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.
Thank you. I hadn't heard the Theologian Swinburne's objection ot he Multiverse theory (creating a gazillion entities in order to explain a couple of parameters) but it would have been a bit embarrassing to me. it is rather nice therefore to hear that this objection is unsound because the Multiverse is not only more correctly a few entities needed to explain those parameters (the analogy was made that the explanation of Oxygen in the air is just a sew entities and the gazillions of Oxygen atoms in air is a product of that explanation and is not what is invented out of nowhere to make the explanation work) but the multiverse is predicted by other physical theories.
I also liked the predicted model universe if it had been designed (I was a bit disappointed that he didn't use my favourite - there would have been no need for extinctions ) and particularlythe one about low entropy at the start of the universe (or it might have been Big bang) not being needed if a god was just doing it. It was also neat to hear the response to the 'God used physical laws' explanation. That the physical laws are (in that case) adequate to explain without the need for a God.
I was reminded of the 'God put the fossils there to test out Faith -or maybe it was Satan to mislead us.' Apart from a theory that admits of two polarized opposites of the mechanism, the point is that they are there because they occurred naturally is an adequate (not to say better fitting the evidence) explanation and thus there is no good reason to postulate the God/Satan theory. It in fact falls under the principle of parsimony.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-21-2015 at 03:05 PM..
Their eyes go opaque white as soon as you mention anything they don't want to hear anyway. I might mention that I wasn't always convinced. I understood the objection to the 'Why' aspect of the cause. In a universe without a Creator there doesn't need to be a purpose or meaning, plan or intent 'Why'. But there is still this problem of what started it all off? Where did the first potentiality (the nearest thing to nothing that is actually something) come from? Who said 'go!'?
He doesn't deal with this aspect except play the rather evasive 'Before the Big bang there was no space or time' (1) card.
'Who made everything, then?' is still a gap for God and a good one. There are good responses, and that 'deolators (nice term)' just brush them aside as 'Ridiculous, just your theory, you can't prove it, Look -everyone knows that nothing can come from nothing.' does not make them less good. And there is still the 'Which god?' reply (which is a Killer - for all they brush that aside, too) So the Theists cannot win the 'First cause' debate or even make much of a case. And that is the best they got. Really.
(1) as evasive - sounding I have to say as the 'Abiogenesis is not part of evolution -theory' response. In the Creationist mindset, Cosmology is part of evolution theory, never mind abiogenesis. (that's why I use the term 'Evilooshun' to distingish Evolution as meant by Creationists from evolution as used by evolutionists.(2) I always try to give a fair reply to this.
(2) Ha! You will come to know that I suffer from a chronic footnote disease....This is what I call 'playing with their pieces'. Because, otherwise you are simply not having the same discussion. Though this does not extend to debating 'Cats from dogs, whales from cows' or other "Crocoduck" misconceptions, as they are not just extending the debate beyond the scientific definition, but are simply Wrong and do not understand what they are talking about.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-22-2015 at 04:44 AM..
Our sermon on Sunday was about Father's and how every thing even older people do every day matters because what we do today affects our descendants for generations. If we do bad things it can cause a curse for 4 generations. If we obey God it can cause good for thousands of years.
As a senior citizen, I like that what I do every day affects more than just me. I think my family is being blessed today because we had good God-fearing parents and grandparents. I would like to pass that blessing on to my children and grandchildren.
This issue isn't no good needed unless we are pitting one belief sytem against another another belief sytem for me. I am only intrested in how the universe works, not how I feel about it.
The issue is "no Omni-dude". It's a multi verse within one universe if there are other universe. There is no reason that god isn't from the same confluences of events that we are. All that means is that god is part of the universe. That's a all we can say for now and that is a good thing. "No need" for a god" really isn't known yet. The processes forming this universe may have very well needed other universe(s) to form and those universe may be life.
so, all in all, we are right back to where we were before. No Omni-dude pointing his figure and throwing lightning bolts. "no nothing" still doesn't match observations. Jesus teachings, are very good teachings even though I don't think he rose. I still can't see how one area of earth can be "alive" and the rest of the earth can't be. Its sort of like a cra for me. I see the engine in the car, its part of the car, there is no "not part" of the car.
He doesn't deal with this aspect except play the rather evasive 'Before the Big bang there was no space or time' (1) card.
As creatures of space/time, I wonder whether humans could ever get past this limit. It seems akin to the question of whether a fish could ever grasp the idea of "not water".
We're pretty darn smart, a few of us amazingly so, but I see no reason to think that our intellectual capacity is limitless.
