(January 22, 2023 at 11:38 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(January 10, 2023 at 8:00 am)Jehanne Wrote: In his seminal book, The God Delusion, Professor Richard Dawkins states the following:


If there was a god, could he prove that he was God?

Not sure what you are going for here, but I would warn that this could be an easy trap for someone to fall for in a moment of stress or medical illness. 

To me it would not matter if it could, that still would not answer the dead beat selective nature of our existence if one is going to also claim it is all loving and all good. It still would not make such a being worthy of wanting to be in the presence of knowing the harsh reality we live in. It would put us as humans in the realm of being mere toys, lab rats, poker chips, pawns. 

Dawkins is a very smart man, and makes great arguments in that book for other reasons, to me this particular statement he makes is an oversimplification. Sure should be able to prove his own existence if one is to claim he is all powerful, but that still would not make him moral based upon the reality we see. 

I've heard that he has said he wants his own death to be recorded so he can say he never would convert on his deathbed. Problem is if you are under heavy medications, or severe mental duress or diminished capacity you wouldn't always be aware of what you were saying as compared to your in tact lucid state when healthy.

(Bold mine)

But that was not Professor Dawkins' point. He was commenting only on whether God could reveal himself, not on whether such revelation would mean that God was good or kind or moral or even had our best interests at heart.

Boru

Objectivist Wrote:

(January 22, 2023 at 5:23 am)GrandizerII Wrote: If I'm honest, your last two responses to me didn't really clarify the bit about how my existence is necessary as opposed to contingent. I understand that you don't like the wording of "necessary vs. contingent", but I did ask a question about my limited existence in a way which doesn't require employing either the word "necessary" or "contingent". So let me rephrase it better so it doesn't use those words at all:

I exist now, but is it possible I could never have existed at all instead?

I did stumble upon this link while googling:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/necessity.html


So it seems the answer to my question is "no", which means objectivism holds to the notion of modal necessitarianism, which I find to be quite unsatisfactory, to say the least. If this is the way this world could only be, then why this? Under modal necessitarianism, this is not a question to be asked, which is an attitude I disagree with.

I also have a problem with what appears to be strict empiricism. Sometimes, "imagination" is what gets us in the right direction of discovering facts, and if we didn't rely on that, we would've taken longer to discover those facts, if at all.

Thanks for the links you provided. Have checked the first one already, and will check the youtube one next soon.

your existence is necessary because your existence is a fact.  To understand this you have to recognize a distinction between what is called the metaphysically given and the manmade.  The metaphysically given is all that comes about without human choice as an input.  The metaphysically given could not be different and it could not have failed to occur.  The metaphysically given can not be judged true or false, it just is and could not be different.  It's the result of entities acting and interacting with each other according to their nature.  All actions are actions of entities, there are no floating actions and the nature of the action an entity takes is determined by that thing's identity.  Contradictions can't exist because that would mean some entity acting outside of or contrary to its nature.  If entities could act contrary to their nature, we'd have chaos and no knowledge would be possible.  

When it comes to human actions, they could have been different.  By our nature which is metaphysically given, we have a volitional form of consciousness.  We can depart from reality within the contents of our minds either by making a mistake in thinking or by deliberate evasion.  That's why all products of the mind must be judged true or false,
right or wrong, and the metaphysically given is the standard by which we must judge because it's impossible for the metaphysically given to be 'wrong'.  Once again we see the axiom of existence/ identity acting as the base of knowledge.  

So it's true that you didn't have to exist, your parents could have chosen not to have children, but once they did choose and you were born your existence is no longer potential but a full fact.  If you didn't exist we'd have a contradiction that can not exist.  Facts are absolutes once they are facts.  That's what I mean about your existence is necessary.  That's why it's so silly to talk about the odds of life developing.  Life as such is metaphysically given, it could not have failed to happen so the odds were 100% that life would happen on Earth.  There is no such thing as random chance, there is only our ability or lack to predict things.

Ok, so since reality (at least outside of human actions) is "metaphysically given", and there is no such thing as random chance, then is it conceivable to have reality be the way it is now (instead of another way) without random chance playing a role here? If something "just is" with no reason behind it, doesn't this suggest some form of indeterminism?

Fair point about what you said regarding cognition and knowledge in the next paragraph. Can't say I disagree there (well, aside from a couple of sentences).

