"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen." ~L.W.
— 180 Proof

"A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon." -Thich Nhat Hanh — OmniscientNihilist

Go on, Om, you just keep fingering your ... I'll brb. :yawn:

You make it sound like "order" is a single event, and "chaos" is a single event that happens when order doesn't. In reality, lots of stuff is self organising on the back of this chaos. — fdrake

It's by no means a single event; it's an order, a pattern, that shows up in events, that in some sense 'governs' them. And 'self-organising', which is one of the questions implicit in the OP, is a vexed question in its own right. The point about the anthropic principle is that the process by which organic matter was created, required first of all that stars went through their entire life-cycle. ('We are stardust'.)

But lots of folks just cannot stick with that. so they say, "Because I do not know, I know. God did it. And of course God, being God, can't be detected. That's how we know he's real, and made the universe...". So what makes more sense to you, a conjecture presented as such? Or a supernatural-based fantasy presented as real? Which do you think is worse, is the more ignorant, the stupider? — tim wood

I notice you've been endeavouring to start some threads on 'philosophy of religion' but, pardon me for saying so, you don't display much understanding of it.

Let's divide up the turf like this: young-earth creationists, who believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago, and that everything in the Bible is literally true. They're the kinds of people I think you have in mind.

Secondly, the cultural disdain of religion drives the attitude that 'well, speculative mathematical physics may be completely untestable and a total fantasy, but at least it's not religious. Therefore no matter how outlandish mathematical physics is, it's scientific - whereas, this is the very point that is being called into question about string theory, etc.

But here's a quotation - see if you can guess the provenance.

Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances, … and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned. If they find a Christian mistaken in a subject that they know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions as based on our teachings, how are they going to believe these teachings in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think these teachings are filled with fallacies about facts which they have learnt from experience and reason.

Reckless and presumptuous expounders of Scripture bring about much harm when they are caught in their mischievous false opinions by those not bound by our sacred texts. And even more so when they then try to defend their rash and obviously untrue statements by quoting a shower of words from Scripture and even recite from memory passages which they think will support their case ‘without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance.’ (1 Timothy 1:7)

And in what context, other than itself, are there computable parameters? — 180 Proof

This is the context. Bertrand Russell's essay, early 20th C, part of of the canon of Enlightenment rationalism, A Free Man's Worship:

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. — Bertrand Russell

This belief that the universe is a cosmic crapshoot, and that living things a kind of runaway chemical reaction (which is also the explicit philosophy of neo-darwinian materialism) is no longer credible, in light of the findings that the conditions that are required for the evolution of life, seem to have been woven into the 'fabric of the cosmos'.

This passage from a PBS essay puts the dichotomy very clearly:

Sandra Faber, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, referred to the idea that there is something uncannily perfect about our universe. The laws of physics and the values of physical constants seem, as Goldilocks said, “just right.” If even one of a host of physical properties of the universe had been different, stars, planets, and galaxies would never have formed. Life would have been all but impossible.

Take, for instance, the neutron. It is 1.00137841870 times heavier than the proton, which is what allows it to decay into a proton, electron and neutrino—a process that determined the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium after the big bang and gave us a universe dominated by hydrogen. If the neutron-to-proton mass ratio were even slightly different, we would be living in a very different universe: one, perhaps, with far too much helium, in which stars would have burned out too quickly for life to evolve, or one in which protons decayed into neutrons rather than the other way around, leaving the universe without atoms. So, in fact, we wouldn’t be living here at all—we wouldn’t exist.

Examples of such “fine-tuning” abound. Tweak the charge on an electron, for instance, or change the strength of the gravitational force or the strong nuclear force just a smidgen, and the universe would look very different, and likely be lifeless. The challenge for physicists is explaining why such physical parameters are what they are.

This challenge became even tougher in the late 1990s when astronomers discovered dark energy, the little-understood energy thought to be driving the accelerating expansion of our universe. All attempts to use known laws of physics to calculate the expected value of this energy lead to answers that are 10 120 times too high, causing some to label it the worst prediction in physics.

“The great mystery is not why there is dark energy. The great mystery is why there is so little of it,” said Leonard Susskind of Stanford University, at a 2007 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The fact that we are just on the knife edge of existence, [that] if dark energy were very much bigger we wouldn’t be here, that’s the mystery.” Even a slightly larger value of dark energy would have caused spacetime to expand so fast that galaxies wouldn’t have formed.

That night in Hawaii, Faber declared that there were only two possible explanations for fine-tuning. “One is that there is a God and that God made it that way,” she said. But for Faber, an atheist, divine intervention is not the answer.

