Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I do "believe in ontology". (The most you could say is I don't believe the formalism of quantum mechanics is ontic). But your E=mc^2 description was as ontologically unsound as saying energy is mass battling the great elder dragon named c^2.
... energy is mass battling the great elder dragon named c^2.
I would so read that book!
"... and thus did C^2 strive against the champion M, and the force of their conflict as the battled to and fro did resonate and create E, the vibratory phenomenon within which all such struggles of good and evil must be fought."
Although, for the analogy to be correct, M must be the villain, and C^2 the hero, since we cannot have matter triumphing over fields...
Bamboozle it seems to me would incorporate a desire to deceive. I have no such desire. I have never argued for using incorrect physics and the physics I used was NOT wrong. I argue for using correct physics DIFFERENTLY. The formulations are NOT incorrect. They are a given and established with great rigor. It is the purpose to which they are put that differs in my Synthesis. You do not like the purpose to which they are put to form my ONTOLOGY. Yet no one has proffered an alternate ONTOLOGY . . . just a different USE of the physics AS physics. Morbert doesn't believe in ONTOLOGY . . . so he continues to misrepresent my USE of the accurate physics formulations. The physics I used was NEVER wrong, Arq. The USE that I put the accurate formulations to was different from the USE to which they are put in physics. That would only be wrong IF I were teaching physics. But I am supporting an ONTOLOGY with correct physics . . . that as yet has NOT been countered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morbert
I do "believe in ontology". (The most you could say is I don't believe the formalism of quantum mechanics is ontic). But your E=mc^2 description was as ontologically unsound as saying energy is mass battling the great elder dragon named c^2.
You tend to contradict yourself a lot Morbert . . . and seem unaware of it. By declaring the formalism of quantum mechanics free of ontological interpretation as representations of an underlying reality . . . you are declaring a lack of belief in ontology. ALL measures and the formulations that use them reflect what is going on in our reality . . . not just what is going on in the mathematics. The measures are slices of reality . . . not figments of our imagination..
No, we need to admit that at times there are things beyond knowing, there are things we may never know and there are things we may be better off not knowing. Blind addiction to absolute certainty of any kind leads many into mindless superstition masquerading as gospel truth.
Blind addiction to absolute certainty of any kind leads many into mindless superstition masquerading as gospel truth.
You mean, for example, how evil and dangerous satan- possessed atheists are ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dissily Mordentroge
the specific teachings of Christianity ( & other Semitic religions) that the evil (fallen, atheist etc) have permitted Satan to possess them and are therefore more than simply a non-believer, they are in part or whole a satanic force themselves to be feared and avoided.
You tend to contradict yourself a lot Morbert . . . and seem unaware of it. By declaring the formalism of quantum mechanics free of ontological interpretation as representations of an underlying reality . . . you are declaring a lack of belief in ontology. ALL measures and the formulations that use them reflect what is going on in our reality . . . not just what is going on in the mathematics. The measures are slices of reality . . . not figments of our imagination..
I am so looking for a response to this. Since I don't have the expertise, I think I can see what's wrong with this, but I don't know all the philosophical ins and outs of ontology or the meanings and nature of 'being'. It looks like a vague term being equivocated, the ontology of what we can work out about quantum on evidence and the ontology that is more philosophical speculation. But I'd never be able to push such an argument (not against Mystic) even if I attended a philosophy and quantum mechanics class in tandem for a year, so I'm really relying on you Morbert.
No, we need to admit that at times there are things beyond knowing, there are things we may never know and there are things we may be better off not knowing. Blind addiction to absolute certainty of any kind leads many into mindless superstition masquerading as gospel truth.
Absolutely right. We know there are things we don't know and things we may never know.
This does not invalidate what we are pretty reliably sure of, even if we don't know everything to the nanoparticle about it. That is why evolution is sure, even if we don't have an example of every transitional there ever was and can't prove abiogenesis. That is why no information that I can envisage ever coming to light will be able to reconcile the Nativity dates or make Eden and the flood feasible, at least as in Genesis.
On the other hand, as you say, where we don't know, that is not a recipe for presenting speculative guesswork as fact such as the only explanation of the cosmos is goddunnit and the only possible explanation of NDE's and OOB's is a Soul (never mind the religion attached to that).
Religious apologists routinely turn this whole logical construct on its head and abiogenesis, the Big bang and doubt of Bible reliability are presented as pure faith -based speculation, when there is a lot of reliable evidence to support that, while unsupported speculations of the religious kind are treated as reliable, life -changing fact, not just feasible probabilities. And that's where there is no good evidence and even the evidence argues against it.
But we have seen so often the evidence gets fiddled, quotemined, cherry -picked, lied about or even invented, and I know why. Becasue the conclusion is known to be reliable, life -changing fact on Faith and supporting that with evidence means that falsifying or inventing the evidence is justified.
Lying for Jesus is in fact built into the whole apologetics system. I'm not even going to get into my conviction that the apologist is not even lying for Jesus-as God, but for themselves as God -created -in -their-own image.
No, we need to admit that at times there are things beyond knowing, there are things we may never know and there are things we may be better off not knowing. Blind addiction to absolute certainty of any kind leads many into mindless superstition masquerading as gospel truth.
Of course there are things we can't currently and may never know. That doesn't mean we have to make up placeholders though. Let the unknown be as it is unless and until it can be remedied with actual knowledge.
Most unbelievers are nowhere near as certain as we are made out to be. It is rather like the ancient Norse god Thor being invented to explain thunder. I envision a skeptic of that era (just before being pilloried or burned at the stake or whatever) saying that what makes thunder is simply unknown at this time, but there is no actual evidence for Thor -- and the Thor cult demanding that since he's so CERTAIN there is no Thor, then he prove there is no Thor.
So it's fine to acknowledge the limits of human knowledge, perception and intellect, but NOT for the purpose of justifying faith-based beliefs or a need for same to stand in for human knowledge. That is just classic "god of the gaps".
Of course there are things we can't currently and may never know. That doesn't mean we have to make up placeholders though. Let the unknown be as it is unless and until it can be remedied with actual knowledge.
Most unbelievers are nowhere near as certain as we are made out to be. It is rather like the ancient Norse god Thor being invented to explain thunder. I envision a skeptic of that era (just before being pilloried or burned at the stake or whatever) saying that what makes thunder is simply unknown at this time, but there is no actual evidence for Thor -- and the Thor cult demanding that since he's so CERTAIN there is no Thor, then he prove there is no Thor.
So it's fine to acknowledge the limits of human knowledge, perception and intellect, but NOT for the purpose of justifying faith-based beliefs or a need for same to stand in for human knowledge. That is just classic "god of the gaps".
Great post. I like the analogy of Thor and the unknown of thunder.
I have no problem with humanity being an accidental product of the Big Bang. We are not "nothing," in the sense that we are stardust that happened to organise. While we are alive and sentient, we are humans. When we die, our molecules rearrange. That's it. There is no reason why. We have no purpose but that which we give ourselves.
Which makes me think a focus on the individual's or humanities so called purpose side steps a larger picture. There's a possibility that over time the collective intellectual accomplishments of any conscious species can outlive that species, not in any afterlife incarnation or whatever, but embodied in other life forms we may create be they a hybrid artificial intelligence/biological entity or something that at this time we can't begin to imagine. 'Purpose' itself is a loaded word anyhow, especially if combined with 'ultimate'.
I'm more interested to learn if the universe as we find it necessarily leads to organised intelligence and what the implications may be in the long term.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
