A question for athiests

Sojourner<>< · Mar 10, 2007

MorkandMindy said:
No takers on this key point?

I'm not sure that one can say that causality completely dissappears with certainty. I'm no physicist but I think that the latest theories have been reconsidering the possibility of hidden variables behind the supposed 'randomness' described by quantum mechanics.

MorkandMindy · Mar 10, 2007

cantata said:
"Governs reality"? What exactly do you mean by that? The anthropic principle is your friend here. Stuff like the laws of physics just are how they are. If they weren't, you wouldn't be here to wonder about it, would you? It's pretty meaningless to say that they could have been any different.

To quote Bertie Russell:

Both Cantata and Mark the Eudo um thingamy pretty much cracked it at the start. Evidently a bit more detail is needed, so here is some more.

Cause and effect (causality).
A neutron is bombing along at 100,000 mph and hits an innocent proton minding it's own business and sends it zooming off somewhere it has never been before. It is scared and apprehensive.

Did you get the number of that nasty neutron? Nope, it was going too fast. Etc.

Now we change to science.

Two particles collide. Recall relativity? One isn't at rest and the other moving, there is no unique reference frame. All that happens is they get closer, deform and separate. That's all.

Which is the cause and which the effect? Neither can be said to be stationary so neither is the cause. Which is the guilty party? Ditto.

Run the film backward, they come together and separate. Same. If you go to a third entity, such as a bit of energy is released, then it looks likely that the time went in a particular direction, though not certain.

In a two particle interaction I can't see that cause and effect are defined. At the origin of the Universe as a single (or double, or quadruple) entity cause and effect lack meaning.

You might as well ask where the court sits that decides which particle is at fault in each collision as ask about the causality.

Pretty pointless asking vague questions about The First Cause in a simple situation where causality can not be established.

Tynan · Mar 10, 2007

Sojourner<>< said:
Well that depends on how you define govern. Merriam-Webster provides this definition: " to serve as a precedent or deciding principle for ".

Sojourner: Just out of curiosity, if you don't believe that God is real, what do you believe serves as a precedent or deciding principle for reality?

It is a default, there is not another way.

A void in absence of this universe is a presumption not an axiom.

MorkandMindy · Mar 11, 2007

Tynan said:
Hi Sojourner

The act of governing is to organize and control, presumably if 'reality' was not governed it would fall into a differing state.

What might this state be ?

And if god removed his government of reality and reality changed it's nature - who would be governing this new situation ?

I see your question as too undefined to be anything other than semantics.

Greetings Tynan

I'm no expert but I'll relate how I understood the second point in this thread and you can tell me if you see it the same way.

Mark the Eud.... stated that entities have properties.

That's the key to the Universe we see.

Stars, protons you name it are all flying apart so fast it would be a real problem to have anything governing the Universe.

Instead the Universe has only space and time (and a few other dimensions). The rest is entities.

The rest of the Universe is the same - entities only - so I can take anything as an example.

A field of grass. There is no ruler deciding where each blade will go. If it is too close to another already there, the blade may die or remain small, further away it gets more light and water. The blades of grass space themselves according to their needs and the resources.

The blades of grass do things like grow and collect sunlight according to their DNA. No ruler tells them what to do.

To adequately describe the field would require a mass of photographs and molecular data. But very little information was required in the first place to generate it. The complexity is down to just doing the same thing again and again with random variations thrown in.

The Universe has it's properties of space and time, and everything else has its properties. Entities spawn and respawn until there are many of them. The bewildering structure is produced by very simple behaviour. No overall guidence is required.

That's the world we see. The Christian one is not one sparrow falls to the ground without permission, and each hair on our heads is numbered. Total control everywhere.

The first cause is somewhere else. Science doesn't require any ultimate first cause, and Christianity requires absolutely unimaginably countless causes at every stage.

Tynan · Mar 11, 2007

MorkandMindy said:
Greetings Tynan

Hi

MorkandMindy said:
Stars, protons you name it are all flying apart so fast it would be a real problem to have anything governing the Universe.

Why would the speed of objects relative movement cause the universe to be ungovernable ?

MorkandMindy said:
Instead the Universe has only space and time (and a few other dimensions). The rest is entities.

This is, at best, a reasoned guess.

MorkandMindy said:
The rest of the Universe is the same - entities only - so I can take anything as an example.

This also is, at best, a reasoned guess.

MorkandMindy said:
A field of grass. There is no ruler deciding where each blade will go. If it is too close to another already there, the blade may die or remain small, further away it gets more light and water.
The blades of grass space themselves according to their needs and the resources.

I would not say that blades of grass space themselves according to their needs and the resources as they have no individual mechanism for self spacing and are not aware of their needs - and if they were aware of there needs still have no mechanism to effect where they are positioned.

