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Gambit Wrote:My reasoning is thus: I don't understand how there's a "before time". Take the singularity, for example. If it created the universe then it must have been in motion, which requires time to mark its progression. However, we're led to believe that before the big bang event there was no time. This is one of those points where perhaps my understanding of the science fails me.
Second: Matter being born from nothing. I don't get how something can come from nothing. Therefore, to me, something outside of the laws of nature - an entity that we'll call god - is the only thing that can circumvent this rule. This entity, being outside of the laws of nature, doesn't have to follow the argument of infinite regression.
Aren't you familiar with a cyclic model like "the Big Crunch"?basically, average density of the universe is enough to slow, stop, and reverse expansion. The end result: BIG CRUNCH ... Followed immediately by a Big Bang. Heat death would still eventually occur but we couldn't know when or better- we don't know how many times this has happened.
This has been argued due to (the extremely minute amount of) what we know of dark energy being the cause for the initial cosmic inflation. But cosmic inflation stopped and became what we call expansion which was a huge change. So basically: one more odd change in the " equation of state" and things could stop expanding and start "retracting."[/quote][/code]
(December 16, 2012 at 2:58 am)SpecUVdust Wrote: Aren't you familiar with a cyclic model like "the Big Crunch"?basically, average density of the universe is enough to slow, stop, and reverse expansion. The end result: BIG CRUNCH ... Followed immediately by a Big Bang. Heat death would still eventually occur but we couldn't know when or better- we don't know how many times this has happened.
This has been argued due to (the extremely minute amount of) what we know of dark energy being the cause for the initial cosmic inflation. But cosmic inflation stopped and became what we call expansion which was a huge change. So basically: one more odd change in the " equation of state" and things could stop expanding and start "retracting."
This remains one possibility, though there is little in the way of observational evidence to support it, and it does not appear that there is sufficient mass density to cause it to happen. Some unknown mechanism could exist, of course - similar to the inflation/expansion transition, which as far as I know also has no known cause (if the models are correct). The case for that is stronger as it appears that it did occur (even if we don't know the cause). The "big crunch" doesn't appear to be necessary (though it remains an unknown).
I sincerely hope that we learn a great deal more about this in what remains of my lifetime - we certainly have since I was born.
December 16, 2012 at 3:10 am (This post was last modified: December 16, 2012 at 3:22 am by SpecUVdust.)
Wikipedia Wrote:Nihilism ( /ˈnaɪ.ɨlɪzəm/ or /ˈniː.ɨlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.
Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:This remains one possibility, though there is little in the way of observational evidence to support it, and it does not appear that there is sufficient mass density to cause it to happen. Some unknown mechanism could exist, of course - similar to the inflation/expansion transition, which as far as I know also has no known cause (if the models are correct). The case for that is stronger as it appears that it did occur (even if we don't know the cause). The "big crunch" doesn't appear to be necessary (though it remains an unknown).
I sincerely hope that we learn a great deal more about this in what remains of my lifetime - we certainly have since I was born.
I could not agree more. There are many theories that (if proven correct) could provide all the answers we seek that do not involve and deity. There are so many to ponder. So why do some people focus on the theory which involves a deity?
December 16, 2012 at 4:17 am (This post was last modified: December 16, 2012 at 4:20 am by FallentoReason.)
CD Wrote:
(December 16, 2012 at 2:24 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Well, I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I get a completely different thing:
Read farther in the same article. That quote above is only a starting point, the implications are much greater.
Wikipedia Wrote:Søren Kierkegaard, generally considered to be the first existentialist philosopher,[3][5][6] posited that it is the individual who is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and for living life passionately and sincerely ("authentically").[7][8]
(December 16, 2012 at 2:24 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I admit that I did say somewhere that Deism makes me feel a certain way, but never have I said that it therefore means it's the absolute truth, which I'm assuming is what an existentialist would(?) do.
There are, as far as I'm aware, no absolute truths to be found anywhere in existentialism.
(December 16, 2012 at 2:24 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Going back to your definition: isn't that nihilism? That life has no inherent meaning?
Well, that depends on who you ask. As I understand it, nihilism is a special case of existentialism (and there are many types of nihilism).
I would summarize them in layman's terms (and likely wrong) like this:
Existentialism: Life has no inherent meaning, other than what we give it personally.
Existential Nihilism: Life has no intrinsic or inherent meaning or value. I would go farther an say that under this philosophy any meaning that we personally assign to life is personal and illusionary.
There are other forms of nihilism (e.g. moral nihilism) which state that within their scope (i.e. morality) any meaning is artificial and constructed, rather than intrinsic or inherent.
As I can personally find no intrinsic, inherent source of meaning / morality / ethics, etc., I personally have a hard time arguing against it.
Under either school of thought, you can still find personal meaning for yourself - you just have to recognize that it's borne out of desire (yours or society's) rather than being some fundamental, intrinsic quality of existence.
Right, I can see how I would be an Existentialist but not so much the Nihilist. I fail to see what any of this had to do with Deism though, which I know, is not something you were originally arguing about C.D.
So I ask you Spec, what does any of this mean for Deism?
...ok, I don't see any [ /quote ] beyond what I wrote but it somehow made my post a part of your quote...
and what I just wrote then?!
