If I'm mistaken that your agenda is to "prove" God's existence based on the alleged "fine tuning" of these constants, then there's nothing really to discuss. — Relativist
we don't know what the true fundamental laws of nature actually are. — Relativist
There are many sorts things that exist in THIS world that would not exist had the constants been different. — Relativist
Thomist metaphyics has the view of essence that I was referring to: — Relativist
it is an integral part of his metaphysics, and yet it is pure assumption that there is such a thing. — Relativist
Sounds similar to Thomist metaphysics, and it again sounds like an assumption - not something that we know exists due to evidence, but rather something that is postulated. — Relativist
My issue is that if you're going to accept unprovable postulates in your preferred metaphysics — Relativist
theories are falsifiable, and so are the rigorous multiverse theories — Relativist
Immaterial laws exist in the mind. — Relativist
If you were to claim they exist independent of the things that exhibit the described behavior (e.g. as platonic entities) and they somehow direct or govern that behavior, then you would be making a debatable metaphysical assumption. — Relativist
I think I have a better suggestion, and that is to remove the requirement of "truth" from knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover
We represent knowledge as it really is, and this is something relative, and admitting to degrees of certainty. — Metaphysician Undercover
The addition of "approach" suggests less than equal, and less than equal is not equal. — Metaphysician Undercover
the point is that in order for there to be truth, the proper representation of the real thing must exist within the intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover
we can see that the representation need not be in any way similar to the real thing represented. — Metaphysician Undercover
The symbol 2 is not at all similar to what it represents. However, there must be an equation or equality between the symbol and the thing represented. — Metaphysician Undercover
There is always a direct one to one relation, not an approach. There is no room for "adequacy", in truth otherwise someone might say that 2 represents something between 1.8 and 2.2. — Metaphysician Undercover
That we do not have correspondence in a complete and perfect way does not mean that we ought not strive for it. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we remove the ideal, assuming that we have reached a "truth" which is sufficient for human beings, then there is nothing to inspire us to better ourselves. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think it's nonsense that "truth" would be something different for God than for human beings. — Metaphysician Undercover
the equality of the relation, the one to one relation between God's Forms and reality must be the same equality which the human intellect strives for. — Metaphysician Undercover
What you have demonstrated is that human knowledge is deficient. — Metaphysician Undercover
And such a premise would require that "truth" is defined in two distinct ways, which is contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover
Since we have no comprehensive way to exclude the possibility of falsity, then that possibility is a necessary (essential) part of human knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover
What you've described is teaching the concept. But this requires that the concept pre-exists, prior to the student learning it. — Metaphysician Undercover
Before drawing the triangle, the teacher must know the concept. And the teacher must have learned it from someone else who drew it, and so on, until you have an infinite regress. Such an infinite regress doesn't allow for any coming into being of the concept, so the concept along with human beings teaching it, must exist eternally. — Metaphysician Undercover
Experience exposes us to the potential for the concept and then the activity of the mind causes it to have actual existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
An infinite entity (if such a thing is even possible) is not natural. No natural things are infinite. Nor is it possible that something immanent could be infinite because it would be constrained by that which it inheres within. — Metaphysician Undercover
the concepts that are the constituents of intellectual activity are universal while mental images and sensations are always essentially particular.
Second, mental images are always to some extent vague or indeterminate, while concepts are at least often precise and determinate.
Third, we have many concepts that are so abstract that they do not have even the loose sort of connection with mental imagery that concepts like man, triangle, and crowd have.
I interpret Plato's 'mystical intuition' to be referring to the capacity of the intellect to grasp concepts - the very action of reason itself. In order to be able to do that, the intellect represents through abstractions, which are in some sense idealisations, in another sense, possibilities. The sense in which they exist are as potentials or ideals; they don't exist in the manifest domain, but in the domain of possibility, which is, nevertheless, a real domain, insofar as there is a 'domain of real possibility'. — Wayfarer
a concept of 'degrees of reality' is required, something which has generally been lost in the transition to modernity, in which existence is univocal. — Wayfarer
Secondly, on the argument that 'concepts can arise from experience' - I think this is the kind of claim made by empiricists, such as J S Mill, who generally reject the possibility of innate mental capabilities. But only a mind capable of grasping geometric forms could understand that two completely different triangles are instances of the same general kind (although it would be interesting to see if there have been animal trials to determine whether crows or monkeys can pick out triangles from amongst a collection of geometric shapes.) — Wayfarer
I believe that the word "mind" truly doesn't define anything and is rather a vague term — Llum
The mind is a construct of the brain. — Llum
from an evolutionary perspective, we know that humans have the highest degree of consciousness that allows them to think about these things. — Llum
So the idea that the brain and mind can be separated from each other is incorrect — Llum
Christians choose to love God while their on earth, and yet they continue to sin. — Relativist
"Has the likeness of the thing known", sounds like correspondence to me. How do you interpret this as "adequacy'? — Metaphysician Undercover
