[moz]

Anyone wish to discuss philosophy? I'm studying this currently lightly. The first topic usually is God so carry it away. But this is a philosophy thread, so only logical arguments such as cosmological, ontological, etc.

I've only touched on the cosmological argument which wikipedia somewhat adequately summarizes in two versions:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.


and

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.


The argument is for God and God being that first cause. It seems reasonable at first glance but...

[Lord Nerevar]

I remember reading somewhere that cosmologists had identified events in the universe that were without cause. I don't know if that's true and I read it a couple of years ago, so I could be remembering it incorrectly, but just throwing out there.

Also my favourite arguments on the subject of God are the Paradox of the Stone and the Problem of Undeserved Suffering. These arguments against the existence of God are formed around the Augustinian definition of God: that He is the most perfect being possible in the universe.

In the Paradox of the Stone, the question is "can God create a stone that he himself cannot lift?" If He can, then there is the possibility of an item that He, a perfect being, cannot lift. If He can't, then He cannot create anything possible. Either option leaves you with a God that is not omnipotent, lacking in the perfection of power. Such a being cannot perfect, and Judeo-Christian concepts of God demand such a perfect being. This challenges the concept of true perfection and the existence of God.

The Problem of Undeserved Suffering considers the fact that God, being a perfect being, must be omnipotent (all-powerful), omiscient (all-knowing) and morally perfect. However, if this is the case, the question is "why do innocents suffer undeservedly?", such as has happen with the Japanese Earthquake, which kills indiscriminately.

[xcessive]

Vacuum/Quantum fluctuations show energy CAN be created and destroyed in the form of subatomic particles, which (seemingly but not truly, but thats tangential) discredits the first law of thermodynamics and the need for a creator.

I study Science at university.

[Sparrow]

Anyone wish to discuss philosophy? I'm studying this currently lightly. The first topic usually is God so carry it away. But this is a philosophy thread, so only logical arguments such as cosmological, ontological, etc.

I've only touched on the cosmological argument which wikipedia somewhat adequately summarizes in two versions:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.


and

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.


The argument is for God and God being that first cause. It seems reasonable at first glance but...



It is not reasonable because the human experience is an incredibly shallow one. Philosophy relies on the appropriate questions being asked; our concepts of cause and effect, time, existence, the finite and the infinite, might be so deranged as to make all the philosophical conclusions we reach, pointless. We're asking what was that Primal Cause that set the works in motion, when in fact that sort of questioning has no place in reality.

No matter how confident you are that your conclusions are air tight logical to the nth degree, you still have that one sticky question to ask yourself...'how do you get something from nothing?'.

[xcessive]

It is not reasonable because the human experience is an incredibly shallow one. Philosophy relies on the appropriate questions being asked; our concepts of cause and effect, time, existence, the finite and the infinite, might be so deranged as to make all the philosophical conclusions we reach, pointless. We're asking what was that Primal Cause that set the works in motion, when in fact that sort of questioning has no place in reality.

No matter how confident you are that your conclusions are air tight logical to the nth degree, you still have that one sticky question to ask yourself...'how do you get something from nothing?'.

Getting something from nothing is easy, refer to my above post. It happens billions of times a nanosecond.

Having said that I still think there is an argument for A God, although perhaps not in the way most would conceive of. Let me explain. We know that the human brain is made of billions of neurons, none of which are touching. They are separate, yet communicating. Furthermore there are many regions of the brain that process specific groups of things; for example the precentral gyrus is known for motor initiation and somatic mapping, Broca's area is important for hand gestures and motor control in speech - etc. The point is this; the brain has many disparate functions, but where does it all come together? At what place does it become consciousness, the fundamental "I"? The best answer modern Neuroscience has been able to come up with may not please you, nevertheless it is that the mere processing of data as a unit, gives rise to the experience of a conscience, and the idea of the ego, the me, whatever you want to call it. Simply put, the facets create the whole without need of a singularity or convergence point. Given this assumption think on this: if all our brains are separate and are processing "as a whole" the same reality (which minor Einsteinian differences, but lets ignore these as they are inconsequential) does that mean that our collective intelligence would give rise to a higher conscience? Are we collectively all a "God"? Personally I think there would be nothing more fitting than this. The universe created us from star-stuff, intricate patterns built up over time, through chance and oppertunity and error we came to be. And now, in the very act of arguing the existence of a God, in trying to validate out own ephemeral and entirely unprovable existence we create "God". Not a benevolent creator, nor a wicked dictator, but instead whatever we are, our collective thoughts and dreams.

