Human Evolution

SelfSim

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Objective reality exists. There are real things that are following real laws of nature.
The 'laws of nature' were distilled by humans describing everyday perceptions. They are models. 'Nature' doesn't go to some mythical galactic laws written on a tablet floating around in space someplace and consult with some alien lawyer, so it can 'follow' or 'obey' them, y'know.
The notion that reality, the laws of nature and things that truly exist independently from all human minds, is a pure belief.

You, nor anyone else I've ever encountered, can even come close to citing the objective test independent from any human mind whatsoever, that would lead to such a conclusion. It is thus a belief.
doubtingmerle said:
You cannot get from "Our language cannot express everything precisely" to "therefore reality does not exist."
I haven't said any of that .. that's all just your misconceptions of how science approaches that topic.
What can be demonstrated from objective test results, is that what we mean by 'reality' or 'exists', whenerever we use those terms, comes about by either of two ways: by belief or by the scientific method.

Try this on:

Me: Please tell me something you regard as physically real (ie: existing);
Person#1: The Empire State building, (etc.)

Me: Ok .. so the Empire State building is something you are sure exists independently of human minds?
Person#1: Yes.

Me: And why are you sure it exists?
Person#1: For reasons X, Y, and Z.

Me: So those reasons convince you that you are sure?
Person#1: Yes.

Me: Those are the parts that aren't independent of your (human) mind.
(And yet somehow, the Empire State building is? o_O )
 
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AV1611VET

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE
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But in spite of its limits, we still make language work.
Even if it takes a rigged vote at times.
doubtingmerle said:
You and I (and AV1611VET and others) observe that reality.
Sometimes after the fact -- when it's too late.

Would you like to see an "after-the-fact-when-it-was-too-late" reality picture that scientists were responsible for?
 
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Aussie Pete

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AV1611VET

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE
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Tell that to the woke, progressive transgender crowd.
Science will back them up and give them all the excuses they need to continue in that lifestyle.
 
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expos4ever

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Ask your genes.

Academia claims you're born that way -- (or used to).
This is not really much of an answer. Yes, I suppose genes nudge us in certain ways, but we can override them. For example, people can and do choose to remain childless for a wide range of legitimate reasons. You are, with no evidence, suggesting that "biology equals destiny".
 
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AV1611VET

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This is not really much of an answer.
Do you disagree that a person can appeal to science to justify his lifestyle?
expos4ever said:
Yes, I suppose genes nudge us in certain ways, but we can override them.
What about those who choose not to override them?

Will science back them up or not?
 
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Mark Quayle

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You say this in response to, "But how do you know that God might be something different from how you define him?"

Ah, so that is how you know that God is not something different from how you define it? Sounds like wishful thinkin to me. Just because you have an interest in God being a certain way does not prove God is that way.

Let me be more specific. It is not because I define him any certain way, that he is what he is. Nevertheless, he necessarily is first cause, self-existent, omnipotent, creator of all that is not him, and all the things that necessarily follow from those. If he is not, then he is not God, and I cannot accept that he is. Simple
 
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Mark Quayle

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Exactly. God cannot do self-contradictory things. You cannot do self-contradictory things. I cannot do self-contradictory thngs. AV1611VET cannot do self-contradictory things. Neither can Estrid, or anybody else here. It is simply impossible.

You are repeating yourself again.

You may as well just say that a logically self-contradictory thing is impossible, as to go through all these changes. It doesn't apply to God, so why bother to say he can't? It does not limit God. He has no interest in doing such things! Life and truth is not about your point of view of it. (Ask Ayn Rand.) ;)

God cannot create 2 sided triangles. He cannot make 2+2=53,567. He cannot make married bachelors. He cannot be a lying being that never lies. He cannot be always honest while sometimes lying. Nobody can do those things. It is just the simple nature of reality that these things are so, and God could do nothing to change it.
see above

2+2=4. That's just how it is. We didn't need God to invent that. It is just the nature of reality. God could not have possibly invented the relationship that 2+2=53,567.
God is just how it is. He is not a subset of anything else. Anything else besides him is a result of his causation. Therefore no conjecture can limit him. Is it really that hard to grasp?

Mathematics is simply the expression of what intrinsically is. We do not need anybody to invent it. We just need people to discover the laws that intrinsically exist.

