15 Dec 14
Originally posted by JS357A God standing outside the universe and creating it (or doing anything for that matter) seems non-falsifiable since he is usually given the attribute of omnipotence.
OK I'll stop asking questions at least for a while, to avoid rehashing things that have been covered. I'm human too, but by my training as a scientist, I have to consider whether the alternative to what you call random force is in-principle falsifiable. It seems that there can't possibly be any observable data that can't be attributed to the design. If so, IMO ...[text shortened]... weakness. It's not fatal to the design hypothesis, but it will keep the idea outside of science.
I'm not sure a self-designed universe lacking omnipotence is non-falsifiable. You'd have to come to some ideas about what attributes it would possess and then use experiments and observations to see whether the universe we have has such characteristics. And then plug in Bayes Theorem or something to that effect.
All of that is certainly difficult but I don't think it is theoretically impossible (which it would have to be to be technically non-falsifiable).
15 Dec 14
2 edits
I have been reading this thread with interest, and will make just a few comments, as a kind of aside—
First, like No.1 Marauder, I am a non-dualist, and I would use the term pantheism as a special case of non-dualism generally (which I think he is as well). I think it is important to recognize that he is not talking about a supernatural god-being, such as that of supernatural theism (generally dualistic)—though people seem to jump to that conclusion, perhaps because of our cultural conditioning.
As I understand it, No.1 is suggesting something like the theos of the ancient Stoics, in which the cosmos itself seems generally considered to be an intelligent, purposive (teleological) and (self-) generative entity.* [I say “seems generally” because there were variations on that general theme.] In terms of Stoic philosophy and physics (what was available to them), this entity is completely naturalistic and physicalist. This would seem to be a “strong version”, depending on how one thinks of terms such as “intelligence” and “purposive”—both for the ancient Stoics and for modern Stoical understandings (again, there seems to be sufficient variation to leave that a bit open—and I will). There are surely “weaker” versions available as well.
The Stoics thought that the cosmos, as such an entity, merited the term theos. They viewed this (again, perfectly natural and physicalist) theos from three perspectives:
(1) logos—the rational, intelligent, coherent principle.
(2) pneuma—as generative energy. Though pneuma is conventionally translated as “spirit”, the Stoics meant a physical energy: represented by the fire element for earlier Stoics, and by the fire/air elements combined for Chrysippus.
(3) phusis—nature, theos seen as manifest being, the material universe.
Interestingly, the Stoics viewed the whole cosmic process as cyclical, with the universe being periodically consumed in fire—in an event called ekpyrosis—after which the generative process would begin anew.
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The Stoics were the rigorous logicians of their day, and did not believe in randomness. Their main competitors were the Epicureans, whose particular atomistic theory allowed for random events. But Epicurus also held a view about drawing firm (or, in the extreme, dogmatic) conclusions when the evidence permitted various possible explanations:
“This concern for the ultimate utility of speculation, inquiry, theory marks indeed most of his [Epicurus’] thought. Epicurus affirms again and again that such research and inquiry is necessary and indispensable as preparation for what must follow—human action and moral responsibility. In this context, then, his conjecture and refutation scheme does not insist on the achievement of an exhaustive, conclusive set of scientific hypotheses or theories which would explain the nature and causal structure of all phenomena. . . . Consequently, rival and even contradictory theories concerning the nature of a particular phenomenon or set of phenomena may co-exist side-by-side, so long as they are not conrtradicted by the facts provided by the senses “and the rest of the criterion”; i.e., by the clear evidence (enargeia) culled from the phenomenal world.” [Epicurus also allowed for multiple causality.]
—Avraam Koen, Atoms, Pleasure, Virtue: The Philosophy of Epicurus
[This ought not to stand against what Deep Thought indicated seems to be the best avenue of further inquiry, of course. However, I will note, by way just of analogy, that Wittgenstein's conclusion at the end of the Tractatus--that all that was wanted was a heretofore unavailable perfectly logical language--was one that he later thought was thoroughly mistaken. We might find ourselves always waiting for the science to be sufficient to rule out all but one explanatory theory, especially when we never have access to a "view from nowhere" from which to observe and analyze the whole (which fact does not prevent rational inference from various perspectives).]
