Battle Talk ~ Battle Royale VII

[NATEDOG]

What a wonderful testament to the absurdities of thought.

I couldn't have said it better.

 

[Flake]

Maybe in the future TOL would consider a group debate on a topic. Maybe the validity of religion or specifically Christianity, and the validity of atheism or agnosticism?
By group, I mean a selected debate team from TOL members all contribute, but the posts in the debate would be as the brvii, one from each side in turn, and so on. Could be a logistical nightmare but worth consideration? The topics I suggest are just off the top of my head, I guess it could be anything, but maybe im just trying to dodge this work I have piling up in front of me.

 

[attention]

Originally posted by Flake
Maybe in the future TOL would consider a group debate on a topic. Maybe the validity of religion or specifically Christianity, and the validity of atheism or agnosticism?
By group, I mean a selected debate team from TOL members all contribute, but the posts in the debate would be as the brvii, one from each side in turn, and so on. Could be a logistical nightmare but worth consideration? The topics I suggest are just off the top of my head, I guess it could be anything, but maybe im just trying to dodge this work I have piling up in front of me.

It would be good to discuss a broader subject related to philisophy and theism, for example what is the difference between materialism and idealism, and what is the connection between idealism and theism.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by attention
It would be good to discuss a broader subject related to philisophy and theism, for example what is the difference between materialism and idealism, and what is the connection between idealism and theism.

I'd second that, since the recent more-or-less-uncontrolled "debates" on these topics have tended to turn into meaningless shouting matches.

 

[Bob Enyart]

Taoist wrote: "In 1931, delivering a body blow to mathematics, Kurt Godel showed once and for all that given any axiomatic system of thought, it is possible to create undecidable propositions."

Taoist, but was Godel's argument true? -Bob

 

[Psycho Dave]

Rev. Enyart wrote:

Taoist, but was Godel's argument true?

True is a tricky word to use, since you use it differently than the scientific community does. Theories are not true or false. They are valid or invalid. What can be said about Godel's incompleteness theorem is that it is more or less valid, and has become the standard in mathematics, because it eloquently and accurately describes what was previously a dilemma. Until someone invalidates it, it will continue to be valid, or "true" in your language. If you have never heard of him or his theorem, then you should not be judging him or it until you have investigated the facts.

About Godel:

He is best known for his proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. In 1931 he published these results in Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme . He proved fundamental results about axiomatic systems showing in any axiomatic mathematical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved within the axioms of the system. In particular the consistency of the axioms cannot be proved.

This ended a hundred years of attempts to establish axioms to put the whole of mathematics on an axiomatic basis. One major attempt had been by Bertrand Russell with Principia Mathematica (1910-13). Another was Hilbert's formalism which was dealt a severe blow by Gödel's results. The theorem did not destroy the fundamental idea of formalism, but it did demonstrate that any system would have to be more comprehensive than that envisaged by Hilbert's.

Gödel's results were a landmark in 20th-century mathematics, showing that mathematics is not a finished object, as had been believed. It also implies that a computer can never be programmed to answer all mathematical questions.

 

[Mr Jack]

Until someone invalidates it, it will continue to be valid, or "true" in your language.

Godel's theorem cannot be invalidated; it has been proven.

 

[Scrimshaw]

Originally posted by Psycho Dave
It's not "usual". It's just not "unbelievable" or "too fantastic a coincidence that it cannot be believed".

Haven't you ever played a game of poker where someone got a royal flush? Also -- be aware that while playing poker, a deliberate selection process goes on where the players discard unwanted cards and keep cards that they want. In essence, this is very much like what happens with evolution, allegorically.

But this logic you are employing is so elastic it can be stretched to explain virtually anything, no matter how improbable it may be. For example, perhaps on some distant planet there is a hill made of cheese. Yes, all the conditions necessary to create such a phenomena are extremely improbable, but according to your logic, and the logic Zakath submits in his last post, this amazing improbability isn't grounds for disbelief because the cheese hill could have occured "early" in the statistical series.

 

[Scrimshaw]

Originally posted by bmyers
And as "time" is used here - admittedly a somewhat more simplistic perspective than the complex time system ("complex" in the sense of utilizing both real and imaginary time axes) - time for us most certainly began then, as we have no possible means of observing anything "before" that point.

"Observe"? No, no. The only thing "we" have "observed" is the universe in it's current state. There is no telescope that can see all the way back to the origin of the universe. There is no time machine that can be used to observe how the universe began, or in what state it was in when it began expanding. Therefore, you have not even observed this "point", let alone anything before it.