The quote is taken right out of context, by you, and given an unacceptable translation. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are saying that since we cannot have correspondence in a complete, and perfect way, then lets just settle for something less than that, and call this "truth" instead. Anything which is adequate for the purpose at hand, we'll just say it's the truth. — Metaphysician Undercover
We cannot say that "God's Truth" is different from human truth. — Metaphysician Undercover
Valid logic does not necessitate truth, so nothing prevents us from doing logic when it's not necessarily the truth which we are obtaining with that logic. — Metaphysician Undercover
"Suppose I have a universal concept, <triangle>. There is no Platonic Triangle corresponding to it." — Dfpolis
On what basis do you make this assertion? If there is not some independent idea of triangle, which your concept must correspond with, then you could make your concept however you please. — Metaphysician Undercover
when scientists like physicists produce the laws of physics, there is something real, independent, which must be followed when producing these laws. The laws must correspond with reality. — Metaphysician Undercover
Because the testimony of sense is inherently unreliable, right? That mathematical and geometric ideas are know-able in a way that objects of perception are not, because they are grasped directly the intellect in a way that material particulars cannot be. Which was to develop, much later, into the basis of Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism. — Wayfarer
Then you have to agree there is a possible state of affairs in which there exist free-willed creatures who do not sin. Why wouldn't an omnibenevolent God just place us in that environment to begin with? — Relativist
A realist view of MWI is based on the ontological commitment that physical reality is a quantum system, and that the classical world of experience is an eigenstate of that QM system. So the "world branching" is (technically) just a classical perspective: each eigenstate is a classical "world." — Relativist
You also mention there being exactly one set of physical constraints, and I agree - but that doesn't mean we have a complete understanding of what the true constraints are, since we can only see how they manifest in our classical world. — Relativist
The FTA has the unstated assumption that life was a design objective. — Relativist
Consider any metaphysically possible world W, which contains complex objects of type T. One could argue that W was fine tuned for T. — Relativist
with advances in science and analytic philosophy, we can see that the notion of essence has no empirical basis — Relativist
Essence entails the existence of necessary and sufficient properties for individuation and for delineating "kinds." What are your necessary and sufficient properties vs your accidental properties? Would you be YOU had there been a single gene that was different? How about a single day of your life having different experiences? — Relativist
Consider the evolution of horse throughout the evolutionary history of its ancestry — Relativist
What are your necessary and sufficient properties vs your accidental properties? — Relativist
We weren't discussing evidence. You had alleged the multiverse hypothesis was "mythological" and that it was not falsifiable. — Relativist
Multiverse is consistent with what we know, and it is entailed by some reasonable extrapolations — Relativist
Science advances in this way; accepted theory does not arrive in its final form. — Relativist
Errors in the analysis are self-correcting - that's what peer review is for. — Relativist
We should be agnostic to the existence of multiverse, not hastily dismissing it for insufficient empirical basis while declaring victory for a deism that also lacks an empirical basis. — Relativist
That's fine as long as you refrain from arguments from ignorance — Relativist
You seem to have some physical/metaphysical framework in mind, — Relativist
You ... are judging the Armstrong-Tooley framework from that perspective. That is the category error. — Relativist
from the perspective of Armstrong's metaphysics, it's meaningless to assert "laws of nature lack the defining characteristics of matter". — Relativist
There seems to be a disconnect here between "creating an individual", and, "the intelligibility of the individuals", as these two are quite distinct. — Metaphysician Undercover
I've read a lot of Aquinas and have yet to see where he defines truth as adequacy. — Metaphysician Undercover
So I still don't see how you equate adequacy, which refers to method, with truth, which refers to how things are — Metaphysician Undercover
You are trying to lower truth from an ideal, so what remains is adequacy. — Metaphysician Undercover
You have a definition of "truth" which is adequate for you, and your purposes, but it's not acceptable to me because I see that you've compromised the ideal. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you not believe that there is a real definition of "triangle", such that if I were to give a definition of triangle, it must correspond to that real definition of triangle in order to be a correct definition? — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you not believe that there is a real definition of "triangle", such that if I were to give a definition of triangle, it must correspond to that real definition of triangle in order to be a correct definition? Isn't this the case with all universals? Any definition or description of the universal must correspond with the real concept in order that it be a true definition. — Metaphysician Undercover
this would allow anyone to make a logical argument proving any conclusion they desired, simply by designing the definitions which are adequate for the purpose of proving the conclusion they desired. — Metaphysician Undercover
Irrespective of whether Everett himself was a realist or an instrumentalist, a realist perspective on his interpretation is absolutely ontological . — Relativist
Of course it doesn't rebut the FTA on its own, but in conjunction with the potential for more fundamental physics it constitutes a mechanism for actualizing alternative realizations of localized physics. — Relativist
The MWI interpretation has a variety of post-Everett flavors. — Relativist
There is no good argument for the "fine-tuning" of the constants! - they all depend on the presumption of design. — Relativist
A multiverse metaphysics has as much standing as an Aristotelian metaphysics (consider Aristotle's hypothesis that "essence" exists). — Relativist
Each specific multiverse is actually derivable from an (incomplete) scientific theory, so your objection has no merit. — Relativist
The problem arises because string theory is formulated most naturally in 10 or 11
spacetime dimensions ...