The third major Hellenistic school of philosophy, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics, insisted on keeping virtually all “scientific” and philosophical inquiry open—in order to prevent dogmatism—and employed their own logical methods to do so.
With that lengthy aside, I’ll let you all carry on . . .
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* No.1 has mentioned Advaita Vedanta as well.
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by DeepThoughtWhich seems like a rather arbitrary criteria to use when classifying universes.
Life is normally defined as something with a cell membrane.
... this is the kind of thing that rules out planetary observers.
No, it doesn't. It rules out planetary observers as we know them. The truth is that we know practically nothing about what would arise in a universe with different parameters.
There is a parameter space problem for the Standard Model.
And what is that problem. Please actually state the problem rather than saying there is one without clearly stating it.
That a specific outcome had to come about does not prevent a wildly atypical outcome being in need of explanation.
How do you define 'atypical'? You don't even know what is typical.
To use your dice example suppose life required a score of 5,900 or more for a single roll of 1,000 dice. If that happened then while it's possible the lottery was fair you might want to examine the dice.
But that is not what has happened, is it? Why use a false analogy? In my dice analogy, you do not add up the numbers and maintain a score. That is not how universes work. What you do, is merely record the sequence of numbers and check the probability for any given sequence. It is your mistake of adding up the score that is causing your confusion.
15 Dec 14
This thread boils down to a claim by some that this universe is special amongst all possible, or all conceivable universes.
But we see a remarkable lack of actual justification for this claim. Instead we see over and over posters trying to work out fantastic odds for how unlikely this special universe is - with the specialty of the universe taken as a certain range of parameter space that meets the arbitrary requirement of supporting life - again, with no justification given.
In a recent thread there was a discussion about special numbers. And we decided that every possible rational number was special, irrational real numbers are a bit trickier, but in general, if you are able to define one, then it is special.
If you claim the universe is special and that its specialness requires an explanation, then your work is still cut out for you explaining why it is more special than all the other special universes.
15 Dec 14
1 edit
Originally posted by twhiteheadHi, TW:
This thread boils down to a claim by some that this universe is special amongst all possible, or all conceivable universes.
But we see a remarkable lack of actual justification for this claim. Instead we see over and over posters trying to work out fantastic odds for how unlikely this special universe is - with the specialty of the universe taken as a ce ...[text shortened]... is still cut out for you explaining why it is more special than all the other special universes.
Are you using the word “special” to mean anything more than “unique”? (
EDIT: I assumed that last post was addressed to me, as a latecomer . . .)
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by twhiteheadWhy do you insist that it is impossible to categorize universes? You can't possibly get life in a universe that contains nothing heavier than helium. There is nothing to make molecules with. There's a significantly large region where the universe is an anti-deSitter space, meaning that it is inflating and no structures of any sort are possible. There is a goldilocks zone in the parameter space of the universe which appears to be small and of necessity we are in it. This requires explanation.
Which seems like a rather arbitrary criteria to use when classifying universes.
[b]... this is the kind of thing that rules out planetary observers.
No, it doesn't. It rules out planetary observers as we know them. The truth is that we know practically nothing about what would arise in a universe with different parameters.
There is a param ...[text shortened]... or any given sequence. It is your mistake of adding up the score that is causing your confusion.
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by no1marauderWhat vanishingly small probability might be associated with the existence of an intelligent designer? If physicists had a "standard model" for a conscious designer as they have for our universe, might there again be a host of parameters that must be valued within exceedingly strict tolerances in order for the designer to have the requisite intelligence to create a universe that can harbor life? The fact that no such model has been formally constructed means we can assign no probability to the existence of an intelligent designer (or a "designed universe" if you like). There may be any number of alternatives, up to and including "s**t happens." We cannot blithely assume that the probability of a designed universe is merely the complement of the probability the universe turned out the way it did by random chance. Not enough is known, and so subscribing to the notion of a designed universe at this time is merely an exercise in appealing to a "god of the gaps."