I have, however, strayed away from science, and into half supported speculation. But if that is not the fuel of Philosophy, I don't know what is.

[Stephen Palmer]

I'm intrigued to know what "currently lightly" means!

[Sparrow]

Getting something from nothing is easy, refer to my above post. It happens billions of times a nanosecond.

That's not what I meant.
We're talking about the existence of a God or some other creation entity or medium. If something exists, than it had to at one time not exist. Even in a realm where the 'beginning' has no real context you either have material that has always existed with no means of creation, or material that was created from nothing.

Having said that I still think there is an argument for A God, although perhaps not in the way most would conceive of. Let me explain. We know that the human brain is made of billions of neurons, none of which are touching. They are separate, yet communicating. Furthermore there are many regions of the brain that process specific groups of things; for example the precentral gyrus is known for motor initiation and somatic mapping, Broca's area is important for hand gestures and motor control in speech - etc. The point is this; the brain has many disparate functions, but where does it all come together? At what place does it become consciousness, the fundamental "I"? The best answer modern Neuroscience has been able to come up with may not please you, nevertheless it is that the mere processing of data as a unit, gives rise to the experience of a conscience, and the idea of the ego, the me, whatever you want to call it. Simply put, the facets create the whole without need of a singularity or convergence point. Given this assumption think on this: if all our brains are separate and are processing "as a whole" the same reality (which minor Einsteinian differences, but lets ignore these as they are inconsequential) does that mean that our collective intelligence would give rise to a higher conscience? Are we collectively all a "God"? Personally I think there would be nothing more fitting than this. The universe created us from star-stuff, intricate patterns built up over time, through chance and oppertunity and error we came to be. And now, in the very act of arguing the existence of a God, in trying to validate out own ephemeral and entirely unprovable existence we create "God". Not a benevolent creator, nor a wicked dictator, but instead whatever we are, our collective thoughts and dreams.


We are not Gods; our conscious state is the manifestation of millions of years of Earthly evolution. It is no more or less than a survival mechanism. The human brain is organic and can no more exist outside itself than can our liver, or heart, or any other organ in our body. When the blood flow stops then it's lights out, forever.

Let me explain. We know that the human brain is made of billions of neurons, none of which are touching. They are separate, yet communicating.


So what?
We know how this communication occurs and while amazing it's hardly a good argument for some greater communication or higher existence. There's nothing mystical about the human brain.

[moz]

Won't try to quote everyone, too much text so just going in order of responses:

Nerevar: A simpler way to express the stone paradox is this: Can god create a universe that was not created by him? And in order for the concept of perfection to exist, the concept of imperfection must also exist. Can't have one without the other, otherwise it would have no meaning.

xcessive: Is there a semi-dumbed down article I can look at that explains that? Isn't conservation of energy and mass preserved though in the end?

Real philosophy isn't speculation, it uses the rules of logic and attempts to question and validate everything through logical reasoning.

As you yourself are aware of, we're made of stardust. But what about the time before mankind existed? What then? We existed before then in this collective 'god' consciousness you're proposing? We created ourselves? Think you're trying to attempt the intelligent design argument but from a different angle. This is Hume's argument for intelligent design:

1. The material universe resembles the intelligent productions of human beings in that it exhibits design.
2. The design in any human artifact is the effect of having been made by an intelligent being.
3. Like effects have like causes.
4. Therefore, the design in the material universe is the effect of having been made by an intelligent creator.

