The First Cause was not God.

[Thief]

Animation is movement. Like I said, rocks are not very animated, but they do interact with their environment. Trees or plants are more animated than rocks, they interact in a more complex manner. Insects are more animated than trees. Animals are even more complex and highly animated than any other forms. Everything interacts and everything is animated to some extent and at varying levels all the way down to those animating forces themselves, the Fundamental Forces. This should not be confusing, it is very simple logic.

Animation includes life.

We call cartoons animated only because they appear to move.
That would be an optical illusion.
Most of us know better than to be confused about it.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Animation includes life.

We call cartoons animated only because they appear to move.
That would be an optical illusion.
Most of us know better than to be confused about it.

There is nothing to confuse. Animation does include those highly interactive, highly animated forms we call life. Cartoons do move, but they are not complex enough to move on their own energy. That complexity is important. It is only that complexity which separates what we call life from non-life.

 

[Sonofason]

Not quite. We do not know that spirits exist. We do not know if leprechauns wear underwear. But until there is good reason to believe that leprechauns exist at all, the question is pointless. We may ask if angels wear underwear. But angels, if they exist, are presumed to be spirit. As far as we know, wearing underwear presumes a physical form. The most reasonable answer is that No, angels do not wear underwear, even if they exist. (If angels do not exist, then of course there are no underwear-wearing angels.)

The only examples of consciousness and volition we know of are tied closely to physical processes. The most reasonable answer based on what we know is that spirits do not have consciousness and volition, even if they exist. If spirits do exist and if they have consciousness and volition, the nature of that consciousness and volition would appear to be problematic. Not being based on physical processes, could these functions be anything like what we mean by those terms?

Talking about the possibility of spirits having consciousness and volitions requires three assumptions:

1. That spirits exist – no real evidence for this
2. That they are capable of consciousness and volition – problematic in the absence of physical processes
3. That being non-material these functions resemble the human ones in any meaningful way – making conclusions based on this assumption rather shaky



Time as we know it is an attribute of this universe. We know that the time we are familiar with is not the Absolute Time assumed by Newton. It is different for different observers. There is no such thing as simultaneity. According to Einstein there is only space-time. According to Hawking what we call time and space can swap places. According to Thorne space-time can even loop. How all this works is very much associated with the nature of the universe. There may be universes prior to or parallel to this one where the details of time are different. But what we call time is very much a physical phenomenon.

Virtually all theologians I am familiar with, beginning with Augustine, agree that God made time when he made the world. That is, even by broad consensus of theologians, time is physical, part of this world.

My point was that if God is timeless, there is even less connection with what we call consciousness and volition. But if God experiences time in some fashion, then God is not changeless as it generally said. God would have created the universe at some point in time and thereby changed. This raises the question of why God would have chosen that moment. Since God is presumably the original sole existence, what external factors could have prompted him? But if God simply decided to pick that moment for no reason, how is that any different from randomness?



My point was that a metaphysical answer is needed. Your point is that God is needed. I am arguing that even though a metaphysical answer is required God is not needed. God is in fact problematic. I am not making your point. I am making mine: that existence is natural and that all things that can be, are. As I have argued this explains more with fewer problems and fewer assumptions than either the materialist or the theist/deist explanations.



There may be a multitude of life out there but it is clearly extremely rare. The vast and I mean vast majority of the universe is utterly inhospitable to anything that we would call life above the simplest chemical reactions. The ‘purpose’ of the universe is not life. The conditions for intelligent life are even rarer. That is definitely not the ‘purpose’. (We could mention the obviously absurd idea that the purpose of this vast, ancient and exotically complex universe is humankind and maybe even only some of them, but why bother? That is not anything that you have been saying.)

So why did God create this particular universe? What considerations went into this decision? Where did these considerations come from, since God is supposed to be the original sole existence? If God had no reason for doing it this way, how is this different from randomness?



