Which level? Physics?

Initial conditions mostly. Internal accidents due to radioactive decay, accidents due to external radiation, comet impacts, and such, is randomness chemical determinism is working against and apparently succeeds, around this planet at least, otherwise living cells would fall apart during or even before their first reproduction.

There is randomness, sure, but provided a certain range of ecosystem conditions with certain maximum level of external randomization, then determinacy of chemical reactions will prevail, converging away from random and into inevitable.

So I had to read all that just to see your point is that you are refusing to talk because you have nothing relevant to say about it.

If you mean "Is breaking your toe painful?" then, yes, it is. If you mean "Do we have radically private, immaterial experiences?" then, no, we don't.

I mean subjective experience, of pain for example, yes radically private. You deny? Ok, let us hear your reasoning then.

If I am thinking a thought, that thought has to be certain. if that thought could be doubted, then so could my existence.

Thought process entails existence, and that thought is a very special kind of thought, particularly self-evident, for some reason. But I do not see why it would need to be necessarily true, except that doubting it should prove pointless right away. Everything else can be doubted much easier.

Have you actually tried doubting it, I mean for real? Maybe physically it can not be doubted for more than a few seconds, if at all. I couldn’t at least, can you?

In a pre-life environment the only way for molecules to be formed is through random process. All organic compounds which are necessary for life must be assembled by a random process.

Randomness is on a different level, not chemistry or biology. Atoms and molecules are bound to strict rules with limited possibilities, and they actively seek to form those possibilities, which is rather opposite of 'random'.

The whole story of the universe only hangs together if there is a timeless, uncaused cause that fine tunes and creates spacetime; there is simply no other explanation that is as satisfactory in a logical sense as some sort of creator. It's almost certain that time has a start and something timeless and causally effective is required to create time.

You do not have an explanation. You just substituted one mystery with another, bigger one. Why does the universe exist - because of god. Why does god exist?

God is not fine tuned in anyway.

God is fine-tuned to produce life in the same way you concluded the universe is fine tuned. It created life, so it was either fine tuned to do so or it was an accident.

Was there a chance for god to not create the universe?

No, I think "if A is B and B is C, then A is C".

You can not say "no" when you repeated the same thing, just more vaguely. When speaking about any rules it is wise to be overly specific to avoid any potential confusion. And when educating someone about how logic works you might want to use the word "necessary" in order to underline the conclusion should be obvious from the premises. This is trivial semantic non-issue, waste of time.

It is trivially non-issue unless you are questioning starting axioms.


If A is B and B is C, then A is necessarily C.

That is not a statement about metaphysical or any kind of world or reality, or anything in particular, but about constraints that are set by axioms which you must follow throughout your argument or otherwise it will end up being incoherent, contradicting, or otherwise deemed to be logically false.

It’s just rules of the game. You may question starting axioms, but to accept them and start playing the game just to immediately say “I quit, I don’t like the rules anymore”, that’s more than just crazy, it’s also funny because it’s beautifully pointless.

What does the 'it' refer to?

Just read “necessary” as “always”, and may god help you find less trivial thoughts to think about.

It adds constancy, assures predictability, determinism. It says “no magic allowed”, no god or other some such potential devil could sneak up from outside of the equation and change the result or conclusion. It simply reiterates or underlines ‘rules of the game’ set by axioms, in the service of education for example.

Plus even if they are synonymous, my position would then be that we can do without them and rather than saying 'logically follows' can simply say 'consequently is the case' or some such.

Consequently is good too, but maybe not exactly hitting the point, which is to illustrate conclusion is exclusively defined by the proposition.

Roger is a never married man. Never married men are bachelors. Therefore Roger is a bachelor. What would adding "must be" do apart from serving to emphasise the obviousness of it all?

If A is B and B is C, then A is necessarily C.

You are talking about semantics and you want to say “necessarily” is superfluous? It means the conclusion “logically follows” or is “implied by proposition”, that better?

So your interpretation of logical necessity is simply too rigid, unless you want to question the logic of why it “logically follows” A should equal C in the above example?

It is like the concept of thought experiment. So if I say let us imagine that A=B, you either play along or you don't. But instead you want to accept a premise just to deny it, and if you do not see the contradiction, at least you should realize how pointless it is.

That's precisely what I deny.

Ok, let us hear your reasoning then.