By design, I mean you wouldn't expect a house to be built by itself by throwing bricks, mortar, and other stuff together. They require some kind of architect that carefully lays down things in an ordered fashion. Another metaphor, you wouldn't expect a watch to come together just by throwing a bunch of metals together, no they required some kind of intelligent design.

Few things wrong with the argument though. If we're going to compare designers, why not compare to the intelligent designers themselves? For example, you find a watch and you would reason that an intelligent human designed it. Humans came from propogation and the universe. So did the intelligent designer of the universe also come from some kind of propogation? Another possible objection is that the designer of the universe must be complex and have incredibly complex structure, so does that mean the designer also have a designer? But this would lead to an ad infinitum situation where we just keep going further back and back.

Sparrow: I only copied and pasted the arguments from wiki, wasn't arguing for them. I was going to bring up the creating something from nothing thing after the 'but...'

The reasonable parts come from our acceptance of cause and effect, everything that happened has a cause, so the chain goes further and further back until the beginning of the universe. So the question was what caused that? Did the universe cause itself, making it circular reasoning? Or was it caused by something else? And if that something else existed, does that something also have a cause? Does that cause itself have a cause and go on ad infinitum?

Another point is that the universe cannot 'begin' to exist without some kind of establishment of time which would possibly imply that time existed before the universe?

Personally, I really don't know how the universe came to be. Maybe there exists some higher order of reality above our current one. Maybe there are beings living in that higher plane of reality. And maybe it goes on forever, who knows.

This is another Hume masterpiece of reasoning about God's morality if we assume he exists, pretty surprising:

There are four things God can be:
1. He can be absolutely good.
2. He can be absolutely evil.
3. He can be both good and evil.
4. He can be neither good nor evil.

Few other premises before I continue:

The universe seems to abide by certain natural laws and do not deviate from them. Even if we don't understand or know all of the natural laws, they seem fairly consistent. If there were inconsistancies, no natural laws could be devised from the universe because of the inconsistencies. Nature seems to effect things indiscriminately, not caring about the suffering that it causes, it just does as it does.

So with that, we can rule out that God is absolutely good because if he was absolutely good, there would be constant violations of nature because God, with his infinite power, would intervene whenever evil things were happening. He'd stop a bullet from killing a child. But such things do not happen, there aren't such violations of nature.

By that same token, we can also rule out that God is absolutely evil for the same reasons.

Can god be both good and evil? But then he'd have a contradictory nature. He'd be fighting against himself. In doing that, there would be constant battles between good and evil which would be evident to us in the form of violations of natural laws again. But nature doesn't seem to discriminate.

So where does that leave us? If God existed, God must be neutral, neither good nor evil.

[Loerwyn]

We are not Gods
I know I'm arguing a pedantic point here, but this little thing stood out to me. It's really, really, really just a small point. When refering to He of the Christian faith (And, arguably, by extension of the Islamic and Judaic faiths), it's God and His/He, whereas other gods are simply 'god'. Only when referring to Him should a capital 'G' be used. :)

Personally, I believe it's perfectly possible for gods and magic to exist, or at least to have existed. My personal theory (Although one I'm not willing to prove, disprove or otherwise, as I'm not sure I believe it) is that the world has a set level of magical energy that is dispersed amongst the populous, and only a certain 'type' of person can access this energy. As humanity has grown as a species the amount per person has decreased, and for various reasons (Inquisitions, witch burnings etc), the bloodlines of magically-inclined people have faded to the point where less people are able to manipulate this energy, and due to societal views, these people are often sidelined due to what most people think of as a 'magician'.

