Padding the Case for the New Atheism

[Touchstone]

I think that’s even a stretch right there, given that spontaneous quantum events remain on the quantum level. Regardless of which interpretation is given to QM, though, none of them violate the principle that being cannot arise from non-being. This isn’t speculative; it’s a first principle of rational inquiry.

This is not a basis for rejecting “irrationality” at the QM level. We are macroscopic beings, and at macrosopic scales, all the transcendentals do obtain for proceeding with rational inquiry. The “threat” of irrationality at the QM level is contained, self-limiting. It resolves in ensemble, statistically. Just like the timing of decay events for an unstable isotope is “random”, the half-life is quite predictable at scale.

The real killer for Thomist intuitions here, is then, that the key event(s) in the origin sense happened at the irrational level, as QM-scale events, not at the rational (macroscopic) level. And yet, macroscopic intuitions keep getting applied…

In a similar way that I and others do. Michio Kaku and Victor Stenger are only able to say that science is inconsistent with Thomism by using “cause” equivocally, in a way that necessarily implies absolute physical determinism. Thomas himself would never have held to such a position.

Not familiar with Kaku’s thoughts on this, but I think your criticism of Stenger is legitimate, here. But my point is something quite different, and I would ask Aquinas: Given that reality is ‘schizophrenic’ with respect to scale – different rules at different scales – whence your reliance on macroscopic intuitions for QM events?

But even granting that QM is a defeater for one type of causation, it does not follow, or even imply, that the plausibility of another type of causation is suddenly suspect. Besides, not even every physicist agrees with a spontaneous interpretation of QM. See David Bohm, for example.

Again, you have missed the utter destabilization of the whole concept of causation at that level. You are looking for a counterfactual, apparently – some empirical(?) clues that something did come from nothing. That’s a possibility but it’s not the finding of science, and can’t be, so far as I can see. Rather, the witness of QM (and many other aspects of science) is that our intuitions aren’t nearly what we thought them to be long ago, and Aquinas’ faith in his intutions was misplaced. As Feynman says, the easiest person to fool is yourself, and the testimony of science in the past couple hundred years is that intuitions about fundamental questions are routinely shown to be misplaced, unwarranted, false.

-Touchstone

 

[punkforchrist]

As usual, I highly enjoy our discussions, even if we disagree.

I don’t understand how you can say Ex nihilo nihil fit has survived, let alone has been confirmed, as at quantum levels, the concepts that depend on become intractable. That is, the quantum world doesn’t behave at all like the macroscopic world. So not only have we learned the severe limitations of our intuitions which are naturally “stuck” in the macroscopic world, we are also aware that the cosmological singularity was very probably not a macroscopic event at all. That is, when going from macroscopic scales and ensembles (where causality does obtain) to quantum levels, the rules change. Ex nihilo nihil fit is a macroscopic observation being applied to a context (QM) where the singularity occurred where those rules do not obtain, or at least we have no basis for understanding that they do at that level.

Every example of QM corresponds to something arising from something. That’s what I meant by confirmation of the ex nihilo nihil fit principle. The specific example I have is that radioactive decay, regardless of our inability to measure when it will decay, is entirely dependent on the existence of the atomic nucleus; so, we have something (radioactive decay) coming from something (atomic nucleus).

Here’s a short summary.

1. Macroscopic rules don’t apply to QM
2. The cosmological singularity (t=0) was a QM event, not a macroscopic event.
3. Therefore, Macroscopic rules don’t apply to the singularity.

1. Ex nihilo nihil fit is a macroscopic rule.
2. Per (1), Ex nihilo nihil fit does not apply to origin of our universe.

Thomas isn’t assuming that the universe had a beginning, so I don’t see the relevance of bringing up a singularity, anyway. Besides, (1) is a rather hasty generalization, and I disagree that (4) is limited to the macroscopic level. That ex nihilo nihil fit applies to the microscopic and quantum levels is evidenced by the example I gave above.

From here, one can respond and say “But that doesn’t show the universe came from nothing!”, and I would agree. But the crucial insight here is that we also retreat from the converse; neither can we say it came from something any more, because our warrant for came from something is been invalidated as a macroscopic rule being foisted on QM. The reasonable mind thus understands from QM that his intuitions (and tests!) remain forceful at macroscopic scales, but those same intuitions are not reliable on their face at the QM scale.