“The only other approach that makes any sense is to argue that there really is an infinite, or a very big, ensemble of universes out there and we are in one,” she said.

My bolds. That's what I was referring to before as a 'cop-out'. Sure, DON'T believe in God - put it down to 'we don't know'. Because we don't! But this invocation of baroque mathematical extravaganzas because we don't like what the science seems to be suggesting, is completely disingenuous in my opinion.

I think the underlying dynamics is that of science colliding with 'Enlightenment rationalism': that Russell's confident declaration that we but 'the product of the accidental collocation of atoms' is undermined by what has been discovered since, and that it's an inconvenient truth, something we'd rather not admit.

because they are made of something else. — OmniscientNihilist

Silicon lattices are made of silicon. They can still change.

nd if they are made of something else then they are not really themselves — OmniscientNihilist

Silicon lattices are not silicon lattices since they are made of silicon.

or what they are made of was merely impersonating something else — OmniscientNihilist

Silicon impersonating silicon.

fooled you — OmniscientNihilist

Silicon lattices being anything but their constituent silicon is an illusion dependent upon a perspective.

for example: i shape some gold into a bird and give it to you. what do you have? a bird or gold? — OmniscientNihilist

A gold bird. A bird made of gold. Gold shaped into a bird.

A great sage does not stink of Zen. You stink of Zen.

It's by no means a single event; it's an order, a pattern, that shows up in events, that in some sense 'governs' them. And 'self-organising', which is one of the questions implicit in the OP, is a vexed question in its own right. The point about the anthropic principle is that the process by which organic matter was created, required first of all that stars went through their entire life-cycle. ('We are stardust'.) — Wayfarer

Zoom back in time to stellar accretion; what makes you say life must happen, rather than being very likely to? How could you possibly distinguish a universe governed by necessities from one governed by the accumulation of chances? What could happen next appears retroactively as what must have happened.

I'm just waiting for the comet (metaphorically or literally) to strike.

A master of the non-answer to a straight-forward, direct question. Poseurs bore me. :yawn:

Gold shaped into a bird. — fdrake

there is your answer

now ask yourself what is shaped into a body, a world, a universe?

"To the Self the world is but a colorful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over." -Nisargadatta

I'd like to challenge you in a different way. Let's assume for the sake of argument that some kind of creative intelligence is responsible for big bang. What then? As long as this intelligence is something we all only vaguely assent to, how do we get more out of this than another philosopher's god? How is this better than deism? Unless we get afterlives and/or commandments that are manifest.?

As long as humans must speak and act for this God (promises and threats without miracles that leave the possibility of doubt), I don't see that much is solved. I'd expect 10,000 versions of what this God demands or promises from 10,000 self-anointed mouthpieces or bloody right hands.

"To the Self the world is but a colorful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over." -Nisargadatta — OmniscientNihilist

Good quote! Reminds me of the roller coaster metaphor. If only the self was always the Self...

A master of the non-answer to a straight-forward, direct question. — 180 Proof

You think the ‘fine-tuning argument’ is a straight-forward question? But then, if it can’t be reduced to an acerbic aphorism then it’s probably not of interest, right?

How could you possibly distinguish a universe governed by necessities from one governed by the accumulation of chances? What could happen next appears retroactively as what must have happened. — fdrake

Because without some very specific forces, ratios - order, in short - there will be no accumulation of anything. For anything to accumulate, there has to be repetition, and there can’t be repetition without order.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that some kind of creative intelligence is responsible for big bang. What then? — jellyfish

What indeed. We live in a culture where the default position is that we’re an outcome of accident. So if that is brought into question, a lot follows from that. It changes your orientation.

What I am often drawing attention to is that because science has arrived at such a mind-boggling understanding of the cosmos (with caveats!), that we unquestioningly believe that science explains the order of the cosmos. But it doesn’t explain it - it assumes it, and rightly, because it is a given. But why this order is a question of a different nature to the questions that can be answered on the basis of empirical observation; to talk about ‘why’ is straightaway to enter the domain of metaphysics. But then, as we reject metaphysics, we don’t even understand why ‘questioning the order’ is a metaphysical question, which is analogous to being in a locked room, and throwing the key out the window, and then wondering why we can’t open the door.

As long as this intelligence is something we all only vaguely assent to, how do we get more out of this than another philosopher's god? — jellyfish

I think the key term in both ancient philosophy and religion was that we ourselves are related to that intelligence. And again that is existentially significant, don’t you think? From the SEP entry on Schopenhauer:

It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being.