 

[Scrimshaw]

Originally posted by attention
You don't need to point that out, since I happen to know that the BB event is not anything like an explosion occuring in pre-existing spacetime.

You "know" this? Did you personally observe the Big Bang occur? Have you observed, tested, and retested the cosmic origin of the universe in a laboratory? Are you repeating BB events inside test tube? If not, please explain how you "know" the Big Bang was not like an explosion, and prove the existence of "pre-existing spacetime".

In cosmic inflation theory, the observable universe derives out of a small (magnitudes smaller then the size of a proton) patch of "false" vacuum, which due to negative pressure state of vacuum causes a negative gravity force, and cause a rapid expansion of spacetime itself.

Yes, I have heard of this cosmological myth before. To call it "scientific" is comical.

Spacetime however already existed, only expanded very rapidly. Presumably spacetime itself is infinite, although that what formed the visible universe, was a very tiny patch that inflated.

You don't have a clue whether or not spacetime began to exist, or is infinite. "Presumably" is the only operative word in your statements. You presume that spacetime is infinite, even though you have no proof. You presume spacetime existed in this mythical state, even though you have no proof whatsoever to show that it did.

Our cosmological discoveries have provided proof for only one claim - The universe is currently in a state of expansion. That's it. How long it has been expanding, what caused it to expand, and from what state it exanded from, are all questions that remain completely unanswered.

Cosmic inflation solves a number of problems in the Big Bang theory, and is reasonably well falsifiable in that it predicts certain characteristics of the universe which can be observed.

The only charateristic it successfully predicted was that the universe is not static, but in a state of expansion. That's it. More on this below..........

Cosmic inflation theory can be proven false, but thus far is not proven false. It correctly predicted the right type of rimples in the CMBR that were the seeds for galaxy formation. Also cosmic inflation explains why the universe is so flat and so homogeneous.

Yes, those two observations would be a byproduct of an expanding universe. Again, the expansion of the universe is the only substantive prediction the inflation theory has made. The rest of the model's "origin" theories are mythical, and can never be proven or disproven.

These are drastically different claims:

A) The universe is currently expanding.

B) The universe has always been expanding and began expanding from a singularity of zero volume and infinite density.

You see, claim "A" has been proven. Claim "B" has not. In fact, it is quite likely that claim is B incapable of being proven to any degree of certainty.

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by Scrimshaw
But this logic you are employing is so elastic it can be stretched to explain virtually anything, no matter how improbable it may be. For example, perhaps on some distant planet there is a hill made of cheese. Yes, all the conditions necessary to create such a phenomena are extremely improbable, but according to your logic, and the logic Zakath submits in his last post, this amazing improbability isn't grounds for disbelief because the cheese hill could have occured "early" in the statistical series.

Existence appears to be the result of a relationship between chance and limitation. It's not just a matter of chance, nor the unfailing result of a set of strict rules or limits. The hill of cheese on the moon is not impossible, because chance and human will does exist. But it is very unlikely because the limits that govern the behavior of matter and energy on the moon have so far made it so. Yet the hill of cheese could occur here on Earth very easily, and in fact may already exist, somewhere where they throw out lots of cheese. So it's not impossible that it could occur on another planet, similar to ours, either. Yet it is more likely to occur in some places than in others.

Probabilities and possibilities are different things. Bob was trying to use his interpretation of the probability of an outcome to establish the impossibility of the outcome. But one is not connected to the other. Impossibility is an absolute concept that can't ever fully be proven. Probability is a relative concept that constantly changes as the parameters and conditions being applied change. They are actually "apples and oranges" and have little to do with each other.

I think it makes far more sense to view existence in terms of chance and limitation: relationships, rather than through infinite or absolute concepts that none of us can prove.

I believe this whole debate, and other similar debates going on these days are really an argument between absolutism and relativism as a method of conceptualizing our experience of existence.

 

[attention]

Originally posted by Scrimshaw
You "know" this? Did you personally observe the Big Bang occur? Have you observed, tested, and retested the cosmic origin of the universe in a laboratory? Are you repeating BB events inside test tube? If not, please explain how you "know" the Big Bang was not like an explosion, and prove the existence of "pre-existing spacetime".

No, have you?


We were just talking about the scientific notion of the Big Bang event, and the scientific notion of the Big Bang is the expansion of spacetime itself.