(January 23, 2023 at 8:05 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

Objectivist Wrote:your existence is necessary because your existence is a fact.  To understand this you have to recognize a distinction between what is called the metaphysically given and the manmade.  The metaphysically given is all that comes about without human choice as an input.  The metaphysically given could not be different and it could not have failed to occur.  The metaphysically given can not be judged true or false, it just is and could not be different.  It's the result of entities acting and interacting with each other according to their nature.  All actions are actions of entities, there are no floating actions and the nature of the action an entity takes is determined by that thing's identity.  Contradictions can't exist because that would mean some entity acting outside of or contrary to its nature.  If entities could act contrary to their nature, we'd have chaos and no knowledge would be possible.  

When it comes to human actions, they could have been different.  By our nature which is metaphysically given, we have a volitional form of consciousness.  We can depart from reality within the contents of our minds either by making a mistake in thinking or by deliberate evasion.  That's why all products of the mind must be judged true or false,
right or wrong, and the metaphysically given is the standard by which we must judge because it's impossible for the metaphysically given to be 'wrong'.  Once again we see the axiom of existence/ identity acting as the base of knowledge.  

So it's true that you didn't have to exist, your parents could have chosen not to have children, but once they did choose and you were born your existence is no longer potential but a full fact.  If you didn't exist we'd have a contradiction that can not exist.  Facts are absolutes once they are facts.  That's what I mean about your existence is necessary.  That's why it's so silly to talk about the odds of life developing.  Life as such is metaphysically given, it could not have failed to happen so the odds were 100% that life would happen on Earth.  There is no such thing as random chance, there is only our ability or lack to predict things.

Ok, so since reality (at least outside of human actions) is "metaphysically given", and there is no such thing as random chance, then is it conceivable to have reality be the way it is now (instead of another way) without random chance playing a role here? If something "just is" with no reason behind it, doesn't this suggest some form of indeterminism?

Fair point about what you said regarding cognition and knowledge in the next paragraph. Can't say I disagree there (well, aside from a couple of sentences).

The only thing that just is without a cause is the universe or the total of what exists.  It's perfectly right to ask about causes within the universe since that is where causality happens.  That's where things exist and act according to their nature.  That's causality, entities acting and interacting according to their nature and only according to their So an Oak tree has a cause and you have a cause, but existence as a whole does not because there's nothing outside of existence to be a cause.  But once an Oak tree exists, it is necessary.  Once your parents have you, you are necessary.  A spec of dust is necessary because it exists.  

What random chance refers to is our inability to predict something.  A dice coming up on two sixes isn't a random chance, it's causality.  If we could measure all the forces acting on the dice we could predict the outcome.  Causality applies within the universe but not to the universe.  That's eternal and uncaused.  When a human being makes a choice that isn't random chance either but causality.  Causality is the identity of action not a relationship between events.  

The universe is all causes, all actions, all relationships, all nature, all motion, change, attributes, everything, therefore it can't be caused.

(January 24, 2023 at 12:12 pm)Objectivist Wrote:

(January 23, 2023 at 8:05 am)GrandizerII Wrote: Ok, so since reality (at least outside of human actions) is "metaphysically given", and there is no such thing as random chance, then is it conceivable to have reality be the way it is now (instead of another way) without random chance playing a role here? If something "just is" with no reason behind it, doesn't this suggest some form of indeterminism?

Fair point about what you said regarding cognition and knowledge in the next paragraph. Can't say I disagree there (well, aside from a couple of sentences).

The only thing that just is without a cause is the universe or the total of what exists.  It's perfectly right to ask about causes within the universe since that is where causality happens.  That's where things exist and act according to their nature.  That's causality, entities acting and interacting according to their nature and only according to their So an Oak tree has a cause and you have a cause, but existence as a whole does not because there's nothing outside of existence to be a cause.  But once an Oak tree exists, it is necessary.  Once your parents have you, you are necessary.  A spec of dust is necessary because it exists.  

What random chance refers to is our inability to predict something.  A dice coming up on two sixes isn't a random chance, it's causality.  If we could measure all the forces acting on the dice we could predict the outcome.  Causality applies within the universe but not to the universe.  That's eternal and uncaused.  When a human being makes a choice that isn't random chance either but causality.  Causality is the identity of action not a relationship between events.  

The universe is all causes, all actions, all relationships, all nature, all motion, change, attributes, everything, therefore it can't be caused.

The total of what actually exists appears to be quite arbitrary if the total is basically this universe or a limited range of universes. Perhaps for you, this doesn't raise any big questions and therefore you're content with what just is, but for me, it's a question still worth considering.