I’m dubious about ‘energies’ here, but I’ll let it go. In any case, from a very high level, what theistic philosophies are seeking is congruence or relationship with the source of that order. It becomes ‘deism’ when it is reduced to an empty concept; in reality, spiritual philosophies generally are always engaged with drawing us out of that ‘verbal-conceptual’ aspect of the intelligence, except for in respect of the many subjects for which it is useful. But if that symbolic-verbal intelligence is used to delimit the bounds of understanding, then we are no longer h. Sapiens, we become h. Faber. Welcome to Planet of the Apes. ;-)

I think the key term in both ancient philosophy and religion was that we ourselves are related to that intelligence. And again that is existentially significant, don’t you think? — Wayfarer

From a Feuerbach-influenced perspective, I think it's unavoidable. Even if we reject Feuerbach's notion that such intelligence is merely a projection, it's hard to fathom a God worth having shorn of the 'divine' predicates already dear to us as humans, and even to atheists.

You believe in love as a divine attribute because you yourself love, and believe that God is a wise and benevolent being because you know nothing better in yourself than wisdom and benevolence.
...
The predicates have a reality of their own, have an independent significance; the force of what they contain compels man to recognise them. They prove their truth to man directly through themselves. They are their own proof and evidence. Goodness, justice, and wisdom do not become chimeras if the existence of God is a chimera, nor do they become truths simply because the existence of God is a truth. The concept of God depends on the concept of justice, kindness, and wisdom – a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. — Feuerbach

In any case, from a very high level, what theistic philosophies are seeking is congruence or relationship with the source of that order. — Wayfarer

I agree. To me it seems that even atheism and humanism can be interpreted as variants of theism that take the incarnation all the way, leaving nothing behind in the sky. The species becomes god and/or reason becomes god. The divine predicates never go out of fashion.

For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being. — Wayf's quote

From the standpoint of a later religion, the earlier religion turns out to be idolatry: Man is seen to have worshiped his own essence. Man has objectified himself, but he has not yet recognised the object as his own essential being – a step taken by later religion. Every progress in religion means therefore, a deepening of man’s knowledge of himself.
...
And our task consists precisely in showing that the antithesis of the divine and human is illusory; that is, that it is nothing other than the antithesis between the essential being of man and his individual being... — Feuerbach

I lean toward interpreting theism as the projection of 'the essential being of man.' This leaves the ultimate source 'inhuman' and mysterious. I don't know why we're here. Even calling it a crapshoot doesn't satisfy me. We can postulate this or that probabilistic law, but I currently can't see how we don't finally discover a radical contingency --that the law is X and not Y. Nevermind the problem of induction.

Perhaps that's the issue. In my view the 'human form divine' (which is not the human body but more like language and feeling which Hollywood can install in squids who see that time is flat circle) is itself just something that happens to be here.

Appeals to the nature of the divine that attempt to escape this contingency are betrayed by that word 'nature.' If the divine has a nature, it is subject to some law or order which is itself unexplained. This doesn't close the possibility of feeling some kind of logic and necessity at the heart of things.

Can followers of Marx be right that this could have really happened from a purely materialistic perspective? If consciousness can come from a brain, why can't the universe move itself into the big bang? Can the singularity be it's own causality without making it spiritual? — Gregory

Maybe the problem is thinking consciousness comes from a brain rather than the other way around? Brains are found in consciousness, but how do we really know that is what exists out there - material brains? What does it even mean to say it's "material" and to imply that consciousness is something different than material? Implying that consciousness and brains are somehow different substances creates more problems, like how do they interact?

Can something come from nothing? Logically speaking no...

Can the universe create itself from nothing? no.
Can a God create a universe from nothing? no.

Can consciousness create itself from nothing? no.
Can the brain create consciousness from nothing? no.

Can consciousness ever be certain anything beyond itself (e.g. brain or universe) even exists? no.
Does consciousness have any real evidence for anything other then qualia, which is itself. no.

End result: Consciousness concludes itself to be the eternal spiritual creator of everything within/of itself, which is all that exists. I am God. — OmniscientNihilist

No, I am God, and you are merely scribbles on a computer screen that I am the actual author of. It seems that you just explained yourself out of existence - or at least the existence of a human being that can type posts on a forum and submit them. From my perspective you only exist as scribbles on a screen with no cause. If I am the primary cause, then "your" posts are actually my posts - it's just that I don't remember typing them.

No, I am God... From my perspective you only exist as scribbles on a screen with no cause. If I am the primary cause, then "your" posts are actually my posts - it's just that I don't remember typing them. — Harry Hindu

Also true If you get into a car accident and loose your memory and login under a different account and reply to your old posts, haha.

If a rock spoke back to me when spoken to, and i could have long and interesting conversations with it, i would. Not because it is sentient but simply because it is interesting.

