Okay, so besides the semantics.. maybe let's just say.. is it a freedom to put one's money into a candidate one likes.. even it makes that politician liable to pander to such backers? — schopenhauer1

Whoever has the gold, makes the rules. I don't think there's anything wrong with candidates advocating policies that are in favor of campaign donors with the biggest donors getting the lion's share of benefits. It's not that money translates into votes; real people have to cast the ballot. That being the case, expect an alignment of interests between the people who actually voted and the campaign donors.

I have no idea how you got that from what I said. — jamalrob

Cartesian skepticism? The world could be an illusion i.e. it may not exist???

Anyone thinking that...

It's just skepticism doing what it does best
— TheMadFool

...is incorrect. — jamalrob

So, Descartes is incorrect?

Freedom is the power to act, speak, think what one wants

Free speech is the power to speak what one wants.

Spending money on a candidate is an act.

A subtle difference there but it's up to you whether you consider them to be either same [both expressions of freedom] or different [speeches aren't acts]. I maybe mistaken though.

Both biological and psychological suffer from duplication problems though! — DoppyTheElv

Sorry, I don't get you.

I still restate my question. IF everything is ultimately based on a set of axioms that we cannot prove and have to take it on faith then what exactly is the point of performing philosophy? How can we call anything a pursuit of truth? — Darkneos

You wouldn't have known this if you hadn't done philosophy. Oddly, the truth is that there's no truth or something like that. Amazing, no? Imagine getting bent out shape by someone objecting to what you hold as truths and also imagine someone else being utterly frustrated by you objecting to the truths they hold dear. All for nothing. :smile: Philosophy!

To the extent that I understand, I fully agree that the self is intimately tied to ethics as nowhere else is responsibility as central and as critical as in ethics and responsibility is all about the so-called self.

We already have such a world and it's logical argumentation. All arguments take place outside of time or if that seems too far-fetched in a temporal limbo. Words can't change in meaning when you formulate an argument and that, in a sense, is like time coming to a halt insofar as the argument is concerned, no?

I'm assuming, of course, that for time to exist, there has to be change. No change, no time

Is this then your idea of the wise man, as a persona applicable to all the different sorts of particular knowledge, rather than a man of exalted nature, who seeks to know the foundation of knowledge in a general sense, like did a Socrates or Machiavelli or Rousseau or Kant or Nietzsche? — Todd Martin

You hit the [right] spot as far as I'm concerned. Wisdom is, if I understood the term correctly, a pan-discipline. It seems that wisdom is, all things considered, incomplete knowledge. That makes sense right? If one has knowledge, we would right away know how to handle any possible situation relevant to that knowledge. Wisdom wouldn't be necessary and this jibes with what you said about going to a qualified doctor instead of a wise man when we're ill.

Given that our knowledge of our world is incomplete, given that there are inherent uncertainties, wisdom is a must-have for everyone. As a proof of this undeniable fact, you yourself said, in another post,

the person we seek to give us clarity is not “the wise man”, whoever he is, but rather the wise doctor or judge or whoever specializes; do you not avow this is true? — Todd Martin

Ars philosophica is poison (i.e. "too much") only for those who are (as you quoted) dogmatic. — 180 Proof

I second that. The problem, as I see it, is not too much philosophy but actually too less philosophy. Do you have any examples of philosophy solving problems in the real world? I'd very much like to have one or more of such real-world instances in my arsenal so as to defend philosophy against its detractors. :smile:

Perhaps it has been pressed already because the whole world is in such a deep mess, but I hope that we can climb out of hell, and find the 'Stairway to Heaven.' — Jack Cummins

My thoughts exactly. :sad:

Up until a few weeks ago I was under the impression that doomsayers were invariably of the religious type. Apocalpyse, Judgment Day, Day of Reckoning, End of Times, etc. all various names for the same prophesized final battle between good and evil when all civilizations will supposedly experience a downward spiral into chaos.

Well, I was wrong.

Leading scientists and some big players in global economics too have been giving the issue serious thought. A list of possible global threats has been created probably with the intent to increase global awareness of possible dangers to civilization as we know it. Here they are:

1. Nuclear holocaust
2. Climate change
3. Asteroid impact
4. Overpopulation
5. AI takeover
6. Pandemics

[The above list maybe incomplete]

There's even a Doomsday clock which has been set at 100 seconds to midnight, midnight being doomsday.