Sure, but its "verified realm of application" is limited to this universe. It's premature to declare that the quest for more fundamental physics, and the possible implications of it, are doomed. — Relativist
why should we think our portion of the universe is representative of the whole? — Relativist
The fact that we can think abstractly about some properties of physical states of affairs doesn't imply there is anything immaterial about those physical states of affairs. — Relativist
"It is confusing to call laws "properties."
Get used to it, I didn't make it up. Physicalist philosophers like D.M. Armstrong and Michael Tooley have been using this terminology for years. — Relativist
under this account, laws of nature are relational properties that exist between states of affairs types. — Relativist
The role of the ideal is to identify an essence of an individual thing, separating it from other, inessential qualities, but what that essence is in any particular case is arguable. — SophistiCat
I was not claiming that there are multiple universes. I was simply stating it as a possibility, given the limits of what we know. — jajsfaye
I will use random broadly here for the sake of simplicity, to mean anything that varies over a range of options — jajsfaye
You seem to be assuming they do not exist until we know otherwise — jajsfaye
Your concluding sentence was:
"Thus, physics reveals that our universe is fundamentally intentional, both in its laws and in the values of its constants." — jajsfaye
given these two possibilities:
A: There are multiverses and these have a range of parameters such that there is reasonable probability that at least one of them is finely tuned to support us being here.
B: There is either one universe or they are all set to the same parameters, but there is also a designer with the intelligence and capability to set the universe to be finely tuned to support us being here.
You seem to assume that B is more parsimonious and, thus, must be assumed to be true. It is hard for me to agree with that. — jajsfaye
Then you have to agree there is a possible state of affairs in which there exist free-willed creatures who do not sin. Why wouldn't an omnibenevolent God just place us in that environment to begin with? — Relativist
Not necessarily. One can abstract all these details, leaving only essentials. — SophistiCat
I've never heard "truth" defined in this pragmatic way, such that "truth' is reduced to adequacy. The following statement, "I take truth to be the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality." is nonsensical. You are denying correspondence, so "adequate correspondence to reality" is denied. — Metaphysician Undercover
The judgement of "most adequate", in the sense of a representation, is a judgement of correspondence. — Metaphysician Undercover
As "phenomena" is how we perceive the cosmos through means of our senses. We cannot jump across the gap between how we perceive the cosmos, and what is acting on us, to assume that phenomena is what is acting on us. — Metaphysician Undercover
We, as sensing human beings have already inherent within us a perspective form which we observe — Metaphysician Undercover
The duality has been "solved" with quantum field theory, which considers fields as fundamental and particles as quantized ripples in fields. — Relativist
Sean Carroll, for example, has proposed that the heat death results in conditions from which a quantum fluctuation can occur which results in inflation — Relativist
It is entailed by the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Theory, so in that respect it is entailed by accepted theory. — Relativist
a multiverse hypothesis is metaphysical, not mythological — Relativist
multiverse hypotheses are tied to broader hypotheses (incomplete scientific theories) that are falsifiable. — Relativist
The true fundamental physics would almost certainly have different expressions. — Relativist
The "laws" of physics are abstract descriptions of the physical relations among the things that exist in the universe. The relations are due to the properties of the existents. Properties and relations of physical things do not exist independently of the things that have them. — Relativist
I am not a Platonist by any stretch, but this is unfair — SophistiCat
Do you agree this means that the souls in heaven do not sin? Don't they have free will, or does God remove our free will when we die? — Relativist
1. There are things we don't know about the universe. [me: I agree]
2. Therefore, it must be like this. [me: uh.... wait;.. what?] — jajsfaye
There is speculation that evidence of multiverses may be found — jajsfaye
We cannot make any assumptions without additional information. — jajsfaye
However, if we do come up with a good reason to conclude the universe was intentional, then that implies the universe is only part of a larger realm of which includes the entity that caused the universe as it intended. But then we just moved the original question (is universe intentional or random) to this larger realm. — jajsfaye
Why continue stating falsities? — Metaphysician Undercover
the predictive capacity of the model does not rely on knowing that certain things are true. — Metaphysician Undercover
Go ahead, insist that there is no such thing as "truth" in this matter, declare that it's all reference dependent, you are only arguing against your own claim that we need to know that certain things are true. — Metaphysician Undercover
the "reality" of what is being modeled depends on the model. — Metaphysician Undercover
How can there be a veridical appearance when how things appear depends on the frame of reference? — Metaphysician Undercover
the trend in modern science, due to the way that scientific projects are funded, is toward usefulness, and that is mostly found in predictive capacity. — Metaphysician Undercover
Thales predicted a solar eclipse based on models which had the sun and moon orbiting the earth. — Metaphysician Undercover
appearance is not necessarily truth. — Metaphysician Undercover
Real Truth is inaccessible to us because of physical and mental filters between us and the real world, namely biological, cultural, and psychological. — Kaiser Basileus
8. God created this world instead of a world of free willed beings that do not sin.
9. Therefore God chose a world with needless pain and suffering.
10. Therefore God is not omnibenevolent. — Relativist
I myself am obliged to accept the reality of Platonic forms, essences and substantial being — Wayfarer
Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover