I'm not sure if that's different from what I'm saying or not. — T Clark
the advent of science has had an extraordinarily, overwhelmingly positive impact on how we live. — Banno
A TED talk I saw yesterday put [the progress of human culture] down to the types of explanations that we accept, arguing that it is down to the rejection of explanations that are too easily reinforced by ad hoc additions. I'd suggest it has to do with the introduction of self-checking conversations, the notion that we check what we say against the way things are. — Banno
I'll respond without trying to fool you even once. As I said, this is an assumption. It underlies all of science. It hasn't been proven and can't really be. You skepticism is an instance of Hume's problem of induction. How do we know that induction is valid? We know it inductively by observing it's effectiveness. Ditto with the Principle of Relativity. We know it because that's how it's worked so far. — T Clark
have a credible discussion about why black people commit a lot more crime. — James Riley
Ok, I understand that foundational value of assuming the reliability of of certain laws of physics. Like axioms but so far infallibly reliable.
Does science actually operate under the assumption that the laws of physics will always be the same everywhere and always though? — DingoJones
I thought that science would be open to them changing or operating differently somewhere in the universe, wherever the method takes them. Are you saying that it is necessary for science to assume that anything contradicting those foundational assumptions is erroneous and they should try and find data that supports those foundational assumptions? — DingoJones
I mentioned quantum mechanics because our understanding of physics breaks down the quantum level, and perhaps naively I thought of the quantum level as somewhere in the universe as well. That would contradict the portions I quoted of yours wouldn’t it? — DingoJones
Principles that must apply to things on earth (such that we can rewind causes to find an origin) don't apply to the universe at large. Aka, Hume's theory — Gregory
First off, your statement has nothing to do with the Problem of Induction as described by Hume.
What you have described is the Reverse Principle of Relativity - we can never know anything because everything changes everywhere and always. As I noted, you're welcome to that assumption, but it takes you outside of science. You have to play the science game by the science rules. As in the common example, God could have created the universe complete as we find it three seconds ago. In order to go about our business in the world, we assume that didn't happen. — T Clark
. I used this logic in a slightly different way in saying we can reverse causality to find origin in the universe within a certain scope but not necessarily to the universe at large. — Gregory
He wrote that causality applies within the universe but not necessarily to the universe as a whole. — Gregory
Also, God could not have created the universe 3 seconds ago because I infallibly remember the universe existing since as far back as my memories go (age 3). So the universe from my perspective has certainly existed for 32 years, and possibly for much longer — Gregory
When they talk about where the big bang came from, they're expanding the meaning of "universe". — frank
From the point of view of the Principle of Relativity, the universe we are talking about is the expanding space in which we live. It was created, according to widely accepted theory, during a big bang that happened about 14 billion years ago. We cannot, and may never be able to, know if there is anything beyond those limits. — T Clark
They speculate anyway. Watch more PBS Space Time on the YouTube. — frank
The obvious answer is that God could have created your memories along with all the rest of the universe. — T Clark
The one where we live. — T Clark
That's not obvious. It sounds like your more a skeptic than I am — Gregory
The one we live IN. That is key. Do you appreciate how old 14 billions years is and how big trillions of light years of space is? There are things that are too old and too big for us to know anything about. That's my view and I think i have a good intuition of time and how causality can change over epochs. There are few things that I can say I know them for sure, but other writers on this forum think cosmology as understood nowadays is very highly reliable. I'm not convinced that is the case. One billion years can erase billions of traces of the casual series — Gregory
Various claims have been made that somehow science can come up with a theory which is so good that it must be true - a "theory of everything" in which all the loose ends are tied up, no free variables remain. The two main contenders for this are theories of the multiverse and theories of quantum gravitation. While they are not unrelated, they do have distinctive features.
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In metaphysical terms, both the theory of a multiverse and the "theory of everything" are seeking to move beyond contingency to necessity, to formulate what would in traditional terms be called "necessary" being. This approach is an attempt to bypass the traditional response which would identify such a necessary being with God. But the simple fact is that no mathematical formula creates anything. In itself, it is the creation of the mind that conceives it. It may help explain what exists, but it does not create the thing it explains.
The anxiety over contingency is nonetheless a valid anxiety because without some necessary being - such as God - the drive towards the intelligibility of the universe, which is the foundational drive of science, hits a brick wall with existence itself, which remains radically unintelligible, without explanation, unless it is related in some way to necessary being.
This, of course, is not a proof that such a being exists, but it does indicate why the notion of a divine being arises in relation to the problem of contingency; it also indicates the vacuous nature of the question, "Who made God?" Necessary being is self-explanatory; it needs no further explanation, no "maker" to explain it. It also shows why God's existence or non-existence can never be a scientific question. Scientific method is predicated on the need for empirical verification, which means it can only deal with contingent being, not necessary being. We can never get to God, or get rid of God, as the conclusion of a scientific argument. — Neil Ormerod, The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss
The anxiety over contingency is nonetheless a valid anxiety because without some necessary being - such as God - the drive towards the intelligibility of the universe, which is the foundational drive of science, hits a brick wall with existence itself, which remains radically unintelligible, without explanation, unless it is related in some way to necessary being. — Neil Ormerod, The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss
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