I realize you’re wanting to take an agnostic position on this, but the way induction and the scientific method works is by including the use of defeaters for a given hypothesis. “Something cannot come from nothing,” I maintain, is constantly confirmed by our observations on all levels, so an agnostic view on it runs contrary to not only intuition and first principles, but also to what we empirically observe.

Thus, informed by developments in science, we accept that our Scholastic intuitions are misgiven at this level, and understand that those who persist in them in light of this are incorrigible on this issue. One needn’t conclude “the universe came from nothing” but rather “QM invalidates the very basis for relying on Ex nihilo nihil fit as authoritative in the first place”.

Would you say that anti-intuitionism is incorrigible?

Well, no, that’s the whole problem. Saying “we still know they are causally related” is syntactic sugar, philosophy by definition. The whole point of that line of inquiry is that “causal” itself becomes a problematic concept.

It’s not just philosophical (although, I would contend that science is philosophy). We literally observe that A and B are co-present and have effects on each other. That’s what it means for something to have a causal relation.

I have, and it’s a favorite topic of mine. Shorter William Lane Craig: my intuitionism is stronger than your Quine, you Hawking-Penrose. Indeed, a man’s intuitionism is unassailable without him setting it aside to be informed by reason.

I’m not particularly impressed with Quentin Smith, either, but this is WLC at the heights of his sophistry. Happy to discuss if you’d like.

I’m glad we have this interest in common. I’m looking forward to the release of Craig’s debate with Wes Morriston.

continued . . .

 

[punkforchrist]

Touchstone:

As above, I’m not claiming we have some result that shows ‘the universe came from nothing’. It’s not at all clear how that would be established, even if it were true. But the point is, and here I think it’s clear after several similar comments from you that you are missing this, we don’t need to show that. All we need to do to dismiss Thomist metaphysics is understand that we are rightly agnostic on the matter. We have no basis for an a priori understanding one way or another. Aquinas begins with such an a priori, and it’s been shown now to be misplaced, unwarranted. . . .

But, how has it been shown to be misplaced? I can’t think of a single example in which something comes from nothing. I can’t even think of a single instance in which the ex nihilo principle is even undermined.

Perhaps I drilled down too deep in that first response. Broadly speaking, science has become a systematized way to overthrow the intuition. Intuition is great at coming up with questions, and is indeed indispensible as a source of imagination and inspiration fro scientific discovery. And science does validates many human intutions, particularly those that are “local”, common to the milieu and scale of human beings. But importantly, science is a withering assault on the quality of man’s intuition in the general sense. Things we “just know”, turn out to be quite mistaken, and the more abstract and farther we get from common scales and the “neighborhood of our experience”, the more silly our intutions are show to be. This is QM – your intuitions are useless as a proxy for real knowledge.

I assume you’re talking about intuitions in general? It’s a hasty generalization to conclude that because some intuitions have been falsified, that all of them are fair game. The truth is, the vast majority of our intuitions are likely correct (I’m sure you’d agree), and the ones that are relevant to our discussion remain standing in current science. Whenever a physicist observes quantum fluctuations, he or she has the vacuum, the tools to examine these fluctuations, and of course, the scientist him/herself. In what way does any of this begin to undermine the ex nihilo principle?

This is not a basis for rejecting “irrationality” at the QM level. We are macroscopic beings, and at macrosopic scales, all the transcendentals do obtain for proceeding with rational inquiry. The “threat” of irrationality at the QM level is contained, self-limiting. It resolves in ensemble, statistically. Just like the timing of decay events for an unstable isotope is “random”, the half-life is quite predictable at scale.

I agree that they may be random (although that’s far from certain). However, I disagree that this constitutes an example of something that comes from nothing. I realize you’re not making that positive assertion, either, but in order for the ex nihilo principle to be abstained from, we need a good reason for it. So far, even QM confirms that things come from actually existing things.

The real killer for Thomist intuitions here, is then, that the key event(s) in the origin sense happened at the irrational level, as QM-scale events, not at the rational (macroscopic) level. And yet, macroscopic intuitions keep getting applied…

The Thomist isn’t assuming that the macroscopic necessarily imposes itself on the quantum level. If that were the case, then we wouldn’t be granting that quantum events may be random. There are certainly differences between the two levels, but they’re not so different that we should just discard our most commonly confirmed scientific and philosophical principles.

