Theists: What would a godless universe look like?

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sure I have. If a statement about reality cannot be tested, then it is nonsense.

How do you test this statement: If a statement about reality cannot be tested, then it is nonsense?
The joke is that you can't test that statement using science, so the statement is itself nonsense according to itself. The statement is in reality and a part of reality and thus it is testable itself and it shows the limit of science.

You know what, you are in effect in a limited sense incapable of differentiating when you test objectively versus subjectively.
Nonsense is a subjective first person cognitive construct.
I am showing you some of the limits of science and you in effect don't like that. So here it is: Some of the things we humans do are subjective and can't be done using science:
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
But it goes "deeper" than that. The word "nonsense" has no objective referent and you seem in effect incapable of "catching" your own thinking and understand that you are not doing science with that statement. You are doing first person what is useful for you. I do it differently because I am a skeptic. It is useful for me to test the limits of knowledge and science and when I do, I know I will arrive at nonsense. Nonsense is the result the brain produces when you hit the limit of understanding. Philosophy as for "you should not take your own thinking for granted, but check it" is in effect a test. You test using an objective test. I test the limit of this objective test using philosophy. That is what makes me a skeptic. I find nonsense in some cases useful, because it is the result you get, when you hit the limit of human understanding. You can't understand everything just as you can't move in every possible way. Mobility is a limited human behavior and so is understanding.

I have said it before and I will say it again. In effect what you try to do, is philosophy and it has already been done. Philosophers have been doing it for over 2000 years now and it was already known at the time at the old Greeks:
"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." Measure is not scientific measure, it is the measure of nonsense and how you subjective make sense of reality. You have one subjective measure for the usefulness of nonsense and I have another. Which is true? Well, there is no objective measure for that. Start doing some basic philosophy and learn to understand that. It is connected to this again:
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do

And it is connected to how you can't in effect reduce everything down to being objective. In effect you are saying this: I subjectively only accept objective results. But it is subjective, that you only accept objective result.
"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." connects to cognitive relativism, which connects to the limits of science and how science is a limited human behavior.

Stop doing philosophy in effect, because you are taking your own thinking for granted and you are not checking it.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Correct, the notion of knowledge as JTB doesn't work.

Here again are the axioms that underlies science as a belief system.
The universe is natural.
The universe is fair.
The universe is knowable.

As for testing, everything you test as a human is not objective.

So here is the version of a BB universe I use. The universe in it self is enough space, an object with a power source and a
computer on it and on that computer is you running as a subprogram and the computer simulates the rest of the universe as you experience it to you.
You can't test that because you can't get outside the universe and as for the different versions in theoretical physics of a BB none of them can be tested.

Missed a few pages of posts. What has belief to do with Truth?

That is not true. Science has no anxioms. Start, check with what you see, and then find out. Do we find anything super-natural? What do you mean by universe being fair? It is not a judge in a court. It has itw own way, sometimes random. Yeah, perhaps the universe is knowable though we do not know the whole of it at the moment. It would probably take Centuries to be able to understand universe completely.

Science ferrets out objective from the subjective.Yes, the universe is space and it has energy. We do not know the source of energy. Perhaps space itself is the source of energy. There is no computer but things work in their particular way. Yeah, we create universes in our own mind and check it with other minds, so everything sort of equals out. It is possible to go outside the universe, CMBR provides a window.

 

[viole]

What makes me think the alternative to God creating the universe is a universe creating itself? I know a universe cannot create itself.

Everybody knows that since it is logically incoherent.

I seem to assume that the unvierse needs to have been created? It does.

How so? Because if you start with 1 you only get 1. If you start with infinity you get O{IUJP(I* P(IK MN :LKSMN:KSEMNf;KM NDFK:MSDNJKDVN PIUsdbv and on and on and on and on...

I am afraid you need to expand on this. And put some structure.

What has the cardinality of the set of initial things (which I presume is what you mean with "if you start with 1 ..."), has to do with the inference that the Universe must have been created? Or that that initial state must have been created?

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Missed a few pages of posts. What has belief to do with Truth?

