Battle Talk ~ Battle Royale VII

Status
Not open for further replies.

ZroKewl

BANNED
Banned
Originally posted by cthoma11
Ad Hominem. A sign of a weak argument/arguer.
You have a knack for latin. I have a knack for insulting people who continually spew their ignorance. I can take it, though... so feel free to continue yours also. Additionally, ignoring your opponents arguments is the sign of an ignorant person. Why don't you try addressing my expounded clarification? (I did it just for you, btw, since most other people around here got it the first time)
This premise can only mean that humans come from natural causes in the scope of this discussion. If by natural you mean that things we do are natural for humans (as you state below), then your argument carries no substance. It may in fact be true, but then who cares.
So you disagree with my definition of "natural". OK. But in your definition, there ARE NO NATURAL CAUSES, EVER. Why? Because we cannot prove that the FIRST CAUSE was natural? You are the one, who has now botched the meaning of the word. I gave a clear definition of what I meant by "natural". It is also very similar to what most people and the dictionary mean. What do you mean? Why don't you say what you really believe, instead of attacking the logic of an argument? Because you are afraid that everyone will see that what you believe is stupid? Come on! Have some cajones!

I didn't go wrong, you did. In fact your main rebuttal has been to insult my intelligence when in fact your syllogism is wrong. See below.
OK. So you disagree with my logic. But that's not why you don't agree with my conclusion. "Begging the question" inherently means you disagree with one of the premises (in order for you to say the conclusion is not true) -- for if the premises WERE true, then the conclusion would be true EVEN IF I were to use the fallacy of "begging the question".

This statement reinforces my assumption that you have so weakened the meaning of "natural" so as to have no meaning in the context of the origin of life. Natural in the specter of the beginning of life has a much deeper meaning than the meaning you are implying here.
I clearly defined what I meant by "natural". What do YOU mean by natural? Cough it up, boy.

It wasn't the premise that has problems. It is your first premise. and your conclusion that do not agree.
On the contrary, if you said the argument was "begging the question", then you are saying that the conclusion was just a restatement of the premise -- or more accurately, that the premise assumes the conclusion to be true. So, they definitely "agree".

Second, Humans have not created life from non life. As I have stated earlier, virus' are not considered life.
So now you disagree with another premise. Which is fine. But you should have said so earlier instead of obfuscating by trying to pretend to be a logic expert. At this disagreement, we would have to define what "life" was, and it would most likely be a stand-still. We will most likely be having similar conversations in the near future when scientists create the first living organism in the lab (from non-living material).

Again, evidence that natural in the scope of your discussion has no substance.
What does "natural" mean to you?

Your conclusion has "Natural causes". Your premise P1 has natural beings. You have now stated that natural causes are not the same as natural beings. But in order for your syllogism to be valid, you cannot introduce new terms in the conclusion that are not in the premises. The only valid conclusion in this case is Natural beings can create life from non life. But above you state that you are not claiming that the first man came about naturally.

I clearly defined "natural". It was in my expanded syllogism. Here it is again since you ignored it:
P1) Humans are natural.
P2) Things humans do are natural.
P1&2b) "Natural" means occuring within nature (within the confines of our space-time continuum) & in accordance with the natural laws.
P3) When humans cause something to happen, that cause is a "natural cause".
P4) Humans have caused life to come from non-life.

You ignored that because it was just a little too clear for you, huh? That's why you wrote this regarding the above expounded argument and the simplification of it in terms of "A, B, & C":

There is no point addressing the rest of your post, because by your own words it is clear that you do not understand the basic rules of syllogisms. Perhaps it is not me who does not understand logic.
Are you pretending to believe this, or are you really that stupid? My argument boils down to the following syllogism:

P1) All A are B
P2) Some A are C
C1) Some B are C

A = "humans"
B = "natural entities whose effects are also natural"
C = "capable of producing life from non-life"

This is not "begging the question". There is no logical fallacy here. Care to try another one?

You are disagreeing with P1 (that humans are natural entities whose effects are also natural). What does "natural" mean, then?

You also disagree with P2 -- which will turn into a debate on what "life" is. As a virus is a very "gray" area, I'll hold off on arguing that point.

For the record, I have defined "natural" as follows:

"Natural" means occuring within nature (within the confines of our space-time continuum) & in accordance with the natural laws.

"Nature" is anything within the confines of our space-time continuum. Something "natural" is anything occuring within nature in accordance with the laws of said nature.

The dictionary says this:

1) The material world and its phenomena.
2) The forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world: the laws of nature.

That's pretty much just what I said.

So, what does nature mean to you? and why are humans not "natural"?

--ZK
 
Last edited:

bmyers

BANNED BY MOD
Banned by Mod
Originally posted by attention
Matter is a philosophical category denoting that what exists outside the mind, and is independend and apart from it.

Ooops! Sorry, I thought we were discussing this from the perspective of physics, not philosophy.


As such, we can not observe matter, but only specific material existence forms. An electron, a proton, a photon, a star, a a galaxy, all denote material existence forms.
The infinity of the number of material existence forms, denote the fact that you never run out of possibilities to assemble new material existence forms. There is no upper limit to that.

Perhaps - but I would like to suggest that this idea of an "infinite" number of these "forms" is actually not meaningful regarding the physics of the situation (and we DID seem to be discussing physics). You can build an awful lot of different things from a pile of Legos, for instance, but all of the things you build will still have the same fundamental properties and limits of Legos. Similarly, anything "built" from physical matter is still constrained to follow the physical "laws" of the universe. That there may be an infinite number of POSSIBLE things does not change this, nor does it even imply that there are an infinite number of ACTUAL things.
(I.e., you could also say that there are an infinite number of ways you can assemble Legos, which is true IF you have enough Legos. But you have not in saying that shown that your supply of the basic building blocks is itself infinite in the first place.)


