Philosophy Now Forum

Unless or until an infinite Universe can be falsified it will remain a valid propostion The fact that it is not logical is irrelevant as logic and empiricism are not the same Actually, you are correct. We now know we live in a flat universe (in 2 dimensions). Everything is moving away from everythi...

A quantum state obviously isn't a "nothing." It's a state OF something. For example, if it's a state "of matter," then we're back to the infinite regress problem, because the "matter" in question needs a causal explanation of its own. In that case, we would be positing...

In the Sandy Hook, Newton school killings the boy with the gun did not hesitate to point a gun in the faces of six/seven year old children and pull the trigger. 20 children were massacred clinically and with utter precision, leaving no chance that life would continue. Lanza was allowed to have guns...

A quantum state obviously isn't a "nothing." It's a state OF something. For example, if it's a state "of matter," then we're back to the infinite regress problem, because the "matter" in question needs a causal explanation of its own. In that case, we would be positing...

I thought that the design argument was a teleological argument. That depends on what you mean by "teleological argument." If you mean that an "end" or "outcome" ( telos ) has to be implied, it isn't. The design argument follows the pattern of argument-to-the-best-expla...

From there, we must pick up a new argument if we wish to figure out the identity and precise nature of the Supreme Being...which is why more than one such argument exists in the first place. And my suggestion is that the design argument is the best next candidate, or the teleological argument. Both...

Aristotle's unmoved mover is sentient because it has an intellect. I can't think of any non-sentient candidates. Where that leaves us, then, is here: we know there has to have been a First Cause, one that is eternal, uncaused, and now sentient as well. That leaves us uncertain as to the exact natur...

Sorry, double post.

Well, Aristotle's unmoved mover springs to mind. Okay, we could go with something like that. I guess what we need to ask about that is whether there are any candidates for non -sentient First Causes. Are you satisfied that there are none? Aristotle's unmoved mover is sentient because it has an inte...

OK, let us assume that we can trace causes and their effects back to a first cause. What comes next? Well, the point is that we don't have to be able to "trace" anything...all we have to know is that mathematically, an infinite regression of causes is impossible, and we're involved in a l...

BTW Can you please stop quote mining it's getting very tiresome? I can. But if I do, our messages get progressively longer, and longer and longer...and that's even more tiresome. I would prefer that we really on the little arrow in blue beside our names, which instantly takes us back to the totalit...

I note this. But a "cause" automatically implies an "effect," and the reverse is true as well; and "effect" implies there was a "cause." "Contradiction" is not the right word for the problem: "entailment" is. The one is entailed by the oth...

...what I am saying is that cause and effect in the physical world is a fact. Oh. Okay. Well, then how do you then say... ...there are effects without causes. Okay, then...now you say there are such things as effects that have no causes. That seems to contradict your claim that cause-and-effect is ...

At this juncture we are up to casual chains. I'm fine with going back to that. I believe I asked you if you thought causality was a delusion, and you said it was, because of quantum physics. But if causality is a delusion, then you surely don't believe in science; for science rests on inductive det...

Belinda wrote: At this juncture we revert to "is God necessary for morality?" I claim not so because morality is intersubjective and not an objective, natural and absolute law.

Please don't start Immanuel Can off on this again, I couldn't stand it. At this juncture we are up to casual chains.