If the probability of A is vanishingly small and there only B is an alternative possibility, then Yes. That seems to be by definition.
15 Dec 14
1 edit
Originally posted by vistesdI understand what you're saying, but it largely amounts to wordplay. It makes little difference whether one believes the universe was designed by an intelligent external agent or is self-aware and so designs itself. So the universe was either made by a god or is a god. Either way, the discussion still revolves around the question of whether the universe came about via random physical processes or in accordance with some conscious design.
I have been reading this thread with interest, and will make just a few comments, as a kind of aside—
First, like No.1 Marauder, I am a non-dualist, and I would use the term pantheism as a special case of non-dualism generally (which I think he is as well). I think it is important to recognize that he is not talking about a supernatural god-being, ...[text shortened]... ______________________________________________
* No.1 has mentioned Advaita Vedanta as well.
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by vistesdOr more elegantly:
I have been reading this thread with interest, and will make just a few comments, as a kind of aside—
First, like No.1 Marauder, I am a non-dualist, and I would use the term pantheism as a special case of non-dualism generally (which I think he is as well). I think it is important to recognize that he is not talking about a supernatural god-being, ...[text shortened]... ______________________________________________
* No.1 has mentioned Advaita Vedanta as well.
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A Dream of Brahman
By tedscott on Nov 28, 2010 in Uncategorized
In the beginning there was Brahman. In the end, which might have been perceived differently but was essentially still the same, there was Brahman too. And all there was, is and ever will be is Brahman or manifestations of Brahman.
Brahman thought, “Here I am – everything, all-encompassing, all-pervasive, with no end and nothing unknown. I am indeed the One. And how fortunate it is to be in such a privileged position. How easily it might have been otherwise. What would it have been like to have been otherwise? How would it be, what might I feel, if I was a mere part of this universe, rather than the Universe.”
And at such an aberrant time, and in order to quell his curiosity, Brahman dreamed the Universe. This was a perverse thing to do, because Brahman knew he was everything, that there was nothing other than Brahman. But being All was a heavy burden. In a moment when he was imagining what it might be like to put aside his Oneness he dreamed the Universe. In this great creative act he projected something outside himself. In this marvellous alchemy all at once the stars, the constellations and all the bodies of the firmament came to be. This was an outcome of nothing more than the blink of Brahman’s eye – instantaneous, and the outcome of a marvellous thought experiment.
And out of his omniscience this thought placed sentient beings into the universe. They evolved into human beings who occupied some of the illusion of space. In his dream Brahman forgot that he was Brahman and identified with these separate bits of his consciousness in order to know what it was like to be separate. And of course, the human beings not being aware that they were all in their essence Brahman, believed that they were all separate and thus somehow special. Thus ego was born. And now, as a result, all these little bits of Brahman were competing with each other to assert their superiority.
And all this time Brahman dreamed his dream knowing that essentially “All is One” but trying to get to understand what it might be like if that was not the case. And as he slept the fragments of himself that he had set free were up to all sorts of mischief. They invented racism, tribalism, nationalism, religious intolerance and all forms of competition where individuals tried to assert their specialness and their primacy.
They found all sorts of ways to accentuate those minor discrepancies they had which somehow seemed to make them seem different from their fellows. And from this arose misery and war and all manner of dissatisfaction and suffering.
One such being, carrying a shard of the consciousness emanating from Brahman, sat on the rocks by the sea, trying to understand what life, his life in particular, was all about. Rhythmically the waves crashed on the rough shore. The crashing of the waves on to the hard surface caused the spray to fly up and spread over the adjoining rocks. He watched the spray depositing on the surface of the basalt, condensing into droplets that slowly ran down its face.