Same reason we respond to these scribbles on a screen. Same reason we will spend hours talking to A.I. machines in the future. Same reason the mind can and will even talk to itself sometimes.

Same reason the hand closes slightly as if grasping an object when there is none. Because hands are meant to grasp and minds are meant to talk. Grasping just happens and talking just happens. It's unstoppable.

Secondly, the cultural disdain of religion drives the attitude that 'well, speculative mathematical physics may be completely untestable and a total fantasy, but at least it's not religious. Therefore no matter how outlandish mathematical physics is, it's scientific - whereas, this is the very point that is being called into question about string theory, etc. — Wayfarer

String theory an outlandish mathematical fantasy, and you're comparing it to religion?

Understanding of what? Endeavoring, starting threads, philosophy of religion, religion? And you make my point yourself: "Therefore no matter how outlandish mathematical physics is, it's scientific. Yes! Exactly! Precisely so! If it's science, then it's science. And your "outlandish" is another's surprising outcome that needs research. Nor is your "outlandish" substantive, you're just confused about its significance.

But, for example, consider, say, so-called creation science. People can believe in creationism all day long. They can even call it a science. But they shouldn't, because it isn't. And in calling it a science they intend that it should have status it's not otherwise entitled to. What would you call that? I call it ignorance in action, and because they're already generally well informed that it is ignorance, then stupidity. And persisted in and maintained, a vicious fraud. Snake oil in modern form, in short.

You must have noted in posts of mine on religion I often qualify my argument with reference to the Christian creed, that starts, "We believe...". Profession of belief as belief, imo, is pretty close to an absolute defense. That is, you get to believe what you like (not to be confused with being able to do what you like). But maybe belief is not enough for you. You need to push and shove (and as history shows, much, much worse) to get your beliefs into the rooms and onto the tables reserved for the real and for science, but with that you cross important boundaries and become little more than a pig in the parlor, and not a nice pig.

And where I have myself got to, is into the benign shadow of the Kantian denial of knowledge on behalf of faith. Which was not, and God help us, never shall be, a denial of any ability to distinguish between the two.

And to be sure you more than most know about different religions and the sheer variety of stories that men in different parts of the world have concocted to account for themselves and the world as they find it. Of course you deny them, but in doing so do you not feel the twinge of an ironic hypocrisy? Twinge? It ought to double you over in pain!

In the context of Laplace’s causation, how can the chain of causation begin without an anterior state? Even if the present state of the Big Bang just appeared from nowhere, it seems to me that state would be eternal and unmoving without an anterior state.

The aesthetics of Marxism would seem to say that consciousness doesn't arise from the body but IS the body. One the arrangement is right, the ontology is right

A master of the non-answer to a straight-forward, direct question.
— 180 Proof

You think the ‘fine-tuning argument’ is a straight-forward question? — Wayfarer

Futile to ask, I know, but WTF are you talking about? :meh:

Wayfarer -

Saying the universe is unlikely is not even wrong.
Compared to what is it unlikely? And in what context, other than itself, are there computable parameters? — 180 Proof

To read "fine-tuning argument" in what I actually wrote you have to be either woefully ill-informed or utterly disingenuous - the jury's still out! Like my question of your claim that "philosophical/scientific materialism is fallacious", you refuse to answer here, from which it's reasonable to assume you cannot without exposing your ... :shade:

Firstly:
big bang creating/causing itself,
god creating/causing universe,
brain creating/causing consciousness,
mind creating/causing choice,
is all predicated something coming from nothing and are therefore impossible. Therefore I do not need to waste my time reading any books based on those illusions, and getting lost in details that are all based on false beginnings, like you have.

-We currently have substance therefore it must be uncreated and eternal.
-We currently have motion therefore it must be uncreated and eternal.
-We currently have order, therefore it must be uncreated and eternal.
Build your conclusions or science from and within those absolute starting points. — OmniscientNihilist

What is "substance"?

What is in motion?

It doesn't seem that order is eternal or uncreated at all. Chaos is uncreated and order comes about only by finding, or creating, patterns in the chaos. That is how it seems to me. It seems that what is the Self is orderly and what is not (the universe) is chaos, and that I try to project my created order onto that uncreated chaos.

Why would I have this experience this moment in typing my post and then later, after submitting and re-reading it have the experience of remembering typing it and only any others that are preceded with the scribbles, "Harry Hindu"? It seems a strange coincidence of experiences to have if I can claim authorship of all posts, and not just the "Harry Hindu" ones.

What does that say about the meaning of the word, "authorship", or "plagiarism"? "Words" and "language" become meaningless as language is meant for social environments - one in which many minds exist and exchange information through the shared medium of a shared world. How could such a thing as "social" or "language" come to exist in a reality where there is only one mind? What does that say about the words, "consciousness", "mind" and "reality"?