Since these terms refer to systems that are finite parts of the whole. Your argument would then probably be that, since you can state that the universe is made up of all those finite parts, the universe itself must therefore be a closed system.
Well, firstly I would think you can not assume that when taking a finite part of the universe, you have a closed system, since in most cases, you have an open system.
Secondly, we know of no borders or boundaries to the universe. So, your statement would then by that when collecting a finite number of finite systems, would constitute the whole universe.
Such has not been proved, and it is assumed that the universe in fact is infinite in spatial extend.

Actually, it is NOT assumed that the universe is infinite in spatial extenT, and since you apparently have read Hawking's popular works I'm a bit surprised you'd think that. If the universe originated from the Big Bang event - whether or not there was anything "before" that event (we'll get to that in a moment) then the universe cannot be larger than however far it is had time to expand to since then. The universe may be boundless, but not infinite (as, again, Hawking explains very nicely).

The other problem with this is - if the universe as a whole is NOT a closed system, then you're saying that matter/energy can be added or subtracted to/from it. But - from where, and through what mechanism?


As you probably know the "Big Bang" as a scientific theory does NOT state that there was no "before" the Big Bang.
The BB theory ITSELF does not state ANYTHING about that.

Since we've already brought up Prof. Hawking's work, let's turn to what he says about this, since his explanation is a good deal better than anything I could come up with on short notice:

"All of the Friedmann solutions have the feature that at some time in the past (between ten and twenty thousand million years ago) the distance between neighboring galaxies must have been zero. At that time, which we call the big bang, the density of the universe and the curvature of space-time would have been infinite. Because mathematics cannot really handle infinite numbers, this means that the general theory of relativity (on which Friedmann's solutions are based) predicts that there is a point in the universe where the theory itself breaks down. Such a point is an example of what mathematicians call a singularity. In fact, all our theories of science are formulated on the assumption that space-time is smooth and nearly flat, so they break down at the big bang singularity, where the curvature of space-time is infinite. This means that even if there were events before the big bang, we could not use them to determine what would happen afterward. Correspondingly, if, as is the case, we know only what has happened since the big bang, we could not determine what happened beforehand. As far as we are concerned, events before the big bang can have no consequences, so they should not form part of a scientific model of the universe. We should therefore cut them out of the model and say that time had a beginning at the big bang."

- "A Brief History of Time", by Stephen W. Hawking, 1st Bantam hardcover edition, pg. 46

So, to speak of a "before" with respect to the big bang event itself is meaningless; time (and therefore space) have a beginning at that point, for ANY purpose relevant to our discussions here.


Stephen Hawking clearly states in his book "Brief History of Time" that "physicists don't know how to make physics from nothing."
In other words, a "real" beginning of time, could not be based on any physical theory.

Judging from the above, I would have to conclude that you've misunderstood Prof. Hawking.
 

cthoma11

New member
Originally posted by ZroKewl
So you disagree with my definition of "natural".
I do not believe that you were (or are) using natural consistently because you are not using it in terms of the typical context of the origins of life.

P1) All A are B
P2) Some A are C
C1) Some B are C

A = "humans"
B = "natural entities whose effects are also natural"
C = "capable of producing life from non-life"
This of course is straight from a textbook. But compare this to your original statements:
ZK's syllogism:
P1) Humans are natural beings.
P2) Humans have created life from non life.
C1) Natural causes can create life from non life.
This is
P1) All A are B
P2) Some A are C
C1) Some D are C

Why? Because "A Natural Beings" != "D-natural causes". I see that you ignored this in my last response and instead expanded on your syllogism, but this is the crux of my objection.

"Nature" is anything within the confines of our space-time continuum. Something "natural" is anything occuring within nature in accordance with the laws of said nature.
So, what does nature mean to you? and why are humans not "natural"?
Since you mean that anything and everything that happens is natural and further that nature=natural beings = natural causes, then your syllogism becomes valid and I will retract my original objection. However, since to you natural means anything and everything that happens and everything that exists; then the result is that your syllogism carries no significance, is therefore irrelevant and warrants no further discussion.

I take natural occurrences to mean occurring in the world WITHOUT man's intervention. If a human creates something, say an automobile, I would not call that creation a natural occurrence. Further, I think if you asked most people, I do not think they would not consider man's creations "natural occurances". Your use in this syllogism requires this. If you look at the phrase "naturally occuring", it is typically used to distinquish events or items from man made events or items, it is not used as you have done.
 

attention

New member
Originally posted by bmyers
Ooops! Sorry, I thought we were discussing this from the perspective of physics, not philosophy.

We can talk about physics, when discussing this philosophical notion of matter also, but be aware of the difference.


Perhaps - but I would like to suggest that this idea of an "infinite" number of these "forms" is actually not meaningful regarding the physics of the situation (and we DID seem to be discussing physics). You can build an awful lot of different things from a pile of Legos, for instance, but all of the things you build will still have the same fundamental properties and limits of Legos. Similarly, anything "built" from physical matter is still constrained to follow the physical "laws" of the universe. That there may be an infinite number of POSSIBLE things does not change this, nor does it even imply that there are an infinite number of ACTUAL things.
(I.e., you could also say that there are an infinite number of ways you can assemble Legos, which is true IF you have enough Legos. But you have not in saying that shown that your supply of the basic building blocks is itself infinite in the first place.)

The notion of the infinity of matter comes in three different ways. Even one of them already supplies you that matter is infinite.


Actually, it is NOT assumed that the universe is infinite in spatial extenT, and since you apparently have read Hawking's popular works I'm a bit surprised you'd think that. If the universe originated from the Big Bang event - whether or not there was anything "before" that event (we'll get to that in a moment) then the universe cannot be larger than however far it is had time to expand to since then. The universe may be boundless, but not infinite (as, again, Hawking explains very nicely).

What has the notion that the universe as we observe it now originated at the Big Bang have to do with the notion of the spatial extend of the universe?

The other problem with this is - if the universe as a whole is NOT a closed system, then you're saying that matter/energy can be added or subtracted to/from it. But - from where, and through what mechanism?

