed) post you implied that I might be a philosopher.
My statement is an honest expression of how I, and many people work. We come up with ideas, check them by applying some logic as best we can, sharing with antagonists, or trying to apply them in the real world. If our antagonist friends break out in laughter, or the nifty new invention blows up, or the rusty bolt-head breaks off when we apply 150 ft-lbs of torque to it, we recognize that maybe something was wrong with Plan A.
Nitwits insist that Plan A was the right plan because they believe it to be. Useful people and engineers go on to develop Plan B, and onward to Plan 9 from Outer Space if that’s what it takes to get the job done or the problem solved.
So please explain to me, and others reading but not participating (Join the fray!), why you think that correction of premises that don’t work is a poor idea. Is it because you believe in Darwinism? IMO anyone who fails to correct his premises in the aftermath of a logical failure or just plain bum result, is not smart enough to be a nitwit.
I will do whatever I possibly can to obtain a correct and useful result in whatever field I happen to be working. I have no attachment to a particular method, but prefer to use a tool suitable to the task. My Stihl chainsaw does a great job of felling trees, but my little Dremel grinder works better for toenail trimming. Yet, either tool could be applied to either task (with different results).
Huxley’s quote figures, since he was Darwin’s disciple. I wonder if he’d even notice the ugly facts that have risen up to confront Darwinism. Probably not. He’d explain them away with clever torques of mind, as he did for Charlie.
One of the especially interesting astronomers with whom I worked had a paraphrase of this, which he derived while working with other astronomers. Never let mere data get in the way of a good theory.
In time and with luck, you will learn that being liked is the booby prize for anyone seeking useful ideas. People who like you (with extremely rare exceptions) will not tell you when you’ve said something stupid. (E.g: Obama’s staff, and democrats.) Those who dislike you will not hesitate to stomp on every mistake. I make lots of mistakes, and correct them with the help of those who dislike me.
For someone actually looking for or trying to work out useful ideas, finding the occasional individual with a personality obtuse enough to think that like/dislike is relevant to the development of ideas, but smart enough to challenge them anyway, is a good find. So, stay ornery and we might come up with something.
(I’ve obtained excellent ideas from occasional CAF people, but never yet from an atheist. They are generally too dogmatic about their beliefs to consider interesting alternatives. Please do not turn out to be another mindless atheist, different from religionists only in chosen dogma.)
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greylorn
Guest
So, here is something for you to learn about arrogance. Or, probably not.
You mistakenly assume that the word arrogant is a synonym for know-it-all. I’m not going to look this up, and in modern dictionaries, know-it-all may well have become an accepted secondary definition. I find that honesty comes from narrow definitions.
An example of arrogance:
Wherever I go,I carry a firearm. I’m not an enthusiast, but there was once a time when if I had one handy and knew how to use it, an innocent person might not have been murdered. After that event I acquired an old .45 semi-auto for $20 at a yard sale, bought a book and some bullets, and did some practice.
Some years later on a business trip in a distant city, my client (ex-U.S. Navy) noticed the pistol butt, and suggested that we visit his favorite mid-city shooting range. I’m a country boy and had never tried shooting indoors before, but why not?
He was well known at the range, and I’d not fired a shot in 10 years. The range manager insisted upon inspecting my firearm and found that it had not been cleaned in 10 years and was unfit for his range. (I bought it with a rotted-out barrel, and never figured that cleaning it would make the corrosion go away.) So before I could shoot, they nicked me for a gun cleaning charge. I was very humble. These guys were experts. I let them sell me a new grip and some internal modifications for $60.
By the time I got to a gallery, my client and three buddies were all lined up behind me, behind the plexiglass, ready to laugh at the nerd (which I was and am) in their shooting range. The range manager set the man-target at 20 yards before getting out of the way for fear of being shot.
So I loaded my newly cleaned and modified pistol (with WW II ammo), put the first shot almost centered at an inch above the eyes, then emptied the clip into the chest area of the target in about two or three seconds (very slow) with a 2" group.
After reloading, the experts had disappeared, and the manager was behind his desk doing paperwork. My client (who shot 6" groups at 10 yards) did not purchase my product. As I later discovered, he felt that I had embarrassed him in front of his friends.