Secondly:
Don't assume the universe or the brain continue to exist when you're not looking at them. The only thing that's proven is this consciousness here now, as it is here now, and nothing else. Any other belief just happens in consciousness here now. A belief in the universe, the brain, matter, all happens in and of consciousness here now and therefore proves nothing except for consciousness here now.

Build your conclusions around that absolute starting point.

Consciousness is not in the body the body is in consciousness,
Consciousness is not in the universe, the universe is in consciousness,
and it must be eternal.

So you see my good sirs I AM the creator of the universe. — OmniscientNihilist

And you created the universe just so you could argue with yourself? Great show!

chaos is a relative and pragmatic term only. it doesnt exist on an absolute level.

"randomness is just a pattern to big to see" -unknown

there is no choas, only order, and it must necessarily be eternal. because something cannot come from nothing. sure we see entropy but we also see emergence, so its just an eternal ying yang going around in circles. perfection.

an eternally looping pandeism of sorts

From the standpoint of a later religion, the earlier religion turns out to be idolatry: Man is seen to have worshiped his own essence. Man has objectified himself, but he has not yet recognised the object as his own essential being – a step taken by later religion. — Feuerbach

I see the point of this. But that doesn't simply make it fallacious. Indian philosophy is often sceptical or dismissive of conventional religion - maybe that is what Feuerbach meant by 'later religion'. Schopenhauer himself was scathingly dismissive of Biblical religion. And yet, you find in Schopenhauer a defense of asceticism:

Schopenhauer believes that a person who experiences the truth of human nature from a moral perspective — who appreciates how spatial and temporal forms of knowledge generate a constant passing away, continual suffering, vain striving and inner tension — will be so repulsed by the human condition, and by the pointlessly striving Will of which it is a manifestation, that he or she will lose the desire to affirm the objectified human situation in any of its manifestations. [This corresponds with the Buddhist 'nirodha' meaning 'turning away' or 'revulsion'.] The result is an attitude of denial towards our will-to-live , that Schopenhauer identifies with an ascetic attitude of renunciation, resignation, and willessness, but also with composure and tranquillity. In a manner reminiscent of traditional Buddhism, he recognizes that life is filled with unavoidable frustration [the 'first noble truth'], and acknowledges that the suffering caused by this frustration can itself be reduced by minimizing one’s desires. Moral consciousness and virtue thus give way to the voluntary poverty and chastity of the ascetic. St. Francis of Assisi (WWR, Section 68) and Jesus (WWR, Section 70) subsequently emerge as Schopenhauer’s prototypes for the most enlightened lifestyle, in conjunction with the ascetics from every religious tradition. — SEP

So despite his vociferous criticism of religion, was Schopenhauer in fact religious? Well, it depends on what you mean. It has to be remembered that religions have to address a wide audience, they adopt to the myths and tropes of the times and cultures in which they're taught. But transcending religious dogma is different to simply abandoning it.

Appeals to the nature of the divine that attempt to escape this contingency are betrayed by that word 'nature.' If the divine has a nature, it is subject to some law or order which is itself unexplained. — jellyfish

That's the 'who made God?' objection. But the answer to that from the perspective of theistic philosophy, is that 'necessary being' is the terminus of the enquiry 'why does anything exist?' in the same way that '4' is the terminus of the enquiry 'what does 2 + 2 equal?

Therefore no matter how outlandish mathematical physics is, it [string theory] is scientific. Yes! Exactly! Precisely so! If it's science, then it's science. — tim wood

Whether it is science is in fact highly contested. There is a debate raging about whether string theory and the multiverse conjecture in indeed a scientific theory at all, on account of it not being a testable hypothesis. There are those who argue that the requirement for falsification has been superseded by such developments, and others saying that because it can never be tested it's 'fairytale physics'.

But, for example, consider, say, so-called creation science. — tim wood

No, I'm not considering 'creation science'. What I'm saying is that you automatically equate any kind of religious philosophy with 'creation science'. (That quote I gave above, which could be interpreted as a rejection of anything like 'biblical creationism', was from St Augustine.)

But maybe belief is not enough for you. You need to push and shove (and as history shows, much, much worse) to get your beliefs into the rooms and onto the tables reserved for the real and for science, but with that you cross important boundaries and become little more than a pig in the parlor, and not a nice pig. — tim wood

Pardon me, but I'm not pushing or shoving, I'm debating.