That is not true. Science has no anxioms. Start, check with what you see, and then find out. Do we find anything super-natural? What do you mean by universe being fair? It is not a judge in a court. It has itw own way, sometimes random. Yeah, perhaps the universe is knowable though we do not know the whole of it at the moment. It would probably take Centuries to be able to understand universe completely.

Science ferrets out objective from the subjective.Yes, the universe is space and it has energy. We do not know the source of energy. Perhaps space itself is the source of energy. There is no computer but things work in their particular way. Yeah, we create universes in our own mind and check it with other minds, so everything sort of equals out. It is possible to go outside the universe, CMBR provides a window.

Well, you are all over the place. You use truth:
Here is 2 articles about truth:
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Truth | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

So as for axioms. Here are the 3 axioms, assumptions and what not build into science.
The universe is real/physical/natural.
The universe is fair.
The universe is knowable.

The first one is the difference between methodological and philosophical naturalism. Look them up. The second one is in part here:
The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as
'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2"

The 3rd one is because there is no JTB knowledge. Look that up.

So here is the inherent absurdity in your understanding. If science ferrets out objective from the subjective, then both the objective and the subjective are real in effect.
Someone: The subjective is not a part of the universe.
Me: Yes, and you are looking at it now.

That the subjective is a part of the universe is testable: You just test if you can observe yourself and other humans doing something subjective. E.g. "The subjective is not a part of the universe." is subjective, because it requires someone subjectively to claim it and it is not "true", because it requires subjectivity to be so.

As for CMBR. Is that it? -"The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), in Big Bang cosmology, is electromagnetic radiation as a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space."
That is in the universe, otherwise you couldn't observe it.

Debating you is like debating any other strong fundamentalist religious person. You have in effect subjective beliefs, which doesn't work objectively.
The universe is both objective and subjective, otherwise we couldn't be doing what we are doing here. We subjectively disagree.

 

[epronovost]

Here again are the axioms that underlies science as a belief system.
The universe is natural.
The universe is fair.
The universe is knowable.

These aren't beliefs so much as they are facts. There is an observable universe. You can learn things about the universe and what it contains to a certain degree. The universe and what it contains is predictable to a cetain degree. You can argue about it's degree of "fairness" and "knowability" if you want, but there is definitely some fairness and knowability to it else we would be incapable of predict anything about it and so turns out that we can. A pragmatic philosophical approach to knowledge can solve many philosophical issues by simply shedding excessive layers.

As for testing, everything you test as a human is not objective.

It isn't subjective because I cannot alter the result of these tests by will. They aren't opinions or feelings. I can be shown wrong. I perceive the results with my senses, that his true, I use my senses to explore the universe and what it contains. There are standards, but those standards aren't mine. They are commonly agreed and predicated on the fact that they reduce to a minimum subjectivity and maximises the chance to produce useful results.

So for a Boltzmann Brain universe and this: " The Boltzmann Brain universe is used as a thought experiment to measure the quality of theoretical models" please site evidence for that. That is not how I understand it, but I am willing to be corrected.

Just look it up on wikipedia. It will explain to you the context and use of the Boltzmann Brain.

 

[rational experiences]

 

[syo]

So this is just an unevidenced appeal to intentional design, for...... why?

why? what why?

 

[syo]

Correction, the observable universe doesn't have "a set of rules"; it IS "a set of rules". The "Laws of Nature" aren't prescriptive laws; they are descriptive laws.

I don't understand your point.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

These aren't beliefs so much as they are facts. There is an observable universe. You can learn things about the universe and what it contains to a certain degree. The universe and what it contains is predictable to a cetain degree. You can argue about it's degree of "fairness" and "knowability" if you want, but there is definitely some fairness and knowability to it else we would be incapable of predict anything about it and so turns out that we can. A pragmatic philosophical approach to knowledge can solve many philosophical issues by simply shedding excessive layers.

And there is the subjectivity again. You subjectively use philosophy differently than me and then turn around and declare assumptions, which are not facts, facts.

It isn't subjective because I cannot alter the result of these tests by will. They aren't opinions or feelings. I can be shown wrong. I perceive the results with my senses, that his true, I use my senses to explore the universe and what it contains. There are standards, but those standards aren't mine. They are commonly agreed and predicated on the fact that they reduce to a minimum subjectivity and maximises the chance to produce useful results.