The OP seems to be concerned about whether your philosopher's prescription above is the right medicine for what ails us
— TheMadFool
:mask: Well, ...
... philosophy (or, rather, philosophizing) seems medicine for the healthy (i.e. dialectical ones) and poison for the unhealthy (i.e. dogmatic herd).
— 180 Proof — 180 Proof

What do you have to say about this:

Dosis sola facit venenum — Paracelsus

?

Is there such a thing as too much philosophy? I'm sure you're fully aware of how some people look down on philosophers as an band of overthinking men and women stuck in their ivory towers, completely detached from reality.

If there's a button that a bored simulation coder can press to unleash hell on earth, I believe we humans are at the means by which that button will bring about its effects.

it is how to think about reality, not about thinking about anything. — Rafaella Leon

In logic the emphasis is on how to think about anything not just reality. The title of your thread is "Logic is the world of possibilities..." and that, as far as I can tell, includes hypothetical worlds so long as such worlds don't entail contradictions [contradictions are impossible]. That said, there are strains of logic that are inconsistency/contradiction friendly and possibility/impossibility is no longer an issue. In this way logic achieves escape velocity and is no longer restricted by the gravity well of possibility/impossibility.

Without this constant exercise of going back from thoughts to reality, we may become fundamentalists, no longer making sure that the sentences in which we say believe correspond to something in reality — Rafaella Leon

You're using a popular definition of truth viz. a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to reality. It goes by the name the correspondence theory of truth. Although truth is important, what we mean by truth isn't the main concern of logic; the mainstay of logic is correct thinking and it focuses on patterns of reasoning [argument forms] that if fed with true premises spit out true conclusions. So, yes, logic, employing arguments, establishes the truth of propositions but which theory of truth one subscribes to - there's the pragmatic and the coherent theories of truth to name a few - isn't a logical matter unless you're interested in the justifications and thereby the soundness of the arguments for these multifarious theories.

Then the words are used as personal emblems, as if the subject stuck some badges on the body. — Rafaella Leon

That's not logic either. I've always wondered about whether we're defined by our beliefs. The reigning consensus is that we are. So, a person who has racist beliefs is defined by racism, a person who believes in Jesus Christ is defined as a Christian and so on. Belies constitute people's identity.

Yet, we can be disabused of such beliefs - a person can give up faer racism and can abandon Christianity. When such happens do we lose our identity? Received opinion says no!, we don't lose our identity.

What gives?

An analogy might help us in understanding the situation better. Take beliefs to be like clothes. On one hand, people seem to think beliefs define who we are [we are the clothes] and on the other hand people also believe we're different from our beliefs [we're not the clothes]; we adopt beliefs like we wear different clothes. Opinions are divided on the issue. Personally, I think it's odd to identify ourselves as a particular set of beliefs [a specific worldview] because beliefs/worldviews can change and how and why depends on a multitude of factors ranging from biases that are part and parcel of being human to strong justifications.

“The yellow dragon with red balls, which speaks japanese”. It is a very clear concept — logically, there is no contradiction. But this is contradictory, not with logic (not with itself), but with reality. — Rafaella Leon

As you said, logic, there are n number of them, simply prescribes rules on how to think and thinking about hypotheticals such as yellow dragons with red balls are totally legit grist for the logic mill.

On the face of it, your argument makes sense. We have two materially identical people but each one is a different person in the two worlds. So, in the scenario described in the OP,

1. A = Z [physicalism is true]

or

2. ~A = Z [nonphysicalism is true]

If 1 is true then physicalism/materialistic monism is true and if 2 is true [some kind of] dualism is true. We need to prove either 1 or 2 for us to settle the matter. From the OP it's clear that you feel 2. ~A = Z is true and your reasons I gather have to do with [experiences and] memories which will be different for A in world WA and Z in world WZ despite A and Z being the same body.

To what extent do [our experiences and] memories define us? The received wisdom on that score is that people identify themselves by their experiences and memories of these experiences. So, for example, Albert Einstein would've thought of himself as that German Jew who came up with the theory relativity and ushered in the atomic age with memories of that accomplishment to boot.