There is nothing to follow, only to understand what "necessary by definition" means. Do you not see it's self-contradiction and pointles to deny what you defined, why would you want to do that?

I admit that there do appear to be such truths - our reason does represent propositions such as 2 + 1 = 3 as being true not just here and now, but always and everywhere (that is, necessarily true). But I think, for reasons that do not need to be gone into here, that such appearances are deceptive and that necessity is not a real feature of the world.

Not necessary as some world feature, but necessary by definition. Therefore such truths can be found only in logic, mathematics and similar axiom based derivation of truth statements. The question then is really about choice of axioms, but they are considered 'self-evident' rather than 'necessary'.

On the other hand, knowledge of the world features is empirical and ultimately only statistical, so no absolute or necessary truths there. Except, perhaps, this one: “I think, therefore I know I exist”.

To express the argument in the OP an bit more succinctly:

1. The universe is fine-tuned for life so there must be a fine tuner (99.999% probability)
2. Can’t be an infinite regress of fine tuners (100% probability)
3. So there must be an uncaused fine tuner in a non-fine tuned environment (99.999% probability)

You are confusing yourself with unnecessary information. The choice boils down to this:

1. A just so happens to exist and has property B
2. X just so happens to exist and has property Y which is to create A that has property B


Do you understand that postulating god, even if it explained the existence of the universe, does not explain god’s existence nor any of its properties, and that you are left with bigger mystery than before?

God is not fine tuned to create life; it is a natural instinct for all intelligent beings to desire information and life is information.

Obviously then god must be fine-tuned to have information deficit, natural instincts and desire to create life, therefore there must be god-tuner.

Metaphysics is not a philosophy about objects, for these can only be given by means of the senses, but rather about the subject, namely, the laws of its reason.

There are external properties, like location, direction, and shape, that can be investigated objectively. That is empirical science. No problem here.

Then there are internal properties, like sensation, emotion, and cognition, that can, or can not, be investigated objectively, and this question is the problem.

Are you trying to say there is another problem? Do you offer some answer to the problem question I pointed at? Are you making some other point, what is it?

In everything you say, you are starting from the assumption that there is a real object. But what you assume to be 'the object itself' is precisely what is at issue.

Why would anyone raise such idea as a serious issue? Issue for what exactly?

We can acknowledge dreams (and hallucinations and illusions) without supposing that we can't successfully refer to things even when we are awake and of sound mind.

We either experience qualia or we don’t. What do you say?

This is a non-dualist model - there is no internal/external distinction here.

So the dualist internal/external distinction is just what I'm disputing here.

Referring to internal/external distinction as "dualism" makes potential point of confusion with substance/property dualism. It’s unclear if you yourself are not confusing the two.

What Alice is referring to when she points at the tree, and the tree itself, are the same thing.

Of course, because you forgot to include internal/subjective perspective. For example when Alice is sleep waking and dreaming she is pointing at a tree, while in fact she is pointing at a truck that is about to run her over.

An alternative possibility to consider is that the mind/body problem (and subject/object dualism generally) is the result of a category mistake.

How do you arrive to that conclusion?

1. Chances of a very special universe that is life supporting by accident: billion to one
2. Chance of a fine tuner who exists in a non fined tuned environment: considerably higher

1. chance that A just so happens to exist and has property B
2. chance that X just so happens to exist and has property Y which is to create A that has property B

there is simply no time/room for spacetime to fine tune itself

Then it must have tuned itself while it was beyond space and time. Of course it’s possible, you should know, it’s simply a special kind of universe.

Why can you not understand that every single illogical thing you say about god can be applied directly to the universe?

God is superfluous proposition that does not answer any questions -- god is fine tuned to create life, so there must be a god-tuner. Do you see?

This fine tuner must be very special (to be uncaused and to not need a fine tuned environment)

It’s fascinating that you apply logic reasonably well, except to your own statements

The universe must be very special fine-tuner to tune itself, to be uncaused and to not need a fine tuned environment.

So the answer to any of your questions about how could unconscious universe be the same thing you call god is simply because it is a very special universe. It must be, right?

The universe is fine tuned for life so there must be a fine tuner

God is fine tuned for life, so there must be a god-tuner.

What are you talking about, what is your point, and how does that have anything to do with the title of this thread?

Nice.

Notice how fields are different than old fashioned materialism.

If you look at equations of motion it is obvious there were never any particles.

The Standard Model lays out 13 fields which exist throughout the universe, oscillate and interact with one another to generate everything else.

