determimism

[Obvious Leo]

Invoking god as creator of the universe is not consistent with physics.

Physics can make no statement about the existence or nature of god but Newtonian physics definitely refutes the proposition that the universe is everything that exists. The so-called "laws of physics" and the vast array of mathematical constants in physics must have an origin external to the universe itself. This is what all the multiverse bullshit is about, Hobbes. Most physicists are atheists but they can't escape the implications inherent in Newton's assumption that reality is determined according to a suite of laws. Where the fuck did they come from?

It's the most remarkable piece of tautologous thinking in the history of the human species. The laws of physics came straight out of the minds of the blokes who invented them.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Well, if I did, at least it's consistent with known physics. Or Leo's theory, for that matter.

Invoking god as creator of the universe is not consistent with physics.

Is that definitive? Because if it is, your contradicting yourself.

Please point to my contradiction.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Invoking god as creator of the universe is not consistent with physics.

Physics can make no statement about the existence or nature of god but Newtonian physics definitely refutes the proposition that the universe is everything that exists. The so-called "laws of physics" and the vast array of mathematical constants in physics must have an origin external to the universe itself. This is what all the multiverse bullshit is about, Hobbes. Most physicists are atheists but they can't escape the implications inherent in Newton's assumption that reality is determined according to a suite of laws. Where the fuck did they come from?

It's the most remarkable piece of tautologous thinking in the history of the human species. The laws of physics came straight out of the minds of the blokes who invented them.

I think most mature physicists know what they mean by "Laws'. and they are not anything like a god given set of rules. I think what we have here is a linguistical legacy problem; a bit like calling "living things" Creatures. which implies CREATION.
The etymology of "law" as a rule that must be obeyed in the sense, that the law is primitive in advance of the actions it prescribes is unfortunate but seriously I think most scientists, realising that laws change in any event are not as confused as you might think. The problem comes with Christian Science which views it job as opening the Book of Nature, and thereby uncovering a divine plan.
Goof scientists have figured out that what we call a "law" is just a description of the determined consequences of isolatable and predicable actions in controlled situations.

So- things fall to earth. We describe this with the term gravity. For Newton with was Gods hand keeping the universe in action.

[Obvious Leo]

We are very much on the same page, Hobbes, and your use of gravity as an example was an inspired choice. Even physics cannot concoct a "law" to account for why an object will fall to the ground when dropped. In fact this is a rare example of where physics has got it right.

Q. Why does Newton's apple fall to the ground.

A. It just does. This is a fundamental property of the universe and to this day physics remains incapable of figuring out what this means.

[Hobbes' Choice]

But not even Newton was that stupid. He is famous for saying Hypotheses non fingo, in his Principia.

"I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction."

Which is saying basically the same as - shit just happens; I'm just describing what I see.

Publicly he was required to preface his writing as all had to with the usual bending over for God. Publicly the idea that he was showing God's grand plan was plain enough. But given the words above, whether or not he believed in a personal god is an open question.

[The Inglorious One]

informed spontaneity

?? This is not a term I'm familiar with so I'll ask you to explain what you mean by it.

We cannot know the real nature of reality -- not because we are too unsophisticated or because we effect it in some way when we try to measure it, but because it has no real nature. It is indefinite. "Indefinite," however, is not the same thing as "indeterminate." Things are "fuzzy," that is to say, there are no defined boundaries until we define them. That's why logic is indefinite and all models are approximations: we perceive an average, an average that is not locally determined but not unaffected by our perception of it: we are part and parcel of the system/process. A spontaneous event does not occur in a vacuum, but is informed by the whole, including ourselves.

Three referees were sitting in a bar. The first one says, "I call them as I see 'em." The second one says, "I call them as they are." The third one says, "They ain't nuthin' until I call them."

I absolutely agree with the point you make here. If the universe had a beginning then it had an external causal agent and thus the universe is not everything that exists.

The world is coming to an end! We agree on something! I have always been uncomfortable with the notion of an "external causal agent."

On the grounds that any philosophy has to start somewhere with some axiomatic principles I adopt the first law of thermodynamics as one of mine. The universe cannot be created or destroyed and is therefore eternal. The only other axiomatic principle necessary to my philosophy is the universal Aristotelian doctrine of causation. All effects must be preceded by a cause.

