Philosophy and other pseudo-intellectual spoutings

[TANGODANCER]

No idea who else I might be, but my Morpheus meanderings tend to verge to the gentle life, with a decided preference for coach or horseback, quill pen and candlelight, as opposed to meeting Emperor Ming on some far-flung planet and zapping aliens with a Hoboh nuclear anihilator. .

[Prufrock]

I often wonder in that point, for the incomprehensible reasons I set it at the start of this thread. 18 year old me seems a different entity.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Now here's a thing!
I bet you're all confident about who you are. I doubt a single one of you have in the past few days/months/years even considered the idea you are not who you think you are.
But... and here I have a slight 'advantage' in respect of an understanding about...
I'll stop there because phone, internet connection, and signal dropout are severe, but I'll try tomorrow

You win the bet. I'm very confident that I'm me, and not you or, for example, a lampshade called Fred. Pity about that connection.

if, IF, I explain this correctly, you'll see what I mean. Tomorrow, I typed this five x now, possum me ofg

Are you using autocorrect?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Now here's a thing!
I bet you're all confident about who you are. I doubt a single one of you have in the past few days/months/years even considered the idea you are not who you think you are.
But... and here I have a slight 'advantage' in respect of an understanding about...
I'll stop there because phone, internet connection, and signal dropout are severe, but I'll try tomorrow

You win the bet. I'm very confident that I'm me, and not you or, for example, a lampshade called Fred. Pity about that connection.

if, IF, I explain this correctly, you'll see what I mean. Tomorrow, I typed this five x now, possum me ofg

Are you using autocorrect?

I thought I'd turned that bloody thing off... my phone seems to have autoturnonannoyingfeatures.

Anyway, I started o write about what I was saying yesterday but it was turning into War & Peace, and too personal for an open forum, so I'll pm it to you later (wow I bet you're thrilled... I might add Mr Pru in as he seems a bit interested too...)

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I exist.
I know this.
But to exist I must occupy a 'matrix'.
This seems self evidently to consist of space/time, matter/energy and individuality/mathematics.
But, this matrix must have been created - it cannot arise from nothingness.
But a Creator must in turn be created and therefore the concept of creator must be denied.
But without creation I do not exist.
No religion adequately explains this dilemma.

[Montreal Wanderer]

I exist.
I know this.
But to exist I must occupy a 'matrix'.
This seems self evidently to consist of space/time, matter/energy and individuality/mathematics.
But, this matrix must have been created - it cannot arise from nothingness.
But a Creator must in turn be created and therefore the concept of creator must be denied.
But without creation I do not exist.
No religion adequately explains this dilemma.

Have a drink or two!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I exist.
I know this.
But to exist I must occupy a 'matrix'.
This seems self evidently to consist of space/time, matter/energy and individuality/mathematics.
But, this matrix must have been created - it cannot arise from nothingness.
But a Creator must in turn be created and therefore the concept of creator must be denied.
But without creation I do not exist.
No religion adequately explains this dilemma.

Have a drink or two!

There is absolutely no need for encouragement on that score.
I am disappointed that nobody else ever takes up this challenge, it's almost like people are uncomfortable with the concept.
That or their concrete minds don't bend enough..

[Prufrock]

Or you've drawn false conclusions - rumbled by the human need to have things happen in a linear sequence

Why conclude that the matrix must have been created, when you accept that sooner or later (or sooner or earlier!) something must have popped into existence of it's own accord.

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Or you've drawn false conclusions - rumbled by the human need to have things happen in a linear sequence

Why conclude that the matrix must have been created, when you accept that sooner or later (or sooner or earlier!) something must have popped into existence of it's own accord.

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

I'm not sure we should use the word pop when referring to the Big Bang. On the other hand I'm informed that in the absence of atmosphere or, for that matter, ears there would not be any sort of noise. As for the other matter, I don't tend to worry about things beyond my control so I certainly expend very little thought on things beyond my comprehension.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Or you've drawn false conclusions - rumbled by the human need to have things happen in a linear sequence

Why conclude that the matrix must have been created, when you accept that sooner or later (or sooner or earlier!) something must have popped into existence of it's own accord.

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

because, when you look, stuff must have been created. For it to have existed forever is a nonsense - it had to start, that is what time is. The thing that's been there needs a creation too.
But to be created, one requires a creator... Which might just be an equation, it's not necessary to be a creature!
But the problem is that even that needs a starting point. Something cannot come from Nothing... not even God. God needs a creator too. It's impossible to reconcile...

[TANGODANCER]

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

You mean Pru's razor' s stropping out his own atheistic preferences as logical fact, don't you? Science as a whole admits it can't explain anything for certain and Occam was a Francisacan friar, you know, a religious type, who never actually said any of the things attributed to him. Bad example there mate.

[malcd1]

When science (scientists) say that they just don't know, it doesn't mean that the answer is God.

[thebish]

Or you've drawn false conclusions - rumbled by the human need to have things happen in a linear sequence

to be fair - he did kinda define this whole thread as pseudo-intellectual...

Pseudo, synonyms: bogus, sham, phoney, imitation, artificial, mock, ersatz, quasi-, fake, feigned, pretended, false, faux, spurious, counterfeit, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, assumed, contrived, affected, insincere...

[thebish]

When science (scientists) say that they just don't know, it doesn't mean that the answer is God.

indeed - the "god of the gaps" gets smaller every week...

[thebish]

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

You mean Pru's razor' s stropping out his own atheistic preferences as logical fact, don't you? Science as a whole admits it can't explain anything for certain and Occam was a Francisacan friar, you know, a religious type, who never actually said any of the things attributed to him. Bad example there mate.