Not familiar with Kaku’s thoughts on this, but I think your criticism of Stenger is legitimate, here. But my point is something quite different, and I would ask Aquinas: Given that reality is ‘schizophrenic’ with respect to scale – different rules at different scales – whence your reliance on macroscopic intuitions for QM events?

The question is vague. There are some macroscopic principles that apply to the quantum level, which is evidenced by what we observe, and there are others that don’t.

Again, you have missed the utter destabilization of the whole concept of causation at that level. You are looking for a counterfactual, apparently – some empirical(?) clues that something did come from nothing. That’s a possibility but it’s not the finding of science, and can’t be, so far as I can see. Rather, the witness of QM (and many other aspects of science) is that our intuitions aren’t nearly what we thought them to be long ago, and Aquinas’ faith in his intutions was misplaced.

In what sense does QM establish this, though? I’m not saying that every intuition holds equally for the quantum level, but I maintain that some of them do. Moreover, causation proper isn’t just an intuition - it is based even in the most stringent empiricism.

As Feynman says, the easiest person to fool is yourself, and the testimony of science in the past couple hundred years is that intuitions about fundamental questions are routinely shown to be misplaced, unwarranted, false.

Like conclusions that something could come from nothing?

 

[Touchstone]

But, how has it been shown to be misplaced? I can’t think of a single example in which something comes from nothing. I can’t even think of a single instance in which the ex nihilo principle is even undermined.

In the macroscopic world, energy is neatly accounted for. At the QM level, however, energy comes and goes “willy nilly”, and that term really is as technical a description as we’ve got. It appears out of nothing, and disappears out of nothing, without discernible pattern plan or purpose.

I do anticipate the reflexive retort: *but where did that energy come from?

*The net energy of the universe is zero. We get energy from matched pairs – particle/anti-particle. The universe can (and apparently has) divide(d) itself into an unthinkably large number of pairings, but the net accounting for this, ultimate is… zero. There is no “net energy” to account for, then, and the universe itself it thus trivial to account for as QM-level singularity in terms of energy.

So virtual particles come and go spontaneously, out of nothing. And let me anticipate the usual response, here, to: but your ‘nothing’ is actually a something, *the void being this foaming sea of particles and anti-particles.

*The impact of this observation is not a regressive one – what was the “medium” for this action? – but rather the “acausality” of the phenomena itself. For example, if Aquinas was routinely seeing rabbits just spontaneously appear out of thin air, then just as unpredictably disappear, and the same for trees, and rocks, and every other kind of smallish object he might encounter, he would frown on Parmenides’ pronouncement; rabbits, by observation, DO come from nothing, and go back to nothing. All the time, and in random fashion.

The *ex nihilo *intuition would certainly fail in light of this. Life would be experientially replete with instances of rabbits and other small animals coming and going into and out of existence at random.

The things is, this is our reality at the QM level. Aquinas, and you and I are just much to large to apprehend it “intuitively”. We can apprise ourselves through the instrumentation of science, but our reality is alien to us at that level because our consciousness obtains only at macroscopic scales. Aquinas would not have the faintest clue what you were talking about if you could zoom back to his day and try to explain; for him, there was only one level, and that was the level natured honed his mind at. Nature is good at honing resources for that context, but it’s demonstrably not good at instilling fundamentally good intuitions about reality at the extremes, far from man’s “comfort zone”.

So, virtual particles are a teeming froth of counterfactuals to the *ex nihilo *intuition. Admittedly, at Aquinas’ scale, the intuition holds – rabbits do NOT just pop out of a hat, or into the void, on command or at random. But this is just a reflection of Aquinas’ narrow view of the universe around him. He used what he had, but we have much more available to us, and it confounds our basic intuitions on just these issues. If Aquinas could have “seen” the QM layer, he’d have had good reason to abandon *ex nihilo *as an over-arching metaphysical principle.

The “somethingness” of a void, a void that could give rise to a “something” from the purest, theoretical nothing, I’ll in response to your other comments here in a later post.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

I assume you’re talking about intuitions in general? It’s a hasty generalization to conclude that because some intuitions have been falsified, that all of them are fair game. The truth is, the vast majority of our intuitions are likely correct (I’m sure you’d agree), and the ones that are relevant to our discussion remain standing in current science. Whenever a physicist observes quantum fluctuations, he or she has the vacuum, the tools to examine these fluctuations, and of course, the scientist him/herself. In what way does any of this begin to undermine the ex nihilo principle?