Where did I state that?
You adapt the notion that if the universe is not closed, then it must be open. I did not imply that.

Because there is nothing OUTSIDE the universe, it means that nothing can come in or go out of the universe, and also it means that the universe is not isolated from anything OUTSIDE of the universe. In this sense, the universe is neither open or closed.

Since we've already brought up Prof. Hawking's work, let's turn to what he says about this, since his explanation is a good deal better than anything I could come up with on short notice:

"All of the Friedmann solutions have the feature that at some time in the past (between ten and twenty thousand million years ago) the distance between neighboring galaxies must have been zero. At that time, which we call the big bang, the density of the universe and the curvature of space-time would have been infinite. Because mathematics cannot really handle infinite numbers, this means that the general theory of relativity (on which Friedmann's solutions are based) predicts that there is a point in the universe where the theory itself breaks down. Such a point is an example of what mathematicians call a singularity. In fact, all our theories of science are formulated on the assumption that space-time is smooth and nearly flat, so they break down at the big bang singularity, where the curvature of space-time is infinite. This means that even if there were events before the big bang, we could not use them to determine what would happen afterward. Correspondingly, if, as is the case, we know only what has happened since the big bang, we could not determine what happened beforehand. As far as we are concerned, events before the big bang can have no consequences, so they should not form part of a scientific model of the universe. We should therefore cut them out of the model and say that time had a beginning at the big bang."

- "A Brief History of Time", by Stephen W. Hawking, 1st Bantam hardcover edition, pg. 46

So, to speak of a "before" with respect to the big bang event itself is meaningless; time (and therefore space) have a beginning at that point, for ANY purpose relevant to our discussions here.

Judging from the above, I would have to conclude that you've misunderstood Prof. Hawking.

I might be that not I, but you are misunderstanding prof. Hawking.

Prof. Stephen Hawking does not come up with one singular notion of a begin of time, but he constructs a solution to the singularity problem, by assuming that time near the Big Bang is becoming more "spacelike" and thereby avoids the singularity, in that it become "calculable".
But in order to do that, and for solving the complex quantum equations, he has to introduce another time concept: that of "imaginary" time. Imaginary time is an independend time axis orthogonal to the "real" time axis. Imaginary in this context means that it uses imaginary numbers (based on the number i, which is the square root of minus 1), and which is not to be understood as something of an imagination (as in a dream or something).
In many other parts of physics complex numbers (which are pairs of numbers existing of a real part and an imaginary part) are used to solve certain equations (mostly in wave mechanics, but also in solving electro mechanical equations, etc).

What is important then to note that we then have two forms of time: "real" time which had a beginning, and "imaginary" time which did not have a beginning. Prof. Hawking even argues that "imaginary" is more real then "real" time.

I know this kind of representation of the ideas of prof. Hawking have occured on many times, in which only ONE part of his idea is taken, and in which the OTHER part of the idea, which necessarily forms a union with that first part, is thrown away.

When representing a scientific idea, you can not just take out the part that you like, and throw away the part you don't like.

In such a way, you only create confusion, and you misrepresent the ideas of prof. Hawking.
 

ZroKewl

BANNED
Banned
Originally posted by cthoma11
I do not believe that you were (or are) using natural consistently because you are not using it in terms of the typical context of the origins of life.
I have defined it, and am using it consistently. I am glad that you finally defined what you mean by "naturally".
This of course is straight from a textbook.
I guess I could write a textbook, then. Because that came out of my own thoughts. Thanks, though.
But compare this to your original statements:

This is
P1) All A are B
P2) Some A are C
C1) Some D are C
Not if you use my definitions of A, B, & C. I will spell it out ONE LAST TIME FOR YOU:

P1) All A are B
P2) Some A are C
C1) Some B are C

A = "humans"
B = "natural entities whose effects are also natural"
C = "capable of producing life from non-life"

So:

P1 = "All humans are natural entities whose effects are also natural"

P2 = "Some humans are capable of producing life from non-life"

C1 = "Some natural entities whose effects are also natural are capable of producing life from non-life"

Got it? Stop the logic bashing, now. You were wrong, but have clarified that you just disagreed with my definition of "natural". That's fine. I'm glad you finally realized your disagreement (or at least had the balls to tell us what it was).

Why? Because "A Natural Beings" != "D-natural causes". I see that you ignored this in my last response and instead expanded on your syllogism, but this is the crux of my objection.

In my definition, a natural entity which causes something to happen is a "natural cause". You redefine "natural" for me below. Which is the real crux of your misunderstanding:

Since you mean that anything and everything that happens is natural and further that nature=natural beings = natural causes, then your syllogism becomes valid and I will retract my original objection.
Thank God. (But, the syllogism was NEVER invalid for the reason you said ("begging the question"). Perhaps you should have said it was a fallacy of "equivocation"... but it never has been "begging the question".)

However, since to you natural means anything and everything that happens and everything that exists; then the result is that your syllogism carries no significance, is therefore irrelevant and warrants no further discussion.
Umm... actually... that's not exactly what natural means to me. Natural means what I said it means. I have allowed for the case of super-natural events causing things to happen.

I take natural occurrences to mean occurring in the world WITHOUT man's intervention.
It's about time. Thank you. See, that's not what "natural" means to me. I see that man is a part of nature, and his effects are therefore "natural". So, if man is not "natural", what would you call him? Unnatural? Super-natural? Please explain.

If a human creates something, say an automobile, I would not call that creation a natural occurrence.
Maybe not. But that's because in our language we use words to mean different things. That's why the dictionary has to number the definitions. I am using the term "nature" to denote all the exists within our space-time universe. Natural is anything that occurs within nature and in accordance with nature's laws.