And again the subjectivity. God is commonly agreed upon, therefore God exists. You are doing an appeal to popularity.

Just look it up on wikipedia. It will explain to you the context and use of the Boltzmann Brain.

No, it won't. It is a starting place but you have to look closer.
Here as from the notes on Wikipedia

Richard Feynman on Boltzmann Brains
Notice that Freynman use a hidden assumption. That he is not in a BB universe.

Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad
"Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is generally thought to be unacceptable, although opinions differ. I argue that such theories are indeed unacceptable: the real problem is with fluctuations into observers who are locally identical to ordinary observers, and their existence cannot be swept under the rug by a choice of probability distributions over observers. The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed."
Can you spot the subjective part? ...justifiably believed. Whether you are in the universe you feel justified in believe in or a BB one, is not determined by what you believe.

Can the universe afford inflation?
"Cosmic inflation is envisioned as the “most likely” start for the observed universe. To give substance to this claim, a framework is needed in which inflation can compete with other scenarios and the relative likelihood of all scenarios can be quantified. The most concrete scheme to date for performing such a comparison shows inflation to be strongly disfavored. We analyze the source of this failure for inflation and present an alternative calculation, based on more traditional semiclassical methods, that results in inflation being exponentially favored. We argue that reconciling the two contrasting approaches presents interesting fundamental challenges, and is likely to have a major impact on ideas about the early universe."
Notice it is purely theoretical as it is calculations and ideas.

It goes. I have done this before and I have read several articles on BB. It always end here:

For one the articles: Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad

You are doing the same. You feel subjectively justified in your beliefs, because they make sense to you and therefore you are right in that the universe is natural
Well, that kind of thinking also works with God. I feel subjective justified in my beliefs, because they make sense to me and therefore I am right in that the universe is from God.

No, I am neither right nor wrong. Nor are you. I am subjective and I know it. How I make sense of what the universe really is, is subjective. It is the same with you. You just won't admit it.
You apply a double standard. There are no strong objectively rational justified beliefs in what the universe is. I.e. there are no positive and privileged positions, when it comes to metaphysics.
There are different sets of beliefs, which appear to work in practice. In practice I believe in God and that works for me. In practice you believe in a natural universe and that works for you. Both are cases of how the universe in part works.
QED

 

[Polymath257]

And there is the subjectivity again. You subjectively use philosophy differently than me and then turn around and declare assumptions, which are not facts, facts.

And again the subjectivity. God is commonly agreed upon, therefore God exists. You are doing an appeal to popularity.

No, it won't. It is a starting place but you have to look closer.
Here as from the notes on Wikipedia

Richard Feynman on Boltzmann Brains
Notice that Freynman use a hidden assumption. That he is not in a BB universe.

Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad
"Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is generally thought to be unacceptable, although opinions differ. I argue that such theories are indeed unacceptable: the real problem is with fluctuations into observers who are locally identical to ordinary observers, and their existence cannot be swept under the rug by a choice of probability distributions over observers. The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed."
Can you spot the subjective part? ...justifiably believed. Whether you are in the universe you feel justified in believe in or a BB one, is not determined by what you believe.

In other words, it violates a basic requirement to even be a theory. It is invalid as a scientific proposal.

Can the universe afford inflation?
"Cosmic inflation is envisioned as the “most likely” start for the observed universe. To give substance to this claim, a framework is needed in which inflation can compete with other scenarios and the relative likelihood of all scenarios can be quantified. The most concrete scheme to date for performing such a comparison shows inflation to be strongly disfavored. We analyze the source of this failure for inflation and present an alternative calculation, based on more traditional semiclassical methods, that results in inflation being exponentially favored. We argue that reconciling the two contrasting approaches presents interesting fundamental challenges, and is likely to have a major impact on ideas about the early universe."
Notice it is purely theoretical as it is calculations and ideas.

Of course it is. That is the hypothesis formation stage. The testing phase is different.

It goes. I have done this before and I have read several articles on BB. It always end here:

For one the articles: Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad

You are doing the same. You feel subjectively justified in your beliefs, because they make sense to you and therefore you are right in that the universe is natural
Well, that kind of thinking also works with God. I feel subjective justified in my beliefs, because they make sense to me and therefore I am right in that the universe is from God.

