Is Jesus Christ a man or a god?

[Ginkgo]

sorry double post

[Immanuel Can]

You are confusing 'First cause' with methodology.

Not so. I know the difference. A methodology is a procedure, and scientific method is just such a procedure. But procedures cannot be rationalized upon themselves: they need to be rationalized based on ontological facts. A procedure that does not square with the way things genuinely are ontologically simply produces false data or does not work at all, like phrenology and alchemy.

Certain ontological facts a prior to scientific methodology, such as the belief that the universe will operate in a law-like manner and that the way to explain it is to uncover laws such as cause-and-effect. These things just have to be taken for granted. Once they are, we see that the method works: but prior to working the method, we know no such thing. So a conception of causality is the only thing that underwrites scientific methodology, but that conception of causality is prior to all methodology. First things first, right?

Science is not self-generated, but is produced by an ontological tradition that you take for granted before you ever do it. Consider your own education in science. Chances are you started when you were way too young to know anything about scientific method. But a teacher in a white lab coat told you things in a very authoritative way, and he said if you performed this or that operation, you would find this or that result. He showed you how to hypothesize, organize data, rule out anomalies, and so on.

And you believed him. And you did it. And it worked. But you did not know beforehand it would. And you do not have any prior guarantees that men in white lab coats always tell the truth.

As for Bacon, he was an ardent Theist. Go read his writings, and you'll see, no question. Start with his essay "Of Truth," for example. Likewise many great scientists of the past and present. So the simplistic science-versus-religion notion is of recent vintage and really misrepresents history. As a historical fact, science comes out of Theism...but not polytheism or pantheism. Interestingly, science only emerges in the West -- not because Westerners are smarter than the Indians or the Chinese, say, who are more numerous and at least as intelligent as westerners, but because of their lack of rational Monotheism, a legacy we get from the Christians and which they get from the Jews.

You're welcome.

[Ginkgo]

"You are confusing first cause with methodology"

Not so. I know the difference. A methodology is a procedure, and scientific method is just such a procedure. But procedures cannot be rationalized upon themselves: they need to be rationalized based on ontological facts. A procedure that does not square with the way things genuinely are ontologically simply produces false data or does not work at all, like phrenology and alchemy.

Yes, science cannot "rationalize' itself because it uses a particular methodology. In exactly, the same way first cause uses a particular methodology in order to "rationalize itself. I think we established this almost obvious fact.

Yes, people use ontology and first cause arguments to "rationalize" science all of the time. It goes under the name of "pseudo-science", aka., Creationism, YEC and Intelligent Intelligent Design.

Quite simply they believe they can extend the scientific methodology beyond its capabilities. I know you are good IC, but you're not that good. At this stage, no one is.

Certain ontological facts a prior to scientific methodology, such as the belief that the universe will operate in a law-like manner and that the way to explain it is to uncover laws such as cause-and-effect. These things just have to be taken for granted. Once they are, we see that the method works: but prior to working the method, we know no such thing. So a conception of causality is the only thing that underwrites scientific methodology, but that conception of causality is prior to all methodology. First things first, right?

Almost correct. It is a particular type of causality that underwrites science. Sure, if you want to take first things first then you stretch science beyond its methodology and you end up with pseudo-science. The golden rule is that you do not introduce into science a methodology that it is incapable of accommodating.

Science is not self-generated, but is produced by an ontological tradition that you take for granted before you ever do it. Consider your own education in science. Chances are you started when you were way too young to know anything about scientific method. But a teacher in a white lab coat told you things in a very authoritative way, and he said if you performed this or that operation, you would find this or that result. He showed you how to hypothesize, organize data, rule out anomalies, and so on.

And you believed him. And you did it. And it worked. But you did not know beforehand it would. And you do not have any prior guarantees that men in white lab coats always tell the truth.

By the time I got to university I saved my ontological tradition for the philosophy classes, and when I studied science I saved my scientific ontology for the science classes.

As for Bacon, he was an ardent Theist. Go read his writings, and you'll see, no question. Start with his essay "Of Truth," for example. Likewise many great scientists of the past and present. So the simplistic science-versus-religion notion is of recent vintage and really misrepresents history. As a historical fact, science comes out of Theism...but not polytheism or pantheism.