The argument is that life cannot come from non-life without a super-natural cause. Nothing within our space-time universe obeying the laws of nature can create life from non-life. That is Bob's argument. And that is what was being refuted. And that was the basis of understanding of my original argument. You have now stated that what man does is not "natural", so that even if we were to take some mud and create a live human being from it, that would not be "life coming from non-life through natural causes". That's absurd, as you and everyone else here would KNOW that it would prove that super-natural causes are not necessary to create life. That is why Bob used it in his argument. And that is why we continue to discuss that issue. You are equivocating -- "natural" means anything within nature -- including man.

Further, I think if you asked most people, I do not think they would not consider man's creations "natural occurances". Your use in this syllogism requires this. If you look at the phrase "naturally occuring", it is typically used to distinquish events or items from man made events or items, it is not used as you have done.

That is a common use of the word. But that's not what we are talking about here. We are comparing the super-natural (God) to the natural (man and any other entities within our space-time continuum that are subject to the natural laws therein).

--ZK
 

attention

New member
Question to cthoma11

Question to cthoma11

cthoma11 / Zrokewl:

"The argument is that life cannot come from non-life without a super-natural cause. Nothing within our space-time universe obeying the laws of nature can create life from non-life. That is Bob's argument. And that is what was being refuted. And that was the basis of understanding of my original argument. You have now stated that what man does is not "natural", so that even if we were to take some mud and create a live human being from it, that would not be "life coming from non-life through natural causes". That's absurd, as you and everyone else here would KNOW that it would prove that super-natural causes are not necessary to create life. That is why Bob used it in his argument. And that is why we continue to discuss that issue. You are equivocating -- "natural" means anything within nature -- including man."

Question to Cthoma11:

What is your perception of the statement that "life can not come from non-life without a super-natural cause".

Is is that you think:

1) Life itself is not part of nature, and is itself super natural?

Then please indicate to us, what is super natural to life. What natural laws don't seem to fit with the fact that living organism exist?

2) Science has not found the gradual transition in which in the early formation of the earth, the geological and atmospheric and chemical mechanism could have produced the necessary ingredients for proto life, and which formed the basis for life to emergence from non-life.

2.a) There are physcial laws which simply forbid for this process to have occured that way?

Which are these physical laws and in what way do they forbid for life to emerge from non-life?

2.b) At least our understanding is incomplete and we have missing knowledge. Untill we have the actual knowledge about all the details of this biochemical transition, all the intermediate steps that have occured, I remain skeptic that it could have occured in a natural way. I emphasis my skepticism with the statement that I state that I believe, only the "supernatural" could explain it.. because...

2.b.1) I believe that a supernatural creator actually exists, and the mechanism by which a supernatural creator has done this, can be explained in detail, and is a falsifiable theory that superseeds any natural explenation given thus far.

Then, please could you reveal to us, how the mechanism of the supernatural creator has done this job in great detail, and what makes it a falsifiable scientific theory?

or

2.b.2) I don't believe that literally, cause I have no possible way of knowing what mechanism the creator would have used. It is just that my understanding of nature itself, does not make it possible to assume that nature could ever produce life from non-life. As soon as a scientific explenation comes up, that is a valid and proven scientific theory, backed up by good scientific methods of research, observation and theory development, I might change my opinion.

We are with you!
 
Last edited:

WayneV

New member
Expired Time

Expired Time

Knight,
Time has expired with no reply posted from Zak. I hope he is not conceeding at this point. This has been a well fought battle on both sides.
WayneV
 

Bob Enyart

Deceased
Staff member
Administrator
Attention Huey...

Attention Huey...

Hey, I haven't check on this, but... did Heusdens disappear when Attention showed up? -Bob
 

ZroKewl

BANNED
Banned
Re: Attention Huey...

Re: Attention Huey...

Originally posted by Bob Enyart
Hey, I haven't check on this, but... did Heusdens disappear when Attention showed up? -Bob
Attention is the resurrected Heusdens.

:idea: :singer: :sozo: :box: :hammer: :dead: :shut: :grave: :cloud9: :bow:

--ZK
 

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
Re: Expired Time

Re: Expired Time

Originally posted by WayneV
Knight,
Time has expired with no reply posted from Zak. I hope he is not conceeding at this point. This has been a well fought battle on both sides.
WayneV
Yea... I have to admit I am a tad concerned.

Hopefully nothing serious happened with Zakath as he doesn't strike me as the type to give up with at least telling me.

Let's pray that all is well with Zakath.
 

NoLies

New member
If you can't answer the bell for the round you lose. Fraizer couldn't when he fought Ali so Ali won.

So at this time Bob must be declared the victor:chuckle:
 

bmyers

BANNED BY MOD
Banned by Mod
Originally posted by attention

What has the notion that the universe as we observe it now originated at the Big Bang have to do with the notion of the spatial extend of the universe?

OK, let's approach this from a different perspective. You apparently agree that there was a Big Bang event - so what was the size of the universe in the moment following that event? And roughly how long has it been since then?



Where did I state that?
You adapt the notion that if the universe is not closed, then it must be open. I did not imply that.

Because there is nothing OUTSIDE the universe, it means that nothing can come in or go out of the universe, and also it means that the universe is not isolated from anything OUTSIDE of the universe. In this sense, the universe is neither open or closed.

Perhaps in that sense - but I believe we were speaking of "closed" in the sense that it applies to the laws of thermodynamics, and specifically the second law. If "nothing [i.e., no matter or energy] can come in or go out of the universe", then the universe IS closed in that context.



Prof. Stephen Hawking does not come up with one singular notion of a begin of time, but he constructs a solution to the singularity problem, by assuming that time near the Big Bang is becoming more "spacelike" and thereby avoids the singularity, in that it become "calculable".
But in order to do that, and for solving the complex quantum equations, he has to introduce another time concept: that of "imaginary" time. Imaginary time is an independend time axis orthogonal to the "real" time axis. Imaginary in this context means that it uses imaginary numbers (based on the number i, which is the square root of minus 1), and which is not to be understood as something of an imagination (as in a dream or something).
In many other parts of physics complex numbers (which are pairs of numbers existing of a real part and an imaginary part) are used to solve certain equations (mostly in wave mechanics, but also in solving electro mechanical equations, etc).