First, I think our intutions perform according to something like the “distance squared” principle. Intutions about local, native things – the meaning of a subtle, but menacing flick of the eyebrow in another human face, for example – are remarkably reliable. But as intuition gets further and further from our local experience, more abstract and less anthropic, it decays in quality quite fast. The compelling evidence of this being, of course, QM, which occurs at cognitive levels as far removed from our local experience as any intuition we might have. We are simply not shaped by nature and evolution to have any meaningful insight into reality at that level. And our intuitions fail miserably at that level.

General relativity, is a mutiny against the intuition, a triumph of science over what we ‘just know’ – that time is a constant, immutable stream, and that space is absolute, if not aether, then aether by an up-to-date name. Again, these are concepts and ideas far, far removed from the honing nature provides to our intuition. We get a “feel” for what an enemy may do in combat that’s useful, valuable to us, because performance along that axis may have been (must have been) important to our ancestors so that we may be here to talk about it.

So yes, a great many of our intutions bear out, and are confirmed by science. But the farther away from our human survival zone we go, the more poorly our intuitions serve us. Thomastic metaphysics are way out in left field on this regard, precisely the kind of ‘truths’ science repudiates for us as it develops.

A rock is “solid” in practical terms, but whaddya know, at another level of description, the atomic level, a rock is mostly just empty space, just like space. Highly counter-intuitive, but also highly attested by science. A rock really is “solid” for our practical purposes. But we have learned that the “truth” of that is conditional on our level of description. This is a fundamental insight into reality that Aquinas was not able to profit from.

I agree that they may be random (although that’s far from certain).

It’s perfectly certain that they are random, where random means “having no discernible pattern, plan or purpose”, just tautologically. We can discern no plan, pattern, or purpose, and this we call ‘random’. ‘Random’ is always a tentative description, liable to being displaced by the indentification of a previously indiscernible pattern or plan (I can take some remote set of digits from pi, and send them to you. If you didn’t know to look at that part of pi, you’d be perfectly unable to see the pattern…)

However, I disagree that this constitutes an example of something that comes from nothing. I realize you’re not making that positive assertion, either, but in order for the ex nihilo principle to be abstained from, we need a good reason for it. So far, even QM confirms that things come from actually existing things.

I think the burden gets shifted once we understand the nature of reality at the QM level. As I said in my previous post, if Aquinas (or you) could observe reality at the QM-level, the maxim-from-intuition would be reversed: somethings come from nothing, and go back to nothing all the time, constantly.

It’s only because we have been so long ignorant of the is whole other layer of reality that we accord our macroscopic intuitions some holy, unassailable status. Those who don’t take the implications of science to heart, anyway.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

In Ordinatio, IIRC, Ockham does apply the principles of economy, emphasizing the oneness of God. I also think Ockham also collapsed Scotus’ distinctions between *per se causes *and per accidens causes, didn’t he?

Like so many great ideas, the originator had just a dim glimpse of the future scope and power of the idea. In this case, an ironic one as his efforts to improve the philosophical foundations for God and faith have become a withering intellectual blade against it.
-TS

It is ironic that you overlook the fact that one Supreme Being is the most economical explanation of reality…

 

[Touchstone]

The Thomist isn’t assuming that the macroscopic necessarily imposes itself on the quantum level. If that were the case, then we wouldn’t be granting that quantum events may be random. There are certainly differences between the two levels, but they’re not so different that we should just discard our most commonly confirmed scientific and philosophical principles.

Well, here’s a test question, then. Was the singularity a macroscopic event? Or was it a QM event? Or maybe some third option I’ve missed?

This is t=0 we’re talking about, the crucial border condition. And as best we can tell (which is fairly well, now, given all the lines of evidence that support this) “creation” to use the theist term, wasn’t a macroscopic event! Which rules do you think obtained at t=0?

If the inception of the universe itself was a QM event, does it not seem totally unwarranted to apply macroscopic intuitions to that event?

I grant to Aquinas that it’s much more reasonable (if still a bit promiscuous) to stake an ideology on such intuitions. Aquinas can’t be faulted for being born centuries before all these discoveries were made. Not his fault. But we today, have no such excuse. The confounding facts against our intuitions are right there for our apprehension. Note that this doesn’t mean we conclude “the universe popped out of nothing”, but it does mean we do not conclude “the universe must have been caused by a something”.

Thomistic metaphysics collapse with agnosticism, with reasonable doubt about their veridicality. This is not a struggle for superior alternate metaphysics, but the realization that much of classical metaphysics is just fluff.