Now I'm beginning to suspect we are closer than either one of us thought. Aristotle, however, named four causes. In this, I agree with Aristotle.

Absolutely true. A true model of the universe must define a cosmos not only sufficient to its own existence but also sufficient to the existence of any complex entity it contains, including life and mind. In other words such a model must comply with the theory of evolution. However an "atemporal process" is an oxymoron because any process can only be modelled temporally in terms of interwoven causal domains.

Not necessarily. There are new theories on the horizon based on scalar waves. However, it's a point I'm not going to quibble over.

However this is not a theistic model because such a universe cannot be defined as a Being. It is strictly pantheistic in the same sense that Spinoza and Einstein saw it. These guys were very much of the view that "the universe is god" but this is nothing like the god that the Abrahamic monotheists are offering us. This is more like the Tao of the eastern philosophies.

I have very often said that God is not a Being.

There is a difference between the pantheism of Spinoza and Einstein and the panentheism that I'm advocating. What I propose is not the god some Abrahamic monotheists offer, but "some" is not all. In all the Abrahamic monotheistic religions, there are long-held traditions that are very similar to Eastern traditions: Kabbalah, for example, also Sufi and a long list of Christian "saints."

[Scott Mayers]

There is a difference between a real thing and an idea. If this were not the case then anything I dream would have material existence.
Maths is a system of ideas that have been developed to help us describe the universe. But most of its postulates are not real in any sense.

No two apples are the same, so the equation 1+1=2 is only an approximation. The two apples occupy different places in space, cannot have the same mass, vary in temperature... and so on.
There are no straight lines in nature, no perfect spheres, there are no integers. irrational numbers are - well irresolvable - and yet there are thought to pertain to things which are. Even Euclid's Fifth postulate is not true in reality.

So give logic and maths its correct place. They offer analytically true statements, that work within their own assumptions and postulates systems, but only approximate reality when applied to the real world.
Throughout you have offered an idea of maths as truth. You might just as well have said that there exists a world that only has 2 dimensions. Such an idea has been expressed in Flatland, but it all examples, reality demands thickness.

You haven't answered how using any essential thing like reasoning within any scientific argument can have any validity if the very validity of this reasoning is neither provable nor disprovable. This only adds confusion when you get to the premise in the method that states that all theories must be disprovable. Up front it suggests an odd mindset that appears to approve of uncertainty and an irrational means to proceed fairly. No wonder religions still persist elsewhere. But maybe this was done on purpose?

"No two apples are the same"? I already explained how we define things based on demonstrating similarity of ALL things to one class while distinguishing their essential differences making the member unique.

Let any letter represent objects here. In fact, let them only represent themselves as the letters they are:

1. TT ...........a set of two T's.

2. hh ............a set of two h's.

3. yy ............a set of two y's

induced general form of the above observational samples denoted:

C. xx ............a set of two x's such that 'x' stands for any letters in the domain = {T, h, y}. Let this domain be symbolized or assigned as D1.

Then let us call the above generalization "A set of any two things given D1."

This is a form or generalization of specific things in reality that denote what 'Two' means. If you think only the initial things are real but not the concluding generalization they are based upon, then you have to always denote directly everything uniquely everywhere.

The domain, D1, above demonstrates the 'differences' between its members by both showing all options and limiting it to that domain. In reality, with regards to an infinite set, we add an element that stands as any variable defined. For here, this might be the class domain of all available letters one can use.

C above is real too but acts as a form into which you can place variable elements into.

If you question the real nature of this, you can revert this by declaring it conditionally true while maintaining initial experiments 1, 2, and 3 as real and what follows predictably. Any confirmation of what you think is true by the pattern already has to be true by the general form of it. And since you cannot have C be both true and false of the same thing, either you have to abandon it or 'fix' it by providing a new dimension where it can exist. Thus, C is always true regardless at least somewhere.

This proves that at least one 'form' or 'idea' exists independent of other normal everyday objects. This is a sample of the 'laws' of which science refers to when replacing the meaning of these symbols above with sensory data (observations) rather than mere data from memory. The external world is variable, and thus only equal in value to internal memory by their common means to be defined as real.