Yes, that's a fairly succinct explanation - but I'm already reasonably familiar with the notions of imaginary and complex numbers.

What is important then to note that we then have two forms of time: "real" time which had a beginning, and "imaginary" time which did not have a beginning. Prof. Hawking even argues that "imaginary" is more real then "real" time.

He raises this possibility, yes, but as Hawking himself says:

"But according to the approach I described in Chapter 1, a scientific theory is just a mathematical model we make to describe our observations: it exists only in our minds. So it is meaningless to ask: Which is real, "real" or "imaginary" time? It is simply a matter of which is the more useful description."

(As an aside - Hawking's comments apply in the context of evaluating the correctness of a scientific theory. What he refers to as "real" time is that which we experience, and within the context of a lay discussion such as this one should be considered the "time" to which we normally refer, whether or not it is more useful within a given mathematical discussion, unless otherwise noted.)

In this theory, Hawking presents the notion of a universe which is unbounded (and yet finite) in space-time, and one which in a sense "cycles" between expanding and contracting phases, which implies a "universe" without beginning or end. As Hawking says, this does lead to a possible conclusion which some may find disturbing:

"The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started - it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"

- "A Brief History of Time", pg. 140

Hawking, in this question, is clearly leaving the realm of theoretical physics and entering into philosophy and theology. However, even this speculation does not resolve the question of God, as I will get to in a moment.

First, however - even this model does not remove a "beginning" of a universe as it applies in the context of this discussion. There is no way to see "beyond" the ends of this time of space/time, whether or not Hawking's ideas are correct and there would be anything there to "see". Hawking's notions of an eternal, "cyclic" universe can never truly be verified or denied; they are attractive at this point primarily because they provide a consistent explanation which appears to agree with observation, but may not be the only way to explain these. And within Hawking's model of the universe, there is still a very valid set of thermodynamic laws (which is where we got off on this particular aside); the net entropy within the universe DOES increase, as noted below:

"The no boundary proposal for the universe predicts the existence of a well-defined thermodynamic arrow of time [i.e., entropy increasing with time, per the second law - bmyers] because the universe must start out in a smooth and ordered state. And the reason we observe this thermodynamic arrow to agree with the cosmological arrow is that intelligent beings can exist only in the expanding phase. The contracting phase will be unsuitable because it has no strong therodynamic arrow of time."

So here again, we find we must distinguish between "universe" in the sense that we normally mean it (and as it has generally been used in this discussion) and Hawking's broader "universe". Our "universe" is this current physical reality which we can observe; if Hawking is correct, it could possibly be preceded and followed by an infinite number of others, but we have absolutely no way to be affected by those, to observe them, or to interact with them. To us, they "exist" only because this mathematical model of what we observe says that they should.

But if they DO exist, and the universe is "infinite" in extent, doesn't this do in the whole notion of God? No. It would significantly change the nature (or at least our understanding of the nature) of God, but does not remove the possibility that a "God" exists. There are any number of possible models of God that could conceivably coexist with this model of the universe - and we can no more confirm or deny them than we can confirm or deny this model of the universe itself.

Some have also mistakenly assumed from writings such as these that Hawking is necessarily an atheist. I do not believe this is so (and in fact, I seem to recall Hawking himself denying this, but I can't find a firm reference just at the moment). From his writings, one gets the distinct impression that he is at most agnostic and quite possibly clearly in the theistic camp, although obviously a theist who does not adhere to traditional beliefs. For example, note how he closes this book:


"However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."
 

attention

New member
Originally posted by bmyers
OK, let's approach this from a different perspective. You apparently agree that there was a Big Bang event - so what was the size of the universe in the moment following that event? And roughly how long has it been since then?

1. The Big Bang does not denote the "begin of time"

2. The observable universe is not the whole universe

3. The observable universe can at the moment of the Big Bang be brought back to a small patch of "false" vacuum about the size of 10 to-the-power minus 33 meters or so.

4. Again, that says nothing about the size of the whole universe, it could have been infinite in size even at that moment

Perhaps in that sense - but I believe we were speaking of "closed" in the sense that it applies to the laws of thermodynamics, and specifically the second law. If "nothing [i.e., no matter or energy] can come in or go out of the universe", then the universe IS closed in that context.

The second law is based on laboratory sized thermodynamic systems. You can not transpose the notion of what a closed system is to the whole universe without running into problem.

In fact, you raise the contradiction that, when following that line of thought, we would need to state that the universe as a closed system should have already run out of useuable energy.
Which it appearently hasn't.

How would you want to repair that contradiction?

Please tell me.


Yes, that's a fairly succinct explanation - but I'm already reasonably familiar with the notions of imaginary and complex numbers.

He raises this possibility, yes, but as Hawking himself says:

"But according to the approach I described in Chapter 1, a scientific theory is just a mathematical model we make to describe our observations: it exists only in our minds. So it is meaningless to ask: Which is real, "real" or "imaginary" time? It is simply a matter of which is the more useful description."

(As an aside - Hawking's comments apply in the context of evaluating the correctness of a scientific theory. What he refers to as "real" time is that which we experience, and within the context of a lay discussion such as this one should be considered the "time" to which we normally refer, whether or not it is more useful within a given mathematical discussion, unless otherwise noted.)

In this theory, Hawking presents the notion of a universe which is unbounded (and yet finite) in space-time, and one which in a sense "cycles" between expanding and contracting phases, which implies a "universe" without beginning or end. As Hawking says, this does lead to a possible conclusion which some may find disturbing:

"The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started - it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"

- "A Brief History of Time", pg. 140

Hawking, in this question, is clearly leaving the realm of theoretical physics and entering into philosophy and theology. However, even this speculation does not resolve the question of God, as I will get to in a moment.

Physics does not resolve the issue of God, and is not intended or appropriate even for that.