The question is vague. There are some macroscopic principles that apply to the quantum level, which is evidenced by what we observe, and there are others that don’t.

Sure. I don’t contend there is *no *conceptual overlap. But as a basis for intution, the stark differences are such that knowledge of QM undermines macroscopic intuitions, particular those that deal with QM-level events.

In what sense does QM establish this, though? I’m not saying that every intuition holds equally for the quantum level, but I maintain that some of them do. Moreover, causation proper isn’t just an intuition - it is based even in the most stringent empiricism.

Agreed. Causation at the macroscopic level is an intuition – we learn as infants that moving our hand against a rubber ball may cause it to move, and predictably. That is the beginning of “science” that provides overwhelming empirical support for the notion. Causation at a macroscopic level is a validated intuition – and again something “local” to human experience, something we could expect nature to have honed us toward as a matter of expediency.

What’s problematic about causation as an intuition is that it is intuition that has us thinking it’s “turtles all the way down” – macrophysics from start to finish – when the reality is bifurcated in a way, split above and below the Planck line, and integrated only in a statistical, probabilistic way.

Like conclusions that something could come from nothing?

It’s a possibility, what can I say? The intuition isn’t God, after all (right?) and is subject to correction by the extramental world. And the extramental world militates strongly against human intuition at this level.

Thanks for the interesting feedback. Always interesting to hash things out with you.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

It’s only because we have been so long ignorant of the is whole other layer of reality that we accord our macroscopic intuitions some holy, unassailable status. Those who don’t take the implications of science to heart, anyway.
-TS

If we take you at your word our macroscopic intuition that things exist also has no “holy, unassailable status” and can be discarded. It is the most economical (and absurd) hypothesis of all… after, of course, the most economical explanation of reality: one Supreme Being…

 

[Touchstone]

If we take you at your word our macroscopic intuition that things exist also has no “holy, unassailable status” and can be discarded. It is the most economical (and absurd) hypothesis of all… after, of course, the most economical explanation of reality: one Supreme Being…

I think this misunderstands what is meant by “economy” in terms of parsimony. If we take some phenomena X, and offer two hypotheses:

1. A => B => C => D + E => F => *X

*2. God => *X

*It is not parsimonious to adopt 2, where we find A, B, C, D, E, and F to all be verifiable, extant agents or processes. You get big points in explanations for invoking explanatory resources that are actual, and the whole point of Ockham’s heuristic is to minimize new and dubious entitiies as the resource for explanation.

So, above, if A through F are all well attested phenomena, it’s a clearly more economical explanation, even though a half dozen agents are called upon. Why, because we don’t need to introduce any new and dubious entities. We aren’t multiplying entities unnecessary. We can explain the phenomena with available, known entities, and this makes 2, the invocation of an unseen, unknown, unavailable God gratuitous, even (and especially) though it is one magical agent.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

I think this misunderstands what is meant by “economy” in terms of parsimony. If we take some phenomena X, and offer two hypotheses:

1. A => B => C => D + E => F => *X

*2. God => *X

*It is not parsimonious to adopt 2, where we find A, B, C, D, E, and F to all be verifiable, extant agents or processes. You get big points in explanations for invoking explanatory resources that are actual, and the whole point of Ockham’s heuristic is to minimize new and dubious entitiies as the resource for explanation.
So, above, if A through F are all well attested phenomena, it’s a clearly more economical explanation, even though a half dozen agents are called upon. Why, because we don’t need to introduce any new and dubious entities. We aren’t multiplying entities unnecessary. We can explain the phenomena with available, known entities, and this makes 2, the invocation of an unseen, unknown, unavailable God gratuitous, even (and especially) though it is one magical agent.
-TS

You are making at least ten assumptions:

1. A is a single entity.
2. A is an **adequate **explanation of the entire process.
3. A is physical and eternal.
4. Each stage of the process is an adequate explanation of the following stage.
5. Seen entities are prior to unseen entities.
6. Purpose is a product of that which is purposeless.
7. Persons are the product of particles.
8. Rationality is the product of irrational processes.
9. Atomistic explanation is superior to holistic explanation.
10. A, B, C, D, E, and F are more economical than X.

 

[buffalo]

Suppose the cumulative belief of a number of observers collapse the waveform and it becomes reality.

In other words - we look at the heavens and see them because we collectively believe them to be there.