I think Sparrow did actually touch on a good point, though. Our limitations with regards to thought and belief do cloud our views and judgements from time to time. We might be seeing something, but draw the wrong conclusion - Something we have done countless times over the centuries with regards to things we now think are simple - and it may only be with future generations or advances in technology/science/mathematics that we understand these things.

Science does not disprove religion; Religion does not displace science. Both can, and often do, exist side by side. The mathematical nature of the universe does not disprove extrauniversal beings and religion does not disprove science. It is entirely possible that we, and by 'we' I mean the universe, were created by some external being and have been 'closed off' from that universe. What if we were created in some being's equivalent to the LHC?

Personally, I like the philosophy that goes with words. My favourite is Nothing is impossible, just highly improbable. :)

[xcessive]

I am fairly sure at this point that no-one actually understood anything I said.

That's not what I meant.
We're talking about the existence of a God or some other creation entity or medium. If something exists, than it had to at one time not exist. Even in a realm where the 'beginning' has no real context you either have material that has always existed with no means of creation, or material that was created from nothing.

Sparrow, here you seem to have simultaneously missed the point, and contradicted yourself. First you say that if something exists, then it had to at one time not exist, however you then say "you either have material that has always existed with no means of creation, or material that was created from nothing.". In addition to being contradictory, this is also a moot point. I agree completely, and always have. In my opinion the universe either existed forever, or was crated a giant quantum fluctuation. To make things clear I am NOT religious. I was not making a case for God, just a different kind of intelligence.

We are not Gods; our conscious state is the manifestation of millions of years of Earthly evolution. It is no more or less than a survival mechanism. The human brain is organic and can no more exist outside itself than can our liver, or heart, or any other organ in our body. When the blood flow stops then it's lights out, forever.
Look, my major is Human Biology, I know better than most the nuances of evolution that led to encephalisation. And it isn't millions of years, its billions. My point was not that the brain is some mystical entity. It was that WE DO NOT KNOW where the sense of self comes from, where consciousness comes from. Since each part of the brain seems to do separate things, why do we think in a holistic coherent way? Thus I just put forward a little bit of my musings upon this, and extrapolated the hypothesis. I never said it was a good argument, I only said it was food for thought.

Perhaps we are the raw material that evolved to form this higher consciousness. Much like our own cells - maybe - if they could think they might think they are an individual in a great community, when really they are only the units that make up our existence. First there was mere RNA, the beginning of a great tree of evolution. Then came cells that housed the newly altered form of RNA known as DNA. Then these cells made up organisms, and now perhaps organisms make up something else. Why can these "millions of years of evolution" not progress towards another level of intelligence? Of course I don't actually believe any of this, and I certainly wouldn't waste my time trying to prove it, I am just trying to make people think. Its more of a verbose and bombastic troll (I can't think of a better word) than anything else.

So what?
We know how this communication occurs and while amazing it's hardly a good argument for some greater communication or higher existence. There's nothing mystical about the human brain.
Actually we don't REALLY know. We know that neurotransmitters can cause continuations of action potentials, that there are excitatory, inhibitory neurotransmitters and synapses. We even know how to sum up some simple neuron-synaptic complexes. But we don't know how it all functions, the biochemistry is perhaps just out of our reach. Lately though some have argued it is perhaps the Neuroglia, not the neurons, that are more important in this. The point is Neuroscience is still int he dark ages, go take a course and start asking questions. You might be surprised to find how many times you get an answer that goes something like this - "We don't know". I digress, what I meant to say was this: I was not using it as an argument, I was expressing the ambiguity of the situation.

@moz: http://www.braungardt.com/Physics/Vacuum%20Fluctuation.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html
http://universe-review.ca/R03-01-quantumflu.htm

Also you said: "As you yourself are aware of, we're made of stardust. But what about the time before mankind existed? What then? We existed before then in this collective 'god' consciousness you're proposing? We created ourselves? Think you're trying to attempt the intelligent design argument but from a different angle."
Please re-read what I have said. I was never arguing for a designer.