But there is an asymmetry. One position seeks out and uses observation to modify its beliefs and the other does not.

No, I am neither right nor wrong. Nor are you. I am subjective and I know it. How I make sense of what the universe really is, is subjective. It is the same with you. You just won't admit it.
You apply a double standard. There are no strong objectively rational justified beliefs in what the universe is. I.e. there are no positive and privileged positions, when it comes to metaphysics.
There are different sets of beliefs, which appear to work in practice. In practice I believe in God and that works for me. In practice you believe in a natural universe and that works for you. Both are cases of how the universe in part works.
QED

And this is why philosophy tends to be ignored by those who actually want to learn something. It gets itself tied into little knots and can't argue itself out of even obviously silly positions.

 

[firedragon]

I have a genuine question for theists and it is not meant to be a trick in any way. There are many things that I would expect to see in a universe containing a benevolent, omnipotent, personal god that I don't see in this universe, which leads me to conclude that such a god is unlikely to exist. I'm curious as to what theists would expect to see in a godless universe, and how a godless universe would differ from one in which a god existed. What would you expect this universe to look like if no gods existed, and how would that be different from the current universe?

Brother, can you provide good explanation to why you believe "such a god is unlikely to exist"?

 

[Polymath257]

Can you spot your own first person subjectivity? And how you are not objective? If science it about testing and not taking for granted, then philosophy can be used to test the limit of science and explain how it is that all scientific knowledge is axiomatic and conditional.

Since you understand science, explain this by a scientist:
"Astronomer William Keel explains:

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2."

You do understand how that is a principle like an assumption or axiom and how it is philosophy and not science.

It is a simplifying assumption for the creation of models. As such, it is testable through observation and can be modified if the observations show it to be wrong.

Furthermore, it tends to be the basis of the *first approximation* with variances added to the model for more refined approximations.

So, for example, we know that we are moving with respect to the frame where the universe is 'locally uniform'. That is simply a matter of noticing a dipole in the CMBR and is easily taken into account in our models. But it *is* a case where our position isn't 'typical' so a case where the cosmological principle, if viewed too broadly, is violated.

So, yes, it is a *simplifying assumption* and can be and is modified when more detail is required. So it is not an axiom nor a philosophical position.

 

[Thief]

They don't.
Biopolymer - Wikipedia, Oligomer - Wikipedia
You never studied Biology?

I grew up with a registered nurse....in the house

and yeah I got the biology lesson

and I wasn't posting about biology

think substance

it stays put until Something moves it
it does not self create

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

In other words, it violates a basic requirement to even be a theory. It is invalid as a scientific proposal.

A basic requirement is subjective, because we are debating how to talk about the universe and what it means to know

Of course it is. That is the hypothesis formation stage. The testing phase is different.

How would you observe a singularity at the beginning of the universe

But there is an asymmetry. One position seeks out and uses observation to modify its beliefs and the other does not.

Now totally objective with bias, personal consideration and what not chose one or the other. You can't.

And this is why philosophy tends to be ignored by those who actually want to learn something. It gets itself tied into little knots and can't argue itself out of even obviously silly positions.

You are not that objective. How? It is silly to use silly and believe that silly is a reasoned objective argument. You are making in effect an appeal to emotion. Learn to check your own thoughts and feelings.
I want to learn the limits of knowledge. You want to feel that it makes sense to you and it is useful to you. I want to learn to understand how it is the world works also for the subjective. You subjectively don't like the subjective and call it nonsense. That is subjective.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is a simplifying assumption for the creation of models. As such, it is testable through observation and can be modified if the observations show it to be wrong.

Furthermore, it tends to be the basis of the *first approximation* with variances added to the model for more refined approximations.

So, for example, we know that we are moving with respect to the frame where the universe is 'locally uniform'. That is simply a matter of noticing a dipole in the CMBR and is easily taken into account in our models. But it *is* a case where our position isn't 'typical' so a case where the cosmological principle, if viewed too broadly, is violated.

So, yes, it is a *simplifying assumption* and can be and is modified when more detail is required. So it is not an axiom nor a philosophical position.

