Simple Question - Do you believe in a god?

[Gothmog]

@ warpus

I did not say there had to be God behind it. Nor am I saying it has to be created. I don't know why I have to keep repeating that.

Indeed it could have existed forever, and then we get back to why it takes the form it does as the first cause (because then there is no way to predict that reality must have taken this form, it just always has been this way).

It exists, it needn't have a reason or a cause in the limited anthropomorphic sense that you are addressing. 'Reality is because it is' is not a logical argument, sorry.

So we get back to: either it has always existed and the first cause (or prerequisite if you prefer) is the specific form it takes; or it has an origin (like the big bang is the hypothesized origin of the empirical universe) and we must ask the first cause for the origin (or prerequisite if you prefer) - the structure upon which the origin was born.

@brennan

equally no need to be obtuse.

That's why I substituted the phrase 'prerequisite' since you prefer it, though I must assume you know what I mean.

I'm not sure why you want to ignore discussion of cause as a series of coincidental events. Isn't that what you think the cause is?

I already answered your question wrt nuclear fission above(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5049495&postcount=453), but I guess I'll answer again. There is a cause in the sense I mean. The cause is the laws of nature combined with the existence of a nucleus (they have not always existed after all).

 

[brennan]

What law causes nuclear fission?

I think where you are going wrong here: "Reality is because it is". I would say reality is what is. And not include a because.

 

[warpus]

So we get back to: either it has always existed and the first cause (or prerequisite if you prefer) is the specific form it takes; or it has an origin (like the big bang is the hypothesized origin of the empirical universe) and we must ask the first cause for the origin (or prerequisite if you prefer) - the structure upon which the origin was born.

You are assuming that the dimension of time which we experience is universal - it is not. 'Always existed' does not mean that it has always existed according to our dimension of time.

 

[Gothmog]

@brennan - what law causes nuclear fission? That's a very complicated question I'll outline it but for a real answer I suggest a course in nuclear physics or chemistry.

Basically, it's thermodynamically downhill for various nuclear reactions to occur (sometimes including entropic arguments). This is due to the fundamental forces as they are called, i.e. strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravity. Thus they occur when the various subatomic particles (gluons, quarks, etc.) are configured to allow them to occur - from our perspective with a device for measuring decay products this appears to be 'spontaneous' but is not according to the standard model. Thus their statistical regularity, much like boltzmann statistics.

So as I said, it depends on the existence of nuclear materials (protons, neutrons, and combinations thereof) along with the structure of reality (the way things behave).

Note, I did not say 'Reality is because it is' - warpus did. But to address your next statement 'reality is what is', this is your a priori that I already addressed (which does not exclude God). Just like your a priori 'there is no God'. An a priori is not a logical deduction. Thus my previous reference to 'tautology'.

@warpus
I did not assume that the dimension of time is universal, in fact I specifically stated that we assume time (as we understand it) began with the big bang (which is only a hypothesis - though with some inductive evidence).
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5049495&postcount=453

I don't know where you are going with your 'always existed' sentence. What I was saying was that for the big bang to occur there had to already exist certain laws of nature (forces, physical constants, etc.).

If you are saying that these laws of nature existed outside of our dimension of time then you are going beyond science into metaphysics, but still there is the question of why that structure and not some other one. The question of origins or first causes (or prerequisites in brennan/warpus speak).

 

[brennan]

@brennan - what law causes nuclear fission? That's a very complicated question I'll outline it but for a real answer I suggest a course in nuclear physics or chemistry.

A degree in Physics say? (hint hint)

I probably should not have used fission as my example since it can indeed be described as fluctuations in nucleon distribution in a nucleus, and i'll note that's not the same as 'nuclear materials cause fission'. What about vacuum fluctuations, is there a mechanism to explain that? No. Why does an electron/photon/whatever go through one slit not the other (if you look at it right)? There is no apparent answer, indeed experiments looking for 'hidden variables' find none. So I ask again, why do you think everything has to have a reason?

Note, I did not say 'Reality is because it is' - warpus did. But to address your next statement 'reality is what is', this is your a priori that I already addressed (which does not exclude God). Just like your a priori 'there is no God'. An a priori is not a logical deduction. Thus my previous reference to 'tautology'.

Not an a priori, a definition, that's the second time i've pointed that out - you may as well never accept the existence of rabbits because every time you ask what a rabbit is, you are told 'one of those *points*. And i've also pointed out before I make no a priori assumptions about God, I see reason to discount the idea.

I would say something along the lines of 'reality is the subset of things that do exist within the set of things that can be shown to possibly exist'. IMO the evidence is that God, the IPU and FSM et al are not part of that greater set, having properties incompatable with those of all the real things we do know of, hence they cannot be part of the set of real things.

 

[Murky]

I nominate this thread for the following award!

 

[Gothmog]

brennan, I knew you had some science degree and wondered why you would ask.

Vacuum fluctuations are explained with the uncertainty principle. That the quantum field can never maintain precisely zero. Their character can be predicted from Feynman diagrams and the standard model. They have never been directly observed AFAIK, only their effect (such as the Casimir effect).

Dual slit experiments are explained through coherence and colapsing waveforms.

I don't know what hidden variables you mean.

You once again ask me why I think everything has to have a reason.

And again I reply that I have not said that.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5049158&postcount=442

I am just saying that there is the question of origins, or of a first cause. It is a question of reality and existence, and does not have God (or even the multiverse) as its unique answer.

Yes, a definition, a tautology, not a logical deduction. Back to semantics.

May I remind you that you already admitted that "you do not exclude the possibility of a non-contradictory creative force which is responsible for the existence and character of reality as you experience it?"

You said that you simply find it unnecessary. That is an agnostic position and not the same as discounting the idea.

Unnecessary is not incompatable, you are backtracking again.

 

[brennan]

May I remind you that you already admitted that "you do not exclude the possibility of a non-contradictory creative force which is responsible for the existence and character of reality as you experience it?"

You said that you simply find it unnecessary. That is an agnostic position and not the same as discounting the idea.

Unnecessary is not incompatable, you are backtracking again.

I have given my reasons for discounting the idea a couple of times now. Please stop making out that I am making some sort of a priori judgement. I find the God hypothesis unnecessary, and further I see it as being counter to what we know of reality. That takes an agnostic position to one of 'strong' atheism; not just 'I don't know' but 'I think not'.

Vacuum fluctuations and other QM phenomena are described by statistical equations, but are not explained by them. There is no known mechanism to explain why these things work the way they do.

Wiki on hidden variables. (I confess I am no expert on QM.)

 

[warpus]

I don't know where you are going with your 'always existed' sentence. What I was saying was that for the big bang to occur there had to already exist certain laws of nature (forces, physical constants, etc.).

I just have a problem when you say things like "Already exist". If time began with the big bang, there was no such thing as 'before time', so it doesn't make sense to ask what happened before it.