Religious philosophies have been firewalled off behind the boundary of 'personal belief', and we object strenuously to the suggestion that they might be anything other than that. We have a map in which science and religion are essentially incompatible, but in a liberal fashion, recognising the importance of personal choice and conscience, so will tolerate religion on those grounds. But I'm questioning that, and I think it's a perfectly legitimate question.

That's the 'who made God?' objection. But the answer to that from the perspective of theistic philosophy, is that 'necessary being' is the terminus of the enquiry 'why does anything exist?' in the same way that '4' is the terminus of the enquiry 'what does 2 + 2 equal? — Wayfarer

For me it's not the the 'who made God?' objection. Let's grant that there is a God. If 'He' is intelligible at all, he has a structure or nature. Why does he have that nature and not some other? If we try to answer this question in terms of the nature of this God, that seems circular.

But transcending religious dogma is different to simply abandoning it. — Wayfarer

Personally I still love the good book.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. — Romans 7:14

Or:

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? — Matthew 27:46

Feuerbach the 'atheist' still has this to say:

Every limitation of reason, or of human nature in general, rests on a delusion, an error. To be sure, the human individual can, even must, feel and know himself to be limited – and this is what distinguishes him from the animal – but he can become conscious of his limits, his finiteness, only because he can make the perfection and infinity of his species the object either of his feeling, conscience, or thought But if his limitations appear to him as emanating from the species, this can only be due to his delusion that he is identical with the species, a delusion intimately linked with the individual’s love of case, lethargy, vanity, and selfishness; for a limit which I know to be mine alone, humiliates, shames, and disquiets me. Hence, in order to free myself of this feeling of shame, this uneasiness, I make the limits of my individuality the limits of man’s being itself. What is incomprehensible to me is incomprehensible to others; why should this worry me at all? It is not due to any fault of mine or of my understanding; the cause lies in the understanding of the species itself. But it is a folly, a ludicrous and frivolous folly to designate that which constitutes the nature of man and the absolute nature of the individual, the essence of the species, as finite and limited. — F

Humanism declares more or less explicitly that humanity is divine.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.

Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use--or rather abuse--of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds. — Kant

Note that we are all here appealing to reason, our own human reason, in order to determine the divine more exactly. What isn't rational we as philosophers refuse to regard as real. And discourse that ignores or denies some aspect of the real we refuse to regard as complete. Hence philosophy is implicitly a humanism, though of course we can consider a continuum that runs between myth-metaphor-mysticism and careful arguments.

What I'm saying is that you automatically equate any kind of religious philosophy with 'creation science'. ( — Wayfarer

No, I don't. I equate false claims of truth out of belief with ignorance, then stupidity, and finally vicious fraud. Often enough, the religion itself makes no such claims, or does so with care as to exactly what is being claimed and why.

Religious philosophies have been firewalled off behind the boundary of 'personal belief', — Wayfarer

Not so. Speaking of Christianity, it did so itself, and correctly, with the "We believe." Nor is this any kind of firewall, it is rather a posted notice that the religion concerns beliefs.

but in a liberal fashion, recognising the importance of personal choice and conscience, so will tolerate religion on those grounds. But I'm questioning that, and I think it's a perfectly legitimate question. — Wayfarer

Religion is supposed just "personal belief"? By whom? I think of religion as being an effort to think consistently within the bounds of expressed beliefs, the beliefs themselves being indemonstrable, for presumed benefits therefrom. If you have any substantive argument for its extension into science, or any other area outside that of mere belief, then please make it.

Lacking that, what are you arguing?

What I'm saying is that you automatically equate any kind of religious philosophy with 'creation science' — Wayfarer

No, I don't. I equate false claims of truth out of belief with ignorance, then stupidity, and finally vicious fraud. Often enough, the religion itself makes no such claims, or does so with care as to exactly what is being claimed and why. — tim wood

Well, there was:

You can say you don't know - I sure don't. But lots of folks just cannot stick with that. so they say, "Because I do not know, I know. God did it. And of course God, being God, can't be detected. That's how we know he's real, and made the universe...". So what makes more sense to you, a conjecture presented as such? Or a supernatural-based fantasy presented as real? — tim wood

Which sounds very much like you frame the alternatives as (rational) science vs (irrational) religion.

Whereas, I am appealing to the 'fine-tuning argument', which has precedents in philosophical theology. You don't have to accept them, they are certainly not universally accepted, nor should they be in my view. But those kinds of arguments are not creationism, nor 'vicious fraud'. And I will say that I find the argument of natural theology on the basis of there being a pre-ordained order in the Universe, more persuasive than the attempt to defray it on the supposition of there being infinitely many universes - even if the latter is more scientifically fashionable.

