| Author |
Message |
    
Sami
| | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2021 - 12:35 pm: | 
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Neither spontaneity nor the Will of Landru explain the real world.
Your explanation for rust proves that the universe is neither spontaneous nor chaotic.
If you are a man, then saying that you are a woman is in error. Is this a fallacy? |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2021 - 01:14 pm: |
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In 21st century Cowardly New World? It's a Thought crime, but not a tautology. 
"If you are a man then saying you're not a man is in error" would be a tautology , right? Or just self affirming repetitive?
The argument that nothing is spontaneous seems more religious/philosophical than logical. You're making assumptions without stating them.
I don't have a problem with an invisible being who sees every sparrow fall. It seems less reasonable to claim that being causes every sparrow to fall by a choice made for each one. That seems a cheat. An abdication of the need to have explanations for reality, just The Will of Allah. ( or the FSM, or Landru ( a fictional computer programmed by a sick guy ) )
You get the Copenhagen & Multiverse schools arguing the nature of reality, without reference to a Divine Absolute Control that would be the Root Cause of a fixed time line. With the human problem that the 2 ideas are not provable without Time Travel or Ultimate Enlightenment. That's cheating a bit too, discussing the Observable and the Laws Of Nature derived from observation, while deliberately ignoring the Why those Laws exist or are as claimed.
Is everything the Will of the Unknowable? Then there's no human choice.
That's why the Clockwork Universe, where the rules were created and everything set in motion, and a generally "hands off" Cosmic Power, is so popular. It gives you Choice.
Is every, or Any, Nova a Flood of Noah, far away? A reset to a failed experiment? Or Like Gomorrah? ( and a close Supernova would turn us into pillars of salt, metaphorically, since we'd be dead. ) and
I sure don't know, & can't think of how to tell. If my choices are premade, or cause a split in a multiple Universe, how to tell? |
86129squids
| | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2021 - 12:13 am: |
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"Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would become ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television."
Paul Hawken |
Hootowl
| | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2021 - 08:21 am: |
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Isaac Asimov’s ‘Nightfall’ is about that very thing. Far from being celebrated, it cyclically ends civilization. |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2021 - 09:18 am: |
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The Clockwork Universe doesn't go tick tock. It hums. More like a quartz watch.
The Cosmic Background Radiation is often considered the "echo of the Big Bang", or the echo of The Word that created All. Ymmv. |
Blake
| | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2021 - 09:31 am: |
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Knowing what someone will freely choose to do negates free will? I don't see that. That is to say that omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive. Why think that?
(Message edited by Blake on May 14, 2021) |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2021 - 10:18 am: |
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Omniscience is beyond my comprehension, but I can sometimes predict another's choices. My "knowing" their choice doesn't mean they don't have a choice.
The movie Arrival hits a reasonable, or at least reasoned, balance on the subject. If you see past, present, & future all at once, is there free will? Since we don't, it's Science Fiction. See the movie for that screen writer's view.
Me? I'm too bound by my perception of time as motion ( and motion as time ) so that all I can do is like or dislike a theory... And these rather important questions are difficult to come up with experiments to disprove the ideas.
Clockwork Universe is a metaphor. I interpret it as a Universe with Laws that determine how Things Work. There's an assumption that a Cosmic Power/Entity set it all in motion and "wrote the laws". That doesn't answer why those Laws are what they are, who the Creator is, what color his son's eyes are, or anything like that. ( that European Renaissance painters chose blue paint for eyes, for a Semitic guy from the hills near the Dead Sea is advertising and/or ignorance and/or prejudice. We can laugh at that today. They might have murdered the heretical comedian in 900 or 2021... )
One thing Sami and I agree on, is the Truth is independent of Dogma.
In Norse mythology, the Universe is centered around an enormous interdimensional space tree, Earth is at one of it's roots, and it grows up through all these other realms with giants and dwarves and other people in them, and the Gods live in the two at the top.
In Greek mythology, the Gods live on that hill over there.
Gee, you'd think Ancient Greeks never thought of walking over to see. |
86129squids
| | Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2021 - 01:33 am: |
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I guess we'll keep working at it. |
Sami
| | Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2021 - 06:09 am: |
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Patrick, when truth is denied, then it serves reason to reaffirm truth so that error is corrected. Here is an example:
"If you are Patrick, then saying you're are John (i.e. not Patrick) is in error."
Suppose from now on everybody calls you John. How would you respond? Of course, you would say that you are not John, but Patrick. In other words, you would reaffirm truth as given above. Reaffirming truth is not fallacious, it is necessary to correct error when error persists. Got it John? 
Here is another example:
"If 2+2=4, then saying that 2+2=5 (i.e. not 2+2=4) is in error."
There are people who deny the truth of 2+2=4. Those people are in error. Reaffirming the truth of 2+2=4 is good practice.
The Clockwork universe is in error. The universe neither hums nor tick tocks. The Watchmaker analogy does not explain reality. Funny thing is that the Watchmaker analogy is often cited as an argument for God.
The Cosmic Background Radiation has falsified the Copernican Principle.
"One thing Sami and I agree on, is the Truth is independent of Dogma."
Definitely, but I would make a nuanced distinction. It is true that Truth is independent of Dogma. But it is not true that Dogma is independent of Truth. Dogma has to be dependent on Truth, not Truth dependent on Dogma. I am not anti-Dogma if said Dogma is based on Truth. I am anti-Dogma if said Dogma is based on not-Truth, i.e. error.
Norse and Greek mythology are the result of vain philosophy. Philosophy has come a long way since the time of Norse and Greek mythology. This is largely due to the influence of Christianity.
There are no "laws of nature". Again, these words such as "laws" and "clocks" are analogies and metaphors, they do not explain reality.
For example, how does the "law" of gravity explain the universe? Here are some of Stephen Hawking's quotes, all false as far as I'm concerned:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing."
"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." |
Sami
| | Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2021 - 06:19 am: |
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Let's go over them one by one:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing."
False. The "law" of gravity can't even explain gravity, let alone the universe.
"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."
False. There is no such thing as "spontaneous creation" outside of fiction.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
False. God is the Ground of Being and as such necessary. Without God, math is racist. |
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