(January 25, 2023 at 3:02 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 24, 2023 at 12:12 pm)Objectivist Wrote: The only thing that just is without a cause is the universe or the total of what exists.  It's perfectly right to ask about causes within the universe since that is where causality happens.  That's where things exist and act according to their nature.  That's causality, entities acting and interacting according to their nature and only according to their So an Oak tree has a cause and you have a cause, but existence as a whole does not because there's nothing outside of existence to be a cause.  But once an Oak tree exists, it is necessary.  Once your parents have you, you are necessary.  A spec of dust is necessary because it exists.  

What random chance refers to is our inability to predict something.  A dice coming up on two sixes isn't a random chance, it's causality.  If we could measure all the forces acting on the dice we could predict the outcome.  Causality applies within the universe but not to the universe.  That's eternal and uncaused.  When a human being makes a choice that isn't random chance either but causality.  Causality is the identity of action not a relationship between events.  

The universe is all causes, all actions, all relationships, all nature, all motion, change, attributes, everything, therefore it can't be caused.

The total of what actually exists appears to be quite arbitrary if the total is basically this universe or a limited range of universes. Perhaps for you, this doesn't raise any big questions and therefore you're content with what just is, but for me, it's a question still worth considering.

How?  Arbitrary means unsupported by any evidence either perceptual or conceptual.  Once we are aware of some objects then a total is implicit.  An actual infinite can not exist.  It defies the law of identity.  By what means are you aware of these other existents that exist outside of the total and how can we distinguish these other existents from somehting that is merely imaginary?  It's these other existents that are arbitrary and we have a way of ruling them out.

(January 25, 2023 at 12:01 pm)Objectivist Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 3:02 am)GrandizerII Wrote: The total of what actually exists appears to be quite arbitrary if the total is basically this universe or a limited range of universes. Perhaps for you, this doesn't raise any big questions and therefore you're content with what just is, but for me, it's a question still worth considering.

How?  Arbitrary means unsupported by any evidence either perceptual or conceptual.  Once we are aware of some objects then a total is implicit.  An actual infinite can not exist.  It defies the law of identity.  By what means are you aware of these other existents that exist outside of the total and how can we distinguish these other existents from somehting that is merely imaginary?  It's these other existents that are arbitrary and we have a way of ruling them out.

Arbitrary, in the sense I'm using here, just means something like random. If it happens to be that the totality is just this one universe, with very specific initial constants that just are, then that's arbitrary to me. The constants could've been different values, there could've been more than one universe. So per my reasoning, this comes off as quite arbitrary.

Interesting statement you made about actual infinity. I don't see how it has to be impossible. Could you enlighten me on how, per Objectivism, the law of identity negates an actual infinite?

I'm not aware of anything that is beyond this universe, and nothing about my wording suggested that. I'm just using reason to see what could be possible, contemplating and asking questions based on my reasoning.

How have you ruled out those "arbitrary other existents" exactly?

Happy to learn more stuff about Objectivism from you, but I'm also here to share my perspective as well.

(January 25, 2023 at 1:08 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 12:01 pm)Objectivist Wrote: How?  Arbitrary means unsupported by any evidence either perceptual or conceptual.  Once we are aware of some objects then a total is implicit.  An actual infinite can not exist.  It defies the law of identity.  By what means are you aware of these other existents that exist outside of the total and how can we distinguish these other existents from somehting that is merely imaginary?  It's these other existents that are arbitrary and we have a way of ruling them out.

Arbitrary, in the sense I'm using here, just means something like random. If it happens to be that the totality is just this one universe, with very specific initial constants that just are, then that's arbitrary to me. The constants could've been different values, there could've been more than one universe. So per my reasoning, this comes off as quite arbitrary.

Interesting statement you made about actual infinity. I don't see how it has to be impossible. Could you enlighten me on how, per Objectivism, the law of identity negates an actual infinite?

I'm not aware of anything that is beyond this universe, and nothing about my wording suggested that. I'm just using reason to see what could be possible, contemplating and asking questions based on my reasoning.

How have you ruled out those "arbitrary other existents" exactly?

Happy to learn more stuff about Objectivism from you, but I'm also here to share my perspective as well.

By what means are you aware of these other universes and why are they not included in the total of what exists?

(January 25, 2023 at 4:41 pm)Objectivist Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 1:08 pm)GrandizerII Wrote: Arbitrary, in the sense I'm using here, just means something like random. If it happens to be that the totality is just this one universe, with very specific initial constants that just are, then that's arbitrary to me. The constants could've been different values, there could've been more than one universe. So per my reasoning, this comes off as quite arbitrary.