Religion is supposed just "personal belief"? By whom? — tim wood

I took that to be the meaning of this:

Profession of belief as belief, imo, is pretty close to an absolute defense. That is, you get to believe what you like (not to be confused with being able to do what you like). — tim wood

Was I mistaken?

If you have any substantive argument for its extension into science, or any other area outside that of mere belief, then please make it. — tim wood

I think the fine-tuning argument is a sound philosophical argument. It's concerning a matter of fact, not a matter of belief, but is also one that is beyond the horizon of empirical discovery, for obvious reasons.

Time to move on.

Let's grant that there is a God. If 'He' is intelligible at all, he has a structure or nature. Why does he have that nature and not some other? — jellyfish

Well, as I've remarked previously, I think the question has to arise from a sense of necessity, not as conjecture. I mean, internet discussions of deity are full of allusions to Russell's teapot, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and so on, most of them idle conjecture. There are clues - evidence, if you like - to the 'divine nature' in many different cultures.

Note that we are all here appealing to reason, our own human reason, in order to determine the divine more exactly. — jellyfish

I've mulled over that passage from Kant many times, it's one of the foundational texts of the Enlightenment. I can't disagree with it - but the question is one of philosophical anthropology. What is man, in the end? A creature, a phenomenon, a 'moist robot', a gene-carrier? What end are we trying to achieve? Interplanetary conquest? Fame and riches? Master of arts and sciences? I think Kant was diffident, for his own reasons, about the 'question of ultimate concern'.

Consider Renaissance Humanism. It was generally condemned by the Church, but it still retained much of the spirituality of the Western classical tradition, from Platonism, Hermeticism and related traditions. Whereas, Darwinism as a philosophical stance tends to undercut all of that as well. So the secular~scientific attitude of mainstream culture does not preserve those ancient insights which are still even preserved in the German idealists - Fichte, Schelling, et al (as you know).

What is man, in the end? — Wayfarer

The asker of precisely that question?

A creature, a phenomenon, a 'moist robot', a gene-carrier? What end are we trying to achieve? Interplanetary conquest? Fame and riches? Master of arts and sciences? — Wayfarer

At the very least, man is the creature who can dream that he is any or all of these things.

The human is (one might say) the question incarnate, a permanent identity crisis. This would be the gloomy/ecstatic existentialist answer, which virtuously (for it) faces our facelessness. Another answer is some kind of ideal society that justifies all the suffering it took to get there, towards which the world sneaks as it merely seems to be on fire and out of control.

So the secular~scientific attitude of mainstream culture does not preserve those ancient insights which are still even preserved (as you know) in the German idealists - Fichte, Schelling, et al (as you know). — Wayfarer

IMV the living 'religion' of a culture is manifest in what high-status people like to be seen doing. In this we see a collision of answers to the question: 'what is the human?' Philosopically our age seems 'late' and hyper-self-conscious.

The history of Being is now conceived as a series of appropriating events in which the different dimensions of human sense-making—the religious, political, philosophical (and so on) dimensions that define the culturally conditioned epochs of human history—are transformed. Each such transformation is a revolution in human patterns of intelligibility, so what is appropriated in the event is Dasein and thus the human capacity for taking-as (see e.g., Contributions 271: 343). Once appropriated in this way, Dasein operates according to a specific set of established sense-making practices and structures. In a Kuhnian register, one might think of this as the normal sense-making that follows a paradigm-shift. — SEP

This next one reminds me of the word made flesh.

The Medium here is not the message, quite the opposite: the very medium that we use -- the universal intersubjectivity of language -- undermines the message. — Zizek

We the people of reason must also be the people of rhetoric, since reason is a kind of ideal or point at infinity, a lusted-after purified rhetoric --cleansed of bias and small self and the stink of time. No wonder then that philosophers have ached to be mathematicians of the spirit and railed against 'systemless bullshit' that can't be verified by a dead machine. I think one can even read the opposition to later philosophers as a denial of the incarnation. Derrida is a good up-to-date Christian (?).

This fascinating quote sheds light on that one, and touches on the OP:

The implicit lesson of Plato is not that everything is appearance, that it is not possible to draw a clear line of separation between appearance and reality (that would have meant the victory of Sophism), but that essence is "appearance as appearance," that essence appears in contrast to appearance within appearance; that the distinction between appearance and essence has to be inscribed into appearance itself. Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, insofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing. — Zizek (emph. added)

I am appealing to the 'fine-tuning argument', which has precedents in philosophical theology. — Wayfarer