Aristotle did not say that he did not know why things fall. On the contrary, he gave an explanation. Things that fall are less perfect and naturally fall toward the center of the earth, which is the ultimate imperfection. Things that rise are more perfect and naturally rise toward the source of perfection in the sky. In Aristotle things moved according to their metaphysical nature, not due to any forces between bodies. Aristotle’s explanation was a moral one.

Quite a bit is understood about the physical nature of gravity. More needs to be learned. But it is a physical phenomenon, not a metaphysical one, as Aristotle wanted. I would launch into a description of General Relativity and work being done on hypotheses of Quantum Gravity. But I do not have that much time. And anyway Legion would challenge my abilities in the mathematical discipline of tensor analysis, which I admit defeated me.



Why should God have those particular attributes as opposed to any other attributes? What pre-existing conditions determined that? If no explanation is needed for arbitrary attributes, why does there need to be an explanation for the universe?

Why should God exist, indeed… Why is there God instead of nothing? There must be some principle of existential imperative. But why should this principle lead to arbitrary and problematic characteristics like consciousness and volition, which we know are not attributes of everything and therefore not inherently natural? Why should this unexplainedly conscious and volitional being decide to create exactly this universe as opposed to any other?

Given a principle of existential imperative, without which we have no reason for God to exist, and avoiding the pitfall of assuming arbitrary characteristics to be somehow pre-existent without reason, we can explain what we see – this arbitrary and apparently pointless universe – by the simple conclusion that everything that can be, is. That every possible universe exists, that all possible eventualities (those that are not self-contradictory) are realized. That existence is simply the potential to be and that all potentialities are actualized. Why should it be any other way?

Way too much speculation and very little content. I'll stick with my previous post.

 

[Maldini]

The problem is nothing we have ever seen, observed or encountered has ever really started anything. Things that we know have always been there, only in different shapes and forms.

The idea of "starting" is something nobody has the slightest clue about. Every theory and opinion on it is mere speculation and childish guess.

A "first cause" has absolutely no meaning. If there's a First cause, which itslef doesn't need a cause, then it will be the counterexample that would disprove the whole cause and effect system and the need for a first cause.

 

[Alt Thinker]

Way too much speculation and very little content. I'll stick with my previous post.

I have answered your post in detail. I must presume you are unable to respond.

 

[Thief]

There is nothing to confuse. Animation does include those highly interactive, highly animated forms we call life. Cartoons do move, but they are not complex enough to move on their own energy. That complexity is important. It is only that complexity which separates what we call life from non-life.

Now you are exposing your confusion to the utmost.

and the dead cannot beget the living.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Now you are exposing your confusion to the utmost.

and the dead cannot beget the living.

I think it is you who are the one who is confused here. Living creatures are not inhabited by some special “life force” or supernatural “spirit” that is different from the forces present in ordinary matter. There is no special event that happens to turn dead matter into living matter. Living matter (life) does not emerge spontaneously from dead matter because there is in fact no such thing as living matter and there is no such thing as dead matter. This is all a bunch of modern day superstitious nonsense. Intelligent people to this day buy into this baloney that certain forms of matter are somehow “alive” while other forms of matter are not. Life is no more than a classification we give to forms which exhibit certain characteristics…reproduction, metabolism, etc. Those characteristics are in fact complex forms of interaction. What matter does is it interacts with other matter and changes form. When this happens, given the right conditions, matter may begin to interact in complex ways. Eventually and over time, complex, highly interactive forms emerge and we call those complex forms Life. Life is just a classification, it is not an entity. The human body is made up of mostly water. We are no more “alive” matter than a glass of water, however, due to our complex arrangement we interact much differently and in many different ways. It is that unique complexity and arrangement that is so rare and precious in our universe, so even though there is nothing magical or mysterious about what we call life, it is something well worth holding onto.