That's for the history lesson.

[Immanuel Can]

In exactly, the same way first cause uses a particular methodology in order to "rationalize itself.

I think perhaps you're not quite understanding what's meant by "First Cause." First Cause is not a Theistic concept per se, but rather a universal necessity that relates to science itself. It requires absolutely no metaphysical beliefs to realize it.

First Cause is simply the idea that causal chains cannot go backwards forever. At some point, there has to be a first action in the chain of actions. Science sees reality as a chain of causes. So it's perfectly reasonable to ask science, what caused effect X or Y, and in fact, to go backwards until you ask questions like, what caused the Earth to exist, or what caused the natural laws upon which science depends to exist...that sort of thing.

As we go backward down the scientific causal chain, we're going to get to the big questions about our origin. We might ask (as indeed science does routinely ask), how did this place come to exist? So we might say, "The Big Bang." But we might then ask, as scientific persons, "Why did the Big Bang happen?" And the answer might be, "Hydrogen and helium," or some other set of noble gasses. Okay, but then the next question is "Where did these gasses originate?" and also, "What catalyst caused them to explode?" -- for again, science does not posit that effects can happen uncaused. So maybe the next answer is, "A quantum vacuum..." or "a black hole," or whatever. But you can see what's going to happen: no matter what you say, there is going to be a previous cause required unless you can arrive at a point where no more regression is possible. And that would be your First Cause. See? No Theism so far.

Now, you may say there is no necessity that the First Cause should be a personal entity. That is a secondary question, and we can engage it as well. But what one can't rationally say is there's no need for a First Cause. Even purely Materialist science is going to require that there was some kind of First Cause. And for the moment, I'm happy if we can see that point in common.

As for ontology, I would point out that ontology isn't some specially Theistic thing either: it's a standard department of secular philosophy, because It just refers to the reality of "what is." Everybody has a view of "what exists," or "what is the real composed of," and that's ontology.

Secularists posit an ontology, as do Theists. They just don't posit quite the same ontology. Secularists and Theists agree that "the real" includes things like trees, rocks, persons, animals, etc. They start to disagree when they get to entities like "persons," "selves," "souls," and so on, then get farther apart yet when they get to entities like "values" and "morals," and then depart company completely on the issue of the existence of God. But both have ontologies.

This might help clear up a few ongoing misunderstandings of what we are saying to each other, I trust. So far so good?

[Ginkgo]

I think perhaps you're not quite understanding what's meant by "First Cause." First Cause is not a Theistic concept per se, but rather a universal necessity that relates to science itself. It requires absolutely no metaphysical beliefs to realize it.

Perhaps the problem is I understand it too well.

First Cause is simply the idea that causal chains cannot go backwards forever. At some point, there has to be a first action in the chain of actions. Science sees reality as a chain of causes. So it's perfectly reasonable to ask science, what caused effect X or Y, and in fact, to go backwards until you ask questions like, what caused the Earth to exist, or what caused the natural laws upon which science depends to exist...that sort of thing.

As we go backward down the scientific causal chain, we're going to get to the big questions about our origin. We might ask (as indeed science does routinely ask), how did this place come to exist? So we might say, "The Big Bang." But we might then ask, as scientific persons, "Why did the Big Bang happen?" And the answer might be, "Hydrogen and helium," or some other set of noble gasses. Okay, but then the next question is "Where did these gasses originate?" and also, "What catalyst caused them to explode?" -- for again, science does not posit that effects can happen uncaused. So maybe the next answer is, "A quantum vacuum..." or "a black hole," or whatever. But you can see what's going to happen: no matter what you say, there is going to be a previous cause required unless you can arrive at a point where no more regression is possible. And that would be your First Cause. See? No Theism so far.

Your Big Bang cosmology is not quite right. Perhaps we can examine this aspect and then look at teleology.

Prior to the Big Bang there were no noble gases, there were no particles or atoms. In fact, time and space did not exist. In other words there was no causality we could trace back along a chain. Quite simply causality did not exist until a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. To talk of causality prior to the Big Bang is meaningless.