I think it is more correct to say the blades of grass are randomly* positioned, they do not space themselves nor do the seeds know what resources they might need. Those seeds that land in non-viable locations do not flourish those that land in viable locations with access to needed resources flourish.

*'randomly' expressed here in the interests of brevity

MorkandMindy said:
The Universe has it's properties of space and time, and everything else has its properties.

The universe is everything, there is no 'everything else'.

MorkandMindy said:
Entities spawn and respawn until there are many of them. The bewildering structure is produced by very simple behaviour. No overall guidence is required.

Indeed.

Simple behavior = complex structure.

Have a look here > http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

Read the page first, then click on the grid to 'seed' it.

MorkandMindy · Mar 11, 2007

Greetings Tynan,

I didn't word things as well as I should have.

Speed flying apart: this comes from some comment someone made about the thing that governs the Universe. It can't be governed in the present tense if signals take billions of years to get from where ever the governing entity is to what has to be governed. Since this is a bizzare anthropomorphic type of science point I thought it acceptable to limit control to the speed of light.

By 'Universe' in one part I meant the properties the Universe itself provides; space and time mainly, the dimensions, and was making the point that if someone asks why there is evil in the Universe they have instead to deal with the entities, rather than properties of the Universe.

My last line was extra badly worded. I meant that pseudo Christian first cause argument isn't in line with Christianity where god controls or allows every detail including the number of hairs on your head - instead you have to accept an inconcievably big mountain of initiatives or permissions, nor is it compatible with science which requires none.

I'll have a look at that game of life, cheers, MorkandMindy

Tenka · Mar 11, 2007

Sojourner said:
Just out of curiosity, if you don't believe that God is real, what do you believe governs reality? What's your theory? What is it that determines the rules of physics, the architecture of everything that is?

I dunno. Sorry.

livingone · Mar 11, 2007

Sojourner<>< said:
Just out of curiosity, if you don't believe that God is real, what do you believe governs reality? What's your theory? What is it that determines the rules of physics, the architecture of everything that is?

I think the limitations of the world is that which predicts or dictates experience. You can say that it is the will of God that affirms or governs reality; but what are the limitations of his will? You can say that Gods' will is infinite. Not necessarily true, as it is evident that God cannot expunge evil from existence.
I believe that it is not God's will that completely governs reality, perhaps ordains, however, does not govern it.
If God gave man free will then being part of will, we all (all life included) governs reality. It is the will that directs the continous outcome of life. But in the end it is the limitations, as existence or the world that confines the will to space and time.
You could say that God is outside of space and time; but if God were outside of space and time then God would have no experience because even in will there is thought directed through spirit--and in thought there is movement and a consciousness is confined to the being; therefore God exists in space and time. In other words, if God is a being then he is in his own space and if God has a thought then he is in time; as thoughts have movement into other thoughts--which is the experience of time.

merseyferrier · Mar 13, 2007

I don't profess to know why the law of gravity is as it is. However, just because I don't know the answer to a question does not mean I should settle for made-up answers.

tcampen · Mar 14, 2007

Sojourner<>< said:
Just out of curiosity, if you don't believe that God is real, what do you believe governs reality? What's your theory? What is it that determines the rules of physics, the architecture of everything that is?

Reality is governed by the laws of nature and our perception of it. We can never rule out our individual perception. That is not to say there isn't an objective reality out there, just that there are as many ways to percieve it as there are people.

Asking "what determines the rules of physics" is a nonsensical question. It's like asking "what makes a circle round?" The rules of physics are what they are. But if your question is, where did they come from, then you're asking either a cosmological question or a theological question, depending on the type of answer you want.

Cosmologically speaking, the expansion of the universe had to result in something, and this is what we got. There is no reason to think it had to be this way, other than our desire to make the universe's existence all about us - but how honest is that?

If you want answers based in physics, math and science, read Stephen Hawking. If you want an apologetic response based in religious philosophy, read William Craig.

Sojourner<>< · Mar 14, 2007

tcampen said:
Reality is governed by the laws of nature and our perception of it. We can never rule out our individual perception. That is not to say there isn't an objective reality out there, just that there are as many ways to percieve it as there are people.

Asking "what determines the rules of physics" is a nonsensical question. It's like asking "what makes a circle round?" The rules of physics are what they are. But if your question is, where did they come from, then you're asking either a cosmological question or a theological question, depending on the type of answer you want.

Cosmologically speaking, the expansion of the universe had to result in something, and this is what we got. There is no reason to think it had to be this way, other than our desire to make the universe's existence all about us - but how honest is that?