Before going into this, I knew that I could shoot, then did some minor shooting. I told these people aforehand that I was a moderately competently shooter. Who was arrogant?
I’ve had the pleasure of working with many arrogant individuals who knew what they were doing. (Einstein, who I’d not have been qualified to work with had we been contemporaries, was notably arrogant about the things he knew, and humble about the things he did not know.) I’ve never learned a thing from anyone “humble.” I figure that this is because those who are humble, are so because they have accomplished nothing, never will accomplish anything, and don’t want to take the personal responsibility of doing anything outside the ordinary.
I’d always wanted to learn to dance, despite my incompetence. So I took dance lessons from a variety of studios staffed by nice, gentle, humble teachers. Didn’t learn squat. Finally I found a very serious dance teacher who taught out of her garage, which had a rack of #1 trophies mounted on shelves, charged twice as much as anyone else, and never complimented a single move I ever made. Two years later, I won 50 bucks at a pickup country bar dance contest with a partner I’d taught, not because I’m a great dancer (tough to do with screws in one foot and a titanium hip joint), but because that expert, arrogant teacher taught me to love dance.
Jesus said, blessed are the meek,for they will inherit the earth. I figure, good place for them. I imagine that they’ll inherit it after the sun goes nova, because it wlll be full of people like you until then. In the meantime, I’d prefer to explore the galaxy, maybe graduate to the universe.
You might ask yourself why you resent someone who knows more than you do. Would it not be of value to you to actively seek out those who know more than you, and learn from them? Why are you more comfortable attaching denigrating labels to people who actually have working minds, than acquiring a mind of your own?
Instead of attaching labels to me, you could check out my CAF posting history, perhaps reply to or comment upon ideas I’ve submitted.
Of course, that would require mental activity. Easier to sit on your backside and attach labels. Why don’t you join the Democratic Party and the SEIU? Or get a government job? You could grow old and retire wealthy without ever having an original thought. They will support you in putting down anyone who has potentially useful ideas, so that you can feel useful yourself.
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bonzerdad
Guest
Sorry for the delay, Coolduude.
If Wikipedia is right in its definition of spacetime as a mathematical model which combines space and time into a single continuum, then I don’t think it helps your argument. If it is a mathematical model then mathematical definitions apply. And as such the spacetime continuum is a model describing the relationship of space to time as a continuum and only as a continuum. In mathematics a continuum is by definition not divisible in any way. Which would mean it cannot be considered in pieces at all. Thus this spacetime continuum by definition cannot be conceived as having anything to do with your principle of successive addition. If it could it would not be a continuum. A division into piece “a” followed by pieces b, c, d and so on is not conceivable within that model. My source here is The New Oxford English Dictionary. See the articles under “continuum,” and the terms “continuous” versus “continual” (all as mathematical terms). I think the concept implies infinity, but I may be wrong. It may simply imply the indivisibility of the material universe itself from the concept of time.
If that is so it still does not mean that time is not a concept independent of matter. Nor does it mean that matter cannot be considered without reference to time. It clearly can. It is a mathematical model concerned with the relationship between space and time considered as a continuum. Space can be discussed separately from time. Time can be discussed separately from space.
And about Aquinas and Ockham. I really didn’t mean to blindside you with them. Their germ is in my first post in the following 2 paragraphs:
Then St.Thomas would probably say something like “but why? My ‘first Mover itself Unmoved’ argument covers literally everything of that material nature.” It claims logical necessity for that concept and ASSERTS but does not ARGUE, that it is then valid for theists of all sorts to equate the uncaused cause with the concept of god. God is to be understood only in the limited ways that philosophy can understand the idea of god, as opposed to the revealed God of Christians. Simple. Elegant. Cogent for many, including me.
In short, your proof as it stands now is circular if time is not a created thing. In Thomist terms God is it’s ultimate but not its proximate cause. That “proximate cause” role belongs to human nature and the nature of human languages. If time IS a directly created ‘”thing” your proof is entirely dependant on, not adjunct to, Thomas’s argument about the logical necessity of an uncaused cause. You will need to work very hard on the wording of your first premise. Unless you intend this only for the already converted, your assumptions about the nature of time need to be examined carefully. Can we really get rid of language like “before God created the world, God was?” The concept of time has to extend in a real way into infinity or you render that statement nonsensical and have made it meaningless.