However, there's a sense in which a person's identity isn't defined by [experiences and] memories. For instance, for Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch, Albert Einstein would've still been their adorable son had Albert Einstein chosen a different life say as ballet dancer or a trapeze artist in a circus. This, at a minimum, weakens your argument that [experiences and] memories define our identity. So, 2. ~A = Z is a dubious claim.

First of all, we've to come to terms with a simple fact - we are the nastiest lifeforms the planet earth has. We have a poor track record when it comes to goodness. Heck, we even use god, the very definition of goodness, to justify unthinkable atrocities we have, are, and probably will, commit against our fellow human beings and to even greater extents against non-human animals. In short if there's any creature that can and probably will transform this earthly haven for life into a living hell, it's us, humans. Some are of the opinion that a sixth mass extinction is underway and the cause? Humans and their fancy inventions are the prime suspects.

So, if we feel like asking the question, do the simulation creators intend to "...bring about Hell"? it's like a hitman (us) on a mission experiencing amnesia and forgetting why he has a person bound and gagged (the world) in the trunk of his car.

Philosophy is good for those who recognize that they are congenitally unwise; for them, striving to moderate, if not minimize, their unwisdom becomes both possible (via patiently habitualizing various reflective practices) and desirable. — 180 Proof

The OP seems to be concerned about whether your philosopher's prescription above is the right medicine for what ails us. For my money, I'd say our understanding of our world seems to be a couple of steps behind our ability to bend the world to our will and the entire planet has to bear the cost of this seemingly innocuous asynchrony. Shoot first, ask questions later is our modus operandi: we invent new technologies and ideas without the requisite "...reflective practices..." that should've gone into them. Thus my personal version of the question is, is philosophy destined to be always late to the party? If it's a habit, it's a very bad habit.

This isn’t in my post. It’s not even the subject. — Brett

An apology is in order then. Sorry. I must've gotten carried away by certain suggestive statements in your post.

“Which makes me wonder if it’s possible that philosophy has nothing to do with life or how ones mind operates. Like I said, it’s as if philosophy is attached to the mind inorganically, that it’s completely alien to what we are.
Is it a useless development like wings on a frog? It throws up more questions than answers and creates doubt about all possibilities. Is it an aberration that holds respect and meaning because of its attachment to the mind, the intellect being superior to all other things, like emotion or intuition? Which, of course, would be the position of the intellect.” — Brett

Well, speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, thinking is a brand new skill for life; my guess is only a handful of recently-evolved species are capable of it. Among all animals capable of some level of thinking humans stand out as species that's taken thinking to the next level, thinking properly, and by that I mean to point at our attempts to get thinking properly down to a science: logic, critical thinking, philosophy and allied subjects. If you're willing to grant that, it seems obvious, doesn't it?, that philosophy, the acme of thinking properly, will be alien to us. After all, as I said, it's a cutting edge evolutionary ability and just as we have trouble using novel technology, we should expect some hiccups using our brains.

Aristotle thought women were “deformed men” — Brett

:rofl: Reminds me of the joke about how a priest talks to his congregation about god first creating Adam, the first man, and then Eve, the first woman. Someone in the crowd goes "ah well, everybody makes mistakes the first time round" :lol:

Obviously some of these attitudes were social norms of the times, but it begs the question, why, with their powerful intellect, could they not discern the wrong and if they did why go along with it? They don’t appear to have applied their thinking and discrimination to themselves. — Brett

HIndsight is always 20/20. The philosophers you mentioned didn't have the benefit of facing the consequences of their beliefs - the ideas were still incipient, just born in a manner of speaking, and didn't have adequate time to reveal their malignant nature - some ideas are as insidious as cancers, remaining hidden until it's tool late to do anything about it. Too, my hunch is that beginnings of the antidotes for the pernicious ideas that spawned in the minds of some philosophers are to be found in these very same philosophers or their contemporaries.

Your accusing philosophers of coming up with dangerous ideas, ideas that can lead and have led to disasters of epic proportions. However, approaching it as a disinterested observer, how good are the arguments in favor of such "...dangerous ideas..."? If it doesn't go down well with someone, it's only fair that that someone make it a point to show why the relevant arguments are flawed. Without good justifications, any criticism is empty and will likely fall on deaf ears.