I use the term, "invent", to convey the idea of hierarchy. I don't really know of a word that would be sufficient to cover the idea I want to, nor does my idea of it do the job either. God has made things that are of his own nature. But you imagine that his nature is subject to the things (including logic and reality) he has created. You have it backwards, if he is first cause.

I'm not saying that our (my) descriptions are accurate; they are ignorant, my mind can't do this job. But when it comes to raw fact, God is the default, all else is secondary.
 
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Mark Quayle

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OK, then I guess you are an atheist. For you have said repeatedly that God cannot do things that are self-contradictory. You have admitted over and over that there are some things that limit God. He cannot do things that are self-contradictory. He cannot make 2 sided triangles. He cannot make married bachelors. He cannot lie and never lie. There are a lot of things that your God cannot do.

Your God is subject to the restriction that prevents anybody from doing self-contradictory things.
And so on we go. I have adamantly rejected the notion that anything can limit God. It is particularly ridiculous that logically self-contradictory humanly derived notions can limit God. They don't even limit us! We may be bound by the logically possible, but not by the logically impossible. It doesn't even exist!

But God is the default fact. Even logic and reality are from him, not TO him, in the same way. He is not subject to them. He is no doubt totally logical and real, but they do not define him, but he defines them.

So no. I have not said repeatedly that God cannot do things that are self-contradictory. I have not said that there are things that limit God. The 'things' you list are nonsense, bogus human constructions of nothing. Words turned on themselves. God is not limited, unless by his own being. He is certainly not limited by our foolishness.
 
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Mark Quayle

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So far you have not listed one such reason. What reason do you have for believing the first cause of the universe had intent?

Instinctively, because it doesn't make sense.

But by reason, because there are only two kinds of things —those with intent, and mechanical fact. A mechanical fact, such as the Universe itself, does not come into being without cause. Nor can it be eternally self-existent as it depends on principles from outside itself to control its changes. (A computer follows a program).

Also, by reason, the fact that 'changing things' (becoming) demands 'something eternal' (that doesn't become). I don't remember if you watched the video linked in the OP of the thread, Philosophy: First Cause is. Everything else is becoming
I tried to do a synopsis of it in post #8 but it doesn't really do the video justice. It deals with this.


Flapdoodle. There can be a sum total of whatever it is that is the root explanation of the universe that is more than just mechanical fact.

Can you describe this sum total that is not just mechanical fact?

And yet your God is restricted from making 2+2=53,567. Even if God wanted to make 2+2=53,567, your God could not do that. Therefore, by your definition, your God is not first cause.

Not at all. You continue with this nonsense. Why would God want to make 2+2=53,567 ? Again, you propose a bogus construct, and pretend it limits first cause. Really?
 
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Mark Quayle

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Then what are we supposed to think you mean whenever you type the phrase 'is real'?

If its not 'subject to our concepts or language', then why do you specifically, deliberately, use our concepts and language to tell us what is and isn't real?
What we think is irrelevant to what a real thing is. What makes you think "[what we are] supposed to think" has anything to do with it?

I specifically, deliberately us our concepts and language to tell us all I can of what is and isn't real, because I have no other way to convey a concept. But, again, how does that govern the reality of anything?
 
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SelfSim

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What we think is irrelevant to what a real thing is. What makes you think "[what we are] supposed to think" has anything to do with it?

I specifically, deliberately us our concepts and language to tell us all I can of what is and isn't real, because I have no other way to convey a concept. But, again, how does that govern the reality of anything?
The idea is that everything, once perceived and described using language, becomes a model. There are two main types of models: beliefs and testables. The testable ones can become real .. beliefs don't.
 
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Astrophile

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Yet the whole thing is expanding, including the rate of expansion, exponentially, supposedly, including time and space. 'Reality'. Seen from the rate from the beginning, which we don't know, and seen from the current farthest reaches, we really don't know, do we? Then when you consider how God (first cause) sees it, who knows? I don't, and I'm pretty sure nobody else does either.

SN 1987A is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which is not expanding. The expansion of the universe does not affect the measurement of the distances of nearby galaxies, or even of relatively nearby clusters of galaxies, such as the Virgo cluster (about 55 million light-years away).
 