Yes, I have heard of this cosmological myth before. To call it "scientific" is comical.

What part of it don't you understand then?

You don't have a clue whether or not spacetime began to exist, or is infinite. "Presumably" is the only operative word in your statements. You presume that spacetime is infinite, even though you have no proof. You presume spacetime existed in this mythical state, even though you have no proof whatsoever to show that it did.

Our cosmological discoveries have provided proof for only one claim - The universe is currently in a state of expansion. That's it. How long it has been expanding, what caused it to expand, and from what state it exanded from, are all questions that remain completely unanswered.

Right

Yes, those two observations would be a byproduct of an expanding universe. Again, the expansion of the universe is the only substantive prediction the inflation theory has made. The rest of the model's "origin" theories are mythical, and can never be proven or disproven.

These are drastically different claims:

A) The universe is currently expanding.

B) The universe has always been expanding and began expanding from a singularity of zero volume and infinite density.

You see, claim "A" has been proven. Claim "B" has not. In fact, it is quite likely that claim is B incapable of being proven to any degree of certainty.

Cosmic inflation provided more predictions on the behaviour of the observable universe that were tested for.

The word "never" when it comes to what science is capable of or not in the future, should not be used.

Some hundred years before we would have stated that science would "never" be capable of
- landing men on the moon
- find out what causes the sun to shine
- find out what matter is made up of

etc.

So, we simply have to wait what science in the furture might or might not tell us.

 

[Scrimshaw]

Originally posted by PureX
Existence appears to be the result of a relationship between chance and limitation. It's not just a matter of chance, nor the unfailing result of a set of strict rules or limits. The hill of cheese on the moon is not impossible, because chance and human will does exist. But it is very unlikely because the limits that govern the behavior of matter and energy on the moon have so far made it so. Yet the hill of cheese could occur here on Earth very easily, and in fact may already exist, somewhere where they throw out lots of cheese. So it's not impossible that it could occur on another planet, similar to ours, either. Yet it is more likely to occur in some places than in others.

I agree that cheese hills are possible. But on other planets? As the result of natural processes? My analogy of the cheese hill was hinting at a question - at what point is something so improbable that we consider it "unworthy of belief"? Based on Zakath's argument, there is nothing that can be too improbable for belief because no matter how improbable something is, it could have happened early in the statistical series.

Probabilities and possibilities are different things. Bob was trying to use his interpretation of the probability of an outcome to establish the impossibility of the outcome. But one is not connected to the other.

I disagree. My view is Bob was using great improbabilities to establish an outcome as "unworthy of belief". Hence, my question - at what point is something so improbable that we consider it to be unworthy of belief?

I think it makes far more sense to view existence in terms of chance and limitation: relationships, rather than through infinite or absolute concepts that none of us can prove.

You claimed to be a theist, so what role does your understanding God play in all of this? Does God's activities fall on the side of chance? Or limitation?

I believe this whole debate, and other similar debates going on these days are really an argument between absolutism and relativism as a method of conceptualizing our experience of existence.

Perhaps, but be careful not to oversimpify the issues into an reductio ad absurdum fallacy. I'm sure there is a lot more at play here than mere relativism vs. absolutism. I think this is most evident by all the countless absolute statements Zakath has made throughout the debate.

 

[Scrimshaw]

I said:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Scrimshaw
You "know" this? Did you personally observe the Big Bang occur? Have you observed, tested, and retested the cosmic origin of the universe in a laboratory? Are you repeating BB events inside test tube? If not, please explain how you "know" the Big Bang was not like an explosion, and prove the existence of "pre-existing spacetime".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by attention
No, have you?

No, I don't claim to "know" anything about the origin of the universe. But you did.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I have heard of this cosmological myth before. To call it "scientific" is comical.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What part of it don't you understand then?

The part I didn't understand was why you would say you "know" that the BB wasn't anything like an explosion occuring in preexisting spacetime.



I said:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, those two observations would be a byproduct of an expanding universe. Again, the expansion of the universe is the only substantive prediction the inflation theory has made. The rest of the model's "origin" theories are mythical, and can never be proven or disproven.

These are drastically different claims:

A) The universe is currently expanding.

B) The universe has always been expanding and began expanding from a singularity of zero volume and infinite density.

You see, claim "A" has been proven. Claim "B" has not. In fact, it is quite likely that claim is B incapable of being proven to any degree of certainty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosmic inflation provided more predictions on the behaviour of the observable universe that were tested for.