That said, philosophy is a work in progress and we should expect some mishaps along the way. My suggestion is we continue our quest for understanding reality and our place in it. There's no guarantee that the truth will make us happy but there's no necessity that we should be imprisoned by truths in such ways and to such a degree that we're completely helpless.

Well, first of all, my question to you did not imply that there is absolute and perfect knowledge in any field. It rather assumed that, when there is uncertainty, the person we seek to give us clarity is not “the wise man”, whoever he is, but rather the wise doctor or judge or whoever specializes; do you not avow this is true?

Let me ask you personally: who would you go to, having been diagnosed with cancer, for a second opinion—the wise man, or another oncologist? — Todd Martin

You're approaching the issue from an academic perspective; wisdom is being looked upon as a course you can choose in a college curriculum just like math or oncology or whathaveyou. I wish that were true - all the world's problems would be solved in the blink of an eye. Under this interpretation wisdom would be a specialized subject like oncology and math and just as there are oncologists and mathematicians we should expect the departments of wisdom to churn out "wisdomologists" or wise people. Only then does your question, "let me ask you personally: would you go to, having been diagnosed with cancer, for a second opinion - the wise man, or another oncologist?" make sense.

However, this view of wisdom - as a specialized subject like oncology or math - doesn't do justice to its true value as a requirement in every sphere of human activity. What I mean by that is that whether you're a historian, an oncologist, a mathematician, or whatever, you'll need wisdom by your side if you're interested in avoiding silly mistakes and who isn't, right? So, to answer your question as to whom I'll trust with regards to my cancer diagnosis, I'd say not just another oncologist but a wise(r) oncologist if available that is.

So then why bother? What is the point of questioning everything if you eventually have to settle on axioms? I mean even solipsism has to take it's base points on faith. — Darkneos

We wouldn't have known that one choice that's available to us is we "...eventually have to settle for axioms..." if the skeptics hadn't asked the question in the first place. Of course there are the other two options in Munchhausen's trilemma viz. circularity and infinite regress but what usually happens is we begin our reasoning from a set of axioms. I believe this is the least worst option we have.

Let's face it. We're predators. Some even go so far as to say we're apex predators. If that's true do we have a choice in the matter? Methinks we're more opportunists rather than full-fledged predators and despite the negative connotations of being so it's been sort of a blessing going by how successful our species is. It pays and pays well to be not finicky about what we eat. There's hardly a time when we run out of food and being able to tap into every available energy source has huge upsides; for instance starvation is no longer as big a threat as it would be had we not been opportunists.

Coming to "...the negative connotations..." I mentioned, being opportunists we're basically lowlifes - nothing is beneath us - and that makes us as dangerous, as friend or foe. Frankly speaking, the ethical colloquy we, some at least, engage in might be just a smokescreen to conceal our true nature as opportunists behind a facade of affected goodness. Or, if one's a true blue optimist, we maybe onto something - could this be a case of an authentic change of heart?

At any rate, humans seem to be at the helm of the ship of destiny for our world. What we do has the power to make or break, what appears to be, the fragile earth. Funnily, it reminds me of Noah's ark. In that Bibilcal story, humans, Noah and his family, save the animals from the flood and, in my view, something doesn't add up if that herculean task was undertaken only to ensure a dependable food supply.

It's just skepticism doing what it does best - cast doubt on everything whenever and wherever possible. The fact is, and that's the gist of the skepticism, we don't know if anything's real or not. Truth be told, as someone wrote a couple of months ago on the forum, we can't even trust out own minds and that's scraping the bottom of this depressing skeptical rabbit hole I suppose. :sad:

If you were diagnosed by a doctor as having cancer, and wished to get a second opinion, perhaps suspecting that that doctor’s opinion might be in error, who would you go to—another doctor, or a wise man?

When a judge is unsure how he ought to rule in some case does he consult a wise man, or rather the rulings of other judges in such cases?

Likewise, if a man is unsure of the status or quality of his own soul, who does he consult? The wise man? Doesn’t he rather go to the therapist or priest?...