Interesting statement you made about actual infinity. I don't see how it has to be impossible. Could you enlighten me on how, per Objectivism, the law of identity negates an actual infinite?

I'm not aware of anything that is beyond this universe, and nothing about my wording suggested that. I'm just using reason to see what could be possible, contemplating and asking questions based on my reasoning.

How have you ruled out those "arbitrary other existents" exactly?

Happy to learn more stuff about Objectivism from you, but I'm also here to share my perspective as well.

By what means are you aware of these other universes and why are they not included in the total of what exists?

As said in my last reply, I have no awareness of other universes, so the question is moot.

As for why other universes are not included in the total of what exists, I have no idea. Just as I have no idea why this universe is included in the total of what exists. I take it you don't either, given what you told me before.

To get a better idea of where I'm coming from here, I am using reason (and intuition) to contemplate possible universes and ponder whether they actually exist or not. None of this is suggesting I am aware of any other universes, though.

You may not like how I go about this epistemically (not that I'm claiming knowledge here anyway), and may be averse to the wording I'm using, but this is how I approach this stuff as a non-Objectivist. I do not hold to the exact same premises you do.

With regards to my question about why you think actual infinity is impossible, since I didn't get an answer from you on this, I decided to google what other Objectivists had to say about this. And once again, from what seems to be the official Objectivist site, I stumbled upon this:

Quote:There is a use of [the concept] “infinity” which is valid, as Aristotle observed, and that is the mathematical use. It is valid only when used to indicate a potentiality, never an actuality. Take the number series as an example. You can say it is infinite in the sense that, no matter how many numbers you count, there is always another number. You can always keep on counting; there’s no end. In that sense it is infinite—as a potential. But notice that, actually, however many numbers you count, wherever you stop, you only reached that point, you only got so far. . . . That’s Aristotle’s point that the actual is always finite. Infinity exists only in the form of the ability of certain series to be extended indefinitely; but however much they are extended, in actual fact, wherever you stop it is finite.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/infinity.html

As someone who's had multiple discussions with theists about the Kalam Cosmological Argument, I am very well aware of the distinction between potential infinity and actual infinity, so this kind of objection isn't new to me.

My response to this is that while you cannot get from potential infinity to actual infinity, there is nothing metaphysically impossible that I can know of that prevents an absolute infinity from being a reality. After all, by definition, an actual infinity is already infinite, so there is no problem of counting or traversing into infinity here.

(January 25, 2023 at 7:11 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 4:41 pm)Objectivist Wrote: By what means are you aware of these other universes and why are they not included in the total of what exists?

As said in my last reply, I have no awareness of other universes, so the question is moot.

As for why other universes are not included in the total of what exists, I have no idea. Just as I have no idea why this universe is included in the total of what exists. I take it you don't either, given what you told me before.

To get a better idea of where I'm coming from here, I am using reason (and intuition) to contemplate possible universes and ponder whether they actually exist or not. None of this is suggesting I am aware of any other universes, though.

You may not like how I go about this epistemically (not that I'm claiming knowledge here anyway), and may be averse to the wording I'm using, but this is how I approach this stuff as a non-Objectivist. I do not hold to the exact same premises you do.

With regards to my question about why you think actual infinity is impossible, since I didn't get an answer from you on this, I decided to google what other Objectivists had to say about this. And once again, from what seems to be the official Objectivist site, I stumbled upon this:

Quote:There is a use of [the concept] “infinity” which is valid, as Aristotle observed, and that is the mathematical use. It is valid only when used to indicate a potentiality, never an actuality. Take the number series as an example. You can say it is infinite in the sense that, no matter how many numbers you count, there is always another number. You can always keep on counting; there’s no end. In that sense it is infinite—as a potential. But notice that, actually, however many numbers you count, wherever you stop, you only reached that point, you only got so far. . . . That’s Aristotle’s point that the actual is always finite. Infinity exists only in the form of the ability of certain series to be extended indefinitely; but however much they are extended, in actual fact, wherever you stop it is finite.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/infinity.html

As someone who's had multiple discussions with theists about the Kalam Cosmological Argument, I am very well aware of the distinction between potential infinity and actual infinity, so this kind of objection isn't new to me.