 

[Thief]

I think it is you who are the one who is confused here. Living creatures are not inhabited by some special “life force” or supernatural “spirit” that is different from the forces present in ordinary matter. There is no special event that happens to turn dead matter into living matter. Living matter (life) does not emerge spontaneously from dead matter because there is in fact no such thing as living matter and there is no such thing as dead matter. This is all a bunch of modern day superstitious nonsense. Intelligent people to this day buy into this baloney that certain forms of matter are somehow “alive” while other forms of matter are not. Life is no more than a classification we give to forms which exhibit certain characteristics…reproduction, metabolism, etc. Those characteristics are in fact complex forms of interaction. What matter does is it interacts with other matter and changes form. When this happens, given the right conditions, matter may begin to interact in complex ways. Eventually and over time, complex, highly interactive forms emerge and we call those complex forms Life. Life is just a classification, it is not an entity. The human body is made up of mostly water. We are no more “alive” matter than a glass of water, however, due to our complex arrangement we interact much differently and in many different ways. It is that unique complexity and arrangement that is so rare and precious in our universe, so even though there is nothing magical or mysterious about what we call life, it is something well worth holding onto.

So.....you are not a living entity inhabiting a lump of substance?

Might as well be talking to a rock?

 

[Runewolf1973]

So.....you are not a living entity inhabiting a lump of substance?

Might as well be talking to a rock?

More accurately, you are talking to a highly interactive bag of water.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I am having fun with this, how about you?

Interesting distractions are as close to fun as I have been able to come for the past few years, and this has certainly proved to be interesting, so yes!

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

“the set of all sets cannot exist”.

An interesting thing about set theory in the philosophy of mathematics that involves e.g., the Axiom of Choice is what, exactly, is necessary in order for a set to exist (i.e., define a set). In most formulations of set theory, the Axiom of Choice can't define sets and is largely irrelevant to set theory. In fact, it is logically equivalent with everything from Zorn's Lemma (not actually a lemma in the technical sense) to the well-ordering axiom.

It is not quantum logic that is responsible for the success but quantum mathematics.

There really isn't such a thing as "quantum mathematics". The "consensus" interpretation of QM (despite itself having multiple interpretations) is that it is irreducibly statistical. The entire structure of quantum mechancis is mathematical, but this makes it less mathematical physics than statistical physics and no more mathematical than classical mechanics (and less, actually, than quantum field theory).

Until a ‘measurement’ (a much misunderstood term) is made, a quantum does not have a value classifiable as classical.

QM, despite the nomenclature, isn't really a theory of quanta. That's more a historical byproduct. More importantly, quantum systems absolutely do have values before measurement. Even more importantly, the entirety of physics is concerned with the dynamics of physical systems in abstract mathematical spaces. Classical physics possessed varying mathematical structures depending upon the field and the mathematical spaces used to model systems in it. For example, systems in special relativity exist in Minkowski space, not Euclidean, "observables" in classical physics are represented by values rather than operators in Hilbert space as in QM, etc.

Mathematical structures, from abstract algebras and mathematical logics to topology and non-Euclidean geometries, exist in many forms in applied mathematics, physics, cosmology, theoretical computer science, data analysis, and basically the sciences.

Both classical and non-classical logics have mathematical structures, just as QM, QFT, QCD, and the phase space of classical dynamical systems do. The point of quantum logic is to distill quantum mechanics down to its mathematical structure independent of any experimental outcomes. A bit more precisely (yet still simplistically), quantum logics are representations of the mathematical apparatus used by quantum physicists. Thus quantum logics have a closer tie to physical reality than does classical logic, which is largely a formalization of Aristotle's ~2,300 year old works and hasn't become more closely linked with theories of physical systems since. Quantum logics, however, post-date and are rooted in physical theory.

It is wave spread over a (possibly abstract) space.

It isn't, and the idea that either waves or particles exist is compatible with logic only if one regards both notions as contradicting quantum physics or as incoherently defined. Waves are never measured as discrete, yet the wave-like behavior of quantum "particles" display wave-like behavior even when they are detected discretely. Likewise, particles follow definite trajectories, can't be represented accurately as existing in multiple places, and don't 'interfere" with themselves as do photons, electrons, etc.

The measurement connects with some small portion of the wave and a quasi-classical value is assumed.