As I pointed out before, the other phenomena discovered were byproducts of an expanded universe, nothing else.

The word "never" when it comes to what science is capable of or not in the future, should not be used.

So we should "never" use the word "never"? :think: Do you think all things are possible? Do you think alchemy is possible? Time Travel? A planet made of ice cream? A moon made of pig droppings? If some things are inherently impossible, I think we can quite confidently say science will "never" discover them.

Some hundred years before we would have stated that science would "never" be capable of
- landing men on the moon
- find out what causes the sun to shine
- find out what matter is made up of

Notice that all the things you just listed CURRENTLY EXIST, are OBSERVABLE, TESTABLE, and REPEATABLE. Now compare that with the mythical "singularity of zero volume and infinite density" which DOES NOT currently exist but was alleged to exist billions of years in the past, has NOT been observed, has NOT been tested, and is NOT repeatable. Thus, it borders on the realm of logical insanity to compare these phenomena as if they were on equal footing in regards to verification by the scientific method.

 

[attention]

Originally posted by Scrimshaw
No, I don't claim to "know" anything about the origin of the universe. But you did.

The part I didn't understand was why you would say you "know" that the BB wasn't anything like an explosion occuring in preexisting spacetime.

So, your point is that ANY knowledge about the material world, science has developed so far, is merely non-sense, since the only thing we would need to know is stated in the Bible.

Is that your point?

These are drastically different claims:

A) The universe is currently expanding.

B) The universe has always been expanding and began expanding from a singularity of zero volume and infinite density.

You see, claim "A" has been proven. Claim "B" has not. In fact, it is quite likely that claim is B incapable of being proven to any degree of certainty.

Statement B is ridiculous, since there is NO scientific theory that claims that that actualy happened.

It only 'happens' in mathematical models of reality, but this does not predict what exactly happened in the real physical universe.

So we should "never" use the word "never"? :think: Do you think all things are possible? Do you think alchemy is possible? Time Travel? A planet made of ice cream? A moon made of pig droppings? If some things are inherently impossible, I think we can quite confidently say science will "never" discover them.

Indeed, you should never use the word 'never'. I never do that.
Well, almost never.

I stated that it is not impossible that science could figure out what happened that caused the appearance of the observable universe.
You seem to think that since we can not directly observe that, it is therefore impossible, and stated that science can 'never' know that.

But the problem of your assumption is that scientific knowledge already contains many things and makes predictions about things, which we never observed. No scientists has ever seen an electon a proton, for example.

Nevertheless, science can say something meaningfull about them.

Notice that all the things you just listed CURRENTLY EXIST, are OBSERVABLE, TESTABLE, and REPEATABLE. Now compare that with the mythical "singularity of zero volume and infinite density" which DOES NOT currently exist but was alleged to exist billions of years in the past, has NOT been observed, has NOT been tested, and is NOT repeatable. Thus, it borders on the realm of logical insanity to compare these phenomena as if they were on equal footing in regards to verification by the scientific method.

Excuse me but where did I state there was, has even been, or could ever have been a state of Singularity??

Where???

You interpret too much, and don't see what I actually state or not state. That is your problem, not mine.

 

[attention]

Originally posted by Bob Enyart
Taoist wrote: "In 1931, delivering a body blow to mathematics, Kurt Godel showed once and for all that given any axiomatic system of thought, it is possible to create undecidable propositions."

Taoist, but was Godel's argument true? -Bob

Before you ask such a question, can I ask you have you ever read the proof Kurt Godel himself delivered?

Before raising unprofound doubt, perhaps first read the thing itself, and only then try to raise a point about it... -- Rob

 

[Psycho Dave]

Originally posted by Scrimshaw
But this logic you are employing is so elastic it can be stretched to explain virtually anything, no matter how improbable it may be.

I don't think so. I start with an event that is KNOWN TO HAPPEN. People have gotten royal flushes while playing poker. It is something that is known to happen in real life, no matter how statistically improbable it is. Probability does not deal with making the impossible possible. It only deals with probability.

For example, perhaps on some distant planet there is a hill made of cheese. Yes, all the conditions necessary to create such a phenomena are extremely improbable, but according to your logic, and the logic Zakath submits in his last post, this amazing improbability isn't grounds for disbelief because the cheese hill could have occured "early" in the statistical series.