So here it is. You use a so silly philosophy in your philosophy of science, that your first silly assumption is that you are not using philosophy. Philosophy is silly, because it arrives at a negative result, namely there is no JTB knowledge. You don't like that. You believe in positive and practical useful truth. You believe in the end in JTB knowledge.
Well, the difference between you and I in this sense, is that the most valuable to me, is to doubt and find the limits. The limits are negative and thus I hold false as more important that true. That is what makes me a skeptic.

So again as for scientific realism that is not the only way to understand science and there is no objective theory for truth.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2"

The 3rd one is because there is no JTB knowledge. Look that up.

Someone: The subjective is not a part of the universe.
Me: Yes, and you are looking at it now.

That the subjective is a part of the universe is testable: You just test if you can observe yourself and other humans doing something subjective. E.g. "The subjective is not a part of the universe." is subjective, because it requires someone subjectively to claim it and it is not "true", because it requires subjectivity to be so.

"The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), in Big Bang cosmology, is electromagnetic radiation as a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation"." That is in the universe, otherwise you couldn't observe it.

Debating you is like debating any other strong fundamentalist religious person. You have in effect subjective beliefs, which doesn't work objectively. The universe is both objective and subjective, otherwise we couldn't be doing what we are doing here. We subjectively disagree.

Sure, science will amend its views if it come across a finding which necessitates changing this view. What is the problem about that?

JTB: That is what I said in my post. Why should 'B' be here? There is no need for it.

Subjective and Objective: Yes, that is true. Subjective depends on the objective. Both are realities at their different levels. That is what we know in Advaita Hinduism as Parmarthika Satya (Absolute Truth) and Vyavaharika Satya (Pragmatic Truth, the subjective that we experience with our senses). That was known to us even before Buddha's time.

Yabut, it gives us a window. Perhaps there will be other things like that. We have to keep searching.

Even that has been very clear to us since thousands of years. Ishavasya Upanishad (a small composition of 17 or 18 verses probably witten around the beginning of Christian era) says (in just three verses):

‘Into deep darkness do they enter who worship the asambhuti. (the world of Becoming as detached from Being). Into still greater darkness, as it were, do they enter who delight in sambhuti. (pure Being or Brahman).’
‘One result is obtained by the path of sambhava (pure Being), and quite a different one by that of the asambhava (Becoming). Thus have we heard from the wise ones who taught it to us.’
‘He who knows sambhuti (Brahman) and vinasha (the perishable world of Becoming) both together, overcomes death through vinasha, and achieves immortality through sambhuti.’

So, one has to know both, the subjective and the objective, to overcome death and attain immortality.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
‘Into deep darkness do they enter who worship the asambhuti. (the world of Becoming as detached from Being). Into still greater darkness, as it were, do they enter who delight in sambhuti. (pure Being or Brahman).’
‘One result is obtained by the path of sambhava (pure Being), and quite a different one by that of the asambhava (Becoming). Thus have we heard from the wise ones who taught it to us.’
‘He who knows sambhuti (Brahman) and vinasha (the perishable world of Becoming) both together, overcomes death through vinasha, and achieves immortality through sambhuti.’

So, one has to know both, the subjective and the objective, to overcome death and attain immortality.

Wauu and I believe n God and I don't even believe in that. But I have been non-religious most of my life.
BTW what is the evidence for the bold part?

 

[Aupmanyav]

If one dwells only in objective, then the person will fail in the world, and the person who takes what senses say as the absolute truth, both are wrong. One has to see through both, the subjective as well as the objectives for full understanding.
If that helped ...

 

[Aupmanyav]

I grew up with a registered nurse....in the house
and yeah I got the biology lesson
and I wasn't posting about biology
think substance
it stays put until Something moves it
it does not self create

Yeah, I was quite surprised. Then how come we have these polymers and oligomers? Biology is about substance.

 

[epronovost]

I don't understand your point.

It's a bit of a pendantic point to be fair, but the universe isn't "a subject" with a set of rules like a game of monopoly with a set of rules of which you could still change some rules or even cheat and break the rules. What we call the observable universe itself is just a set of rules that cannot be broken.