I think it’s clear that your deduction that because the past is finite it has to have had a cause which was itself uncaused is based on Thomas’s argument to the same effect. You add a 4th point that we call this uncaused cause God in the form of an argument but without a real argument, and as unsupported as Thomas left it. Hence dependant on Thomas and violating William of Ockham’s wonderfully astute Razor rule for methodology. It’s usually formulated as something like “entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.” It can be understood as a principle of parsimony in reference to economy in explanation. A quote from Ockham himself: What can be done with fewer is done in vain with more.” Aquinas was of the generation of theologian/philosophers just prior to William but from his evident succinctness he was a firm believer in just such a parsimony.
Thank heaven for that. Try to imagine how long the Summa would have been had he multiplied entities in his arguments. Thomas never tried to argue for the rationality of asserting that the uncaused cause = god. Lower case intended because all that the argument will support is “cause uncaused. I suggest that you not try. I expect Thomas felt that the step to god from cause is logically the first step toward Faith and as such requires God’s Grace.
If Wikipedia is right in its definition of spacetime as a mathematical model which combines space and time into a single continuum, then I don’t think it helps your argument. If it is a mathematical model then mathematical definitions apply. And as such the spacetime continuum is a model describing the relationship of space to time as a continuum and only as a continuum. In mathematics a continuum is by definition not divisible in any way. Which would mean it cannot be considered in pieces at all. Thus this spacetime continuum by definition cannot be conceived as having anything to do with your principle of successive addition. If it could it would not be a continuum. A division into piece “a” followed by pieces b, c, d and so on is not conceivable within that model. My source here is The New Oxford English Dictionary. See the articles under “continuum,” and the terms “continuous” versus “continual” (all as mathematical terms). I think the concept implies infinity, but I may be wrong. It may simply imply the indivisibility of the material universe itself from the concept of time.
If that is so it still does not mean that time is not a concept independent of matter. Nor does it mean that matter cannot be considered without reference to time. It clearly can. It is a mathematical model concerned with the relationship between space and time considered as a continuum. Space can be discussed separately from time. Time can be discussed separately from space.
And about Aquinas and Ockham. I really didn’t mean to blindside you with them. Their germ is in my first post in the following 2 paragraphs:
Then St.Thomas would probably say something like “but why? My ‘first Mover itself Unmoved’ argument covers literally everything of that material nature.” It claims logical necessity for that concept and ASSERTS but does not ARGUE, that it is then valid for theists of all sorts to equate the uncaused cause with the concept of god. God is to be understood only in the limited ways that philosophy can understand the idea of god, as opposed to the revealed God of Christians. Simple. Elegant. Cogent for many, including me.
In short, your proof as it stands now is circular if time is not a created thing. In Thomist terms God is it’s ultimate but not its proximate cause. That “proximate cause” role belongs to human nature and the nature of human languages. If time IS a directly created ‘”thing” your proof is entirely dependant on, not adjunct to, Thomas’s argument about the logical necessity of an uncaused cause. You will need to work very hard on the wording of your first premise. Unless you intend this only for the already converted, your assumptions about the nature of time need to be examined carefully. Can we really get rid of language like “before God created the world, God was?” The concept of time has to extend in a real way into infinity or you render that statement nonsensical and have made it meaningless.
I think it’s clear that your deduction that because the past is finite it has to have had a cause which was itself uncaused is based on Thomas’s argument to the same effect. You add a 4th point that we call this uncaused cause God in the form of an argument but without a real argument, and as unsupported as Thomas left it. Hence dependant on Thomas and violating William of Ockham’s wonderfully astute Razor rule for methodology. It’s usually formulated as something like “entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.” It can be understood as a principle of parsimony in reference to economy in explanation. A quote from Ockham himself: What can be done with fewer is done in vain with more.” Aquinas was of the generation of theologian/philosophers just prior to William but from his evident succinctness he was a firm believer in just such a parsimony.