Any thoughts?

 

[punkforchrist]

Touchstone:

In the macroscopic world, energy is neatly accounted for. At the QM level, however, energy comes and goes “willy nilly”, and that term really is as technical a description as we’ve got. It appears out of nothing, and disappears out of nothing, without discernible pattern plan or purpose.

I can just see Stephen Hawking releasing his new Theory of Nilly Willy.

I’ll agree for the sake of argument that there is no discernible patten or purpose in QM, but that’s a far cry from energy coming into being our of nothing and literally disappearing into nothingness.

The net energy of the universe is zero. We get energy from matched pairs – particle/anti-particle. The universe can (and apparently has) divide(d) itself into an unthinkably large number of pairings, but the net accounting for this, ultimate is… zero. There is no “net energy” to account for, then, and the universe itself it thus trivial to account for as QM-level singularity in terms of energy.

So virtual particles come and go spontaneously, out of nothing. And let me anticipate the usual response, here, to: but your ‘nothing’ is actually a something, the void being this foaming sea of particles and anti-particles.

That would be part of my response, but ultimately I think you’ve misinterpreted what physicists mean by “zero energy”. Anti-matter isn’t literally less than zero. It is represented by -1, -2, . . -n; but, 0 is simply the lowest expected energy level. Anything “less than” 0 is just an existing energy level that is less than what is expected.

. . . The ex nihilo intuition would certainly fail in light of this. Life would be experientially replete with instances of rabbits and other small animals coming and going into and out of existence at random.

The things is, this is our reality at the QM level. . . .

Can you cite any physicists who say this? I get the exact opposite impression. Barrow and Tipler state:

“[T]he quantum mechanical vacuum is not truly ‘nothing’; rather, the vacuum state has a rich structure which resides in a previously existing substratum of space-time . . .” (The Anthropic Principles in Classical Cosmology, p. 441).

We don’t get any spontaneous fluctuations apart from these vacuums.

. . . The compelling evidence of this being, of course, QM, which occurs at cognitive levels as far removed from our local experience as any intuition we might have. We are simply not shaped by nature and evolution to have any meaningful insight into reality at that level. And our intuitions fail miserably at that level.

I assume you’re not saying that we can have no insights into QM whatsoever. Am I right? If we could have absolutely no insights, then we have an incorrigible, undefeated defeater for any of our claims about QM, in which case you’ve undercut your own argument.

General relativity, is a mutiny against the intuition, a triumph of science over what we ‘just know’ – that time is a constant, immutable stream, and that space is absolute, if not aether, then aether by an up-to-date name.

Actually, I think think of two thinkers prior to modern science who believed that time is relative: St. Augustine and Leibniz. Come to think of it, Thomas thought so, too. Of course, GTR doesn’t violate any first principles, so its anti-intuitive nature only goes so far. I still think you’re making a hasty generalization from “some intuitions have been falsified” to “all of them are suspect”. We also see this generalization in your next example:

A rock is “solid” in practical terms, but whaddya know, at another level of description, the atomic level, a rock is mostly just empty space, just like space. Highly counter-intuitive, but also highly attested by science.

It’s mostly empty space, but the atoms are predictably much closer together than they would be in a soft object. In any case, this is a red herring, since it has nothing to do with the ex nihilo principle.

It’s perfectly certain that they are random, where random means “having no discernible pattern, plan or purpose”, just tautologically.

David Bohm would disagree, but I’m willing to grant that for the sake of argument.

I think the burden gets shifted once we understand the nature of reality at the QM level. As I said in my previous post, if Aquinas (or you) could observe reality at the QM-level, the maxim-from-intuition would be reversed: somethings come from nothing, and go back to nothing all the time, constantly.

I’m afraid you haven’t given any examples that stand up under scrutiny.

 

[Betterave]

Yeah, those names ring a bell. Science is a team sport, and it evolves, sometimes in fits and starts. Darwin not only gave us the theory of evolution, we can thank him for plogiston, too. Whoops. We acknowledge the insight and innovation of great ideas from the individuals who came up with them, but then we detach them – they must stand on their own merits going forward.

In Ordinatio, IIRC, Ockham does apply the principles of economy, emphasizing the oneness of God. I also think Ockham also collapsed Scotus’ distinctions between *per se causes *and per accidens causes, didn’t he?

Like so many great ideas, the originator had just a dim glimpse of the future scope and power of the idea. In this case, an ironic one as his efforts to improve the philosophical foundations for God and faith have become a withering intellectual blade against it.