The reason being the universe was considered to be a point. A point of infinite density, infinite temperature and possibly infinite curvature. As I said, science can give us cause and effect explanations just after the Big Bang, but not before. As to what it was like 'before' the Big Bang, no one knows, although there are a number of competing theories at the moment.

This is why science doesn't posit any casual 'before' when it comes to the Big Bang. The assumption that we can go backwards along a chain in order to find the 'before' answers is obviously unscientific. In the absence of causation it is a meaningless exercise to seek and explain such things in casual terms.

[uwot]

A procedure that does not square with the way things genuinely are ontologically simply produces false data or does not work at all, like phrenology and alchemy.

The thing you don't appear to understand about science is that it is completely independent of ontology. It is entirely possible to be a scientist and an idealist in the way Berkeley or Hegel were. You can be a monist, like Spinoza, a Cartesian dualist, or you might push the boat out and go for Popper's three world system. There is no problem with being a theist and a scientist; the whole point of metaphysics is that it is beyond physics-unless there is an observable difference between a world in which there is a god and one in which there isn't, it doesn't make any difference to science.

Certain ontological facts a prior to scientific methodology, such as the belief that the universe will operate in a law-like manner and that the way to explain it is to uncover laws such as cause-and-effect.

This is simply not true. Our most comprehensive and accurate model of the universe is Quantum Mechanics, which is statistical rather than causal. Einstein said of it God doesn't play dice. He like you believed there had to be 'hidden variables', unseen causal relationships; but still the most widely adopted approach to QM is the Copenhagen Interpretation; like QM itself a nebulous and confusing term, but in essence an instrumentalist entity that has been caricatured as 'shut up and calculate'. The point being that no one knows why or how QM works, but it does, spectacularly well, without any assumption of cause and effect.

Science is not self-generated, but is produced by an ontological tradition that you take for granted before you ever do it. Consider your own education in science. Chances are you started when you were way too young to know anything about scientific method. But a teacher in a white lab coat told you things in a very authoritative way, and he said if you performed this or that operation, you would find this or that result. He showed you how to hypothesize, organize data, rule out anomalies, and so on.

This is complete fantasy. You are confusing teacher and preacher. Teachers of science, good ones, do not stand in the pulpit sermonizing and the whole reason that science has progressed is that scientists challenge the ideas, assumptions and even methods of their predecessors and peers; scientists are not all singing from the same hymn sheet.

So the simplistic science-versus-religion notion is of recent vintage and really misrepresents history.

The problem is not with the metaphysical concept of god; religion and science are only in conflict when a religion makes a particular testable claim that observation then shows to be false; famously when Galileo showed that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, or the overwhelming evidence that the Earth is substantially more than a few thousand years old.

As a historical fact, science comes out of Theism...but not polytheism or pantheism.

Modern science came out of the invention of the telescope and microscope, which vastly increased our view of the universe and broke the church's stranglehold on dogma, by showing that what it said wasn't true. Theism resisted the advance of science.
The Renaissance was partly inspired by the reintroduction to Europe of Greek philosophy. Science, in ancient Greece, was inspired by Thales of Miletus, who reacted to the polytheistic mythical explanations of natural phenomena by rejecting gods and attributing natural events to natural causes.

First Cause is simply the idea that causal chains cannot go backwards forever. At some point, there has to be a first action in the chain of actions. Science sees reality as a chain of causes.

No it doesn't.

[uwot]

Your Big Bang cosmology is not quite right.

That's one way of putting it.

[Immanuel Can]

Perhaps the problem is I understand it too well.

I don't think so. Not the way you're expressing it, anyway. You certainly aren't understanding what I'm meaning, whatever else is the case.

Your Big Bang cosmology is not quite right. Perhaps we can examine this aspect and then look at teleology.

Teleology is the other end of things...the direction things are going, not where they've come from.

My care in my earlier answer was not to give a particular Big Bang cosmology, but rather to show how, for a Materialist, the causal chain might look. I have no interest in defending any Big Bang cosmology at all, so you can suit yourself on the details of that one.