He looked out on the mighty ocean which extended all the way to the horizon, which from his vantage point, might for all intents and purposes, be infinite. And there was so much of the ocean that was unknown to him. He could only see the surface where the waves formed and surged. What depths lay beneath he could not tell.
The droplet of water running down the rock face seemed to be liberated and free but it was inexorably under the influence of gravity running back to the ocean. Even if it had been flung further afield it would evaporate in the sun join the transition of other such individuals in the clouds and then through precipitation fall onto the land and run off into the ocean or even fall directly into the ocean.
In some very direct way, the droplet was always part of the ocean. It came from the ocean, was temporarily separated and then returned. If it were conscious, the thinker wondered, would the drop believe it was a separate entity? If its tumultuous birth as a droplet caused from a wave being dashed on the rocks had obliterated its memory of the past, so that it did not know where it came from, it would undoubtedly believe it led a separate, independent existence. From his vantage point it was evident to the observer that all the droplets emanated from the ocean and would inevitably return to the ocean. In this way its notion of separation was largely an illusion.
Than the thinker wondered, what about himself? He also had the perception of separation and independence. Would it appear different from a vantage point where his whole existence could be observed in relation to all other beings? What if the consciousness that seemed to pervade him, and from what he could tell was present in other human beings was but a spark of the eternal consciousness? What if his conscious existence as a separate entity was merely an illusion in the same manner as it appeared to the water droplet? Thus his perception of separateness was but a temporary illusion also. Then (just as in the conversion of Saul) the “scales fell from his eyes” and he knew at once that he was also Brahman.
Brahman had awoken from his dream and in that instant his thought experiment was complete and the universe disappeared. So then there is only One and it is All and every manifestation of matter, and time, and separateness is but an illusion emanating from the playfulness of Brahman who is the fundamental source of everything and to which everything must inevitably return.
http://tedscott.aampersanda.com/2010/11/28/a-dream-of-brahman/
15 Dec 14
1 edit
Originally posted by SoothfastIf there are only two possibilities and the probability of one is vanishingly small then the other must be extremely probable. I don't see any way of getting around that logically.
What vanishingly small probability might be associated with the existence of an intelligent designer? If physicists had a "standard model" for a conscious designer as they have for our universe, might there again be a host of parameters that must be valued within exceedingly strict tolerances in order for the designer to have the requisite intelligence to ...[text shortened]... n of a designed universe at this time is merely an exercise in appealing to a "god of the gaps."
Traditionally a "God of the Gaps" argument only applies where there is a absence of some understanding of the natural world and a supernatural explantion is then inserted ("Goddunnit" ). Of course, the fine tuning argument I have advanced requires neither a God nor any explanation outside of nature.
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by SoothfastMore precisely the question is whether the properties this universe possesses came about randomly or non-randomly and if the latter what caused it to have the properties it does?
I understand what you're saying, but it largely amounts to wordplay. It makes little difference whether one believes the universe was designed by an intelligent external agent or is self-aware and so designs itself. So the universe was either made by a god or is a god. Either way, the discussion still revolves around the question of whether the universe came about via random physical processes or in accordance with some conscious design.
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15 Dec 14
Originally posted by no1marauderAlan Watts: What to tell children about God and The Universe
Or more elegantly:
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A Dream of Brahman
By tedscott on Nov 28, 2010 in Uncategorized
In the beginning there was Brahman. In the end, which might have been perceived differently but was essentially still the same, there was Brahman too. And all there was, is and ever will be is Brahman or manifestations of Brahm ...[text shortened]... ything must inevitably return.
http://tedscott.aampersanda.com/2010/11/28/a-dream-of-brahman/
There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can’t have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn’t be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side by side with white, or white unless side by side with black.