The values aren't assumed. The space in which quantum systems "exist" is called Hilbert space not due to any mathematical formulation of a theory of physics the way that Minkowski developed the geometry of Einstein's algebraic formulation of spacetime.

It is not that the quantum has multiple values before measurement. It is that the wave may be intercepted at various places.

That would make it not a wave, as waves are defined as fundamentally lacking any discrete units or location (actually, they are mostly the distributed or "spread-out" nature of force propagating through a medium; however, quantum "waves" don't propagate through media, aren't "spread out", and aren't "waves").

Why the wave function collapses upon measurement and how it always avoids collapsing at more than one place

It never "collapses" at more than one place. That's part of the measurement problem.

Complicating – and confusing - the situation is that in many cases the possible detectable values are quantized, often binary.

1) All values are "quantized" in quantum theory. That's the reason for the nomenclature.
2) "Binary units" in information theory have been replaced by "qubits" in quantum physics for a reason.

But most experimental physicists and engineers working in the field do not worry about quantum logic.

That's true. On the other hand, they don't generally worry about set theory or even really mathematics (which, for them, is frequently only a tool; a frequent exception is theoretical physicists, cosmologists, theoretical computer scientists, computational physicists, computational biophysicists, and those like myself concerned with complex systems across disciplines).

They take Bohr’s advice and “just do the math’.

The "shut up and calculate" quote, often attributed to Feynman, was actually from Mermin who himself describes it as follows:
"I'm not proud of having said it. It's not a beautiful phrase. It's not very clever. It's snide and mindlessly dismissive" (source)

Theoretical physicists are usually so deep into other things that they are beyond worrying about quantum logic.

The development of quantum logic was the work of von Neumann, among the most applied founders of physics.

What I meant was that logic has been found to be limited in unexpected ways, in support of which I gave several examples.

The ways you've expressed, however, have either depended upon the use of logic in the non-formal sense (i.e., the way that proofs in analysis depend upon logic but don't depend upon any logical system), or are irrelevant to logic (i.e., don't involve any formal logic and so far haven't even included non-classical logics).

But Hilbert expected some things that turned out to be impossible, although in the fin de siècle era it seemed intuitively obvious that they were attainable.

It was never "intuitively" obvious that mathematics (Hilbert expressly formulated the most important unsolved problems as being those in mathematics, not logic, and set theory is a field of mathematics while logic even today is a discipline of philosophy) implied what Hilbert thought. That mathematics didn't, however, turned out to be even less intuitive. The use of logic to make discoveries like those made by Cantor, Gödel,, Cohen, etc. are incredibly non-intuitive. Dedekind (the mathematician instrumental into providing a basis for the reals) was a contemporary Cantor and, upon seeing his proof that infinities have different "sizes" (cardinalities) said: "Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas" ("I see it but I don't believe it").

AC and GCH are intimately intertwined.

To the extent "the AC and GCH are intimately intertwined" we know this because of logic. It seems hard to argue that the use of logic can show the limitations of logic using the ways in which logic has allowed us to conclude, even prove, that which it has. That the AC is, as its name indicates, an axiom, means that it lacks even the proofs behind the continuum hypothesis' undecidability but depends upon logic no less than they.

AC was invented to address GCH. GCH does not merely entail AC, GCH requires AC.

The GCH predates the AC, so can't require it. Moreover, the AC is an axiom, NOT a theorem. It is assumed to be true. The GCH has been proven to be undecidable, which means it CANNOT require any axiom of ZF or ZFC or classical logic (or any other formal system).

The two cannot be separated.

They have been. In fact, that's what Cohen did: proved that the axioms of set theory (including the ZF formulation) are consistent if the GHC is false.

It is impossible in ZF.

It is undecidable PM, ZFC, non-classical logics, and every single set theory, formal logic, etc., there is.

proving one would automatically prove the other. They go hand in hand.