As to what it was like 'before' the Big Bang, no one knows, although there are a number of competing theories at the moment.

Yes, precisely. And what are they theories about? They are theories about what caused the Big Bang. That's where we need to get to.

This is why science doesn't posit any casual 'before' when it comes to the Big Bang. The assumption that we can go backwards along a chain in order to find the 'before' answers is obviously unscientific. In the absence of causation it is a meaningless exercise to seek and explain such things in casual terms.

No, it's only unscientific to say what the cause of the Big Bang might be if one doesn't have any evidence, or if one states it too firmly for the evidence one has. But that's unimportant here. What's important is that science completely agrees that *something* must be back there. The Earth did not pop into existence out of nothing. Something caused it to come about. And that's as far as I need agreement for the moment. Because something must also have caused that...which was caused by that...which was caused by that...and so on.

[Ginkgo]

I don't think so. Not the way you're expressing it, anyway. You certainly aren't understanding what I'm meaning, whatever else is the case.

In future I will try for better expression.

Teleology is the other end of things...the direction things are going, not where they've come from.

That's probably why I suggested we leave it for later.

My care in my earlier answer was not to give a particular Big Bang cosmology, but rather to show how, for a Materialist, the causal chain might look. I have no interest in defending any Big Bang cosmology at all, so you can suit yourself on the details of that one.

Well, then why did you post it as an example of a "materialist casual chain"? It is actually a very good example why materialist casual chains don't work in science.

No, it's only unscientific to say what the cause of the Big Bang might be if one doesn't have any evidence, or if one states it too firmly for the evidence one has. But that's unimportant here.

Then why are you mentioning it if it is unimportant?

What's important is that science completely agrees that *something* must be back there. The Earth did not pop into existence out of nothing. Something caused it to come about. And that's as far as I need agreement for the moment. Because something must also have caused that...which was caused by that...which was caused by that...and so on.

In scientific terms it is possible the universe had a cause. In scientific terms it is possible the universe didn't have a cause. We are in agreement that know one knows at this stage. If science is restricted to casual explanations in terms of casual chains then this automatically excludes the possibility that the universe was not caused by anything.

Universal causation is not the same as scientific causation. In other words, the scientific methods is based on the idea of limited causation.

..which was caused by that, which was caused by that and so on... is a metaphysical explanation for causation.

[ReliStuPhD]

To talk of causality prior to the Big Bang is meaningless.

Untrue. Scientists are doing it as we speak. e.g The Carroll-Chen Model. Philosophers certainly do it (and do it well). They are perhaps wrong, but "meaningless" is certainly not how their peers describe their work.

[uwot]

To talk of causality prior to the Big Bang is meaningless.

Untrue. Scientists are doing it as we speak. e.g The Carroll-Chen Model. Philosophers certainly do it (and do it well). They are perhaps wrong, but "meaningless" is certainly not how their peers describe their work.

It depends on their peers. I hadn't heard of the Carroll-Chen model and what I can gather from a google search suggests that very few scientists have either. Can you give us an abstract?
I don't think many philosophers would use the word meaningless in that context anymore, but unless some observable phenomenon is predicted, it is scientifically meaningless-it is metaphysical. You can make up any story you like about things that make no difference to what we can possibly experience. Like everyone else, scientists can have their own pet theory about how everything came to be, but until there is something that can be objectively seen, it isn't science.

[ReliStuPhD]

To talk of causality prior to the Big Bang is meaningless.

Untrue. Scientists are doing it as we speak. e.g The Carroll-Chen Model. Philosophers certainly do it (and do it well). They are perhaps wrong, but "meaningless" is certainly not how their peers describe their work.

It depends on their peers. I hadn't heard of the Carroll-Chen model and what I can gather from a google search suggests that very few scientists have either. Can you give us an abstract?