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Shemjaza

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SN 1987A is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which is not expanding. The expansion of the universe does not affect the measurement of the distances of nearby galaxies, or even of relatively nearby clusters of galaxies, such as the Virgo cluster (about 55 million light-years away).
The gravity of the Local Group is predicted to overcome expansion... in the long term, is the Virgo cluster going to be separated?
 
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Astrophile

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The gravity of the Local Group is predicted to overcome expansion... in the long term, is the Virgo cluster going to be separated?

Yes, in the long term the Local Group will separate from the Virgo cluster, although the Virgo cluster itself may stay together.

However, it will take a very long time for the distance of the Virgo cluster to increase significantly. The average radial velocity of the Virgo cluster is about 1170 km/s, so in 55 million years (the time taken for light to reach us from the cluster) its distance will have increased by about 70,000 parsecs, or about 210,000 light-years. This is less than 0.5% of the present distance of the cluster. That is what I mean when I say that the expansion of the universe does not affect measurements of the distance of nearby clusters of galaxies.
 
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doubtingmerle

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  • We don't know ..
  • The universe, the Big Bang, cosmic inflation and quantum effects are all models developed by scientists doing their best to explain how to think of things coming into existence, all of which are based on what we do know.
  • We won't know more until they come up with a better tested model.
I'll leave it up to you to decide on whether that answer is substantially different from yours.
Looking back at this again, yes, this answer is substantially different from mine. The difference is that I answered. You did not answer. So no, I cannot compare my answer with your evasion of the question.

Once again, here are the questions you were responding to.

  • How did the universe begin? There was a Big Bang.
  • How did the Big Bang happen? Probably there was cosmic inflation and quantum effects.
  • How did cosmic inflation and quantum effects come about? I don't know. There is some explanation, though.
  • How did that explanation for inflation come into existence? I don't know. If you keep drilling down, ultimately, we come to an explanation at the root of it all. That explanation could be an infinite series, multiple circular series, an uncaused eternal base reality, an eternal being with a mind, or simply the fact that something sometimes comes out of what we call nothing.
Now, I would like you to answer, beginning with how the universe began. When you get to the bottom, is your answer substantially different from mine?​

You didn't even get to first base. You didn't tell us if you thought the universe began with the Big Bang. I tried several follow ups. What do you think caused the universe? I see nothing but evasions.


When I explained my view you respond like this:

????????!!!

Which is not very enlightening. If you have something to say about how the universe began, then say it. But if you have nothing to say, then don't go rolling in the floor laughing at those who are trying to address this issue.

In the post you were replying to, I was trying to go beyond the Big Bang to discuss the reason for quantum mechanics and cosmic inflation. And that goes deep into the weeds, where nobody really knows.

You won't even state an opinion on the Big Bang, let alone, the reason for quantum mechanics and cosmic inflation existing.

So I don't think you can laugh at my answer on the reason for the Big Bang, if you refuse to even speculate on whether there was a Big Bang.
 
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doubtingmerle

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The 'laws of nature' were distilled by humans describing everyday perceptions. They are models.
The laws of nature always existed in nature. They applied long before humans existed.


'Nature' doesn't go to some mythical galactic laws written on a tablet floating around in space someplace and consult with some alien lawyer, so it can 'follow' or 'obey' them, y'know.
Straw man. Nobody said nature follows tablets floating in space.

Nature follows neither tablets floating in space nor the laws of people. Nature does what the forces of nature cause it to do.

When we human write down laws of nature, all we are doing is describing how it works.

The notion that reality, the laws of nature and things that truly exist independently from all human minds, is a pure belief.
No sir, there is abundant evidence that particles all over the universe are following the laws of nature, and they are doing it independently of all human minds.

You, nor anyone else I've ever encountered, can even come close to citing the objective test independent from any human mind whatsoever, that would lead to such a conclusion. It is thus a belief.
Look through a telescope. See stars? The light from many stars left those stars long before the first human existed. And when we look at the starlight that comes to us, we find it was caused by ordinary physical processes just like on earth. There was nobody around to observe it when it happened. But it happened anyway, and followed the same laws of nature we know today.



What can be demonstrated from objective test results, is that what we mean by 'reality' or 'exists', whenerever we use those terms, comes about by either of two ways: by belief or by the scientific method.
No sir, neither belief nor the scientific method can make reality "come about".
 
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