First, however - even this model does not remove a "beginning" of a universe as it applies in the context of this discussion. There is no way to see "beyond" the ends of this time of space/time, whether or not Hawking's ideas are correct and there would be anything there to "see". Hawking's notions of an eternal, "cyclic" universe can never truly be verified or denied; they are attractive at this point primarily because they provide a consistent explanation which appears to agree with observation, but may not be the only way to explain these. And within Hawking's model of the universe, there is still a very valid set of thermodynamic laws (which is where we got off on this particular aside); the net entropy within the universe DOES increase, as noted below:

"The no boundary proposal for the universe predicts the existence of a well-defined thermodynamic arrow of time [i.e., entropy increasing with time, per the second law - bmyers] because the universe must start out in a smooth and ordered state. And the reason we observe this thermodynamic arrow to agree with the cosmological arrow is that intelligent beings can exist only in the expanding phase. The contracting phase will be unsuitable because it has no strong therodynamic arrow of time."

So here again, we find we must distinguish between "universe" in the sense that we normally mean it (and as it has generally been used in this discussion) and Hawking's broader "universe". Our "universe" is this current physical reality which we can observe; if Hawking is correct, it could possibly be preceded and followed by an infinite number of others, but we have absolutely no way to be affected by those, to observe them, or to interact with them. To us, they "exist" only because this mathematical model of what we observe says that they should.

But if they DO exist, and the universe is "infinite" in extent, doesn't this do in the whole notion of God? No. It would significantly change the nature (or at least our understanding of the nature) of God, but does not remove the possibility that a "God" exists. There are any number of possible models of God that could conceivably coexist with this model of the universe - and we can no more confirm or deny them than we can confirm or deny this model of the universe itself.

Some have also mistakenly assumed from writings such as these that Hawking is necessarily an atheist. I do not believe this is so (and in fact, I seem to recall Hawking himself denying this, but I can't find a firm reference just at the moment). From his writings, one gets the distinct impression that he is at most agnostic and quite possibly clearly in the theistic camp, although obviously a theist who does not adhere to traditional beliefs. For example, note how he closes this book:


"However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."

Stephen Hawking is an atheist.

But consider this. He is in first instance a human. His personal situation, due to his illness, makes him rather dependend, esp. on his wife, who is a Christian.
His publisher also advised him to put some "theist stuff" in, it would increase the selling of the book. Stephen Hawking as a real human being can not escape from being influenced on these things as well. So it could very well explain why he seems to be an agnostic or theist, but I have reason to think he is an atheist.

I think if you read the book well, you would still have to affirm he is an atheist. But as a physicist he can not make philosophical claims, and must base himself on physics.

An important quote would be this: "Physicists can not make physics from nothing". This to me is a clear statement, which says that it is inconceivable to think about a real "begin in time" of the universe, since the physics laws can't come from nothing. This urges him then as a physicst to state that he has to conceive of physcis laws as having been there always. And since physics itself does not deal with entities outside of space, matter and time, there would then indeed be no place in the universe itself for a Deity. The only place would be the mind itself, and physics does not deal with that. So don't let physcial law interfere with your belief system (unless you want it to).

Further, I don't think we should continue this thread on "mind reading" of prof. Stephen Hawking. Neither we can use physics to base our beliefs or convictions on.

And for the continuation of this thread, I would say that if we want to talk science and physcics and cosmology on this issue, we should then dig into what cosmological theory best could describe and fit the observations.

In that field I think cosmic inflation already makes some strong predictions, that have been partly tested true, and are partly still under investigation.
 
Last edited:

attention

New member
Re: Re: Attention Huey...

Re: Re: Attention Huey...

Originally posted by ZroKewl
Attention is the resurrected Heusdens.

:idea: :singer: :sozo: :box: :hammer: :dead: :shut: :grave: :cloud9: :bow:

--ZK


YES!

And it proofs that resurrections are natural events!

Anybody needs a testimony weather or not heusdens and attention in fact are one and the same person?
 

ZroKewl

BANNED
Banned
Stephen Hawking is listed in the "ambiguous" section of the "Celebrity Atheist" list:
http://www.celebatheists.com/entries/ambiguous_4.html#2

Having read his books, I know he puts emphasis on him being a positivist -- so, all that matters is having an accurate model of reality. He does not spend time trying to find the "real reality". He also said other things that suggest even if he did belive in "God", it wouldn't be the Christian God: his "God" would not be omniscient, for example, as God "can only know the wave function".

--ZK
 

Psycho Dave

BANNED
Banned
Bob Enyart writes:
Misrepresentations were the theme of Zakath’s seventh round. The theme of his eighth post is to assume victory in disagreements for which he has not rebutted but simply Ignored My Argument (marked below by [IMA]). Where he does this, I think it would be more effective for him to show how my arguments are ineffective, rather than to simply assume them so, or even just to completely ignore them. For example, Zakath’s main argument is the God of the Gaps claim [IMA], which I challenged in post 2 and presented a specific, significant rebuttal to in post 5. I have agreed that “ignorance is no evidence.” And until Zakath attempts to answer my Gap rebuttal, perhaps in round 10, he has no grounds to write: “Despite Pastor Enyart's attempts to assert otherwise, ignorance is not evidence for the existence of God. Ignorance is merely there result of a gap in knowledge.” What is Zakath’s defense to my Gaps rebuttal? No one can know from reading the debate thus far, because he has simply ignored it and the suspense builds as we wonder if he has an answer.
Bob just doesn't get it, does he? He's been harping on this one issue since the beginning, and Zakath keeps telling him the same thing. The God of the gaps argument IS A LOGICAL FALLACY -- It does not follow through that the gaps in our knowledge are evidence of God. Bob has been told this over and over, yet he doesn't seem to understand that it means that his argument is INVALID. It is an IRRATIONAL and ILLOGICAL argument. It violates the basic principles of logic. This is why Zakath is not responding to it, and repeating exactly why he is not responding to it. The fact that Bob doesn't seem to understand the invalidity of this argument is proof of his inability to debate. He simply doesn't know when an argument is flawed.
BQ28: Zakath, please indicate if my estimate is incorrect that mathematics predicts that it will take more than a trillion years to form a single protein molecule by chance.
ZA28: Zakath presented the “game of poker” as evidence that “random events” can produce an “ordered result” [by which he unreasonably ignored that men designed playing cards and poker rules to achieve those very results based upon probabilities, and conversely he ignored my reasonable appeal to casino operators regarding mathematical probabilities].
Bob is really showing his ignorance of science and mathematics here, but mostly his lack of an understanding of PROBABILITY. When I get a straight-flush in poker, the probability against it is enormous -- (52^52^5, in the millions). Yet, plenty of people end up with a straight-flush all the time, including a few times by myself, BECAUSE THERE ARE MILLIONS OF GAMES OF POKER GOING ON AT ANY MOMENT AROUND THE WORLD. The number of games being played INCREASES the probabilty. The chances of the hand being achieved is millions to one, yet it happens all the time. This is because PROBABILITY does not tell you how many hands need to be dealt BEFORE you get the results, but rather, WHAT THE LIKELYHOOD IS that the next hand dealt will get the results. The odds are millions to one against, but your next hand COULD BE THE ONE.