-TS

Hopefully you can recognize that the scope and power of an idea doesn’t reside in someone praising its scope and power (without mentioning what idea or what its scope and power consist in). Try saying something a little more concrete if you want to say anything at all. This is just fluffy scientistic panegyric. It like saying, “I have seen far by standing on the shoulders of giants” - sure sure, now say something that isn’t just meaningless self-congratulation.

Anyhoo, ideas never stand on their own as far as I can tell. Unless you’re the kind of dogmatic Hegelian that Kierkegaard made fun of… are you one of those? Care to explain? Also what does Ordinatio IIRC refer to?

Also, what’s the ‘whithering intellectual blade’ comment supposed to be about? (And of course I assume you meant ‘withering’?)

 

[punkforchrist]

Touchstone:

Well, here’s a test question, then. Was the singularity a macroscopic event? Or was it a QM event? Or maybe some third option I’ve missed?

We don’t really know yet. My point is that the vacuums we’re familiar with stay on a quantum level; they don’t expand into entire universes. But, I don’t have any objection to this in theory. After all, the Thomistic Cosmological Argument (TCA) works even assuming the universe is eternal.

This is t=0 we’re talking about, the crucial border condition. And as best we can tell (which is fairly well, now, given all the lines of evidence that support this) “creation” to use the theist term, wasn’t a macroscopic event! Which rules do you think obtained at t=0?

I don’t know whether the laws of nature hold at t=0, assuming there are any at all. However, ex nihilo nihil fit isn’t just a natural law; it’s a metaphysical principle that is confirmed in our observations of nature. This is beside the point, though, since Thomas’ argument isn’t contingent on any singularity.

I grant to Aquinas that it’s much more reasonable (if still a bit promiscuous) to stake an ideology on such intuitions. Aquinas can’t be faulted for being born centuries before all these discoveries were made. Not his fault. But we today, have no such excuse.

Do you think Barrow and Tipler are mistaken?

Thomistic metaphysics collapse with agnosticism, with reasonable doubt about their veridicality. This is not a struggle for superior alternate metaphysics, but the realization that much of classical metaphysics is just fluff.

Well, I would say the logical positivism you’re espousing is actually what has come to be rejected today. Science cannot be done apart from some kind of metaphysics.

Sure. I don’t contend there is no conceptual overlap. But as a basis for intution, the stark differences are such that knowledge of QM undermines macroscopic intuitions, particular those that deal with QM-level events.

It’s my contention that one such conceptual overlap is, precisely, the ex nihilo principle. I can’t think of any physicist who disagrees with this. Can you provide any examples?

Agreed. Causation at the macroscopic level is an intuition – we learn as infants that moving our hand against a rubber ball may cause it to move, and predictably. That is the beginning of “science” that provides overwhelming empirical support for the notion. Causation at a macroscopic level is a validated intuition – and again something “local” to human experience, something we could expect nature to have honed us toward as a matter of expediency.

That’s interesting. Would you agree that, on the macro-level at least, there is an ordering principle (or Logos, if you will)?

 

[Betterave]

After reading that article I don’t feel like writing a long reply. Mostly what I’ll say is it had its good moments and its painful moments.

Instead, here is an excellent video of a good atheistic argument, which I doubt can be considered anything but old. It is certainly not addressed by Thomas, but instead starts to refute St. Thomas’s arguments. If definitions for God are presented, they can almost always be shown to not have any basis in reality.

youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_REEdvxo

I got into the video 4 minutes: silly self-righteous sophomoric scat. Sorry.

 

[Betterave]

Hogwash, fiddlesticks and poppycock!

The OP is an article that states in the first paragraph that the new atheists have nothing new to say.

I prove the author wrong twice without even trying.

Don’t feel too bad about your reading skills, Betterave. I am sure they will improve over time.

Lapin

Like I said the first time…
Lapin, you’re supposed to read the sentence following the one you mention here. You can’t just stop and ignore the rest - the rest explains the claim that you apparently stopped reading at. You clearly didn’t even understand what the author was saying, and you certainly didn’t prove him wrong twice, whether or not you were trying to. Or if you did, please explain. (I’d also like to know what you mean by ‘prove’ - even if what you wrote happened to be true, it wouldn’t mean you had proven anything.)