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
(December 16, 2012 at 4:17 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I fail to see what any of this had to do with Deism though, which I know, is not something you were originally arguing about C.D.
Not a damn thing.
Oh, and we're not arguing, just batting thoughts around in the interest of helping you figure things out for yourself.
December 16, 2012 at 5:41 am (This post was last modified: December 16, 2012 at 5:41 am by FallentoReason.)
(December 16, 2012 at 4:23 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:
(December 16, 2012 at 4:17 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I fail to see what any of this had to do with Deism though, which I know, is not something you were originally arguing about C.D.
Not a damn thing.
Oh, and we're not arguing, just batting thoughts around in the interest of helping you figure things out for yourself.
I didn't mean it in a negative way. I just meant literally argumentation, or you putting forth an argument, as opposed to that other sense for the word "argue"
(December 16, 2012 at 5:03 am)SpecUVdust Wrote:
FallentoReason Wrote:So I ask you Spec, what does any of this mean for Deism?
Like CD said:
CthulhuDreaming Wrote:Oh, and we're not arguing, just batting thoughts around in the interest of helping you figure things out for yourself.
Are you sure? I think I may have triggered something within you that made you bring all this up in the first place.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
Nothing means anything for deism because deism is nothing more than baseless, feel good, dreaming.
You are currently experiencing a lucky and very brief window of awareness, sandwiched in between two periods of timeless and utter nothingness. So why not make the most of it, and stop wasting your life away trying to convince other people that there is something else? The reality is obvious.
December 16, 2012 at 10:26 am (This post was last modified: December 16, 2012 at 10:37 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Your agnosticism certainly doesn't suggest or establish that what you've claimed might actually be true, just that you don't know. You could be agnostic about the earth being round, or any other number of things for which the status of the claim has been robustly established. Let's not confuse the status of our personal knowledge of a thing with the status of the thing itself.
To use a particularly illustrative example of this- in the years between 1892 and 1898 two men, Dmitri Ivanovsky and Martinus Beijerinck discovered a virus known as Tobacco Mosaic Virus (a particularly nasty virus for agricultural production), before this time no one had any clue wtf a virus was (and no one would -know- what a virus was for another 40 years or so). You see, the first man (Dmitri) proposed that a non-bacterial pathogen was infecting tobacco plants. The second man (Martinus - who, btw discovered the process of nitrogen fixation) established that this was the case, that the pathogen was smaller than a bacterium - but he was unable to culture it.
Now, today, equipped with much more powerful instrumentation it's trivially easy to show that Mosaic is now and always was caused by a virus. However, before the work of these two men (and others later, with newly invented instrumentation) the explanations for this condition in cropland ranged from the whims of god/demons to witchcraft to bacteria. With their work we could add a 4th option, viral contagion, to the mix. At any point you would find people who simply -knew- that mosaic was caused by [insert any one or combination of the above]. You would also find people who did not feel that that they-knew- that mosaic was caused by [insert any one or combination of the above]. Finally, you could find people who -knew- it wasn't caused by [insert any one or combination of the above]. Meanwhile, over, around, beside and under all of these varying possibilities of what was or wasn't - Tobacco Mosaic Disease had been going about it's business via a viral pathogen - as it had, likely, since the emergence of nightshades a very.....very long time ago.
Even the two men mentioned above would have had to honestly concede that they did not -know- that their own claims were true (despite having very compelling reasons for their conclusions). It wasn't until much later that the subject had been definitively laid to rest by direct observation via crystallization (in 1935) of the pathogen in question (an effort which was rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 1946- you see, there was still 11 years of debate on the issue). But none of this had any effect on what Tobacco Mosaic Disease was caused by, what was potentially true and what was actually true were entirely different propositions - and what was actually true was not affected by peoples varying explanations (or lack thereof).
Now, I'll grant you that having a discussion about an unknown is likely to be toothless, that if we can't at least attempt to claim knowledge that something exists, for all practical purposes - it doesn't (specifically, to us). However, it's important to remember that the status of our knowledge (or lack thereof) doesn't seem to have the ability to compel the cosmos to conform to the contents of the same. Your agnosticism, or the agnostic nature of this subject says nothing about the cosmos or a god - it's only capable of saying something about you and your level of comfort with a given claim. What you feel may be possible has no effect on what -is- in actuality. I'll add here, that the claim - especially for the reasons you offered- doesn't even compel me to concede agnosticism. I'm very comfortable saying that the god described does not exist.
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FallentoReason Wrote:(Today 09:03)SpecUVdust Wrote:
FallentoReason Wrote:
So I ask you Spec, what does any of this mean for Deism?
Like CD said:
CthulhuDreaming Wrote:
Oh, and we're not arguing, just batting thoughts around in the interest of helping you figure things out for yourself.
Are you sure? I think I may have triggered something within you that made you bring all this up in the first place.
Please read post #93 first. Now the reason I have brought up the nihilism is because I do not see how one might conjure up a deity that created everything(a huge leap of faith) and still be a nihilist. Obviously you're deity must have "created" for a purpose, even if it is only for its own entertainment. I'm not seeing how you can honestly be an existential-nihilistic-deist!