I've seen lots of things attributed to him... he definitely said/wrote some of them!

which things are you referring to that you reckon he didn't say?

[Harry Genshaw]

As one particular philosopher said on Friday

"Some people think stars rule our lives, some people they think otherwise, what does anybody know? "

[TANGODANCER]

I've seen lots of things attributed to him... he definitely said/wrote some of them!
which things are you referring to that you reckon he didn't say?

I'm not even going to pretend to know. Indeed I know very little of him except people using his shaving away principles. I just found it odd that Pru used the principles of a Franciscan Friar to deny the deity.

"This maxim seems to represent the general tendency of Ockham's philosophy, but it has not been found in any of his writings.[20] His nearest pronouncement seems to be Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate [Plurality must never be posited without necessity], which occurs in his theological work on the 'Sentences of Peter Lombard' (Quaestiones et decisiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (ed. Lugd., 1495), i, dist. 27, qu. 2, K).

The words attributed to Ockham, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity), are absent in his extant works;[21] this particular phrasing owes more to John Punch.[22] Indeed, Ockham's contribution seems to be to restrict the operation of this principle in matters pertaining to miracles and God's power: so, in the Eucharist, a plurality of miracles is possible, simply because it pleases God.[17]

[Prufrock]

Or you've drawn false conclusions - rumbled by the human need to have things happen in a linear sequence

Why conclude that the matrix must have been created, when you accept that sooner or later (or sooner or earlier!) something must have popped into existence of it's own accord.

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

because, when you look, stuff must have been created. For it to have existed forever is a nonsense - it had to start, that is what time is. The thing that's been there needs a creation too.
But to be created, one requires a creator... Which might just be an equation, it's not necessary to be a creature!
But the problem is that even that needs a starting point. Something cannot come from Nothing... not even God. God needs a creator too. It's impossible to reconcile...

Why must it? Human beings evolved to perceive medium-sized things traveling at medium speeds. Our brains work with time as a constant in a linear fashion and, as life has a beginning a middle and an end, so too must everything. But we know time doesn't work like that. There's relativity for a start, plus, spacetime curves. "Time's is just nature's way of stopping everything happening at once".

I'm not saying stuff has definitely been here forever, but I don't see why it *must* be wrong. As you've pointed out, the "what created that?" line of questioning goes back forever. "It's turtles all the way down". Either: stuff has been here forever; or, at some point the first "stuff" - whether it was all the matter in the universe, the universe itself, a god who created the universe, something that created the god that created the universe, or so on and so forth, but at some point SOMETHING - had to simply begin to exist.

You appear to have discounted both possibilities. One has to be correct.

[Prufrock]

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

You mean Pru's razor' s stropping out his own atheistic preferences as logical fact, don't you? Science as a whole admits it can't explain anything for certain and Occam was a Francisacan friar, you know, a religious type, who never actually said any of the things attributed to him. Bad example there mate.

It's not an example, it's a principle of logic. Occam's own background is no more relevant to the application of what we call Occam's Razor than an argument that Newton was an alchemist is relevant as an argument against the proposition that a gold ring will fall to the earth when dropped due to gravity.

That Occam was a Franciscan friar doesn't in anyway affect the proposition now commonly known as Occam's Razor that when weighing up competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be preferred.

So: either something has existed forever, be it matter, the universe or god; or, there was a nothing, and then something came into
existence. In either case, the option involving a god involves an extra assumption.

That^ is not by the way "proof" that a "god" didn't create anything; sometimes the less "likely" thing is still the thing that has happened. The more unlikely something is though, the better the evidence needs to be.

The sort of "god" who may at the dawn of time have created the first matter which led to the Big Bang and the rest of history is a "god" no rational person can say definitely doesn't exist (though as I've said, I wouldn't discount either the idea that stuff has simply always existed). There's no reason to use the word "god" for that though: it could be a "force" (which surely must be the point George Lucas was making in Star Wars), it could be an equation, it could not exist! But at it's best this "force" is deism at a distance, in the extreme. We might need it to explain where the first spark or flicker came from (we might not), but there's no reason to think it's a conscious being who cares who you have sex with or how.

And I'm the last person on this thread saying that anything is fact; I'm arguing to keep options open (though within reason - so no Adam and Eve ).

[thebish]

Either some 'stuff' has existed 'forever' or something at some point popped into existence. In both cases Occam's razor says discount the deity and stick with the stuff you absolutely know exists as having been here forever or as having popped into existence.

You mean Pru's razor' s stropping out his own atheistic preferences as logical fact, don't you? Science as a whole admits it can't explain anything for certain and Occam was a Francisacan friar, you know, a religious type, who never actually said any of the things attributed to him. Bad example there mate.

It's not an example, it's a principle of logic. Occam's own background is no more relevant to the application of what we call Occam's Razor than an argument that Newton was an alchemist is relevant as an argument against the proposition that a gold ring will fall to the earth when dropped due to gravity.

That Occam was a Franciscan friar doesn't in anyway affect the proposition now commonly known as Occam's Razor that when weighing up competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be preferred.

So: either something has existed forever, be it matter, the universe or god; or, there was a nothing, and then something came into existence. In either case, the option involving a god involves an extra assumption.

you're applying SOMETHING - but it's not anything any philosopher worth his or her salt would recognise as "Occam's Razor" here.

I suspect you're applying a pseudo-pub version of Occam's Razor - which - to be fair - would fit the title of the thread...