 

[Touchstone]

Hopefully you can recognize that the scope and power of an idea doesn’t reside in someone praising its scope and power (without mentioning what idea or what its scope and power consist in). Try saying something a little more concrete if you want to say anything at all. This is just fluffy scientistic panegyric. It like saying, “I have seen far by standing on the shoulders of giants” - sure sure, now say something that isn’t just meaningless self-congratulation.

No, it’s an important point about the shortcomings of the individual as a lone individual, epistemically. Collaboration in knowledge building, via methods focused on objectivity and critical review leaves isolated inquiry in the dust.

I’m not a scientist, so I don’t take credit for any of that, myself.

Anyhoo, ideas never stand on their own as far as I can tell. Unless you’re the kind of dogmatic Hegelian that Kierkegaard made fun of… are you one of those? Care to explain?

I think dogma is something to be avoided for the most part, so I guess not. I don’t hold Hegel in any particular esteem. I’m enamored of practical performance in knowledge, you know – concrete stuff. Make novel predictions, see them succeed or fail. Test the model, falsify parts or all, build a new, better model with what’s been learned from the experience and evidence. Make airplanes fly, safe, fast, and economically. Develop medicines that heal the sick and suffering, innovate in tools and technologies for third world farmers to grow their own healthy, productive crops under adverse conditions.

Is that “Hegelian dogmatism” to you? If so, that’s me, I guess.

Also what does Ordinatio IIRC refer to?

To know Ockham is to know *Ordinatio. *Read and enjoy:

humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/wockord.html

“IIRC” is net-speak for “If I Recall Correctly”:

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=iirc

Also, what’s the ‘whithering intellectual blade’ comment supposed to be about? (And of course I assume you meant ‘withering’?)

That’s peculiar. I certainly make my share of typos and spelling errors, but this doesn’t seem to be one – the spelling I used was correct: “withering”, see here:
myself:

Like so many great ideas, the originator had just a dim glimpse of the future scope and power of the idea. In this case, an ironic one as his efforts to improve the philosophical foundations for God and faith have become a withering intellectual blade against it.

You misspelled the word in your post, then corrected me for your error.

Anyway, science has gone from being the benefector or church patronage to a source of secular arguments against the church. The church had a significant hand in giving rise to systematic science in expectation that it would validate its beliefs. On many points, though, science has become a source of frustration. Even in areas where Christian belief can be overlaid on solid science, science has garnered a reputation and credibility that have become an “apologetics issue” for the Church. Like your post here suggests, science ain’t all that, right?

-TS

 

[Kamalayka]

Darwin not only gave us the theory of evolution, we can thank him for plogiston, too.
-TS

Evolution was around before Darwin…

…at least since 200 BC.

 

[Touchstone]

Evolution was around before Darwin…

…at least since 200 BC.

Evolution as a natural phenomena has been around for a whole lot longer than that – something like 3 billion years, right? As an articulated theory, there certainly are historical ideas and insights that deserve credit as being prescient (in the same sense that early Greeks had some astoundingly insightful ideas about atoms), no “model” was presented that explained the origin of the species. Maybe that’s hairsplitting for you, but for all the anticipatory ideas out there (some had ideas that were substantial prototypes of Darwin’s idea in Darwin’s day, before he published his work), confusing those with Darwin’s Origin of the Species misses the depth and scope of Darwin’s contributions.

2500 years ago, Democritus had a key thought about atoms – where is the point where you cannot cut or split matter any further? – but that should not be confused with discovering the atom, or introducing atomic theory.

-TS

 

[Kamalayka]

Evolution as a natural phenomena has been around for a whole lot longer than that – something like 3 billion years, right? As an articulated theory, there certainly are historical ideas and insights that deserve credit as being prescient (in the same sense that early Greeks had some astoundingly insightful ideas about atoms), no “model” was presented that explained the origin of the species. Maybe that’s hairsplitting for you, but for all the anticipatory ideas out there (some had ideas that were substantial prototypes of Darwin’s idea in Darwin’s day, before he published his work), confusing those with Darwin’s Origin of the Species misses the depth and scope of Darwin’s contributions.

2500 years ago, Democritus had a key thought about atoms – where is the point where you cannot cut or split matter any further? – but that should not be confused with discovering the atom, or introducing atomic theory.

-TS

All Darwin really did was to go to the Galapagos Islands, notice the animals look similar, and come up with the idea.

What difference does it make if somebody does that 150 years ago or 2150 years ago?