That's not what decidable means. If it is possible to prove that the GCH is consistent with the axioms of set theory and that it is inconsistent with the axioms of set theory (ZF or other formulations) than it is impossible to prove that GCH is "true" (more technically, if it is true, then we require a more powerful form of mathematical proof and logic in order to show that it is true, and part of what Gödel did was show that proof and truth are distinct). More importantly, it is obvious to prove that the AC is false within certain mathematical systems/set theories. Russell showed this with shows, although socks are more intuitive here: it is impossible for the AC to be true in ZF if we define sets as is allowed in ZF, because infinite subsets of infinitely pairs of socks can't be chosen s.t. the result is a set the way that boots (which have a left and right and thus don't require a further axiom) can. Hence ZFC, which incorporates an additional axiom that isn't proven but assumed. The GCH, however, can be shown to consistent is assumed true and also if assumed false. It is compatible with ZF if assumed to be so yet is incompatible if assumed to be so. This isn't true of the AC.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Cont. from above:

It does not require modal logic.

Absolutely true, if one defines either the AC or GHC correctly. ZF, ZFC, PM, etc., don't have ways of incorporating modal verbs, participles, adverbs, or adjectives.

The basic problem here is that you are confusing formalism with thought.

I would never confuse the two. Nor would I somehow separate conceptualization and thought. We can think of that which we can't formalize, and vice versa.

One can think about the sentence “Red things are not red” but one cannot really think that red things are not red.

And one can't really conceptualize many things that are capable of defining in set theory specifically and mathematics in general. Despite geometric formulations of infinite dimensional spaces (spaces which extend infinitely in infinitely many "directions"), nobody can conceptualize a space which isn't just 4th dimensional and extends infinitely along all 4 dimensions, 5th dimensional and extends infinitely along 5 dimensions, but a space which extends infinitely along infinitely many dimensions).

No one is able to conceptualize quantum logic.

It's quite easy. It's no more difficult than conceptualizing any formal logic. In fact, it's no more difficult than conceptualizing "two".

Nobody even uses it.

It's used widely in quantum computing and even outside physics. Since its formulation by von Neumann, the move in physics to an information theoretic approach has been accompanied by the use of quantum logic outside of philosophy, logic, and abstract mathematics.

Even the theoreticians simply assume QM mathematics as the basis.

Unless you count the founders of QM, the foremost scientist responsible for the mathematics of QM which is actually quantum logic (see von Neumann, J. (1955). Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics (No. 2). Princeton university press.

For random examples from my library (in no particular order) which contradict your assertion above in various ways, see e.g. the following (I've made an attempt to find works which should be available for free in whole or in part and limit the number of conference proceedings, monographs, and other book-length treatments which don't exist in electronic form) :

Rédei, M. (1998). Quantum Logic in Algebraic Approach (Fundamental Theories of Physics). Kluwer Academic.

Bueno, O. (2005). Dirac and the Dispensability of Mathematics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 36(3), 465-490.

Calude, C. S. (2005). Algorithmic randomness, quantum physics, and incompleteness. In M. Margenstern (Ed.) Machines, Computations, and Universality (4th International Conference, MCU 2004, Saint Petersburg, Russia, September 21-24, 2004, Revised Selected Papers). Springer.

Gambini, R., Pintos, L. P. G., & Pullin, J. (2010). Undecidability and the problem of outcomes in quantum measurements. Foundations of Physics, 40(1), 93-115.


Plotnitsky, A. (2010). On physical and mathematical causality in quantum mechanics. Physica E: Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures, 42(3), 279-286.

Wilce, A. (2010). Formalism and interpretation in quantum theory. Foundations of Physics, 40(4), 434-462.

Zeh, H. D. (1970). On the interpretation of measurement in quantum theory. Foundations of Physics, 1(1), 69-76.

Allori, V., & Zanghì, N. (2009). On the classical limit of quantum mechanics. Foundations of Physics, 39(1), 20-32.

Selesnick, S. A. (2003). Quanta, Logic, and Spacetime: Variations on Finkelstein's Quantum Relativity (2nd Ed.). World Scientific.