Secondly, Bob is laboring under the delusion that evolution is a CHANCE or RANDOM process. Nothing in nature happens by chance. Any scientist will tell you that everything in the universe is driven by CAUSALITY. Everything is caused by something else. The causal chains interact with one another, creating predictable patterns in nature. But there is a level of nature that we cannot predict -- not because it is random, but because we are unaware of all the factors involved. If we knew all the factors involved in any equation, we can predict all outcomes. The fact that we are not aware of all the factors involved for a given equation, and thus, are unable to accurately predict some things, DOES NOT PROVE GOD. It merely proves that we do not know all the factors involved.

If you can understand anything, Bob (and other creationists, too), please understand that NOTHING IN NATURE IS RANDOM. EVOLUTION IS NOT DESCRIBED BY SCIENCE AS A RANDOM PROCESS. Please refrain from using the argument about the "random" or "chance" nature of evolution. It is not chance or random at all, and anyone who says so is dealing with outdated material.
Unlike animals, human beings have a sense of embarrassment about various bodily functions which humor can exploit.
This is absolute hogwash, Bob. This embarrassment is not NATURAL. it is determined by SOCIETY. The culture we live in PROMOTES the notion that we should be embarrassed, mainly due to religious notions about purity and modesty. Embarrassment at bodily functions is IMPOSED on people BY SOCIETY. Go from culture to culture (I mean look at non-Christian, non-western cultures) and you will see that certain bodily functions are not taboo subjects universally. Your ignorance of other cultures, and ignorance of what, in human psychology, is natural versus what is created by your culture and society makes your argument very silly indeed.
Why do people commonly laugh and feel uncomfortable in public regarding reproduction and expelling waste?
How about "because society taught them to be that way"? Is it so hard for you to accept that certain cultures can program individuals to be automatically embarrassed about things? You need to read up on feral people (People who were raised by animals away from human society). Children found in the wild had no problem deficating in public and sniffing other people's crotches. It is human society and culture that programs those values into us, not God or nature.
If human beings were not at all spiritual but strictly made of matter, consisting only of atoms and molecules, then we would have no context from which to view our base bodily functions as funny or embarrassing.
What about the context of "Because religious leaders declared such things to be sinful or unclean."??? That's why I think we have these quirks. Of course, if a human being is AWARE, though education, that defication and urination in public areas CAN SPREAD DISEASE, and CAN BE VERY UNHEALTHY, as we know today, then that's plenty of reason for not crapping on your neighbor's kitchen floor, or urinating on your living room carpet. Humans are aware of the unhealthy nature of waste, and have been for quite some time. That is plenty of reason to reguard public pooping as "dirty", "unclean", "unhealthy", and "uncivilized".

Bob, this is, by far, the WORST and possibly DUMBEST argument I have ever read, for the existence of spirits or God. It's just plain silly.
Now let’s move from jokes to fears, specifically, fears of the dark, of ghosts, and of the dead. We humans differ from animals in strange quirks which theism readily explains. Evolution supposedly selects so well for survival that human brains advanced quickly to now process quadrillions of instructions per second. Yet if atheism were true, then natural selection has introduced the most backward oddities only among human animals. According to Isaac Asimov, the human brain “as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe” (Asimov, In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Even Break Even, Smithsonian, August 1970, p. 10). And yet people, the greatest supposed achievement of evolution, are the only animals that are afraid of the dark, afraid of spirits, and afraid of dead bodies. A little mouse moves about fearlessly at night. A fish calmly sniffs at the recently deceased corpse of its own mother. No snake is afraid of ghosts. Yet human beings have an uncanny fear of these which we overcome to varying degrees. But why do these experiences exist for humans and not animals? Why? Because human beings, being spiritual as well as physical, are inherently aware of the spiritual realm, the domain beyond death, of spirit beings, the realm that cannot be seen with the eyes.
This is even sillier than the above argument! Allow me to laugh my head off. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! There. I'm done.

I would argue that it was RELIGION, or RELIGIOUS MEMES, in particular, that has given mankind it's silly bunch of superstitions. Why are humans afraid of the dark? I think it's because we can't see very well in the dark, and we are afraid, as any diurnal creature typically is, of the dark. Mice are nocturnal, and are not afraid of the dark, because they see very well in the dark. the same is true about cats. Noctural animals are not afraid of the dark.

The fear of the dark is not a supernatural one, either. It is mostly about safety. We fear tripping in the dark, being attacked by nocturnal animals, or other realistic fears. The fear of ghosts and spirits is COMPLETELY CULTURAL IN NATURE. I am not afraid of ghosts, spirits, demons, or any other monsters. I am only afraid of OTHER PEOPLE (like criminals and thugs), and dangerous animals (like rattlesnakes, scorpions, stinging insects, viscious dogs, etc). This is because I dumped all religious thoughts long ago. When I hear a bump in the night, I do not assume it was a ghost or monster. I usually suspect a cat, the wind, or a prankster human.