The diference between getting a royal flush in poker, and your extraterrestrial cheese-hill analogy, is that the royal flush in poker is a real occurence, and the cheese-hill is a fictional thing that is not known.

Probability isn't a law that says "The next time this event can occur MUST BE X iterations between events." Probability says "the next time this event can occur can be ANYTHING BETWEEN 1 and ABOUT X ITERATIONS between events.

I mean, sure, the idea of an extra-planetary Cheese-hill is HIGHLY IMPROBABLE. More importantly, it's not known to occur at all. Statistically, it's possible, but highly improbable to the point of unlikely.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by attention
Before you ask such a question, can I ask you have you ever read the proof Kurt Godel himself delivered?

Before raising unprofound doubt, perhaps first read the thing itself, and only then try to raise a point about it... -- Rob

That would certainly be a novel approach in this case....;-)

 

[attention]

Originally posted by bmyers
That would certainly be a novel approach in this case....;-)

Perhaps worth trying in his case, for a change!

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by Scrimshaw
I agree that cheese hills are possible. But on other planets? As the result of natural processes?

Why not? They happen here by natural processes. (*smile*)

Originally posted by Scrimshaw My analogy of the cheese hill was hinting at a question - at what point is something so improbable that we consider it "unworthy of belief"? Based on Zakath's argument, there is nothing that can be too improbable for belief because no matter how improbable something is, it could have happened early in the statistical series.

I guess we each end up having to decide this for ourselves. I personally wouldn't rule out anything absolutely. I just don't have the information to do that. And I don't spend any more time then that on what's not really in front of me ... like, I wouldn't worry much about the probability of gravity being in effect tomorrow since it's never been a problem to date. I only worry about the probability of things that effect me, and that are closer to equal, like, what's the probability of my getting fired if I tell the boss what I really think of him? (*smile*)

In the end, we're all just guessing.

Originally posted by Scrimshaw I disagree. My view is Bob was using great improbabilities to establish an outcome as "unworthy of belief". Hence, my question - at what point is something so improbable that we consider it to be unworthy of belief?

Well, whatever he was doing, he was not establishing such great improbability, he was only establishing the illusion of great improbability. I'm no statistician, but even I could see that he was multiplying his improbability in a linear way and so discounting the exponential nature of chance.

But then for me the whole debate was sort of odd, as I think the question "does God exist" is a "dysfunctional" question.

Originally posted by Scrimshaw You claimed to be a theist, so what role does your understanding God play in all of this? Does God's activities fall on the side of chance? Or limitation?

I don't understand "God" at all. My best definition of God would be that God is a word I use to describe the profound mystery that is the source, sustainance, and "character" of all that is. I also have chosen to believe that this mysterious source is benevolent in character and that this benevolence is being expressed constantly throughout all of existence, and I can experience this mysterious "God" through this benevolence if I choose to.

I believe that existence as we experience it is the result of a ballanced relationship between chance and limitation, and that this relationship appears to be "designed" to produce maximum possibility (I mean this in existential terms). "God" is expressed through both chance and limitation, and through the relationship these have with each other that then produce this amazing plethora of beingness that we call existence.

To try to put it simply; "being" is God expressing God's self. I see this expression (in my own limited way) as generous and benevolent and wonderful, and quite mysterious (due to my limited human comprehension). I can't know God, I'm too limited and God is the whole. But I can experience God as God is expressing Itself through this gift of being, even though I can only experience a tiny fraction of the whole that God is.

Since this is how I understanding of the situation, I couldn't objectively answer the question Bob and Zak are attempting to answer, and I wouldn't accept anyone else's answers even if they posit them. So for me the value of the debate will have to be found elsewhere than it's supposed conclusion.

Originally posted by Scrimshaw I'm sure there is a lot more at play here than mere relativism vs. absolutism. I think this is most evident by all the countless absolute statements Zakath has made throughout the debate.

I don't think Zak considers himself a relativist, and he is not presenting relativism as a counterpoint to Bob's theism. A relativist would not enter such a debate to begin with. But I do think that Bob leans toward absolutism as his preferred method of comprehending his experience of existence, while Zak does seem to be more aware of the "slipperyness" of "truth". I also think Bob is incapable of grasping many of Zak's points because he tends to conceptualize everything in absolute terms, while Zak, too, misunderstands Bob's points because he doesn't accept the absolutist conception that is generating them. They "talk past" each other a lot.

And I admit that as a strong relativist myself, I too have difficulty grasping Bob's points. And I am sure he would not much understand me, either.