I’m just wondering, O Mad One,...where is the place for your wise man in a world that seems to be sufficiently peopled by human beings already skilled enough in all the arts and sciences? — Todd Martin

I don't think there are experts of such caliber that they possess 100% or total knowledge of their respective fields. Add to this the inherent uncertainties in any given field, uncertainties that are, as far as I can tell, a permanent fixture in every imaginable discipline and we wind up with the perfect environment in which wisdom has a major role.

As I said, wisdom operates in an environment that has, at the very least, one unknown and this description fits all extant areas of human knowledge - our ignorance must be acknowledged - and if so, wisdom becomes an indispensable part of our lives.

I would say that it’s a fair critique that theists who use the moral argument think that morality has to grounded in something concrete rather than a set of abstract principles. Though, that concrete entity could be anything supernatural rather than something that necessarily has intelligence like a god. I can understand that many atheists find that way of thinking about morality counterintuitive and I find it counterintuitive as well. Nonetheless, I don’t really have an argument to give to a theist of why it makes more sense to ground morality within a set of abstract moral principles rather than a concrete entity like a god or a spiritual force. — TheHedoMinimalist

Well, if I were to offer an option it would have to do with the intuition that actions can't be moral just because god commands it. There's a reflexive resistance to the notion of god's commands being good no matter what the commands are and that points to a vague idea, in the depths of our psyche, that morality must be based on, as you said, "...abstract principles..." Nevertheless, you're right, there's a conspicuous absence of arguments in favor of basing morality on "...abstract principles..." unless, of course, you put stock in Euthyphro's dilemma and what that points to in terms of our gut feelings on the matter.

I don’t know if I would say that the moral argument even depends on God existing. You could imagine a godless form of theism that believes that there are supernatural forces that make moral realism true and that without these supernatural forces we would have no reason to think that murder is wrong. Of course, many theists might also argue that if God commanded people to murder then murder would be right and they just don’t see this as an arbitrary form of morality like the way that atheists typically do. Theists might think it’s more arbitrary to base morality of an abstract concept with seemingly no authority like the concept of maximizing happiness for sentient creatures — TheHedoMinimalist

"...that are supernatural forces that make moral realism true..." is just a variation on the theme of divine morality. You're deferring moral authority to a being, god or "...supernatural forces..." rather than some set of moral principles that are true independent of such "forces".

In my humble opinion, the moral argument for god is critically dependent on god's authority on moral matters and this not in the sense that god knows moral truths, truths which we too can, in principle, know but that good is what god commands.

Otherwise, the moral argument wouldn't make sense, right?

If god refers to a set of moral doctrines like judges refer to the constitution before god issues commands of a moral nature, then god becomes redundant to the moral cause and the moral argument is blown clean out of the water.

I thought Euthypro's dilemma had decisively undermined the relationship between morality and god. Either god is or isn't the authority on morality. If god is then whatever god commands must be good, including murder if so decreed. That's unacceptable. Ergo, god isn't the moral authority. This being so, whether objective moral truths exist (moral realism) or not (moral anti-realism), god has little to no say in the matter.

Given that the moral argument for god completely depends on god as an authority on morals which, as it turns out above, is untenable, we have no choice but to reject premise P1.

Let me see if I understand what you are saying about wisdom and the wise man. He is needed when our knowledge fails, when we are uncertain as to what is true and false; for example, when the doctors don’t agree on a diagnosis? Is that the sort of situation you are referring to? or the medical researchers are unsure how to interpret their findings? then they ought to call in the wise man to interpret them for them?

Likewise, when the trainers and dietitians disagree as to how to properly exercise or feed a body, the wise man ought to be called in to set them straight?

Similarly, concerning the things of the soul, when the judges disagree how they ought to judge and punish or reform the citizenry, the wise man is called in, just as he is when the teachers are not certain what or how to teach, and the politicians are not sure what laws to legislate? Is this the idea of the wise man you are promoting, or something else? — Todd Martin

More or less, yes. The reigning consensus on what a wise person is seems to be that of a go-to person for answers and solutions to our questions and problems respectively. A wise person's trademark ability is that of getting to the heart of an issue without being distracted by incidentals and trivialities and that, to my reckoning, is sometimes an innate capacity and sometimes a skill developed over many years of hard practice.

Wisdom can be thought of as pseudo-omniscience as a person who has it will come off as all-knowing even when fae isn't...all-knowing.