Thanks for posting this Larry, Carroll has a gift for efficient idea packaging!
As creatures of space/time, I wonder whether humans could ever get past this limit. It seems akin to the question of whether a fish could ever grasp the idea of "not water".
We're pretty darn smart, a few of us amazingly so, but I see no reason to think that our intellectual capacity is limitless.
Thanks for posting this Larry, Carroll has a gift for efficient idea packaging!
Caroll touched on this. The 'Promissory note' that Gaylenwoof mentioned in connection with qualia and the hard question. can science ever come up with an explanation, let alone a provable one? I would not risk a very large bet on them never being able to come up with at least a good part of the answer.
Their eyes go opaque white as soon as you mention anything they don't want to hear anyway. I might mention that I wasn't always convinced. I understood the objection to the 'Why' aspect of the cause. In a universe without a Creator there doesn't need to be a purpose or meaning, plan or intent 'Why'. But there is still this problem of what started it all off? Where did the first potentiality (the nearest thing to nothing that is actually something) come from? Who said 'go!'?
He doesn't deal with this aspect except play the rather evasive 'Before the Big bang there was no space or time' (1) card.
'Who made everything, then?' is still a gap for God and a good one. There are good responses, and that 'deolators (nice term)' just brush them aside as 'Ridiculous, just your theory, you can't prove it, Look -everyone knows that nothing can come from nothing.' does not make them less good. And there is still the 'Which god?' reply (which is a Killer - for all they brush that aside, too) So the Theists cannot win the 'First cause' debate or even make much of a case. And that is the best they got. Really.
(1) as evasive - sounding I have to say as the 'Abiogenesis is not part of evolution -theory' response. In the Creationist mindset, Cosmology is part of evolution theory, never mind abiogenesis. (that's why I use the term 'Evilooshun' to distingish Evolution as meant by Creationists from evolution as used by evolutionists.(2) I always try to give a fair reply to this.
(2) Ha! You will come to know that I suffer from a chronic footnote disease....This is what I call 'playing with their pieces'. Because, otherwise you are simply not having the same discussion. Though this does not extend to debating 'Cats from dogs, whales from cows' or other "Crocoduck" misconceptions, as they are not just extending the debate beyond the scientific definition, but are simply Wrong and do not understand what they are talking about.
Even asking the question in that form is intellectually dishonest. It relies on far too many unfounded assumptions, the big one being that anything was "made" at all. You can't even assume that causality had anything to do with the existence of the universe, because causality is a time-bounded function and time may not have started yet. The only honest approach is to say that we just don't know, but maybe we can figure it out.
Just in the last 50 years our instrumentation has progressed by leaps and bounds. We now see things back to the cosmic microwave background, which is very early in the history of the universe. There is also a cosmic neutrino background, and the universe became transparent to neutrinos quite a while before it became transparent to photons. We just can't build the detectors to examine it. Yet. It would give us a glimpse closer to the initial conditions. Once the theorists have experimental observations to go on, they can sit down and try to figure out what happened.
Abiogenesis is another area of inquiry that gets completely shut down if you decide life was not a natural development. We're still redefining what "life" is. Prions were a surprise, but we discovered that free floating protein molecules can replicate (reproduce) without benefit of any cellular structure, RNA or DNA. We have no idea how many different kinds there are or where they live. Going from an amino acid soup to a self-replicating molecule is not a big step, and once reproduction starts, so does evolution. We may not have demonstrated abiogenesis, but we are closing in on it.
The thing that makes God such a lousy theory is that, as soon as you ring in the supernatural, it closes off all other lines of inquiry. Moving God to 13+ billion years ago is just an attempt to make the god hypothesis less testable. We have already embarrassed the deolaters by proving that God doesn't make the sun and moon rise and set, Newton does. God doesn't make the sun shine, Bethe does. The supernatural was a way that primitive people had of trying to understand the world. The more we understand, the more God vanishes.
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.
) and particularlythe one about low entropy at the start of the universe (or it might have been Big bang) not being needed if a god was just doing it. It was also neat to hear the response to the 'God used physical laws' explanation. That the physical laws are (in that case) adequate to explain without the need for a God.
Their eyes go opaque white as soon as you mention anything they don't want to hear anyway. I might mention that I wasn't always convinced. I understood the objection to the 'Why' aspect of the cause. In a universe without a Creator there doesn't need to be a purpose or meaning, plan or intent 'Why'. But there is still this problem of what started it all off? Where did the first potentiality (the nearest thing to nothing that is actually something) come from? Who said 'go!'?