Religion has created many superstitions which creates irrational fears in people. These religious ideas - the spirit world, the existence of devils and satanic monsters, etc, has evolved over time and has taken on many forms in many cultures. Religious ideas have spawned werewolves, vampires, demonic beasts, and various other things, which people were told to believe in by priests and proselytizers -- people whom societies highly reguarded, some revered, and others (and erroneously so), revered, and even placed absolute authority in. When your kings, leaders, and highly respected people in your society tell you to believe something (and some under pain of death like biblical societies), and you do not know any better, you will tend to believe it. It is the educated, the scientific, and the inquisitive in society who have dispeleld these myths throughout history, while religious authorities dragged society back. In this modern age, we still have a bunch of irrational baggage left over - palmistry, astrology, faith healing, magical spells, card reading, tea-leaf reading, crystals, and other religious rubbish from older societies still permeate us -- not because they are true in any way, but because people still discuss the ideas, write and read about them, and because religions perpetuate similar myths.

Bob, your lack of cultural knowledge is astonishing. I find it hard to believe that anyone with a college-level education, much less a high school diploma, would ever make such a ridiculous argument for "spiritual proof" as you did.
Psychology leads us also to consider beauty. Can we accurately reduce the recognition and appreciation of beauty to simply a ploy of evolution. Or is beauty independent of any human or biological observer? Atheists have claimed that evolution produced the beauty in flowers, butterflies, and peacocks; but what of the splendor in snowflakes and galaxies? The universe is filled with evidence that beauty exists independently of biological observation. The beauty of deep sea plants and distant nebulas awaited discovery by man. If beauty does not exist independent of man’s observation, then it does not exist as evidence for God, but if a mountain stream or a wheat field is objectively beautiful, then God exists. The atheist can tell his wife she is not truly beautiful, or he can mimic the Christian and tell her the truth.
Bob, what was true in Aristotle's time is still true today. BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER! I know men who like fat women. I personally find fat women to be unhealthy and grotesque, but these men who like large women have formed their own opinions that are counter to mine, and to the society which gave me the notion that thin=beauty.

Ever see the artwork of H.R. Giger? He's the Swiss artist who designed the monsters from the ALIEN films. His art is very contraversial, often using sexual and groteque imagery. Yet, there is beauty in it. The repetition of patterns, the smoothness of lines and shade -- all tell my trained artistic mind, that a landscape painting of his portraying organs and monsters, is a thing of beauty. Sure, it is disturbing on a level, but the execution of the art -- the skill that the artist used and demonstrated, the time it took to complete, and how interesting the composition is, are all very well done. You would see the same pictures and probably be made sick by them, but because I come from a different background, I see beauty in the grotesque. Grotesques in art have a very old history. Churches once forbade artists (like Da Vinci, Duhrer, Michelangelo, etc) from painting grotesques. These artists painted grotesques in secret as a result.

BEAUTY IS ALL IN YOUR MIND. There is no universal standard for it. Some men like large buttocks on women, some like atheletic figures. Some women prefer "Teddy bear" bodies on men, while others prefer the boney, skinny look. To say that BEAUTY is proof of God is to beg the question "What is beauty" -- which would open up a can of worms, ebcause everyone has a different opinion of beauty. ou have proven nothing, Bob.
 

ex_fundy

New member
Probability Misuse

Probability Misuse

I am surprised that no one else has pointed out the fundamental error in Bob's use of probability. He is falsely assuming that there is only 1 right answer. His "evolve" computer simulation is assuming that the letters of the alphabet MUST be our 26 letters or it can't be considered an alphabet and the "evolutionary" simulation is not done. But there is no reason to assume that there is only 1 right alphabet, just as there is no reason to assume that only 1 possible combination of atoms can make a "simple protein molecule". There may be an almost infinite combination of atoms into sequences that could be used for building blocks in a manner similar to our currently known protein molecules.

For an aid in understanding, let's define an "alphabet" as simply a set of 30 (26 is arbitrary after all) unique symbols that can be combined to form a mechanism of communication. Now let’s create our individual simulation dice with 500 sides (one can easily imagine 500 unique symbols that could function in an alphabet). Now we roll them until 30 unique symbols come up. How many rolls would it take? Not very many. If my calculations are correct (and I believe they are) then there is about a 41.1629% chance of obtaining a fully functioning alphabet with 30 unique symbols on any given roll.

Another example may help explain how people (like Bob) often misuse probability. What is the probability that I exist? Let’s look at a few characteristics about my life, and assign the probability of each one individually.

1) I’m of relatively modern European descent. For every human alive today there’s approximately a 1 in 5 chance of that being true (0.20)
2) I’m a male. There’s about a 1 in 2 chance of that (0.50)
3) I was born a particular year. There’s about a 1 in 50 chance of anyone currently alive being born on that year (0.02)
4) I am a computer engineer. Worldwide, there’s about a 1 in 10000 chance of a person being a computer engineer (0.0001)
5) I have blue eyes. There’s about a 1 in 4 chance of that (0.25)
6) I drive a Ford. There’s about a 1 in 10 chance of that (0.1)
7) I was born in a particular small town. There’s about a 1 in 1 million chance of that (0.000001)
8) I am reading this current debate. There’s only about a 1 in million chance of that (0.000001)

Given only these unique 8 aspects (with roughly estimated probabilities) of who I am, the probability (using Bob’s logic) of my existing is about 5.0 x 10-21. Given that less than 20 billion homo-sapiens have ever lived on this planet, I (according to Bob) am a statistical impossibility.

These same calculations could be made on any human in the world and (using Bob’s logic) they too would be a statistical impossibility. Bob is misapplying probability theory. It simply doesn’t work that way.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top