Bär, C., & Fredenhagen, K. (2009). Quantum Field Theory on Curved Spacetimes: Concepts and Mathematical Foundations (Lecture Notes in Physics). Springer.

Coecke, B., Ong, L., & Panangaden, P. (2013). Computation, Logic, Games, and Quantum Foundations (LNCS Vol. 7860). Springer.

Tegmark, M. (2008). The mathematical universe. Foundations of Physics, 38(2), 101-150.

Algorithmic randomness, quantum physics, and incompleteness

Gambini, R., Garcia-Pintos, L.P., Pullin, J. (2011). Undecidability as solution to the problem of measurement: fundamental criterion for the production of events. International Journal of Modern Physics D, 20(05), 909-918.

Dürr, D., & Teufel, S. (2009). Bohmian Mechanics: The Physics and Mathematics of Quantum Theory (Fundamental Theories of Physics). Springer.

and on, and on. Basically, the "shut up and calculate approach" hasn't just faced empirical, philosophical, ontological, and epistemological issues in the past few decades such that the negative reception Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann's got for his suggestion that Bohr's relegation of quantum mechanics via the so-called "Copenhagen interpretation" to some netherworld independent of the classical world we experience couldn't be right would have been mild compared to mainstream publications across physics and outside of physics proper some 20 years ago, let alone today.

And thinking about two contradictory propositions is not the same as coherently thinking a contradiction.

What is the relation between conceptualization, cognition, thinking, coherence, mathematics, logic, and propositions such that any suggestion about the differences you suggest make any sense other than in an intuitive sense which render their application to set theory largely meaningless and self-defeating or to logic such that they matter other than in the intuitive ways you seem to suggest we can't rely on anyway (albeit in the wrong way; we can't rely on intuition as intuition is frequently contrary to logic).

This is as much as I have time for. More to come when I can.

Looking forward to it!

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

By applying a genuinely coherent, definite attribute we do indeed define a set.

For an applied counter-example:

“one objective of axiomatic set theory is to avoid classical paradoxes. One such paradox, the Russell paradox, arose from the naïve acceptance of the idea that given any property there exists a set whose elements are those objects having the given property, i.e., given a wff φx containing no free variables other than x, there exists a set that contains all objects for which φx holds and contains no object for which φx does not hold. More formally

(∃a)∀(x) [x∈a ⇔ φx]​

"
Takeuti, G., Zaring, W. M., & Takeuti, G. (1982). Introduction to axiomatic set theory (Graduate Texts in Mathematics Vol. I). Springer-Verlag.

 

[Alt Thinker]

To LegionOnomaMoi

As I said elsewhere my mind is wrapped up in scriptural debates, which unfortunately prevents this aging brain from shifting gears. (Real life is not helping either.) I have read your recent posts over and over and cannot think of a single productive thing to say. You have been a most capable debating partner and you can have the last word in this one. I surrender. :run:

 

[Thief]

More accurately, you are talking to a highly interactive bag of water.

So your spirit is no more than chemistry....and altogether terminal.

In this frame....you are interactive as long as you avoid the grave.

Good luck on that point.

 

[Runewolf1973]

So your spirit is no more than chemistry....and altogether terminal.

In this frame....you are interactive as long as you avoid the grave.

Good luck on that point.

Since when is chemistry terminal?

 

[Thief]

Since when is chemistry terminal?

Light a match and let it burn down to your finger.

Will you terminate it?....

The flame has no will of it's own.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Light a match and let it burn down to your finger.

Will you terminate it?....

The flame has no will of it's own.

The energy is not destroyed in the process, it changes form.

 

[Thief]

The energy is not destroyed in the process, it changes form.

You skipped over the 'willful' part.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So your spirit is no more than chemistry....and altogether terminal.

In this frame....you are interactive as long as you avoid the grave.

Good luck on that point.

The argument from consequences - the logical fallacy you're employing here - is irrational. Do you have anything to support your position besides your distaste for the implications (or what you assume to be the implications) if you're wrong?