Thank heaven for that. Try to imagine how long the Summa would have been had he multiplied entities in his arguments. Thomas never tried to argue for the rationality of asserting that the uncaused cause = god. Lower case intended because all that the argument will support is “cause uncaused. I suggest that you not try. I expect Thomas felt that the step to god from cause is logically the first step toward Faith and as such requires God’s Grace.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
I’d rather just get on with the matter of living life than trying to explain the inexplicable.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
You most certainly did. You said if your logical conclusions seem incorrect you just “alter a premise or two”
If you say things that are contemptible, I shall regard you with the same contempt that you treat everyone else with.
Yes, keep reading and you’ll see why…
No scientist worth anything would ever make a statement like this. This is the talk of a philosopher. This is why I don’t believe a word you say about your credentials and this is why I find it impossible to feel any respect for your self proclaimed intellect. To paraphrase Russel, you present no evidence of it.
Then you must be corrected very freqeuently, but ironically you seem to be often incorrect and still unlikeable.
You’ve never in your life heard one single good idea from an atheist and you are giving me an imperative to be broad minded? ROTFL!!!
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
This is news to me. Perhaps you can prove what your saying?
Philosphically speaking, i would agree that science has revealed things which imply that we exist in a purpose based universe; but science as an emprical discipline is not the search for an ultimate purpose and niether does it identify purpose. It is purposely ignores inferences to an ultimate purpose; in fact its method is as such that it is impossible that it can identify purpose. Basically, the Scientfic method exists in order to identify the history of natural events and how physical reality works. That is all. The question of God, as identified as a non-physical entity, is not an object of science.
Okay; then you can easily explain all the false premises and then i can know that you are not just misunderstanding valid arguements. Or is this just a trick to make people think that you have knowledge that you don’t actually have?
Also, please don’t give me any straw-men.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
Yes. There is no ultimate purpose, apart from that which people believe, rightly or wrongly, has been vouchsafed them by the supernatural.
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skyward
Guest
Im going to try and throw a new spin on this, i havnt read the whole thread so maybe someone else has used this sentiment already.
The following is empirecally tested fact:
The following is empirecally tested fact:
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JohnDamian
Guest
Your claim is neither validated by evidence or by logic.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
Is that right? Then tell me why I’m here?
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JohnDamian
Guest
Ahh, that would be sidestepping the issue; you claim there is no ultimate purpose… You have no logical or evidential reason for such a claim, and as such it is akin to claiming that no black swans exist because you haven’t seen any (incidentally, black swans exist).
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Moonstruck888
Guest
Sir, I don’t think I’m the one who’s guilty of chicanery here. I said that I am skeptical of an ultimate purpose, you said, nay, actually more insinuated, that I was wrong.
I, therefore, challenge you to prove me wrong. I contend that there is either no ultimate purpose or none that is known to humanity at the present time. If you disagree, then tell me why I’m here? Tell me why anyone is here, if you can?
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momor
Guest
Take out “or wrongly” and I agree with you completely.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
That’s not going to happen my friend. Once someone proves to me that there is a purpose, vouchsafed by the Lord of the improbable or otherwise, then I’ll take out wrongly.
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JohnDamian
Guest
Again, you sidestep the issue.
I did not say you were wrong (even though I think you are).
I said your claim has no evidence or logic to support it. The assertation that no ultimate purpose exists is a non-varifiable hypothesis and a rational unbiased person may say instead that he does not believe that the hypothesis for ultimate purposes is at present not varified to the burden of proof he requires.
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momor
Guest
So, according to your own statement there could be an ultimate purpose vouchsafed by God if people are believing “rightly”?
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Moonstruck888
Guest
It’s a negative. It doesn’t need to be supported. The burden of proof is on the person who makes a positive claim, not the person who is skeptical of it.
I contend that there is no evidence of an ultimate purpose to human life. I challenge anyone who disagrees to tell me why?
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Moonstruck888
Guest
Naturally. However, I think that proviso is highly improbable.
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momor
Guest
OK. But it sounds like you leave open the door to the possibility even if it’s barely a crack?
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