In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn’t, for if the world went on and on without rest forever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and it goes. Now you see it; now you don’t. So because it doesn’t get tired of itself, it always comes back again after it disappears. It’s like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It’s also like the game of hide-and-seek, because it’s always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn’t always hide in the same place.
God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, He has no one but himself to play with. But He gets over this difficulty by pretending that He is not Himself. This is His way of hiding from Himself. He pretends that He is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way He has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when He wakes up they will disappear.
Now when God plays hide and pretends that He is you and I, He does it so well that it takes Him a long time to remember where and how He hid Himself. But that’s the whole fun of it-just what He wanted to do. He doesn’t want to find Himself out too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be Himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self-the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever.
Of course, you must remember that God isn’t shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn’t any outside to Him. . . . The inside and the outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as ‘He’ and not ’she,’ God isn’t a man or a woman. I didn’t say ‘it’ because we usually say ‘it’ for things that aren’t alive.
God is the Self of the world, but you can’t see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can’t see your own eyes, and you certainly can’t bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding.
You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that He isn’t really doing this to anyone but Himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It’s the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/alan-watts-wisdom/what-to-tell-children-about-god-and-the-universe/239561399422139
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by vistesdYes, I'm aware of the problem with asking for people to wait for an arbitrary time until there's a better theory. It's not something I can really fix. The difficulty for fine tuning based arguments is that they presuppose that the theory is adequate, but really the presence of a fine tuning problem is indicative that a theory isn't.
I have been reading this thread with interest, and will make just a few comments, as a kind of aside—
First, like No.1 Marauder, I am a non-dualist, and I would use the term pantheism as a special case of non-dualism generally (which I think he is as well). I think it is important to recognize that he is not talking about a supernatural god-being, ...[text shortened]... ______________________________________________
* No.1 has mentioned Advaita Vedanta as well.
The other problem is that the other explanations are radically anti-science - as soon as God's invoked to explain any phenomenon then all phenomena can be explained that way and theory stops. The same happens with many universes, any oddity of our universe just becomes a random event in a large number of universes, and since anything happens somewhere it doesn't need explaining. The "it's just luck" explanation has the same effect. Each of them provide a universal answer to all questions and so act as a hindrance to our understanding of the world. Clearly this doesn't prevent them from being true, it does mean that science will work better if it resists them as ad hoc solutions to problems with theories.
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by SoothfastUnderstood, with the following caveats:
I understand what you're saying, but it largely amounts to wordplay. It makes little difference whether one believes the universe was designed by an intelligent external agent or is self-aware and so designs itself. So the universe was either made by a god or is a god. Either way, the discussion still revolves around the question of whether the universe came about via random physical processes or in accordance with some conscious design.
(1) What one understands by that word “god”. That is why I tried to be careful in saying that the Stoics thought that their understanding of the cosmos ”merited” being called theos—though it was a vastly different conception from the conventional polytheism of the day.
(2) I also was careful to use the word “generate” rather than “create” or even “made”, just to try to move from the inorganic “watchmaker” models. (A fine distinction—and perhaps there is a better word.) Along the same lines, “design” seems generally to be taken as a conscious “pre-design” of some sort.
—These also open to a number of “weaker” versions—which really are not so relevant here, in terms of the general concept. (But, just for example, one could simply posit that the process is inexorably coherent: Hence kosmos instead of chaos. Of course one can just take that as a brute fact as well.)
(3) The word “intelligence” seems to have multiple and evolving understandings (again, how “strong” the posited version is can depend on the interpretation of such words).
15 Dec 14
Originally posted by no1marauderThank you.
Or more elegantly:
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A Dream of Brahman
By tedscott on Nov 28, 2010 in Uncategorized
In the beginning there was Brahman. In the end, which might have been perceived differently but was essentially still the same, there was Brahman too. And all there was, is and ever will be is Brahman or manifestations of Brahm ...[text shortened]... ything must inevitably return.
http://tedscott.aampersanda.com/2010/11/28/a-dream-of-brahman/