My response to this is that while you cannot get from potential infinity to actual infinity, there is nothing metaphysically impossible that I can know of that prevents an absolute infinity from being a reality. After all, by definition, an actual infinity is already infinite, so there is no problem of counting or traversing into infinity here.

Correct.  The universe is an abstraction.  It denotes the whole, which we are not aware of perceptually but we are aware of conceptually. We have two kinds of awareness.  The senses bring us awareness of things within their range and for everything else there are concepts but they have to be reducible to percepts or they are just floating abstractions tied to nothing real.  That's what gods are.  That is what the supernatural is.  They are floating, rationalistic, apriori ideas.    

 The Universe is everything that exists.  That's what the word means.  Uni means one and versus means turning.  The Latin universus means turning into one or whole.  Now if you define the universe as only part of what exists then you need to say how you are aware of this other part or it's simply an arbitrary claim.  If, in your view, the concept of 'universe' does not denote the totality, what does?  See how the analytic-synthetic dichotomy poisons one's mind.  If we define the universe as  Just part of what exists, what justifies doing this.  Nothing.  I'll tell you why this is done.  It's to make room for a god to exist and to try and escape from the law of identity and the primacy of existence but it doesn' work because it is a completely arbitrary definition, based on no objective inputs. It's just a game of manipulating words.    

If you start counting existents.....1, 2, 3....however many you count it is always a specific quantity.  Infinity is not a specific quantity, it's not a number.  It does not exist in reality.  I agree that it does have a use in mathematics to denote the potential to carry a number sequence on indefintely 

We don't perceive the universe, we perceive existents.  And since we know that we aren't perceiving all that exists then by the law of identiy we know that some specific quantity of existents exist but we will never know what specific quantity is.  But we need a concept in order to denote the whole and that's what the concept 'universe' does.  To say that there is another realm of existence outside the universe is a contradiction.  If you are fine with holding a contradiction then there's no point in continuing the discussion because you have abandoned reason.

(January 25, 2023 at 9:26 pm)Objectivist Wrote: The Universe is everything that exists.  That's what the word means.  Uni means one and versus means turning.  The Latin universus means turning into one or whole.

Words can change meaning over time. Because of repeated suggestions of a multiverse in this day and age, the word "universe" has come to be understood as a part of reality and not the whole.

Either way, if you're still not ever sure what someone means by a particular word, it's always good to ask.

Quote:Now if you define the universe as only part of what exists then you need to say how you are aware of this other part or it's simply an arbitrary claim.

Nothing wrong with "arbitrary", as you defined it earlier. Something not having evidence for its existence doesn't make it non-existent. We could still use reason and intuition to judge the plausibility of its existence. Well, some of us non-Objectivists, at least.

Quote:If, in your view, the concept of 'universe' does not denote the totality, what does?  See how the analytic-synthetic dichotomy poisons one's mind.  If we define the universe as  Just part of what exists, what justifies doing this.  Nothing.  I'll tell you why this is done.  It's to make room for a god to exist and to try and escape from the law of identity and the primacy of existence but it doesn' work because it is a completely arbitrary definition, based on no objective inputs. It's just a game of manipulating words.

Thanks for sharing your personal opinion here, which is not supported by the evidence and therefore is "arbitrary".   

Quote:If you start counting existents.....1, 2, 3....however many you count it is always a specific quantity.  Infinity is not a specific quantity, it's not a number.  It does not exist in reality.  I agree that it does have a use in mathematics to denote the potential to carry a number sequence on indefintely

Infinity is an unlimited quantity. I didn't see any good argument for why an actual infinite is impossible.

What I see is you making an argument against potential infinity not being actual infinity, which I can agree with. If you start counting from the number one all the way into infinity, you will never reach some final destination called "infinity", true. But so what? This doesn't invalidate actual infinites.

Quote:We don't perceive the universe, we perceive existents.  And since we know that we aren't perceiving all that exists then by the law of identiy we know that some specific quantity of existents exist but we will never know what specific quantity is.  But we need a concept in order to denote the whole and that's what the concept 'universe' does.  To say that there is another realm of existence outside the universe is a contradiction.  If you are fine with holding a contradiction then there's no point in continuing the discussion because you have abandoned reason.

And do you really honestly think that I've been saying that there is another realm of existence beyond the whole of existence? Come on, man, be more charitable than that.

It's fine if you feel a discussion with me is futile, and you want to cease the discussion with me. You're a free person after all.

Big questions are "big" for a reason. They're not meant to be easy to answer, if at all possible. Objectivists are not the first, nor the last, to struggle with these.