Two apples are the same to one another by what makes the definition of "apple" remain constant. If one apple happens to be bigger than the other, are you supposed to say I have one big-apple and one non-big-apple? What I mean is am I not allowed to refer to a common unit of measure, an "apple" where the definition serves to define things both similarly and differently?

I hope this helps convince you and Leo better but am beginning to doubt that if one cannot accept logic as being real, I am likely wasting any effort. And I won't reduce my argument to an appeal to a Chewbacca Defence although I think this likely has more convincing power here by the way people think.

[The Inglorious One]

Publicly [Newton] was required to preface his writing as all had to with the usual bending over for God. Publicly the idea that he was showing God's grand plan was plain enough. But given the words above, whether or not he believed in a personal god is an open question.

Wow, man. You should go back to school. It's off topic, but I can't let this one go.

Newton was a devout Christian who wrote extensively about Christianity. In fact, he wrote far more words on religion than he did on science. Newton believed the Triune god was false doctrine and therefore refused ordination in the Anglican Church, a decision that almost cost him his position at Cambridge University, but his belief in a personal god is absolutely NOT open to question.

[Obvious Leo]

Once again I'm in furious agreement with you, Inglorious. Not only was Newton a deeply religious man he was a Christian fundamentalist zealot of impressive calibre, even by the lofty standards of his own era. To put it frankly the man was a fucking nut. He even spent years calculating to the very date and time exactly when god created the universe and finished up disagreeing with Ussher by a few years. He defined the universe as an artefact of the mind of god and he specifically defined the Cartesian 3D space as one of god's senses. This last was in rebuttal to Leibniz who insisted that the Cartesian space was purely a mathematical object with no ontological provenance whatsoever. Sadly Newton won this argument with Leibniz and physics hasn't made a lick of sense ever since, although nobody in the past 300 years has ever returned to this a priori assumption of Newton's to examine its logical consistency. Nowadays the way Newton modelled the universe would be described as a "virtual reality" because he absolutely and quite literally assumed that all of physical reality existed purely in the mind of god. It may be very difficult for an educated 21st century person to grasp the significance of this but the consequences for science have been astonishing. Even to this very day physics is bound to an exclusively creationist paradigm.

[The Inglorious One]

Once again I'm in furious agreement with you, Inglorious.

The world IS coming to an end! Seriously, though, our differences are, to me, beginning to look more semantic or systematical than substantial.

[Hobbes' Choice]

There is a difference between a real thing and an idea. If this were not the case then anything I dream would have material existence.
Maths is a system of ideas that have been developed to help us describe the universe. But most of its postulates are not real in any sense.

No two apples are the same, so the equation 1+1=2 is only an approximation. The two apples occupy different places in space, cannot have the same mass, vary in temperature... and so on.
There are no straight lines in nature, no perfect spheres, there are no integers. irrational numbers are - well irresolvable - and yet there are thought to pertain to things which are. Even Euclid's Fifth postulate is not true in reality.

So give logic and maths its correct place. They offer analytically true statements, that work within their own assumptions and postulates systems, but only approximate reality when applied to the real world.
Throughout you have offered an idea of maths as truth. You might just as well have said that there exists a world that only has 2 dimensions. Such an idea has been expressed in Flatland, but it all examples, reality demands thickness.

You haven't answered how using any essential thing like reasoning within any scientific argument can have any validity if the very validity of this reasoning is neither provable nor disprovable. This only adds confusion when you get to the premise in the method that states that all theories must be disprovable. Up front it suggests an odd mindset that appears to approve of uncertainty and an irrational means to proceed fairly. No wonder religions still persist elsewhere. But maybe this was done on purpose?
.

I don't need to. Science verifies itself by replicability, and demonstration.