It might be worth noting that the Delphic oracle proclaimed Socrates as the wisest person, that even as Socrates was walking the streets of Athens announcing to everybody that all that he knew was that he knew nothing.

A wise person isn't confined to specific disciplines but has a fair if not complete grasp of all that can be known and the hope is that with such a broad understanding of the world, fae will provide the best possible answer/solution to the questions/problems that the world has to deal with.
— TheMadFool

A fictional character. — jgill

Possibly. You never know.

'Reality has a liberal bias' ~ some bloke. — Wayfarer

A telling point. :up:

Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism". — Wikipedia

Is the universe itself left-wing or right-wing? Does mother nature provide the right environment for "...freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform, and internationalism" or does it cater to "...authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism" or does it play both sides or neither?

Right-wing ideals seem more attuned to the way the universe functions - "survival of the fittest" doesn't leave enough room for, you know, things like freedom, fraternity, rights, progress, reform, etc. except maybe on the off chance that a major upheaval takes place in the ecosystem but even then it doesn't take long for things to go back to (right-wingy) business as usual. It could be said right-wing beliefs reflect mother nature's true colors.

Left-wing mores smack of a desire by humans to break from tradition, tradition that's just minor variations of the Darwinian trope - struggle for survival - and beat a new path based on values that humans have, in terms of geological time, only recently become aware of. I won't be completely wrong in saying that left-wing philosophy bears the mark of all of mankind's civilizations, the best they had to offer.

You say that “a wise person isn’t confined to specific disciplines but has a fair if not complete grasp of all that can be known...” Would you say then that a good analogy to him would be the decathlete, who, performing “fairly” well in several track and field endeavors, by combining his ability in each comes out superior in the skill of the total endeavor we call “track and field” to all those specialists in it, the sprinters and long-distance runners; the putters of the shot and discus throwers; the long- and high-jumpers? Would you say the decathlete comes off superior to all these specialists by being, as it were, second-best to them in their specialties?—but by combining his inferior skill in each into a sort of comprehensiveness, embracing all particular athletic endeavors under one head, proves superior in the overall category “athletics”? — Todd Martin

I couldn't have put it better. Wisdom exists only in an environment of imperfection, imperfections of knowledge (varying levels of ignorance), imperfections in methods of gaining knowledge (uncertainties regarding logic, observational methods, etc.), imperfections of a personal nature (hang ups, biases, habits, etc) and others.

Is the wise man the “decathlete” of knowledge? — Todd Martin

More or less, yes.

Notice that once we have comprehensive knowledge on an issue. all that remains to be done is to mechanically apply the rules of logic - even a simple desktop computer can manage that. It's when unknowns are a part of the game we're playing that there's a high, almost desperate, demand for wisdom for wisdom is the ability to function, and function well, given uncertainty and gaps in our knowledge and function in the sense arrive at the best of all possible solutions/answers to problems/questions given existing constraints.

No problem. G'day

Evidence of something causing something, is no proof of everything being caused always. — ChatteringMonkey

Well, at least Hume wasn't correct that causation is "out of habit".

I think Hume showed that the assumption of Causality with a big C, as a metaphysical principle, is unwarranted — ChatteringMonkey

So, the coronavirus that cause the ongoing pandemic is "out of habit"? That we can treat tuberculosis with the specific drugs that kill the causative bacterium is just an illusion?

Point to note, Aristotle's first cause is simply a cause that got the ball rolling which led to the creation of the universe and that cause was god for him. As you already know, this first cause is a far cry from the modern conception of god as all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful the first and most important difference being the first cause needn't be a self-aware, conscious being interested in the welfare of humans or the planet earth and therein lies the rub. Telos isn't a necessary aspect of god viewed as nothing more than the first cause for it's not a being in the first place and so we can forget about teleology. Since non-teleology is compatible with god as the first cause, it can't be that chance is about absence of teleology because the distinction wouldn't make sense - both the first cause (Aristotle's god) and chance are non-teleological in nature.

Can chance be a cause? The definition that I provided in my last reply to you states that chance means "an absence of...cause" and this is probably the meaning employed in the statement, "the universe came to be (began to exist) by chance" i.e. it had no cause.