I find it dubious to talk about 13 types of “meta-fields” when they all apparently converge and aggregate into only 3 fields: magnetic, electric, and gravitational, which then are sufficient to describe all objective phenomena that actually matters to us in the realm of our size scale of existence.

The mystery you are talking about is best captured by the concept of "self", supposed to explain what is it exactly that defines spatial boundaries and temporal continuity of an ‘organism’. I agree to understand goddess Nature discerning ‘biological self’ is the primary task, and trying to make sense of ‘mental-self’ without it leaves us with no background context against which mental properties can be understood.

Terrible. This whole discussion, just like the opening question, is without any significant point, awfully vague and undirected, it is impossible to say what are you even talking about or why.


The only interesting, pragmatic and meaningful context to talk under the theme of subject/object, is the mind-body problem and basically two questions:

a.) epistemological question whether can objective science ever explain subjective phenomena of perception and understanding

b.) ontological question whether inability of objective science to explain subjective phenomena automatically means we need to postulate either substance or property dualism in order to explain the qualities of the mental realm

And as I was getting at, it’s a dumb question.

Dumb is wasting everyones time to share your purposeles opinion. Go away, shooo!

Everything we experience is equally a self-generation. Our body doesn't produce just the appearance of colours, but anything we encounter with our senses, including the shape, mass, etc. of.objects . If this self generation was a problem for the reality of colours, it is equally a problem for anything we experience.

Yes qualia, how things appear. The question is where does the brain shop for colors to paint our mental picture. To be clear I consider objects of the mental picture to exist, virtually. That is not my problem.

But virtual representation can be direct or indirect. A physical square shape in the real world can be represented by drawing, or words, for example. Shape representation can be mapped directly by drawing with only arbitrary size scaling, but representation with symbols or words is completely arbitrary.

So imagine yellow square with blue borders on black background. I do not question that in your mind’s eye you see the lines and the shape, brain could copy those concepts directly projecting from nature, but where could it get the colors from?

So I am questioning whether you really see any colors, and if not, then perhaps you do not see any shapes either, and really see just a bunch of arbitrary symbols that only appear to you as colors and shapes. I hope this explains what I’m actually talking about.

Colors exist as objects of cognition.

Yes, we are talking about colors as objects of cognition. The question is whether a). we actually see colors (colors exist), or b). we only think we see colors (colors do not exist). Ok?

Let me rephrase. Electromagnetic waves are not colors. These waves are converted to electrical impulses in the eye before going into the brain. But electrical impulses are also not colors, and yet we report to see colors. Therefore, the question is why, and the answer is either:

a. we actually see colors (colors exist)
b. we only think we see colors (colors do not exist)

This is physicalist nonsense.

Are you not able to explain your assertion and describe your position?

A pre neural-network (pre 80's) computational picture of the brain?

Is there any other picture of the brain where sensory visual input is not first encored into serial electric signal in the eye before it even reaches the brain?

You are asking me questions without answering my questions and explaining your position so I can guess what point you are trying to make and what is it really you are talking about.

Ugghhh. Let me try. Imagine a metaphor with a computer, it is running a program that paints the whole screen yellow. We turn off the monitor and ask does color yellow exist in the computer?

That is how I understand the question, and my answer is no. Colors do not really exist in the brain where light waves are encoded from sensory input into a signal or whatever electrochemical type of abstract information. So color signals to become real or to exist per se as colors, an agent or “self” is necessary to decode, understand or perceive those signals as colors, while in reality colors might as well look like a monochrome waterfall of Matrix symbols.

One more thing. If you say colors do actually exist, then I think you in fact must be proposing a separate realm of existence for their being, some kind of parallel dimension, otherwise I don’t see how color properties can be justified as ‘actual’ rather than ‘virtual/abstract’.

A. Assume an infinite causal regress exists
B. Then it has no first element
C. If it has no nth element, it has no nth+1 element
D. So it cannot exist

Meta-time has existed as long as meta-universe. Meta-time goes both forward and backward at the same time, so it doesn’t go anywhere and thus it is always “now”, but every now and then meta-universe creates some kind of little mini-universe, such as ours, and then baby-time particular for that baby-universe begins.

You could say meta-universe exist “beyond” (our) time and space, in so much that it contains it, and you can call it god, but meta-universe doesn’t care, it’s too busy worrying about meta-meta-universe.