On 9/4/2011 12:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 1:42 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 9/4/2011 8:32 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:25 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 04.09.2011 07:51 meekerdb said the following:
...
If that's what you're trying you're giving aid and comfort to the
enemy. Every religious fundamentalist in America hates materialism
and believes in an immaterial spirit, distinct from brain processes,
which is responsible for our thoughts and actions.
You know, I was raised in the USSR where the official religion was
atheism and
materialism. The results were disastrous.
Hence you could take the existence of people in the USA who "believe in
an
immaterial spirit, distinct from brain processes" positively. After
all, they
are working hard and contribute to prosperity.
In any case, I do not think that the ideology should affect reasoning.
Evgenii,
The kind of atheism and materialism which stood as the official religion of
the
Soviet Union, and that held by most atheists today is naive. The leading
scientific explanations for conscious are mechanistic, but taken to its
logical end
mechanism leads to remarkable conclusions: consciousness is not attached to
the
body, it survives death of the body, it continues forever, it may be
reincarnated
into different forms, it may switch between realms. In this respect,
science leads
directly to something very much like a soul.
Only by taking partial theories and over extending them.
If you accept the first few steps of the UDA regarding duplication / survivability with
clones (digital mechanism), and you accept any of the following: 1. the universe is
infinitely big, 2. many worlds interpretation, 3. string theory landscape, 4. ultimate
ensemble or 5. mathematical realism, then it can be clearly demonstrated. I think the
only reason you call it "over extended" is that you are uncomfortable with the conclusion.
If by "accept" you mean "believe", I don't accept 2, 3,4, and 5. I consider 1 to be an
inference from some theories, but I don't necessarily accept those theories. When you
make a long chain of inferences and arrive at a conclusion contrary to experience that is
called a reductio ad absurdum. Then it is time to review your bets.
Similarly, the materialist effort to explain the existence of this universe
without
invoking God ends up pointing to the existence of something that has no
cause,
exists timelessly, contains infinite variation (perhaps everything
possible), may
be identical to the sum of all truth, is everywhere and everything. While
not
every scientist or person on this list agrees with this, it is the
conclusion of
any rational effort to explain the fine tuning of this universe.
I don't think any scientists agrees with all of that.
1. Something exists without a cause (Any Platonist believes this. Also, it is
inconsistent to believe that nothing exists without cause, unless you believe something
can come from nothing)
Most current theories of cosmogony say something like that.
2. Exists timelessly (Again, every platonist accepts mathematical truth exists
timelessly)
That is a peculiarly mathematical meaning of "exists".
3. Contains infinite variation, perhaps everything possible (Mathematical truth is
infinite in scope, and math contains all possible structures, again according to the
platonist philosophy of mathematics (which is the most popular))
Which cardinality of infinite? All of them?
4. Is everywhere and everything (This follows from digital mechanism and platonism.
Most today are unaware of this of course, but I think if all the choices were well
defined and described most rational people would identify with platonism and finite
mechanism.)
"Something exists everywhere and everything"? I don't understand what is being
asserted. Is it a mere tautology?
For no scientist to agree with all of the above means means you think no scientist is
both platonist and mechanist and consistent in his or her beliefs.
It is just armchair philosophizing based on hypotheses like "everything exists".
It is certainly not the *only* possible explaination of the alleged fine tuning of
some physical parameters.
I indicated that not everyone accepts the universe is fine tuned. Again I think you are
uncomfortable with the premise of fine tuning because of where it inevitably leads.
First, I'm not sure the concept is well defined. It is relative to some theory of
possible ranges of parameters that make life possible. That's two "possibles" we don't
know how to define. Second, if a parameter has a life-friendly range of 50 to 100 is that
"fine-tuned"? Are we to compare it to a possible range of 0 to infinity? or -inf to
+inf? Once you start saying that everything happens infinitely many times you lose the
ability to say this is more probable than that and also the ability to say this is
improbable, i.e. fine-tuned.
Beware of those materialists who say all we can see is all that there is.
Beware of those who say they can see what you can't be shown.
There is an inconsistency in seeing what cannot be seen.
But there are those who claim a special ability to see what you can't.
There is no inconsistency in there existing something which cannot be seen. This list
is founded to discuss the idea that the theory that everything exists can explain more,
while assuming less, and remain consistent with observations. If you reject this, then
how large a concept of reality do you think is scientifically justified? The Hubble
Volume? The Block Time Hubble Volume? The minimum 10^23 - 10^26 * the hubble volume
implied by inflationary theories? Infinitely large volume of spacet-time? Any of the
previous with CI or with MWI?
Science isn't about justifying theories. It's about creating models that have predictive
and explanatory power. To ask what concept is scientifically justified is to misconceive
the enterprise. Some theories are better supported by evidence than others. Some are
contradicted by evidence. That's all.
Brent
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