I'm not picking any new nits which generations of scientists and other defeasible thinkers haven't already thoroughly picked when I point out that given the volume of this planet almost entirely consists of conditions inimicable to life and, likewise, the volume of the observable universe is exponentially even more lifeless, it's patently unsound to conclude anything other than that the cosmos either is (A) "fine-tuned" for lifelessness or (B) not "fine-tuned" at all, but only appears "fine-tuned" due to our self-serving/flattering cognitive biases (such as how we misrecognize that our scientific models & philosophical concepts work because we "fine-tune" them in order to anthropocentricize life, earth & the universe (i.e. mistaking our maps for territory à la reification fallacy)). If the MWI is a "cop-out", as you(?) say, Wayf, then by comparison "fine-tuning" is a fact-free, just-so story so ad hoc and incoherent it's not even wrong. :roll:

The point I made with respect to Russell's essay was his view that 'man is the outcome of the accidental collocation of atoms'. I contend that the 'fine tuning' argument undermines this view, because in order for there to be atoms, there first had to be stars - so the causal chain that created the circumstances for life had to start before there was even matter; so, not an accident, not meaningfully the outcome of chance.

we misrecognize that our scientific models & philosophical concepts work because we "fine-tune" them to anthropocentricize life, earth & the universe — 180 Proof

'A physicist', said Neils Bohr, 'is just an atom's way of looking at itself'.

The mind is inextricably an aspect of the universe, or, put another way, we don't know anything about the universe other than how it appears to the human being (pace Kant). So the idea that science 'reveals' a universe that exists or would exist just as if there was nobody observing it, is a falsehood in its own right.

*

But here's what we know: there is a universe. — tim wood

This is doubtful, and that's what multiverse speculation makes evident. "Universe" is to say all is one. "Multiverse" is to say all is a multiplicity. The two are incompatible. That's why there's a gap between quantum principles and general relativity, and the theory of everything is nowhere to be found.

chaos is a relative and pragmatic term only. it doesnt exist on an absolute level.

"randomness is just a pattern to big to see" -unknown

there is no choas, only order, and it must necessarily be eternal. because something cannot come from nothing. sure we see entropy but we also see emergence, so its just an eternal ying yang going around in circles. perfection.

an eternally looping pandeism of sorts — OmniscientNihilist

It seems to me that order would just be the opposite side of the coin of chaos and doesn't exist on an absolute level. Order and chaos would be mental categories dependent upon the existence of the other, like hot and cold, small and big, etc.. It seems that the universe is simply eternal, not chaotic or orderly as those would be anthropomorphic projections based on our current view or understanding of the eternal.

:chin:

"Universe" is to say all is one. "Multiverse" is to say all is a multiplicity. The two are incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since there is no "all" (i.e. its as incoherent a concept as e.g. "the largest number"), these conceptions are indistinguishable on this basis (e.g. continuum 0-1 = continuum 0-infinity). Universe is more analogous, I think, to an unbounded sheet of paper (N-d) and multiverse to that same unbounded sheet folded into an origami (+N-d) - of course, viewed only from within its manifold structure. (Extending the analogy a step further, "the big bang" inflation era marks the earliest and most prolific process(es) of 'foldings', etc ...)

That's why there's a gap between quantum principles and general relativity ... — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe the "gap" is what binds them ... like a parallax of complementary models constructed with incommensurate metrics. The jury's still out, MU, on whether or not they can be reconciled by reducing them to, or deriving both models from, an even more fundamental model.

:wink:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

~Hamlet (1.5.167-8)

"But here's what we know: there is a universe."
— tim wood

This is doubtful, and that's what multiverse speculation makes evident. — Metaphysician Undercover

:roll:

fine tuning — Wayfarer

Science is model → evidence convergence; evidence, observation, experimental results accumulate, and models converge thereupon. The models incorporate constants, e.g. lightspeed, elementary charge, the molar Planck constant, 3+1 dimensional spacetime.

So, in analogy, we build a reasonably working machine (model), then wonder why changing that wee cog (constant) over there breaks the machine (model). Not just that; while attempting to generalize our assessment wholesale, we overlook what kinds of dull and wondrous machines might be built in other universes. Because we still only have a sample size of one; but that's how the fine-tuning argument proceeds nonetheless. For that matter, some religious people still claim the likes of heaven and hell, which presumably then are supposed to be other possible worlds (however anthropocentric).

Fine-tuning comes through as a pseudo-argument, at least when based on how "fine-tuned" is sometimes used in science. Something similar holds for intelligent design arguments.

Besides ...

π was created and fine-tuned so we can have circles?

This is doubtful, and that's what multiverse speculation makes evident. "Universe" is to say all is one. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, no. If multiverse then the universe is in the multiverse. Either way, as defined we live in a (the) universe.

Does a rabbit not live in a rabbit hole if his rabbit hole is on a mountainside where conjecturally at least there might be other rabbit holes?