If you want answers based in physics, math and science, read Stephen Hawking. If you want an apologetic response based in religious philosophy, read William Craig.

Thanks, but I was asking for your ideas, not Hawkings' or Craig's.

tcampen · Mar 14, 2007

Sojourner<>< said:
Thanks, but I was asking for your ideas, not Hawkings' or Craig's.

Ok....

Nothing "governs" reality. Reality is a description of the state of our universe, not a thing unto itself. So, as I stated above, the question doesn't really make any sense.

If you're asking what governs nature, it would be the laws of physics and chemistry. If you're asking what governs those laws, well we're back to your original question about what "governs reality".

Second, the question is a bit loaded. It assumes reality (or nature) requires something to govern it. Is there any premise for this assumption? That might help.

Reality just is. Many factors affect it, from the natural laws to human will, but I don't see anything necessarily "governing" it as the word is defined in Webster's:

gov·ern transitive verb 1 a: to exercise continuous sovereign authority over; especially : to control and direct the making and administration of policy in b: to rule without sovereign power and usually without having the authority to determine basic policy 2 aarchaic : manipulate b: to control the speed of (as a machine) especially by automatic means 3 a: to control, direct, or strongly influence the actions and conduct of b: to exert a determining or guiding influence in or over <income must govern expenditure> c: to hold in check : restrain 4: to require (a word) to be in a certain case5: to serve as a precedent or deciding principle for <customs that govern human decisions>

faithinthedirt · Mar 16, 2007

I don't believe that any force governs reality. I believe that all living things and the land we live on come from something scientific, not something at all religious. I believe that the only thing that can impact reality is life--all species, all people have the ability to change the course of reality.

Silenus · Mar 16, 2007

It sounds like most of the non-theists on this thread would agree with the following quote, correct me if I'm wrong.

Nothing is more absurd than to regard nature as a single effect and to give it a single cause in an extra-natural being who is the effect of no other being. If I cannot refrain from spinning out fantasies, from looking further afield, if I am unable to stop with nature and content my intellectual need with other causes, with the universal action and inaction of nature, what is to prevent me from going beyond God as well?

Lectures on the essence of religion

Ludwig Feuerbach

I want to be sure of what kind of metaphysics the atheists hold on this thread before I post. I've found in discussions on this that atheists disagree with each other on this as well as with Christians.

loudatheist101 · Mar 16, 2007

Silenus said:
It sounds like most of the non-theists on this thread would agree with the following quote, correct me if I'm wrong.

I want to be sure of what kind of metaphysics the atheists hold on this thread before I post. I've found in discussions on this that atheists disagree with each other on this as well as with Christians.

I don't get it. What the fudge is he trying to say?

us38 · Mar 16, 2007

Silenus said:
I want to be sure of what kind of metaphysics the atheists hold on this thread before I post. I've found in discussions on this that atheists disagree with each other on this as well as with Christians.

Well yeah. The only thing all atheists have in common is a lack of belief in god.

Verwirrung

-- D

Silenus · Mar 17, 2007

basically, it sounds like most of the athiests posting here are materialists and I wanted to make sure that was true before I posted anything.

Lucretius · Mar 18, 2007

I don't really see why this thread has needed to continue as all the atheists have basically given the same answer —[wash my mouth]I agree with them exactly. In regards, Sojourner, to the notion that "hidden variables" are involved with quantum mechanics; that's a big stretch. Einstein already made that claim; it was tested; he ended up being wrong. For example, the "spooky action at a distance" known as quantum entanglement, which seems to violate casuality in that one particle can be instantaneously "linked" to another particle, no matter their distance, and that an action done on one particle will instantly effect the other one, no matter the distance. Einstein blamed this on some hidden variable. He ended up being wrong.

Newer quantum mechanical theories do not make the claim that there are hidden variables. Quantum mechanics abounds in uncertainty and randomness. Take, for instance, two state variables of a particle: position, and momentum. According to quantum mechanics these two variables which are easily solved for in Newtonian mechanics, cannot both be accurate, and you can never know one without being infinitely wrong about the other.

I could continue to list millions of examples: experiments validate the randomness of quantum mechanics. Once you get down to the smallest level of spacetime; why would one expect things to follow common sense anyways? It's not a realm we commonly experience.

Asimov · Mar 18, 2007

Silenus said:
basically, it sounds like most of the athiests posting here are materialists and I wanted to make sure that was true before I posted anything.

Materialism is rather vague, though.

Eudaimonist · Mar 18, 2007

Silenus said:
basically, it sounds like most of the athiests posting here are materialists and I wanted to make sure that was true before I posted anything.

Perhaps you should carefully explain what you mean by "materialism", and atheists here can say whether that's what they believe or not.

eudaimonia,

Mark

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