This proves that at least one 'form' or 'idea' exists independent of other normal everyday objects

Yes your example demonstrates ONLY that ideas exist as ideas, and can only be used approximately to describe the universe. In reality A is not equal to A, except as an idea. And as Idea is exactly what you multiverse is, nothing more. It is not demonstrable and therefore remains an idea until it is demonstrated.
You seem to be making my own argument by stating that; "This proves that at least one 'form' or 'idea' exists independent of other normal everyday objects."
I'm not sure where you are wanting to take this.
As I said earlier you are failing to make a valid distinction between the synthetic and the analytic; between the realm of ideas and the world. You are a naive idealist in this sense.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Publicly [Newton] was required to preface his writing as all had to with the usual bending over for God. Publicly the idea that he was showing God's grand plan was plain enough. But given the words above, whether or not he believed in a personal god is an open question.

Wow, man. You should go back to school. It's off topic, but I can't let this one go.

Newton was a devout Christian who wrote extensively about Christianity. In fact, he wrote far more words on religion than he did on science. Newton believed the Triune god was false doctrine and therefore refused ordination in the Anglican Church, a decision that almost cost him his position at Cambridge University, but his belief in a personal god is absolutely NOT open to question.

I've forgotten more about Newton than you now know. Of course Newton was a Theist or deist, of one sort or another, but as Master of Trinity college we all know that his critique of the doctrine of the Trinity was problematic for him. That does not make him a 'devout christian". it makes him a rebel. God was in the machine of the universe; the driving force which kept it all going.
We'll never know to what degree his skepticism would have allowed him to jettison most of the rest of Christianity, but we do know that many of his ideas were far too crazy for him to be considered a christian.
In public, as with all people of his time, Theism was the norm and atheism and heresy was a burning issue.
It's only now becoming more obvious just how crazy he was, full of mystical ideas, and a master of alchemy, and Pagan spiritualism.
To find out more please consult my University's page: The Newton Project, which is transcribing all his works into a single data-library.
http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=1

[Hobbes' Choice]

Once again I'm in furious agreement with you, Inglorious. Not only was Newton a deeply religious man he was a Christian fundamentalist zealot of impressive calibre, even by the lofty standards of his own era. To put it frankly the man was a fucking nut. He even spent years calculating to the very date and time exactly when god created the universe and finished up disagreeing with Ussher by a few years. He defined the universe as an artefact of the mind of god and he specifically defined the Cartesian 3D space as one of god's senses. This last was in rebuttal to Leibniz who insisted that the Cartesian space was purely a mathematical object with no ontological provenance whatsoever. Sadly Newton won this argument with Leibniz and physics hasn't made a lick of sense ever since, although nobody in the past 300 years has ever returned to this a priori assumption of Newton's to examine its logical consistency. Nowadays the way Newton modelled the universe would be described as a "virtual reality" because he absolutely and quite literally assumed that all of physical reality existed purely in the mind of god. It may be very difficult for an educated 21st century person to grasp the significance of this but the consequences for science have been astonishing. Even to this very day physics is bound to an exclusively creationist paradigm.

Yes he was a nut-job, and no that does not make him a 'devout Christian'. He was well off field. In fact he was totally out of the arena.

[Obvious Leo]

In fact he was totally out of the arena.

In more ways than one. Nowadays he would be sectioned under the Mental Health Act as a dangerous sociopath and removed from contact with society. Not only was he pathologically delusional in his religious fantasies he was perhaps one of the most villainous and unlovable misanthropes in history. I've studied his life and works in quite some detail and without question he was an arsehole in a class of his own. I never use the word "evil" to describe any person or deed but if I did then Newton would be a prime candidate for such a usage.

[Hobbes' Choice]

In fact he was totally out of the arena.

In more ways than one. Nowadays he would be sectioned under the Mental Health Act as a dangerous sociopath and removed from contact with society. Not only was he pathologically delusional in his religious fantasies he was perhaps one of the most villainous and unlovable misanthropes in history. I've studied his life and works in quite some detail and without question he was an arsehole in a class of his own. I never use the word "evil" to describe any person or deed but if I did then Newton would be a prime candidate for such a usage.

It's been suggested that he was autistic, or had Asperger's syndrome. He was odd: like sticking bodkin behind his eye to see what would happen. He wrote at least a million words on the occult and alchemy.
Most of what he achieved he had completed early in his life, and most of the rest of it was empty-headed nonsense.