I believe this is the relevant abstract: "We suggest that spontaneous eternal inflation can provide a natural explanation for the thermodynamic arrow of time, and discuss the underlying assumptions and consequences of this view. In the absence of inflation, we argue that systems coupled to gravity usually evolve asymptotically to the vacuum, which is the only natural state in a thermodynamic sense. In the presence of a small positive vacuum energy and an appropriate inflation field, the de Sitter vacuum is unstable to the spontaneous onset of inflation at a higher energy scale. Starting from de Sitter, inflation can increase the total entropy of the universe without bound, creating universes similar to ours in the process. An important consequence of this picture is that inflation occurs asymptotically both forwards and backwards in time, implying a universe that is (statistically) time-symmetric on ultra-large scales."

If not, his c.v. is found here (and is suprisingly well-linked. Kudos to him.)

I don't think many philosophers would use the word meaningless in that context anymore, but unless some observable phenomenon is predicted, it is scientifically meaningless-it is metaphysical. You can make up any story you like about things that make no difference to what we can possibly experience. Like everyone else, scientists can have their own pet theory about how everything came to be, but until there is something that can be objectively seen, it isn't science.

It's refreshing to hear someone say this. Too many people going around saying science can shed light on this or that without recognizing they're talking about metaphysics. If Ginkgo meant "scientifically meaningless" I would be more inclined to assent.

Edit: BUT, I think the word "meaningless" still doesn't quite fit. Scientists theorizing about what we currently consider to be metaphysical questions might well show them to be physical, and therefore meaningful. Or perhaps that particular avenue of thought leads to a breakthrough in some unexpected field, or proves to undermine the Big Bang theory itself. All this to say, to speak of a particular avenue of research to be "meaningless" may itself be an unscientific claim.

[thedoc]

It's refreshing to hear someone say this. Too many people going around saying science can shed light on this or that without recognizing they're talking about metaphysics. If Ginkgo meant "scientifically meaningless" I would be more inclined to assent.

Edit: BUT, I think the word "meaningless" still doesn't quite fit. Scientists theorizing on what we currently consider to be metaphysical questions might well show them to be physical, and therefore meaningful. Or perhaps that particular avenue of thought leads to a breakthrough in some unexpected field, or proves to undermine the Big Bang theory itself. All this to say, to speak of a particular avenue of research to be "meaningless" may itself be an unscientific claim.

I have to agree with this, even a negative result tells us something, that which is not true. Often research in one area has led to information that has been useful in another area, it just took someone with the vision to see how that knowledge could apply. The history of science is full of discoveries that crossed lines from one ares to another to yield advances in technology, and often these were totally unexpected.

[Ginkgo]

It's refreshing to hear someone say this. Too many people going around saying science can shed light on this or that without recognizing they're talking about metaphysics. If Ginkgo meant "scientifically meaningless" I would be more inclined to assent.

My full quote alludes to the scientifically meaningless. However, you are right, it was not explained well enough. I needed to be more specific. More exactly, I should have said meaningless in terms of classical science.

Metaphysically possible covers a large number of possibilities, not considered by science. It is metaphysically possible for zombies to exist. Just ask David Chalmers.

Edit: BUT, I think the word "meaningless" still doesn't quite fit. Scientists theorizing about what we currently consider to be metaphysical questions might well show them to be physical, and therefore meaningful.

Yes, and it is often the case.

Or perhaps that particular avenue of thought leads to a breakthrough in some unexpected field, or proves to undermine the Big Bang theory itself. All this to say, to speak of a particular avenue of research to be "meaningless" may itself be an unscientific claim.

Yes, I should have specified classical science as reaching a stage of meaningless. As to whether my term "meaningless" is accurate I'll let you be the judge. What would you make of a an initial singularity that has zero volume, infinite density and infinite temperature? It's all done with mathematics.

[Ginkgo]

To talk of causality prior to the Big Bang is meaningless.

Untrue. Scientists are doing it as we speak. e.g The Carroll-Chen Model. Philosophers certainly do it (and do it well). They are perhaps wrong, but "meaningless" is certainly not how their peers describe their work.

Again, my error for not being specific enough. I wrongly assumed that people would have understood that I was talking about causation in relation to science I was talking about science up to and including Einstein.

Generally it is accepted that if we want to talk about what happened prior to the Big bang then we need a quantum explanation. The classical explanation for cause and effects do not apply at this tiny level.

This is what I am trying to say, but obviously not very well.