The matter boils down to two options that are laid out before us:

1. Accept that the universe has no cause (it arose by chance)

or

2. Accept that the universe has a cause (Call this 'i]first cause[/i] God or whatever you like)

Which of the two, 1 or 2, has good supporting evidence? You'll notice that never in the lives of the 107 billion people who've ever lived and never in the lives of the 7 billion who are alive on our beloved planet has there ever been an instance of a causeless phenomenon. In a nutshell we've never come across something that has no cause. So, an infinite regress of causes notwithstanding, evidence seems to point in the direction of the universe being caused by something. What's interesting here is the proof that the universe had a cause is a posteriori (all observed phenomena have causes) but the objection to it is a priori (infinite regress). Rationalism or Empiricism? Can we hope to find a middle ground or is that even a valid question? How about causal loops rather than linear causality. The universe could've been created by a being that intelligent life will create in the far, far future through numerous events describable as technological singularities resulting in an Artificial Intelligence with infinite computing power that reverses the runaway entropy back to the Big Bang singularity and the process simply repeats: Big Bang -> Intelligent life -> Technological singularities -> Infinite Intelligent AI (god) -> Reverse entropy after/during the heat death of the universe -> Big Bang. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

But of course, where and how did the causal loop begin?

@Wayfarer

Yes, not literally but figuratively. Note that 'by chance' is not the subject of the sentence in 'he scored that goal by chance'. It's not chance that score the goal, he did.... by chance — ChatteringMonkey

So, there has to be someone who causes the goal whether by chance or not. Similarly, there has to be something that causes the universe whether by chance or not. A valid competing explanation for a person who scores a goal by chance isn't chance itself, it''s something else. Similarly a valid alternative to god having created the universe isn't chance but something else. :chin:???

By the way,

Google definition of "chance": the occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause

I don't why you are so hung up on this particular point, it's just a figure of speech, not literally a probability. People do say that a goal was score by chance, by which they mean that it wasn't intended... — ChatteringMonkey

What do you mean it's a "figure of speech"? Do you mean that when I say "the universe was created by chance" I mean something other than the literal meaning of that sentence and the words contained therein? I'm afraid that's not true. People actually mean that chance created the universe and chance here is being offered as a good enough alternative to a creator-god.

However, chance is simply a description of the relationship between possibilities and actuality. Chance isn't a cause and it, therefore, can't bring the universe into existence.

The non-teleological one. He scored that goal by chance, means he didn't intent to score the goal — ChatteringMonkey

Teleology isn't necessarily an attribute of a god-created universe. God is seen as the cause that made what is a possible universe (ours) a reality whether it be by design (teleology) or not. Aristotle's first cause argument for the existence of a god doesn't even imply that god, as the first cause, has to be a conscious, self-aware, being so we can forget about purpose (teleology). Since,a non-teleological universe is compatible with god, it doesn't make sense to differentiate chance and a creator-deity on that basis.

not that the goal was score by some probability. — ChatteringMonkey

Exactly my point. A goal can't be scored by chance. Similarly, a universe can't be created by chance.

A word can have a different meaning in a different context. — ChatteringMonkey

Which meaning of "chance" makes sense in the sentence "the universe came into existence by chance"?

I think Wayfearer was originally using the term in another way though. By chance, as a fluke or an accident, means something like lack of design or intention... non-teleological. We never know for sure, but it seems like we came about by the process of evolution, which is a non-teleological process, i.e. "by chance" — ChatteringMonkey

And I agree with you! In some ways, the ‘created vs chance’ is a false dichotomy. — Wayfarer

To both of you

Well, "chance" is the wrong word if you want to talk about the absence of teleology because chance is an aspect of the teleological too.

First, our universe existed as one among many possibilities and so there was a probability associated with its existence and that's chance. This is true for both a god-created universe and one that's not; after all even for god, this universe was first a possibility in faer mind i.e. this universe was nothing more than a mere probability before god created it.

Second, this possibility (for our universe to exist) became a reality and for theists it's at this point god enters the picture, as the cause that made the possible real.

As you can see, from a theistic perspective god converted the chance that our universe could exist into the actual existence of the universe.

If now one proposes chance as an alternative to divine creation then something's off because

1. Chance is an aspect of a god-created universe too.

2. Chance doesn't explain how possibilities actualize as it has with our universe.